I can't tell you but I will say it's possible it doesn't do anything right now, or not all it's meant to. Some of these new Guild specific abilities are tie ins for stuff they want to do in the future. Like Theurgy, it does have some specific uses right now like commune duration but they also plan to expand its uses a great deal in the future.

I do hope they flesh out summoning at some point because with all due respect to the war mage team, it feels right now like nothing more than something designed to slow down our circling.

---

<<"earning too little skinning experience for a day or so isn't nearly as bad as having a spell that breaks your wings."

Summoning skill also reduces RT needed for "summon admittance, etc."

It starts out at 20 and slowly goes down. 15 sec RT @ 220 summoning. Power, what is your RT?

>> Summoning: 738

Nice, that's some harsh diminishing returns though. Do we know if summoning actually increases our pool size?

Power,

Are you sure it was 8 charges? Did that put you at the "You cant fill up any more because you'll hurt yourself" message?

You hit 12 seconds at 600 summoning, which makes me believe it's a 1 sec RT reduction for every 75 ranks.

>>You hit 12 seconds at 600 summoning, which makes me believe it's a 1 sec RT reduction for every 75 ranks.

I have 370 and I get 14 sec RTs

I bet that the bulk of the RT reduction comes in the 300-400 ranks and then three is a diminishing return from there.

---

<<"earning too little skinning experience for a day or so isn't nearly as bad as having a spell that breaks your wings."

Here's one. I hit 300 summoning a few nights ago and the RT went from 15 to 14 at exactly 300.

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<<"earning too little skinning experience for a day or so isn't nearly as bad as having a spell that breaks your wings."

1-?? = 20 sec
??-?? = 19 sec
??-?? = 18 sec
??-?? = 17 sec
??-199 = 16 sec
200-299 = 15 sec
300-?? = 14 sec
??-599 = 13 sec
600+ = 12 sec

740 is 12.

I did some exploration of the summoning system and Charge. Here's a data dump if someone wants to upload to elanthipedia.

Everything below applies to a WM with 745 summoning.

Summon Admits to full Charge from empty: 8
Summon Impedances to empty Charge from full: 8
Spells to full Charge from empty: 45
Timer on gaining Charge from spells: 14 seconds

From the numbers above: Getting to full charge using Summon Admit took me 96 seconds. Getting to full charge using spells took me 630 seconds of perfect, continuous casting while hitting the timer period more or less on the nose. There seems to be a little bit of variation in how much charge casting a spell generates.

Here are all the charge level messages:

A small charge lingers within your body, just above the threshold of perception.

A small charge lingers within your body.

A charge dances through your body.

A charge dances just below the threshold of discomfort.

A charge circulates through your body, causing a low hum to vibrate through your bones.

Elemental essence floats freely within your body, leaving little untouched.

Elemental essence has infused every inch of your body. While you could contain more, you'd do so at the risk of your health.

Extraplanar power crackles within your body, leaving you feeling mildly feverish.

Extraplanar power crackles within your body, leaving you feeling acutely ill.

Your body sings and crackles with a barely contained charge, destroying what little cenesthesia you had left.

You have reached the limits of your body's capacity to store a charge. The laws of the Elemental Plane of Water scream demands upon your physiology, threatening your life.

Each message level seems to represent an equal range - they're 4-5 spells apart. You'll hit the last message when the pool is at 100%

I'm working on quantifying the starting and maintenance costs of each pathway. It's a big job and I could use some help. If you're interested please IM me at MazrianDamondred.

>>If you have a method for testing, post it and I'll test it on Opieus and the couple lower level WMs I have.<<

The activation cost is pretty simple.

1) Run yourself down to 0 charge

2) Cast a spell to generate charge.

3) Try to activate a pathway.

4) Repeat 2-3 until the pathway goes up.

That will give you the activation cost in, for lack of a better term, # of spell-units. Repeat 30 times or so because there's a little variation, and do the whole thing while aligned to the element of the pathway, aligned to a neutral element, and opposing the element.

You can use the genie script below to automate the individual trials. It takes two arguments. The first is the spell you want to cast with, the second is the pathway you want to use.

