I don't understand why hypnotize costs SEVEN thief points. I've tried several times to make this skill useful, and it just seems to suck all around. Everything that hypnotize can do can be done more reliably with a MUCH longer duration with a poisoner thief. Hypnotize seems very easy to resist, and the duration is measured in ROUNDS, amounting to just under 2 ticks the last time I played a mystic thief and tested with an ally. There are much more useful skill than this one, that cost much less. Given all this, it also seems odd that a mystic who wants Arcane Vision has to go through a nearly worthless 7 point skill to reach the capstone skill which is much more useful, but only costs 2 points.

This brings me to my second point. Why is Arcane Vision the capstone skill in this path, and coming after Hypnotize? It seems odd that a mystic thief needs to spend 34 thief points to gain detect invis/detect magic, when they could gain those effects from simple preps that are lightweight and cheap. Given how easily detect invis and detect magic can be gained through preps, it seems like Arcane vision should be much lower in the mystic path. Almost all the other skills are more potent than that one. Let's compare Arcane Vision and its effects, to Glimpse and its effects. Arcane Vision: let's you detect invis and detect magic. Pretty basic, right? Glimpse: Let's you LOOK THROUGH SOLID WOOD/METAL/STONE/WHATEVER to see what's INSIDE a LOCKED CONTAINER! Arcane Vision = 34 thief points (going up the entire path to get it) vs Glimpse = 12 points. I know that using logic to argue things in this game is usually a fool's errand, but if I take that fool's errand and apply logic, it would make sense to see Arcane vision somewhere between Glimpse and Veil of Secrecy, which already has a 7 level gap of no skills. I mean, we're starting off with Glimpse using magic to enhance our visual perception, right? Makes logical sense, then, to follow that up with Arcane Vision to magically enhance our visual perception more. Frankly, it seems like Arcane Vision should come first, but I'd be ok with it coming somewhere after Glimpse. Perhaps level 25, which is when ragers would be getting Truesight (sounds like a good comparison for level requirements).

Then, with Arcane vision no longer being the capstone skill, bump up the effectiveness and duration of Hypnotize to be WORTH a full 7 points, and I'll bet you anything you start getting A LOT more full path mystic thieves, instead of it being the rarity. Whenever I incorporate the mystic path, I do one of two things. I either stick with Scrolls only/Scrolls + Arcane Lore, or I go to Veil of Souls and stop right there, since the remaining 11 points are always better spent elsewhere. Infiltrate is nifty in that you can pick locks without a lock pick, and you can do so even while fighting (handy, but very much a niche ability). With Hypnotize I've already thoroughly covered why it's not worth the points. And then Arcane Lore, which I don't need to spend an extra 11 points to learn (beyond the other skills I would have already chosen) when I can just use preps to accomplish the same thing (don't even NEED detect magic preps. If I need to know if something flags magical, I can just use Lore, and Nexuns have detect magic as part of Eye of Equilibrium).

All in all, I think the Mystic path is pretty darn cool, and I love tapping into it now and then. But with these few tweaks, I would almost certainly tap into it A LOT more, as would a number of others, I'm sure.

nt

You want to play a full poisoner with hypnotize?

If I play a poisoner, I don't give a crap about hypnotize. If I'm NOT playing a poisoner, I don't really give a crap about hypnotize either, except that if I have to pay for it in order to get to Arcane Vision, then I want it to either be very useuful (if it's 7 point cost remains), or I want it to be cheap enough to match its lack of usefulness. Preferably, I'd rather see Arcane Vision brought down to level 25 or so, and Hypnotize boosted in effectiveness so that the idea of going full-path Mystic is actually appealing instead of being an idiotic waste of thief points. As things currently stand, there's no GOOD reason to go beyond Veil of Souls.

?

The rest are utterly useless. And paying 7 thief points and 1 or 2 practices for a skill that's only MODERATELY useful at best, in PvE ONLY is ludicrous.

Hypnotize does NOT do all the things that a poisoner can do, nor should it. Nor is that what I'm asking for. I only compare hypnotize to a poisoner because everything Hypnotize does, a poisoner can do also, but better (and a whole lot more besides, obviously).

