Talk to the Team: Stuns

This is a thread that is related to the Clarity2 discussion here. The basic idea is that Clarity2 is a band-aid that attempts to cover a wider problem which is the over-use of stuns among monsters (and players, though to a lesser extent) creating perma-stun situations. Removing the large number of obvious perma-stun situations (for example, by removing Paralyzing Gaze from a huge number of monsters) will go a long way to improving gameplay and fun.

So, what are we asking for your help with? Easy, here are the goals of this thread:

• Request player feedback regarding potential changes to a wide range of Stuns (both player and monster abilities)
• Request player assistance in tracking down all of the monsters that stun too frequently

Currently, we have identified three areas that we'll be addressing, but we're asking for your help with identifying others in order to speed up the process.

Admittedly some of these have less impact overall than Paralyzing Gaze, but they create situations where the monsters are no fun to fight and in some cases create a barrier to entry (such as with the Muck Crabs). The ones we're going to address (or have addressed) already are:

• Paralyzing Gaze - Removing it from the majority of non-boss monsters, lowering the duration of the Trepidation debuff
• Thundering Strike - Appeared to have the capability to continue indefinitely and repeatedly stun. Will be correcting this to be a single stun.
• Ogre Cry - Will be making this non-stun entirely, instead it will be a Mind DoT.
• Muck Miasma - Will be making this single target instead of AoE.
• Area Spellbind/Spellbind - Make sure that the duration of the buff is 15-30 seconds, shorter than the recycle of the ability that gives it.
• Clarity2 - AoE short-term immunity to stun/mez.

Would appreciate your feedback, comments, suggestions on this. Thank you.

Well, people are used with the system so why change it? Did anyone rage-quit due to it? I sincerely don't think so.

Yes, perma stun happens, you die, ressurect, etc.
I must admit that, with a strong DAoC background, i was quite baffled the system allows that many stuns with no stun immunities. For example in DAoC even a 2s stun would give you after expiration a 60s stun immunity buff.
But I got over it and i started to like it and to find ways to counter it. For me it is part of the game and is one of the aspects that makes it entertaining and dangerous. Remember it's a PVE game, you cannot get adrenaline rush from pvp so what's left? Venture amongst the undeads and various other nasties that can and will kill you.

When I was set to hunt perma stunners (ogres or skulks for comps) i used to ask for a clarity buff - that is till i leveled my own sorc. Stun Problem solved. That didn't made me immortal - I still died a lot - way too manyt times I'd say.
But I rarely run with a Clarity II buff up so running into a stunner can really spice things up.

Removing all or even most of the stuns from the game to justify the alteration of Clarity II is not the answer, imo

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Originally Posted by Northwind

Removing all or even most of the stuns from the game to justify the alteration of Clarity II is not the answer, imo

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Good thing that isn't the reason for these changes then.

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I must admit that, with a strong DAoC background, i was quite baffled the system allows that many stuns with no stun immunities. For example in DAoC even a 2s stun would give you after expiration a 60s stun immunity buff.

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I agree, that would be ideal. Unfortunately I don't have the tech to do this... YET. If or when I do I'll certainly be adding it to both monsters and players.

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Remember it's a PVE game, you cannot get adrenaline rush from pvp so what's left? Venture amongst the undeads and various other nasties that can and will kill you.

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Yes, but perma-stuns are not the way to do this. If they were then the big MMOs would do it, but they don't. Better monsters, better mixes of spawns, etc should be what we are going for instead.

First thing: I agree with Nortwind in all points!

Though I hate to be stunned and watch my drags die without being able to do something-
I love the challange the way it is.
Don`t think that there is always a Sorc available to give me ClarityII.
Most of the time I have to face the mezzes and stunns alone.
With good tactics- you can survive or even win.
That does NOT mean that I could or want to live without ClarityII the way it was.
But I could deal with the suggestion Amon made for it in another thread.

And please do not change any other things (like discribed above)- I think we all need a break from *hmmmm* that atm.

I speak for Flame/Lupus here too.

(btw: Carrion Crawlers are nice stunners too^^)

I want to add something:

Please consider: Its not only the vet-players who dislike clarity II and stuns to be changed in any way
(because they never want anything to be changed at all ^^ :-P)

The newer player also agree with us here.

