[Lonestar]

Around six months ago, I made a thread about Shaitan's Painful Grip, mostly on how abusive and oppressive the trait is combined to something with heavy. (You can see the thread here: https://www.neus-projects.net/viewtopic....amp;t=7084)

Since the thread wasn't looked at and Painful Grip remains the same, I was told to make another thread with the same topic, so here it is. Painful Grip currently is a 'win button', no matter how much you see at it. It's a damage added to the Grapple skill, that ignores all sorts of DR excluding maybe Evasion, while inflicting Immobilize, a heavy CC that is original from Grapple alone.

Shaitans is already an incredibly powerful race, with great base stats, immunity to three debuffs, bonus damage and whatsoever, with very little drawbacks. Grapple is a 85% chance of you grappling the target, inflicting immobilize. 60% with Escape Artist trait, still above a 'coin flip'.

Right now, any Shaitan with STR can dish ridiculous damage without having to worry about the opponent's defenses, which is simply not okay. The changes?

Make Painful Grip ignore Armor instead of Physical Defense.
I feel like the Trait could maybe also have some sort of drawback on top of it, increasing the cooldown by one or two turns. This change is not necessary as the above one is.

[Snake]

I'm against this being changed on PvE situations, because more than often this have saved my ass a lot from sure losses when I'm out of FP there.

Against players it could do halved damage, and that's all the changes it need. The game has flags for this.

[Lolzytripd]

yeah, ffs not just this but please -everyone- stop creating nerf threads for things because its winning the big pvp circle jerk and think about how your nerf will make it unusable in pve.

[Lonestar]

Changing it to ignoring armor won't gimp the skill at all. You're still going to do a shit load of damage because it ignores armors, something that alot of monsters in PvE seem to possess quite a high amount of it. (Looking at you Snakeman Knight/Jammers)

So I don't really see the issue here.

[Snake]

You're missing the point.

The reason Painful Grip should stay strong in PvE is easily because Grapple way more deadly for the user on situations of 1v40. You'll be stuck in place surrounded by 4 mobs curbstomping you (not counting the caster mobs from afar) while you can't do jack shit to move away. The damage as it is now is the only worth using it.

The protection ignoring clause is mostly used against 70% DR mobs. My only way to reliably damage them, as not every build is composed of Vorpal X anymore.

So yes.

50% less damage on Players will make this way more fair and balanced than it is (especially that -50% + -30% from Evasion will turn the damage down to -80% of what it should be), where the problem really lies. I don't give a hell to how much it affects PvP, but it CERTAINLY has a PvE role for me I don't want taken out because of salt.

[Lonestar]

In the same way things that were strong in PvE have been nerfed thanks to PvP, Painful Grip should not be an exception. The PvE game isn't as busted as people make seem, there's clear annoyances absolutely, but everything has strengths and weaknesses. Mobs that are heavy on Physical DR are no exception of this rule, as they often possess very low RES, and magic damage is easily accessible nowadays.

So no, I don't believe it should stay this way because 'it's good for PvE'. It's a win button, both PvE and PvP. And if you're suffering with mobs that possess that, use magic damage. If you have the tools, but don't use it, the problem lies on you.

This isn't the first thread I've done on this skill, but rather the second, and you were one of the people that supported the change that's been presented still months ago.

My mind is unchanged. Painful Grip should be changed to ignoring armor instead. And it won't turn useless because Grapple and immobilize is still a powerful skill and crowd control, on top of ignoring 30-50 armor that certain mobs seem to possess nowadays.

[Snake]

Well, I still do support. I don't want anyone to believe otherwise. In PvP this is certainly busted. Ignoring someone's armor, class damage reductions and stat investments while doing more than one 'hp bar' and 'half' (140 Pierce Damage, often), AND immobilizing on top of it? Crude and unbalanced. Surprised it managed to last this long without more people whining about it.

And worse. Last nerf thread didn't nerf it at all, compared to a non-Painful Grip grapple user. The addition of a cooldown made it only slightly less spammable for Shaitans, and Grapple to become a worthless gamble for normal people with Restrain talent.

It also made playing Grapple Nagas very boring and imbalanced (on the poor way of it, the cooldown affecting them the worst).

But, that above is PvP talk. Warranted, honestly.

Though, I like how it works in PvE, is all. Kinda cool to have a reliable source of 'middle finger' at enemies who can out-tank you. Though I'm slowly growing mellow over the change affecting it. Kinda sucks having good things for one thing going away because it's busted in another.

I certainly don't like it, and feel Grandpa now when his gimmick was erased from existence.

RIP Dark Bard.