Offensive Barrier: The ability 'for evil healers' to use Blade Barrier as an offensive weapon. Typically you would commune Blade Barrier per usual, but it would also trigger if you were the first to strike.

Multiple Blades: An edge that would keep Blade Barrier a defensive supplication, but would strike multiple times. 1-3.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Gate Combat: While in the same room with your attacker, you can open a gate to them and gain a free attack. Could also be used for chasing people you have previously attacked.

Power of Enlightenment: Edge that has a chance to save against the dispelling effects of Shamans, Divine Intervention, Light of Heaven.

Cursebringer: Like Shamans. Increased ability to curse.

The majority of these Edges are strictly for Evil Healers to make up for the massive reduction in Healing. Making evil healers more independant.

Edges aren't mean to be uber. And healers aren't mean to be combatants.

The only one that would seem to fit a healer would be something to save against the dispelling from opposite faiths (align). And I'm not so sure that doesn't already exist.

Paladins have an edge for that... But I never understood why Healers didn't have it too...

Tell that to the neuro, rot and ap-weapon edges. Nasty abilities that got nastier. Paralytic opportunist is just perfect for those Griefer characters that like lurking around. Not to mention psyche crush which lets them do high damage to the main people who were out-meleeing them when completely stunned. Just bleh dude.

Edges were meant to encourage outside the box tactics. What they did in some of the cases were give plain old bastard tactics a little colourful flare.

I think you're giving edges too much credit.

Sure, some edges have needed some tweaking, but that's true for anything new that goes in. I'm sure there is quite a bit of testing that occurs prior to putting these things in, but it's hard to say how things will really play out until you see it in full action. So we're sort of like beta testers, and things get adjusted accordingly.

It's been said before. Edges for skills that are already good don't get that much of a boost.

Just to take one example - this is already a very deadly spell. It completely immobilises a foe if they fail the save.

Originally, you'd then have to switch to damage spells on those with high redux or maledictions in order to survive against those with high melee. Your attacks would be nice but not sufficient enough to win against most opponents just by stunning.

The edges surrounding it all contribute toward you doing more damage to that opponent while they're stunned - read that again, that means it does MORE HARM when it succeeds at it's best. Throw in adrenal burst (also edgified), and those with high damage redux have just been screwed by nearly unblockable 3 attacks per round, with extra damage. Add in psyche crush (which doesn't even require a decent success), and now you can do huge damage to those high melee chars (with low mental stats) without the need to switch spells either - allowing you to out damage even axe wielding giants if you've absed. The only people who look good, are the high int/wis warriors. And they were frail enough to get eaten by soften/disrupt anyway.

So how is that not a huge boost to an already good skill?

Edit: See, now I do feel bad for attacking the imms work. In the end, you're right, the balancing needs to be done on longer term testing. But there seem some edges that were just a bad idea from the get-go. There's some that would be great rewards for certain characters - but there are also smart players willing to take advantage of them and use them to pwn in ways that just seem wrong. It's unfair toward either of the parties to remove them completely, but some kind of nerfing would likely be welcome for those classes that were already killer - and were made more so by empowering their already deadly PK winning skills. Such as Rot, Neuro, and Fiending.

I don't think you understand the edge scale of power boost that weak skills/spells/supps get, compared to already good skills/spells/supps.

Boosting weak skills more is fine.

But it doesn't excuse the bonuses that have been applied to already powerful skills. I think they're largely unnecessary, because they don't create more diverse tactics. They reward and strengthen already good old ones.

I don't think you're really weighing the opportunity cost of picking those edges.

Note: the edges you're talking about are not the edges I personally ever pick, assuming you consider me to be an informed opinion.

I don't think any transmuter would avoid picking paralytic opportunist. It's benefits are very clear cut.

They would, however, likely work toward master of dimension first. It pushes them back toward the transmuters we tried to move away from in the first place.

My last transmuter had none of the above.

How deathful was your last transmuter in comparison to some the more recent successful transmuters?

