>>>>Lethargy - I did not see 'will remain the same' in the description. What if anything is being tweaked? Whatever effect makes it easier to hit critters is essential to my hunting. I would urge you to leave it untouched.

I checked into this. It will be the same as before, except with the addition of the agility debuff. So it should be better!

Melete

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[Turmis] I'm about to shoot beards in the face

My two cents - possibly incoherent. Without repeating what has already been stated, I'm incredibly unhappy with the guardian spirit change - any of the three incarnations. I've been training TM hard with the expectation that all my GS leetness will be based in how much TM I have. Now I'm discovering that, taking my current skills into account, I can dance in dobeks, but my GS won't be able to efficiently kill a swains.

That's so disappointing. Right now, my avenger's OF is approximately 120 ranks while my evasion is nearing 300. That's a heck of a gap to make up, and I know I'm not anywhere NEAR the worst situation out there. Essentially, I need to get my TM to around 400 ranks to be able to hunt where I currently hunt with my GS.

Why can't the guardian be a base rank average, with TM boosting if you choose to train it. I guess I don't understand any of the incarnations of the new GS. The guardian is not much of a guardian if it is dying LONG before the empath will die. If this was a warrior mage, it would be a different story where TM is a required skill and guild-centric.

With the current system, due to stopping my focus on circling around 70th circle and focusing on combats, my guardian is already weaker than I am. Now, my guardian has no hope of being anything beneficial to me - defensively or offensively. To base the GS's complete makeup on TM skill, and not even letting it be a 1:1 rank conversion for both OF and DF makes me almost think it's completely not worth having the spell in the spell list.

Actually a base rank average...would be...an average...of your base ranks. So...shield parry eva averaged together creates the standard combat defense/offense of the avenger, then if you train say 150 ranks of TM, you get...a 50 rank boost, or some such. These numbers are randomly put down, but that's what I was meaning when I said a base rank average. So yeah, you missed the "essence" a tad bit.

> I know backtraining is rough but, complaining about the GS going TM based is useless. The rule has been handed down, ALL combat pets are going TM based.

I have no problem backtraining. My issue is backtraining and/or training a skill at a 3 ranks earned to 2 ranks gained ratio. I don't believe there is anything comparable in the game currently to compare it to. It's just frustrating, especially for those of us who are primarily combat oriented with our empaths (even before the days of a GS, construct, or TM training spell).

> B)
> Think of it like this, your GS provides 2/3 of your offensive force in combat, you make up the remaining 1/3 yourself with other abilities / drawing attention from other creatures / non-damaging brawling to throw enemy off balance etc...

I understand what you are saying in A and B, and maybe the below scenario will help clarify my position.

I currently am sitting around a 70-75th circle fighting guild's combat level. You could knock me completely unconscious, put every debilitating spell on me possible, and set a 30th circle fighter on me - I would not get touched. At my current circle (80th), my avenger under this new system offensively would be equivalent to a 30-35th circle fighter with ~120 ranks offensively. There is nothing I can do to a dobek that would hinder it enough for my little 35th circle avenger to kill it.

On the flip side, the GS spell was created to provide a guardian for empaths in combat (this was pre-fighting avenger days). Empaths who didn't train combats would be able to travel through a fighting area without getting attacked because their avenger would be able to protect them. Now, if you don't train TM, your avenger is a 1st circle fighter, no matter what. Add to that the fact that we can effectively train TM with BOLT and STRA in construct areas...it becomes even more difficult.

Sidebar - it said in this thread we will learn TM through our avenger. How exactly will that happen when you get up to the 200-300 range of critters? Say my TM is at 300, my avenger will be hitting at 200. At some point, my avenger won't be able to move my TM because the TM rank needed to allow the avenger to hit the critter will be higher than the critter trains TM.

I can't say too much here being as I don't play an Empath very much. However, I think a major aspect that is being overlooked is the simple fact that Empath's are not a combat guild. The GS would and could protect the Empath (especially in conjunction with other spells and skills at the player's disposal which is what Magic 3.0 is mainly meant for - to use more spells in conjunction.)

It hasn't been specified that the GS will start out as a 1st level fighter, because the GM's wouldn't do that for it would make GS useless. But in fact the GS would protect the Empath while they were to get away or drag away a deader or wounded comrade. And again, used in conjunction with other spells and skills and abilities this would be effective.

Empath's are not a combat guild, if you want to hunt and kill, roll up a Barb or something else.


________________________________________

>>"It's part of the whole unnatural abominations upon Elanthia deal."<<

-Armifer

> Sure they may not be the best at it, but the path is available to anyone. Empath, Moonie, whatever.

Then again, sometimes even we can kick your butt. :-P

I vote option 3 then. I don't use any cyclic spells while hunting, and as someone said, it makes for a good battle choice and forces you into a decision that can have interesting outcomes.


________________________________________

NMUs are not people. -GM Armifer

>>On the flip side, the GS spell was created to provide a guardian for empaths in combat (this was pre-fighting avenger days). Empaths who didn't train combats would be able to travel through a fighting area without getting attacked because their avenger would be able to protect them

I think innocence fills this niche reasonably.

>>Empath's are not a combat guild, if you want to hunt and kill, roll up a Barb or something else.

