Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
He actually logged on, I thought I was hALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
Please note: I deliberately play a very flawed character. Just because he says or does something, does not mean I agree with it. He's a bit of a <censored> really
I think wiccan is fine. Some of their kill methods are kind of hard to avoid, so they're kind of like the guardian rinse-and-repeat-until-it-works strategies. In my eyes, the only thing they lack is some more interesting flavour in their attack and utility messages and abilities. Shadowdancers have more flavour and utility than moondancers in my eyes, though. Guardians in general have more flavour than both. I'd totally play a wiccan for their strength, but ents aren't my style.
So far from my experience... I wouldn't ever do healing md in pvp(again) unless I just plan to sit and look like a pretty wall to be smashed at. However, bedevil and aurawarp yeah yeah, but it just doesn't cut it for me. Other than that, its not really a bad class to have your fun with.
Deciding to teach Arcanis the ultimate lesson in manners, you point a finger imperiously at him and call the curse of the toad down upon his head. You watch in satisfaction as warts break out over his skin which then turns green and slimy. Finally, he shrinks and transforms into a large, ugly toad! With a telepathic sigh, a pooka tells you that he has lost control of Arcanis's actions.
In order to put the pathetic life of a warty toad out of its misery, you lift a foot and bring it down mightily on its bloated green body. A warty toad's back breaks under the weight of a heavy foot, its innards spilling out and leaving a messy stain on the ground. You have slain a warty toad. A warty toad wobbles about uncertainly and turns a pale shade of green before suddenly stretching and transforming into a demigod. Shaking his head, Arcanis stands before you where once there was a toad, looking slightly disoriented and perplexed with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie. Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie. Arcanis drops the corpse of a pooka. Arcanis drops a stalk of faeleaf. Having been too much for the mortal threads of Arcanis, he screams in agony as flames engulf his body and burn it to a crisp. You tell Lord Fist Arcanis De'Unnero, Chosen of Wrath, "By the by, let that be a lesson in manners. I don't need friends to kill some of you one on one."
The amusement of accomplishing a hexed toad is there though!
Deciding to teach Arcanis the ultimate lesson in manners, you point a finger imperiously at him and call the curse of the toad down upon his head. You watch in satisfaction as warts break out over his skin which then turns green and slimy. Finally, he shrinks and transforms into a large, ugly toad! With a telepathic sigh, a pooka tells you that he has lost control of Arcanis's actions.
In order to put the pathetic life of a warty toad out of its misery, you lift a foot and bring it down mightily on its bloated green body. A warty toad's back breaks under the weight of a heavy foot, its innards spilling out and leaving a messy stain on the ground. You have slain a warty toad. A warty toad wobbles about uncertainly and turns a pale shade of green before suddenly stretching and transforming into a demigod. Shaking his head, Arcanis stands before you where once there was a toad, looking slightly disoriented and perplexed with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie. Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie. Arcanis drops the corpse of a pooka. Arcanis drops a stalk of faeleaf. Having been too much for the mortal threads of Arcanis, he screams in agony as flames engulf his body and burn it to a crisp. You tell Lord Fist Arcanis De'Unnero, Chosen of Wrath, "By the by, let that be a lesson in manners. I don't need friends to kill some of you one on one."
If Moon and Night Wicca could be separated, that would be cool. We really would just like our own special place.
And if we could be given combat methods no other guild can do (even between MD and SD), I think people would choose Wiccan guilds more than just by mercy or mistake. Since only Wicca is unshared, maybe those skills could be put in there. From a MD point of view, tertiaries are supposed to be supportive to kill methods, not the only way to achieve it.
I don't think wiccan combat is that easy. With champ ents sure. Without them, for Moondancers, say for Hexen, you have to give aeon to kill by sleeplock. If they know where we try to clear it, and sip quicksilver, we'd never be able to aeon them. For Astro, hope shafts stops them from escaping. And for Healers, well...survive, or go pooka them to sip rum. In groups, sleeplocks never work with damagers around, astro is better off afflicting, and healers...uhm, surviving.
To say that we're fine would be correct. We have waning, succumb, dark, and passive afflictions/healing. Resurgem is awesome, so is Full. We learn to love the fae and the RP with it. And if people think we're fine enough to not receive any variety in our combat methods, well, I guess that's fine too. But sometimes, I really wish we could be more fun, more unique, more exciting. Wish people could choose us more.
