Quick ancedote: For months I thought Web had -20 or -25 TD pushdown because of how much easier it is to hit everything in the world with it than to hit them with Bind. Now, yes, lots of things can break out of Web, but I guess it just seems strange to me that whenever a target can be immobilized by either spell, better warding margins mean I pick the Minor Spiritual over the Major Spiritual spell every time.
And I do understand that Minor Spiritual TDs need to be held down a bit so rangers (and possibly paladins) can use Web, but I'm wondering why Major Spiritual TDs need to be so much higher.
Admittedly...
Maybe I just don't understand the appeal of this circle because I haven't toyed around with it enough! I completely own up to almost never playing around enough with spells in any circle, so I'd appreciate if anyone with experience could chime in on this.
Here are Major Spiritual's CS spells and my opinion of them up to the mid-80s:
Calm - Great spell that I've found useful for escorts and child rescues, but fell out of the habit of using in swarms because so many creatures can shake each other or themselves out of it.
Living Spell - I've only ever cast this for a couple experiments with a level 70-ish cleric and a level 28-ish paladin and I still got rank 2 and 3 nerve damage out of it, so I wouldn't risk it in real hunting. Maybe someone else can tell me it's secretly amazing against Illoke elders?
Silence - I won't lie--I forgot Silence existed until looking at the spell list while writing this. Between my own defensive spells, outside spells, and wearing chain mail, I've been immune to enemy warding for at least 40 levels, and even before then I hadn't cast it since arch wights. Maybe I missed the boat here in a big way and should really, really be casting this against Illoke elders and jarls?
Interference and Mass Interference - The only time I've ever cast these is when I recently helped my level 29 warding cleric friend hunt shadow mares and shadow steeds. Too much mana for my liking, especially the single-target one, since by the time you can cast it repeatedly I think you'd actually save mana by going with Spirit Slayer instead. I'm guessing Mass Interference is at least nice for group hunts with warders?
Bind - Amazing spell that I use against things that can't be webbed. I do sometimes burn my nerves with it, though, when it costs more mana than expected... I guess it scales up with enemy level like Prayer of Holding.
Frenzy - I've never wanted to cast this when Bind is right there. Maybe the -30 TD pushdown is meaningful in two-person or three-person group uphunting with a square? Kinda doubt it even then...
So yeah, overall I've been treating the Major Spiritual circle as nice for a series of buffs, utility rescuing spells, the occasional Spirit Slayer or Spiritual Abolition, and a lot of Bind, but ignored its other CS spells. Am I shortchanging it?
AIM: sweetleafiara@gmail.com
LEAFIARA
RATHBONER
Re: Help me understand Major Spiritual TDs and combat value
12/12/2016 12:37 PM CST
Web does have a 25 TD pushdown which is one of the changes made when the bolt was introduced.
How much MjS do you train? If you don't train as much as you do in your professional circle, the warding margin available is a lot loss, and it becomes a lot less attractive to use CS attacks outside the professional circle once you have significant spell training.
There have been a few characters that specialised in MjS (or MnS) rather than the professional circle, but most see the much greater power of the profession spells and choose to emphasise them at the expense of their other circles. Even at mid level and without overtraining the professional circle, there'll be around a 30 CS deficit, and spells become ineffective. (I think krolvin slavers were the last critter I found unbalance usable against, or kiramon when I had a mass of levels on them)
How much MjS do you train? If you don't train as much as you do in your professional circle, the warding margin available is a lot loss, and it becomes a lot less attractive to use CS attacks outside the professional circle once you have significant spell training.
There have been a few characters that specialised in MjS (or MnS) rather than the professional circle, but most see the much greater power of the profession spells and choose to emphasise them at the expense of their other circles. Even at mid level and without overtraining the professional circle, there'll be around a 30 CS deficit, and spells become ineffective. (I think krolvin slavers were the last critter I found unbalance usable against, or kiramon when I had a mass of levels on them)
KRAKII
Re: Help me understand Major Spiritual TDs and combat value
12/12/2016 12:56 PM CST
"Back in the day"...
(This will probably prompt an anecdotal post from Methais, which may or may not be intended to rile me, but which I have enjoyed when he does them, anyhow.)
...pure spellcasters could only learn ONE spell per level. (And you only had a percent chance to learn it, depending on how many ranks of Spell Research you took. Ten ranks @ 10% apiece meant you were guaranteed--and it used to be 20 ranks @ 5% each, but that pre-dates even me--to get one that level. You could put in 11 (or even more) ranks if you really wanted to... but it didn't do you any good. One. No mas.)
