Classleads

Leviticus

Antonius said:

You can't summon rites, so you have to set them up in the room you want to use them in, and if the fight moves you have to lay new rites (with the associated costs). If you know ahead of time where the fight is going to happen, you can set up rites, which essentially means they're only truly effective when you get to dictate the location of the fight (i.e. they're primarily defensive, but have serious drawbacks when you're attacking). You can leave the room or disengage to avoid losing the rites to dying, but you're then taking an entire person out of the fight for the benefit of rites. That's not a worthwhile trade by any means; rites don't deal enough damage, restore enough health or heal afflictions fast enough to make up the difference of an entire person attacking to a group fight. I would be extremely annoyed if somebody said "I'm going to sit this fight out so that you guys have the benefit of rites.", especially considering the non-factional replacements for Piety that are available these days.

Suggesting that Necromancy doesn't have any factional advantages over Devotion is absurd, but that's pretty much what I expect from 99% of classleads. Rites are powerful, but limited, and every other faction has other advantages (many of which are - at least situationally - stronger). Could the mechanics of Desecration be improved? Possibly. But when your request is "We should have everything they have, plus everything we currently have that they don't." the response is unlikely to be positive.

Thanks for adding your knowledge! I never played a devotion user. I thought fevour?? lets you do a call harmonics or vibes function. I get what you are saying. In my recent experience with Targ, you guys usually already outnumber Mhaldor by a fair amount ( You guys multiple like cockroaches!). One Targ person who doesn't do combat could pre-set up rites defensively and that can mean the difference between losing and winning, especially well placed piety and all-sight rites. Piety in rooms adjacent and two rooms out to the one you are in hinders or stops a lot of rush tactics and reduces the effectiveness of LoS. Unfortunately, I can't think of any factional advantages that Necromancy provides that Devotion couldn't... I agree with you that the request is not well thought out.

Nazihk

I would trade Devotion for Necromancy any day of the fucking week with absolutely zero regrets.

Leviticus

Salisa said:

Submitted by: Anonymous      Status      : Unsubmitted

Skill       : Shadowmancy    Ability     : Reap

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Problem:

This class utilizes two weapons in a momentum fashion with amazing afflicting potential at a very competative speed rate compared to other classes in achaea, while still being able to produce a very competitive damage output with these afflictions. The problem lies that it makes no sense to have such reliable versatility on the lower end an still have the capabilities it has on the higher end. What is meant by the previous statement is that being able to consistently produce good damage at the initiating attacks and then end up with devistating damage on the momentum gaining portion of it, without having any sort of hindering restrictions applied to it like every other class seems a bit much.

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Don't let them build momentum then? Not sure I understand the issue here.

I think the issue is and always will be why isn't this class hindered by rebounding? It is extremely difficult to run away from a DW that knows their skills. That is what I am reading...

Antonius

Leviticus said:

Antonius said:

You can't summon rites, so you have to set them up in the room you want to use them in, and if the fight moves you have to lay new rites (with the associated costs). If you know ahead of time where the fight is going to happen, you can set up rites, which essentially means they're only truly effective when you get to dictate the location of the fight (i.e. they're primarily defensive, but have serious drawbacks when you're attacking). You can leave the room or disengage to avoid losing the rites to dying, but you're then taking an entire person out of the fight for the benefit of rites. That's not a worthwhile trade by any means; rites don't deal enough damage, restore enough health or heal afflictions fast enough to make up the difference of an entire person attacking to a group fight. I would be extremely annoyed if somebody said "I'm going to sit this fight out so that you guys have the benefit of rites.", especially considering the non-factional replacements for Piety that are available these days.

Suggesting that Necromancy doesn't have any factional advantages over Devotion is absurd, but that's pretty much what I expect from 99% of classleads. Rites are powerful, but limited, and every other faction has other advantages (many of which are - at least situationally - stronger). Could the mechanics of Desecration be improved? Possibly. But when your request is "We should have everything they have, plus everything we currently have that they don't." the response is unlikely to be positive.