Eh, consider me a veteran player who hates mob stuns. Get two ogres on you and spend the next 5 minutes slowly getting beaten down and unable to recall away. It's incredibly frustrating and is an example of fake difficulty. Bring on the changes to stuns, let's make things more enjoyable for people.

Yes I have to agree with Ssilmath here. I do not like the way the stuns work at the moment either. Try to go hunt storm ogres or go down to doom sometime and hit a rather large pocket of perma stunning Carrion Crawlers. You simply can't move and don't live long enough do anything, not even heal or run.

While I don't mind stuns and the challenge they present (you will only have ever heard me ask for Clarity II when going after Daknor), I also don't like being stunned repeatedly in a long chain nor do I enjoy the perma stun on more powerful mobs. Although I'm one to not mind getting 15 dp chalked up in a hunt, its just massive frustration racking up 10 dp in a row to perma/chained stuns alone.

The deadly poisons which are a cause of veteran tarantulas, etc. are very aggravating. Please either make the Cure Poison spells more accessible to players or else reduce the recycle/increase the immunity duration on it. 2minutes buff with 5minutes recycle is very long, for a spell that I had to go to lengths to procure.

I'm aware that there is a potion available that also does the trick, but it cannot be used if you are already stunned by deadly poison, despite the description stating otherwise.

Alternatively, reduce the duration of the deadly poison effect or remove the stun altogether and replace it with a stronger DoT. I understand the realism you are going for with a paralysing spider bite, but without access to the buff you are left very vulnerable in situations where you are 90% of the time mobbed by other creatures (notably Purple Tarantulas and Purple Weavers.)

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Originally Posted by Meredas

The deadly poisons which are a cause of veteran tarantulas, etc. are very aggravating. Please either make the Cure Poison spells more accessible to players or else reduce the recycle/increase the immunity duration on it. 2minutes buff with 5minutes recycle is very long, for a spell that I had to go to lengths to procure.

I'm aware that there is a potion available that also does the trick, but it cannot be used if you are already stunned by deadly poison, despite the description stating otherwise.

Alternatively, reduce the duration of the deadly poison effect or remove the stun altogether and replace it with a stronger DoT. I understand the realism you are going for with a paralysing spider bite, but without access to the buff you are left very vulnerable in situations where you are 90% of the time mobbed by other creatures (notably Purple Tarantulas and Purple Weavers.)

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Thanks, good catch and suggestions. I've added it to the list to look at. Perhaps a DoT with a speed debuff instead. We'll see.

I have no experience with Clarity II, and fairly little with this game's Stun effect, so I can't comment directly. Indirectly however, I do play a PvE MUD where it is quite possible for mobs to permastun players. As a counter, there are several schools with spells that provide high stun resistance (but not immunity), which last for (approximately) 5 to 10 minutes based on spell and caster's stats. The spells can't be refreshed though. Once cast on a player, it has to wear off before a new one can be put up. Additionally there are some skills that reduce stun length or, in one case, keep up melee attacks even when stunned. Heavy armor also reduces the chances of being stunned. Still, any tank outside of newbie-dom tries to take along someone that can cast one of the stun resistance spells since most areas have mobs with the stun skill. So as long as people group, and the anti-stun abilities have reasonable durations and a recycle that is less than the duration, stunny mobs can be dealt with.

Oh, it's also possible for players with the stun skill to stun mobs, but higher level and boss mobs are generally resistant, or outright immune, to stuns. In certain cases players have been able to permastun mobs.

Stuns would bother me less if Energy Ward had a chance to prevent stuns from being applied to my toon and/or Energy Resistance lowered the duration of stuns that got applied to my toon.

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Originally Posted by jerk-o

Stuns would bother me less if Energy Ward had a chance to prevent stuns from being applied to my toon and/or Energy Resistance lowered the duration of stuns that got applied to my toon.

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Energy and Stuns have no relation in the game so that wouldn't work. Also, resistances are used against damage only.

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Originally Posted by Northwind

... i was quite baffled the system allows that many stuns with no stun immunities. For example in DAoC even a 2s stun would give you after expiration a 60s stun immunity buff....

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Originally Posted by AmonGwareth

I agree, that would be ideal. Unfortunately I don't have the tech to do this... YET...

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Originally Posted by Ssilmath

Eh, consider me a veteran player who hates mob stuns. Get two ogres on you and spend the next 5 minutes slowly getting beaten down and unable to recall away. It's incredibly frustrating...

