Can someone turn a time stamp on and see??

Not to sound like a sour puss... but what about us illusionists? I know.. we are getting a specilization... but until then?

Also, any updates on damage meditgation while bashing yet?

Allow me to explain. Estarra has always said she wanted deafness to be an affliction, and not a defence. .... then she added in a class where deafness not only blocks the ENTIRE primary skillset of the class, it's the ONLY CURE to an affliction the class can give (attraction).

Also, blindness is impossible to raise without also making yourself deaf, and blindness is NECESSARY in large group fights to avoid transfixiton via transfix gems and dazzle.

So, as a result, everyone on both sides need to stay deaf always. This means that beneficial bard songs are worthless, since they don't work on deaf people, and they are far, far less beneficial than deafness and blindness are.

The intent of the change is such that you can remain undeaf for you to hear the benficial songs of your allied bards, and not be adversely effected by enemy bards without them hitting you with blanknote first.

Thus, this change was one of many intended to make it plausible to remain undeaf during combat to make benficial songs, well, beneficial and not 100% worthless.

However, I don't think this change was well thought out, and it is only one of several that are needed before it'll even do anything. Deafness and Blindness are still linked such that you cannot put up one without the other, and blindness is still necessary. Deafness still is needed in large group vs group fights against Glomdoring, since multiple Barghasts howling off sync is DEVESTATING to an undeaf group.


So, in theory, the way it would work is you'd have one bard whose job it is to sing beneficial songs and keep a captive audience of his allies, and other bards can sing detrimental songs and focus on breaking the sixthsense/captivity of their enemies.

There are many things I don't know about it though. I don't know what happens when someone who is captivated makes themself deaf. I don't know if you can captivate already captivated people.

I also don't know how this will work out, since it seems like it'd make a mess of trying to figure out who is captivated by whom since you can captivate enemies, and so to protect yourself against being captivated by an enemy, it seems best to just.... keep yourself deaf, just like before.

It looks like what'll happen is, two groups go to fight each other, both containing bards. Both begin with everyone undeaf, and the entire group captivated by a friendly bard. The fight begins. Both sides have one bard use the 5p multitarget blanknote to strip the other side's captivity. One side captivates immediately first. The other side all eats faeleaf as soon as they can. Until then, they aren't being helped by their allied bard, who has no way to break captivity without blanknoting his allies. Once his allies manage to eat faeleaf, his songs STILL don't benefit them, since now they're deaf.

I don't see this as solving the problem of beneficial songs not being beneficial at all. I think requiring mutual allied status for captivity is needed to make the skill actually do its intended purpose.


We've been told very clearly not to suggest changes that benefit Commune illusionist bards. I don't understand it at all, but that's what we were told when such a suggestion was suggested. There may have been a misunderstanding, but that is the way all of the Envoys I have spoken with interperted it, including the former Spiritsinger Envoy.

If you make it easy to keep a group captivating, either offensive or defensive sons are going to be next to worthless. If it requires mutual allies, the enemy bard has to blankchord to attack with is own songs, which costs 5 power, and in response, the ally bard can just captivate again.

If it doesn't require mutual allies, you blankchord and you have a partner captivate your enemies. It'll end up with everyone just being deaf again, and we're back where we started.

I'm not ever sure Bard songs are strong enough to require such a blanket defense. Deafness (and Blindness) should never be something you want to have. We keep saying they're bad, but then things keep getting added (barghest, dazzle tweaks, bards) that all require them.

I don't really want to get too much into this but you are reading too much into it. The skill in question was rejected for a variety of reasons, one of which is who it supports.

We're still working on making deafness a true ailment insofar as it won't be something you want to have up, and probably splitting deafness and blindness as afflictions. Baby steps!

I don't know how that was an answer to the question of, how long does that skill last, that strips sixthsense deafness and makes it so you cant put up sixthsense again??

I mean, pulling this combo with a bard and sacrament dazzle, or showoff gem... this will put alot of people in a bad way.... so I am just trying to figure out the timing, since I would want sixth sense back up as quickly as I can so I am not transfixed because of some silly song...

ANNOUNCE NEWS #683
Date: 12/4/2006 at 0:28
From: Estarra, the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Envoy Updates

-Tumble now costs 500 endurance to use.
-Phantoms in Illusions now cost 2 power.
-Crow Perch should also work like cling.
-There is a new Crow skill called Regurgitate (yum!).
-While in Crow Form, your stomach can hold double the amount of carrion
as normal.
-Telekinesis barrier only stops corporeal bodies from leaving (i.e., not
dreamformed, ghosts, etc.).
-Trueheal has a 2 second equilibrium recovery and the prismatic barrier
will drop after a certain time.
-Trueheal cannot be forced.
-Enfeeble can be cured by allheale.
-Succor for healers does not use equilibrium (but requires equilibrium
and balance to use).
-Ablution bug that occasionally prevented some people from using it at
max health is fixed.
-World in Tarot has been changed so that all targetted tarot flings will
shattered
-AnimateDagger in Telekinesis can now only be used on the Id channel.
-There is a new skill in Telekinesis! I'll leave it to the mages to
discover and reveal.

Penned by My hand on the 13th of Dvarsh, in the year 163 CE.


The World tarot typo should say something about world tarot giving a defence that makes tarot cards ignore and break shields. It costs 5p and lasts... dunno, 30 seconds?


3112h, 4480m, 4252e, 10p, 14460en, 21300w ex-
With a focused look, Ciaran strikes at you with a finely crafted rapier. Ciaran
strikes into your chest and blood foams up from your mouth. <-- PunctureLung afflict, multiplies en costs by 50.
2882h, 4480m, 4252e, 10p, 14460en, 21300w ex-
You bleed 8 health.
2874h, 4480m, 4252e, 10p, 14460en, 21300w ex-tumble s

You begin to tumble agilely to the south.
2874h, 4480m, 4252e, 10p, 0en, 21300w e-
You tumble out of the room.
The Aetherplex Chamber.
The shadowy outline of a twisted forest casts a dark gloom here. A wooden spike
is planted here, proudly displaying the shrunken head of Fanon. A brown stag
wanders about here, its head held regally. You see a sign here instructing you
to use the PORTAL command to enter the aetherplex system. There is an aetherways
portal here.
You see exits leading north (open door), south, and out.
2874h, 4480m, 4252e, 10p, 10en, 21300w e-

Other than that, VERY nice changes.

Hooray for Succor at last!!

Neat changes, wonder what the new skills are and do.

-Crow Perch should also work like cling.

IS this a typo? Anybody who can do Crow Perch, can allready cling...

It's so they won't have to cling and then perch. They can just perch.

How is it different than cling?

Crow perch did everything that cling did + summon resistance... except that it was bugged, especially against sylph. If you CLING and PERCHED, sylph would knock you out of the trees. DEF on the ground would show you as having both defs. If you just cling, sylph didn't knock you out. If you just perched, sylph did knock you out and you had perch on the ground...

Ouch, poor mages. Wonder how long trueheal lasts now.

Trueheal is 10 seconds.

Hooray for world being useful!

What did World do before?

Allowed (non-empress) tarot cards to be thrown at anyone in the same local area who was outdoors. Lasted 30 seconds.

You mean non-lust. Soulless could be thrown.

Anyway, yeah, the new world is pretty cool.

Err, right, I said the wrong one.

Crow Regurgitate isn't bad...it works on about a three-second balance, and heals around 2000 health (unless it's percentage based). Not bad for bashing.