Could KD effects be less boringly optimal?

[Egon the Monkey]

I've been in or around a few PvPs (and That Quest With the Grease) lately, and Grease and Knockdown seem to punch way above their weight now.
They just seem to hit and then well. You're screwed. Not even anything you can do to prebuff, as there's not a hard counter to either.
They were always good, but kind of stand out more against the current level of saves and supply. Because they bypass both quite handily.
Just search Grease on the Discord and see the amount of memeing and eye rolling about it.

Why do people hate Grease?

• It's a L1 spell that can outperform L3-4 disabling spells for anything other than a gank.
• Just compare it to Color Spray, or Gust of Wind.
• It's vs Reflex. A common Dump Save, as 90% of Reflex saves will not Just Stop You. And Reflex seems to be the weak save of most NPCs.
• It's pure Reflex and ignores Spell Resistance/Immunity. Most other disables have the drawback of being Mind, Fear or Negative, all of which there's decent gear and buffs against.
• Unlike Fear or Paralysis, the only counter move is to fireball your own ally 😲
• Similarly, why Horizakaul's Shout is so nasty. High DC, unblockable disable, plus damage. And targeting Sonic not Mind etc.

Grease dunks on both Enchanters and Necromancers

• Grease is the one disabling spell that can work on 95% of NPCs. Whereas lots of quest NPCs are immune to Mind spells and/or necromantic debuffs.
• Compare this to Mind spells. Which similarly will Fuck You Up. But have to get past Shell, Clarity, and/or an abundance of Mind/Fear Saves gear.
• You can face down a GSF enchanter as an 8 Wis barbarian just fine if you dunk a Clarity!
• Just make sure to reapply if you get dispelled. We have play and counter-play. It's pretty fun and proactive!

Similarly, Knockdown is brutally effective because:

• It's free to use. It's -4AB but you can do it forever with no cooldown, and it also does damage.
• AB boosters are more available than the +12 Discipline from Potions of Discipline. Which you can't prebuff with as it's not a Spell.
• The defence is a class skill many PCs don't have, but everyone has saves. NPCs seem to have worse AC but better saves than in earlier chapters.
• Some characters have worse saves, but we still get Martial PCs looted out with better Will than Fort 🤔.
• It's just uncommon enough to be useful. Stacking saves will protect you more reliably than stacking Discipline, so most PCs go for saves.
• It's one of the extremely few disables you might be able to get a Druid with.

How could KD be a bit more like other disabling effects?
I think, either nerf the supply a bit, or give it a stack of defences to beat in the same way as Mind spells?

• What if Grease did 1 Round Slow not 1 round KD? Still strong for a L1 but not a total lockdown.
• What if Expeditious Retreat granted Immunity: Knockdown for the duration? That seems on par with Clarity vs Mind spells, as Clarity lasts longer and removes effects too.
• Could Disarm, KD and Called shot be a check against Athletics instead? As that's not just the 'don't get KDed and die' skill.
• What if Knockdown/Disarm had a 12s cooldown like Taunt does now? This seems a popular mod on other servers.

[Vlaid]

It's very easy to be nearly immune to KD/combat moves without a discipline potion, just not for classes with discipline as cross-class. You just need to make slightly different gearing choices if that's something you want. There's options and choices to do it though.

Combat moves also give you -4 AB for using, so you're already making a sacrifice ontop of taking the feat to use them, sometimes you're giving up two feats and taking stats you don't want.

Grease might be too good but it's the same it's always been.

You can get like 20 discipline with almost zero investment pretty easily as a melee PC. You can get 26 with 1 buff and 1 aspect. You can get around 30 with making some slight gear adjustments.  You can even add in 2/4 piece of Brute for another 2/4 discipline if you want to go crazy about it. How much AB do you think people are having to make that hard to deal with? :P

Give up that 1 AB or whatever if you really think KD is that opressive.

[Father Time]

Arent you immune to grease with a blur potion now?