Thanks for adding your knowledge! I never played a devotion user. I thought fevour?? lets you do a call harmonics or vibes function. I get what you are saying. In my recent experience with Targ, you guys usually already outnumber Mhaldor by a fair amount ( You guys multiple like cockroaches!). One Targ person who doesn't do combat could pre-set up rites defensively and that can mean the difference between losing and winning, especially well placed piety and all-sight rites. Piety in rooms adjacent and two rooms out to the one you are in hinders or stops a lot of rush tactics and reduces the effectiveness of LoS. Unfortunately, I can't think of any factional advantages that Necromancy provides that Devotion couldn't... I agree with you that the request is not well thought out.

Fervour allows you to lay certain rites (notably not Piety or Revitalisation) when off-balance from the primary attacks of the Weaponmastery specialisations (doubleslash, doublewhirl, combination, two-handed attacks). It's definitely not allowing you to summon rites. It also happens to be Paladin only.

As far as advantages that Necromancy has:

The infiltration ability of blackwind is an obvious one.

Gravehands is room hinder equivalent in effectiveness to Piety, but doesn't require you to enemy anybody to hinder non-Mhaldorians. In a lot of fights that may not become relevant, but in really large scale events (e.g. CTF) or fights where you might not notice new people entering to enemy them, that is an advantage. Add to that the fact that you can't tell who they belong to, they don't fade on death, and they can be delivered at range via soulspear (which also does a decent amount of damage).

Soulcage.

Vivisect.

Lifevision.

Vengeance.

Vigour is slightly worse healing than Hands, but has fewer things that prevents it and allows padding above 100% of maximum health to survive particularly damaging hits.

Frederich

I would 100% trade devotion for necromancy for the entire month of april (or October!) to let you guys see the differences.

Rites aren't all they're cracked up to be in a group fight scenario, due to the fact that they don't persist whenever someone smacks the devotionist who has the rites up dead.  While gravehands persist through death and, on your death, you fucking explode dealing 33% damage to everyone, regardless of your health.  (Which can be tied with crucible for even more damage, etc).

If you want Necromancy to get all the shit devotion gets, give us the stuff from necromancy in devotionist.  I'd 100% learn to play a priest then. 

Xaden

As an aside; Nowadays we don't really ever set up piety outside the room we want to fight in because we actually want to fight. Wading through five rooms of hands just to engage, while getting soulspeared in the process... Is not fun

Atalkez

Piety is the only rite I care about. The rest are very near worthless, imo.

Would absolutely trade Devo for Necro, Devo is without question the weaker of the two.

Aralaya

Agreeing with the above. Gimme necromancy.

Alrena

I don't fully agree that Devotion is in itself weaker than Necromancy, though they have their situational strengths and weaknesses. I don't think Necromancy needs a buff at all. That said, I'm sure the grass is always greener on the other side. Rezzing on demand without needing alchemists, devo Force, deliver... not like Devotion doesn't have its own perks, though I suppose which are 'best' is a matter of opinion.

Frederich

I'd give Deliver & Rezz for soulspear (with LoS Piety that persists past death) + blackwind

Aralaya

Frederich said:

I'd give Deliver & Rezz for soulspear (with LoS Piety that persists past death) + blackwind

Leave my Rezz alone >:(

Solnir

Devo(and alchie?) rezz is less useful due to needing a body. Shaman rezz the real rezz winner.

Leviticus

Daeir said:

Leviticus said:

Daeir said:

Ahh, Mayology classleads are hilarious. "Mayology is a great idea, except everything that makes it what it is, is infact, a bad idea." Forced embrace upon death. Remove all aspects of control from an affliction-centered class which has a huge pool of affs to draw from.

I don't know why people try to bother hiding "delete ships" classleads behind walls of text that just serve to neuter any impact an ability has. That, and people forget that hangedman and other immediate hinders (shadowstrike, etc) exist and are extremely effective at delaying time-critical things. Or someone with a wand uses it and plaughs at the person spamming mayo temper/educe at him. Mayo's one of those Pyrrhic victory things where even if you win, you sort of lose. A bit like the alablaster urn, except truedeath makes that totally unusable.

