Pick something you can't think of any argument to practice -- that is to say, you can't come up with any kind of character who would want it. Tell me what it is and why.

I'll hint at what you're missing, take a second look myself, or both.

Daev, I see that you like the spear-staff specs as they are, while several players think the spec skills are a bit "bleh" as one person put it. Nearly every single spear-staff spec skill was mentioned in this thread, and that shouldn't be dismissed. If you are willing to listen and consider, I think a few small tweaks might make the spec more viable.

As it is, the only directable, opening skills are legsweep and impale (including the thrust, pierce and pugil). Legsweep is useless against flying opponents which severely limits it's use, so that pretty much leaves you with impale being your only spec based opening, directable move.

I suggest that you make misdirect and leverage an opening, directable move (if not both than one I suppose would work) and maybe make crescent directable if you are feeling generous. I think this would expand on the usefulness of some of these skills without changing the guts of the spec too much or making it too OP. I don't think it is an unreasonable request.

On a side note, what is the success of misdirect based off of? I would have thought it would be either skill or dex based but now I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't strength based because it fails quite a bit for me at mastery. That wouldn't make the most sense to me if it was strength based since most spear/staff specs are going to be high dex characters. And if I'm a high strength staff/spear spec I would think leverage with the edges for a lagging move might be the better way to go?

Hopefully I've made a strong enough argument to get you to consider this!

Never seemed to work for me.

Entangle and Netcasting.

Their entangle is so very limited in areas it can be used and netcasting fails the vast majority of times even on land.

My failure rate was close to 100 percent between failing to lay it out and people not being caught in it.

Neither is missed if not practiced.

Sidebar: Why don't Beastmasters get Animal Messenger? Dar had a falcon after all!

Both are absolutely epic but with netcasting it is not obvious what it does til you play around with it for a while.

Netcasting != snare. Not even close. It stops some melee attacks and *spells* including word of recall but thats only when you waylay them at the net from what I can tell.

I've killed *stacked* necromancers with netcasting + waylay.

I'm perhaps slightly stretching the rules here, but IMO evasion is *very* close to a skill that I'd not practice as a hth spec, on paper I think I'd now only take it in the hopes of getting the counterpunch edge (with which I have no experience, though).

IIRC evasion is just a group feint (with maybe a higher chance of working than regular feint, but still redundant with it) and in practice situations where you'd actually want to use it are almost non-existant.

So here's a repost of an old idea to make evasion useful (from a past Santa Zulg: it didn't inspire him, though he misunderstood what I was going for). Basically make it similar to imperial defense (though there's an alternate/simpler suggestion at the end):

EVASION

syntax: evasion on/off

Hand-to-hand students may choose to focus on defensive techniques,
thus avoiding or deflecting blows aimed at them more efficiently.
However, while concentrating on keeping themselves out of their
opponent's reach they also have fewer chances for strikes of their
own. Feinting incoming attacks is also more effective while evading
blows.

See also: HAND TO HAND SPECIALIZATION, FEINT


- Effects of 'evasion on' (e.g. "You start focusing on defensive hand-to-hand techniques"):

1) improved chance of success for DODGE and PARRY/IRONHANDS skills
2) (large) penalties to THIRD and FOURTH ATTACK skills
3) improved chance of success on using the FEINT skill (which might also occasionally feint everyone targeting you)
4) wielding anything is equivalent to 'evasion off' (e.g. "You resume a less defensive fighting stance")

Additionally, COUNTERPUNCH edge would switch to trigger on FEINT.

************************

- An alternate idea is to include the COUNTERPUNCH edge in the skill by default:

EVASION

syntax: evasion

Careful use of terrain and open space allows the hand to hand student to
place themselves out of their opponent's reach. They will also take a free
swing at someone whose attack they negate using this skill.


- Although this would be superior to other similar 1 rnd damage skills (e.g. jab, serpentstrike) in that it also feints, I don't think that's unreasonable given that hth specs must forgo all weapon bonuses like +dam/+hit/vuln. exploitation etc.

As a hand spec, why not practice & use evasion instead which is simply a better feint?

Evasion (given equal skill) is a lot more reliable than feint, even vs. a single target. I find it a big help leveling, especially any time I take hand as first spec.

I don't know that I would use it in PK, but I very rarely use feint in PK either.

I'm surprised considering many orcs don't have it practiced on their PBF's. Only thing I'd change with it is that it should probably stun 100% (or near 100%) of the time...considering you need a free hand to do it. Right now it seems like it's 50/50?

It's actually kind of strange to me that it requires a hand at all since I've always been taught IRL *not* to use your hands when headbutting someone...since it telegraphs it too easily so you eat a forehead to the face.

But that I've never been able to figure out how to use it properly really... Of course it could just be one of those things that sucks for no real reason...

Barge in dual wielding and doing neat stuff. Weapon drops from Maladicts. Start headbutting.

You are an idiot.

But when a cordial response was given he berserked.

Why allow that?

jeez

zsdcvadcvas

The one I'm responding to with this post.

No tagsies.

gr

I think he probably reacted that way because you talked to the guy who played the killingest orc in the history of the game like he didn't know where to find Market Square.

All I did was give them three examples of when it could be used. I wasn't rude. I wasn't condescending. I wasn't mean.

