Are you comparing snapcasted TM vs weapon swings?
I think what and how you are comparing things are very relevant to your topic. Spell, Target Time, Mana, Creature, Weapon..

Well, to be more specific I suppose my real qualm is with accuracy. When TM hits, it usually hits quite hard, especially at max mana. However, I'm finding in juvies and celps that I have slightly better chance of hitting with TM over my weapons and my TM is almost 200 more ranks than weapons. I primarily use blb, full target, 20 mana. For weapons I use brawling and a scimitar.

>>I have found that, even using the "cast quickly" method, that I can dismantle things with partial displacement more quickly than I can kill them with a weapon.

This is very true. Once you are able to hit something, you can kill it very quickly with TM. But it's being able to hit them that's the problem. This disparity is seems partially due to the bonuses that are stacked into the weapon systems(combos to gain balance/position, aiming with range weapons etc.). Full target doesn't really seem to give a bonus so much as snapcasting gives a negative.

<<I primarily use blb>>

Not all spells are created equal in the accuracy department. I don't know much about blood burst, but I do know that Aether Lash for war mages is the top dog for accuracy.


Yamcer

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"You know, while I understand the importance of seeing the (personal) validity in other's arguments, it's impossible for me to believe fully that others are correct. If their argument was correct, I'd change mine." - My GF

>>I've heard those numbers used for the aiming system, but not for targeting.

The analogy of TM to weapons is difficult and flawed.

Bows are the most comparable, with a similar reduction in accuracy for snap-shots and similar bonus for full AIM. My bow, however, is not instantly loaded (i.e. brought to full prep) upon AIMing. I have to manually load. I also cannot switch damage types willy-nilly (which should be a bigger bonus to TM in combat 3.0). Nor do I have arrows to hit AoE, nor arrows to ignore shield, nor arrows that do fire and ice damage, nor arrows that hit 3 times or more depending on skill level. I'm sure you see my point.

TM is as close as magic comes to weapon ranks, but they are still very different beasts.

*******
Malkien

WARNING: 50%* chance of this post being sarcastic**.

*Informal exit poll.
**Rebate not valid in FL, AL, and MA.

<<I primarily use blb>>

<<Not all spells are created equal in the accuracy department. I don't know much about blood burst, but I do know that Aether Lash for war mages is the top dog for accuracy>>

i hit about the same with LE and my top weapon when i snap-cast blb on gryphons, and my LE and my TM are only 5 ranks apart. I can usually hit them with my second <2he> and third highest weapons as well, which are 30 ranks and 110 ranks lower, but i hit pretty much the same if I use the 2he or target full with blb. I don't have a problem killing things fast with blb though.

War is Peace, Truth is Lies. -george orwell

Everything Alisander has posted is consistent with my experience. Ranged weapons straight up outperform TM in terms of accuracy.

<<Full target gives you approximately +25-30% bonus to skill.>>

<<If that's not a significant bonus... I just don't know what to say.>>

While I believe full aim approximately hits those numbers, I don't think Target does. Or else a cap is applying to TM and not ranged. If you have both TM and an aim-able ranged weapon post-600 ranks, it feels clear that Aim and Target are very different beasts when it comes to to-hit bonus. I hope Magic 3.0 and Combat 3.0 make TM a better weapon. Caveat: I play a MM and do not have "particularly accurate" TM spells (lash and unicorn horn of death) as far as I know. Maybe those two are near ranged.

I have TM, LB, and 2HE at the same ranks. I use STRA for TM.

TM and LB compare quite favorably for accuracy for me at full aim vs. full target.

However, unless you are a war mage, you won't have access to the equivalent of basilisk arrows and a capped bow, which significantly reduce the amount of aim needed to do full damage.

-pete

A couple things might help fill out my perspective, I didn't really feel like getting into a debate over it. Just wanted to point out that my experience matches Alisander's.

<<You need to qualify your statements more than these. Mana used matters. Critter type matters because of varying levels of magic resistance.>>

I've worked with capped PD, DO, Burn, and CrS. Of these, I notice no noticeable accuracy difference between DO and PD on full targets. Burn is a different beast because of DFA. CrS is noticeably less accurate than full target, but it has its own little cool niche. The magic resistance point may be a large part of it, though in testing everything from celps through armadillos and all the dragon priests, I've never noticed one creature with noticeably more MR than another (barring undead). At least not enough to notice vs capped mana spells.

<<TM and LB compare quite favorably for accuracy for me at full aim vs. full target.>>

At what ranks? I have noticed the disparity grow considerably in the post 600/700 range. That's why I thought it might have something to do with a cap applying to Target bonus that doesn't apply to Aim or something.

<<However, unless you are a war mage, you won't have access to the equivalent of basilisk arrows and a capped bow, which significantly reduce the amount of aim needed to do full damage.>>

Basilisk arrows shouldn't affect accuracy at all. I'm not gauging accuracy by damage done, I'm gauging it by the ability to hit at all. Capped bow makes sense though, entirely possible that it's the bonus from balance/agil modifier, in combo with Aim, that eventually makes ranged feel so much stronger. As far as I know, TM just gets disc/agil modifiers...no extra amplifier tool. Seems like a good idea for Foci though. Maybe a Focus tool that amplifies the stat bonus to TM.