And if this transmuter wasn't playing from a purely PK perspective, then maybe that was the reason you didn't pick some of the aforementioned edges?

Re: I'd say not awesome on the deathfulness scale, though I gave up on that character just as they were starting to hit their stride. Too much work and other crap going on for a while.

I did intentionally pick some other edges early that other people wouldn't because I had an odd RP concept/build in mind. Ultimately if that character had lasted long enough I probably would have taken some of those edges, they just weren't the highest priority for even the PK ideas I had in mind.

I'm not trying to say, no one should ever take these edges so much as... I don't think they're as much the no-brainer choice that GinGa does.

I think that if I laid out exactly what some of the "overpowered" edges do, and gave examples of other things you could have instead for the same cost... probably no one who read the post would ever pick them again.

Of course, there will always be some characters who generate so much imm xp that they get to choose the "overpowered" ones *and* whatever else you're talking about. So, for those characters, there opportunity cost is somewhat mitigated.

For example:

I suspect that you are looking at something that says something like:

- neuro edge = 100 edges points (oversimplifying myself, I know)
- 4 other edges that are great in combination = 90 edge points.

However, the "overpowered" edges make it a lot easier to rack up kills. Having recently come off of a bard (romantic no less), I found fiend to be overpowered. Strengthening it just makes it easy to rack up kills which will then generate further edge points that you can spend. And being realistic, high pk characters tend to get more imm love.

For example, an imm is less likely to reward a newb who pulls off the kill of his life against a moderately skilled solo enemy than they are to reward a bard who turns back 4 enemies (which is actually the easier task if said bard preps like crazy and is skilled).

So in short, the "uber" edges are those that make it easy to rack up kills. Those can then be spent on getting the rest of the edges. Thing is, neuro with edges isn't a niche thing. It has a huge range of situations where it's best. I was just damn glad I was playing an elf bard outlander when fighting muters.

>However, the "overpowered" edges make it a lot easier to rack
>up kills. Having recently come off of a bard (romantic no
>less), I found fiend to be overpowered. Strengthening it just
>makes it easy to rack up kills which will then generate
>further edge points that you can spend.

For what it's worth, I've seen a fair number of bard fights involving the Frightful Fiend edge, and, knowing how it works, I've never seen one in which it resulted in a kill that wouldn't have been gotten otherwise. It's possible, but rare enough that I still haven't seen it.

>Tell that to the neuro, rot and ap-weapon edges. Nasty
>abilities that got nastier.

Sure -- but generally they see little benefit, and a cost that involves giving up half a dozen other edges that you could have instead of that single edge.

Unholy Blessing I put in a slightly different category because, to me, it's one of the key unique mechanics of the A-P class. I wouldn't avoid creating edges that modify it any more than I'd avoid creating edges that modify all weapon spec skills.

Evil Healers have taken an exceptional strike to there healing efforts and have been given no compensation. Why not give them a small offensive boost, 'As they are evil' in exchange for the -40% healing power they have under good aligned healers.

Evil Healers have taken an exceptional strike to there healing efforts and have been given no compensation.

This is fully intentional, and isn't something likely to change.

The IC reason is that healing is inherently not a very evil art. The OOC reason is that the evil-only classes (APs, necromancers, berserkers... also evil conjurers) tend to be offense-heavy and defense-light, which makes them combine with healers with greater potency. The one good-only class (paladins) benefits the least (other than another healer) from a healer groupmate.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I'm just trying to give healers some independence. Lowering the bar with nothing to make up for that just promotes perma-groups and OOC formations. I personally hate signing on now when there isn't someone in my range due to huge Edge/Power bonus's that other Classes get. Ie (Paladins, Druids, Assassins) All of there Edge Choices seem so superior to a Healers.

I'm just trying to give healers some independence. Lowering the bar with nothing to make up for that just promotes perma-groups and OOC formations.

This particular change made evil healers less useful in a group scenario. They always have full power when healing themselves-- it's a more selfish act, and flows more readily through them. A healer operating independently suffers none of the alignment-dependent drawbacks.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com