He on the other hand was a prick for no good reason. Krunk (Who I didn't know he played) not withstanding.

It's all good bro, I appreciate your post.

Admittedly, I've never bothered going the lasher route, but especially after Zulghinlour re-wrote dual wield a few years back so that you automatically dual wield fists, headbutt's not entirely unuseful.

Wield a main weapon, no secondary. You're still getting a possible six attacks, and headbutt away. People just plain don't expect it, and I *think* it's supposed to give you improved combat rounds against someone you stun w/ it.

So...yeah, lasher people? Maybe not so much. Don't take that edge? It's your last chance means of stunning someone that comes with an orc right out of the box.

Give headbutt a chance to proc savage feeding - much like crushing assault/grapple..I mean technically speaking your face is in close vicinity to theirs while headbutting..

Right now, to me headbutt is a lag move that gives no chance of cheap shot (lash does) AND requires me to not have a 2ndary weapon...Too much sacrifice for 0 gain

But I am interested in how reliable headbutt is now that Daevryn fixed the double helm bug.

*If* it is now reliable(ish) unblockable lag, SF prog might be too much.

nt

1. Make it usable without any timer at all.

OR (See the word OR?)

2. Make it usable on roads too with the same cooldown but increase the distance with level.

OR

3. Make it like Sandswirl.

OR

Make it like flyto with a 5 tick cooldown and the lost off 51% of your current movement. (My flavoright idea)

which is to make it usable on plains, paths, and roads that are in one direction and it becomes a targetable skill with the skill/spell the user's choice

like rush but it begins with a skill

Sorry.

Why it was toned down so much I cant imagine unless it was to make the edges cooler.

It would be nice to have exotic skills outlined, and what effect Hour Past Midnight has on each.

Most well known is swing, which effectively gives mage classes lash + better parry. Rip is a very nice disarm that also causes bleed but is 3 rounds. Batter seems to function like a crappy misdirect and wallop is a mystery to me. Projection seems to be curse that checks skill % instead of saves and discharge is also a mystery.

Exotic skills are strictly optional, but for the amount of investment they require to see any results to begin with, it'd be neat to see a detailed explanation of each skill here and a more general explanation in an updated help file.

Many if not most exotic skills require you to play an HPM warrior which can over exaggerate it's effects for a non-warrior, or spend 30-40~ hours at 18-20 int in an extremely controlled environment to get a clue whether a given piece of gear has an effect that synergizes with your class.

Generally speaking, i think there are way too many 'detect invis' preps in the game. By mid-ranks being able to be invisible is nearly useless except in the rare situation where someone forgot to do whatever they do, or have to detect.

This is contrary to every fantasy story I have ever read where being able to go invisible was a major thing spell-wise.

Either that or perhaps make 'invisibility' get stronger as a person gets up in rank so that stronger preps are required to see someone invisible..

Don't know how this would be coded but I look at it like the prep gives you the ability to 'check' to see if anyone invisible is around you and if say you quaff a level 15 prep you aren't likely to see a level 30 mage who is invisible but if you use a level 30 prep you are guarenteed to see a level 15 mage.

Seems like a decent idea to me. Long ago on another mud, this was implemented to good affect.

Make it a level range like level 30 invis requires at least a level 25th level detect invis to see.

Sure would shake the hell out of things around here though.

I think that it would be a gigantic boost to sleeper classes, like A-Ps, Necros, Bards, that could simply get a high level invis from prep or a friend and be able to walk in and sleep the person. First strike is huge in pk, for the most part.

I do kinda like the idea but think it would cause a large uproar and of course, disadvantage newer players who may not know where to look for said prep.

I'd love to see a diff thread that's purely game mechanics questions. IE, ask me about any skill/class ability that you don't fully understand and we'll tell you how it works.

Smear mud I think in this thread was a great example about a skill that's been in the game for 8? years that people haven't figured out yet..so it's probably the only way for this information to make it to the light of day.

I guess to me...the line I'd draw in terms of secrecy would be along the lines of "content can have secrets, skills should be an open book (at least if you have the skill)". So for instance, areas explore, quests, item knowledge, mob knowledge, these are great 'secrets'. But if I don't know whether or not nerve->knee hurts their dodge more than the -2 dex? That's tedious, how do I even go about testing that realistically without an OOC training buddy and a spreadsheet?

There have been attempts to upgrade them, but only a couple are worth taking. Almost nobody hangs around sub-15 as a shapeshifter and their usefulness once you have a form is almost non-existent. They'd need to persist through shapeshifting and back (not work in-form though) to be even worth considering. And then the ones incompatible with stoneskin would still be pointless. In general, most of them have drawbacks bad enough that once you get a form, you wouldn't want them up even if you didn't have to recast after shifting.

No skill is absolutely useless, and you can always come up with some outlandish scenario where you wished you'd had any given skill. I should probably take this one about partial shifts back, since pre-forms shifter sort of counts as a real character.

I think if you apply the "it's useless at hero" a lot of skills fall out of the game.

Now that shapeshift is as low level as it is I think, realistically, most shifters will only practice one or two tops and power past the rest and there's only so much you can do about that. Maybe if I were ambitious I'd combine all the armor partial shifts into one spell like aegis or something but that's about it.

asf

But then we'd probably de-power shifters across the board to compensate....

