I'm considering learning influence and I'd appreciate experienced influencers' opinions on the minimum amount of influence skill I'd need to be effective. Thanks.

Wheedling is the minimum if you want to make a respectable amount of gold doing it.

That is hardly the minimum. I have Expert (superego) and I do fine.

The -absolute- minimum that I would state would be capable, because you get analyze there, and even against the weakest denizens you might be influencing with something they aren't weak to, or are even immune to. Analyzing is very useful, and needed.

Adept is when you get your second charity attack, and with 2 charity attacks to switch between you'll be doing pretty well against most of the normal denizens out there, as long as you have all the normal enchants/potions/herbs to help ego regen.

At Master you get the second empowering attack, and with the empowering attacks plus what I've already mentioned you can help your nation out empowering their guards, which is nice experience for anyone until around lvl 70-80.

At Gifted you get the next hugely useful skill called divert, if you need to give up on a denizen you can divert them, so they don't keep "and so..?" 'ing you. to drain your ego if you remain in the room to influence others.

For anyone who is seriously devoting their entire lives to influencing you'll want to get Superego at expert, think of it as the influencing version of armor, you take slightly less ego drain from all actions; with it and what I’ve already mentioned you can take on all but the hardest things in the far reaches of Lusternia. Then wheedling is at virt, and with it you'll be able to beg from just about anything.

There are a lot of other skills in influencing but most are differant types of attacks mixed in, and if you in it for gold/xp it's best to stick to what I mentioned.

One final note, I honestly wouldn't recommend getting past wheedling unless you have tons of lessons to spare, as the trans skill is obscure.

umm, isn't wheedling is the second charity attack....

and supplication is the third?

It's Begging, Supplication, Wheedling, in the order of First, Second, Third.

Nah, supplication's the second. I'm at about Adept and doing just fine.


Edit: 'd

I suggest going to Wheedling, which is just past Superego. It allows you to beg from the hardest denizens and make a ton of gold from Cookies, and it makes Tosha real easy. I was a pacifist and just used begging and quests to get my manse and quite alot of gold. Past Wheedling isn't of quite as much use really.

I'm inept at influencing right now.

If I want to learn it so I can just beg gold and influnce random other things, does it help to be trans, or do you get trans just for the loyalty ability?

Bump for an answer..

The more you learn the stronger your attacks are, Think like aquamancy/geomancy the more aquamancy the stronger your staff/demense is even though you get your staff/demense powers before trans.

If you want to use influencing to bash, you only need Supplication, which is 89 lessons in (at Adept 0%). There isn't much of a need to go past that.

There is only one worthwhile area to bash in (unless one of the aetherbubbles is good, I haven't been around much since they were added). That area is the Tosha monestary, and you only need Supplication and Begging to influence the monks there. The monks give 25% experience each at level 30, the earliest you can bash there. At 78, I get 1% from about 4 or 5 of them. The gold isn't too bad either - about 10k an hour.

The bubbles, or at least candy land, are very good.

Apparently they *fixed* candyland...

Is there anywhere good to influence now that gives more gold?

I am incapable of influencing a denizen by switching between supplication and begging with 13 Charisma and looking Common or Nondescript for some reason though... not even Tosha.

You're broken

It's hard with just begging and supplication, especially if they start moving around. Try begging multiple times then supplication? Lucidian astrologers in the observatory are harder (my level 52 faeling influencing alt with beauty blessing and up to wheedling needs to sip multiple times per) but slightly better gold (160-ish?). But sometimes they give you a crystalline key, which puts my Celestian alt in a nasty predicament...but probably better for people that don't have issues with freeing viscanti .

Nothing wrong with a Celestian using those keys... yes, they're viscanti, but you're not going to get a CDF for releasing cruelly enslaved children. Not sure if it's changed, but when I was in Celest there were a lot of people opposed to enslaving the Viscanti.

Do they hit back? If they do, you're 1-2 charisma short of being able to do it

13 charisma is enough to be faster than denizens if you've got triggers.

So the lucidian complex gives 160 instead of 140 gold? Is this consistant or just a fluke? Also, does the observatory have "bosses" that give the 200-500?