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balance utility spell suggestion.

1
AuthorMessage
Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
so i was discussing weakness spams in empyrea with some people over on that board, and someone suggested that balance would benefit from a utility spell that would allow us to remove weakness (since we are the only school unable to counter weakness by wanding it off and cleanse charm is thoroughly ineffective against bosses who spam it).

so here is my proposed suggestion: it's still in the early stages, so feel free to make changes etc.

embolden
  • remove all debuffs from target (2 pips)
  • remove all debuffs from team (4 pips)

i've aligned the pip cost with other spells that serve a similar purpose (enfeeble removes all blades from a target for 2 pips, and glowbug squall removes blades from the entire team for 5 pips; since my suggestion does not also do damage, however, i've reduced the pip cost to 4).

unbalance would counter it, and it would not work on cloaked debuffs (for pvp use), or kingsisle could just make it no pvp. i haven't pvp'ed in years, so maybe someone who actually uses the arena can offer suggestions as to how something like this would possibly work there.

-von

A+ Student
Dec 24, 2009
1895
Speaking as a Balance who specializes in support, this is an AMAZING idea!

It probably would cause some mayhem in PVP, but then again, it could finally offer a good strategy against the Juju spamming.

Alia Misthaven

Explorer
Sep 20, 2017
93
I'd probably alter the pips a little but it's not a bad idea.


Defender
Jul 09, 2012
151
There is a thing called a cleanse charm. You get them in the bazaar whenever :)

Also, every school will find it not rough to get a tower shield off, or certain weakness. If balance was to get something like this, we would also have to add a new spell for all schools as well to match.

I also love how when another school has an idea for something, some of the people commenting saying "That's a great idea!" are going on others trying to disagree with ideas.

So i'm going to play a little hard ball.

I disagree. No thanks

(Yes I have a balance)

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
Pouffy23 on Nov 19, 2017 wrote:
There is a thing called a cleanse charm. You get them in the bazaar whenever :)

Also, every school will find it not rough to get a tower shield off, or certain weakness. If balance was to get something like this, we would also have to add a new spell for all schools as well to match.

I also love how when another school has an idea for something, some of the people commenting saying "That's a great idea!" are going on others trying to disagree with ideas.

So i'm going to play a little hard ball.

I disagree. No thanks

(Yes I have a balance)
i already carry cleanse charm; my magma peas drop so many of them that i've never run out, even after playing this game for almost 7 years, and i probably never will. :)

however, when weaknesses are stacked 5 and 6 high, like in empyrea, the other schools can already do this with ease: they can get rid of all weaknesses, plus any shields, in one go, with only a single wand hit; they get to keep their school blades, and their setup stays intact. death can also use one of their self-hurting spells.

under the same circumstances, balance has no choice but to hit through the weaknesses and shields because:

-wanding them off will trigger all of our blades/traps, rendering any setup useless;
-for every one weakness cleanse removes, another two take its place, hence why it's ineffective;
-no balance wizard worth his or her salt is going to waste 10+ rounds trying to keep up with the spamming.

also

-we have far fewer buffs than the other schools;
-heavy reliance on off-school tc;
-nothing that benefits us exclusively.

if you're going to be argumentative for its own sake, at least read the post you're responding to. :)



-von

A+ Student
Dec 24, 2009
1895
Pouffy23 on Nov 19, 2017 wrote:
There is a thing called a cleanse charm. You get them in the bazaar whenever :)

Also, every school will find it not rough to get a tower shield off, or certain weakness. If balance was to get something like this, we would also have to add a new spell for all schools as well to match.

I also love how when another school has an idea for something, some of the people commenting saying "That's a great idea!" are going on others trying to disagree with ideas.

So i'm going to play a little hard ball.

I disagree. No thanks

(Yes I have a balance)
Did you miss the part in the first post where Von suggested ways to make this work in PVP, or even perhaps that it could be restricted from PVP altogether?

You accused me of poor reading comprehension in a recent thread, yet here you are with the same handicap. Here's what she said:

"Unbalance would counter it, and it would not work on cloaked debuffs (for pvp use), or kingsisle could just make it no pvp."

Now.

Let's talk PVE and please give us your logical, "hardball" reasons why it's a bad idea to give Balance - designed primarily as a support school - tools to remove multiple debuffs at once from our teammates.