>I think if you apply the "it's useless at hero" a lot of
>skills fall out of the game.

I'm not try to say useless because useless at hero, but even in low level PK/mob fighting I have trouble seeing a justification for taking the partial shifts. They're cool and flavorful, but just not that useful.

Are you often able to find a group mate? I tried a shifter the other day and managed to be grouped for like 15 minutes of my time before reaching first form. I chose to only do a couple quick to do quests. I found both horns of the bull and claw of the lion to be very useful for solo ranking on mobs (as one would expect a newbie to do that doesn't know the quests).

I've had them before, but I think they beefed claw at some point because I don't recall getting two attacks with it before. The damage was on par with a warrior wearing fine leather and a couple opal rings.

Horns of the bull actually seemed less damage than before, but was still useful. Very random though.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw it out there that while I think they could/should be better, they aren't all currently useless.

Ears of the bat sounds like it lets you see people sneak in/out. That's useful if you know there is a hiding sneaker after you/around you. Having played some hunters, seeing people you can't even see sneak in and out is pretty sweet. At high level, this should be helping you faerie fog people so you can then try to shift and kill them.

Paws of the cheetah, meh. Tail of the lizard, meh. They sound like they have their uses, but only very very rarely.

Fangs of the serpent I find more useful on a non-shifter.

Also, Hooves of the Gazelle is quite useful at low levels to keep your movement up for running or chasing.

I ain't doing no solo ranking. With a mage, it depends on whether I want explore/osb. If I do, I rank to 7 on quests/academy, then grind my obs/explore exp and end up usually around level 10, then I do boots to hit 11. Then I find a group to do FoN. Generally they'll get me to 15 in an hour or less. If I don't find a group at 11, I log off and coe back later until I find one. I'm not going to waste my time soloing. Most of the time though, I get to my level 7, then find that fon group and go straight to 15 in an hour or slightly more. Replace FoN with other areas if evil. If I don't quite get my form I do runes and maybe a couple other quests. I'm sure as hell not soloing mobs for exp as a level 13 shifter. Always better to wait for a group.

Claws of the lion and hooves of the gazelle are the two I practice. Maybe eyes of the cat.

I kind of assumed that was about how it went. In that case, I do think the spells can help fresh newbies that don't know the quests, etc. So not entirely useless.

But still, could use some more umph.

Have you used ears of the bat? Does it let you hear people sneak in/out or am I reading it incorrectly?

There are quests you can do and places you can solo to get from 11-15 in an hour as a mage without a group. With a group of 3 including a tank it should be much quicker than that.

The esoteric armor use skills don't make a lot of sense to practice to me. E.g. bone armor, mystical armor and stone armor. Those armors are generally a combination of rare or heavy or typically mediocre to the point where getting a little more AC out of the couple pieces you happen to wear is not worth the practice. As flavor skills they're cool to have around, but should start at 60% or something.

I'll disagree with this. Especially combined with shield block they can certainly stop some hits from getting to you, which in this game means a lot unless you're an ABS voker or otherwise have very heavy damage reduction.

As any kind of melee you absolutely want to take these skills.

Now I don't *master* these skills (on purpose at least), but I certainly practice them.

I'm in pretty much the same boat.

It's not super valuable and if I were playing 3 WIS giant warrior for some reason I'd probably skip bone armor use to save some practices but to me it's good enough to be worth practicing.

is of tremendous importance to conjurers and really anyone with shield block, as it allows the use of mystical shields. You don't want to be using a shield without the proper armor use skill.

I know it's pushing what most people do, but there's a lot of time I won't get or will wait until much later to get all the long list of detects a class can get. Magic, consecration, evil, good, invis, know alignment, etc. It gets more apparent when you can get easily a potion for any of these and save practices so you can train... or are playing a dumb race.

How about making it a single detect spell with skills for the rest, which can be toggled on/off. That way you're only keeping track of a single effect and can remove/add what you want to see before you cast it.

Just a random better usability idea.

>I know it's pushing what most people do, but there's a lot of
>time I won't get or will wait until much later to get all the
>long list of detects a class can get. Magic, consecration,
>evil, good, invis, know alignment, etc. It gets more apparent
>when you can get easily a potion for any of these and save
>practices so you can train... or are playing a dumb race.
>
>How about making it a single detect spell with skills for the
>rest, which can be toggled on/off. That way you're only
>keeping track of a single effect and can remove/add what you
>want to see before you cast it.
>
>Just a random better usability idea.

Wow, that sounds like a miserable, ugly mess to try to code. Not to mention know alignment isn't even a "detect" spell in the sense the others are, you're looking at creating a skill, throwing EVERY other detect ability into it, then trying to sort out whether you can use each skill based on class, level, and mana, and then applying a timer of the length of detect.

Personally? They're detects. Yes, they're simple, and there can be a lot of them, but each of them gives you more information than you had before. You don't want that information, or want to buy potions instead of having it on a stick? Fine, save the ONE practice per detect.

I tend to figure 2HP in every fight is better than the tiny chance of a deflection that wouldn't have happened without the skill. Basically, I tend not to have even one stone armor or bone armor item, and it's very rare I'll have more than 2. Obviously I don't know how armor use works, but I always assumed it increases effective AC by a percentage. The effect of even doubling my stone-armor-based AC wouldn't add up to a single deflection over the life of my character... or so I thought before this thread.

