yeah just illustrating my point.

It would :censor: me to tears if I saw someone i just killed, up and bail with no loss, walk away for 30 seconds to redef, put lichdom back up, regen power and come at me again

My statement was not meant to be a threat. It was meant as a factual statement. People will not pay for useless things.

I'm probably fueling a fire here, but I think it's a good thing.. anyway, I don't think we should JUST argue about the Lichdom changes, but, the higher end of the skill as a whole. The top 4 skills of Necromancy seem useless. Noone wants to use them, it's not cool. Ghost is cool, that's 5th from last, and so what? As a Ur'guard, I have no want of transing Athletics, It's pointless and I have no want to trans Necromancy now, either. The only reason I transed Blademaster was to get all the afflictions so if someone is a complete idiot I get a small chance to kill them, and such. But really now, I can't say I know how Lichdom works, but.. we don't lose XP for the death.. but it's by no means a skill to save yourself anymore. So, in perfect perspective, it's 20 power to get +2 strength and +2 intel at night time, and -2 of those at day time. How useless is that? It's 50/50 in how much it powers you and how much it makes you suck. That's not cool at all.. Did I mention 20 power? Yeah, Magnagora has tons of power, but because we managed it well, so now to balance our supreme power management with New Celest's lack of desire and competence with it, we have to pay more for less? Excellent. My anger at the change is that it had no thought put into it from my perspective, it's simply.. We'll take one of the effects we considered when balancing it away, and not balance the other aspects of it as a result! We won't change the other necromancy skills with this to keep necromancy users somewhat happy, but insted we'll just change this and say nothing of the other stuff. Excellent.

ok, I just realize why I was being stupid.. I guess I can just ask a city mate to kill me for lichdom... but if I die to a creature after being a liche, I think I'm kinda screwed. especially in agro areas.

The ability to escape death is a -huge- combat advantage, but nonetheless, I believe that currently, it isn't quite as powerful as it should be.

Firstly, to compare it to another IRE game's benchmark, soulcage, when you soulcage, you keep your defences (though you also keep your afflictions). When you transform into a lich, you lose all of your defences, though you also lose all of your afflictions.

It takes essentially 20 power. I do not think this should be reduced. Considering what others get for their 10 power skills, 20 power is a -small- price for being able to escape death.

The stat change is an area I think does not need much change, however, there is one small change I believe could be made that would essentially, in my opinion, make the stat change alone worth the transformation. I believe that during the day, you should not suffer the penalty when you are indoors / underground. So, if you're smart, you stick to the underground / indoors during the day, with no penalty (though no bonus) and during the night you come out and ravage the countryside / terrorize peasants.

The Equilibrium loss when transforming a Lich is a little harsh, however, if you have even one second between when you transform into a Lich and when you un-ghost, nothing needs to be changed. If you don't take advantage of the second, its your own fault.

So, in my humble opinion, this skill would be balanced beyond question with the following modifications:

-Keep Defences + Afflictions (this is negotiable, because its likely the afflictions that got you killed in the first place).
-No penalty to stats inside during the day.
-Equilibrium loss of at least 1 second less than ghost time (unless of course this is already the case, in which case I don't see what all the fuss is about!)

If you cannot run away and redefence or fall back to a better position with those advantages in place, you have no right to complain of skill unbalance, because it is your own inability to fight well that has let you down.

Bleh, I hate Lichdom so much, of the last seven people I've gotten kills on, three being around level 70, six of them had the lich ability and I gained nothing from it, infact, I died twice, losing near two levels. Lichdom was far overpowered, but I also hate seeing things made so weak that is is useless. That takes out any challenge if the enemy is just stuck there to beat on from his own skills.
I believe Lichdom should be kept as is except have the equilibrium penalty taken away. This will allow them to run, try and assist their friends still, and defend themselves a little. The power being taken away is good because it stops the overuse of Ghost and allowing them to run away and relich.

I like Ethelon's Idea... I still have one small concern, and that is the fact that anything that stops you from leaving a room, blocking, icewalls, etc., can't be passed as a ghost during lichdom.. If you're in a room with one exit and it happens and anyone blocked, you're kinda screwed.. But I guess that's alright, would just irk me to take the time to have to come back as lich, waste the power, and die again.

Well, when you return, assuming the Equilibrium penalty is taken away, you can ROLL, LEAP, if have riding MOUNTJUMP, in some areas FLY, so there are still many ways to escape. Also, I've witnessed it many times where as soon as icewalls are summoned a geomancer melts them away. Silvanus and other group leaders are good at noticing those things.

I bnelieve Bricriu has in a report that necromancy users can night (like in every other realm) to keep your stats during the day. The main problem for everyone is the eq loss, I think it should remove all power in your prompt and have no eq loss.

yeah I agree there silvanus...no power in prompt OR big eq loss.

'one or the other

Not one or the other, the eq loss is the big thing. If you sit there and try to teleport, you can telkeport to the person coming back from lichdom and still have 5 seconds to do whatever to them.

yeah, you gotta know when they lich though, unless you just spam it till they come alive again.

But still, 5 seconds, if you can heal for 5 seconds then you can ghost (read stay awake)

Those are some great ideas right there. Keep the nasty power loss to even it out, but kill eq. loss and add night (which we should have).