Alia Misthaven

A+ Student
Dec 24, 2009
1895
Dr Von on Nov 20, 2017 wrote:
i already carry cleanse charm; my magma peas drop so many of them that i've never run out, even after playing this game for almost 7 years, and i probably never will. :)

however, when weaknesses are stacked 5 and 6 high, like in empyrea, the other schools can already do this with ease: they can get rid of all weaknesses, plus any shields, in one go, with only a single wand hit; they get to keep their school blades, and their setup stays intact. death can also use one of their self-hurting spells.

under the same circumstances, balance has no choice but to hit through the weaknesses and shields because:

-wanding them off will trigger all of our blades/traps, rendering any setup useless;
-for every one weakness cleanse removes, another two take its place, hence why it's ineffective;
-no balance wizard worth his or her salt is going to waste 10+ rounds trying to keep up with the spamming.

also

-we have far fewer buffs than the other schools;
-heavy reliance on off-school tc;
-nothing that benefits us exclusively.

if you're going to be argumentative for its own sake, at least read the post you're responding to. :)



-von
"Death can also use one of their self-hurting spells."

Actually ... no.

Death suffers from the same issues that Balance does, which is a heavy reliance on blades and universal traps. If a Death has many blades stacked and tries to use a 'self-injuring' spell to remove multiple weaknesses, they risk harming themselves severely. The only exception would be using a Sacrifice to heal themselves, but even so, they'd still be wasting their blades.

No, once the weaknesses start to stack up, Death wizards are just as stuck as a Balance wizard is.

Other than that, I agree with most of your post.

Alia Misthaven

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
My issue with this suggestion is that charm manipulation is a storm school specialty. Now, this isn't the first time another school has received a superior version of storm's specialty before storm: this happened with myth and earthquake. However, earthquake paid a price of significantly lower dpp and it removed everything. Thus in this vein, I suggest Balance be given a spell that removes all charms(positive and negative). With Aegis being a thing-if balance wants to keep their blades they can use aegis.

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 20, 2017 wrote:
My issue with this suggestion is that charm manipulation is a storm school specialty. Now, this isn't the first time another school has received a superior version of storm's specialty before storm: this happened with myth and earthquake. However, earthquake paid a price of significantly lower dpp and it removed everything. Thus in this vein, I suggest Balance be given a spell that removes all charms(positive and negative). With Aegis being a thing-if balance wants to keep their blades they can use aegis.
that's definitely one solution; one potential drawback is that we'd be the only school unable to use sharpened blades, but i suppose sacrifices would have to be made somewhere.

we already have fewer blades than the other schools and nothing that benefits us exclusively. if the aegis solution were to be implemented, we'd need additional buffs in order to keep pace with the other schools.

another possible solution: if the balance wizard does want to use sharpened blades, there could also be a utility spell that would work similar to shift and push a single (3 pips) or multiple (6 pips) debuff/s to the target; alternately, if there are more weaknesses on us than we can feasibly hit through, we could push a single (2 pips) or all (5 pips) buffs to a teammate.

i'm a bit tired, so apologies if that second part doesn't quite make sense. as always, though, i'm open to suggestions.

-von

A+ Student
Dec 24, 2009
1895
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 20, 2017 wrote:
My issue with this suggestion is that charm manipulation is a storm school specialty. Now, this isn't the first time another school has received a superior version of storm's specialty before storm: this happened with myth and earthquake. However, earthquake paid a price of significantly lower dpp and it removed everything. Thus in this vein, I suggest Balance be given a spell that removes all charms(positive and negative). With Aegis being a thing-if balance wants to keep their blades they can use aegis.
I get what you're saying, but in a team setting removing all charms would not be a viable option.

Another idea would be having it be restricted so that we can only use it to remove debuffs from others and not from ourselves.

Or, that it would remove all universal blades along with the debuffs, yet leave any school-specific blades intact. At least in this second scenario, we'd still be able to partially support teammates without removing their entire setup.

Alia Misthaven

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
Dr Von on Nov 21, 2017 wrote:
that's definitely one solution; one potential drawback is that we'd be the only school unable to use sharpened blades, but i suppose sacrifices would have to be made somewhere.

we already have fewer blades than the other schools and nothing that benefits us exclusively. if the aegis solution were to be implemented, we'd need additional buffs in order to keep pace with the other schools.

another possible solution: if the balance wizard does want to use sharpened blades, there could also be a utility spell that would work similar to shift and push a single (3 pips) or multiple (6 pips) debuff/s to the target; alternately, if there are more weaknesses on us than we can feasibly hit through, we could push a single (2 pips) or all (5 pips) buffs to a teammate.

i'm a bit tired, so apologies if that second part doesn't quite make sense. as always, though, i'm open to suggestions.