I could be wrong of course, but I think it is purely an extra defense (a crappy one) checked after dodge. AC value is just as useless as it always has been.

and low levels.
and some skills.

Yup, pretty much this from what I can tell. And your chest/shield/helmet? seem to be the most important items that you want to align with your 'armor use' skills.

It makes a pretty noticeable difference. It's not uncommon that I'll deflect 1-2 shots per PK on a tanky character. If you're fighting someone who does MANGLES+ or has deathblow that can be very significant.

Some of them are kinda unlikely that you'll have gear that utilizes but 2hp is literally meaningless compared to a 5% chance to stop 100-300 hp. I've never won a fight with 2hp left in the 13/14 or so years I've been doing PVP..but melee in this game is almost entirely about stacking every possible minor advantage until you can routinely win without entering any commands and then applying maximum lag and every little bit counts.

Elbow/Knee - I doubt there is a great number of folks who practice elbow/knee unless they want the edge that uses it or think they will be Emporer.

Hook (axe specs) I've had a couple Axe specs and don't see the point of hook. I could see the point if you could use it while blind but you can't last time I checked. Didn't see much difference success-wise, disarm is pretty consistent as is, just didn't see the point. Wouldn't take hook again as an axe spec.

>Elbow/Knee - I doubt there is a great number of folks who
>practice elbow/knee unless they want the edge that uses it or
>think they will be Emporer.

I agree these are pretty marginal unless you want brawling. They're basically quicker/weaker versions of kick, and who needs three versions of kick?

>Hook (axe specs) I've had a couple Axe specs and don't see the
>point of hook. I could see the point if you could use it
>while blind but you can't last time I checked. Didn't see
>much difference success-wise, disarm is pretty consistent as
>is, just didn't see the point. Wouldn't take hook again as an
>axe spec.

I definitely use hook when I'm playing an axe spec. Skill for skill it's a lot more reliable than normal disarm.

Some weapons can't be disarmed, others can't be broken. Between hook and weaponbreaker you're really well equipped to deal with any weapon that isn't both.

I don't know if any of this is applicable but what if elbow to the face caused bleeding like cross or blurry vision, and the knee to the growing caused similar results? Also, it would be nice if they could be used to begin combat.

once you told me that dire wolves cannot be tamed I lost all hope for this skill. it has uses in the 20s but that's about it. 40+ it is a waste. compare it to mobs that an edged orc can enslave and it's like a bad joke

Which is naturally hasted and trips people. That's something, IMHO. You can also keep it when you quit for the next login, even if the mob has repopped meanwhile.

nt

nt

that I think would be great with tame. I know they are tamable, but I don't know if they are charmable. Haven't had a beast master up high enough to test yet.

It's not really meant to be as good as enslave, though it does have some advantages over it.

I don't think it's awesome, but it's situationally useful. It isn't my reason for picking beastmaster but I do practice it.

Can't get obs. XP with it, still kills you in noexit rooms, doesn't let you peek past unpassable doors for which you don't know the key/puzzle solution to see if it's worth trying to solve, has huge downsides for what amounts to being able to duo dimension into adjacent areas with full where.

It's nifty, but unless you're guildsitting, using your familiar to listen out for guild breakers and scouting the enemy cabal, it's more niche than most shifter forms or muter spells. It would be a much better spell if rejoin had a short range on it, say 3 to 5 rooms or same area.

It takes an awful lot of planning for a spell that essentially is a gigantic 'gate/flyto to my body and instakill me if you spot my astral projection' flag once people realize what you're actually doing. That also means you basically need circles next to your body or no servitors at all before you actually use it, and need to drink/eat until you're beyond full to get full usage out of it.

Mobs don't aggro on you obviously so it is nice when you want to know what is past that mob in hell or just want to see what the arch-devil looks like. Or get quick look at an area so you can plan a good route through aggro mobs.

That's something

Just has some situational limitations. But is not bad for seeing what defenders are using, etc

what about using projection to move your familiar to attack a mob you want to look at/pass that might kill or pwk you?

This is why you are not good at cf. You are not creative. You post a lot but offer no real insight or validity to what you try to reason.

Projection is a huge boon.

Project + fam that is.

Don't you have a flyto/murderer to get back to?

I think projection is pretty useful, even if most conjurers don't make good use of it. It does permit some kinds of intelligence-gathering that no other character can equal.

Incidentally, there's a way to get a long-range rejoin if you really want it.

Either no one knows what this spell truly does, or you agree it's pointless (you didn't even practice it with your conjie afaik)

I know I've both practiced it and not practiced it but I agree that it's pretty useless. It solves a problem that 99% of the time the conjurer class doesn't have, since (for example) I can usually lose a tracking mob with Phase Door instead.

Until I tried that, and it didn't work, at which point I was exteremly confused as to why the hell it existed...

We should modify it into something overpowered: have a wisp that mesmerizes PCs who approach it and fail their save. :D

My D&D group was roaming a swamp and I had thrown some will-o-the-wisps in the distance. I assumed they would know what they were and not approach. Turns out, not one of them knew what it was and they all followed the wisps to their doom.

It doesn't cleave shields!

