Spiritlore

Mannimar

Just speaking from some the perspective of someone who roleplays the spirit side of the game... I personally want to see a glow rather than an element, blue would be fine, fits what we saw from Kalden during the event, but giving a catch all element to the spirit possession doesn't make much sense at all for what we know about spirit interaction in Achaea. I also don't like that the line is in passive voice.

"Joe, the Plumber's eyes glaze over as his form exudes a soft blue light."

I think that fits a more standard understanding of what we play as shamans in the game.

Bluef

Mannimar said:

Just speaking from some the perspective of someone who roleplays the spirit side of the game... I personally want to see a glow rather than an element, blue would be fine, fits what we saw from Kalden during the event, but giving a catch all element to the spirit possession doesn't make much sense at all for what we know about spirit interaction in Achaea. I also don't like that the line is in passive voice.

"Joe, the Plumber's eyes glaze over as his form exudes a soft blue light."

I think that fits a more standard understanding of what we play as shamans in the game.

I agree 100%. 

During the event we saw this: "The edges of your vision suddenly begin to tunnel as you feel your tether to the spirits weakening." Mannimar's suggestion would make perfect sense in terms of what's been experienced thus far event-wise with spirit binding.

Blujixapug

Spirit realm is a cold place. Break open a doorway through your inner subtle body and some of that vast coldness leeches through, simultaneously causing a minor vacuum that draws the ambient moisture in the PMP to condense around you, and freeze due to the momentary coldness of your body. Or...

Invoking spirits uses the heat energy that surrounds you, beginning with your escaping body heat. In the sudden absence of heat, a combination of latent moisture in the air and the sweat of exertion on your body rapidly forms ice. Or...

The Two Trees of Istarion are a nexus for (some) spiritual energies, serving as a point of entry from the spirit realm. As that energy is channelled to your location, it picks up the cold temperature from the frozen wastes surrounding the Istar Jungle.

Mannimar said:

I personally want to see a glow rather than an element, blue would be fine

Glowing light is such a cliche way of representing spellcasting and other abstract power, IMO. It's so vague. I get the need for it in say, a graphical RPG, where you need to rapidly visually convey "he's casting a spell, and it's red so you know it's fire damage, but only his hands are glowing so it's just a low-level spell... and the beam hit the warrior". I think a text game can do something more interesting and more original.

Bluef

Blujixapug said:

Spirit realm is a cold place. Break open a doorway through your inner subtle body and some of that vast coldness leeches through, simultaneously causing a minor vacuum that draws the ambient moisture in the PMP to condense around you, and freeze due to the momentary coldness of your body. Or...

Invoking spirits uses the heat energy that surrounds you, beginning with your escaping body heat. In the sudden absence of heat, a combination of latent moisture in the air and the sweat of exertion on your body rapidly forms ice. Or...

The Two Trees of Istarion are a nexus for (some) spiritual energies, serving as a point of entry from the spirit realm. As that energy is channelled to your location, it picks up the cold temperature from the frozen wastes surrounding the Istar Jungle.

Mannimar said:

I personally want to see a glow rather than an element, blue would be fine

Glowing light is such a cliche way of representing spellcasting and other abstract power, IMO. It's so vague. I get the need for it in say, a graphical RPG, where you need to rapidly visually convey "he's casting a spell, and it's red so you know it's fire damage, but only his hands are glowing so it's just a low-level spell... and the beam hit the warrior". I think a text game can do something more interesting and more original.

I like the first and second ideas you're proposing quite a bit. They offer a nice RP reasoning for what others are seeing. One of the great things about these changes is they allow us to devise, debate and roleplay such perspectives about our individual experiences IC. 

Addama

Blujixapug said:

Glowing light is such a cliche way of representing spellcasting and other abstract power, IMO. It's so vague. I get the need for it in say, a graphical RPG, where you need to rapidly visually convey "he's casting a spell, and it's red so you know it's fire damage, but only his hands are glowing so it's just a low-level spell... and the beam hit the warrior". I think a text game can do something more interesting and more original.

