A Problem with Wiccans

Nyana

I suspect most would agree that Wiccans are the equivalent of Guardians for the communes. When I compare the power requirements for the Cosmic skills and the Rituals skills (assuming the wiki is relatively up to date) for guardians, they're all relatively the same. Not in terms of how effective the class/skills are, but if a skill takes power, it takes power from the respective city nexus. Night and Moon are mostly the same way.

But Wicca doesn't work that way. Nearly every ability draws power from any source, with the exception of the three fae unique to Serenwilde, the three unique to Glomdoring, and mindmeld. This leaves a comparatively large pool of abilities that anyone can use without being part of a commune. Cosmic/Rituals aren't completely comparable to Wicca/Nature, but close enough to say the skills available should be similar.

There's an easy solution to it: Make toadcurse cost commune power. No other instant-death guardian skill is available without a city power cost. Mindmeld already costs commune power, so it's possible to make this change. Other skills like channels, mushrooms, and dryad might also switch to this. 

So: 1. Is this a problem, and 2. Is this a fair solution?

Makai

I personally believe that class skills that use power, barring skills that are actually universal (Warrior specs and Music as examples), should be tied to their nexus. For clarification, if something is unique to your org, it should always require that org's nexus. If it is something limited like Healing (Halli/Celest/Glom) then its where I start to get into grey area, I personally would want it to require being linked to one of those nexii, but could live with it not being that way. But skills that share it only with their counterpart, in this case Wicca as you brought up, I think it should require either nexii to use the abilities within those that use power for the general ones that are not unique.

Nyana

Makai said:

I personally believe that class skills that use power, barring skills that are actually universal (Warrior specs and Music as examples), should be tied to their nexus. For clarification, if something is unique to your org, it should always require that org's nexus. If it is something limited like Healing (Halli/Celest/Glom) then its where I start to get into grey area, I personally would want it to require being linked to one of those nexii, but could live with it not being that way. But skills that share it only with their counterpart, in this case Wicca as you brought up, I think it should require either nexii to use the abilities within those that use power for the general ones that are not unique.

Agreed. RP-wise, or I guess, logic-wise, I think that should be more true with guardian-types. I didn't look at every skillset to see how many are like this, I've just had a lot of time to think about Wicca. Healing - eh. Like you said, there's enough of a universal quality to that to not limit it, but class-specific "advanced" skills from Totems, Rituals, Nature, Music, Kata, Cosmic, and Elementalism probably should. Being a rogue isn't really supported anyway, so imo all rogues should be equally limited.

If all you wanted to do was bash/influence/quest, then it'd still be possible to not switch class, for whatever reason.

Makai

I definitely agree, there is some novelty to being a rogue whatever, or taking skills to another org, but it should either be hard to be effective with or limiting. There are also just some classes that are flat out easier to leave your support org with and still be effective. Nekotai and Tessenchi are amazing monks and don't really require power to be devastating, with leg breaks on Base for both and other utility that makes them strong. Sure they could never Boost, Burst, or use their Killer finisher but those aren't required to help with others kill conditions.

Whereas classes like the mages and druids? Zero point in going rogue with or hopping to the other side, as most everything is limited by power cost and being linked, not to mention that your terrain type 99% of the time doesn't help your new buddies. It'd be like a Geomancer going to Serenwilde and be like, "Hey, I can't meld or terrain at all, or use most of my skills, but I'm a pretty sweet Elementalist!"

Pysynne

The only Fae that really matter are the three you can't get unless you are in the Org, so I would say it's working as intended. Toad curse is just toad curse. You still should have access to a kill regardless of being in the org or not. 

Nyana

Pysynne said:

The only Fae that really matter are the three you can't get unless you are in the Org, so I would say it's working as intended. Toad curse is just toad curse. You still should have access to a kill regardless of being in the org or not. 

Why, though? That's not the case with every class, from what I can see, and it's not really possible to use that kill in 1v1 combat anyway. Depending on tertiaries you would still have access to a kill. I don't agree that the only fae that matter are the commune-specific ones. 

Edit: Other than knights, I can't find any class where the instant-kill isn't org power locked.

Parhelion

Nyana said:

 No other instant-death guardian skill is available without a city power cost.

Soulless.

Kalnid

Choros said:

Nyana said:

 No other instant-death guardian skill is available without a city power cost.

Soulless.

Discounting terts, presumably. Else cauterize and meteor(sort of). Woodchems would probably be alright as rogues, you'd keep your passives and reactives, at least until your container and weapon dusted. Melders would be pretty nothing, monks would honestly be alright especially given that harmony/stealth aren't org limited. Zarakido requires specific orgs to get your groove on so that would probably fall short. They'd miss their IK but even without that monks are stupid potent.

Anyway. Most of this seems like it stems from wicca being a single skill split across two classes, same as druidry. I wouldn't hate to see both split properly in HS/BT specs and MD/SD specs and melder overhaul seems like a good time to do that, but also it's effort for questionable gain. I really don't know how necessary the change is, but if you did want to make fae not work for citydwellers that's probably how I'd do it over making toad/whatever else just require specific power.

Enya

There wouldn't be immediate benefit to formally splitting the shared skills, but it would allow for more opportunities to separately balance the skillsets in each org to suit the unique secondaries.

I'm for it, though in the past when it's been suggested there was administrative pushback. I think a big part of that is the thematic link between the communes rather than a mechanical/resources concern, so an argument along those lines (which this thread sort of is) might be best.

Nyana

Kalnid said:

Choros said:

Nyana said:

 No other instant-death guardian skill is available without a city power cost.

Soulless.

Discounting terts, presumably. Else cauterize and meteor(sort of). Woodchems would probably be alright as rogues, you'd keep your passives and reactives, at least until your container and weapon dusted. Melders would be pretty nothing, monks would honestly be alright especially given that harmony/stealth aren't org limited. Zarakido requires specific orgs to get your groove on so that would probably fall short. They'd miss their IK but even without that monks are stupid potent.

Anyway. Most of this seems like it stems from wicca being a single skill split across two classes, same as druidry. I wouldn't hate to see both split properly in HS/BT specs and MD/SD specs and melder overhaul seems like a good time to do that, but also it's effort for questionable gain. I really don't know how necessary the change is, but if you did want to make fae not work for citydwellers that's probably how I'd do it over making toad/whatever else just require specific power.

Discounting terts, right. Stealth and harmony were the odd skillsets, presumably because they came out before Zarakido. Monks and knights aren't as limited by power costs, but they have a completely different combat style to the classes that do... and I don't think there's much point in quitting an org while keeping a knight class. Monks, maybe, they seem to have the easiest time doing that currently(because of stealth and harmony).

I agree that's probably why wicca isn't like the other skills, though druidry - it has  a few odd skills that aren't power blocked(just going by the wiki) but many of them are commune-only. I don't know that it's necessary to split wicca, but as for fae not working for citydwellers - I mean, that's all this would do. One could make summoning any fae take commune power, I just figure that would limit it too much, since summoning fae is all it does. The change wouldn't effect anyone in Glomdoring or Serenwilde.

Nyana

Enya said:

There wouldn't be immediate benefit to formally splitting the shared skills, but it would allow for more opportunities to separately balance the skillsets in each org to suit the unique secondaries.

I'm for it, though in the past when it's been suggested there was administrative pushback. I think a big part of that is the thematic link between the communes rather than a mechanical/resources concern, so an argument along those lines (which this thread sort of is) might be best.

I think it would be better to change night and moon, myself. My only real problem with the skillsets is they seem boring compared to others I've tried, with generally one option to get kills and one way to go about doing it. Edit: They. They are boring.