My experience has shown me that increasing mana used in TM seems to go a long way toward improving accuracy without fully targeting. With the reminder/qualification that I'm speaking from magic tert experience here: If I train TM (about 450 ranks, give or take) in black gobs and prep STRA at say 10 and target for 5 seconds, I'm going to miss 9 times out of 10. If take that same spell and dump 40 mana in to it for the same 5 seconds, I'm going to hit 70-80% of the time. And for an added bonus I'm going to gain a mindstate every 2-3 hits (but that's more than likely a function of being magic tert.)

~Katt

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A gestalt draugen swipes a hooked leonine claw at Silus. The claw lands a solid hit that cuts deeply into his groin!

>>but I can lock TM in about 12 minutes with those two spells.

As a primary weapon skill (since we're mostly discussing magic primaries), 12 minutes to mind lock is a very decent pace.

*******
Malkien

WARNING: 50%* chance of this post being sarcastic**.

*Informal exit poll.
**Rebate not valid in FL, AL, and MA.

<<It usually takes me at least 35 minutes as a magic secondary to lock. As I stated before, the only way I've been able to get my 596 ranks to move at a decent clip is to spam STRA at dillos (usually about 15-20 minutes to lock) because of their shield stance.

I lock TM in dillos at 420'ish TM using stra (prep 20, harness 5). I do wait for full target however. I would say 10-15 minutes at that rate.


Madigan

<<Keep in mind that CrS and TKS are multi-hit and AoE respectively, so he's getting more hits per effort spent. Also, TKS has a duration, so while its doing its thing he's able to stack CrS casts at the same time. He could probably speed things up even more if he used SLS on top of both of them too.

This. CrS and TkS just happen to have very good synergy in terms of being able to do both at the same time and are comparatively hyper-efficient when compared with mundane weapons and, for instance, practicing TM as a Magic secondary character (who probably either has a cyclic TM spell or single-shot TM spells). TM is almost shamefully easy to work as a Magic tert (Madigan's experience with STRA matches mine with a Magic tert character using TM). Adding SLS if outside/dark wouldn't be too much effort but I'm not sure I need to. I'd love to be able to lock a weapon in 12 minutes as a Barbarian.

As far as I know, War Mages are capable of doing something similar with their spells, although I can't think of one that matches CrS off the top of my head. Clerics may have it the worst of the magic primary guilds, but I haven't had any real issues when using HORN spam. It takes longer but isn't particularly hard.

TM is by far my most time-intensive combat skill to lock.

Yesterday it took me approximately 40 minutes from clear to lock. Spamming full prep, full target Partial Displacement nearly non-stop against a critter that I'm nowhere near the soft cap on, and indeed usually miss with snapped Bolt spam (my previous method) but kill in one or two shots with my current method.

761 TM, 90/90 Int/Wis, Magic Primary

~ Pansophist Kougen

"Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art." - Miguel de Cervantes

>>Spamming full prep, full target Partial Displacement nearly non-stop against a critter that I'm nowhere near the soft cap on, and indeed usually miss with snapped Bolt spam (my previous method) but kill in one or two shots with my current method.

A full prep full target can't be spammed. Spamming explicitly means snap casting over and over.

I'm not saying learning TM isn't messed up, but you're currently choosing the worst possible way to learn TM, which is probably why it's going even slower for you than it would under a "prep;target;cast" real-spam method.

Logged in at 6:09 am and started my target script which just spams CRS (prep 10, harness 10 - which also locks up my PM/Harn). 934 TM took 74 minutes to get to 34/34. Granted my mentals are lacking compared to Kougen and more than likely Traim, 76 wis and 77 int. And this was not with a constant stream of adult armadillos to cast on, down times were from 30 seconds up to 2-3 minutes at times. At one point I changed my script to not harness and just prep the cap amount and noticed no difference in the speed at which TM gained. Also, at no point did I ever run out of mana casting capped CRS.

To the OP:

Try casting at max mana and see if you get better results.

I use TKS and PD. I do not use CrS. In my experience, snap casting PD is more efficient because I can target limbs while CrS results in kills and neither armadillos, assassins, or intercessors spawn like celps. Neither do malchata, or most creatures other than gryphons. I also like to get as much bang for the buck, total magic exp wise, as I can per kill, which means as many casts as possible before death. This seems to work better with PD and limbs than CrS and cycling.

Even using this strategy, at a good 400-600 ranks under the elder armadillo TM cap (that I'm aware of), it still takes me about the same time as Kougen to lock TM, with considerably less mentals. It's 35-60 minutes to lock TM for me, at the fastest, regardless of any strategy I can think of.

<<DiminishedAngel>>

I'm unclear what you want to contribute to this thread. When someone says "TM is by far *my most* time-intensive combat skill to lock", we do not need you to qualify their "my most" with your "For me." We get it.

Arcane Magic: 668 28% clear (0/34) Harness Ability: 685 91% clear (0/34)
Power Perceive: 588 00% clear (0/34) Arcana: 523 15% clear (0/34)
Targeted Magic: 598 27% clear (0/34)


Also for reference,
Agility : 74
Discipline : 80

I don't use TKS because I don't want to endanger other players in what is a very small, tight hunting area. Plain and simple.

That kind of consideration should not be what my optimal learning hinges on.

~ Pansophist Kougen

"Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art." - Miguel de Cervantes

>Armadillos have some pretty wicked magic resistance. You're probably taking an accuracy hit from not completely breaking their MR.

From what I understand celps also have ranged/TM resistance, the super celps are nearly impossible for me to hit reliably. Frankly, I'm at a loss of where to go that would be the most worthwhile.

Alisander