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Instead of getting rid of stuns, just adjust the recycles of the abilities that grant those stuns. For example, the Ogre Cry situation Ssilmath pointed out, You get hit by ogre cry by one ogre, 4 seconds later the other ogre hits you with ogre cry again, 4 seconds later the first ogre uses it again... perma stun. Give the ability a 60 second recycle instead of a 10 second recycle. All them ogres do is cast stun stun stun every 10 seconds.. It's ridiculous. Same applies to the Carrion Crawlers, and those nasty mobs in old rachival.

Then it would be less of a death sentence. But could still get exciting and close if you get 3 or 4 on you.

Carrion Crawlers - shorten the stun duration, adjust the ability recycle up to a few minutes. (keep it a stun)

Ogre Cry - adjust the ability recycle up alot. (keep it a stun)

Making these adjustments would also less the pain of Clarity II being changed (though I rarely relied on that except for Elite Blight Anchor fights). I think some players over-reacted to Clarity II changes, we got along fine without it for years (when was the hyped up version put in? maybe a year or two back?).

Elite Blight Hounds - spacing and mob density of these is fine. They stun alot, but it's a short stun. This would be I think the example of a properly implemented stun system.

What about for ogre cry /thundering blow. What about keeping them the same as they are but have it instaed of one ogre cry just getting refreshed by the use of another ogre make it so if another ogre uses the same or similar abiltiy it will simply fail because player is already stunned

Ogre Cry has a 60 second recycle currently and there is no way to link abilities on different monsters. I'm not getting rid of stuns, but I do think they are over-used. Not all mobs need stuns, it makes it commonplace instead of a challenge.

for a clarification what kind of stuns are you referring to short timed stuns or long time stuns specifcially

A dragon has little challenges in the end game. Just make sure you don't dumb down the game too much.
Same goes for a heavily multiclassed biped too.

As a player that loves to play a solo and as a ranger . I am very concerned about you wanting to change my best offensive ability ( Lightning Arrow ) . My only chance at defeating alot of Mobs where to equip Clarity II ( to advoid their stuns ) and hit them repeatedly with lightning arrow . Please leave these abilities alone so us players that like to level and play solo ( 85 % of the time ) can still play this wonderful and challanging game .

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Originally Posted by terrox

As a player that loves to play a solo and as a ranger . I am very concerned about you wanting to change my best offensive ability ( Lightning Arrow ) . My only chance at defeating alot of Mobs where to equip Clarity II ( to advoid their stuns ) and hit them repeatedly with lightning arrow . Please leave these abilities alone so us players that like to level and play solo ( 85 % of the time ) can still play this wonderful and challanging game .

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I too would hate to see lightning arrow changed. I have never gained clarity as an ability, so I do not know what it is like to avoid their stuns save by making sure I have alacrity so that I hit them first.

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Originally Posted by terrox

As a player that loves to play a solo and as a ranger . I am very concerned about you wanting to change my best offensive ability ( Lightning Arrow ) . My only chance at defeating alot of Mobs where to equip Clarity II ( to advoid their stuns ) and hit them repeatedly with lightning arrow . Please leave these abilities alone so us players that like to level and play solo ( 85 % of the time ) can still play this wonderful and challanging game .

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This illustrates the very reason that stuns need to be addressed. The only way you felt you could play the game was to have an immunity to them. That means they are too common. Thanks for posting that. As someone said up above, perma-stuns do not make a game challenging or difficult, merely not very fun. Creating difficulty through better monsters with various tactics or abilities is the proper way to go and what we'll be working towards.

Regarding lightning arrows, I don't foresee it needing a change. Yes, every attack can cause a stun, but its not a 100% chance each time, the stun only lasts for 3 seconds, and its single target.

Trying to think of stun/mezz abilities that cause me grief: Chain Lightning is a killer! I think I read something, somewhere that it is to be changed so it doesn't indefinitely bounce between players, so assuming this applies to all mobs who have it, then that's a huge help. I believe that changing Paralyzing Gaze and Trepidation appropriately (ie. drastically reducing their timer, or substantially increasing their recycle, or simply making them single target) will go a long way to helping.

