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# System prepended metadata

title: Cult stun to Cult silencer Changes

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# Cult stun to Cult silencer Changes
## Intro
We all know this is a heated topic that often ends in people madly ranting about how it should be and whatever, but let's try to be civil(sybil) about it. Cult stuns aren't in a great place right now, with a total of a **16 second** stuns on click, giving the cult an unfair advantage in combat and leaving many players annoyed by its strength. I believe we can diminish the cult's stun ability in combat while not sacrificing their strength for converting people into the cult itself.

## The Why?
Cult stuns are widely known as some of the most annoying things to deal with in combat, and they have received some backlash for their general design on servers and even in games at times. **They stun for an unresonable amount** that is disproportionally balanced to the rest of the game mechanics while using the excuse that it is necessary for the cult to convert, even though there are other things that we can change to keep its ability to convert while not keeping its unfair combat ability.
## The How?
By changing the cult stun time, of course, while increasing other of its attributes that help the cult keep itself a secret from the station, I've done some timing and testing on how long is needed to convert someone and how the cult is often outed, and I have found a time that is both enough to convert people while not being overpowered in battle, that being a **8 second stun time**.

With this change comes an increase in its mute ability from **12 seconds to 30 seconds** and an increase in its cult-slurs speech from **30 seconds to 1 minute**

## The What?
So what will probably happen if this change is merged? Well, **its hard to tell; nothing tells you how something will go other than actual trial testing. Although I'm confident that this will be a better direction to take cult stun, I can't truly say this will work without it actually being **trailed and monitored in server**.

As a general guess, this is what will happen:

The stun lasts for 4 seconds but can be stacked up to 16 seconds if the cultists decide to have nothing but cult spells. There are a decent amount of group or lone strategies that can be implemented to capture someone with this changed time by either using shadow shackles, critting, or taking them to a near-offer rune. With the increased mute time, the cultists have a marginally larger amount of time to deal with the mute person in question.

## The When?
I would very much like this to **Test Merged** to at least give it a chance to see how it will affect rounds and decide from there instead of being flat out rejected due to previous biases and attempts to change cult stuns. Try to look at the change objectively to see how it will reflect in the game, rather than theoretically.

## Summary
Give it a chance; if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and that's fine. Trial and error for features is what makes them better. At worst, the Test Merge does not work, and it gets reverted. At best, we have an improved version of cult stun, which is still a stunning ability to convert but becomes a more silent spell to keep the crew silent while the cult deals with them.

Keep in mind this will definetely take some time to adapt for cult to learn the best possible strategies to combo stuff with this like starting to hit converted people or combo with other spells and probably doing team work **(YEY A TEAM ANTAG WORKING AS A TEAM)**

## Future
- [ ] Make cult stuns only stun for 4 seconds agaisnt mindshielded people
- [ ] Make holymelons not fully remove stun time but half it