So each of the spell lists had to have their own boosters, their own disablers, their own attacks, and so on. (Obviously, the Cleric list had a lot of "go beat on the undead".) As well as their own specialties, like "raise the dead" or "teleport to someone" or whatever.
.
In the Closed Channeling/Major Spirit list, the big draws were Bravery & Heroism (for the attack adders), Bind (which used to drop your DB to 0 + spells, now I think it just lowers DS by a lot), and Transfer (to go zipping around to the bodies).
Silent Slayer was an outlier, and only two people had it: Strom (at 99th level, in a 100 level game) and Vizuxa (who trained all the way out to it). There were NO Enhancives, so the most Life Levels (now, Spirit Points) a person could have was ten (10). Silent Slayer took twelve (12) LLs away, one per round. So, guaranteed kill, on anything--it worked on creatures, too, even though they didn't technically have LLs, through GSL cheating code--if you can wait long enough. (It was technically theoretically possible for a Halfling, only, to survive if he received back 3 LLs in a 61s window, by hitting 2 pulses just perfectly. This was before pulse randomization, too. So far as I know, no-one ever courted a spirit death [auto-depart, with gear droppage] to test it.)
Or, of course, a cleric could just wait until the target was down a few LLs and use Well of Life on them, to put 'em back. That was a LOT easier...
.
Fast forward to now, with pure casters being able to triple in spells, and, well. Things have changed. The TDs are probably set to account for over-trainers (like with 130% of their level or so).
(This will probably prompt an anecdotal post from Methais, which may or may not be intended to rile me, but which I have enjoyed when he does them, anyhow.)
...pure spellcasters could only learn ONE spell per level. (And you only had a percent chance to learn it, depending on how many ranks of Spell Research you took. Ten ranks @ 10% apiece meant you were guaranteed--and it used to be 20 ranks @ 5% each, but that pre-dates even me--to get one that level. You could put in 11 (or even more) ranks if you really wanted to... but it didn't do you any good. One. No mas.)
So each of the spell lists had to have their own boosters, their own disablers, their own attacks, and so on. (Obviously, the Cleric list had a lot of "go beat on the undead".) As well as their own specialties, like "raise the dead" or "teleport to someone" or whatever.
.
In the Closed Channeling/Major Spirit list, the big draws were Bravery & Heroism (for the attack adders), Bind (which used to drop your DB to 0 + spells, now I think it just lowers DS by a lot), and Transfer (to go zipping around to the bodies).
Silent Slayer was an outlier, and only two people had it: Strom (at 99th level, in a 100 level game) and Vizuxa (who trained all the way out to it). There were NO Enhancives, so the most Life Levels (now, Spirit Points) a person could have was ten (10). Silent Slayer took twelve (12) LLs away, one per round. So, guaranteed kill, on anything--it worked on creatures, too, even though they didn't technically have LLs, through GSL cheating code--if you can wait long enough. (It was technically theoretically possible for a Halfling, only, to survive if he received back 3 LLs in a 61s window, by hitting 2 pulses just perfectly. This was before pulse randomization, too. So far as I know, no-one ever courted a spirit death [auto-depart, with gear droppage] to test it.)
Or, of course, a cleric could just wait until the target was down a few LLs and use Well of Life on them, to put 'em back. That was a LOT easier...
.
Fast forward to now, with pure casters being able to triple in spells, and, well. Things have changed. The TDs are probably set to account for over-trainers (like with 130% of their level or so).
LEAFIARA
Re: Help me understand Major Spiritual TDs and combat value
12/12/2016 07:25 PM CST
I stopped at 40 MjS like I imagine many people do until they're way post-cap (since I even see capped characters who still stick at 40). That might change soon, though, since the Bowels will become my only Landing hunting ground for a bit and I'm Smite aligned with plasma criticals, making cleric base pointless. It's also interesting that you mentioned people specializing in MjS since lately I've been idly wondering if there's anyone out there who's way post-cap and went with 121 cleric (or empath), 121 major spiritual, 61 minor spiritual.
Anyway, I'm glad that cleric/empath base are considered better than major spiritual for general purposes, but I guess I'm just surprised that major spiritual isn't much of a jump over minor spiritual for overall value and usefulness. It's a pretty exclusive circle, so having a good number of warding spells but then none of them seeing any use except Bind seems like a shame.
And that segues well into what Krakii said, which... thank you, that bit about once having to train one spell circle at the expense of others actually explains a lot to me if any of these are still legacy spells from that time! It's easy to take for granted in the current game, for sure, how learning spells works.
