So I have two questions which kinda link together.

1. Since I moved from Seren (and found to my pleasant surprise that while frequently buried in paperwork, Hallis aren't cold emotionless automatons assimilating everything in their reach), I've been giving some thought to checking out some of the other new (for me, anyway!) guild/archetypes that I've never been before, and was looking into the Aeonics guilds (because the affectionately dubbed chronomancy is interesting). I've been under the impression warriors are generally accepted to be the most able to take punishment (bashing and otherwise) and are usually the last ones to be targetted in groups. It's been mentioned to me however that with things like tertiary buffs, passives and whatnot, this may not be the case. Plus weaponrunes are dauntingly expensive. So I thought I'd toss this up, because yes I am a curious cat, as the saying goes.

Assume omnitrans, demi, and any race is available (though no female keph). Assume also that any combat done is (small-medium) group pvp (size being various raid defs usually, plus the given of revolts/domoths) and not solo if I can avoid it, and that any hunting done is, obviously, in highish-level hunting grounds, what's safer - institute or sentinels, and what's more useful (being able to stay alive while tossing out helpfulness - and no, no pits involved...)? (and as an aside, what are peoples' recent experiences, RP/people/chillaxedness/otherwise, in either? I can only really locate one or two in each guild to talk to sadly, but it might be because of my timezoning...).

2. The other question follows on from this, resulting from a discussion I had over a clan. For those Warrior specs that share a skillset (i.e. Ritual/Totem specs with guardian/wiccans), are the warriors generally tankier than their counterparts, or does the opposite apply? (i.e. SD vs EG, MD vs SG, UrG vs Nihi, etc)

3. It's like I make one of these topics annually or something :(

Don't know if this answers anything, but:

While I can't speak much to the combat aspects, flavourwise in regards to 'chronomancy' between the two, I've been partial to seeing it as

The Company= UNIT/Torchwood/1984 : Institute= Eureka/Chrono-Hogwarts/Timelords with toys, with both having a bit of a friendly rivalry between the two.

Institute has its lovely little gems (not combat rune heavy, unless you want one for your blaster/scalpel etc), plus a new hall expansion and department advancement/plots being worked on and the Taroch Symposium/Science Fair. Though it's an academic setting, can be writing heavy and you have to plumb your imagination for experiments and projects that would be feasible without a lot of Divine interaction. (But still doable with your fellow classmates/professors activitywise)

As for the Company, I've not much experience with it since Orv was new to Halli, but those Temporal Anomaly were always fun!

And while I have to say Come2Institute, I also have to support the Sentinels because they ( read: Good ol' Ushaara) have been needing good people to get such fun (read: not overbearing) rp underway.

But either is a good choice. I love them both.

Night Ebonguard are incredibly tanky. Much more so than Shadowdancers because they can wear mastercraft armor on top of Drink (amazing passive health/mana/ego heal) and Nightkiss (24 dmp to everything).

also they have Choke

The Institute's advancement system was pretty crazy the last time I took a look at it, but all the weapons and skills are pretty neat. I can't comment on the Sentinels.

The curse of the Sentinels is that the moment we get a bit of guild momentum built up, work/school/life gets hectic and we enter period of dormancy with projects incomplete, and then forgotten about when new people step up.

That said, at the moment we have myself, Lilija and Jakir + low number of novices. Lilija and Jakir are working on revamping our advancement system, I'm trying to piece something together that will play up our Timecop focus, which for the most part has been ignored outside of events, and then we also have the Skylark Company history which I am totally clueless on how to implement. Am also playing with that FutureTech idea for an envoy report (posted somewhere in Ideas thread), which -might- be a goer, and I think would also give us some more flavour.

To answer your questions though, for survivability I think it would be between Sentinel or Healer Researcher. Alacrity is a really nice bashing ability for us too; if my number theorizing was right, aslaran Sentinel max speed build would be hitting every 2.1 - 2.4s. We're limited to cutting/blunt though, where researchers can vary about with scalpels/blasters etc.

Combat wise, tarot researcher would be the more straightforward/cheaper arti wise, if that's what you'd like, and would probably also secure more kills in group. Though warrior, despite its frustrations, has lots of things you can vary and is really fun to play with. I'd recommend two-hander spec for best synergy with aeonics. I've only been bonecrusher up to now, and while the stun/balance steal route has been fun, I haven't really been able to abuse aeon-field as much as I'd like. As Sentinel, active skills you'd be using would be foresight and alacrity, echoes too if you're not too busy lunge/crushing etc, aeon/aeonfield on occasion, with pastglimpse to escape locks. Timequaking still off the table for us outside of group situation.

Tarot researcher is easy kill mode.
Healer researcher is tanky, but without a 1-2-3 kill condition.
Astro researcher is a nice balance of the two, some buffs with a nice kill setup, if you can handle Astrology in the first place.

BUT WE NEED SENTINELS.

In either case, you end up with some very nice things to play with. Alacrity, Foresight, AEON SPAM...

My experience fighting Sentinels is that they are virtually unkillable, with dodging, aff shrugging, and decent amounts of passive offensive hindering. Aeonics is one of the best Ritual specs for warriors; many of it's most powerful effects are passive.

I imagine that the best spec is Pureblade; tendoning/amputating becomes a rather effective strategy in AeonField, allowing plenty of time to hack down.

Best choice for them is almost certainly Aslaran with Endowments across the board (including Int and Cha in order to counteract the AeonField penalty).

