Had a big, long discussion on IRC the other night. Trying to figure out a counter to a Rook+UB combo where Rook is carrying Renewal and Warp. Only difinitive conclusions is that you would need Oak to interrupt several times, after which nobody could really think of an effective strategy to actually down one of them.

However, we (I, at least) kept coming back to warp, and that boulder and drainstun allowed Rook to walk up and hammer.

What's Staff Of Renewal ? I don't see it in any shop or the favor item list.

Oh completely missed that tab, thx : )

Yup, I can see how it leaves a player no option except to die.

Stunlocking has been discussed since Beta 1. I even released a mod to try and combat it. So far, nothing has changed.

Stunlcoking should not exist, ever. After a stun wears off the victim should be immune to stuns for a few seconds.

I completely agree, and I already covered this in my crowd control thread (which was basically ignored).

I'll summarize:

- All stuns limited to ~2 seconds.  Point is that stuns should be used to interrupt enemies, not incapacitate them for long periods.

- Once you're stunned you can't be stunned again for at least 5 seconds.  I know some people will say that this is too extreme, that stuns should just not be able to overwrite one another.  Yes, that would force people to coordinate their stuns more, but stun locking would still be a problem (though less so if they are limited to 2 seconds).  I say: stun locking should be impossible no matter how skilled you are.

- Snares don't stack beyond 33%.  Passive snares capped at 25%, snares on active abilities can be more than 25%, but don't stack.

- Remove the PBAoE stuns and replace them with PBAoE roots.  This will also be considered too much by some people, and is by no means a deal breaker if it's not implemented, but in my opinion stuns are too powerful to require no aim and have no tradeoff.  Boulder roll can miss and UB's grasp attack incapacitates him too.

The bottom line: Massive amounts of stun and snare currently in the game will ruin it if not dealt with.

I don`t like the idea of limiting *all* stuns to 2 seconds or less - that would make various abilities too much the same, robbing different Demigods of some of their uniqueness. For example, TorchBearer`s ice abilities seem well-suited to considerable immobility.

Giving a Demigod a 5 second immunity to further stunning after just having been stunned might be a step in the right direction, though in lieu of suffering another stun effect I would apply a drain of energy for the attacker`s effort. The attacker using the Stun ability ought to still benefit in some way from his own energy/ability expenditure... simply completely ignoring the effort would be heavy-handed.

Hmm. I can`t imagine this is not high on the Stardock/GPG balance agenda. A sticky & tough little issue for sure.

This is definitely a problem with Demigod's gameplay.  Frankly, I'm surprised more of these threads haven't been popping up around the forums. 

It will be interesting to see how the rebound items will change the stunning mechanic, but I still fear that the team with the most co-ordinated stuns will win the match.

I disagree that this change would make various abilities too much the same.  The point of stuns, as I said, ought to be to temporarily interrupt or disorient the opponent, not to incapacitate them.  The 2 second limitation is therefore ideal for all stuns.  However, the use of secondary effects and manner of landing the interrupt is what ought to differentiate stunning abilities. 

You used Torch Bearer's ice ability as an example, stating that they seem well suited to considerable immobility.  I agree, however I disagree that TB should be able to completely incapacitate enemies for an extended period of time (more than 2 seconds).  If Frost Nova were a root instead of a stun, then immobilization would be achieved without taking an enemy out of the fight entirely.  That, in my opinion, would be ideal.  On the other hand, if Frost Nova were kept as a stun, but a much shorter one, it could have secondary effects - increased cast time, slower attack speed, lower armor, whatever. 

The point is, a stun takes an enemy entirely out of a fight and as such it is too powerful to last a long time.  A stun is good in every situation against every enemy.  If you limit stuns and instead put more varied secondary effects on abilities, combat will be much more interesting, and nobody will be removed from battle for longer than 2 seconds at a time, which is how it ought to be.

I disagree.  A 5 second immunity would force players to pay more attention.  Yes, they will waste their energy and cooldown if they haphazardly throw stunning skills at the opponent without considering the immunity.  That, I think, is a good thing.  Also, if these abilities are given significant and interesting secondary effects, as I described above, their efforts will not be wasted entirely regardless of the timer.

In this we are in total agreement.  Putting in items to address a general balance issue is a lazy fix, and is not acceptable.

Played a couple matches against Wagnard/Flurus this morning as Oak.  First match was Oak + Queen in which we gave up a few kills but only because of mistakes on our part, not because of stun locking or teleport ganking.  I think if we would have specced slightly different (more pushing power) we could have at least tied them in the push and then it would have just been a race to giants.

In the second game I was Oak again with TB and UB on my team.  Again, we gave up several kills but I don't think they got a single stun chain off on us. All the deaths were due to slows and simply out damaging us (and a few where I missed a shield or an interupt).

Both games we threw down a lot of observer wards which let us know when we were about to get teleport ganked which bought me time to warp (genral favor item) out of the way and then turn around and penitence the hammer slam or shield the recipient.  This usually resulted in us getting away though we did nab a couple rook kills along the way.

I think the biggest issue is that the Oak player has to be 100% on top of his game where as the Rook/UB doesn't so much.  The Rook just has to do the same pattern without much thought and while it does take some practice, countering with Oak requires about 300ms response time, counting enemy cooldowns, monitoring mana reserves, very careful positioning, etc.  I won't claim to be the best Oak out there but the whole game I had either warp or penitence already hotkeyed just waiting to click a target and even then I still missed a few.

That all being said, with practice I think Rook/UB is beatable with Oak/Queen on Cataract (can push faster than they can if you spend gold on health regen/armor/mana/speed instead of warp stone).  On Prison I'm tempted to say go with Erebus and spend all your money on Capture locks.  If you can keep the gold flag and one other cap locked (and not die, hence taking Erebus) you'll end up hitting rank 8 sooner and with both teams at 0 kills you'll come out ahead on gold which means you can afford catapults sooner/easier.  Of course, again you are going to have to play a perfect game and not give up a single kill since in a low kill game 1000g can make a big difference.

Yes, stun locking is not only game breaking, but it is very easy to do.  However, I still assert that no matter how difficult it is to accomplish, a player should never be entirely removed from combat (re: they might as well sit back and watch) for more than 2 seconds at a time.  Anything longer than that is simply frustrating and too powerful even if it takes a genius to pull it off.  There are far more interesting and elegant mechanics and abilities that can be incorporated into the game that skilled players can take advantage of.

This is what my mod did. Bascically, when you were stunned you got stun immunity equal to double the length of the stun. Both affects were applied at the same time. So, if you got stunned for 2 seconds you would have a 4 second stun immunity applied at the same time (so you were immune for 2 seconds after the stun wore off).

This method:

1) Prevented stuns from stacking (because the immunity is applied at the same time as the stun).

2) Prevented stun locking.

3) Added a bit of depth to the game because you really had to time your stuns and use them when they would be most effective.