I don't want to compare with other guilds....that would just make it hurt.
P.S. Maybe we could move our bashing skill a bit lower in the skillset, like Fabled 25% or 75%. Just the bash skill, the dmp, +int and regen could stay at trans. I think new players would like that.
The thing with MD healers, is they're a one trick pony that can simply be eliminated with an alias that kills their pooka. Not curing luminous to avoid unnecessary mana drain is a bonus.
Sleeplock reliance will always be countered by metawake and pookabashing. However in groups their mana killing can be effective when paired up with other sources of drain, even if you're with a group of damage killers, going for succumb and drain works really quickly when your target is having to choose between sipping health and mana, and scroll/sparkle doesn't outpace the drain speed.
Moondancers have excellent survivability, mitigation and damage prevention, as well as great group synergy, even with other MDs. From my perspective, if you want more offence, you'd have to give up defence. People all too often complain about scenarios where individuals have the damage of a glass cannon, yet have the resilience of a reinforced steel wall.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
And if we could be given combat methods no other guild can do (even between MD and SD), I think people would choose Wiccan guilds more than just by mercy or mistake. Since only Wicca is unshared, maybe those skills could be put in there. From a MD point of view, tertiaries are supposed to be supportive to kill methods, not the only way to achieve it.
If anything Druid is picked as a mercy/mistake far more than Wiccan. Wiccans are in an acceptable state currently, being able to function correctly and actually pull off kills. Druids are considered the "class no one wants and only picks to help/meld". There are so many flaws in the Druid concept that it really isnt funny and im not sure where to begin to try and mend it.
Druid for the longest time complained about no unique skills and everything shared. What I would have given for ecology to be Druid only, thus able to be tweaked to better accomadate them without the fear of overpowering commune bards. Eventually Druids were given Shamanism, which really feels like a half-complete skill in itself and still made Druids feel the need to be attached to their demesne to be even slightly effective. It's just sad that Mages are given skills like Telekinesis and Telepathy which gives them a whole set of abilities they may utilize without the crutch of a meld, while druids are still suppose to rely on a meld with sap or bust.
And if we could be given combat methods no other guild can do (even between MD and SD), I think people would choose Wiccan guilds more than just by mercy or mistake. Since only Wicca is unshared, maybe those skills could be put in there. From a MD point of view, tertiaries are supposed to be supportive to kill methods, not the only way to achieve it.
If anything Druid is picked as a mercy/mistake far more than Wiccan. Wiccans are in an acceptable state currently, being able to function correctly and actually pull off kills. Druids are considered the "class no one wants and only picks to help/meld". There are so many flaws in the Druid concept that it really isnt funny and im not sure where to begin to try and mend it.
Druid for the longest time complained about no unique skills and everything shared. What I would have given for ecology to be Druid only, thus able to be tweaked to better accomadate them without the fear of overpowering commune bards. Eventually Druids were given Shamanism, which really feels like a half-complete skill in itself and still made Druids feel the need to be attached to their demesne to be even slightly effective. It's just sad that Mages are given skills like Telekinesis and Telepathy which gives them a whole set of abilities they may utilize without the crutch of a meld, while druids are still suppose to rely on a meld with sap or bust.
I'll take a druid over mage any day. The reason I'm not a druid is because I have some issues with the Hartstone that I will not air here or anywhere except to the concerned parties should they care to ask. TK/TP are quite entertaining to use in solo fights and easily countered in 1:1 scenarios to the point where you can't kill anyone that doesn't have a case of the derps and doesn't have even the slightest idea how to psi shield every once in a while to cure up vessels. If anything, the mage crutch is illusions which is a bad mechanic to rely on. That said, druids could definitely use an out-of-meld kill method which shamanism simply doesn't provide.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
I feel like when it was time to start thinking up Shadowdancers, the designers had a checklist labeled "How We can Improve on Moondancers".
So they gave them a lot of things that Moon doesn't.
Extreme survivability (Flight and Drink) I guess Moon's counter to this would be Shine and Full, but would you count on the combatant that's in a room with Drink on or someone who has to use Full in the first place?