Also aura of despair seems mostly to be a way to use charge of the morosa and enervating spirits, and I'm not sure enervating spirits is so great. Power word despondence is another one I usually skip - high mana cost, low utility. I might use it on a slept foe but the other maledictions will be more useful if they land.

Pierce, thrust, slice - I sometimes get these for access to the associated edge, slice has arterial bleeding going for it in PK but you usually have better options. Thrust is just barely better than kick for killing mobs without using mana, but pierce is something I spam up to get the edge and never use again. Like elbow and knee to get brawling.

Power Word Despondence definitely has its uses, it's not low utility. A big one is that it removes "bless" effects which can be crucial to landing spells on someone asleep (lowers saves).

Pierce/Thrust/Slice agreed are just for the edge. If you're doing any of those in combat, you're doing it wrong.

All have uses, if not very often (or ever) in PK. Pierce has the -dex. Slice has bleeding. Thrust has a feint affect. Clearly in PK there are often (if not always) better options, but for PvE they can be useful skills.

Crescent on the other hand, unless I'm missing something (been ages since I played staff/spear spec), is pretty pointless. I don't recall it being much more damage than thrust and it didn't have any side affects. Still could be bad memory though.

Power word despondence ruins charisma and is not easily cured by a bard, although adagio can eventually cure it.

You deleted your character before I could see what was going wrong for you, but all my testing indicates that shield cleave works fine.

My subsequent char (also an A-P) had the exact same experience - spammed it up to 100% without ever seeing anything but a 'narrowly miss' echo. My current hasn't practiced the skill on the grounds that I've never seen it work in hundreds of attempts.

If it helps I was using militiamen in tir-talath to spam on.

I'd be interested to know what the factors are involved in success rate? Weapon weight, shield weight, weapon material? I don't think it was down to shield material since there is apparently a different echo for an unbreakable shield and I only ever saw the 'narrowly miss' one.

Low hit roll plus penalty for using off hand, maybe?

I think I bugboarded it too (early summer or thereabouts). As a ranger all I ever saw was the "narrowly miss" echo, after tens (if not hundreds) of attempts. If it matters I was using it in Aran'gird (and I could swear the last time I was there a couple of years ago shieldcleave worked normally). It seemed that maybe something had gone wrong with the skill when 'broken' items were added.

Hmm. I'll take another look at it tonight.

Edit: Found a bug that would lower the chance significantly in many common situations -- FNCR.

>It doesn't cleave shields!

You're nuts. :) I shieldcleave like a mofo when I'm playing A-P.

Granted, there are some shields it can't break.

>Also aura of despair seems mostly to be a way to use charge of
>the morosa and enervating spirits, and I'm not sure enervating
>spirits is so great. Power word despondence is another one I
>usually skip - high mana cost, low utility. I might use it on
>a slept foe but the other maledictions will be more useful if
>they land.

Aura of Despair is a mixed blessing but I definitely use it reasonably often playing A-P.

Enervating Spirits, I'll give you is not great.

Power Word Despondence is useful even if I don't use it in every fight. I certainly wouldn't skip practicing it.

>Pierce, thrust, slice - I sometimes get these for access to
>the associated edge, slice has arterial bleeding going for it
>in PK but you usually have better options. Thrust is just
>barely better than kick for killing mobs without using mana,
>but pierce is something I spam up to get the edge and never
>use again. Like elbow and knee to get brawling.

Slice is really good (maybe not for A-P specifically) in that it gives lots of classes a way to apply artery bleeding that normally can't. For example, this might be a way to get shifting trauma in play and depending on what you are maybe you don't have a better way to do it.

Pierce and thrust I admit are more meh.

I seem to recall that, but can't be bothered to check to see if it is in the helpfile. If it isn't, it should be, or just in the affects list.

Shifter:

All partial shifts need to be upgraded or useful to a lowbie shifter if you want them to be practiced. Horn of the Bull was the only useful one and for some reason it got downgraded. If balance was the issue, making that one ####ty compared to the already ####ty other ones wasn't the answer.

Eye of the Eagle greater enliven seems useless. Helpfile indicates you can see people above you in the sky but I never actually did even though I knew they were above me, at the end of the day I'd rather just fly up and dodge better if someone is up there.



Conjurer:

Contact other Planes: So I get identify that might put me out of commission for 40 ticks. I already suspect an item has progs on it, I cast the spell and get conformation that it does something...pretty useless.

Aren't only for shifters ;)

>Shifter:
>
>All partial shifts need to be upgraded or useful to a lowbie
>shifter if you want them to be practiced. Horn of the Bull was
>the only useful one and for some reason it got downgraded. If
>balance was the issue, making that one ####ty compared to the
>already ####ty other ones wasn't the answer.

Touched most of them this week, so we'll see.

>Eye of the Eagle greater enliven seems useless. Helpfile
>indicates you can see people above you in the sky but I never
>actually did even though I knew they were above me, at the end
>of the day I'd rather just fly up and dodge better if someone
>is up there.

Wow you really misread/misunderstood the point of that greater enliven.

Basically, it lets you where as though you were above where you actually are. So, for example, in Galadon you would see people in any of the areas visible from above Galadon.

>Conjurer:
>
>Contact other Planes: So I get identify that might put me out
>of commission for 40 ticks. I already suspect an item has
>progs on it, I cast the spell and get conformation that it
>does something...pretty useless.