Now that I think of it, there's already so many glowing things in Achaea that if it were converted to a graphical game, it would be lit up like a pinball machine.  Glowing pipes, glowing swords, glowing books, glowing eyes. 

I mean, I'm not sure that anything else conveys "Oh fuck this sword is about to do something awesome" like "a deep crimson glow washes over the blade."  It's supernatural, which is what makes it textually stunning.  It's overused to the point of meaninglessness, I agree, but the other sensory solutions ("your blade begins humming with a deep vibration, begging to be inserted into your quarry" or "your blade begins to smell quite dangerous" or "your blade, if you put it in your mouth, would taste like lavender" or worst line I've ever written "your blade is heavier and will deal more damage to your enemy") are just non-sequitur in the context of a battle you can only imagine experiencing through eyes and ears.

Makarios

Just to clear up the difficulty in changing your bindings, this is pretty intentional. The abilities are pretty defined in their roll (outside of the utility ones, some lend towards a more fashioning heavy playstyle, others towards a more curse heavy one). It was intended that if someone knowledgeable was fighting a shaman and could determine what spirits they were using, they might be able to predict to a degree what they were going for. Obviously there's a lot of different combinations there though, so it'll never be a cut and dry thing.

Xith

Bluef said:

I realize everyone has their own take on this but yeah I am still wondering about "ice." Is it just that we appear frozen in the moment or is there literal ice that forms as a result of this reaching out to tether a spirit (as if there is elemental magic at work, which I struggle to understand).  

Yeah maybe you should just...[spoiler][/spoiler]

Ernam

Makarios said:

Just to clear up the difficulty in changing your bindings, this is pretty intentional. The abilities are pretty defined in their roll (outside of the utility ones, some lend towards a more fashioning heavy playstyle, others towards a more curse heavy one). It was intended that if someone knowledgeable was fighting a shaman and could determine what spirits they were using, they might be able to predict to a degree what they were going for. Obviously there's a lot of different combinations there though, so it'll never be a cut and dry thing.

 
Seems actual quite viable to change your setup mind-combat, particularly since you can unbind/unattune without commune.  Commune/bind/attune themselves don't require any kind of channel either, so all that's really necessary is a few seconds of prone.  Realistically, it's about as taxing as dropping a set of ground runes, or dropping a few rites.

Sena

Ernam said:

Commune/bind/attune themselves don't require any kind of channel either, so all that's really necessary is a few seconds of prone.

Commune does, for 4 seconds. So it's a minimum of 6 seconds prone (2 seconds per bind and 4 per attune), the first 4 of which is without curing.

Bluef

Ernam said:

Seems actual quite viable to change your setup mind-combat, particularly since you can unbind/unattune without commune.  Commune/bind/attune themselves don't require any kind of channel either, so all that's really necessary is a few seconds of prone.  Realistically, it's about as taxing as dropping a set of ground runes, or dropping a few rites.

It would depend on you want to bind anew and attune. If you wanted to completely re-set with 5 new spirits, you're looking at a minimum of 25s, I think. I'm not sure that's really viable. Ground runes definitely don't take that long to prep.

But yeah, if you're only changing out 1-2 of things and not attuning to them you'd be good. Just changing attunements is really easy and quick. All easy enough to do if you can run away and manage to find a safe place to sit down and commune. But then you have the issue of shamans being called out for fighting and fleeing, but oh well!

Sena

I just realised you can bind and attune at the same time (as long as they're not the same spirit, since attune requires the spirit already be bound). So you can commune, bind, bind;attune, bind;attune, bind, bind, stand, for a total time of 17.2 seconds with nimble (saves 4 seconds over binding and attuning separately).

Ernam

From the initial playing I did, I figure you can start a fight with 5 spirits bound, 2 attuned, and easily unattune (without commune) and re-attune any of the other 3 you haven't yet bound, which as Sena said, only requires about 8 seconds total (4 for commune, 4 for attune).  Only 2 more seconds to use spirits which you don't already have bound.

This is enough time to destroy momentum so you can't swap during a setup (unless they're seriously screwed up, I suppose), but it's definitely not out of the question to swap during fights in order to keep your opponent unsure of what you're using, or to swap strategies if you want to try a different approach.  Only 4 seconds of switching requires a channel, so during the rest, you can cure and everything as normal.