Battlefield control (Bonds, Gloomtide, (oh god can you imagine if Glom ever had enough people/shadows for Longnight) what was once Choke, Brumetower) Moon Shafts does deserve some experimenting with, imo, and I won't be mad at you Serens if you misfire this in a combat situation.
All that in addition to typical Wicca tactics (except they get three offensive fae while maiden is like a lame starchant benediction and mother is mostly irrelevant (feel free to call me out if mother is secretly OP or something). Crone has two possible afflictions, y'all.
This thread should be called "Why no one plays Moondancers".
One thing that I think needs to be put into practice more is Resurgem and being -ready- to be resurgemed, and thus ready to get right back into the fight, even without defs. Such a quick revive is something Shadowdancers don't have, and should be exploited.
I feel like when it was time to start thinking up Shadowdancers, the designers had a checklist labeled "How We can Improve on Moondancers".
So they gave them a lot of things that Moon doesn't.
Extreme survivability (Flight and Drink) I guess Moon's counter to this would be Shine and Full, but would you count on the combatant that's in a room with Drink on or someone who has to use Full in the first place?
Battlefield control (Bonds, Gloomtide, (oh god can you imagine if Glom ever had enough people/shadows for Longnight) what was once Choke, Brumetower) Moon Shafts does deserve some experimenting with, imo, and I won't be mad at you Serens if you misfire this in a combat situation.
All that in addition to typical Wicca tactics (except they get three offensive fae while maiden is like a lame starchant benediction and mother is mostly irrelevant (feel free to call me out if mother is secretly OP or something). Crone has two possible afflictions, y'all.
This thread should be called "Why no one plays Moondancers".
One thing that I think needs to be put into practice more is Resurgem and being -ready- to be resurgemed, and thus ready to get right back into the fight, even without defs. Such a quick revive is something Shadowdancers don't have, and should be exploited.
The concept for Shadowdancers and in retrospect Moondancers wasnt a build up on a previous kit (that being moondancer as you stated), but each was built according to theme. Admittedly, Moondancer was first out and frankly all the nature skills could use some renovating and pumping up to bring them in line with recent additions.
Anyway, the idea behind Shadowdancer was "capture, enslave, trap", as is an important concept Night contains. As such, the original night skill surrounded this Idea. Bonds to make them unable to run or leave, Brumetower so they cant fly or climb away, Choke to put them in a lockdown and despair, and so on and so forth. Moon was created around the original idea of purity and healing, so you can imagine why it's two fae are mostly defensive. I wouldnt mind if they were enhanced.
I'll take a druid over mage any day. The reason I'm not a druid is
because I have some issues with the Hartstone that I will not air here
or anywhere except to the concerned parties should they care to ask.
TK/TP are quite entertaining to use in solo fights and easily countered
in 1:1 scenarios to the point where you can't kill anyone that doesn't
have a case of the derps and doesn't have even the slightest idea how to
psi shield every once in a while to cure up vessels. If anything, the
mage crutch is illusions which is a bad mechanic to rely on. That said,
druids could definitely use an out-of-meld kill method which shamanism
simply doesn't provide.
Wait a second, why? Druids melds are known as being the weakest of the melds, with perhaps the only useful attribute to them being able to paralysis, and in the case of Hartstones, pathtwisting. Several of the abilities are mostly useless (roots to attack burrowed individuals. Does anyone even burrow anymore? Seedcloud for allergies, as if that is effective, etc.), and unless there are briars up (that essentially also hit allies), then it isnt that hard to cross through a druid's meld.
Taking Mage melds into consideration, you can basically blind opponents with 3/4 of the melds (smoke/mirage, duststorm, blizzard), and at least they have effective kill strategies to utilize (possible not aquamancers as much). Thornlash and Thornrend are a horrible horrible combo to try and rely on and arent effective unlesss 1. Your enemy has no curing or 2. You have 4 druids lined up and thornlashing together. This isnt even mentioning how Mage melds have far more effective afflictions to build up off.
As for Telepathy and Telekinesis, I am surprised you say they arent effective kill strategies.. I really think you should look into mage combatants and see how in history psionics has been annihilating people. Heck, @Munsia alone built up a reputation by Telekinesis.
I don't know where you got the idea that druid melds are the weakest, but they most definitely are not. They are right on par with mage melds.
