Life after Slackers

[Occhidiangela]

My own thoughts so far:
(1) I'd be ok with, though I got the impression at the end of last game that not everyone was keen on it. Some are also doing this on Tuesdays already.
(2) This would be significantly harder than the previous iteration and would play somewhat differently (esp. without mercs) but it's still largely what we just did, so while I'd be ok with it, I'm expecting it's a no-go.
( 3 ) Seems like it could be an interesting but challenging ride. Expect lots of deaths and a sharp cutoff between situations we can handle easily, and situations where we get our butts handed to us, assuming we stick as closely to an all-pally team as possible. (The more classes we have, the more safety options are available.) Slackers were never forced to retreat in disarray; this group could be. I like this one best so far.
(4) Would have to toss out team pure, which I would prefer to avoid. Not really comfortable with this one.
(5) Would depend on what it was. Still, builds where the focus of the build is on supporting the merc are not really that uncommon -- in fact, many builds depend on the merc for killing power through most of Normal and even into Nightmare. My gut reaction is lukewarm on this one.

1. Bn is neat, and an excellent format. I was unable to make my timing work out, so I dropped out. Sorry to do so, since I was on the cusp of a naked tank with Shock wave.

2. Ultra slackers.

3. All Paladin strikes me as relatively less hazardous than mix of classes. Mixing and matching Auras with numerous Paladins can make for a very effective, mutually supportive team. Not sure how much work you have done with Charge. Nice alternative to Smite for knocking back monsters and keeping them off your merc, or your partners, out of a fight. Used it a lot for OcchiVanHoe's naked corpse recovery moments. Takes more effort than smite, but all bugs aside, it can be very nice.

4. Synergizers: neat idea, but the constant recharging . . . and the need for twinkie makes me agree with you.

5. The advantage to this is pace of play, role playing, and lots of groaner jokes. More room for zipping humor back and forth, although if Teamspeak is the standard set up for all, I'd guess that such becomes a moot issue.

I will offer a completely biased suggestion for Odd Couple merc team.

[KingOfPain]

On a side note, I consider that sorcies have one of the best merc support skill of the classes. Telekill deserves to be taken more seriously, if only in this scumRus community. Tellkill is one of the main factors that makes Amy the do all melee sorc sucessful - Your merc teleports with you - Instant meat shield and attack. Asn is the only other class able to do this (without item help) via Dragon Flight, but DF needs a target. Beside its offensive advantage, it can also save your merc when you see it taking a beating. You have total control on merc placement via telekill giving you selective targeting and crowd control. It can save your ass when drinking is not fast enough. It can make meph runs much safer and faster when merc teles with you taking almost all of the hits if you land on a bad spot.... Considering my "Amy builds" are all capable 2 handed meleer, bow wielding ranger, Meph runner (under one minute) all rolled into one, that's quite a resume for a sorcy with Base Vit and 250ish on both Str/Dex.

Oh right, about title...
Items are for wimps

But seriouly, this team can go naked easily. Kyoko, the zon that Shadow mentioned started out as variant Gris made who supported a rogue merc wearing only what the merc cannot wear, which means only gloves, belt, boots, 2 rings and an amulet. It was too easy. So I created FireEngineRed (the way zon looks when naked), same build but completely naked, and without charms. That was pre 1.10 and she was able to tank all hell act bosses in her 50s. Shadow saw how she drove in a couple of games with Cy and Charis, saw how a naked all passive zon led the way, controlled the traffic and tanked. I was so discussed with it I have not played a zon since.

The other naked passive characters I remember is an Asn, KoPassasin, and a Traffic Controller, Alice Co-oper. Both of them were as viable as FER tho not as hardy as the zon with D/E/A. The Asn specialized in Fade, Cos. Mindblast and Dragon Flight saw moderate use. Alice, of course, has a whole arsenal of traffic control curses, and CE when he thinks the merc is taking too long.

The Baba has Taunt and Howl for traffic and damage control as well as the whole warrcies tree for support.
The Druid's oak with Baba's BO is going to boost HP for all to an insane level. He has Ravens to blind tragets and other spammable minions for traffic control, and HoW to help the melee mercs.
The Pally, well, who needs resists with Salv around. Pick a few auras, be a medic
The Sorcy's Static Field and Enchant is going to make the pace mucho faster.

This team can only make these characters stronger.

Go Naked

KoP

[KingOfPain]

(5) Would depend on what it was. Still, builds where the focus of the build is on supporting the merc are not really that uncommon -- in fact, many builds depend on the merc for killing power through most of Normal and even into Nightmare. My gut reaction is lukewarm on this one.

No no. We are talking Merc support all the way to hell, with all/mostly passive skills - Naked. I usually don't consider normal or nm as any form of challenge or prove of playability, Hell is where is at. A merc support role can become boring at time when one is not used to a slow pacing, but there is much to be learned from such characters if one has never play one before.

KoP

[Occhidiangela]

There we were, on Roland's server. We had even tried to coordinate a Seven Lances Seven Samurai team. Bad timing, and perhaps over design contributed.

