Illithid Shock

I dunno, I've never played a necro, but I have spanked a few (and got completly owned by a few) In all the cases where the necro fled, or left any zombies behind, I killed them off fairly quickly. I think not being able to have the zombies follow the necromancer=losing the zombies. Especially when fighting a paladin/cleric/healer.

Btw, depending what class/selections you make, its entirely possible to keep that necro locked in combat, so that shock and zombies are necessary, I've done it to a squid before, and it was kind of amusing, watching them try to flee repeatdly and being able to do NOTHING about it, if they lost thier zombies, they would be done for right off that bat, and I hate fighting necros no matter the class I play.

From what I've seen here, a lot of people are blasting this idea for reasons that Celerity never suggested in the first place.

Most of the attacks are coming in the form of "You want to put illithids under the knife and gimp them". This is not true for three reasons.

(1) Illithids would be, defensively, no different from what they are now. If you get stunned, you can flee, quaff a recall, eat a tele pill, or run off. You would still be able to count on shock for all its defensive merits. You just wouldn't be able to use your semi-alive state as an offensive weapon. In this sense, this change isn't really goin to gimp them at all in a defensive way.

(2) A lot of the angry posts here are treating illithids as though they're already some weak class, and this idea is just going to push them down the toilet. Illithids are not weak. I have a totally naked illithid at 50 with base stats of about 700hp and 1350mana. I can with very little work get the hp up over 1000. Not to mention the massive int/wis allow illithids to stockpile a huge amount of pracs and trains to use on HP once they hit 50. Considering that a good necro should have his prey hitting the zombies instead of the illithid anyway, they are more than capable of dominance, let alone mere survival.

(3) Losing zombies issue. Although it is probably annoying, consider it in comparison to the days not so long ago when you lost zombies after logging out. If you lost your zombies then, you needed to have at least an hour to an hour and a half of spare time just to get zombies, and then add on to that any playing time you wanted. That was true annoyance. Now you can lose your zombies and just grab a sly Drstam here, a sly Muscular Cook there, and bide your time until someone will take you to Traven. And if you need to go, you can just go and they'll be waiting for you when you come back. Losing zombies, while a bother, is not quite the nail-tearing, teeth-shattering annoyance it used to be. And if you ask me, it's a small price to pay for surviving a PK.

I for one agree with the idea. I think that illithids in a state of shock should not be mentally coherent enough to sustain zombies to continue the fight. It's enough that they, an already tough and potentially high hp mage class with numerous tanks, get an extra boost that allows them to live and escape to fight another day. Illithids necros don't need an offensive advantage, they're pretty good in that department. As for defensive help, Celerity's suggestion won't change that.

I guess this all comes down to a simple question:

Should an illithid suddenly become a punching bag when they go into shock?

I believe the answer should be no. Its a perk of the race that has a price to pay (the effects have already been outlined). Does this perk make them 'too much' as a race - no. I don't believe it does. They are a strong, unique race and because of this their choices of classes is limited (much like faeries).

Cheers,

L-A

Losing your zombies is HUGE defensively as a necro. They keep enemies at bay, keep them busy so you can get away. They make it so that a shocked and drained illithid necro isn't instantly dead when (I say when, not if, because we all know a drained necro can't run anywhere) the guy catches up to him. You say losing them won't make it harder to survive after shock, but you are WAY wrong.

Zombies aren't going to keep a savvy opponent occupied for all that long when they see a shock-induced necro crawling away. The first thing you do is flee and chase them down. Zombies aren't like mobs, and do not re-initiate combat without the necro there.

And a drained necro can teleport or recall just as readily as anyone else by the use of potions or pills. I have also managaed to escape on foot from opponents who've brought me to shock several times, it's not impossible - your moves don't get depleted like your mana.

But with the zombies you do have a slew of crazy travens and golems bash and trip locking someone to give you a little buffer zone, hopefully i think thats the point Pali is gettin at.

But with the zombies you do have a slew of crazy travens and golems bash and trip locking someone to give you a little buffer zone' date=' hopefully i think thats the point Pali is gettin at.[/quote']

Exactly. Those six rounds of lag Lay About mentioned earlier? I've survived fights because I've slowed someone down ONE round in chasing me.

shock is just additional hp at a cost of being drained.

next you will say if a ninja flees and uses acupuncture when they have 1 hp left this is abusive?

I have played Four Necros to pinn and cabaled three of them. I have only, maybe twice, won a battle after shock had kicked in. Every other time i have ran, or died running once shocked.

The main problem with your points cel is that its not being abused.

Illithids have an ability to get out of a close fight with their last ditch effort, be it by winning the fight or running off. Heck if it bothers you that they hit 0 then jump to 300-350 hp just add the hp onto their health...

Otherwise your reasons are based quite strongly in opinion of how you think the race should handle. should we take out Vanish because it lets a ninja hide too easily? Should we tone down ogre regen, because he was at 10 hp...the tic came and he was at 90 hp and killed me. Or how about Monk bead strangle, you know..you did get that monk to 10 hp, but he strangled you...how unfair that instead of running he ate a few [healing items] and killed you.

Your reasoning is unfairly focused on illithids.