Allergies is OP, if you're fighting in your meld, your first step should be maxing allergies (seedcloud) (while trying to keep them from leaving your meld). Treelife/radmense make druid melds really good at separating groups (not as good as aqua's, but solid), and saplings are way better than terrain (especially since you can terrain over saplings). Shamanism gets downplayed hard, weather effects in your meld are super nice (passive freezing/slickness?).
Blinding opponents in a mage meld does nothing if you have a mapper (which almost everyone who fights probably does). Mage demesnes have their strengths and weaknesses, but they're probably right on par with druids for strength. Every skillset has trash skills that aren't used often, so that's not really an argument.
TK/TP have been nerfed 1v1 to a point where it's easy to keep up with vessels/whatever, so it's not nearly the same issue it was years ago. You can still pull it off if you work at it, but it's not nearly as easy as it was.
The only significant difference is that druids are more reliant on melds than mages, but I always found super and sometimes id balance to be too slow for my liking and would utilize other skills in the arsenal.
Okay.... what? Allergies is a very effective affliction. If you're not using allergies, you're most certainly doing it wrong. Roots is useless, sure.... about as useless as the mage melds' ability to bring people down from the air. Who flies anymore? (Besides me) Sure, airnet is very awesome when someone thinks they can just fly away in a full blown aero meld, but eh... situational. Don't get me started on the west/swiftwind stuff. Most you have to worry about as a melder when hit by love potion is your meld not hitting an enemy. I have to worry about my meld boosting an enemy's healing/offensive capability.
Blind opponents in 3 out of 4 mage melds is yet another eyebrow-raiser. Blizzard, smoke, duststorm only work in the rooms around the caster, not in the whole meld, which makes their blinding capability not all that great... and even then you do have the mapper crowd. As to thornrend... pretty sure I was pulling off sap locks into thornlash back when I was a wee 19 year old hartstone. Pretty sure I can do it even better now if I were to go druid again. And yes, we're talking 1:1 fights. As to more effective afflictions, eh... example might be nice.
I've done all of 3 heartburst kills since I went mage, which was what... 30 IG years ago? I can stack the vessels relatively decently, but the whole thing relies 100% on illusions and tricking your target's system, nothing else. Now, I'm probably not the best person for doing that, I'll be the first to admit it, but any kill method that relies on that sounds like a poorly designed kill method to me. And even if you do manage to get up on the vessel count, a diagnose/psi barrier every now and then will keep the count way low. And that's assuming your opponent doesn't know how to hinder psionics. If their standard fighting fare includes knocking you down at any point in time, you can forget about it altogether.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Anyway, the idea behind Shadowdancer was "capture, enslave, trap", as is an important concept Night contains. As such, the original night skill surrounded this Idea. Bonds to make them unable to run or leave, Brumetower so they cant fly or climb away, Choke to put them in a lockdown and despair, and so on and so forth. Moon was created around the original idea of purity and healing, so you can imagine why it's two fae are mostly defensive. I wouldnt mind if they were enhanced.
I'd say it was more "awesome power that could destroy you just as easily as your opponent if misused", but various nerfs/buffs totally removed that aspect of the theme. Old room choke was the truest form of this - I can't recall how many times someone ignored requests to wait on choke in group situation, choked early, and got themselves and their allies wrecked. Bonds used to affect -everyone- equally, and brume was something you were stuck with if you just dropped it all over the place without thought.
I'd also suggest it is a flaw to say that Moon was designed solely around "purity and healing", but the admin probably had a lot more themes in mind while trying to implement it. And, of course, the desire to make moon phases affect skills tends to lead to more unwieldy degrees of strength. It's a lot easier to stick to a theme if it is concise, rather than comprehensive, many-faceted, and sweeping.
Blind opponents in 3 out of 4 mage melds is yet another eyebrow-raiser. Blizzard, smoke, duststorm only work in the rooms around the caster, not in the whole meld, which makes their blinding capability not all that great... and even then you do have the mapper crowd. As to thornrend... pretty sure I was pulling off sap locks into thornlash back when I was a wee 19 year old hartstone. Pretty sure I can do it even better now if I were to go druid again. And yes, we're talking 1:1 fights. As to more effective afflictions, eh... example might be nice.
