So I have been putting off choosing between Astrology, Healing and Tarot because the decision is difficult.

Tarot has a lot of repeated skills but also offers an additional offensive route with Soulless. Healing doesn't offer many offensive choices but does help with timewarp kills. Astrology looks really interesting but appears to lack consistency.

Anyone have experience, especially with Astrology, as to which of these would be a good choice in the long run? I'm leaning towards Astrology, currently, but I'm just not sold on the idea that my skills are less effective on people who created their character on a Tuesday in January in 2009. Is this really an issue? Is Astrology broadly useful against all opponents and at most/all times?

As far as Tarot... is the addition of Soulless worth the relative lack of synergy across the rest of the skill? Ruins with Carcer looks great but doesn't really do much other than slow people down, which is useless if you can't finish the job.

In Healing, am I missing anything in assuming that it is largely only useful for stacking passive afflictions via AuraWarp?

I'm looking for something skill-based and relatively technical. I like having full control over what I afflict with, what my opponent is hindered by and so forth. Any suggestions as to what would best mesh with this style of play?

Thanks in advance for you help!

Shamarah already mentioned that Tarot is horrible for Institute. No synergy.

Astrology has really good days. I had a lot of fun with an aeon/recklessness/stupidity/sensitivity Skull ray. It also has terrible days. I don't know enough about Researcher offense to tell you how you'll do on those off days. I know as a Wiccan, I had no real kill method if the day sucked.

Healing Researcher seems cool because aurawarp is only curable when the victim runs away, and the only way to cure rubies is to run away, plus the homeostasis aff makes curing timewarps harder. On top of all the healing stuff + gems.

You can try stacking negative spheres and rubies, then do a Shatterplex+Meteor combo for awesome damage. (Astrology)
Does Aurawarp block timewarp curing? If so, Aurawarp will help stick timewarp. (Healing)
I have no experience with Tarot.

Unlike Nihilists and Celestines, Researchers really don't have much use for the vast majority of the active offensive skills in our tertiaries. Tarot is pretty worthless because we have no viable way of getting off a Soulless and we already have access to Aeon through Aeonics. Some of the other skills are still good, like Lust and Fall, and obviously it still has good utility, but IMO these are not strong enough reasons to pick it over the alternatives. I picked Astro mostly for the awesome buffs and in the hopes that maybe our aeon-lock potential will be increased and the afflicting power of Astrology will become useful. Healing would also be quite good for the reasons outlined by Shuyin (Sojiro).

Astrology works more off of what is currently available in terms of affliction potential rather than altogether dependence on nativity rays to afflict. Until I get around to tweaking nativity rays, constellations and stelliums and the occasional sphere/meteor combo are your friend. I'd think you'd like Astrology if, judging by your note above about liking technicalities, you don't mind keeping up with the translation of what's available at that particular moment in time. Though you won't have full control over the change in afflictions, I'd say Astro is very viable still to hinder with.

This is why Kio wubs his daddy!

Oh piffle.

Tiny hijack, but what do people think about the Tet choices in relation to the Illuminati? I'm curious how they made out.

Seems like Meteor could be useful for them, given they can keep people from moving away. Same goes for Soulless. But that's just my very very uninformed theorycrafting.

Hexes for combat, Tarot for utility, Astrology if you're a loon.

Soulless kills you straight up. Meteor may or may not. Soulless usually wins, especially if you're a low int race and don't have any magic damage runes. (Furrikini meteors don't reliably kill. )

Healing if you want to laugh at anyone that wants to try to kill you. (Because of Gem passives/Aeonics skills/Healing Auras)

Astro if you actually want some semblance of an offense. (Rays/Meteor)

As Razenth said, Hexes is a good choice - I would not discount Tarot, however, as a handful of our combatants and prospective combatants have picked it up. I see the potential in Tarot. I do not like Astrology because having no true control of how my skills shift from day to day is irritating. It's like picking up a deck of cards and you really want an Ace of Spades - or even just an Ace. Some days you draw the Ace, some days you draw a Joker.

Or in some cases, because we don't have the lessons to switch.

Thanks for all the input so far!

So, I was thinking about Tarot...

AeonField is a consistent tick, therefore it is relatively predictable (if you ignore latency). Doesn't this mean you could charge an Aeon tarot with Enigma up and time the fling just as AeonField ticks? Essentially giving 2x Aeon + 1 random fling simultaneously? It seems like if Moon or Hangedman stuck, it could prevent them from outr'ing or give stupidity long enough to fling another Moon + Enigma.

Furthermore, not sure how Ruby works, it says that rubies are lost on movement. Does this include tumbling, or just normal movement? If you put up Carcer + TemporalBonds and then tossed a boatload of Ruins cards you could make normal movement from your room practically impossible. Just Hangedman / Web them any time you see them trying to pass over Ruins. Meanwhile, start stacking up rubies on them and - in the off chance that they do get out, either via tumble or shield + normal movement - you could just summon them back.

Not sure about the possibility or viability of either of these tactics but, my initial impression that Tarot and Aeonics/Harmonics had no synergy might have been a bit hasty.

Good thinking, give it a shot and see how it goes, all the theorycrafting in the world does you no good if you don't try it out, but it sounds interesting.

Aeon is overrated without the massive passive afflicting potential that the other guardians and even wiccans have (here's looking at you, SDs). Against a decent system the combo you specified in the third paragraph would stop them for a total of one second. One second + writhe time if you're lucky. Oh sure, maybe you'll get stupidity on Moon, but a) you're not guaranteed stupidity on Moon, and c) you're not even guaranteed Moon on Enigma.

Remember that afflicting them is all fine and nice, but if it doesn't get you any closer to your kill method, there's very little point to it.

beast spit poison. Can chain that for a selected poison (like stupidity) Pretty reliable on everyone but poisonists and knights who have immunity up.

I don't feel it matters what tertiary you pick with Illuminati. I'd personally just use paradigmatics and transmogrification.

You must come from another IRE game. Sure, you could easily throw an aeon when the field fires, but aeon is a drink cure here (phlegmatic), so stopping people from outring or whatever doesn't really matter. You have to give anorexia if you want to stick aeon, and as a Tarot Researcher you have no way of doing that. Systems are good enough that if you don't stop aeon being cured somehow, it will be cured within a second.



Yes, Fall could be useful, but in Lusternia tumble has vastly fewer drawbacks than you are likely used to in whatever game you come from - brazier/cloak don't exist here, so you can't summon someone right back in when they tumble out (unless you have a lust prepared, of course, but that's counterable). In fact, combat in Lusternia at the high levels has a great deal to do with dealing with the fact that people are going to tumble away from your elaborate setups.



These are words of wisdom and you should heed them. The most minimalist strategies are almost always the most effective ones.