It gives you information there's no other reliable way to get -- it's risky but I don't think it's useless.

gr

Well, this is kind of a massive list, but I think this is every class skill that I either would never practice, or have...and never found a use for. Some of these are borderline marginal, but figured I'd mention them.

General - Pen. For the love of....can't this just be generic?

Berserker - Take Cover
Berserker - Overrun

I've had both of these skills, and I have only seen take cover work ONCE over multiple Skruggas. Overrun I've never managed to make work.

Conjurer - Armor

Druid - Tsunami
Invoker - Create Water vs. Create Spring
Invoker - Drown
Invoker - Tsunami

I'll mention these all together. First 20 levels of water path are making water ungodly repeatedly, and do they really need to be able to both make it into a container, and as a spring?

Then finally you can do damage, but it's on/in-water only, and 98% of the things you find there are immune. I'll admit in theory they have a use, but in practice I never found it. As an aside...invokers also have no way to innately go underwater until level 38, which is sort of ironic. Air Path spell "Air Bubble"?

Necromancer - Speak with Dead
This one I literally don't remember what it actually does that accomplishes anything, aside from the Tribunal necromancer.

Paladin - Ceremonial Burial
Paladin - Revelation
Ceremonial Burial is just so specific, you never get to use it. Yay for stopping the one random necromancer around from animating it or using gravesight. Revelation I've tried to use, but finding out if someone's standing *right* next to you tends to end up being useless unless you have that area attack, and then I pretty much use the area attack at random. I'll admit it's another theoretically useful spell.

Ranger - Plainsrunning
Ranger - Bramble Pit
Ranger - Poison Arrow
Ranger - Flaming Arrow
Ranger - Aerial Shot
Ranger - Precision

Plainsrunning. OMG, a once per hour run five steps in a straight line? It was useless.
Bramble pit's borderline. Before they know better, sure. After they know you have it? Easily avoided. Also, who doesn't run around with boots on?
Poison/Flaming arrow. Waste your active command choice to attempt to change weapon damage, which attempts to land like normal, and attempts to land poison/immolation. I'd rather just grab a poisonous bow. Even if these would dip the weapon *AND* fire it for an extra shot like backhand, it'd be useful.
Precision...I'm probably going to practice with every character because it sounds useful, but I've never figured out exactly what it accomplished.

Thief - Appraise
Thief - Shadow Drag
Thief - Grapple
Thief - Disengage vs. Shadow Disappear
Thief - Isolate vs. Separate
Thief - Discerning Gaze

Appraise - How is this significantly more useful than lore? Especially if I can get it with observation experience instead of thief points.
Shadow Drag - Oh...shadow drag, how I hate thee. Amazing in concept. In practice, everyone just keeps trying to yell "help" or uses "vis" to negate it.
Grapple - Why it over disarm?
Disengage vs. Shadow Disappear - Admittedly there's a huge level difference, but if I could wait to get a skill that gets me out of combat *and* instantly hides me? Deal.
Isolate vs. Separate - These are so oddly similar, yet different. Remove enemy from room, one starts combat, other doesn't. One tries to disarm if you're barehanded. Do either get used anyways?
Discerning Gaze - Don't you not receive an echo for looking at people if the thief is not visible to the person, or sneaking? I swear I never notice thieves looking at people anyways.

Warrior - Hook

Especially now that broken weapons remain, I'm pretty certain I've never bothered to hook a weapon in my life. Yes, I can hook whips for probably better success, but if I'm not weaponbreaking, I'll probably settle with disarm.

>Appraise - How is this significantly more useful than lore? Especially if I can get it with observation experience instead of thief points.
You can't, that's for bards. It's a convenience skill, shows the exact numbers on weapons/armor and always shows the right spells on magic devices, pretty much like identify.

>Shadow Drag - Oh...shadow drag, how I hate thee. Amazing in concept. In practice, everyone just keeps trying to yell "help" or uses "vis" to negate it.
You need it mastered for some edge, I think. Otherwise yeah, useless.

>Grapple - Why it over disarm?
Grapple is awesome. You can pry away weapons you don't know. You don't need to blind them because the weapon goes into your wield. The success rate is much higher. Also synergizes with separate.

>Disengage vs. Shadow Disappear - Admittedly there's a huge level difference, but if I could wait to get a skill that gets me out of combat *and* instantly hides me? Deal.
"You need to be able to hide" vs "you need to not tank"? Yeah, in practice shadow disappear is better, but it doesn't supercede disengage.

>Isolate vs. Separate - These are so oddly similar, yet different. Remove enemy from room, one starts combat, other doesn't. One tries to disarm if you're barehanded. Do either get used anyways?
Isolate is very dangerous when combined with thief waylay. It is difficult to practice without help though.

>Discerning Gaze - Don't you not receive an echo for looking at people if the thief is not visible to the person, or sneaking? I swear I never notice thieves looking at people anyways.
Agree. When people can see you, looking at them without them noticing is going to be the least of your concerns.

Overrun is probably quite different when you have a group of orcs.

Speak with dead can be useful as it lets you know who was just in the area, if nothing else.

plains rangers can't even see hidden characters. so even less of an incentive to ever play a plains ranger.

it's by far the worst ranger terrain

If your defense strategy at the lower pk levels is to make attacks miss you.

