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bluhman

This power would be GREAT if it was usable in any content whatsoever, but I have to constantly worry about my involuntarily summoned up pet slapping shadow orbs or courage hearts or other held crap and then get called out for griefing and making every cosmic just take longer because of it.

I'd say more but I've tired myself out too much yelling

bluhman

Just, kill it. I never want to see a shadow in my life again my handsare literally shaking right now

bluhman

Why has this attack been like this for over a year now, does literally anyone think that this randomly-summoned pet is a good idea

EDIT: Oh ther'es an edit button. I guess that gives an insight to the kind of mental state thinking about Ebon Ruin's shadows puts me in. Please remove them?

chaosdrgnz43

The shadow summon should just be an advantage point honestly. Devs probably rigged the power because it was overperforming like 2gm was. Maybe they intended Shadow Blast to be Darkness'main single target dmg and Ebon Ruin for utility.

pantagruel01

It was popular in pvp because ranged tap trauma for free. It was meh in PvE even before the change.

Unknown

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dakrushmor

l agree Shadow from ER should be 2PT adv, and Fear by default, since fear triggers Darkness energy unlock. Layout like Infernal Powerset has. Or make something like black-colored ball lightning, that would spawn on enemy's place, be rooted on place, intangible & deal sphere AoE damage, while healing player (this way it's going to be just AoE DoT entity, but not actual pet).

Also it wouldn't be excess lMO to add Maintained Single Target attack to Darkness framework - similar to Eidolon's "Concussor" beam - obtainable for players in one or another way.

@kaizerin seems to like black magic theme, made whole Witch AT and Voodoo powers, yet the best attack of Darkness is screwed this way, l definitely cannot understand WHY.

avianos

dat A E S T H E T I C S title

I also feel that the shadow summon doesn't belong to this power

And thanks to how pets screw up end game stuff, it's a big NO-NO ZONE for Qwyjibo and Eidolon fights

DEVs need to fix this

chaosdrgnz43 wrote: »

The shadow summon should just be an advantage point honestly. Devs probably rigged the power because it was overperforming like 2gm was. Maybe they intended Shadow Blast to be Darkness'main single target dmg and Ebon Ruin for utility.

Ebon Ruin? Overperforming? What crazy dimension is this?
The power was never overperforming (except for being overused in PvP for MUH 100feet TRAMA CLONE Builds, BWHAAAA, seriously everyone and their mothers where using ER in PVP)

and as for PvE, it was pretty horrible, the only reason to use it was because of the Paranormal Damage Debuff it used to have before it changed​​

kallethen

I would also be very much in favor of swapping one of Ebon Ruin's advantages with the shadow. I understand why they added it (the shadow pet replaced Trauma), but having a shadow summon from the ability does hamper end game content and it breaks aesthetic with one of my toons (Dark/Celestial cosmic, no summons).​​

aesica

bluhman said:

Why has this attack been like this for over a year now, does literally anyone think that this randomly-summoned pet is a good idea

I'm going to step in and defend the poor shadow, because it's useful in almost every situation except for cosmic fights. ER is basically a DPS power, HoT, and meatshield creator all in one useful power.

1) The shadow makes a great meat shield that packs can often waste their CCs and initial big hits on.

2) The healing it gives is actually pretty good and helps draw initial aggro to it. The healing could be substituted as a dot, but it comes at the cost of losing the meatshield functionality.

3) It can be resummoned immediately as ER has no cooldown.

4) The shadow is really only a detriment in cosmic fights--a very small portion of the game overall, even if it's the intended endgame. It's fine in literally any other case.

Making it an advantage is only acceptable if it offers a 100% summon chance at full charge regardless of rank, and if the shadow's damage is upped enough to compensate for the fact that the player will be limited to R2 instead of being able to take R3. This isn't really a very good route though.

Maybe ER doesn't need to be redesigned, but rather, Darkness needs a different ability as its spammed DPS power. One that doesn't summon anything.

dakrushmor

aesica said:

SNIP

There's a thought... How about add to all of this shadow's attack "Telepathy DoT" flag, to they don't break Sleep, just like Ego Sprites do. Also make its hitbox "no collision".

avianos

A Healing Rune would also be better option​​

roughbearmattach

aesica said:

Maybe ER doesn't need to be redesigned, but rather, Darkness needs a different ability as its spammed DPS power. One that doesn't summon anything.