I find this statement quite humorous as the concept is just unbelievable (unless you were fighting other 19 year olds), and frankly if you truly believe it is as effective as you say, then I personally would challenge you to go out there and get those miraculous thornends that frankly takes roughly 16 seconds to even pull off.
Blind opponents in 3 out of 4 mage melds is yet another eyebrow-raiser. Blizzard, smoke, duststorm only work in the rooms around the caster, not in the whole meld, which makes their blinding capability not all that great... and even then you do have the mapper crowd. As to thornrend... pretty sure I was pulling off sap locks into thornlash back when I was a wee 19 year old hartstone. Pretty sure I can do it even better now if I were to go druid again. And yes, we're talking 1:1 fights. As to more effective afflictions, eh... example might be nice.
I find this statement quite humorous as the concept is just unbelievable (unless you were fighting other 19 year olds), and frankly if you truly believe it is as effective as you say, then I personally would challenge you to go out there and get those miraculous thornends that frankly takes roughly 16 seconds to even pull off.
Actually, my first sap lock into thornrend (Got to 5 lashes, target got empressed literally a second before I got balance for thornrend back) was Viynain. As to getting a thornrend in 16 seconds? Where do you pick that one up again? I never gave a timeline. It's a slow process, but it can be done... and when you're running a dracnari with 14 int, it's probably faster than bashing people to death as a Hartstone with the electrical damage.
If you want me to pull it off, sure... but you're forgetting this one little problem... VA can't run around swapping orgs... Unless you're going to say Glom will give me VA next, which I rather doubt. :P (Not that I'd jump ship again, thanks... but @Isune and @Vivet are the two people that I feel are awesomest in Lusternia and would never ditch)
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
A vaguely similar thread has been circling around for a while in MKO. In their case people are arguing that priests of similar gods should receive the same tertiary (so Silban, Earth Mother would give the same skill as Killian, Goddess of Forester's as well as the Seas and Love... because they're both "nature") and opposed to each god being given their own unique tert tailored specifically to their priesthood.
My view is that the current state is extremely limiting for nature types.
In some discussions it has become rather obvious that "nature" and "forest" are interchangeable titles, as opposed to say... encompassing the entire natural world.
This goes back to lore and design, there are three forests and a jungle, Maeve is bound to the forests, etc.
What I'd rather see for Wicca and Druidry is the split mentioned.
Let the Blacktalon "improve" the natural world with the power of the Wyrd, let their skills become a reflection of how the evolution the Wyrd brings is great and powerful. (I wonder if they could divert from just the wyrd forests to a focus on the wyrd's impact on all forms of nature, how it is truly the best path and all that)
Let the Hartstone focus on the ancient powers of the land, the deep secrets of the earth that manifest most strongly in the timeless forests.
Show the aspects of nature beyond the handful that we currently know, it would make some sense for the Moondancers to call on a Jack Frost type spirit for example.
Spirits that could exist further out in the world, still found in faethorn and the like, but rather than just being all the general spirits of nature, the spirits that each coven calls on would be the spirits that they are most drawn to.
Moon and Night have their own personalities, their covens in turn have different priorities, the fae that have been historically more relevant to the Moondance Coven are probably different to those that the Lakewood Coven would have regularly dealt with and I would expect Jojobo would be wildly different to anything we've yet known.
In exploring that and developing the skills along those lines, you would offer the differentiation. A Banshee as a crash of thunder in the middle of a clear day, or as a spirit that heralds death still kinda works for Serenwilde, but perhaps the greedy leprechaun that focuses on it's own desires doesn't quite fit as much though Sun is probably quite close with such spirits. In turn the powers of the spirits that are favoured by each Coven would give them their own approaches to combat.
It's also not something I feel is really new, we know there are more lesser fae out there than what exist in the wiccan skill. So forging/renewing connections to other spirits at the expense of others is something that could play out in an interesting way.
Pardon the necro, if it bothers you. But there's been a lot of good points raised since I've looked at this last.
People definitely seem to play Wiccan (on both sides) for RP far, far more than combat. And it would help so much if we had both.
I can only really speak for the MD side though, and would honestly welcome a def nerf for some actual offense. Since the days of Allhex left, we've really only had aeon/sleeplock as a viable kill strategy. And it's predictable, and easily preventable. Pookabash, lol.