This is definitely not the message I am trying to send Empaths. Combat is such a large part of the game that I don't think it's really useful to tell any guild that combat participation is not supported for them. However...

I feel that even without the rankless GS, Empaths will have reasonable avenues of participation in combat. Manipulation is a fine way of participating at level versus non-undead and non-constructs. With some of the new spells coming out at the same time as the avenger change, it should be much more useful than before. (Concentration regeneration, more ways to buff and debuff the creatures involved, etc.)

Then there is construct hunting, which provides pretty much equitable access to the treasure system and will only get better.

Finally, yes, the shock rewrite, which will allow Empaths to just shoot someone if they become aggravated enough, without forcing them to lose their abilities forever.

Melete

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[Turmis] I'm about to shoot beards in the face

>>I'm pretty sure the whole "such and such" is not a combat guild is being thrown to the side. Sure they may not be the best at it, but the path is available to anyone. Empath, Moonie, whatever.

Even if it is, I think Empaths are the exception. Else why would there be so many caveats to hunting as an Empath if it was considered a combat guild.

I didn't know that. When I prepped and then concentrated I got the messaging that this was a damaging spell and assumed I could only use it on things that don't give me shock when I hurt them.

>>Even though we are magic secondary is there a way to train TM outside of combat I'm not aware of other than classes?

Once the changes hit your Guardian Spirit will use and will teach the Targeted Magic skill. Your GS will engage anything that attacks you so you will be training Targeted Magic passively all the while you cast other spells, cyclic or not. You don't even need to follow the construct creature ladder to do this.

>>How are we going to maintain a cyclic spell that relies on constant magic casts to train it effectively?

That's not how cyclic spells work. Roll up a Bard and perform an enchante. This his how cyclic spells will work(if you get a certain magic feat to draw directly from your attunement).

__
~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com

<<Empath's are not a combat guild>>

That concept is a bunch of hogwash. Empaths are (recently being brought up to the point of being) "bad at offense", but there's no reason for anyone to be "bad at combat".

On a somewhat related note, there is one area in which our spell list strikes me as disappointingly lacking. That is the area of death prevention. I was really hoping that we'd be getting some nice new tools to directly stave off death. Depending on what combat ends up looking like after all is said and done, things like Heart Link might go pretty far in keeping people alive, so there is stuff in there that could probably help. There's nothing in that list that really emphasizes the "barrier between life and death" role that we're explicitly supposed to be able to play, though. It's the sort of thing we're supposed to be "good at" to offset our badness at offense.

Thanks,
-Death's Nemesis Karthor

>>You mean... like the myriad of healing spells at the top of the list? :P

And the magic barrier.
And the damage barrier.
And the vitality regen.
And the reactive poison/disease curing.
And the disabler.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

Seeing as the 'Risen model' is a combat pet, I don't really understand the uproar.

Sure it'll have some fancy abilities but functionally speaking.. it's a combat pet.

Empaths aren't a 'non-combat' guild because we got rid of that designation, however the thematic weakness of the guild is still 'dealing damage'.

-Z

Also, can a name in red please respond to my previous question of TM learning? If the GS will teach TM, but be 2/3rds as competent at killing as my TM skill - there will come a point where the critter will stop teach TM before the avenger has the skill to actually kill it.

This isn't the case before about 300 TM - at 300+, you are looking at a 100+ rank difference between empath's TM skill and GS's OF.

Will the GS's ability to train TM scale according to the GS's ability in the combat area? So for instance, a GS with 140 rank skill in swains will train the empath's TM in swains at 210 ranks (beyond the cap of the critter)?

> But again, I don't think it should surprise anyone that being a Empath that is capable of slaying the big things is a tad harder.

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but wouldn't "harder" be the fact that we can't cast a spamming batch of TM spells to learn TM in any critter area, or that we can't swing a sword to learn weapons, or that we have to depend on something external to us to kill and gain skill in boxes/skinning/stealths (this is dependent on how you train stealths, I know)?

Or maybe it's the fact that in order to learn some of those efficiently, we have a specified construct ladder with no variation in theme?

I don't think "harder" should mean "impossible" at the higher levels. Again - 75th circle "fighter" with a 35th circle avenger means I could be laying down with the critter in my grips, lethargized and/or sleeping, paralyzed, and anything else you want to stack on top...that avenger will be whiffing.

<<The ratio is only going to be 3:2 if the cyclic option isn't picked.

Just in case you missed it every other time this has been said.

I'm thinking that I'll vote for the option 3 as well. I don't want the defense only option at all, and the I'm not crazy about the decreased effectiveness of option 1. The third option seems the fairest choice for me. I'd be willing to give up other spells to have an effective guardian while hunting.

Marssi

>>I don't think "harder" should mean "impossible" at the higher levels. Again - 75th circle "fighter" with a 35th circle avenger means I could be laying down with the critter in my grips, lethargized and/or sleeping, paralyzed, and anything else you want to stack on top...that avenger will be whiffing.

This is where manipulation will fit in, unless you are fighting a construct (then just attack it yourself) or the undead (here you're just out of luck).

As I said before, many of the spells in the new list are designed with an eye to making manipulated creatures or not-quite-there-yet avengers useful even if they are fighting something on par, or even outclassed by a fair margin.

Melete

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[Turmis] I'm about to shoot beards in the face