Syntax: hypnotize <victim> <lethargy|vertigo|cowardice|despair|nausea>

Lethargy: Slow (poisoner accomplishes with neurological poison)
Vertigo: confusion (poisoner accomplishes with neurological poison)
Cowardice: fear (poisoner accomplishes with fear poison)
Despair: morale penalty (WOW! A morale penalty lasts 1.5 ticks. I can think of SO many other things I'd rather do, like, ANYTHING)
Nausea: unclear, but does not cause vomiting (Enough said)

Last time I gave hypnotize a chance, when trying it in PK, I sat there for the entire battle attempting to hypnotize my foes, and landed it less than 50% and my skill level was at 100%. This was tested against multiple characters. When testing it on an ally, after I managed to land it, the duration was less than 2 ticks, closer to 1.5 ticks (like dirt kick and a half duration when dirt kick is landed at the start of the hour). Unless hypnotize has been significantly juiced up since then, which I highly doubt since I haven't seen any announcements to that effect, I can't see any logical (there's that word again) reason to EVER use this skill in a PK situation. Who wants to spend half the battle trying to land a skill that's only going to last slightly longer than a well-timed dirt kick?

Right now, the only reason to even take Hypnotize is for the sole purpose of going to Arcane Vision, but that just seems like a big waste of thief points and one practice session just to get a skill that can be easily accomplished by some very simple and cheap to acquire preps.

If, however, Arcane vision was lowered to 25 and Hypnotize was made the capstone skill, with some improvements to make it worthy of being taken, THEN there would be a reason for a thief to take it for its own merit, rather than wasting points and practices on something just to get to the skill on the other side of it.

Suggested improvements to Hypnotize:

1.) Have duration measured in ticks like almost everything else in the game instead of rounds, and make the duration long enough to matter. I'd say at least 4 ticks
2.) Have Nausea induce vomiting like emetic poison would (but obviously for a much shorter duration than emetic poison. Again, 4 ticks wouldn't be too powerful, but would last long enough to be worthwhile.
3.) Dramatically increase chances of success. Really, what use is a skill if you can barely even make it work before your enemy has bashed you into the ground?


Let's take a moment now to compare Hypnotize and Arcane vision with the other capstone skills with their usefulness and associated point costs:

Locksmith: 8 points, ability to duplicate keys, or fabricate a missing key. No other way to accomplish this.

Fence: 2 points. Ability to sell any item, even when there's no shopkeeper to buy it. Unique ability. Not overly powerful, but for a thief path that's focused entirely on material gain, a very appropriate capstone skill

Prey on the Weak: 4 points. Damage increases significantly as foe approaches death. Having used this one myself before, I found it REALLY cool, and it made a big difference in how lethal I was, yet still an affordable 4 points.

Shadow Drag: 2 points. Ability to drag your trussed victim into the safety of the shadows where you can continue to rob them of everything they carry without worry of someone interrupting you. Used to be easily negated by victim attempting to do things despite being unable, but it's my understanding this has been recently fixed. Unique ability, and no other way to accomplish this. Given that this is only useful for continuing to steal from the safety of the shadows, 2 points sounds reasonable.

Grenade missile: 2 points. Ability to apply all other poison types during the heat of combat while simultaneously dealing big damage. In my opinion, a must have for any poisoner. And yet, still very low point cost, probably because this path is already so expensive as it is.

Pepper Dust: 6 points. Area blindness coupled with damage and ongoing hourly damage. Very small chance to distort vision as well. Only other way to achieve these effects are with assassin + bard. Thief with scrolls can use blindness scrolls, and binder has blindfold, but those can only be done outside of combat.

Arcane Vision: 2 points. Detect Invis + Detect Magic. Can be accomplished in 9283674692 ways. Reasonable point cost for THIS SPECIFIC skill, but preceded by....