-von
I understand the hesitation but balance's trouble with buffing is precisely because there is so much trouble with debuffing the class. My spell would address this issue but not completely overwrite it. As I've stated before, if balance is given additional buffs it needs additional debuffs as well. Your push ideas are interesting and I could see those working.

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 21, 2017 wrote:
I understand the hesitation but balance's trouble with buffing is precisely because there is so much trouble with debuffing the class. My spell would address this issue but not completely overwrite it. As I've stated before, if balance is given additional buffs it needs additional debuffs as well. Your push ideas are interesting and I could see those working.
fair enough; i do think that the aegis solution is an interesting compromise, though i don't know that i'm willing to trade the few buffs i do have for even less.

that said, perhaps there's another possible compromise yet: if embolden were to be made no-pvp, perhaps your proposed spell could be a pvp-only equivalent that's trained from diego in unicorn way.

i wrote my last post at 2 in the morning, so i'm relieved to see that the way my push idea was written made sense. of the suggestions put forth thus far, it seems like the most equitable solution for both pve and pvp players.

thoughts?

Delver
Jun 14, 2010
214
It would be nice if KI would give balance a mass hex as all the other schools have received a mass prism/ mass trap spell except for balance.

Defender
Jul 09, 2012
151
Freshta on Nov 20, 2017 wrote:
Did you miss the part in the first post where Von suggested ways to make this work in PVP, or even perhaps that it could be restricted from PVP altogether?

You accused me of poor reading comprehension in a recent thread, yet here you are with the same handicap. Here's what she said:

"Unbalance would counter it, and it would not work on cloaked debuffs (for pvp use), or kingsisle could just make it no pvp."

Now.

Let's talk PVE and please give us your logical, "hardball" reasons why it's a bad idea to give Balance - designed primarily as a support school - tools to remove multiple debuffs at once from our teammates.

Alia Misthaven
I am wondering when I even mentioned the word "Pvp"...

Don't really put words down that I did not say. Therefore, you proved my point on your "No reading comprehension". Thanks for that.

(If in pvp.. Like we were even talking about that)
Yeah because i'm going to waste 4 pips on a dispel that removes a weakness just like a 0 pip cleanse charm would? No thank you. I will pass.

Defender
Jul 09, 2012
151
Freshta on Nov 20, 2017 wrote:
Did you miss the part in the first post where Von suggested ways to make this work in PVP, or even perhaps that it could be restricted from PVP altogether?

You accused me of poor reading comprehension in a recent thread, yet here you are with the same handicap. Here's what she said:

"Unbalance would counter it, and it would not work on cloaked debuffs (for pvp use), or kingsisle could just make it no pvp."

Now.

Let's talk PVE and please give us your logical, "hardball" reasons why it's a bad idea to give Balance - designed primarily as a support school - tools to remove multiple debuffs at once from our teammates.

Alia Misthaven
This actually wouldn't even be that bad for Pve in all honesty, but it should cost more pips for the team one. Maybe like 5 just because many aoe hits give weakness, or smoke screen, etc.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
Dr Von on Nov 22, 2017 wrote:
fair enough; i do think that the aegis solution is an interesting compromise, though i don't know that i'm willing to trade the few buffs i do have for even less.

that said, perhaps there's another possible compromise yet: if embolden were to be made no-pvp, perhaps your proposed spell could be a pvp-only equivalent that's trained from diego in unicorn way.

i wrote my last post at 2 in the morning, so i'm relieved to see that the way my push idea was written made sense. of the suggestions put forth thus far, it seems like the most equitable solution for both pve and pvp players.

thoughts?
I think your shift spells are a great idea. They are useful in PvE and the pip cost prevents them from being overpowered in PvP.

A+ Student
Dec 24, 2009
1895
Pouffy23 on Nov 22, 2017 wrote:
I am wondering when I even mentioned the word "Pvp"...

Don't really put words down that I did not say. Therefore, you proved my point on your "No reading comprehension". Thanks for that.

(If in pvp.. Like we were even talking about that)
Yeah because i'm going to waste 4 pips on a dispel that removes a weakness just like a 0 pip cleanse charm would? No thank you. I will pass.
The dispel idea we are discussing would remove every debuff a player has, not just one. Weakness, smokescreen, infection, etc., all would be removed from a single player for 2 pips, from the whole team for 4 pips.

