Jester v.s. Shaman

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  • If nothing else, from this thread I'm sure you can gather there are more shamans than jesters, the latter tends to deliver more delayed gratification. As for your question on spiritwalk, it's just for scouting, you are forced to return to the room where your body is when leaving spirit form so you can't sneak into places with it.
  • Spiritwalk is good for checking if Chenubis is in his usual spot or not, before I go murder the city. If I know he's not there, and don't see a string of deathsights on discord of people dying to him (thus trying to kill him), I know to just leave or have the risk of running into him on one of the flights of stairs.
  • What is this discord thing.
    "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

  • I might need to come back just to teach people how to Shaman
  • Kiet said:
    Farrah said:
    Kiet said:
    I'm continually amazed that there's this big shaman community over in targ  and yet people keep claiming some very weird things from over there as if they had no one to practice with.

    If Vodun seems less integral to shaman, it's simply because curses and spiritlore are so strong that people become spoiled.

    Vodun is also extremely fun, imo, and is a very big part of shaman lore/history, so saying it should've gone is weird af.


    I'm continually amazed that every post of yours has to somehow be negative about Targ.

    There is no combat hive mind in any city. Just respond to the posts rather than commenting on what city the poster happens to play a character in for once. Seriously.

    You're taking a comment about a group of shamans as being about the honor of your text city. The point is not that they're targ, it's that there's a group of 4+ shamans (the only such group in the game!) that keep spouting bizarre comments about shaman here + in discord (such as swiftcurse being bad, last time).

    I really don't care about Targ as much as you think I do, and I don't even post about it very often. I generally rank it as one of the better cities, even, and I openly state so!
    Pretty sure I'm one of the 'Four HorseShaman of Targossas' and I dunno what you're talking about. Swiftcurse makes it easy to lock with para stuck, assuming aff route, so it's great? Pretty sure you're talking about one or two persons and assuming all the Shamans agree. 

    Secondly, no one disagrees that Vodun isn't integral, people just disagree that it -should- be integral. As Farrah said in a later post, you have to actively decide to go the Vodun route, and what a tired and boring route it is. It doesn't streamline with the aff route as other classes do. Yes, you use curses to fashion, but if you're affing and going for soulrends when you're out of other invokes then you're just doing a shitty job of both afflicting and fashioning, and would be better served by just going aff/swift or soulrend/vodun.  

    The problem with Vodun is that, in the past, you had a slow and boring walk to Burger King. No one liked the walk, but it was the only way to get there. Now you have a shiny new car, it goes really fast, does donuts and makes loud noises on its way to Burger King. The issue?

    No one likes Burger King. 
  • Are there any actual Jesters here to weigh in? I'm concerned with the difficulty curve and lack of good teachers it's going to be a head pounding experience but to be honest, they sound the most fun to me.
  • Xidigo said:
    Are there any actual Jesters here to weigh in? I'm concerned with the difficulty curve and lack of good teachers it's going to be a head pounding experience but to be honest, they sound the most fun to me.
    Cooper is a jester, or was a jester. I was a jester as well. The reason you don't see many of them is a testament to the class itself, really. 

    I don't think Shaman is outright 'easier'. Jester is just so...weird, it's not like most classes, and most people end up finding it really boring in comparison to other classes. It can be very, very powerful but it's just so meh in the process. I personally wouldn't recommend it, but that's my own opinion. For all I know you love that style of play, but I think there are better/more fun classes available that you'd likely enjoy more. Like, literally any other class. Ever. 
  • Farrah said:

    I think part of @Sayenna's gripe might just stem from my own problem with Vodun though: it's boring. If shaman had something more interesting than Vodun (mechanic-wise), I'd probably play the class myself. But I tend to favor the prep classes that push offense while prepping (snb, bard, shikudo) or prep very quickly (tekura, magi) when I'm playing a prep class. To me, fashioning always seemed both slow and isolated from the momentum aspect of the class. Maligus brings them together a little, but you're still not really pushing offense when you make the decision to start doing curse/maligus instead of more affs.

