Imbalance of wisp form.

[RaelCleap]

Wisp form, why bother making hordes. After constant such encounters I have chosen to retire my pet masters.

[Shadok]

...


As the creator of the Conduit, this is not what wisp is meant to be used for. Wisp is meant to turn pets defensive, not passive. Attacking a pet should get your face mauled in. King is definitely not using wisp as it was intended to be used.

Oh well. That's what happens with balance. You have to keep tweaking it.
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"Oh, sorry, thought I was in a Vault of Enlightenment, not someone's booze cabinet." -Kharn

[Tomppa]

Sounds more like a bug than a feature.
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"I am your Slave
And you will Reward me
For I shall be Faithful."
(That's from Dracula, by Stoker.)

[kiwimage]

I play a lich and a conduit.

I use wisp form for the 0ap traveling. But it's nice being immune to stumbling across a petmaster. One of the reasons I didn't like wizards last breath. I haven't bothered with learning a combat skill there. Crafting/enchanting gives lots of xp

Playing as a lich this breath and the last. I've been killed by wisp form conduits a couple of times. It happens. Pet masters aren't meant to be all powerful. They have classes that kill them pretty. Especially actives. Balances out being exceeding deadly to all others. Mr Scavvy often doesn't have time to emote. The pets are permanently set on non-allied because the times I've relented for emoting some active has come along and killed me.

As it is I suppose wisp form conduits have it easiest in that they are impervious in wisp form but being in wisp form means the conduit is active. A conduit not in wisp form is dead very quickly. Wispform is 10minutes. Can't be stacked.
A lot of active characters are going to kill pet masters. I'd say a pet master is unlikely to survive much longer than 2-3hours before being nailed by one unless they are holed up somewhere remote.
Active Seraph? Pets are going to fry and pet masters going to die. Even a sleeping seraph is deadly to a horde. That aura kills pets so quickly.
Active glass cannons can manage it if they are quick enough.
Active NC. Tattoo of Adaptation+one potions and they are likely immune.

If it is a problem and I'm not sure it is.
Reverting to a wisp form only works if the conduit doesn't attack. Doesn't bother me. Though conduits can get pretty good soak and dodge and an aura. Bit more effort but given petmasters are priority targets because they are so deadly I don't know if it would change much.

[Sac]

Again, as you know, I play both.

Does it not come back to the fact that balance is achieved through the fact that different classes are stronger and weaker against others?

Yep if a conduit in wisp catches a petmaster in the wild he has the upper hand. But at the same time a petmaster with a "horde" can walk into a building with a dozen characters in it and clear them, which can't be done by anyone else. A petmaster caught outside can just as easily be picked off by a ranged character flying and there's no way that's going to be changed.

The advantage the conduit has is quite situational. It doesn't transfer to a situation like a raid, because generally, the conduit doesn't have the hitting power to punch through cades and snipe the petmasters.

I think it's the fact that the petmaster has one weakness and this is it and it requires adaption to negate/avoid it.
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[Aidan]

A TL;DR version of Cleaver's post, because while informative, it is a bit more angry since he is already running petmasters unlike me (and I have a Conduit, lol):

1) Wisp Form, besides being a good traveling skill, is supposed to make a traveling/accompanying Wispy Conduit immune to pet attacks.

2) Wisp Form has, in addition to the above feature, made Wispy Conduits immune to pet retaliation, both single pet and multi pet.

3) With enchanting skills, a Conduit can reach 15 arcane damage. 4 AP to destroy a ghoul means the lone Conduit can destroy up to 15 ghouls. The problem with this is that the Conduit does this without provoking a ghoul and suffering damage like all other T3s.

4) With Enchanting skills and the Reveal Weakness tree, a Conduit can pick off a petmaster from behind the forts in 20 AP without triggering pets, potentially killing up to 20 ghouls in 20 AP. This makes a Wispy Conduit better than a tank at taking down a petwall.

-------------------------------

With the problems in mind, several solutions present themselves, which I wanted to list present in order of preference/ease of implementation, but now they are just random since I am lazy.

1) Wisp Form no longer allows attacking.

Flavorfically, a Wispy Conduit has given up his material body to form a magical mist thing that cannot properly wield a hatchet or draw back a bowstring. This would be similar to the Revenant's Shadow of the Wolf without any innate attacks.

2) Wisp Form triggers retaliation from pets when attacking a pet, or the petmaster.

Flavorifically, a Wispy Conduit 'solidifies' when he uses his weapons, and there's a brief window of opportunity in which pets _can_ attack the Conduit. This will rapidly lower the Conduit's tanking potential and bring it in line with other support classes. Implementation might be tricky since I can't remember any skills that function like this.