A short immunity following being mezzed/stunned/rooted would probably do more good than all other suggestions, simply because there are so many variables as to WHY a mob is to be stunned/mezzed/rooted. I think the WHY is the hidden issue. Some mobs stun us, so we like to make sure they can't, either by stunning/mezzing them, or by killing them very quickly. Some mobs do obscene amounts of damage, hence why they NEED to be stunned; think of it as damage mitigation, if we can longer stun them we need other ways to counteract this, either better heals, better armor, more evasion, or dropping their DPS.

In my experience, mezzes like Spellbind and its area counterpart are excellent for crowd control and break after being hit once. They are necessary since so many mobs are social. We NEED a way to hold back the swarms of enemies. Stuns are excellent for creating a short reprieve from being wailed on, giving precious moments to heal/rez/buff and use epic abilities/spells since they often take a long time to cast.

I think Spellbind/Area Spellbind should remain as they were, AND NO LINKED TIMER! Since Area Spellbind is not masterable, that only penalises Sorcerers. And it's not uncommon to miss with Area Spellbind, anyway. Adjust their timers/recycle if you must, but don't link them please.

In the end, the only major concern I personally have, is if Epic mobs cannot be stunned. Reklar is ridiculously hard as it is. Death points are virtually unavoidable. With Resurrection on a 1 miner timer now, I find myself more often in situations where group members have to twiddle their thumbs in wait... As you've pointed out Amon, it's no fun dieing due to perma-stun and it's no fun waiting to be rezzed either.

Please be very careful with what you change. Stuns/mezzes are part of our strategies, small changes can have very drastic impacts. As I've recently discovered SoG and Valkor each have Indomitable granting them obscene evasion (intended or otherwise?), resulting in the entire group missing while it is active. To top it off, Valkor seems buggy and has a few times now, had this ability active permanently. Please use the kid gloves with any changes :D

Happy hunting, see yas Istaria :)

Just to add to monsters that stun too frequently: werewolves (using Ripclaw). I found that with just 2 werewolves attacking you (in my case both were Greater Werewolves on Balit's Island, too much to handle on my own), they can effectively prevent you from recalling or doing enough damage to kill either one before you die.

Thank you for the feedback so far on this. I think I've worked most of these as well as others for the next update.

I'm liking some of these changes:3

-Chainlightning, Paralyzing gaze, and trepidation (I reeeallly hate this one) are the ones I think that need the most tweaking. Trepidation especially... It always seemed to be cast far to often and all the ward combos I've tried never really prevented it.

On the Sorc Spellbind/Area Spellbind - I don't think linked timers are a bad thing at all. I would suggest making Area Spellbind more likely to hit as a result, Imo it should be the go to over spell bind anyway. I don't believe the stun should be less than the recycle for Spellbind simply because 1 hit automatically dispels it. It would also give more importance to Numbing Haze which is a universal spellbind on a 5 second timer. Absolutely wonderful spell that's useable by all classes, it may miss more but it is castable more often and more crown control is possible when used correctly.

Chainlighting and Trepidation- yes-I agree with Cooolios

When will the update be on blight for testing?

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Originally Posted by Guaran

When will the update be on blight for testing?

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We're hoping to push it to Blight next week.

so when will it go live and come to order and chaos ?

We just did Daknor
nearly impossible for non vets with normal equippment.
group of 7 ubers- most of the time 6 stunned (bloodcry& spellbind or both). Sorcerer was completely useless
And about 80% of our attacs missed.
jfyi

But you did finish him?

yes
(Morkx, Vasilios, Lupussan- Flameus, feuerauge, Arlessha, Lunalove)

he was the main reason, clarity was introduced. he has a constant stun ability. not to mention his ability to dodge dang near every hit

yeah- and then I read patch notes about clartiy II
it was only half a sentence- but a big step for Istaria^^
- and I told you all to level Sorcerer..:-(

wasn't clarity II restored to its original status?

Yeah Daknor's area mezz ability (forget the name) I don't think it can be dispelled. Its a definite pain. Only thing that breaks it is if he hits you. He's always been this way. His mezz ability could use a looking at.

I just kill him with 2 players, any more is pointless since they are mezzed the entire fight.