This would be great, though I suspect Darkness won't get another pass for a long time.

bluhman

aesica said:

----

I've actively experienced all those benefits outside of cosmics. Thing is, though, with everything else I throw at enemies during that (soul vortex, life drain) I'm pretty sure it's not even that necessary, since I'm already generating a lot of healing when I need it and deal more than enough damage. If I really wanted meatshields and extra healing with them, I'd just take the Summon Shadows ability, and the cooldown on that is still shorter than the total duration of the pet.

If we really had to keep a pet attached to this attack, I'd make it summon some sort of darkness worm that's stationary and has short-ranged attacks, while keeping its other benefits. Personally though I think Ebon Ruin's already an amazingly good attack without the shadow, and probably would just settle for a slightly reduced energy cost and no pet whatsoever.

morigosa

Mm. I've been avoiding making any sort of shadow DPS character because of this. Yes, it's only a game-mechanical drawback in a few places... but those places are important ones. And it's a thematic problem everywhere.

rtma

Well, they could do is FORCE the Ebon Shadow Pet to ONLY attack the Primary target (Until Defeat then choose something nearby or what you're looking at), so that way it doesn't run off and unintentionally break CC for Cosmics, other then that I find the utility useful, anyone tried Summon Shadow's with their Adv with this? the Heals must be nice.

bluhman

Why the hell can this also happen in Kigatilik? I didn't even think there was a possibility of my idiot shadow running off to slap a dog.

avianos

Well... It's takes quite a skill in potato A.I for the Shadow to walk ALL THE WAY Down to the dogs​​

sterga

I don't know why Shadow Minions aren't set to attack the target of their summoner. When a target dies, it would just wait for their summoner's next target. It's not even anything complex.​​

lightsauce

for a shadow being, it lacks perception and a brain.
to make the summon not summon, make ER apply stronger Damage over time that it had and with small heals.

darqaura2

Agreed. Remove the pet and place it somewhere else.

bluhman

Alright, I think I've figured out some compromises that keeps the main benefit of the shadow pet while eliminating any possibility of anything running off and attacking something irrelevant:

A: On at least a half-charge, Ebon Ruin has a 50-100% chance to create a weak Ebon Rift on your target for 5 seconds. This can only occur once every 15 seconds, and the Ebon Rift can slowly heal you as it deals damage.

B: Has a 30-100% chance to apply Dark Parasite to yourself for 7 seconds. This buff will recover ~80 HP every 2 seconds, plus an extra ~30 HP for every active stack of Despair there is on targets within 50 feet of you. This effect does not stack and is not refreshed by repeated uses of Ebon Ruin.

C: Full-charges of Ebon Ruin surround your target with 3-5 Shadow Tendrils (which are reskinned Psionic worms). Shadow Tendrils only attack with melee strikes that attempt to root the target in place and absorb small amounts of HP for each hit they deal. These worms last 15 seconds and cannot be resummoned before this duration is complete. Worms are also vulnerable to attacks and can be killed.

avianos

bluhman wrote: »

A: On at least a half-charge, Ebon Ruin has a 50-100% chance to create a weak Ebon Rift on your target for 5 seconds. This can only occur once every 15 seconds, and the Ebon Rift can slowly heal you as it deals damage.

.

I vote for this one, mainly because I love the Rift Visuals​​

dakrushmor

Maybe redesign it this way:
Shadow doesn't do any damage by default, just like Life Essence power.
Ebon Ruin ability hangs one more linger at target enemy - Ebon Vulnerability, regardless of charge time.
Shadow attacks heal player always, but deal damage only to enemies, those are affected by Ebon Vulnerability.
Shadow has no collision.

Mah theme got ruined at the end of past summer by screwing plasmabeam (and it's ONLY technology AoE maintain, that doesn't shoot bullets, and lMO every single DPS should have at least one AoE Maintain, charge ups just blow too hard vs Mooks (and Shamblers)), so l can feel your pain & definitely will support fixing Ebon Ruin, along with some other powers.

legendarylycan

bluhman wrote: »

C: Full-charges of Ebon Ruin surround your target with 3-5 Shadow Tendrils (which are reskinned Psionic worms).

only if the tendrils look like this

​​

morigosa

Oh, I like Bluhman's ebon rift idea. That would actually work with theme very nicely, unlike the current pet.

aesica

bluhman said:

Alright, I think I've figured out some compromises that keeps the main benefit of the shadow pet while eliminating any possibility of anything running off and attacking something irrelevant:

A: On at least a half-charge, Ebon Ruin has a 50-100% chance to create a weak Ebon Rift on your target for 5 seconds. This can only occur once every 15 seconds, and the Ebon Rift can slowly heal you as it deals damage.

