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Current one, unchanged.

+4 AS and +5 DMG when moving 4 spaces or more.

+2 AS and +3 DMG on Player Phase, with additional +2 AS and +2 DMG when moving 4 spaces or more.

+1 AS and +1.5 DMG for each space moved up to 4 spaces.

Current one but AS bonus is converted to DR from the end of the Player Phase until the next one.

I don't know but I want to see the results.

[Lenglon]

Does anybody actually use the ailment staves?

[SeriousConcentrate]

Mainly just enemy forces. Player-side staff users are usually (not always, but usually) spec'd into healing staffs because they're more useful to the party. I think Gordon in GoR is an Ailment Staff specialist and, well, you see for yourself how many he actually uses.

[Lenglon]

So we're talking about nerfing something for being overpowered... that nobody uses because it's underpowered?

[SeriousConcentrate]

Well, it's not underpowered as such. They could be useful; the problem is that healing other party members is nine times out of ten more useful than inflicting a status effect.

[Lenglon]

So there needs to be a staff-user class that is BANNED from using healstaves invented at some point? Else we'll never see ailment staves used?

[Swordstar]

No. That's completely negating the point of them. And also the point of this. The point of this is that it's extremely powerful especially on enemies since enemies tend to do things that debilitate PCs more than they care about healing their own units. Very selfish in that way.

[SOLDIER First]

Well, that’s because enemies don’t care about self preservation, nine times out of ten. They care about murderizing PCs as fast as possible, with healing as an afterthought if they can get away with it. PCs focus on keeping themselves and each other alive, and killing enemies to support these two goals. Faceless Soldier Dude #4 isn’t going to be much of a loss for the red team vs Saracen Clent, the Soldier With A Compelling Backstory, for the blue team.

But unless you want to make an entire map essentially a fight between PCs and a ton of GMPCs that are enemies this is basically how any given combat in a FEF is gonna go. Hence the omnipresence of heal staves for PCs and ailments for enemies.

[Swordstar]

Sure. I never said it was a bad thing. I said it was a thing. I know why but the why isn't super important to the argument of this is pretty powerful in the hands of enemies especially as more GMs include class skills on most if not all enemies.

[Lenglon]

Well, then as an npc-only skill we need to assess it differently. Does it create interesting/compelling interactions and counterplay? It shouldn't be assessed for balance so much as for gameplay value. Because giving bosses or critical Npc enemies OP tools is par for the course.

[Powder Miner]

It's not really NPC-only, it's just mostly NPC and that makes a world of difference in how it is to be considered. It's simply not been a thing for players because we've been mainly concerned with other things and ailment staves are a rarely explored niche, rather than ACTUALLY being intended solely for NPC use, and going "oh well noone uses this so why even consider the effect it could have in player hands" is somewhat like finding a disused square peg and trying to jam it into a round hole. Now, I'm not sure if it needs to be nerfed or not, but I don't find this a particularly lucrative train of argument, Lenglon.

[Lenglon]

So is it a PC skill that is never used and therefore underpowered, or a NPC skill that isn't being evaluated on balance, and instead being evaluated on gameplay value? You can't have it both ways. Especially when each evaluation done separately gives similar results.

[Blade Master Model 42]

It is a PC skill that is essentially never used and is probably overpowered regardless of pick rates, since there isn't a direct correlation between what's good and what gets built around.

The issue with the previous iteration was that the ailment saint could get almost as good value from their action on an initial whiff (provided their target had someone adjacent to them) as if they had hit. Despite the fact that it hasn't really been played since, because there are only so many people willing to run these games and they only go so fast, it was noted that the skill is probably overbalanced, so we're addressing it here.

[Solymr]

Penalty increased ;v

Next up is a tweak on the Sentinel's Shield Wall.

[SeriousConcentrate]

For reference, current Shield Wall is +5 DEF (not DR, does nothing against magic) and only +1 AS for every adjacent ally.

[Blade Master Model 42]

So the current shield wall does very little to benefit the sentinel themselves and does a significant amount for allies, essentially as good as maxed out armored against physical attacks.

Not only does this change resist magic, making things a little less lopsided, it reduces the ceiling for maximum def stacking, which is currently ridiculously high.