Now do not get me wrong, I love them and I mean that in a fighting alongside and fighting against them kind of way but one thing struck me about them and I could be wrong in my thinking; so here goes...

Shifters have a major focus (easy to maintain in terms of mana)

Shifters have a minor focus (less easy to maintain in terms of mana without the edge)

Some lucky shifters *green eyed monster* get a special form that is often not part of their major or minor focus so should these forms, regardless of how confident the shifter is in using them, cost significantly more mana per tick so that the shifters who have them will have to be more tactical in when they use them instead of using them the majority of the time?

If they already do cost significantly more to maintain then fine but I just thought it would be in keeping with the idea of foci/costs etc in the form design.

Cheers

nt

Its a reward and as such shouldn't have a major drawback(unless it is to balance it which in this case doesn't). Considering that shifters without mana can't fight it would be senseless to make a reward for doing something good would make it so its more dangerous to use than a normal form.

n/t

... I'd say that it would basically ruin the whole reward.

60 mana/tick would make the form useless for any type of PKing.


As a water/offense I had HUGE problems defending in the chasm as a rhino becaues people could easily wait me out. They didn't even need to wait for ABS to fall, because I ran out of mana before that. Even after I took the "muscle memory" edge.

No, personally I think this is a very bad idea. (And this is from someone whom will prolly never play a shifter again. heh)

nt

I need to find THAT wand, sheesh.

... It was so very VERY annoying trying to defend with the Rhinoceros as a minor form. Before I got muscle memory it was basically useless, after , it got better, but still only so so.

Anyway, higher mana upkeep than minor forms would be terrible.

Let us assume the standard Necro build doesn't get the forget spell. Now as a reward you get it, but it costs 400 mana. The mana cost is a drawback, but it is still a valuable reward!

Its more like this. A conjurer gets a quest archon but it only lasts half the time of a normal one but the timer is the same. So it actually gets you killed more than it helps you...YAY reward.

As Masinger I was regularly losing servitors after only a short time because people were ganking them. Just meant that I conjured another. A half duration buffed archon would be nothing to sneer at.

Unless your fighting a complete newbie. They are just going wait you out and then steamroll you.

And then another archon once the angel is gone.

An angel isn't your best option...personally I'd rather a non buffed archon than a buffed one that last half the time.

I guess you have infinite mana on your conjurers?

Admittedly I had a fighting familiar rather than the scouting ones that seem popular with everyone else. And it wasn't the questiness of it; imp was good even before it became quest-imp.

But yes, it doesn't take that long to gather/buy a lot of slow preps, and you can gear for mana regen with some alignments.

So many people just don't manage mana well by overspending on conjures, binds, and circles.

There are certainly mana crunch times but a bit of planning makes them largely a non issue.

If the conjurer had his option of two archons. Either the normal one, or the buffed, half-duration archon.

When a shifter gets a quest form, they don't LOSE any of their previous abilities. They can do absolutely, 100% EVERYTHING exactly the same as they did before. There is NO tradeoff.

The only thing they get is a new form. That's it. They give nothing up in return. If they don't like it, they can use it exactly never and their character will never notice a difference.

It is supposed to be something different, Something useful, and something that you don't get normally. Shifters are defenseless once they have zero mana. Making them reach there at a much faster rate is rough and is not really a reward. And the you don't like that we gave you a psuedo reward don't use it.

It's still something different. It's still something useful (albeit slightly less useful than you would hope, due to the drawbacks). And it's still something they don't normally get.

It's still a freaking reward. All they're suggesting is a minor drawback.

I don't necessarily even agree with the idea, but to say that a minor drawback to a reward negates the fact that it's a reward in the first place.. is retarded.

Making a form that isn't massive improvement over your others drain at a rate that is WORSE than your minor would be stupid...in between your minor and major? yes that would be fine. If it were worse than your minor it would be a lot harder to manage and wouldn't be worth while in 80% of situations.

Isn't a worthwhile reward?

Even something useful in 5% of situations is better than nothing.

To me it makes more sense to give them a quest spell for what your asking for because atleast the quest spell won't get you killed repeatedly until you figure out the slim margin the form is useful.

That if the quest jaguar drained 100 mana per tick, you wouldn't want to use it?

I know I'd still use it a lot.

You must not play shifters much. Those who hunt people a lot and have long drawn out battles would be completely ####ed with that..it isn't a small drawback its like saying your warrior gets a slightly better weapon but he can only use it for 6-10 hours then he has go rest with all your offense and defense gone.

You wouldn't Use a form with pounce just because it costs 100 mana per tick? Sorry but that's crazy. I haven't played shifters recently but I have played hundreds of hours with them.

More than likely IF I had to get such an extremely situational reward. I'd likely end up using it 12 times maybe during 200 hours.

It's basically that I think something that serves you well on occasion is still a worthwhile reward, whereas you think it needs to have utility (in the sense that you'd want to be using it regularly).

Just a different viewpoint, I guess.

nt