B: Has a 30-100% chance to apply Dark Parasite to yourself for 7 seconds. This buff will recover ~80 HP every 2 seconds, plus an extra ~30 HP for every active stack of Despair there is on targets within 50 feet of you. This effect does not stack and is not refreshed by repeated uses of Ebon Ruin.

C: Full-charges of Ebon Ruin surround your target with 3-5 Shadow Tendrils (which are reskinned Psionic worms). Shadow Tendrils only attack with melee strikes that attempt to root the target in place and absorb small amounts of HP for each hit they deal. These worms last 15 seconds and cannot be resummoned before this duration is complete. Worms are also vulnerable to attacks and can be killed.

Not trying to be harsh here, but I think this has too much going on when it should probably be simplified:

A. While the ebon rift visual looks cool, it already exist on another ability and I think abilities should each look distinctly different. I also don't think the visual would lend itself very well to a short duration like 5 seconds.

B. Combined with the healing from the rift, it seems like an overly clunky and complicated way to preserve the overall Shadow healing which, right now, is plenty straightforward and useful for that reason--it hits things and you get healed.

C. This...might be something of a nerf to the current shadow summon in terms of uptime as well as multi-target scenarios. Currently, the rules that exist for how the shadow summon functions is: 1) 1 shadow max per target. Several shadows can be active if you target several different things with Ebon Ruin. 2) Cannot resummon until the duration ends OR the shadow dies.

Having thought about it a bit more, I think this really might be the best approach:

Ebon Ruin: As is currently, except the shadow summon should be 50-100% (based on charge) as a baseline effect, regardless of rank.
(2) Rank 2
(2) Rank 3
(2) Inner Darkness: The summon shadow portion of Ebon Ruin now plagues the target with Devouring Shadows instead of summoning a pet. Over the duration, the target takes dimensional damage over time, healing you for any damage this effect does to them. Additionally, further casts of Ebon Ruin against an affected target deal 20% additional damage and refreshes the duration of Devouring Shadows.
(1) Nyctophobia: As is.
(2) Paranormal Paranoia: As is. (Does anyone actually take this advantage?)
(1) Accelerated Metabolism: As is.
(1) Challenge!: As is.

Net result: Rank 3 Ebon Ruin is exactly as it is now, pet shadow and everything. Rank 2 + Inner Darkness Ebon Ruin is essentially Rank 3 Ebon Ruin with the shadow summon replaced by a damage over time effect.

bluhman

aesica said:

With that laid down, how about reversing what rank 2 + inner darkness and rank 3 do then? Why's the power even got to summon a pet by default anyways? Above all, even compared to what I suggested, I firmly believe that Ebon Ruin is an attack that can and should be able to stand on its own without any other pet stuff.

Besides, I don't know of many advantages in the game that make a power less complex in what it does. Advantages add features, and they may change features. But very few (I can only think of one ingame right now) remove features.

aesica

Either way would work. I just chose the way that (I suspect) would be the easiest way to implement something like this. The goals are: 1) to give players a choice and 2) preserve the damage of current R3 ER regardless of that choice. If you were to have it not summon a pet by default, and summon a pet only with the advantage, somehow we'd need a way to allow the R2 + adv version to still deal similar damage to basic R3.

While you could say "the pet can just do the extra damage," generally pets don't scale very well unless people specifically build for pets, so it would hurt the R2 + adv version users somewhat.

bluhman

cmooooon

spinnytop

Kaiserin is planning to fix it once Darkness gets a proper review. Just gotta be patient ^_^. Apparently it's not just a "click undo and the problem is solved!" kind of thing.

TO BE FAIR - it is usable in lots of content... just not three of the cosmics.​​

avianos

spinnytop wrote: »

Kaiserin is planning to fix it once Darkness gets a proper review. Just gotta be patient ^_^. Apparently it's not just a "click undo and the problem is solved!" kind of thing.

