Lotus fan ? what a waste !

alakmir

plz give mana nb something useful in place of Lotus fan . ....

Ysne58

Agony is even more useless.

GreySix

Yeah, never saw much use for either of those.

Nysticc

Totally agree...

Ysne58

There have been suggestions in other threads on how to improve Lotus Fan.

Every discussion I've seen on Agony has requested that it be replaced with something else.

tinythinker

I recall Lotus Fan having some basic utility for groups of trash mobs last fall, but haven't logged in to my Nightblade to do anything but some odd crafting since then. Not sure what it's like after 1.6. I get the idea behind Agony, to take one opponent out of action while you fight another. I thought I remembered seeing a PvP build with it somewhere a *long* time ago, but generally it doesn't get much love, at least not vocally/publicly.

lolo_01b16_ESO

I like lotus fan as it is the only nb skill that helps me keep my enemies next to me. Sure, talons and cinderstorm are stronger but it's better than having no aoe cc.

kgold0

I miss the days of the Everquest Enchanter. Back then you had crap like main assists and the mobs hit like trucks, and you would kill one mob at a time. Then agony would be awesome.

Kalfis

Lotus fan will be useful once the mana cost isn't stupidly high for what it is.

Half it.

Lava_Croft

Don't morph Teleport Strike and you have a skill better suited for dueling. For group play however, Lotus Fan is a great utility skill. Gap closer than applies AoE snare? Pretty handy!

tinythinker

There has been a lot of discussion about Lotus Fan in different threads lately. Some players think it is useless, some think it has limited utility, and some think the cost is too high for the limited utility. I was thinking about it recently and had an idea to modify it by adding something to it. I don't automatically assume my ideas are good or feasible or popular, so feedback, criticism, and corrections are welcome.

What if Lotus Fan ignored 30-35% of a damage shield on the primary target? Even though the initial hit isn't high damage, with the snare and DoT this could introduce a new utility angle. Or the new ability could replace the snare. This kind of change doesn't make shield stacking useless against NBs, but it does address two other issues that get lots of complaints and questions on the forums ("Why is Lotus Fan so weak?", "How do we counter shield stacking?").

Details and discussion...

There are three kinds of shielding, so it makes sense to look at how this could work:

1. Blocking with a wooden shield. Having an actual hand-held shield boosts blocking, which amounts to a percentage of mitigation of incoming damage. In this ignoring 35% of mitigation is easy to figure out. If an opponent is blocking 50% of incoming damage, the Lotus Fan effect is either multiplicative (effectiveness reduced to 32.5% mitigation) or subtractive (effectiveness reduced to 15% effectiveness). The former would be better if this is the kind of "shield" we are talking about.

2. Blocking with a magic effect. This is similar to the last type but doesn't require a shield. Like Magma Armor. Same kind of calculation.

3. Armor boosting shields. Similar calculation to the previous examples but applied to the increase in physical/spell resistance.

4. Damage absorbing shields. This includes effects from Brawler, Shielded Assault, Sun Shield and morphs, Obsidian Shield and morphs, etc. This effects of 35% less effectiveness for these types of shields would work differently. One way it could work would be to dissipate 35% of the absorbing shield then apply the damage from the Lotus Fan (which would be absorbed by the remaining shield). Another would be to ask how much damage the ability would do if 35% of the shield was taken away, apply that damage, and leave the shield intact. The latter would be practically useless except for situations where the shield was already severely weakened.

As for the first version of negating absorbing shields, the 35% dissipation could either happen only on the initial "hit" or could happen on each proc of the DoT. If it happens on each proc, the 35% would be based on whatever was left of the shield. Of course, the caster could stack different shields or recast the same one, probably with little effort because reduced cost or high regen. But having an ability that can also be re-applied to eat through such absorbing shields would change the strategy and flow of combat.

My vote for something to try out would be for affecting damage absorbing shields, the version that continually eats away at the shield. Whether 35% per proc is a balanced number (not too high or low) is an open question. Maybe 35% is OK if it applies only the first hit but some lower number is more appropriate if it procs on the DoT as well. Maybe it depends on whether the snare is kept. But whatever the formulation, it would add something interesting to PvP.

xaraan

I don't hate lotus fan, it has uses in certain builds. But on one NB I just ended up not morphing it from Teleport strike.

Vaerth

alakmir wrote: »

plz give mana nb something useful in place of Lotus fan . ....

I made a thread on this 5 days ago, because Lotus Fan is such trash. I have had to remove it from my bar entirely now since I am a Magicka build.

Vaerth

Ysne58 wrote: »

There have been suggestions in other threads on how to improve Lotus Fan.

Every discussion I've seen on Agony has requested that it be replaced with something else.

+1 to replacing it

Sphinx2318

Not to hijack this thread but.....since the launch of 1.6 where DK's were gutted badly, there are many many useless skills for them now. So my point i guess is...if nb's get a skill change then so should Dragon Knights.

Endurance

alakmir wrote: »

plz give mana nb something useful in place of Lotus fan . ....

Steel Tornado

tinythinker

Sphinx2318 wrote: »

Not to hijack this thread but.....since the launch of 1.6 where DK's were gutted badly, there are many many useless skills for them now. So my point i guess is...if nb's get a skill change then so should Dragon Knights.

So, why post this in a thread about a specific NB ability? I'm all for evaluating DKs and players making suggestions for changes, but that would get more attention in a (new) thread on revamping DKs or on specific DK abilities that (some) players think less useful now.

kgold0

It would be nice if they added like a 20-40% miss chance for 4 seconds to all enemies hit. But I know they took out the miss chance mechanic.

Moonshadow66

After I switched from Lotus Fan to Ambush, I was finally satisfied.
I play all classes, but Ambush is the only skill (of which I've tested) I can kill an enemy in 1 hit, when in sneak, of course.

Sphinx2318

tinythinker wrote: »

Sphinx2318 wrote: »

Not to hijack this thread but.....since the launch of 1.6 where DK's were gutted badly, there are many many useless skills for them now. So my point i guess is...if nb's get a skill change then so should Dragon Knights.

So, why post this in a thread about a specific NB ability? I'm all for evaluating DKs and players making suggestions for changes, but that would get more attention in a (new) thread on revamping DKs or on specific DK abilities that (some) players think less useful now.

yea i should have been more clear on my point. soooo......

my point: devs dont do anything about all of the DK QQ's so dont expect anything to come down the pipeline such as a change to any specific NB abilities.

that is all