Preventing Critolyte, Second Pass [MEGA]

"Zevox;c-1615151" wrote:
Glad to see a reasonable solution to the Acolyte/Traya infinite that won't hurt the Nightsisters in the raid in general. Thumbs up there.

Have to say, slightly worried about the mention that the Daka zeta refund is still on for when the Zombie change happens. That implies that you guys think the change will reduce its usefulness, when what you'd said previously just made me think you were going to try and set things up such that we'd want to gear up Zombie to make her as useful as she currently is at low gear. Guess it's wait and see on that one though.

This is a great point about the appearance of how we feel the change will go and really appreciate the perspective. We are early enough in the design process for the change to Zombie, that I can't reasonably say what the specifics of what it's going to be. That said, we're keenly aware of the position we've put players in: some players geared her up heavily and now regret it and some players have her under-geared and strategies around her being under-geared.

For us, the most successful version of the change means that we need to make sure that gearing her up feels awesome and that she still fits in with the core Nightsister team in a way that is either reminiscent of previous strategies or better than previous strategies. Meaning 1) you still always want Zombie in a Nightsister team and 2) that we've respected previous strategies by either keeping them in play or improving on them. Obviously, that's a big bill to fill but we're excited to try to do it right and we're going to try to hit these goals.

We're offering the Daka Zeta with the update of Zombie because it is a high bar for us to reach. And while we are going to do our best to reach it, we know that some people may still feel that their Daka maybe doesn't have a place in their Nightsister team after the change. And for that, we think it only makes sense to remove the Zeta and return it to the players that no longer want it on Daka. I hope this helps clarify some of our thinking on it.

TL;DR We don't know what the change looks like. Our goals are to make sure you want to keep the Daka Zeta slotted. We recognized we might not hit the bar and want to offer returning it to players.

"Bulldog1205;c-1615170" wrote:
This is a better solution than before, but I can’t say I love it. I do a ton of damage with Acolyte in P4, and it’s because I can do that loop with her. It’s not an infinite loop, because I don’t have Traya, but it loops about 5-10 times or so before I need to reset and heal everyone back up. This was an accepted strategy before. Now it won’t work near as well because I can’t loop at all.

You may find that actually helps. The version of the team without Acolyte does more damage partially because it can keep the turn meter train rolling for the entire team far more consistently than a version with her can. Acolyte taking a lot of turns in a row to herself means the rest of the team taking a lot of damage from bonds that isn't getting healed, preventing them from looping heals to keep the whole team taking turns constantly the way the non-Acolyte version does. No you can do that with Acolyte on the team too.

"CG_TopHat;c-1615172" wrote:

"Zevox;c-1615151" wrote:
Glad to see a reasonable solution to the Acolyte/Traya infinite that won't hurt the Nightsisters in the raid in general. Thumbs up there.

Have to say, slightly worried about the mention that the Daka zeta refund is still on for when the Zombie change happens. That implies that you guys think the change will reduce its usefulness, when what you'd said previously just made me think you were going to try and set things up such that we'd want to gear up Zombie to make her as useful as she currently is at low gear. Guess it's wait and see on that one though.

This is a great point about the appearance of how we feel the change will go and really appreciate the perspective. We are early enough in the design process for the change to Zombie, that I can't reasonably say what the specifics of what it's going to be. That said, we're keenly aware of the position we've put players in: some players geared her up heavily and now regret it and some players have her under-geared and strategies around her being under-geared.

For us, the most successful version of the change means that we need to make sure that gearing her up feels awesome and that she still fits in with the core Nightsister team in a way that is either reminiscent of previous strategies or better than previous strategies. Meaning 1) you still always want Zombie in a Nightsister team and 2) that we've respected previous strategies by either keeping them in play or improving on them. Obviously, that's a big bill to fill but we're excited to try to do it right and we're going to try to hit these goals.

We're offering the Daka Zeta with the update of Zombie because it is a high bar for us to reach. And while we are going to do our best to reach it, we know that some people may still feel that their Daka maybe doesn't have a place in their Nightsister team after the change. And for that, we think it only makes sense to remove the Zeta and return it to the players that no longer want it on Daka. I hope this helps clarify some of our thinking on it.

TL;DR We don't know what the change looks like. Our goals are to make sure you want to keep the Daka Zeta slotted. We recognized we might not hit the bar and want to offer returning it to players.

This is definitely the right approach, and I applaud you all for that. I’m cautiously excited to see a zombie rework in hopes that my strong zombie will be even better.

Are we really changing all these things and factions and abilities because of one stupid raid no one likes anyway?