#### Script ####

timer start
var Pathstart 0
var Pathend 0
var Pathdur 0

action var Pathstart %t when You focus on (?:extending|manipulating|creating)
action var Pathend %t when Unable to muster
var AdmitCount 0

start:
math AdmitCount add 1
gosub prep %1
pause 14
gosub cast
gosub path foc %2
if %Pathstart = 0 then goto start
echo Casts: %AdmitCount
waitfor Unable to muster any further energy
var Pathdur %Pathend
math Pathdur subtract %Pathstart
echo Casts: %AdmitCount , Duration: %Pathdur

goto end

prep:
match prep ...
match return You trace
send prep $0
matchwait

cast:
match cast ...
match return You gesture
match return You don't
match return You raise your
match return Tendrils of
match return The flames dancing
match return You close your
match return Roundtime
send cast $0
matchwait


harness:
if $1 = 0 then return
match harness ...
match return Roundtime
send harness $0
matchwait






summon:
match summon ...
match return Roundtime
send summon $0
matchwait

path:
match path ...
match return You turn your perceptions
match return You focus
match return You lack
send path $0
matchwait

return:
return

end:

Summoning: 363
Summon Admittance/Impedance to Full/Empty: 9/9
Summon Admittance/Impedance Roundtime: 14s
Aligned Spells to Full: 42
Opposed Spells to Empty: 40

Respec'ed and repeated the above tests:
Summon Admittance/Impedance to Full/Empty: 9/8
Summon Admittance/Impedance Roundtime: 14s
Aligned Spells to Full: 37
Opposed Spells to Empty: 40

Still Respec'ed I ran all the pathways from full until collapse (aligned to Earth, so quick and precise will cost double and power and defend will cost half):
Pathway Focus Damage: 316 seconds (5 minutes, 16 seconds)
Pathway Focus Quick: 147 seconds (2 minutes, 27 seconds)
Pathway Focus Ease: 197 seconds (3 minutes, 17 seconds)
Pathway Focus Power: 641 seconds (10 minutes, 41 seconds)
Pathway Focus Accuracy: 149 seconds (2 minutes, 29 seconds)
Pathway Focus Secrecy: 148 seconds (2 minutes, 49 seconds)
Pathway Focus Precise: 40 seconds
Pathway Focus Defend: 198 seconds (3 minutes, 18 seconds)
Pathway Focus Conserve: 197 seconds (3 minutes, 17 seconds)
Pathway Focus Barrage: 4 times
Pathway Perceive Pathway: 69 times

Retrained my stats to 41s and 40s:
Pathway Focus Damage: 328 seconds (5 minutes, 28 seconds)
Pathway Focus Quick: 151 seconds (2 minutes, 31 seconds)
Pathway Focus Ease: 213 seconds (3 minutes, 33 seconds)
Pathway Focus Power: 667 seconds (11 minutes, 7 seconds)
Pathway Focus Accuracy: 152 seconds (2 minutes, 32 seconds)
Pathway Focus Secrecy: 151 seconds (2 minutes, 31 seconds)
Pathway Focus Precise: 49 seconds
Pathway Focus Defend: 213 seconds (3 minutes, 33 seconds)
Pathway Focus Conserve: 213 seconds (3 minutes, 33 seconds)
Pathway Focus Barrage: 5 times
Pathway Perceive Pathway: 79 times

Bonus Info:
Experience seems to pulse every ~9 seconds.
When you run out of charge with a pathway up, you don't gain experience on this pulse.
Pathway Perceive Pathway always leaves me at the lowest state "You sense nothing out of the ordinary. Only magic could detect the useless trace of earth still in your system."

I will continue to do more testing another time. It's quite late, but I wanted to post the data I'd gathered so far. I don't have Genie, so the script posted doesn't help me much (I wrote my own in StormFront).

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer

>>You continue to discharge power, carving a favorable pathway into the aethereal landscape.
>>*Any consitency on when that pulses? I figured that was when it drained/taught. But sometiems It'll be 30 seconds between a pulse, other times I'll get a pulse 2-3 seconds after the last one.

I wonder if it works using the same principle of caravans when they're following you. There are times you have to wait the full 10 seconds(ish) and then others where the caravan will pop immediately. I bet it operates under a timed pulse where if the conditions are right (whatever they might be in this case) once the timer goes off, it does its thing, or you need to wait for the pulse to come around again the next time.

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<<"earning too little skinning experience for a day or so isn't nearly as bad as having a spell that breaks your wings."

Current summoning skill = 1008 getting 10 second roundtimes on summon admit.

I think I was seeing 11 seconds at 900-1000

>> Need more data points!
>> 1-?? = 20 sec
>> ??-?? = 19 sec

Current Summoning skill: 37
RT: 19 (dropped from 20 at 35 ranks)
Admit/Imped to full/empty: 12
Stamina: 20

>> RT: 19 (dropped from 20 at 35 ranks)

Derpy moment. Double checked my logs. RT dropped to 19 seconds before 27 ranks, but I don't have a log before that point. I apologize.