I like most of the changes except the Enigma one. Anyone care to give a reason for that?

It's a nice upgrade. Now all the throws you make yourself (so you know which cards come) are masked, while the random ones just hit you unmasked.

Upgrade? No, actually, it was nice to have two masked tosses at once, but eh, whatever. If you want to look at it that way, I suppose it's an okay change, nothing spectacular.



Perhaps that should be changed to "Note: There is no power cost to call a companion that is already summoned, or 1 power if it is summoned on Celestia itself."

No, see. Before the change, if you put up fool and engima, you effectively got off two afflictions you wanted masked, and one random one, including yucky things like judgement and love. Now, you have three random, unmasked afflictions, and three afflictions you choose yourself masked.

I see the point of it, but I don't agree with it, as will a few others I think. But to each his own. Thank you for answering my question though. I see why it was changed. Some people might see that as a downgrade though, like myself.

Yeah, it really is in the eye of the viewer. But adapt and overcome!

Preserve is probably going to be just about as group-abusable as Lash and Thornrend.

Oh wait.

I'm not sure... getting below half health seems to still be the difficult part, even if getting someone to frozen appears trivial.

I'm just not sure I like the extremely low powercosts, and I'd like to see how easily a prepared telekinetic can use it. Alone or with a partner.

And phantoms had better get a significant powercost, envoys have some responsibility to be objective and reasonable.

I think it (Phantoms) should cost 5 power. Narsrim is pretty much against any changes to his new pet class though, and rather than asking for small tweaks to his the class like everyone else does to theirs, he asks for large upgrades (Reality cost lowered, Liquidform buff, Preserve buff) and is pretty much against a significant tweaking where it is needed (Hailstorm/Boulderblast). I'm annoyed that Reality was compared to Dark Moon/Stagcurse/Contagion when asked for a buff or reduced power cost, but according to Narsrim it is not a valid comparison to compare Phantoms to Dark Moon/Stag Curse/Contagion, when it is far superior to all three of those.

Edited for clarity.

Phantoms seems more like a variant of darkseed to me. And I was going for a powercost of between 3 and 5, its not -amazingly- powerful enough to warrant much more, but free is just ridiculous.

You would never ever ever ever see it used again. Its really not as good as you think it is... an extra affliction every 10 seconds really isn't bad...

It is currently pretty much uncureable (8 power to cure from Critique is not valid), and continues to afflict after they are dead or you are back at home. It is spammable, it can be used at range via stalker. It costs no power. It needs a significant power cost to bring it in line with similar abilities (Dark Moon/Stagcurse). Aquamancers aren't particularily power intensive mid combat anyway, so it's not a big deal. Also phantoms lasts 80 seconds, in which time you could regenerate 8-9 power.

When I was an Aqua, if phantom had cost more then 2 power, I would have never used it again. Except with amplifyphobia, its not a great skill. When its used on me, I don't actually notice it until I've stopped fighting for a while and it hits again, then I laugh at it and how its so easy to cure that extra affliction every now and then.

It's mostly the passive entanglement that is annoying, because when combined with the rest of the demesne, it breaks down your offense even more. Also the damage helps. But it's also the fact that it isn't cureable, and continues to afflict you even when you've returned to say, your nexus. What else would you spend power on anyway in mid combat? Mages really do use very little power during combat, unlike most other classes who are power intensive and have to balance costs against each other when in the middle of combat. Their bread and butter is free and spammable (Phantoms, Telekinetics/Telepaths channels, Illusions, etc).

I don't see preserve being too abuseable. Hell, even if you have a whole horde of aquamancers that know it...

Aqua 1 preserves, hits fire defense.
Aqua 2 preserves, chills.
Target sips fire.
Aqua 3 preserves, chills.
Aqua 4 preserves, freezes.
Aqua 5 preserves, half health
Target sips health
Aqua 6 preserves, half health
Aqua 7 preserves, death

That's seven aquamancers to get an instant instant-kill! Assuming you don't get fire balance back before they all hit, which is unlikely... of course, there's a million other possibilities. Still, not as bad as many other possible combos.

Well, I don't think you could use it to get an instant instant kill, but why would an aquamancer lead with preserve, when they could alteraura/forcefeed/forcefeed, assuming that is possible?

Except that that you can stack iceflow (demesne effect), two daggers poisoned with chills, and preserve

I had hoped they reduced the power cost of CRITIQUE in arts,..... That would make sense...

ANNOUNCE NEWS #646
Date: 9/30/2006 at 23:03
From: Roark Libertas
To : Everyone
Subj: Couple of Changes

Here are a couple of changes. The dreamweaving hallucination mote will
fire delayed when embedded, similar to when you cast it directly. Also,
knighthood attacks against the lower body will miss uf the target is in
a pit and you are standing at ground level since it sort of doesn't make
sense that you can do that.

Penned by My hand on the 17th of Avechary, in the year 158 CE.


Well done. Keep nerfing Trackers. We can still catch fish and cluck chickens! Nerf those too!

While it is a great idea to have mini-envoy reports, it is obvious that the sole objective of the envoys is to upgrade their own skills and nerf others. And when there are no envoys with Tracking, the only trap in the skillset that is semi-useful is trashed. Truly well done, guys, for being such objective envoys.