AIM: sweetleafiara@gmail.com
Anyway, I'm glad that cleric/empath base are considered better than major spiritual for general purposes, but I guess I'm just surprised that major spiritual isn't much of a jump over minor spiritual for overall value and usefulness. It's a pretty exclusive circle, so having a good number of warding spells but then none of them seeing any use except Bind seems like a shame.
And that segues well into what Krakii said, which... thank you, that bit about once having to train one spell circle at the expense of others actually explains a lot to me if any of these are still legacy spells from that time! It's easy to take for granted in the current game, for sure, how learning spells works.
AIM: sweetleafiara@gmail.com
RATHBONER
Re: Help me understand Major Spiritual TDs and combat value
12/13/2016 06:21 AM CST
>That might change soon, though, since the Bowels will become my only Landing hunting ground for a bit and I'm Smite aligned with plasma criticals, making cleric base pointless.
There's 312 and some setups in the 300s as well as the critting spells. Also I think you can avoid igniting the gas with the critting spells if you pay attention to the messaging (Plane 3 has been a much better match up for the characters I've take through those levels so I've not spent the time to work out the tactics for it)
I think I recall a cleric using unbalance in there. A long time ago though, and I don't know what his training looked like apart from a lot of summoning lore. (or if its still the same, but he's still around, I've seen him dying in the Rift several times recently)
There's 312 and some setups in the 300s as well as the critting spells. Also I think you can avoid igniting the gas with the critting spells if you pay attention to the messaging (Plane 3 has been a much better match up for the characters I've take through those levels so I've not spent the time to work out the tactics for it)
I think I recall a cleric using unbalance in there. A long time ago though, and I don't know what his training looked like apart from a lot of summoning lore. (or if its still the same, but he's still around, I've seen him dying in the Rift several times recently)
THROGG
Re: Help me understand Major Spiritual TDs and combat value
12/20/2016 10:16 PM CST
I'm pretty sure I recall silencing not being effective against the Iloke, since some of their attacks, like Stone Fist, are classified as abilities and not spells per se. Also, while elementals seem not to cast e-wave while lying down, Jarls are perfectly happy to use their abilities while prone.
Watching out for the various Gas messages is OK, but won't help you if there is already gas in the room. Best thing is not to use any sort of fire/plasma/lightning type attacks in there. Also, if you see one of the beggars using a drake or feras weapon, kill him ASAP. They are perfectly happy to set off the gas that way, being immune to fire.
Interestingly enough, my rogue can use guild skill sweep against both Elders and Jarls. You would think a 5'9" 210 lb elf would have trouble sweeping a 25-30 foot tall monstrosity weighing in at half a ton or so, but apparently they are really, really top heavy, and overbalance easily.
Certain types of attack that knock them down can result in them occasionally falling on top of you, which is generally painful. Unbalance is good since it always knocks them away from you. I have also never seen them fall on top of me when I sweep them.
Watching out for the various Gas messages is OK, but won't help you if there is already gas in the room. Best thing is not to use any sort of fire/plasma/lightning type attacks in there. Also, if you see one of the beggars using a drake or feras weapon, kill him ASAP. They are perfectly happy to set off the gas that way, being immune to fire.
Interestingly enough, my rogue can use guild skill sweep against both Elders and Jarls. You would think a 5'9" 210 lb elf would have trouble sweeping a 25-30 foot tall monstrosity weighing in at half a ton or so, but apparently they are really, really top heavy, and overbalance easily.
Certain types of attack that knock them down can result in them occasionally falling on top of you, which is generally painful. Unbalance is good since it always knocks them away from you. I have also never seen them fall on top of me when I sweep them.
KRAKII
Re: Help me understand Major Spiritual TDs and combat value
12/21/2016 09:07 AM CST
I know I've seen it on scrolls, so if you have a high INFluence bonus you might have some luck with Lullabye/1005.
One successful result leaves them still standing (so, 'fail' from 'safety versus falling on you' standpoint);
either of the results where they're actually asleep will be good for you;
but the one where they wind up sitting is also a 'fail' for falling safety, since I just took a wound from that earlier this week in stone giants. Thankfully non-fatal.
Held out for fatality TODAY, instead, from Boil Earth. Silly SimuCoin encumbrance-reducer wearing off....
One successful result leaves them still standing (so, 'fail' from 'safety versus falling on you' standpoint);
either of the results where they're actually asleep will be good for you;
but the one where they wind up sitting is also a 'fail' for falling safety, since I just took a wound from that earlier this week in stone giants. Thankfully non-fatal.
Held out for fatality TODAY, instead, from Boil Earth. Silly SimuCoin encumbrance-reducer wearing off....