I've had a shaman that went that route and even when I was link dead it took people ages to kill him.

Overhead - Your opponent runs away after you do it unless it kills them. It would be great if it always lagged them 1 round. With edge it might lag them 2 then sometimes. Makes it a good opener. Otherwise pincer is always a better opener to use except on an invoker.

Legsweep - Trip almost always seems as a better option. Fly prevents this from working entirely. So it is kinda a useless skill imo. Yes, I understand it is a skill based trip. Still not worth it.

Misdirect - Does less damage than pincer and is not an opener. Lags you more than them. Not really worth it, might be useful for Felar. Maybe.


Edit: Just wanted to add. Rush is way better than overhead for lag. Even with the edge.

>Overhead - Your opponent runs away after you do it unless it
>kills them. It would be great if it always lagged them 1
>round. With edge it might lag them 2 then sometimes. Makes it
>a good opener. Otherwise pincer is always a better opener to
>use except on an invoker.

Yeah outside of edge cases it's pretty marginal right now. I've tweaked it up a bit a number of times over the years but it's still not quite there yet.

>Legsweep - Trip almost always seems as a better option. Fly
>prevents this from working entirely. So it is kinda a useless
>skill imo. Yes, I understand it is a skill based trip. Still
>not worth it.

Given equal stats, it always works more and does more damage than trip.

>Misdirect - Does less damage than pincer and is not an opener.
>Lags you more than them. Not really worth it, might be useful
>for Felar. Maybe.

There's really no good answer to misdirect, though. Consider that you're also a dramatically better tank than an axe spec as a spear spec, too. To me it's actually one of the better arguments to pick spear as a spec.

Misdirect-Perhaps, link misdirect to strength a bit more. So the damage scales higher with higher str, or give it a chance to only lag you 2 rounds instead of 3. (Since Felar have lower str, it makes it better for pretty much any other race...save for elf) And you could make an edge for elves for misdirect. ^_^ Yeah, they are tanking a bit better, but they also are not dual wielding. Even just sometimes lowering the lag on it makes it a much better skill.

Legsweep-I suppose. But I wouldn't practice it with a dex spec. As a str spec, I would want the dual wielding. ^_^

Overhead - Tweaking lag, giving it an affect -str or something, or upping the lower damage threshold are the obvious options. Unless you got something awesome in mind.


Edit: Just had another idea. Perhaps just give overhead 1 round of lag without the edge. And change what the edge does. You could do awesome things with the edge instead. Like a +damage buff after you try to axe murder someone that only lasts 0 tick. Or something like that. Just something to keep in mind. ^_^

>>Misdirect - Does less damage than pincer and is not an
>opener.
>>Lags you more than them. Not really worth it, might be
>useful
>>for Felar. Maybe.
>
>There's really no good answer to misdirect, though. Consider
>that you're also a dramatically better tank than an axe spec
>as a spear spec, too. To me it's actually one of the better
>arguments to pick spear as a spec.

On the flip side, look at it from the aspect of...you're a spear spec, and you want to lag someone. Probably going to trip, legsweep, or bash if you can, but if you're out of those options, misdirect WILL lag them. Admittedly, there might be better options, but if you're a sword, dagger, or whip spec, misdirect might be the only option for lag. Also still works great at ganking someone down.

That is the only reason I've ever practiced it.

Staff seems overly niche in comparison to spear. What do you think about tweaking misdirect with a staff? Maybe an edge for an extra hit?

Some classes don't use it and some weapons don't parry it as well as they do spears, I think.

It also exploits vuln blunt a lot of times, which you can't do with spears. That's a nice perk for pounding svirfs and gnomes.

And there are some nice non-physical staffs as well.

In terms of available spec skills, yeah, spear wins, but that doesn't mean staff does not have a lot of use because of it.

I really find the main difference on the spec is the loss of impale, otherwise I tend to actually prefer a staff since I can usually find a really nice staff that is always available, for more often then I can a spear.

And weighted leverage + the 54 pound staff from Battlefield = fun.
Throw on trapping for more fun.
Have to be a giant to do it, but still.

Outside that niche staff looks pretty lack lustre. I'm pretty much only ever going to use a staff against thieves, anti-paladins and orcs as a warrior. Like deciding to use a whip vs a flail it seems to mostly come down to class matchup and availability of weapon choice. Given those things being equal, I would generally gravitate toward spear (and flail) for the better choice of damage types, progs and impale (skill choice is obviously less relevant for whip vs flail).

(I'm also very aware that there are a handful of very powerful high end staff choices... Which are pretty exclusively bogarted by non-warriors.)

I don't think a handful of edges for staff would be unreasonable. For example actually getting damage from the "1-2 hit" described when you use misdirect.

I've practiced this on every savage I've had and it does have style points for the muddy aura but I've never once seen it actually work, even on almost naked savages. And it has such a short duration that I'm tempted to not bother practicing it on a dumb race.

I know it's supposed to help in certain situations but those never seem to occur when you actually have mud. I like savage skills for the most part but this one is just frustratingly useless when it should have such potential.

By the way, I've had this on several wood-elves and even had the 2 edges with it and still found it to not have any actual use. If it tempered fireballs or ice-needles, in addition to the rare opportunity to shed a bash or throw or trip, then it'd be worth it.