TO BE FAIR - it is usable in lots of content... just not three of the cosmics.

They Will? I thought there were done with the small changes of Darkness

GREAT! maybe they can buff EBON RIFT and give more utility ADV to powers like Soul Vortex​​

avianos

Good News Everyone

a Stealth Patch (2 weeks ago, not mentioned in patch notes) made the Ebon Ruin shadow a controllable pet, with its own command window

the bad news is, you cannot make it stop attacking, but you can redirect it's attack to another target


may I recommend you binding the command on your keyboard​​

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bluhman

avianos said:

Good News Everyone



a Stealth Patch (2 weeks ago, not mentioned in patch notes) made the Ebon Ruin shadow a controllable pet, with its own command window



the bad news is, you cannot make it stop attacking, but you can redirect it's attack to another target





may I recomend you binding the command on your keyboard​​

I didn't know that about the attack command. When I first saw that the Ebon Ruin pet became controllable, I was deeply disappointed by my inability to either set its AI to passive, or to even dismiss the stupid thing. Redirecting the attack might be sufficient, maybe if I bound it to the same key as firing my attack. I really shouldn't need to take such a drastic control-scheme altering action and finnagling with like advanced macros to make my character playable, though.

spinnytop

The Ebon Ruin pet should get some sort of "blow it up" ability. Like, blow it up to get a temporary shield on yourself or something like that. That way when you go to use Ebon Ruin in content where the pet is a pest, you're not just wasting that part of the power - it's being transferred into something else useful. Making it controllable is a small step to mitigating the problem... but I don't see many other controllable pets being accepted at the fights where ebon ruin is a nono

darqaura2

spinnytop said:

The Ebon Ruin pet should get some sort of "blow it up" ability. Like, blow it up to get a temporary shield on yourself or something like that. That way when you go to use Ebon Ruin in content where the pet is a pest, you're not just wasting that part of the power - it's being transferred into something else useful. Making it controllable is a small step to mitigating the problem... but I don't see many other controllable pets being accepted at the fights where ebon ruin is a nono

How about an easier change: remove the pet. . . or make it an advantage to add it.

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spinnytop

gradii said:

Actually that gives me an idea, why not change the pet to be a suicide bomber pet who runs towards the players current target and BLOWS UP doing dimensional damage,​​

I'd rather it be an activated ability, to avoid unfortunate accidents.

aesica

gradii wrote: »

Actually that gives me an idea, why not change the pet to be a suicide bomber pet who runs towards the players current target and BLOWS UP doing dimensional damage,

Does it shout "Allahu Akbar!" before detonation?

Joking aside, that removes the one thing that actually makes the pet useful in certain situations (the healing component). It would be better off as a DoT that healed you per tick than it would as an exploding pet.​​

spinnytop

Yes, that's why an activated ability works best. When you want the healing pet, you get the healing pet - when you just wanna blow it up, it blows up! \o/ BOOM!

darqaura2

spinnytop said:

Yes, that's why an activated ability works best. When you want the healing pet, you get the healing pet - when you just wanna blow it up, it blows up! \o/ BOOM!

I'm down with this.

avianos

And now with the latest lockbox patch, the command window for the shadow pet is GONE
We lost the ability to redirect the attack​​

oobtree

Idea to make EVERYONE happy.. Make the Shadow pet a 0 point advantage and add Trauma back in as a 2 or 3 point advantage. Make the adv that boosts it's damage if target is feared an innate ability instead.

bluhman

https://youtu.be/WZ_8HhDvgbQ

championshewolf

Ugh, blu why did you pick the worst of the Final Fantasy sound tracks? I mean seriously, if you are going to use the fanfaire at least use the best one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMovw9o9YCk

aesica

spinnytop wrote: »

Yes, that's why an activated ability works best. When you want the healing pet, you get the healing pet - when you just wanna blow it up, it blows up! \o/ BOOM!

What about those of us who used Ebon Ruin as the activated ability? It should've remained as an advantage for that reason alone. Oh well, the character I used it on settled on Grasping Shadows + Devouring Darkness which is similar in terms of healing, except it can't be tap-spammed to get working when full charging isn't a realistic option, like during knockstunspam.

And that consume the shadows to heal advantage is utterly terrible.​​

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