Ebonguard really only benefit from having Totems(Night) as a Tert. If you are able to skillflex efficiently you can Trans both Totems(Night) and Totems(Crow), then you will be able to throw up all the defs once a day from each of the terts making you fairly superior to most warriors.

In group combat, if you choose a Blademaster, there are some tactics you need to practice to pull off effective group combat. Should you choose another archtype, most of the other are bash combatants and a little easier to use, though not as effective I don't think in combat as BM can be.

The artifacts are not required to be a great combatant but it sure helps make up some slowness one might have at executing wounds etc...for the most part you are swinging and praying for a kill shot :)

Zilias:

Ebonguard really only benefit from having Totems(Night) as a Tert. If you are able to skillflex efficiently you can Trans both Totems(Night) and Totems(Crow), then you will be able to throw up all the defs once a day from each of the terts making you fairly superior to most warriors.

In group combat, if you choose a Blademaster, there are some tactics you need to practice to pull off effective group combat. Should you choose another archtype, most of the other are bash combatants and a little easier to use, though not as effective I don't think in combat as BM can be.

The artifacts are not required to be a great combatant but it sure helps make up some slowness one might have at executing wounds etc...for the most part you are swinging and praying for a kill shot :)

Scary

vorld:

Scary

I am not sure if you are being sarcastic so I 'liked' your post either way.

IMHO, a warrior with all Crow and Night buffs is a bit scary, heh

I was not being sarcastic. hmm a serenguard would be just as scary add in the stag instkill into the mix too

foolofsound:

My experience fighting Sentinels is that they are virtually unkillable, with dodging, aff shrugging, and decent amounts of passive offensive hindering. Aeonics is one of the best Ritual specs for warriors; many of it's most powerful effects are passive.

I imagine that the best spec is Pureblade; tendoning/amputating becomes a rather effective strategy in AeonField, allowing plenty of time to hack down.

Best choice for them is almost certainly Aslaran with Endowments across the board (including Int and Cha in order to counteract the AeonField penalty).

Having not been a Sentinel I can't say whether aeonics is the best tert for warriors but I'd say it's more about how you want to play your warrior. Aeonics is a mainly passive skillset but also quite defensive in nature. Paradigmatics is probably the best offensive tert but the majority of its skills require active use or have a big malus (1/2 mana on visionflux for example) and EG is by far the best tert for tanking damage/affs with Drink and Nightkiss.

vorld:

I was not being sarcastic. hmm a serenguard would be just as scary add in the stag instkill into the mix too

Teehee, now you are being sarcastic!

vorld:

I was not being sarcastic. hmm a serenguard would be just as scary add in the stag instkill into the mix too

A warrior cannot (or should not be able to) get you to-- Yeah you're just joking anyway, right?

Zilias:

Ebonguard really only benefit from having Totems(Night) as a Tert. If you are able to skillflex efficiently you can Trans both Totems(Night) and Totems(Crow), then you will be able to throw up all the defs once a day from each of the terts making you fairly superior to most warriors.

In group combat, if you choose a Blademaster, there are some tactics you need to practice to pull off effective group combat. Should you choose another archtype, most of the other are bash combatants and a little easier to use, though not as effective I don't think in combat as BM can be.

The artifacts are not required to be a great combatant but it sure helps make up some slowness one might have at executing wounds etc...for the most part you are swinging and praying for a kill shot :)

Blademaster is easy in group combat and probably the best spec for that. 1v1, it is suck and I highly recommend PB over it in that specific circumstance.

Rivius:

A warrior cannot (or should not be able to) get you to-- Yeah you're just joking anyway, right?


Blademaster is easy in group combat and probably the best spec for that. 1v1, it is suck and I highly recommend PB over it in that specific circumstance.

I agree, that is more along the lines of what I meant. Blademaster is easy once you figure the tactics out and setup some maneuvers to weed out worthless afflictions. Pureblade is pretty good in 1v1 but still requires a little bit of work to weed out worthless afflictions.

Dear Raeri,

I am protesting this entire thread. If you are exploring your options in Halli, that means you're not coming back to Seren, at least not any time soon. This is unacceptable and makes me very sad.

Love,
Arsalil :wub:

Zilias:

If you are able to skillflex efficiently you can Trans both Totems(Night) and Totems(Crow), then you will be able to throw up all the defs once a day from each of the terts making you fairly superior to most warriors.

The moment you skillflex out of a skill, the defenses that you had from the previous skillset become dormant. If they don't then that is a bug and should be reported as that is how it is supposed to work.

Asmodea:

The moment you skillflex out of a skill, the defenses that you had from the previous skillset become dormant. If they don't then that is a bug and should be reported as that is how it is supposed to work.

Hmm, when I changed guilds a couple of times, I still had my old buffs until I logged. So I could still SCENT as a harb.

Asmodea:


The moment you skillflex out of a skill, the defenses that you had from the previous skillset become dormant. If they don't then that is a bug and should be reported as that is how it is supposed to work.

This is not what I've been told.

Virtually every defence I can think of remains persistent through skillflex, and I feel comfortable saying that all defences that drop on logout will not be lost immediately on skillflex.

The exceptions tend to be those skills where it says specifically in the AB that the skill/effect will be lost as soon as the skill is forgotten (tattoo master, trans poisons, ecology charm).

When skillflex was first released, this was observed, and the admin response was to leave it be.

Who/where did you hear it was a bug?

Who/where did you hear it was a bug?

I remember hearing that it wasn't intended too, but I have no idea when or where...best I'm coming up with is "probably on the forums?"