Question is, if someone tries to bash you and misses, do you chalk that up to luck or to smear mud? I don't think it has a special echo.

Me and Homard are the bastard players that you don't like. Shame on you. Shame on you.

nt

It might on some skills... but without trying very hard I just found a half dozen skills it drops the success chance of without providing an echo (because it doesn't itself have a chance to fire, it just modifies the success chance of the offending skill).

Personally, I feel warpaint is of less value than smearmud. I'd like to see smearmud + warpaint give enough of a hit/dam/str stat boost to make a nearly naked savage a semi-valid option.

The non-spec spear skills do something and crescent doesn't? Just a bit of damage iirc.

both are bleh

i'd use crescent more if it either meant 1) a miss didn't leave me open to a hit or 2) missed less


leverage kick would be cool if you could open combat with it and it did something like trip lag as an opener. otherwise, why...

(n/t)

seems pretty bad. It can lag, but so darn unreliable. However, as a high strength warrior and weighted leverage edge with max weight, you can get some pretty good damage out of it. Damage that has that chance to lag. Still kinda lame though.

>leverage kick would be cool if you could open combat with it
>and it did something like trip lag as an opener. otherwise,
>why...

If I'm a staff/spear spec there's pretty much never a situation I would use it rather than something else (misdirect for lag, pugil/crescent for damage), so I think making it a damage dealing opener with (at least a chance to) lag (through bash protection/flight) would make it worth practicing.

Also as a targeted skill you could hit someone other than who you're hitting (a´la mule kick).

I think it's generally the best pure damage skill the spec gets. That's maybe not high PK utility, but it's not useless. It's the skill you probably should be using most of the time if you're killing mobs or raiding against opposition that isn't in place yet.

I'll chalk it up to faulty memory. I just remembered crescent being no different than thrust. Haven't played one since Matrik though and his dam roll was probably low enough not to make a difference heh

It has been a while, but I had thought that pierce or thrust was just about as good as crescent with additional effects with them. I'd be curious to see if the damage really was better with crescent.

Yep, out-of-the-box crescent is unambiguously more pure damage than either skill even with any conditional factors you could fit in (e.g. Glanduin's Menace).

I suppose if it were really hard to save against WW might have some very niche use, though I'm hard pressed why an invoker, specifically would want to impersonate a thief or ranger at a distance.

But it seems like it's not very hard to save against and every time I've used it, I've immediately gotten a tell from the person I used it on. And, as far as I can tell, every time it's been used on me I've gotten the voice on the wind echo.

I can see a few RP opportunities with it, but not enough to practice it.

SS seems of very minor usefulness as from where I'm sitting it looks like there is always a better option for an invoker to be using, unless maybe they were underwater and out of moves. Am I missing something?

Daevryn's challenge is NO use to ANY character.

That's not siltscreen, but sums up whispering wind to me. In a game without tell, it would be worth practicing.

The only use seems to be the exact type of griefing pranks from vintage CF that we're not supposed to be doing in modern CF.

Whispering Wind is mostly an optional RP tool, like Ventriloquate which it replaced for invokers. I'm okay with that not being too scary.

Siltscreen is pretty marginal, I agree. Let me think about that one.

Then again I'm a dude who thinks ventroliquate is an awesome quest skill.

dfavdfv

The gains from panhandle are so meager, you'll get more killing level 15 mobs, even without selling their stuff. Oh and it's not any safer either because you're a sitting duck on the market square.

I never had the hidden assets edge, but unless it increases the output twentyfold by changing coppers to silvers...

By the way, moderate to good gains shouldn't be entirely out of reason. It's not all just begging, after all. Bards can perform on the street and thieves can play a shell game or do other heisty stuff.

Would also be cool if mastered panhandle unlocked a quest or gave bonuses to other skills.

As for fence, it just has an absurdly long timer. It was slightly useful to the newbie-me, but for a moderately experienced player I can't think of any compelling reason to take it.

>The gains from panhandle are so meager, you'll get more
>killing level 15 mobs, even without selling their stuff. Oh
>and it's not any safer either because you're a sitting duck on
>the market square.

Hmmm. Panhandling Tribunal?

You theoretically can get 500-600 copper out of one use of it although you'd have to be flat broke (including bank) or have Hidden Assets and have high charisma to do it. And be a lot lucky. 100-200 copper is probably more realistic even for a poor-ass bard.

>As for fence, it just has an absurdly long timer. It was
>slightly useful to the newbie-me, but for a moderately
>experienced player I can't think of any compelling reason to
>take it.

36 ticks is absurdly long?

>36 ticks is absurdly long?

For what the skill is? I think so. You get to sell a single item every 36 ticks because you are the master pick pocket? Especially since there is no Elder Scrolls-esque "Stolen" flag that prevents you from selling something...

Unless it does something more than that?

As Polmier, I used fence every 36 hours and racked in some serious gold.

I'm admittedly speaking from ignorance. I've never had it or really know the mechanics of it.

Role-wise it'd be kinda meh. I played a bard in Tribunal (Jahrir) but I'm not sure if he even practiced the skill. What would that look like? Cop undercover?

And since when is fence 36 ticks? It was 72 for me as Faeshu.

>And since when is fence 36 ticks? It was 72 for me as Faeshu.

Got me, but it sounds like we improved the skill for you. :)