Bully: it's really bad.

[Reaux]

So let us take a tally yes?

We have 2 Stealing abilities with long recast times, with nothing exciting or interesting steal that we cannot get using TH or people /THF can get with little effort.

Steal augmented by merits has a chance, yes chance even at full merits, to steal buff from an enemy. It requires Steal to be unsuccessful , there are many buffs we cannot steal, it does not work on many of the more interesting mobs, it shares a timer with Despoil

Despoil, has a seperate pool of items, and has a chance to debuff an enemy. It chooses the debuff for us based on the mob and item stolen, does not always succeed, requires a 5 minute wait to try again, shares a timer with Steal.

The 2 Steal abilities, SE has said, will not be upgraded with better pools because they do not want THF to have control over a part of the in-game economy. They believe it is unfair for us to make a large profit for an ability, though they continue to upgrade TH and no one is banned from also leveling the job.

Aura Steal will not be changed because they believe the ability would be over powered on a separate timer. However many jobs have the ability to dispel buffs on an enemy with a shorter timer that is independent of a another JA or spell, many of the stealable buffs, outside of duration, can be cast on us by party members, SE has complete control over what we can and cannot dispel already so continuing to do so would not really be an issue to make it not OP. They are also giving the same ability to DRK as a spell, meaning it cannot possibly be OP if another job gets the same ability, unmerited and untied to another ability or spell.

Outside of this we "get" Bully....while the concept is interesting, AoE party intimidate, the duration and proc rate is too low to be useful. It also has a high recast time at the original and new timers for something with such a time to work its magic. The idea that the timer cannot be lowered without lowering the potency is also just silly. We now have a shorter timer for less of a chance of it working?

We have been asking for a long time for better and more interesting abilities outside of TH: simple things like shorter Steal/Despoil timers, separate timers on those JA's, a more interesting/profitable steal pool so we have a reason to use the JA that helps define our class which is to get items and make profit, many of us have said we are fine with lowered TH in an exchange for more DD capability or some other skill to augment our role. It seems you refuse to listen to the rather simple and very loud requests, These have not been happening just recently on these forums, but for years on many other gaming sites. Why are you not listening?

[Xanthe]

Has anyone here actually bothered to test Bully in a large group setting? Beyohne's explanation is very clear that solo we won't see much of an intimidation rate, but with larger groups it will increase. If you were 1 on 1 with someone bullying you, you probably wouldn't be too intimidated, but imagine if it was them and 7 of their friends. The duration *might* need some tweaking, but until the group size potency increase has been tested it's too soon to be dismissing this ability. Something else to keep in mind is that Bully would stack with other intimidation traits and Paralyze, and it would be effective against enemies that are immune to Paralyze to begin with.

[Reaux]

Has anyone here actually bothered to test Bully in a large group setting? Beyohne's explanation is very clear that solo we won't see much of an intimidation rate, but with larger groups it will increase. If you were 1 on 1 with someone bullying you, you probably wouldn't be too intimidated, but imagine if it was them and 7 of their friends. The duration *might* need some tweaking, but until the group size potency increase has been tested it's too soon to be dismissing this ability. Something else to keep in mind is that Bully would stack with other intimidation traits and Paralyze, and it would be effective against enemies that are immune to Paralyze to begin with.

Did you notice that the potency decrease was lowered with more party members? That was the trade off...less intimidate for the ability to add more TH, which nobody asked for, and lowered recast. The last part was the only thing people really wanted.

[Xanthe]

Did you notice that the potency decrease was lowered with more party members? That was the trade off...less intimidate for the ability to add more TH, which nobody asked for, and lowered recast. The last part was the only thing people really wanted.

I think you mean to say that the overall potency was decreased in order to balance a lower recast. The potency still increases in proportion to the number of people with incurred enmity both inside and outside the party/alliance, though likely at a reduced rate as well. Karbuncle already outlined this with his "fake numbers" here.

[FrankReynolds]

I think you mean to say that the overall potency was decreased in order to balance a lower recast. The potency still increases in proportion to the number of people with incurred enmity both inside and outside the party/alliance, though likely at a reduced rate as well. Karbuncle already outlined this with his "fake numbers" here.

Somehow I see this not being used. Any time where the group is big enough for this to be useful (if it even gets good in big groups.) is going to against a monster that you don't want the thief spamming a ghetto provoke on in between sneak attacks and trick attacks.

[Nebo]

Has anyone here actually bothered to test Bully in a large group setting? Beyohne's explanation is very clear that solo we won't see much of an intimidation rate, but with larger groups it will increase. If you were 1 on 1 with someone bullying you, you probably wouldn't be too intimidated, but imagine if it was them and 7 of their friends. The duration *might* need some tweaking, but until the group size potency increase has been tested it's too soon to be dismissing this ability. Something else to keep in mind is that Bully would stack with other intimidation traits and Paralyze, and it would be effective against enemies that are immune to Paralyze to begin with.

Even in best cast scenario before, if it was as effective as a potent RDM paralyze with 18+ people (which it isn't, especially on HNM style monsters where the intimidation rate was even lower), 30 sceonds duration with a long recast is too short a window of opportunity to be made useful.

[Lokithor]

I'm not on the test server to try anything out but I get the feeling that people are misinterpreting what SE is saying when they say the rate of intimidation increases with the number of party members. Especially when coupled with Camate's confusing post "However, the probability of the opponent being intimidated is lowered in correlation to the number of players involved in the battle".

I believe the intimidation effect did not change with the number of party members. It is simply that each party member has an equal chance to intimidate the mob. Therefore, the net effect is a higher overall rate of intimidation with higher numbers of party members. If a single player has x% chance to intimidate, then each party member also has an x% chance to intimidate. This is why the effect seems so lame when tested by single thfs. It was probably linear - each additional member had exactly the same chance to intimidate. Adding 1 member added an additional x% net intimidation rate.

Now with the lowered recast, the effect for additional party members is no longer linear. Where before, each player had a x% chance of intimidation, it is probably now x% only for single member party, and lowered % of intimidation for each additional member. For example, with 2 members, it might be 0.8*x (for each person). For 3 members, it might be 0.8*0.8*x% and so on.

[Nebo]

I'm not on the test server to try anything out but I get the feeling that people are misinterpreting what SE is saying when they say the rate of intimidation increases with the number of party members.

I don't think anyone is misinterpreting that.

IE: The the base rate effect was only stonger in a group becuase there were more people there to have a chance at intimidating.

They have, in fact, now lowered that chance to intimidate (which was already pretty low for NMs...the only place you'd really need/want somrthing like this) in correlation to the number of people present in order to justify (to themselves) lowering the recast to 3 minutes (which is still too long for a 30 second ability).

So the effect itself, still has an opportunity wondow that is much to short, and is now weaker than it was before we were complaining about it.

See the problem?

[Lokithor]

I don't think anyone is misinterpreting that.

Thank you for your insightful contribution to my post.

[Nebo]

Thank you for your insightful contribution to my post.

You are most welcome . Thank you for your insightful contribution to this thread!