SHAMANISM-WEATHERGUARD
Currently Shamanism Weatherguard has these effects, numbered for convenience: 1) immunity to heat hunger, 2) 33% protection against losing says to wind, 3) 33% protection against falling from wind while flying, 4) 33% protection from being blown from the trees, 5) 33% protection against natural weather freezing. Many of these protections are either extremely mild or should be innate protections in druidry. Weatherguard fails to protect against the primary weather effect, movement slowing.
Sol#1: Remove effects 2-3, add in protection against all movement slowing weather effects, that scales to skill in Shamanism.
(Power Three should be a Druid innate passive. Now is the time to un-table that report, please?)
Sol#2: As Sol.1, but at DemesnePrecip, add in immunity to map hiding from rain and snow storms
Sol#3 As either Sol.1 or 2, but leave in effect 2, seeing as it's somewhat useful for novices and other young.
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SHAMANISM - DEATH
Problem: Death trance requires three trances, and burns 7p (After which you may not move) to intially activate. After that point, it takes ~30 seconds to enable the death ability, which is a 50% hp, 3p instakill. After ~30 seconds in the enabled state, it goes inactive, continuing to flux in and out on an ~30sec timer. Every 15 seconds it gives a thirdparty message indicating charge. Any movement during any time on this timeline removes the ability.
Sol#1: In addition to Sol.1, allow a short grace period during which Death is not lost on movement. If the Shaman moves back into the room, or does no other movement/actions for a short time upon moving, the trance begins to come back into focus.
Sol#2: In addition to Sol.1, remove half of the third party messages.
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SHAMANISM - PRESSURE
Problem: Pressure currently does approx. 250 damage and 200 bleeding on all enemies in the room. Compared to mage's room attacks (which they all get, and get earlier), it is entirely inferior, despite having nearly identical mechanics. Pressure is additionally limited to the Prime, Ethereal, and Elemental planes, as well as being only cast-able outdoors. The restricted nature of the skill and the reduced number of potential users means that when the bleeding and damage are combined, it should do at least the same amount as the other room attacks. For comparison, Boulderblast does approx. 900 damage to a group,
Sol#1: Increase the direct damage to 600-700, leave bleeding as is. Scale damage down to the number of people it hits.
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SHAMANISM - FROGS
Problem: Frogs does one hit of charybdon to a group, requiring raining conditions. This poison is shruggable. Because Druids, and therefore Shamans, are based around focusing upon a single target via sap, this does not provide much use. In non-sap battles, the druid is better off using more sure techniques that don't involve several levels of rng. Because the majority of poison afflictions are subpar when unpaired with an immediate alternate attack specifically coordinated with that poison and because of shrugging rates, this is currently a waste of balance.
Sol#1: Make Frogs a short lived passive in the room it is cast in, much like mudslick and tornado.
Sol#2: Make frogs be a targetable poison, as the Shaman calls particular frogs down.
Sol#3: In addition to Sol.2, reduce the shrugging rate on the poison called.
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SHAMANISM - NEW
Problem: Though weather manipulation is a core part of the Shamanism skillset, the shaman is ill-
equipped to make use of the meager effects generated via weather. Assuming that all of the unlocked
skills are buffed to appropriate levels (as they all need some 'tweaking') so that hot and cold
climates are on an equal field, cold is the more desirable climate extreme, with neutral climates
being the least desirable. Cold weather can do periodic damage, freeze people, slow people, and hide
the map. Hot temperatures can only slow people, though it sometimes can actually speed everyone up
them up by the heat. The freezing ticks on cold damage appear to come once every 20 seconds,
assuming that you do not have the proper level of warmth. This is very hard to capitalize on as
there is no third person message. With the high power costs associated with changing the weather on
any scale, these benefits are not adequate to carry a skillset.
Solution #1: Introduce a new passive skill, FierceWeather. The controlled weather in a Shaman's
demesne becomes stronger. Cold ticks are sped up on enemies and have a third person message for the
Shaman. Blizzards (when appropriate) become opaque to weathersight (but not the artifact version)
for enemies, Hailstones (when appropriate) do more damage to enemies. Hot climate hunger attrition
expands to effect enemies who are over level 80. Hot climate also does periodic hits of slickness to
enemies, at the same rate as the freeze ticks. Clothing should have a greatly reduced ability to
mitigate these effects.
Solution #2: In an expansion of possible attrition, have cold temperatures do slow sleep attrition.
