Idea for disengaging

[Lun]

I was fighting alongside my shadow familiar and running low on energy when a thought came to mind. Shadow familiars are fragile, little things who can't guard someone, but that's only in their proper form. They're made of nether, which has been proven time and again to be incredibly versatile.

The really bad idea I had: A familiar is made of the soul of the sorcerer who summoned it forth, so wouldn't it want to sacrifice itself to protect said master?

*waits for anticipation to build*

So I thought up a new minion order idea! To be used only when the familiar's in shadow familiar form, FAMILIAR GUARD (or shield, martyr, etc...) The familiar disperses its form into a thin, nebulous shield around the sorcerer, effectively destroying the body of the familiar but breaking combat and earning precious few seconds for the sorcerer to flee (Maybe even absorbs damage for the duration of the shield, which is like 4 seconds) or consume his talisman, or hide and catch his breath.

Kind of like this


After writing it out like this, it seems a bit... really... silly but I'm going to stick with my guns and post it...

[jilliana]

Hmm. I think this idea would work theoretically. However, I'm wondering about the time it'll take for the proper protection to get into place. I'd rather spend my time typing my alias for position avoid or going a different direction than focus on trying to cloak myself so I could run.

I feel like I'm missing something here, so feel free to correct me.

[Skah]

Fun fact: Familiars used to be able to guard people, but this was removed due to some balance issues.

We do have cryosorcerous discs, shadow martyr, and animates for defensive skills. It's very hard to form nether into particular forms like a shield though. (outside of cryosorcerous discs, which have some neat lore behind why they work)

[Lun]

I feel like I'm being misunderstood a bit, since the thought is a bit jumbled up.

BY NO MEANS am I asking for the return of familiars guarding the sorcerer. They're the size of house-cats, that's just silly. I just called it familiar GUARD at a whim, since they're sacrificing themselves to guard the sorcerer.

I wanted a skill that would immediately disengage an enemy at the cost of something major (Your shadow familiar's physical presence!)
(The concept of disengaging already exists in the game, a la position avoid or elemancer's fog)

As far as the minion changing its shape, that idea came from amalgamation, where we pump nether into the familiar to make it stronger. What if we did something different to the familiar to change its shape?
Kind of like how infusing nether can make it do its "I'll stick around for a bit and burn stuff," can we use our familiar's loyalty and the energy we've already provided to it to force a temporary shape change?

Nether doesn't remain in one shape for very long, and thin nether wouldn't hold up against any real attack.
But in the hypothetical situation where you're fighting a sorcerer with a familiar, a sudden cloud of darkness between you and your target would certainly break your rhythm, and allow your foe to disengage and run like a coward who survives to fight another day.

What if we were in a situation where we might die, but our familiar could purchase us precious few seconds to escape death by breaking the flow of combat? Plenty of sorcerers aren't Undying and in this line of work, you never know when you can die.