    ^ That's the end of the discussion, really. We need to find a way to make vodun more fun to use. We all agree it's needed, but to be honest, if I HAVE to use vodun to kill someone and can't just curse/spiritlore for a lock, I'm just not going to fight that person. I can reliably prep a doll in 15-25 seconds (depending on mana) unhindered, but against someone that's actively prepping my limbs or afflicting me for momentum, that's practically an entire kill sequence that I then have to avoid. Just while prepping a doll before I can try anything offensive. And if I fail my first attempt, oops, gotta fashion more, gg.
  • One thing to consider about Jester is that the flavor is absolutely fucking terrible.

    If you want to run around Achaea on a balloon giraffe while you bop things with a blackjack and  throw banana peels around, I will absolutely think less of you as both a character and a person. 
  • @Cooper and @Micaelis can I ask what personally made you guys drop Jester?
  • Can't speak for Cooper, he might still be Jester in fact, but me personally it was just a combination of what Nazihk so eloquently stated earlier and the utter boredom that the class entails. It's alright in groups, has some pretty nice uses, but there's so many other classes with more uses and more flavor to them. I don't know, I just couldn't sit there and say "I'd rather be Jester than x" with any single class. Eventually I swapped from Jester to Shaman (maybe 4 irl months ago) and have enjoyed the switch, though my main class is Serpent. 

    It suffices as a class but I just think any normal person would have more fun as any other given class, it can be terribly boring. 
  • Xidigo said:
    Are there any actual Jesters here to weigh in? I'm concerned with the difficulty curve and lack of good teachers it's going to be a head pounding experience but to be honest, they sound the most fun to me.
    I've played a Jester from the moment I first discovered Achaea ~14 years ago and I still have it as my first class.

    i added Runie about 8 months ago when I came back from a 2-3 year break and haven't switched back at all in that time.

    I loved the Jester class, but (necessary) combat balance changes made it harder for me to play. There is a personal limitation here admittedly, but the micro managing of all aspects from axe juggles to fashions, to defence etc was just a little too much for me to keep up with. 

    In plain terms, for someone with very little coding knowledge and struggles at times with the nuances of Achaean combat, I got frustrated at the inability to be effective. 2H is far easier to learn and use, although not as exciting when you do finally get the kill, but at least I'm getting them. 

    I have limited play time, so the balance comes between being fun and feeling frustrated, 

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • Geez, that's kind of disappointing to hear that an entire class often gets dismissed as chucklefucks for the way their abilities were written. I rather liked the light hearted contrast in comparison to all the other skilltrees getting a "make eyes bleed and head explode" finisher. And Jack-In-The-Box still sounds scary.
  • If you're interested in Jester, don't let everyone talk you out of it. Try the class, if you like it stick with it, if not, then don't. Simple as that. There's even a House dedicated to jesters, though I'm unsure how populous it is.
  • I was only Jester ever because of lucrescent nuts.

    I took the class because of how much utility Jesters offer, and how godly they are in raids/group fights. The ability to cure someone who is locked, heal 25% their health, get your group out with universe or puppet, high mobility, etc.

    I eventually realized that as Jester I was under utilizing my artefacts (I have level 3 offense arties) so I dropped it.

  • Cooper said:
    I was only Jester ever because of lucrescent nuts.
    Because of a what now?
  • Xidigo said:
    Cooper said:
    I was only Jester ever because of lucrescent nuts.
    Because of a what now?
    lucrescent nuts were a consumable that would make you transcendent in your class skills for a 24 (i think?) period. They were originally non-decay so people would get lots of them and save them up to play certain classes without investing a ton of lessons into them. However, the admins noticed that there were a ton more of them in the game than intended, so they ended up giving them a decay time, which mostly removed their usefulness.

    Cooper is essentially saying he picked up jester because he was able to play it with all its skills without investing a ton of lessons.

  • An item that lets you trans a class temporarily. 
  • They made nuts last a measly hour instead of 24. And it omni trans'd you and was amazing for bashing for people with no income.

    Mostly for me why Jester will never be worth it is because
    1) it's hard as fuck to code for and utilize juggling correctly.

    2) you are probably highest priority target in raids now because your bombs will never fizzle and tarotry is a pain to deal with.

    3) The admin still haven't add assist exp in this game so you'll never gain experience and nearly 110% of the time go negative in net experience. The only boon to counter this is if your fellow dragons let you puppet leech while they hunt in return for you being a glass shield that managed to toss one bomb before being mass breath streamed.