This should be on par with sleepmist, taking 3 minutes to bring someone from max alertness to
falling asleep. Clothing would mitigate this.
Solution #3: Have Weatherguard protect against or mitigate these enhanced effects. Consider having a
Shaman's dissolve dissolve away Weatherguard.
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SHAMANISM - Freeze
Problem: This skill has the exact functionality as Elementalism - Freeze, except it's missing half of that skill's ability, and is extremely limited: It can only be done in places that have weather, which excludes the cosmic and astral planes, as well as any aetherbubbles, and any location that is inside. It can also only be done in places that have weather if that weather can be coaxed to below freezing. For most locations, that means that it is restricted to the inside of a shaman's demesne.
Solution 1: Have freeze do two hits of cold. If you have fire up, it will strip the fire defense and give you chills. If you do not, it will freeze you solid.
Solution 2: Possibly with solution 1: Shroud the effects of freeze. The idea is that it's already so cold that you don't notice it getting any colder when the shaman freezes you.
Solution 3: In addition to Solution 1, when you are frozen solid and are frozen again, you suffer a burst of damage and are stunned briefly.
Solution4: In very cold climes, upgrade freeze to strip fire potion, and apply two levels of freeze.
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SHAMANISM - SNOWMAN
Problem: Once in effect, the snowman will hit a random enemy in the room once every 12 seconds with one of the following: A single freezing attack, stripping fire if present. A proning attack with no off-bal/eq or damage associated. The random target portion makes this impossible to capitalize on in group combat, and the long duration paired with low effects makes it near impossible to capitalize on in single or small combat.
Solution 1: Allow the snowman to either hit everyone in the room, or be ordered to attack a single target, with the standard ORDER SNOWMAN KILL
Solution 2: In addition to solution 1, speed up the snowman drastically. I suggest double speed.
Solution 3: In addition with solutions 1 and 2, have the snowman give blackout if you are frozen and it hits with a freezing attack. If you are prone and it hits with a proning attack, have it break a leg.
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SHAMANISM - MICRO*
Problem: Micro level weather changes are extremely limited in degree of change (usually 4 factors at most in either direction, or more in one direction only) and in range, being one room only. The different ranges of weather required to activate skills means that micro weather changes are almost never enough to enable or disable effects in a room. Even if they were not restricted, all weather passives and Shamanism weather-based actives are quite weak. All of this taken together makes all three of these skills essentially cool RP skills. The problem comes in the hefty power pricetag on these abilities.
Solution 1: Make all micro level changes free. They can't impact fights in any meaningful way, because of their extreme limitations and because of the low strength of weather in general.
Solution 2: Combine all Micro level changes into a single skill, where MicroTemp is, and replace them with other effects.
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SHAMANISM - BLOOM (PRESENT)
Problem: The Bloom active ability gives either dizzyness and confusion (when tranced into the future or past slots) or vapours, dizziness, and confusion (when in the present slot) for 1p on a ~3 second eq balance. Confusion is a fairly strong ability as is vapours, but only under very particular conditions - Namely, when you can give them on a passive or masked/shrouded basis. Because both of the afflictions normally given are focus cures, with dizzyness also being cured on salve or herb balance, there is close to no chance of these afflictions being preserved long enough to be capitalized on. The vapours also serves little purpose, as it cannot be used to mask the other bloom afflictions, for they are always the same. Even using bloom to hide the effects of the druid's demesne isn't likely to work, as the vapours blackout will wear off in plenty of time for the afflictions to be discovered and cured before the druid recovers equilibrium.
Solution 1: When in the present slot, have the vapours come before the aff message, so that they do know know bloom is what they have been hit with. In effect, remove the victim message for present-tranced bloom.
Solution 2: In addition to Sol.1, have bloom give two of: Addiction, Confusion, Dementia, Stupidity.
Solution 3: When in the present slot, have bloom have a chance to give a third aff, and expand the list by adding anorexia and epilepsy.
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SHAMANISM - LIGHTNING
Problem: It just doesn't make sense that lightning is restricted to hot climates only. Yes, there are lightning strikes in medium and low temperature storms. Lightning isn't a powerful enough effect to overly restrict, allowing it at any temperature will let it see more use, and will open up hot climates to at least one new ability to offset its undesirability.
Solution 1: Allow Lightning at any climate.
Solution 2: Allow Lightning in hot stormy weather and cold stormy weather only.
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SHAMANISM - SKY