I was trying out Xiel's weekee pedia page, and I came across the phantasms skillset. It brought back old memories on why I got so frustrated with Aquamancers back then. One of them is - the phantasms skillset has a few good skill, but by and large, the upper level skills has no utility whatsoever. Whereas the glamours skillset is chokefull of useful things - hypnoticpattern, rainbowpattern, mesmerize, maelstrom, illusoryself, flare - actually.. Ive used, and found useful all the skills in glamours.

But phantasms last three skill, phantomsphere, reality, mirage is just too..archaic? Maelstrom with its ability to give up to four different afflictions and/or damage for 5p just leaves reality to dust.

But the most irritating skill of them all is this phantomsphere.



This has got to be the slowest "instant" kill in the basin. The way to use this is 1) you weave a sphere (3p) 2) move the sphere, and continue moving it in the direction of the enemy. If said enemy somehow walked away from the room, you'll have to see where he went and move sphere again. 3) order sphere to attack enemy However, you cannot order the sphere to attack the enemy if he is in the same room as you. 3) repeat five times.

Not only is one sphere costing 3power (total 15p to get the kill), it requires multiple balance consumption to be able to stick it. On top of that, if the opponent walks in the same room as you, you'll have to run away so you can order the sphere to attack. Thus theoretically making it a running battle.. and who would want to partake in such a thing? Like, why cant I just summon this and order it towards the opponent even if they're in the same room? No wonder I havent seen this skill used ever since i joined lusternia. Must be the only instakill I've not seen at least once. (At least ive seen heartburst, and I thought heartburst has got it bad)

Anyway -- Of course this things are for the envoys to do, but I'm hoping some nifty ideas appear somehow from this thread. If there are ideas floating somewhere out there to boost this skill and not make it so clunky.. would be much appreciated.

I forgot I had that ability...

I got someone to test it with me once, just to see what it looked like.

But yeah, it's really pretty useless. Maybe set it so you only tell it who it is supposed to attack, and it seeks the target out itself? I dunno.

Though, they did recently give it mental afflictions, but I suppose unless one of those afflictiosn is forgetting the way out, it's not too helpful.

It would be OP if you could make it attack while in the same room, as the only cure is to exit the demesne. The solution is to give it some other cure and make it less of a pain in the butt to use. Or completely change the skill:



Number of phantomspheres = (Number of rooms in demesne)/5, rounded down. Phantomspheres attack anyone in the room on their phantasm ticks, even allies who got phantomed by the enemy. Works with stalker and phantasmagora as well.

Read the description, it's clearly an RP skill

Read the description, it's clearly an RP skill

How about moving it down, letting it last ages, and reporting across planes when someone enters your demesne? More spheres, more planes it can speak across?

Or you could let it store a single effect, which will be activated upon someone entering your demesne (or possibly its room only).

Might remove/weaken the kill aspect if the above were put in.

Reality and mirage are fine. Mirage is just a time saver and reality isn't bad at all. It's diet maelstrom, and it costs less power.

Phantomsphere costs power now? Weird, and stupid.

Phantomsphere is remarkably pointless. You aren't going to keep anyone in your demense 1v1 that doesn't want to be there. Changes have been attempted before, several times. The change phantomsphere got was...unite sphere. Woo.

My idea was be able to invest either claws, phantom, or phantomarmour into the sphere for an additional 3 power, and then the sphere will follow you around and work like a mob. Perma claws/phantom/phantomarmour, but can be killed.

Trying to make it viable as an instakill just won't happen.

What does unite do?

EDIT: And if they leave, do all existing spheres affecting them vanish?

huh? I thought reality costs 6p (maestrom costs 5p). Was this changed?



But hmm, maybe removing the instakill component and making it more of a 'utility' skill is the way to go..

Lol this skill is 5x better then scorpionfury so.

Krin if you have problems with your skillset, go create a thread about it asking for suggestions then pass it to your envoy.. It is more constructive that way..

Take you to the spheres location (in your demesne).

Yes.



I thought maelstrom was 10p for whatever reason. So it's still diet maelstrom with a bigger power cost. It's still a very nice skill. I see nothing wrong with reality in the least.

Does reality web like phantoms? If so it probably comes out ahead of maelstrom slightly.

Last time I ran into Reality, all it really did was give you really feeble mental affs (dementia?) and various phobias.

Useful for a telepath then?, but not really for the other 3 specs.

It does not web like phantom. It gives you the same affs telepathy does. No, not amazing for non TPs, but demense + reality + phantom + claws. Some very nice passives going on. Don't look at reality in a void. Passive mental affs to every enemy in the room. Don't turn your nose up at that.

That being said...reality is best with telepathy.

ok, I tested with Reiha and we couldnt make it give afflictions. So there must be something wrong in what I was doing.. Anyway, can anyone confirm if the sphere works like this:

1. weave sphere
2. leave sphere in the room, it can be in the same room as caster.
3. if enemy comes, it will attack (those on your enemy list. So it will in theory be able to attack 20 people provided those people are in your enemy list)
4. *OR* it will attack those people already afflicted by phantasms or claws or whatever? Allies included?
So, no need to put a person in the enemy list?
5. And again - The sphere can be in the same room as the caster and it will still attack? The only condition is that one is afflicted with phantasms (but what if the weaver of the sphere itself was phantomed by an enemy?)

I forgot who told me to suggest this(think it was Ceren) as an alternative change to PhantomSphere:

For every sphere you put on that person, it does 20% of their max health. So if two spheres are put on that person, it is 40%, three spheres 60% and eventually five spheres be instant death, that way it still has somewhat of a combat use to actually attempt to build from instead of just trying to kill people with phantomsphere.

I think phantomsphere is fine as it is. No power cost (although the mana cost is pretty high for just 1 sphere). It IS supposed to give afflictions, so if that doesn't happen, it's slightly problematic, but...