As Justin_Case1 said "In my experience using NS in arena is that she needs both attacks(while stealthed) one to break foresight and one to actually do damage." and as Obi1_son said "So with this change you have lowered the usefulness on MT's lead zeta as you now cannot res 2 characters with one attack. Can I get that zeta refunded???? "
You can go ahead and refund all gears/ zetas that i've put on any of my NS in the past 8 months because thats how long i've used Acolyte in my arena team and you're changing all of the benefits of her double attack.
Acolyte has been around for over the 2 years that i've been playing, Trayas been around for 6 months now....so lets change the character thats been around longer instead of the one A LOT less people have. Makes sense!

To be perfectly honest, i don't like this change that much, although it's much better than changing bonds of weakness mechanic

I run NS obviously in arena, and for now, the only fights i really struggle with are the ones against Traya or EP. With the addition of Bastilla teams, I had a break from fighting for positions because it's quite a "time-consuming" but easy enough fight the 90% of the cases.

With this change in the early turns (when my entire team is still alive vs Bastilla), I have to remove protection from Kenobi (or Old ben), that means that my acolyte always could land the second attack despite him having prevision.... Now with this change I won't be able (and the other ones running NS), to get off some of the protection...Will have to see it live, but it seems it may give an advantatge vs Bastilla with GMY teams.

Cheers

they must acknowledge that, as others have said, this change makes her less effective under a talzin lead as she can no longer revive 2 allies. someone else mentioned breaking foresight with the first attack as well, which i hadn't thought of. i get why you're changing things, and it's not a bad change per se, but you can not claim that her pvp utility is "virtually unchanged."

@CG_TopHat thanks for the information! Someone mentioned it above but this change to Acolyte’s kit may affect the way revives happen under Talzin with the Great Mother Zeta. It seems this will change the revive count to one instead of a possible two Nightsisters. I’m not sure on the impact this will have, but it’s something to think about. Also, Acolyte’s double attack helps get through teams with foresight, so that might be an issues as well.

In regards to Zombie and Daka, when the change comes to Zombie, it might be a good idea to tweak Daka’s zeta where she still benefits in some way with NS Zombie. I’m not sure in what way, but it could be a good way to keep Daka zeta’d and provide some of the same benefits in the STR.

Just a couple of thoughts, thanks for listening!

Second Edit: Also, the change from two shots to one will change the TM reduction chance when she’s under an Asajj lead.

"CG_TopHat;c-1615172" wrote:

"Zevox;c-1615151" wrote:
Glad to see a reasonable solution to the Acolyte/Traya infinite that won't hurt the Nightsisters in the raid in general. Thumbs up there.

Have to say, slightly worried about the mention that the Daka zeta refund is still on for when the Zombie change happens. That implies that you guys think the change will reduce its usefulness, when what you'd said previously just made me think you were going to try and set things up such that we'd want to gear up Zombie to make her as useful as she currently is at low gear. Guess it's wait and see on that one though.

This is a great point about the appearance of how we feel the change will go and really appreciate the perspective. We are early enough in the design process for the change to Zombie, that I can't reasonably say what the specifics of what it's going to be. That said, we're keenly aware of the position we've put players in: some players geared her up heavily and now regret it and some players have her under-geared and strategies around her being under-geared.

For us, the most successful version of the change means that we need to make sure that gearing her up feels awesome and that she still fits in with the core Nightsister team in a way that is either reminiscent of previous strategies or better than previous strategies. Meaning 1) you still always want Zombie in a Nightsister team and 2) that we've respected previous strategies by either keeping them in play or improving on them. Obviously, that's a big bill to fill but we're excited to try to do it right and we're going to try to hit these goals.

We're offering the Daka Zeta with the update of Zombie because it is a high bar for us to reach. And while we are going to do our best to reach it, we know that some people may still feel that their Daka maybe doesn't have a place in their Nightsister team after the change. And for that, we think it only makes sense to remove the Zeta and return it to the players that no longer want it on Daka. I hope this helps clarify some of our thinking on it.

TL;DR We don't know what the change looks like. Our goals are to make sure you want to keep the Daka Zeta slotted. We recognized we might not hit the bar and want to offer returning it to players.

For the purpose of raids, one way to 'encourage' players to gear Zombie is to place a health penalty on her NS allies when she dies, and have it associated with her gear tier.

Say each time Zombie dies, all NS allies lose health equivalent to (1/gear tier x 100% of their base health), with no prohibition of a character being able die from this loss of health. They can of course be revived as normal if dying this way.

Yes, it will make Mother Talzin's unique zeta more valuable, but it will keep Old Daka's unique zeta relevant also because she may be reviving NS allies more frequently. The caveat is that you will also need to gear Old Daka sufficiently so that she also is able to withstand the loss of health from Zombie frequently dying herself.

Well at least we'll still get a box of tissue and a wooden plaque saying "Well Done" when we finally suffer through all 14 years it takes to beat the thing.

It's almost like EA will have them killed if this raid doesn't work or something.

Raid bad, rewards bad, nerfs (sorry, rebalancing) also bad. Conclusion = gigantic cluster fondle, which saps will to live of all but a handful of players.