3) Wisp Form is now a multi-tiered skill. The 30 CP skills gives you all the current Wisp abilities _except_ pet immunity. The 60 CP child skills (Empowered Wisp) makes you immune to pets and allows you to attack pets without suffering retaliation (attacking petmaster will trigger retaliation). All attacks suffer a damage penalty.

Flavorifically, the Wispy Conduit has learned to selectively solidify and and wispify his body to evade pets that 'venture into the magical mist'. Petmasters are too clever to be lured into such a trap. This option will allow enterprising pseudo-tanky Conduits that have paid a 90 CP price to be able to murder pets with impunity, but with difficulty. The important call here is whether pet immunity is a necessary aspect of Wisp Form.

EDIT: To reply to Sac, I don't think Conduits are supposed to have a upper hand against petmasters _surpassing_ a Tank. I am fine with the occasional Wispy Conduit pseudo-tank that murders the life out of an unprepared petmaster, but when you crunch the numbers, the Tank should always come out on top. As it is right now, two Conduits in Wisp Form CAN take down the forts and kill all the petmasters, all the while suffering no damage in the process.
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For the Kin!

[RaelCleap]

I accept tanks beat petmaster, but the fact of the matter stands wisp form makes a Conduit a better tank than the ACCTUAL tank classes. While;

A. Feasting on xp no other tank can have, in both raid and feral format.

B. Destroy a pet master and as Aidan said killing 20 ghouls with impunity, again while getting XP that other tanks don't see doing the job they are built for. A Conduit does it more efficiently.

C. No loss of hp while tanking like this, not even in incremental amounts that you see Seraphs and IB's taking, oh and they get way less xp.

Do the math on the ghouls, average at T3ghoul kill gets you about 8-12 xp depending on the Liches level, mean average 24 xp for killing the Lich. Now tell me thats fair to the acctual tanks that get about 40 ish xp over all because of the auras frying the pets. (there is a discusion about this elsewhere).

Not to mention the pet master destruction, but I will reitterate some facts.

Mortals generally don't provide xp to the Horde (level and the reduction of the pet killing), yet a normal hunter they do, maybe 1 or 2 xp, but still xp. As for room whiping, my Corrupter / VW can clear a room filled with 4-5 people alone, they get good xp for this (undiminished like the petmmasters pets killing). Get the point, that is the balance of the pet masters power. Something few remember when petmaster bashing.

A horde also takes ap / resorces and MP to make for said diminished XP.

I agree, the pet master weakness should be the TANK classes, not a support class that in currant form out tanks the tanks! While doing it way more efficiantly.

Whisp form decimates a horde I may spend days making at ABSOLUTLY no risk, for big xp rewards. Unlike any other tank, that may have a minimal risk v a 20+ horde. (all my other points have been stated above).

I get people will outcry about such an OP abillity being changed to what it was initially intended to do. Whitch is....

If you're none agressive, the pets do not attack you.
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“I'm a man of simple tastes. I'm always satisfied with the best.” ~Oscar Wilde
"Everyone loves to hate a good villain!" Dr. Cleaver

[Kylinn]

[klapaucius]

I feel bad murdering liches directly in wisp form. When my conduit sees one, he kills a few ghouls in pet tax and moves on. I guess that means I think the skill is a bit powerful for dealing with pets, since I'm usually all about the murder. Changing it to be a non-offensive skill makes sense to me.

Also a side note: while I agree that wisp form is a little weird and possibly overpowered, it's a purely selfish skill. While tanks can protect a whole raid team and do so in an enemy stronghold, wisp form is a bit more restricted. Sure you can kill the enemy ghouls directly but that is slow and asking for active resistance.

[RaelCleap]

[retsamajnin]

Everyone in the game is weak to pet masters except tanks and conduits. They are INCREDIBLY powerful. Conduits hardly make them redundant. This is a case of complaining because you want the game specified to your exact play style. I will admit that wisp form is quite powerful, but this is an overreaction to a skill that has been in the game for some time now and functioned exactly as it does now. It has not vastly affected gameplay previously. If you want to ambush everyone as a feral pet master, you should expect resistance, because frankly, it is annoying to most players. As far as conduits replacing tanks in raid situations, it is not that viable. I am in a raiding faction with a conduit that has combat abilities. It can sort of work but killing over forts is hardly as easy as all that and it typically requires some bashing before it becomes wise to attack a PM with a conduit. Conduits are not a replacement for proper tanking.

[RaelCleap]

[Aidan]

[RaelCleap]

[saulres]

I like the way Shadok put it. Seems to me a reasonable solution is, if someone in Wisp Form attacks a pet, the pet and its horde should be able to retaliate. But if the Wisp Form character just stands on the square and says "Nyah nyah nyah, silly pets not playing with me," that should be fine.