I forget what happened, maybe 1.10 came out and the whole synergy thing became an issue, but the team that nearly started Seven Samurai slowly fell apart. I also think that KISS is a good guiding principle for a variant.

*snip*
I am not a fan of the print-out-the-rules style of variant.*snip*
3. I actually would prefer all paladin.
4. Some things had to give, and I deemed that to be less core to the theme than some of the other restrictions.

I think you did a great job on the original variant and am not trying to impugn your effort in any way. I just tend to be of the opinion that for team variants especially, KISS should be the order of the day.

Print out? Copy to a note pad file, easy to open and ref if the need arises.

No offense taken whatever. If Seven Samurai had been a better idea, more folks would have tried it already.

PS: The skill restriction to 3 at 10 strikes me as a bad idea for an all melee team. I'd suggest allowing synergy adds to soak up skill points.

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

No no. We are talking Merc support all the way to hell, with all/mostly passive skills - Naked. I usually don't consider normal or nm as any form of challenge or prove of playability, Hell is where is at. A merc support role can become boring at time when one is not used to a slow pacing, but there is much to be learned from such characters if one has never play one before.

KoP

Two thoughts.

1. Yes, telekill is good fun. Typical, the woman has to tell that silly man where to go to get the dirty job done . . .

2. I think I am hearing you say that the merc support theme has been well proven, which might perhaps tilt the scales toward one of the other themes.

Occhi

[Zed-F]

2. I think I am hearing you say that the merc support theme has been well proven, which might perhaps tilt the scales toward one of the other themes.

Yes, that is my point.

[Zed-F]

3. All Paladin strikes me as relatively less hazardous than mix of classes. Mixing and matching Auras with numerous Paladins can make for a very effective, mutually supportive team. Not sure how much work you have done with Charge. Nice alternative to Smite for knocking back monsters and keeping them off your merc, or your partners, out of a fight. Used it a lot for OcchiVanHoe's naked corpse recovery moments. Takes more effort than smite, but all bugs aside, it can be very nice.

Yes, with mix-and-match auras, a team of pallys can support each other well. However, with all pallys, you have a total of 30 tools in your kit to deal with difficult situations, not counting charges and oskills. In a mixed team, you can easily have over a hundred. Paladins tend to be short on crowd control other than holy freeze, and the lack of strong mercs only exascerbates the problem. When the going gets rough, there's no safety net to fall back on -- no taunt to draw a couple mobs at a time, no dim or cloak or even ravens to blind them, no minions to distract them. I want the mobs to be concentrating mostly, if not entirely, on the players for a change, and see how well we can deal with that, when we can't go all out defense and rely on mercs for kills, and must meet the monsters toe to toe to do significant damage.

This is entirely possible with unrestricted builds and twinking. One can make paladins that are very hard to kill. With restricted builds that forego shields and twinking, it could be much more challenging. Can we kill the frenzytaur boss pack before he slices us to ribbons? What about a combination of spawners in front blocking our path, and an archer boss pack behind?

PS: The skill restriction to 3 at 10 strikes me as a bad idea for an all melee team. I'd suggest allowing synergy adds to soak up skill points.

What, you want to make this easy again?

[Occhidiangela]

Do I want to make this easy? Not really. I am interested in a balance between challenge and tedium.

Depending on the size of the team, the onset of tedium in Hell diff for melee is sooner rather than later. I had an HC Frenzy Barb, axes, unrestricted, who finally bored the hell out of me in Act III Hell. I just stopped playing him. The monster HP boost, post 1.10 synergy, introduced too much tedium into the game for my taste.

I had similar "enough of this click fest" feelings with D I warriors in Hell now and again back in the day. I never had "uber" gear like Civerb's or KSOH.

Occhi

PS: Crowd control. Well, do you consider Smite a crowd control skill? I do. That was the point I rather clumsily tried to make vis a vis Charge. Yes, it is micro intensive.

Occhi

[Zed-F]

It would be possible once hell hits to re-evaluate, if the team is not progressing quickly enough for overall taste. I've never had a problem with altering a variant or rebalancing on the fly if problems arise. AssIsGrass manages to kill stuff reasonably well with largely substandard equipment and no stat points allocated, by herself, in a players 2 hell game, and she only has 2 skills at slvl 10. She kills slowly, I'll grant, but I would expect a pally team with multiple overlapping auras and no restrictions on stat point allocation to do considerably better.

Re: Charge, it can be crowd control to some extent, with care in how it is used. Sure. Zeal can be crowd control too. An all pally team doesn't have no crowd control at all, but it does have limited crowd control, which was my original statement.

[KingOfPain]

Two thoughts.
2. I think I am hearing you say that the merc support theme has been well proven, which might perhaps tilt the scales toward one of the other themes.
Occhi

Well, that depends on what you mean by well proven
I also say a completely naked (no items, charms nor weapon) melee asn is viable in hell

KoP