One of the suggestions to append extra visibility to the Alchemist while mayo'd up is a good idea, though. Like that one a lot. Maybe a room look and some horrifying hulk-slathering dribble stuff.

In the capable hands of good combatants not including Top Tier Fighters: Farrah, Rom, Seragorn, Proficy,etc ,etc this skill allows them to become God-like and that is one of the problems. If Mhaldor leaves a person like Farrah alone and targets someone else. Farrah's momentum with mayo will lead to the wipe of the whole Mhaldorian team.
Scenario: Fighting Targ
Farrah activates Mayo
You kill her once\burst\touch starburst inked on body\leaves room to redef  (1 death)
Activates mayo again|Now she starts to shoot your people with a L3 bow. 
You kill her again\burst\shake flask\leave   (2 deaths)
Activates mayo again
Kill her\burst\she leaves room\ redef\ activate mayo again (3 deaths)
kill her\ she gems\ redef \activate mayo again (4 deaths)
kill her\ shaman rezzes\ redef\activate mayo again (5 deaths)
kill her\ devotionist rezzes\redef\activate mayo again (6 deaths)
kill her\ self alchie rezz\ redef\ activate mayo again ( 7 deaths)
kill her\ 10 minute gem cooldown up\gem\redef\activate mayo again (8 deaths)
kill her\ shaman or devotionist rezzes\redef\ etc etc etc.

I remember one fight we/guards killed farrah 12 times in a 5 minute fight. That is bonkers combined with the fact that each mayo activation she is bound to kill people very quickly, especially people without health arties.

The skill IS a terrible idea and needs to be re-worked. To my limited knowledge only demon fury allows this kind of advantage over a long period of time (without the demons or person dying). 

Only person I've seen wipe floors with mayology so consistently is Farrah, to be honest. The issues you're citing are less a problem with mayology and more a problem with you and your team not being able to adequately handle her. All of those problems are pretty much solved/counterable by clever use of hinder, positioning and the myriad of tools you have at your disposal.

If her momentum is getting your groups killed, figure out how to deal with it. Mayo isn't the problem - if it isn't mayo, it'll be something else. We used to complain in a similar vein about Jhuimonk, and then we figured out how to deal with it. He still caused (and causes) problems, but isn't a game-ender anymore.

Leveraging classleads to patch out weaknesses in your own defense is not what they're intended for. Mayology is strong, sure, and maybe it needs a *little* tuning to make it more obvious how much of a threat someone using it properly can be, but if it is changed too much, it'll be nearly worthless for a skill that is meant to give utter offensive supremacy in exchange for your certain, unavoidable death. There's also nothing stopping you from using it against us, either. It's an interesting skill honestly, and I'd hate to see it get nixed because people weren't willing to play around it properly.

I think Aegoth or someone else has, actually. To pretty good effect. If anything, the delayed setup on shadowstrike is a unique advantage that Mhaldor has to chain some pretty significant hinder onto someone with Mayo up.

I'm all for differences in opinion and whatnot, but I don't know how many times we have to go over how Devotion isn't much of a factional advantage all bar maybe three skills before people acknowledge the fact that Necromancy is objectively superior in many, many ways, for reasons listed here previously and more. It really is just flat out better in a lot of ways, especially when much of what Devotion brings outside of maybe Warding can be replicated by neutral classes (rez, revit, etc). It takes maybe twenty minutes of reading through ABs to figure this out.

I disagree. Farrah has been using it the most, correct. I am not citing problems with my team and I being able to adequately handle her. We have and continue to do so. I believe you need to be on the receiving end of it to realize it as being overpowered it is. You have to kill her 6 - 8 times in ONE ENGAGEMENT in order to avoid it. Can we hinder her until she dies to the mayo? Yep. But she will come right back and use it again in less than 20 seconds. Can Mhaldor's alchies do the same? Yep! Are they? Not currently. Why? I don't know. I know Rom stopped using it because it was so OP. Was BM annihilation (lightning?? I forget which) OP before Jhui started using it? Nope. No one even used it in group combat to the effectiveness that Jhui did. If skill can take out a whole group of people, it needs to be tweaked. Mayo is terrible and does need to be re-worked. It is an interesting skill until you are on the receiving end of it. 