Hypnotize: 7 points (!!!). Ability to slow, confuse, demoralize, or (unknown effect) one's foe in combat, but duration barely outlasts a a couple bashes. Fails 50% or more of attempts. Slow can be accomplished by neurological poison (from venoms shaman, or poisoner thief), scroll use, transmuter ally, or lucky beam from helm of brilliance. Confuse can be accomplished by neurological poison (from venoms shaman or poisoner thief), assassin darts, pseudodragon neurotoxic sting, giant wasp neurotoxic sting. Cowardice can be accomplished by fear poison (from venoms shaman or poisoner thief), or bard song. Despair lowers morale, which can be accomplished by numerous methods, including having your ass kicked repeatedly and having to flee a lot without having a chance to rest and heal, and is only slightly useful anyway except in niche situations. Nausea seems to do nothing near as I can tell. And I did test this with an ally. We couldn't figure it out. (It's worth noting that my tests of hypnotize with an ally were done several years ago, so maybe something has changed since then, but if so, I haven't seen any announcements about it.)

Now if you look back at this list comparing capstone thief skills with both Arcane Vision and Hypnotize, you'll notice that every other thief path has highly useful capstone skills well tailored to that path's specific focus, and few if any other means for a person to accomplish the same results. Point costs for those skills vary based on the potency of the skill, but only Pepper Dust and Locksmith come close to hypnotize in cost, with Locksmith being slightly more expensive (and also 100% unique in the game, plus extremely useful), and Pepper Dust being a unique flare with some enhancements on an otherwise highly limited ability. Also extremely useful, but still costs less than Hypnotize which isn't even close to unique and is virtually useless due to the very short duration and high fail rate in PK. Arcane Vision is such a common, low level effect that it shouldn't even BE a capstone skill.

In short, these two skills of the mystic path need to be fixed. Arcane Vision needs to be dropped to around level 25 or so, and Hypnotize needs enhancing (see suggestions above), or have it's point cost dropped to 1, or POSSIBLY 2 at max.

This is what an Imm said on hypnotize in 2013 & Code changes said hypnotize made stronger in August 2012.

Lethargy: victim becomes burdened, loses dex, and movement regen is lowered
Vertigo: victim loses intelligence, targeted abilities have a chance to target random person
Cowardice: victim has a chance to flee every round of combat, loses morale
Despair: victim loses charisma, defenses become worse, loses morale
Nausea: victim loses con, chance for attacks to fail

I have no idea what hypnotize does in practice and I rarely see mystic thieves, however when you saying despair causes -morale only, I would assume it may also have the same additional impact as any other demoralize skill/spell like PWD, demoralize and willbreaker.

Those all show as - morale, but they also prevent people effected by it from using certain skills or songs.

I could of course be wrong, but I can't believe an effect is -morale only with no other effect. The imm says defenses become worse. Did your test partner check his skill list, maybe parry went to 90% or something. Or maybe it's meant for the person struck by it not to know precisely what happened to him, which would make testing impossible. There are definitely "hidden" effects on a character.

>This is what an Imm said on hypnotize in 2013 & Code changes
>said hypnotize made stronger in August 2012.
>
>Lethargy: victim becomes burdened, loses dex, and movement
>regen is lowered
>Vertigo: victim loses intelligence, targeted abilities have a
>chance to target random person
>Cowardice: victim has a chance to flee every round of combat,
>loses morale
>Despair: victim loses charisma, defenses become worse, loses
>morale
>Nausea: victim loses con, chance for attacks to fail

This is still accurate.

How much impact these individual affects have on the kinds of fights a given mystic/xyz thief is going to have is something I couldn't confidently say, but I'm not ready to write them off as uppercase worthless.

On the flip side, the path isn't terribly popular and there's probably some merit in looking into why and possibly making some changes some day.

gr

i keed

WHY DONT YOU TAKE ANY OF HIS BOOKS ABOUT CLASSES SERIOUSLY. HE PLAYS VIDEO GAMES ON CAMERA. HIS NEAR BRUSHES WITH DEATH HAVE GIVEN HIM A GREATER APPRECIATION FOR HOW TO JUDGE PEOPLES ABILITIES TO ADMIN GAMES.

Only once to hypnotize, though.
And it sucked.

The effects are cool, in theory, but they don't synergize with anything and on their own they are too weak and short-lasting.