Survivability doesn't matter in the end, when you can't really kill people, outside of RNG god giving you sleeplock/toad. Except our champion of course, because Patchou. (Is patchou still OP? Nerf that too, whatever. Make EVERYBODY happy, not just our one champion.) Full is great, of course, as has been said. But as has been said, if your class depends on Full?
Resurgem is also great of course, and it's definitely been RL years since we've used it to its full potential.
I don't know much about the overhaul, I guess, or if it's even changed anything, but I'd welcome more thoughts about anything this thread says. If I'm wrong, please do correct me.
Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
Note the amended overhaul proposal would not include the 5 level
affliction system. The goal would be to radically reduce the number of
afflictions and place them in a database system. Likewise, cures for
afflictions would be radically redesigned so that there are only 4 cures
for the majority of afflictions in the game. In other words, there
would only be 4 cures:
The four cure types (apply/drink/eat/smoke) would each have their own balance.
Possible New Discipline Skills
Focus Herb - allows target cure of specific affliction, i.e., EAT HERB FOCUS STUIPIDITY
Focus Potion - allows target cure of specific affliction
Focus Pipe - allows target cure of specific affliction
Focus Salve - allows target cure of specific affliction
New trans skill to prioritize what afflictions are cured?
As we begin to phase in the new ailments and cures, we will
be reactivating the envoys to ask them to help guide us in the
development.
Phase II: Defenses
Consists of migrating defenses to a database system. Players will
probably not see a great deal of difference in how defenses work.
Phase III: Buff System
Redesign the buff system to the 5 level buff system contemplated in the
original overhaul proposal. In other words, all skills, abilities,
curios, etc. will give a level of buff which stack and max out at 5.
Phase IV: Race Stats
Redesign the race statistics into body/mind/spirit/empathy/artistry as
outlined in the original overhaul proposal. Health/mana/ego would no
longer be tied to race stats.
^ The above is the apparent schedule of the Overhaul. There doesn't seem to be any serious class balancing in the near future (buffing Moondancers, nerfing Illuminati), so.
It's not like it was ever on the table, really, as long as this thread has existed. But it helps to talk. Personally, I just like to know what other people think.
Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
Comments
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I guess there's a third reason: You never get credit for your hard work[sic].
So far from my experience... I wouldn't ever do healing md in pvp(again) unless I just plan to sit and look like a pretty wall to be smashed at. However, bedevil and aurawarp yeah yeah, but it just doesn't cut it for me. Other than that, its not really a bad class to have your fun with.
call the curse of the toad down upon his head. You watch in satisfaction as warts break out over his
skin which then turns green and slimy. Finally, he shrinks and transforms into a large, ugly toad!
With a telepathic sigh, a pooka tells you that he has lost control of Arcanis's actions.
In order to put the pathetic life of a warty toad out of its misery, you lift a foot and bring it
down mightily on its bloated green body.
A warty toad's back breaks under the weight of a heavy foot, its innards spilling out and leaving a
messy stain on the ground.
You have slain a warty toad.
A warty toad wobbles about uncertainly and turns a pale shade of green before suddenly stretching
and transforming into a demigod. Shaking his head, Arcanis stands before you where once there was a
toad, looking slightly disoriented and perplexed with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie.
Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie.
Arcanis drops the corpse of a pooka.
Arcanis drops a stalk of faeleaf.
Having been too much for the mortal threads of Arcanis, he screams in agony as flames engulf his
body and burn it to a crisp.
You tell Lord Fist Arcanis De'Unnero, Chosen of Wrath, "By the by, let that be a lesson in manners.
I don't need friends to kill some of you one on one."
#morales
call the curse of the toad down upon his head. You watch in satisfaction as warts break out over his
skin which then turns green and slimy. Finally, he shrinks and transforms into a large, ugly toad!
With a telepathic sigh, a pooka tells you that he has lost control of Arcanis's actions.
In order to put the pathetic life of a warty toad out of its misery, you lift a foot and bring it
down mightily on its bloated green body.
A warty toad's back breaks under the weight of a heavy foot, its innards spilling out and leaving a
messy stain on the ground.
You have slain a warty toad.
A warty toad wobbles about uncertainly and turns a pale shade of green before suddenly stretching
and transforming into a demigod. Shaking his head, Arcanis stands before you where once there was a
toad, looking slightly disoriented and perplexed with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie.