Not saying there's anything wrong with this, it's actually pretty cool.  The times are pretty well balanced around the Shaman being super flexible without being able to easily swap attunes while maintaining offensive pressure.

I might suggest having a more noticeable willpower cost, or at least a major mana impact, or something, for switching, to somehow limit how much you can swap around during fights, or at least make it taxing to do so.

A good idea for a Shaman artefact might also be something that makes binding/attune faster, to aide in fast-swapping in fights.

Achimrst

Makarios said:

Just to clear up the difficulty in changing your bindings, this is pretty intentional. The abilities are pretty defined in their roll (outside of the utility ones, some lend towards a more fashioning heavy playstyle, others towards a more curse heavy one). It was intended that if someone knowledgeable was fighting a shaman and could determine what spirits they were using, they might be able to predict to a degree what they were going for. Obviously there's a lot of different combinations there though, so it'll never be a cut and dry thing.

I personally think the binding thing is awesome how it is, nothing about Spiritlore I can complain about! THANK YOU @Makarios and @Tecton!

Achimrst

Ernam said:

From the initial playing I did, I figure you can start a fight with 5 spirits bound, 2 attuned, and easily unattune (without commune) and re-attune any of the other 3 you haven't yet bound, which as Sena said, only requires about 8 seconds total (4 for commune, 4 for attune).  Only 2 more seconds to use spirits which you don't already have bound.

This is enough time to destroy momentum so you can't swap during a setup (unless they're seriously screwed up, I suppose), but it's definitely not out of the question to swap during fights in order to keep your opponent unsure of what you're using, or to swap strategies if you want to try a different approach.  Only 4 seconds of switching requires a channel, so during the rest, you can cure and everything as normal.

Not saying there's anything wrong with this, it's actually pretty cool.  The times are pretty well balanced around the Shaman being super flexible without being able to easily swap attunes while maintaining offensive pressure.

I might suggest having a more noticeable willpower cost, or at least a major mana impact, or something, for switching, to somehow limit how much you can swap around during fights, or at least make it taxing to do so.

A good idea for a Shaman artefact might also be something that makes binding/attune faster, to aide in fast-swapping in fights.

Just curse, you will see a WP and Mana drain like no other!

Bluef

I agree with @Achirmst. Shaman is so awesome right now and there isn't much I find to complain about with it. The developers of the new class did an amazing job adhering to the history and RP of the class both in the new skillset's structure, flavour and introduction to the realm.

P.s. After ages of shaman's taking major hits with their willpower, we're able to regen, and our willpower regen stacks with every other willpower bonus/regen in the game. HUZZAH! Best thing ever for those who love to hunt and were routinely feeling like their investment in Trans Philosophy + Circlet + Artefact Megalith was not cutting it. 

Bluef

Struggling with totems here. We can't prop them. That means they are entirely limited to only personal housing/room defense. 

Complicating this reality is the fact that when you uproot a runic totem, you get...a runic totem, which is absolutely no good to a shaman.  Any organization or person that wants to switch to a tribal totem, would therefore need to pay for a shaman's time + pay for the new commodities and ink to make an entirely new totem. 

That seems cost prohibitive for purchasers. The lack of a way to tune the totem for allies/against enemies (it can only be for enemies)  makes them not "as good" as runic totems as well. 

For example, I'm a shaman obviously, so I would love for all the totems in the Curia Sanctum to become tribal totems. To manage that, I would need to uproot all the runic totems, buy all new commodities to create new tribal totems (because the runic ones for me are just humgii fodder) plus ink and then implant them. Except for them to be of any use at all to the clan, I would need to keep every single Curia enemy on my personal enemy list. 

That's...not doable or desirable for a myriad of reasons. Thoughts on the usefulness of Garon?

[Edit: To clarify, I used to keep housing totems in both my out of subdivision estates tuned for allies instead of enemies. It made it clear who was welcome there and who was not.]

Achimrst

I just want to tune my totems, WHY CAN'T I TUNE MY TOTEMS!!!