Its like, ok...illithids have an ace in the hole..just like so many other races/classes...what makes them such a culprit? is it because of zombies? because that monk can still kill you and that ogre can use the tic to get you in a close fight. Or how about dieing to a blademasters deathstrike? Heck you won the fight, but when you tried to collect the bounty they killed you WHILE STUNNED. no...illithids gain no "unfair" advantage from the use of shock.

and on a side-note, i cant find any thing in help pk or help death that specifies that someone cant unghost and kill someone. When you unghost and what you do upon unghosting is completly up to you. Just like going into shock, or succeding in a bead strangle, or when you use acupuncture at 10hp, or when you vanish from a losing fight...comeback strangle then assasinate your opponent, or when the tic saves an ogre, or when a ranger flees with 10 hp and shoots you in the back with an arrow, or when that blademaster is beaten and stunned yet kills you when you collect their head.

I guess this all comes down to a simple question:

Should an illithid suddenly become a punching bag when they go into shock?

I believe the answer should be no. Its a perk of the race that has a price to pay (the effects have already been outlined). Does this perk make them 'too much' as a race - no. I don't believe it does. They are a strong, unique race and because of this their choices of classes is limited (much like faeries).

Cheers,

L-A

This is the actuall question we should debate first, before suggesting changes.

I disagree though, I think the SHOULD be a punchbag in shock. A punchbag with two choices, run or die.

shock is just additional hp at a cost of being drained.

Not fully true. Shock is some free Hp when you would already have been dead without it. Though in a drained state.

so its additional hp, that drains you when you get it..

Interesting debate, but after all this I would have to say I agree with kyzarius. It should be the illithids choice of what to do when shocked, every situation will be different so we cannot say in advance what must be done upon shock. Even though celerity makes some good points I think because of the nature of the question celerity has the "burden of proof" as to why this can become an exploitable bug that needs to be fixed, and so far in my opinion this has not been done.

If a squid is betean down and has its opponent at awful and then goes into shock, they why should they lose their zombies? The ability is simple, when your body fails, your powerful mind reanimates it as a pretty huge cost already. Drain is the penalty for shock, along with losing all your mana, not isolation, or death. When a necro runs out of mana in general they dont suddenly lose their zombies, or when a ranger is drained from a camping error, they dont lose their pets. I say if the necro goes into shock and still manages a win, good for them, but 99% of the time as has been stated they will run or die. So how is this a problem?

For celerity to sway me on thi sissue I would need to really see proof of why this needs to be fixed. To me this just does not sound like some of the other bugs/unbalances that are mentioned in this thread.

I think my solution has probably fixed this problem.

Woot

I think my solution has probably fixed this problem.

Didn't know there was a problem.

I think the best way to correct the situation was to make a roll.

Illithids, have a buffer. They will stay in battle untill 0 HP's and then if they are wining they stay more. If not they can escape.

Even berserkers cannot do this. If they evade death by raging and then kill the oponent they get some rolls to save them from death. But they can die.

Illithids cannot.

They should have to make a roll.

If they fail, they die. Make its a concentration error while diverting the energy.

A good roll would be 1 chance to die in 20.

That way people would think twice about hiting the 0 HP's spot.

true, why should shock ALWAYS work.

give it a chance to fail, neato.

but that roll should be when the shock kicks in, in that case. not when the battle ends.

I think the best way to correct the situation was to make a roll.

Illithids, have a buffer. They will stay in battle untill 0 HP's and then if they are wining they stay more. If not they can escape.

Even berserkers cannot do this. If they evade death by raging and then kill the oponent they get some rolls to save them from death. But they can die.

Illithids cannot.

They should have to make a roll.

If they fail, they die. Make its a concentration error while diverting the energy.

A good roll would be 1 chance to die in 20.

That way people would think twice about hiting the 0 HP's spot.

You know, I actually think the berserker rage hp boost is analogous, but not in the way you say. By my understanding, if a zerk snaps out of rage with a certain percentage of hp left, they survive. If not, they are mortally wounded and die slowly. This may be wrong, but it's how it's seemed to me with all my experience playing as and fighting against zerks. I have always found zerk rage to be a reliable boost of hp, that unless I end it with very, very little hp left, I live through. Whether rage automatically kicks in or not is based on rolls, but as rage is also an inputtable command, this does not bother me. Perhaps a better example of random hp-saving stuff would be ogre bloodhaze, which is far more chance-based. Ogres can't rely on bloodhaze, it's just sweet when it happens.

Regardless, I'm against making shock chance-based. It's something that a race that doesn't have massive hp, dex, or the ability to wield weapons needs. I've played an illithid necro at 50, and damn, they are NOT easy to play. When they hit their power peak, they're insane, but below it they are far from easy to play. I like to consider myself fairly good at PK, but I had a lot of trouble with this combo, especially when it comes to coming back from a death/full loot. Getting new zombies, new eq, it's incredibly difficult with an illithid necro if you're doing it alone. Shock has not only saved me from PKs, but it saved me a ton of times from mobs like Drstam that I was just trying to kill to get a basic zombie so I could get back on my feet. Not only that, but an illithid necro attracts a LOT of PK attempts, from goods, Watchers, and the regular gamut of evils/neuts looking for a pk. I've honestly never had as difficult a time getting eq and getting back up to where I was prior to a death as I have had with my illithid necro. NEVER. I've had a large variety of level 50s, melee, caster, communer, and rogue, and NONE were as annoying to eq and get stronger again after a death and loot as that necro was. That alone makes shock balanced to me, because without it, I'd have died a dozen times more.

I think my solution has probably fixed this problem.

Actually it does, but I hope that the Milieu charmie bug can be looked into, as it is more important now. Also have to consider charmies that flee into cabals (which probably has been?).