Xaden

Sounds like the problem is the fact that Farrah has 953 lives and not that she uses Mayology...

Farrah OP, Mayology just lucky that she makes it look good.

Farrah

Alrena said:

I don't fully agree that Devotion is in itself weaker than Necromancy, though they have their situational strengths and weaknesses. I don't think Necromancy needs a buff at all. That said, I'm sure the grass is always greener on the other side. Rezzing on demand without needing alchemists, devo Force, deliver... not like Devotion doesn't have its own perks, though I suppose which are 'best' is a matter of opinion.

Why do you need rezz "without needing an Alchemist" though? Mhaldor has multiple Alchemists pretty much all the time and I'd much rather be Alchemist than Priest (as evidenced by the fact that I dropped Priest and play Alchemist a lot). It just seems like an odd qualification. If I could have Alchemist soulspears, I'd be all over that. I don't care what I have to be (aside from like a jester, gross). I just want access to the abilities and we don't even have the option.

Devo force to me is the most useless factional advantage ever. I'd take mind command over it any day. I'd take Vodun summon over deliver. The only thing I ever want a Priest for is heal deaf. Maybe adjacent Piety, but I'm somewhat indifferent there. We're usually trying to get enemies into melee because we don't have a factional LoS attack.

Hence me ending up with Alchemist, Monk, etc., having no reason at all to waste  a class slot on Priest, but still envying what some factional classes have. They bring more to the table that other non-factionals can't.

Btw this whole 6-8 deaths per engagement is a pretty hilarious exaggeration... There are extremes, like the shaman rezz heavy Nish battles, but I most definitely do not die 6-8 times per engagement. My rezzes have CDs. It's not even like no one else in the game has flask and gem. Proficy has them too, possibly more than I do. I almost never get Devo or shaman rezzed mid-engagement.

Rom

Leviticus said:

Daeir said:

Only person I've seen wipe floors with mayology so consistently is Farrah, to be honest. The issues you're citing are less a problem with mayology and more a problem with you and your team not being able to adequately handle her. All of those problems are pretty much solved/counterable by clever use of hinder, positioning and the myriad of tools you have at your disposal.

If her momentum is getting your groups killed, figure out how to deal with it. Mayo isn't the problem - if it isn't mayo, it'll be something else. We used to complain in a similar vein about Jhuimonk, and then we figured out how to deal with it. He still caused (and causes) problems, but isn't a game-ender anymore.

Leveraging classleads to patch out weaknesses in your own defense is not what they're intended for. Mayology is strong, sure, and maybe it needs a *little* tuning to make it more obvious how much of a threat someone using it properly can be, but if it is changed too much, it'll be nearly worthless for a skill that is meant to give utter offensive supremacy in exchange for your certain, unavoidable death. There's also nothing stopping you from using it against us, either. It's an interesting skill honestly, and I'd hate to see it get nixed because people weren't willing to play around it properly.

I think Aegoth or someone else has, actually. To pretty good effect. If anything, the delayed setup on shadowstrike is a unique advantage that Mhaldor has to chain some pretty significant hinder onto someone with Mayo up.

I'm all for differences in opinion and whatnot, but I don't know how many times we have to go over how Devotion isn't much of a factional advantage all bar maybe three skills before people acknowledge the fact that Necromancy is objectively superior in many, many ways, for reasons listed here previously and more. It really is just flat out better in a lot of ways, especially when much of what Devotion brings outside of maybe Warding can be replicated by neutral classes (rez, revit, etc). It takes maybe twenty minutes of reading through ABs to figure this out.

I disagree. Farrah has been using it the most, correct. I am not citing problems with my team and I being able to adequately handle her. We have and continue to do so. I believe you need to be on the receiving end of it to realize it as being overpowered it is. You have to kill her 6 - 8 times in ONE ENGAGEMENT in order to avoid it. Can we hinder her until she dies to the mayo? Yep. But she will come right back and use it again in less than 20 seconds. Can Mhaldor's alchies do the same? Yep! Are they? Not currently. Why? I don't know. I know Rom stopped using it because it was so OP. Was BM annihilation (lightning?? I forget which) OP before Jhui started using it? Nope. No one even used it in group combat to the effectiveness that Jhui did. If skill can take out a whole group of people, it needs to be tweaked. Mayo is terrible and does need to be re-worked. It is an interesting skill until you are on the receiving end of it. 