Especially in an instance like the Rat, where debuffs can stack up and cripple a hitter, the 0 pip cleanse can't keep up. This spell idea would be a great alternative because a Balance could take them all off at once.

I know you didn't mention PVP specifically but I assumed you were objecting because of the potential to disrupt PVP, which I would consider a valid concern.

Alia Misthaven

Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 20, 2017 wrote:
My issue with this suggestion is that charm manipulation is a storm school specialty. Now, this isn't the first time another school has received a superior version of storm's specialty before storm: this happened with myth and earthquake. However, earthquake paid a price of significantly lower dpp and it removed everything. Thus in this vein, I suggest Balance be given a spell that removes all charms(positive and negative). With Aegis being a thing-if balance wants to keep their blades they can use aegis.
DoT is fire's specialty, yet other schools have this too. Healing is life's specialty and other schools have this too. Supporting other schools is Balance's specialty, yet other schools have this too. Shielding from damage is Ice's specialty, yet other schools have this too. Sorry, but that's not a valid argument, nor is the "getting it before storm does". Storm has had it for many levels and yet balance is still stuck in the past with debuff breaking. Having Balance get a spell that removes everything defeats the whole purpose of the spell in the first place. The issue at hand is that balance can't remove debuffs at the rate they can be applied, without killing their power build, and this was the original suggestion. The only other thing I can think of is to give Balance an Aura spell, starting in Celestia, that allows balance to hit, and ignore debuffs. Why should we wait till level 130 to get a spell that is so long overdue? That's the problem with the way KI "fixes" things. In a lot of cases, the fix is long overdue, but then cant be used for many levels. Want the plant all spell? No problem, you need to be level 15 AND get thru at least half of Avalon done. You want to craft spells? No problem, but you are quest locked into crafting levels in Zafaria. I dont mind requirements, and a wait, but not if the fix's requirements negate the usefulness of the spell

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
dayerider on Nov 24, 2017 wrote:
DoT is fire's specialty, yet other schools have this too. Healing is life's specialty and other schools have this too. Supporting other schools is Balance's specialty, yet other schools have this too. Shielding from damage is Ice's specialty, yet other schools have this too. Sorry, but that's not a valid argument, nor is the "getting it before storm does". Storm has had it for many levels and yet balance is still stuck in the past with debuff breaking. Having Balance get a spell that removes everything defeats the whole purpose of the spell in the first place. The issue at hand is that balance can't remove debuffs at the rate they can be applied, without killing their power build, and this was the original suggestion. The only other thing I can think of is to give Balance an Aura spell, starting in Celestia, that allows balance to hit, and ignore debuffs. Why should we wait till level 130 to get a spell that is so long overdue? That's the problem with the way KI "fixes" things. In a lot of cases, the fix is long overdue, but then cant be used for many levels. Want the plant all spell? No problem, you need to be level 15 AND get thru at least half of Avalon done. You want to craft spells? No problem, but you are quest locked into crafting levels in Zafaria. I dont mind requirements, and a wait, but not if the fix's requirements negate the usefulness of the spell
Don’t get me wrong-I don’t disagree that schools cross specialties or think that they shouldn’t. However, my issue is that out of school cross specialties should not be stronger than the origin school.

-Fire: No school has better variety or stronger DoTs than Fire or tri trap potential
-Life: No school has group heals or better healing potential than life.
-Death: No other school has drains period or heal suppression
-Myth: No school has better stunning capability, ward manipulation or minions
-Balance: No school can deal off class damage without massive drawback or has better team buffing options without drawback
-Ice: No other school has the ability to shield others universally
-Storm: No school has better charm manipulation options

Dr Vons original suggestion of a cleanse all spell with no drawback would give balance better negative charm manipulation than storm. Hence what I am opposed to and why I added the drawback. That’s why I am completely in support of her proposed shift mechanics. Every out of class specialty works this way

Fire: Other classes have DoTs but all are weaker than Fire’s
Life: Other classes have heals but all have drawbacks or are weaker than Life’s
Death: No school has drains or heal suppression period
Myth: No school has more efficient ward manipulation, more potent stunning ability or stronger minions pip for pip
Balance: Other schools can also universal buff but at a cost: feint- self trap, dark pact- self damage. Only one other school can deal off class damage and the consequence of that is death: insane bolt
Ice: No other school has standalone universal shields period and the one school that has it as a side effect has it weakened: Athena Battlesight
Storm: No other school can remove neg charms and positive charm removal comes with a drawback.

Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 24, 2017 wrote:
Don’t get me wrong-I don’t disagree that schools cross specialties or think that they shouldn’t. However, my issue is that out of school cross specialties should not be stronger than the origin school.

-Fire: No school has better variety or stronger DoTs than Fire or tri trap potential
-Life: No school has group heals or better healing potential than life.
-Death: No other school has drains period or heal suppression
-Myth: No school has better stunning capability, ward manipulation or minions
-Balance: No school can deal off class damage without massive drawback or has better team buffing options without drawback
-Ice: No other school has the ability to shield others universally
-Storm: No school has better charm manipulation options

Dr Vons original suggestion of a cleanse all spell with no drawback would give balance better negative charm manipulation than storm. Hence what I am opposed to and why I added the drawback. That’s why I am completely in support of her proposed shift mechanics. Every out of class specialty works this way

Fire: Other classes have DoTs but all are weaker than Fire’s
Life: Other classes have heals but all have drawbacks or are weaker than Life’s
Death: No school has drains or heal suppression period
Myth: No school has more efficient ward manipulation, more potent stunning ability or stronger minions pip for pip
Balance: Other schools can also universal buff but at a cost: feint- self trap, dark pact- self damage. Only one other school can deal off class damage and the consequence of that is death: insane bolt
Ice: No other school has standalone universal shields period and the one school that has it as a side effect has it weakened: Athena Battlesight
Storm: No other school can remove neg charms and positive charm removal comes with a drawback.
Im not saying there should be zero consequences, however, removing buffs AND debuffs makes the spell worthless. If it removes blades too, then what is really the point of the spell for balance school? You might as well just wand it off and not even create the spell. Ultimately, this is a weakness for balance, and the whole point of the suggestion was to make it so that balance could find a way to remove debuffs on themselves without blowing their whole stack of power. Why not make it a spell that can only be done on the caster itself? or only to balance wizards?

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
dayerider on Nov 25, 2017 wrote:
Im not saying there should be zero consequences, however, removing buffs AND debuffs makes the spell worthless. If it removes blades too, then what is really the point of the spell for balance school? You might as well just wand it off and not even create the spell. Ultimately, this is a weakness for balance, and the whole point of the suggestion was to make it so that balance could find a way to remove debuffs on themselves without blowing their whole stack of power. Why not make it a spell that can only be done on the caster itself? or only to balance wizards?
I understand your point. I had originally made the drawback full removal in light of aegis being a thing. However, I do agree that balance needs a removal spell long before they can access aegis. How about something like:

Name: Sift
Cost: x pips
Accuracy: 100%
Effect: Remove all Negative Charms from the target. Pip cost is equal to number of negative charms removed.
Target: Single Target

I don’t like a self only spell for balance because at it’s core balance is a support school.

Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 25, 2017 wrote:
I understand your point. I had originally made the drawback full removal in light of aegis being a thing. However, I do agree that balance needs a removal spell long before they can access aegis. How about something like:

Name: Sift
Cost: x pips
Accuracy: 100%
Effect: Remove all Negative Charms from the target. Pip cost is equal to number of negative charms removed.
Target: Single Target

I don’t like a self only spell for balance because at it’s core balance is a support school.
I didnt like that idea either, but I was willing to compromise that in order to get the spell. As for an Xpip cleanse charm, that's an interesting take. Not that it happens often, but what would happen if there are more debuffs than your total pips? Would 14 pips clean everything off regardless of number of debuffs? Suppose there's 20 debuffs, what happens then? Do only 14 get cleaned? Do they all get cleaned? I of course would prefer a set pip cost over xpip, but Im certainly willing to negotiate

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
dayerider on Nov 26, 2017 wrote:
I didnt like that idea either, but I was willing to compromise that in order to get the spell. As for an Xpip cleanse charm, that's an interesting take. Not that it happens often, but what would happen if there are more debuffs than your total pips? Would 14 pips clean everything off regardless of number of debuffs? Suppose there's 20 debuffs, what happens then? Do only 14 get cleaned? Do they all get cleaned? I of course would prefer a set pip cost over xpip, but Im certainly willing to negotiate
I feel like it should remove all charms if you wipe your pips out. In other words if you have 8 debuffs on you but use all 4 pips that you have it will still remove all 8 debuffs. This seems fair to me since resetting your pip setup to cleanse is a huge sacrifice and opens you up to more weaknesses as you wait to build pips for an attack.

