Suggestion Plaguebomb

[PewPewPewLasers]

I can honestly say that the fact plaguebomb can damage you when you are not in a party is dumb. Besides Harmtouch(?) there is no other skill that can deal serious damage to you. Beguiler has 3 damage skills. We have fireball, pulse, and plaguebomb. Fireball can be used to hit people from a distance, but plaguebomb, and pulse cannot. So, what happens when you get up close to someone? If you aren't in a party, you are being smacked around by some ninja, then you shoot a plaguebomb at him, and instantly you lose 3 hearts. Now, another tactic for avoiding the plaguebomb damage is waiting for the sheep to fall. But, there are a few problems with that:

A) When the server is having any sort of lag, the sheep constantly rubberbands back into the air.
B) Any class with any sort of speed boost can easily avoid it. Unless, you put them on a pig. But of course, if they are on the pig, some classes can just use escapeartist/whateverthesamuraiversioniscalled and get right off.

Now, some people make the argument
"Plaguebomb is just harmtouch or bolt, on a 10 second cooldown, and it has no warmup!"
While yes, this is true, lets not forget that as mentioned above, we have 3 damage skills.

In conclusion, consider making plaguebomb not damage the caster.

Some screenshots:

 

[leftovers5]

I believe if you are partied (even in a party of just yourself), plaguebomb does not do damage.

 

[Da_Burg]

I believe if you are partied (even in a party of just yourself), plaguebomb does not do damage.

Yes, but is it fair for a beguiler have to be in its own party all the time just so they can do damage? Other classes don't have to party to do damage.

 

[leftovers5]

Yes, but is it fair for a beguiler have to be in its own party all the time just so they can do damage? Other classes don't have to party to do damage.

I'm aware. I bug reported this earlier, for better or worse. It's not clear what the intention is.

 

[Dsawemd]

I agree with the spirit of this bug, since the party "exploit" (for lack of a bettter word) is used to avoid this entirely.

I believe the intent is to stop Beguilers from activating PB instantly with melee strikes. People do that anyways of course, and they will continue to do so until PlagueBomb damages the caster.

It is meant to be a strong, aoe, skilled shot. The problem with allowing Plaguebomb to not damage the user is that you will see Beguilers exploding sheeps instantly after casting them, effectively reducing the timer of the explosion to zero (making the skill MUCH better) without taking any penalty for it. Otherwise the tradeoff for activating the sheep early is hitting it with Fireball or Pulse, taking skill and mana.

Plaguebombs should be activated in several ways:
Fastest: PB -> Fireball (pretty much instant since we are talking about close range, very fast even at the extremes of PB's range)
Next Fastest: Activating from sheep taking fall damage (explodes upon sheep hitting the ground 1-2 secs after skill use)
Slowest: Sheep's Timer goes off (...4...5...6 boom!)

Currently, melee activation is up at the top next to fireball, near instant activation. I would like to see sheep damage the beguiler when it is activated by the beguiler's own melee (edit: and never damage them otherwise), but I think the current mechanics are the best compromise we can find to-date.

edit: Coding Wizards: If we replaced the DiseasedSheep with a DiseasedWolf, would the dual nature of the tame mechanic for dogs/wolves allow for easier recognition of when PlagueBomb should or should not hurt the caster?

Lore-wise, no one would explode Anything, much less a diseased sheep, in their face.