Arcanis drops the corpse of a pixie.
Arcanis drops the corpse of a pooka.
Arcanis drops a stalk of faeleaf.
Having been too much for the mortal threads of Arcanis, he screams in agony as flames engulf his
body and burn it to a crisp.
You tell Lord Fist Arcanis De'Unnero, Chosen of Wrath, "By the by, let that be a lesson in manners.
I don't need friends to kill some of you one on one."
And if we could be given combat methods no other guild can do (even between MD and SD), I think people would choose Wiccan guilds more than just by mercy or mistake. Since only Wicca is unshared, maybe those skills could be put in there. From a MD point of view, tertiaries are supposed to be supportive to kill methods, not the only way to achieve it.
I don't think wiccan combat is that easy. With champ ents sure. Without them, for Moondancers, say for Hexen, you have to give aeon to kill by sleeplock. If they know where we try to clear it, and sip quicksilver, we'd never be able to aeon them. For Astro, hope shafts stops them from escaping. And for Healers, well...survive, or go pooka them to sip rum. In groups, sleeplocks never work with damagers around, astro is better off afflicting, and healers...uhm, surviving.
To say that we're fine would be correct. We have waning, succumb, dark, and passive afflictions/healing. Resurgem is awesome, so is Full. We learn to love the fae and the RP with it. And if people think we're fine enough to not receive any variety in our combat methods, well, I guess that's fine too. But sometimes, I really wish we could be more fun, more unique, more exciting. Wish people could choose us more.
I don't want to compare with other guilds....that would just make it hurt.
P.S. Maybe we could move our bashing skill a bit lower in the skillset, like Fabled 25% or 75%. Just the bash skill, the dmp, +int and regen could stay at trans. I think new players would like that.
Sleeplock reliance will always be countered by metawake and pookabashing. However in groups their mana killing can be effective when paired up with other sources of drain, even if you're with a group of damage killers, going for succumb and drain works really quickly when your target is having to choose between sipping health and mana, and scroll/sparkle doesn't outpace the drain speed.
Moondancers have excellent survivability, mitigation and damage prevention, as well as great group synergy, even with other MDs. From my perspective, if you want more offence, you'd have to give up defence. People all too often complain about scenarios where individuals have the damage of a glass cannon, yet have the resilience of a reinforced steel wall.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Druid for the longest time complained about no unique skills and everything shared. What I would have given for ecology to be Druid only, thus able to be tweaked to better accomadate them without the fear of overpowering commune bards. Eventually Druids were given Shamanism, which really feels like a half-complete skill in itself and still made Druids feel the need to be attached to their demesne to be even slightly effective. It's just sad that Mages are given skills like Telekinesis and Telepathy which gives them a whole set of abilities they may utilize without the crutch of a meld, while druids are still suppose to rely on a meld with sap or bust.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
So they gave them a lot of things that Moon doesn't.
Extreme survivability (Flight and Drink) I guess Moon's counter to this would be Shine and Full, but would you count on the combatant that's in a room with Drink on or someone who has to use Full in the first place?
Battlefield control (Bonds, Gloomtide, (oh god can you imagine if Glom ever had enough people/shadows for Longnight) what was once Choke, Brumetower) Moon Shafts does deserve some experimenting with, imo, and I won't be mad at you Serens if you misfire this in a combat situation.
All that in addition to typical Wicca tactics (except they get three offensive fae while maiden is like a lame starchant benediction and mother is
mostly irrelevant (feel free to call me out if mother is secretly OP or something). Crone has two possible afflictions, y'all.
This thread should be called "Why no one plays Moondancers".
One thing that I think needs to be put into practice more is Resurgem and being -ready- to be resurgemed, and thus ready to get right back into the fight, even without defs. Such a quick revive is something Shadowdancers don't have, and should be exploited.
Anyway, the idea behind Shadowdancer was "capture, enslave, trap", as is an important concept Night contains. As such, the original night skill surrounded this Idea. Bonds to make them unable to run or leave, Brumetower so they cant fly or climb away, Choke to put them in a lockdown and despair, and so on and so forth. Moon was created around the original idea of purity and healing, so you can imagine why it's two fae are mostly defensive. I wouldnt mind if they were enhanced.
