And I'm noting that I'm going to run out of favor if I continue doing what I'm doing. Which I feel is not balanced or correct. My monk is 44th and a Voln Master, I like to hunt under my own abilities. So while "relearning" the class since it's been eight years I'm hunting spectral miners. They're 40th. So I'm under hunting by 4 levels.

I'm noting that I'm actually losing favor....
>touch globe
You reach out and touch the globe.
The globe hums and spins around quickly.
You try to count the number of spins and figure it was around 60 revolutions.


After some hunts out there...

>touch globe
You reach out and touch the globe.
The globe hums and spins around quickly.
You try to count the number of spins and figure it was around 50 revolutions.
>


I run four symbols...

1. Symbol of Courage.
2. Symbol of Protection
3. Symbol of Supremacy
4. Symbol of Disruption

And I keep my store bought boots and gaunts Symbol of Blessed.

This shouldn't be an issue. If I was a master the Council or Sunfist I could keep my main Signs/Sigils up even if I was under hunting. As it is the spectral miners are cursing the piss out of me and the mares, steeds and night mares land most TD spells on me at will with very 'so so' rolls. So hence the under hunting. Though I'm not sure I need to actually bless my gauntlets/boots since I'm not seeing any real difference with that on my Unarmed combat, though I'm still learning how to read it well and I could be missing something.

Anyhow, I'll frankly admit that I'm a bit frustrated that at this rate I'll be out of favor soon and I'm not sure what to do. I really thought that the monk would work out well as a Voln Master with all the changes and revamps, but now I'm not so sure. Well that's feedback/observation.

Supremacy and disruption aren't main symbols, thats just courage and protection.

You have to kill very fast at low level to maintain supremacy. Maybe some pures could manage it at your level, but its another 10 levels before I could run that set on a cleric and the only time I've been able to do it on a square is a capped warrior in Reim. My rogue can't even generate the favor to maintain courage and protection at cap, let alone supremacy. Before Reim was released, both monk and warrior had to be really careful about using anything but courage and protection.

...

You need to quickstrike smite, (or have a partner) or it will normally run out before you can hit the critter. I had to lop 2s off its RT to make it reliable for solo hunting but if you do that it can be very effective.

Soloing Robert/Krakii. Yeah I'm able to hit undead without Symbol of Blessing going. I'm just not sure if not having the Symbol of up on my boots and gauntlets negatively impacts my combat or not. I'm still working through parsing the combat messaging.

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To Rathboner and James, you're missing my main contention here. I feel that it lacks balance that even with hunting undead I'm going into the hole favor wise with only keeping four Symbols up while in combat and one other (Symbol of Blessing when the boots and gaunts lose their bless). Compare that to Sunfist or the Council (The council I keep up eight not counting thought), and I see a lack of balance.

And this is after the revamp a few years ago, so I'm surprised that they didn't lower some of the favor costs when they did the revamp. I love the revamp of the powers, they're more useful and dynamic. That said, if you can't use them reliably while hunting only undead that you can learn from, there is a problem. If you're having to husband favor and think gosh I'd better not because I'm draining myself over what I feel is conservative use, then yeah there is a problem.

Anyhow, I'm not a min maxer by any means as Robert can attest since I've always taken a harder path over the past twenty eight years of online gaming, but this makes me think that I should just say screw it and go Council where I can at least make better and more consistent use of the powers that I need to reliably solo, something else that I've also mostly done for the past twenty eight years. I feel that that lacks though and so I mention how silly the favor cost appears to be currently for symbols. I'd hate to see how fast I'd drain if I did one hunt out of three versus living foes. lol.

>>I can at least make better and more consistent use of the powers that I need to reliably solo

Most of the commentary is fitting into the [?:gap|chasm|river] of opinion on this one point. But I will say this:

I've run a couple scenarios, and with the profile of symbols suggested fighting spectral miners the net even break point for symbol usage should be something on the order of 8 for a round of symbols. It increases to 11 if you add magical blesses for boots / handwraps.

So the question I have is - are symbols (courage, supremacy, and disruption in the 4:20 min range for masters) ending with less than 8 to 11 critters killed? If that answer is yes, then negative favor accumulation occurs. If the answer is no (the monk can beat 8 to 11 miners in one set of symbol use), then I would expect favor to be neutral if not slightly increase.

If the answer is no (symbols last long enough to kill 8 to 11 miners), and yet favor is declining. . . something's wrong. Probably me. ;)

edited: Ran calcs against level 44 instead of 40. And adding comment - the variability is largely usage of Symbol blessing against magical gloves / boots.

Doug

Since I know you have a Paladin in the stable: getting Consecrate/1604 on the gauntlets/boots first would give you double-duration [# of swings] from the Cleric.

Oh yeah, I don't mean to come off as attacking you or saying WRONNG- I'm just saying that like the other posts, you're burning more favor than you're gaining by running Supremacy and Disruption. As Leafiara said, they're pretty situational.

From the perspective of a capped brawling/THW warrior, if I'm teaming up in Reim for instance, I'll use Disruption and refresh it every ~4min for the group, but that's because we're pulling in more favor than I'm burning. I actually rarely if ever use Supremacy for anything except invasion scenarios where I need an extra boost. Solo Reim, though, I'm running Retribution because of the plinks and Kai's Smite/twohanded ambushing everything. Solo in the Sanctum, it's really just Courage, Protection and Retribution, since lurks and monstrosities are quick, dirty favor and lurks always plink me for little onesies and twosies of damage, activating Retribution's reactive flares and blowing themselves up.

Being that you're in your 40s though, favor gain isn't going to start queuing up for a bit- but pretty soon into your late 40s when you hit say Bonespear, you'll see it start to grow pretty steadily. With that though, the assessment of the hand and foot gear is pretty correct- you can reasonably go without blessing it until you come across a cleric who can grant you a holy water flare bless, and that only becomes better if you can supply your own 1604 scrolls (if you can't use them, ideally the cleric should be able to) for a big boost to the swings. Since they're in this topic, bug Leafiara for both, you know she's good for it, ha.

As the only other profession that can 3x PF, though, your strengths really lie in that huge reserve of stamina, how fast it replenishes, and with UAC, the speed in which you not only Mstrike but recover from it. Qstrike in addition is exceptionally effective- where its utility is in shaving off a second here and there, rather than dropping all your attacks to 1 second and using your entire stamina bar. For instance, it only costs 14 stamina to shave Smite down to 3 seconds, 28 for 2- either option leaves you a decent amount of time to lay on a focused mstrike. The effect lasts longer if you tiered up, but unless you're in really swarmy situations, it's a pretty solid tactic. Don't be afraid to burn stamina- it comes back faster than mana.

About balance though, part of the nature of the RP behind the Order of Voln is that the powers aren't granted for constant, unrestrained use- they're gifts to be carefully cultivated, and meant to be used sparingly. Mechanically, outside of Courage and Protection which were thankfully kept low enough for the favor to be replenished quickly into a hunt, it's in the numbers. They're all incredibly useful and in some fringe cases incredibly powerful- see, during a storyline, me burning about 250 spins open-casting Symbol of Sleep on droves upon droves of invading krolvin. ICly, it won the day in Idolone, but OOCly yikes did I not like seeing my spins countable again. That's why I'll just sit there and let bandits poke me for a round or two rather than drop an emergency Transcendence or Sleep a group of four- it's just not worth the favor burn.

-james, bristenn's player

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You think to yourself, "FFF-"

A giant white bunny hurls a powerful lightning bolt at you!

You evade the bolt by a hair!