Ling chemical regen buff

[Scones]

I've played as it, I've played against it

What the FUCK

Fleshmend/Adrenaline is absurd, you can't say shit like "They can do stuff now", because it has become instead a matter of "What the fuck can't they do". Lings already had a powerful toolkit held back by stupid players and bugs combined with a lackluster chemical regen rate. Now they have chem related issues cleared up, a HUGELY POWERFUL REGEN RATE for abilities that have NO COOLDOWN.

Put a cooldown on Fleshmend.

Shit's dumb, the crewmember who depends on winning hard-and-fast with a crude stun cuff setup can't beat them, but nor can the Security guy who could win by attrition with stamina and area denial.

Hilariously, we've basically nailed the coffin on stealth ling because while cryo+hallu are a bit better than they used to be, a combat oriented ling has a counter for /everything/. Stuns, toxins, frontended damage, projectiles of all sorts if you want to grab a shield, EMP energy weapons.

I think there's a line between strong antag and borderline unbeatable antag barring few specific circumstances.

[PKPenguin321]

U S E H A N D C U F F S

[Oldman Robustin]

We're playing a Game of Stuns.

Ling has no stun.

Ling has no range.

Yes getting engorged + fleshmend is going to make you very hard to outright kill, but #handcuffs are as effective as ever. Combat Lings have 0 room for optional abilities if they take engorged glands. Engorged + Fleshmend + Adrenals + Armblade + Dissonant = 9/10 genomes. Your only option for offense is running toward someone with a super loud super obvious armbalde that screams "IM VALID" to everyone on the station... including the AI.

Antags have niches, lings being hard to kill has always been its niche... it's just now they're HARD to kill and not just "eh that took 10% more effort than it took to murder a random assistant". Lings don't get "2-shot" revolvers/autoshotguns, they don't have "Parasting 2.0" talismans/glares, nor do they have "convert an entire department to be your servants with minimal risk" flashes or pens, they can't jaunt or instakill or do AOE damage. They have an arm that turns into an esword as the entire arsenal on a combat ling's kit.

Lings are still regularly gibbed/cremated in every round I've witnessed so far. When you're valid to the entire crew being able to cancel as many stuns as an adrenal implant before going dry still won't get you very far if you don't play smart. With the EMP nerf security still has far, far more stuns than you have chems and you will not win a fight head-on against them.

Growing an armblade and using dissonant shriek to cancel out radio/cameras/borgs is 30 chems upfront and completely mandatory for any kind of combat. That leaves you with enough chems to cancel two stuns. If the sec officers fighting you cant manage to taser/flashbang/flash/baton/egun/pepperspray you three times before you slap him 5-6 times with an armblade, I'm going to say that officer deserved to lose.

Ling is finally starting to look like the terror it was based on, and no it wasn't advised to try and beat "the Thing" to death with a toolbox either. Maybe play more than a couple rounds before doing the same kneejerk-nerfcalling that put Ling in the dumpster in the first place.

[Scones]

"use handcuffs"

what is lesser form?

Fuck it I don't care anymore its pointless discussing balance with the radical anti security bias here, literally 100% pointless

It's not fucking knee jerk