I only stopped using it because I stopped playing Achaea, haha. Mayology is incredibly fun; I wouldn't use it in like... a duel though.
I feel that mayology is definitely too strong in some sense, but I agree that I'd love for it to remain in a useful capacity because it's so absurdly cool. I think Daeir is slightly wrong though because Mayology also makes your survivability boosted just as much as your offense via faster shielding, flying, leaping, spamming exits through gravehands, educe salt, and whatever else you can think of at mach speed. You can force people to focus you, and then have incredibly heightened escape mechanisms. All of this with pretty much no drawback; in group fights Mayology has little to no downside so you can pretty much use it whenever it's timed well. If you die it just gets canceled, if you win then you burst or true-die in safety.

Rangor

8x starburst was a problem when you could do it with tattoos. The problem has crept back with promotional arties and class skills. Should be fixed.

Atalkez

No it hasn't. You can have burst up, ink another, shake flask, rebirth if dw, Rez if you have gem. Gen and flask both have large CDs that limit them from being spammed. Overall we've limited it fairly well enough without hard capping it completely. The only remaining issue is having multiples that operate on their own CD.

Aralaya

+that one guy who rezzes you so fast you're still targeted so you die again anyway

Kogan

Dominius said:

I classlead suicidemice and timers on bombs. Pranks needs some tweeking to be cool again.

The main gripe I had with suicidemice was the fact you had to use item # so you had to keep tables to persist through logout. Being able to ORDER MOUSE [BOMBTYPE] KILL <target> would be great. Also being able to fish in arena would be nice so you don't get your 2-5 mice and have to leave to fish just to test again. It takes too long to fish for mice in arena for you to just run away and fish for mice without being punished so I don't think it would effect much. Not to mention Delos doesn't count as a city so cant fish there.

Cooper

I 100% support switching Necro with Devotion for October.

Alyxeri

"Fire Sprite! Let Us make a wager... I'm willing to bet My servants adapt to using the powers of devotion, much better than Yours would handle the necromantic arts. For, let's say... Three years."
 *proceed to list the terms/whatever*

Ahmet

Daeir said:

I'd be down with that. Hoo boy, that'd be a fun one to explain IG.

Events post #666:

My Children,

The overworlders cling to their Divine so desperately. They suckle at the teat, while claiming to fight for their tenets of Good, or Evil, or Chaos.

Let them learn the futility of their pleas. Let us show them how meaningless their labels are. Look on as they realize the truth, and despair. Look on, and know that I am amused.

Tlalaiad,
The Genesis

Penned by My hand, on this, the 6th of Aeguary, 769

Armali

It was Twilight. He did it.

Ahmet

Edit: Whoops

Tahquil

Or you know..... quirky Mayasween magic. Wooooooooooo spooky

Lyrin

It's been done.

spiritbond dyzanru|yell haha lolz i was a spy all along and was just stealing ur skillz!|quit targossas|agree|join mhaldor</code>quit mhaldor|agree|tell xaden i sowwy|bank transfer 10^8 targossas|join targossas|say hail the light and fire</pre><br><after one month of devotion fuelled dickery><br><br><pre class="CodeBlock"><code>

Farrah

Daeir said:

The last time Sartan and Deucalion made a bet, Sartan ended up killing half of his servants for not following the terms of it properly, so I doubt that's going to happen again.

snrk

Sartan never killed anyone for not following the terms...

The gods basically said "These terms suck" and ended them.

Farrah

Cooper said:

I 100% support switching Necro with Devotion for October.

We gotta trade the full classes though. Apostate for Priest. Mmm mmm.

Asmodron

I have a better idea! Let's just open them both up to the public again

Let's throw Forestral in too for good measure.