Wait a second, why? Druids melds are known as being the weakest of the melds, with perhaps the only useful attribute to them being able to paralysis, and in the case of Hartstones, pathtwisting. Several of the abilities are mostly useless (roots to attack burrowed individuals. Does anyone even burrow anymore? Seedcloud for allergies, as if that is effective, etc.), and unless there are briars up (that essentially also hit allies), then it isnt that hard to cross through a druid's meld.
Taking Mage melds into consideration, you can basically blind opponents with 3/4 of the melds (smoke/mirage, duststorm, blizzard), and at least they have effective kill strategies to utilize (possible not aquamancers as much). Thornlash and Thornrend are a horrible horrible combo to try and rely on and arent effective unlesss 1. Your enemy has no curing or 2. You have 4 druids lined up and thornlashing together. This isnt even mentioning how Mage melds have far more effective afflictions to build up off.
As for Telepathy and Telekinesis, I am surprised you say they arent effective kill strategies.. I really think you should look into mage combatants and see how in history psionics has been annihilating people. Heck, @Munsia alone built up a reputation by Telekinesis.
It was hilarious how quickly Celestines and low magic users died.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Blind opponents in 3 out of 4 mage melds is yet another eyebrow-raiser. Blizzard, smoke, duststorm only work in the rooms around the caster, not in the whole meld, which makes their blinding capability not all that great... and even then you do have the mapper crowd. As to thornrend... pretty sure I was pulling off sap locks into thornlash back when I was a wee 19 year old hartstone. Pretty sure I can do it even better now if I were to go druid again. And yes, we're talking 1:1 fights. As to more effective afflictions, eh... example might be nice.
I've done all of 3 heartburst kills since I went mage, which was what... 30 IG years ago? I can stack the vessels relatively decently, but the whole thing relies 100% on illusions and tricking your target's system, nothing else. Now, I'm probably not the best person for doing that, I'll be the first to admit it, but any kill method that relies on that sounds like a poorly designed kill method to me. And even if you do manage to get up on the vessel count, a diagnose/psi barrier every now and then will keep the count way low. And that's assuming your opponent doesn't know how to hinder psionics. If their standard fighting fare includes knocking you down at any point in time, you can forget about it altogether.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
I find this statement quite humorous as the concept is just unbelievable (unless you were fighting other 19 year olds), and frankly if you truly believe it is as effective as you say, then I personally would challenge you to go out there and get those miraculous thornends that frankly takes roughly 16 seconds to even pull off.
If you want me to pull it off, sure... but you're forgetting this one little problem... VA can't run around swapping orgs... Unless you're going to say Glom will give me VA next, which I rather doubt. :P (Not that I'd jump ship again, thanks... but @Isune and @Vivet are the two people that I feel are awesomest in Lusternia and would never ditch)
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Phase I: Afflictions and Curing
Note the amended overhaul proposal would not include the 5 level affliction system. The goal would be to radically reduce the number of afflictions and place them in a database system. Likewise, cures for afflictions would be radically redesigned so that there are only 4 cures for the majority of afflictions in the game. In other words, there would only be 4 cures:- Curing Salve (apply): cures external physical afflictions (broken limbs, scabies, etc.)
- Curing Potion (drink): cures internal physical afflictions (dysentery, pox, etc.)
- Curing Herb (eat): cures mental afflictions (confusion, dementia, etc.)
- Curing Pipe (smoke): cures spiritual afflictions (aeon, jinx, etc.)
The four cure types (apply/drink/eat/smoke) would each have their own balance.Possible New Discipline Skills
As we begin to phase in the new ailments and cures, we will be reactivating the envoys to ask them to help guide us in the development.
Phase II: Defenses
Consists of migrating defenses to a database system. Players will probably not see a great deal of difference in how defenses work.Phase III: Buff System
Redesign the buff system to the 5 level buff system contemplated in the original overhaul proposal. In other words, all skills, abilities, curios, etc. will give a level of buff which stack and max out at 5.Phase IV: Race Stats
Redesign the race statistics into body/mind/spirit/empathy/artistry as outlined in the original overhaul proposal. Health/mana/ego would no longer be tied to race stats.^ The above is the apparent schedule of the Overhaul. There doesn't seem to be any serious class balancing in the near future (buffing Moondancers, nerfing Illuminati), so.