I just tried the Than'kuk warriors without Clarity II and with them being so social I was overcome by 4 and died within secs ( thunderblow , then 2 orges used ogre cry and after I got over stun they repeated again) . it did not help that the named ogre followed them and kept hitting for nearly 1000 hp each hit

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Originally Posted by terrox

I just tried the Than'kuk warriors without Clarity II and with them being so social I was overcome by 4 and died within secs ( thunderblow , then 2 orges used ogre cry and after I got over stun they repeated again) . it did not help that the named ogre followed them and kept hitting for nearly 1000 hp each hit

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A fix for this is currently in testing on Blight, both the Than'kuk Thunder ability and the general Ogre Cry.

thanks Amon for the reply . i thought fix was live already

A little off topic but is there any ETA on when this blight patch is going to live

Bit late here, but Bind weapons ability used by Bloodskulk Spearfishers was looked at?
It acts like a stun if i recall correctly (by preventing the target to act in any way, except moving) and Spearfishers are very social. So it is not uncommon to be attacked by more than 4 of them which gives little to no chance to survive while binded. Dragons have the opportunity to fly out of the combat, but bipeds don't have this luxury

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Originally Posted by Northwind

Bit late here, but Bind weapons ability used by Bloodskulk Spearfishers was looked at?
It acts like a stun if i recall correctly (by preventing the target to act in any way, except moving) and Spearfishers are very social. So it is not uncommon to be attacked by more than 4 of them which gives little to no chance to survive while binded. Dragons have the opportunity to fly out of the combat, but bipeds don't have this luxury

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Unfortunately the ability they use is the actual one also used by the Spearman school so I can't just alter it. But I'll look into what can be done with it.

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A little off topic but is there any ETA on when this blight patch is going to live

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No ETAs.

I found the Blight Crabs today and noticed that they do an annoying stun which gets used far more than it should. It lasts 1:20 to 1:30, much like the murk crabs. I didn't notice the Blight Crabs mentioned on the patch notes for Blight with the other fixes to stuns. Given that the crabs stun is so long and difficult to dispel, they've got plenty of time to kill you without you being able to heal or do anything. Is this going to be addressed with the other stuns as well?

Well if Daknor is the whole reason Clarity was introduced, might there be a way to give a Daknor-specific spell to deal with his perma-stun? A spell to reduce the chances of getting stunned perhaps or even to temporarily dispel his perma-stun buff? Something along the lines of Primal Boon for dealing with Reklar? I don't mind most of the stuns that are in-game as they are, gotten used to dealing with the nasties that do stun badly and have my own strategies for dealing with them (mainly that you take on one or two at a time far away from potential swarms) but I'm definitely not opposed to less chance of dying without the chance to act. I've only ever even seen Clarity used for a Greater Anchor fight and a Daknor hunt, otherwise everything else can be dealt with so no complaints from me about Clarity.

FYI, the majority of stuns/mezzes have either been changed or removed from mobs since this discussion mid-last year. You'd have to check the patch notes for the exact detail. Side note, I'd prefer any buffs required to attack boss/epic mobs to be like the queen heart rather than primal boon. Primal boon effectively takes a group member out of combat due to its extremely short duration... Not very fun for that poor soul.

ran a test near greater anchor. 1 and 1/2 years later the mobs there still stun repeatedly. and now on top of it, they have a larger social range. since now they can call the mobs from all the way over to forward encampment. Still need to test other area's to see what else was missed

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Originally Posted by Malicore

ran a test near greater anchor. 1 and 1/2 years later the mobs there still stun repeatedly. and now on top of it, they have a larger social range. since now they can call the mobs from all the way over to forward encampment. Still need to test other area's to see what else was missed

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The greater anchors can spawn so many monsters of various types. If you look at your combat log, can you tell which in particular are causing the stuns? Also, I assume you mean the Greater Anchor outside of Delgarath cause regular anchor spawns can now have a Greater amongst them (that is different than the Delgarath one).

I'm betting its the Corrupted Shades, they get Stunner 3 (a wizard ability with a 30 second recycle and 12 second non-dispellable duration).

yes, I was referring to Greater Anchor in Delgarath. And it was the Shades pulling mobs from forward encampment, and also stunning my alt

I've removed Stunner 3 from the Corrupted Shadows (and Defiled and Ruined as a result) for the next patch. They have no need for it, they get lots of other Wizard abilities.

Like Chain Lightning? :p

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Originally Posted by Veruliyam

Like Chain Lightning? :p

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No, none of the monsters that spawn from the Greater Anchor in Delgarath get Chain Lightning.