    4) I've watched countless (Mhaldorian) newbies love the flavor of Jester but they invested too much into the class. They were too squishy to tank anything, they always died and lost levels constantly, they felt there was too much to keep up with when props + puppetry + juggling came into play 1v1 or just watching themselves be targetted first at level 60 and pop from a dragon roar.

    So yeah. Honestly just wait for this outdated garbage class to be reworked or for assist exp to be eventually™ added to combat. It's the #1 newbie killer in the game and should only be given to 99+ people who can multiclass or don't care about dying. 

    My vehemence for this class knows no bounds from the amount of time I've tried to put in helping newbie jesters only for them to complaining everything I've said and watch them quit their character and play somewhere else because it's overall cheaper to reroll a new character than to reclass.

    Pros of the class: Best utility in the game and somersault. You can maybe pause and JitB and snag a kill because I'm pretty sure nothing stops it. You ride a balloon giraffe and can lower every person's rebounding and shield with a bad joke.
  • Xidigo said:
    Are there any actual Jesters here to weigh in? I'm concerned with the difficulty curve and lack of good teachers it's going to be a head pounding experience but to be honest, they sound the most fun to me.
    I'm both a Jester and a Shaman, and of the two, I find Jester to be more fun and more effective for my playstyle.
  • Note: @Calira is also a huge troll and Jester is the troll class.
  • Vodun is fine. It's powerful, and people who want to make it more 'fun' will inevitably end up making it a lot weaker. If you don't like vodun, then maybe shaman isn't the class for you.

    People that have been playing vodun/puppetry class for a long time actually like vodun and puppetry--they're incredibly strong and offer a lot of flexibility.

    If you don't enjoy building up a doll, fine--but there's like 16? other classes that don't require that, and several pure momentum classes out there to pick from. The fact that shaman isn't pure momentum is actually one of its biggest strengths.
  • If you don't like vodun, might as well go apostate. 
  • Micaelis said:

    No one likes Burger King. 
    Looks like I'm going to have to go to Mhaldor.  Creative differences  :/
    Deucalion says, "Torinn is quite nice."
  • Dochitha said:
    If you don't like vodun, might as well go apostate. 

    This is a pretty unhelpful thing to say to a lot of people, though, since apostate is faction-limited and shaman isn't. (I want Apostate :( ). DW/Serpent/Alchemist maybe.
  • Nazihk said:
    One thing to consider about Jester is that the flavor is absolutely fucking terrible.

    If you want to run around Achaea on a balloon giraffe while you bop things with a blackjack and  throw banana peels around, I will absolutely think less of you as both a character and a person. 
    Greyface confirmed.
  • edited September 2017
    ANother opinion from a full-heart Jester here. Yes, the flavor might stink, yes it's tough to stick out at times, yes there are easier classes that are more classy to play. Question is why are you playing the game? If you wanna be really good at fighting you need to be really good at scripting or know someone that is. There are easier classes to win fights with and there are simpler classes to bash with. I have been playing Achaea for over 12 years on one single character and I have been Infernal, Monk, Occultist, Jester, Druid, Monk and back to Jester, because I enjoy playing the class. I enjoy fuddling around with bomb timers and juggling, I like sending suicidemice and hope that soon there'll be a message when they explode on someone cause that would be a big plus for our offence. I like using tarot cause it makes getting about easy and hermit is just awesome, using devil and moon to just randomize effects is neat. I'm not a good coder, I can't script offense, but I can do well enough to go for fashions and work my way into a way to really bother someone. If I have to walk away from a fight I have awesome tools. If I wanna kill someone without setup that is not a good scripter it is easy. And if I meet an equal I can do well enough to come out on the upper hand half the time. I enjoy that. The game is fun this way, I have limitations that I have accepted. I have played long enough to be able to afford to Trans out my skillset and buy one or two handy tools, so you just go for whatever you enjoy playing and you can envision your character being like, and from there anything is possible.
  • I'm probably in the minority but I like the Jester flavour text. Bananas, jitb etc. It's different to anything else in Achaea and that's not a bad thing. Maybe the inflatable giraffe can go as they have chariot, but otherwise.. I like it.

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
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