I think x pip is an acceptable drawback that leaves the door open for storm to receive a set pip all-cleanse and hence retain it’s advantage of best negative charm manipulation.

Armiger
Jan 11, 2012
2497
Eric Stormbringer on Nov 27, 2017 wrote:
I feel like it should remove all charms if you wipe your pips out. In other words if you have 8 debuffs on you but use all 4 pips that you have it will still remove all 8 debuffs. This seems fair to me since resetting your pip setup to cleanse is a huge sacrifice and opens you up to more weaknesses as you wait to build pips for an attack.

I think x pip is an acceptable drawback that leaves the door open for storm to receive a set pip all-cleanse and hence retain it’s advantage of best negative charm manipulation.
(quote) Balance: Other schools can also universal buff but at a cost: feint- self trap, dark pact- self damage.(end quote) Actually, death CAN universal buff, without penalty, with Curse

I hate to say it, but Im liking the idea you propose less and less because the pip cost makes it prohibitive. I understand WHY you suggested it, but I cant help thinking that it wouldnt be useful on a regular basis. You'd spend the whole fight removing debuffs and die because of it. And we'd be right back where we are now; how to remove debuffs without blowing our power stack. More and more, Im thinking the only solution is to create Balance school specific blades, and all the other spells that people insist need to go with it, in order for it to work. I REALLY would love to see Balance to have a debuff removal spell, but it needs to make sense (and I know you're trying for that too) and can't start at max level (KI's M.O. when "fixing" schools). If Balance were to get a school specific blade, cause really it only needs one, perhaps keep it down to a 20% or 25% boost (which would make it weaker than storm's). Even at 25%, with a sharpened blade, it would BARELY be stronger than storm's "stock" blade. Then at that point, with sharpened blade, balance becomes more viable, with less stack damaging, and we can wand off debuffs while keeping a SMALL portion of our power stack.

I'm simply at a loss for how to implement this without it being too costly. I LIKE the initial suggestion, and the Push spell idea has merit, however, then Myth wizards will invariably complain that Balance is trying to steal Myth's spell of Shift and Dimension Shift. This is NOT an easy topic, and Im glad we've managed to debate it so far WITHOUT the usual snark that invariably happens. Hopefully, somebody else can come up with yet another idea that we can all weigh in on, and see if that has a better chance of survival than the current ideas have.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
dayerider on Nov 28, 2017 wrote:
(quote) Balance: Other schools can also universal buff but at a cost: feint- self trap, dark pact- self damage.(end quote) Actually, death CAN universal buff, without penalty, with Curse

I hate to say it, but Im liking the idea you propose less and less because the pip cost makes it prohibitive. I understand WHY you suggested it, but I cant help thinking that it wouldnt be useful on a regular basis. You'd spend the whole fight removing debuffs and die because of it. And we'd be right back where we are now; how to remove debuffs without blowing our power stack. More and more, Im thinking the only solution is to create Balance school specific blades, and all the other spells that people insist need to go with it, in order for it to work. I REALLY would love to see Balance to have a debuff removal spell, but it needs to make sense (and I know you're trying for that too) and can't start at max level (KI's M.O. when "fixing" schools). If Balance were to get a school specific blade, cause really it only needs one, perhaps keep it down to a 20% or 25% boost (which would make it weaker than storm's). Even at 25%, with a sharpened blade, it would BARELY be stronger than storm's "stock" blade. Then at that point, with sharpened blade, balance becomes more viable, with less stack damaging, and we can wand off debuffs while keeping a SMALL portion of our power stack.

I'm simply at a loss for how to implement this without it being too costly. I LIKE the initial suggestion, and the Push spell idea has merit, however, then Myth wizards will invariably complain that Balance is trying to steal Myth's spell of Shift and Dimension Shift. This is NOT an easy topic, and Im glad we've managed to debate it so far WITHOUT the usual snark that invariably happens. Hopefully, somebody else can come up with yet another idea that we can all weigh in on, and see if that has a better chance of survival than the current ideas have.
Curse pays the same price non-life heals and non-fire DoTs do: it is less effective. Compare curse's 20% buff to hex's 30%.

That being said I don't think my spell is too costly. It is a rare battle in PvE where you are under more than 4 debuffs, usually relegating the spell to 4 pips or less.

That being said I have no qualms about balance specific buffs as long as balance specific shields are forthcoming as well.

1