I'm actually going to agree with Tuek here, chasm is too fast and a little too hard to handle for a instant kill. But at the same time, mages in general, and in my eyes, particularly the Geomancers, suffer not only from poorer defense, they also dont have good offense to compensate for it. Most of their abilities are extremely power intensive. And their demense, which should be the basis of their strength, is weak, especially when you compare it to the druids. So I would like to see the power on some of their abilities lowered, especially supersling, and their demense skills improved, or new ones added.

Right now, the only way that I can visualize a Geomancer beating me, is with chasm.

Indeed. Supersling is way too costly to use for any sort of actual reason in single person to single person combat.

Hehe, that is funny. Geomancers are actually in a better bag than aquamancers when it comes to guildskills. With the hunger attack and the insta-kill, geomancers have a chance against you in a straight up fight. Aquamancers have nothing of the sort. Best we can do is keep you flowing out of our room, or have our jellies stun you once every 10 seconds.

As far as mage bashing goes...

Blast is pretty good for low levels, better than physical damage, given that as a mage you're most likely to have a high intelligence race. Geomancer novices probably have it harder than Aquamancers, given the lower viscanti intelligence (lower than merians at least) but when they get to the specialization and become a Master Viscanti, they'll be fine. With Blast, my character was taking out basically everything in Newton/Lolliprin/Smoke Mountain in one hit, and even after that things like cows, and dream leeches (and grubs) didn't put up much of a threat at all.

After that though, there's only so far you can get with Blast. You pretty much need Staff for higher level bashing, and that's at Mythical, so you'll want some credits. But when you get it, it's more than just a big boom - I know for Aquamancers it also comes with a couple of defensive/healing abilities, so I think Geomancers also get some other things too. Not to mention all the fun stuff you picked up along the way (no status symbol like a Taint Wyrm!).

Defensively... Reflection rocks. At level 20 or so, my Aquamancer fell into a gravedigger's lair. He was still alive five minutes later when someone summoned him out. Even a novice can help someone who's bashing to basically not take a hit, with reflections, if they get the timing right. Demesne abilities... I don't think too many mages would be using them, because there really aren't that many helpful ones for bashing. Unless you immediately flood/taint the room you walk into, for every single room... that would be extremely power-intensive, for the small benefit you'd get.

So anyway, with Blast and Reflection, low-level mages can do pretty well. But you won't really use much else (unless you're a merian/viscanti, then you'd be able to taint or flood and slowly regen) until you get Staff.

First bashing, Eiru(was geo) and myself are the only active high level bashers. Comapred to the others that bash astral, I suck. Knights can tank 3 things, were as one gives me a run for my money. I have to use way more health then the others, because they both have healing skills. Against mobs Geomancer damage is good Aquamancers should be on par in that respect. But to bash high level, we really need all our armour(helm, shield, robes) and resilience to even think of lasting more then 2 hits.

As for PvP, I think Daevos summed it up as we suck. Demesne is weak, and Geomancers are stronger then Aquamancers in that respect. Chasm is our only real kill, and Tuek it does take 5p, I hit you with it alot and looky, you never died. Only way I could hit you so much, is you kept running around which gave me time to regen power, and some of those were illusions. It's weak, I can't do anything but sit there, sip health and it stops, don't sip health I die. Sleep stops it, haven't tested web or anything like that. But for something that's easy as hell to walk away from, or make me HAVE to do something(like damage, start another instant kill, anything) you can't say it's powerful. Yes if I'm smart I can stonewall off a room, then hope your stupid enough to let me summon you, and then hope you don't realize cast sleep at me twice and I die. Basicly it relies on your opponent not knowing what it is.

The gas, yes I can belch it as Viscanti, that dies pretty quickly. My demesne effect can make it, it dies just as fast and then will come back alittle while later. Resilience makes it pretty much useless too.

Doublesling does cost too much for what it does. And our coolest rune, the one that does random afflictions is no where near as nice as knights using the venom. Yes it does hit all the time, but they still know they were hit with the rune(were as with the venom they just see the sword hit), and it takes 2p to use it. That means 7p to doublesling 2 random afflictions, which they can just use gedulah to cure for 5p. That rune would be alot nicer if it was 2p to make it, not 2p to use it. And doublesling should be 1p, not 3.

Last PvP damage, it sucks. Aquamancers have it better on this end, as our staff is physical and poison damage(ei armour, stoneskin, and resilience blocks it, resilience doubly so). Aquamancers staff is heat damage, same as blast. When we do PvP and try for damage, we have to use blast because it accually does more then the mythical level staff. Then the eq is about 6 seconds, I've been hit twice by a knight(as in 2 full rounds of knight damage) before I got eq back.

We've got a ton of stuff in our envoy reports, hopefully that will help.

I was the big Geomancer(the only one it damned near seemed) in Beta..

Geomancers are pretty useless, which is what I discovered and actually why I went Nihilists.

Aquamancers aren't a lot better off..

Sadly I never could come up with a great way to make them decent.

Geomancers and Aquamancers have the weakest skills in Lusternia, Illusions and Runes are crap from what I hear, which leaves them with Geomancy. If only their demesnes weren't pretty much useless as well.

Thanks for making me feel good about my lovely nerfomancy. Oh wait, it does suck...never mind.

<-- All hail the powerful nerfomancy

As a fairly low-level geomancer I have to say the skills are fairly good for bashing I am level 22 and can take grubs and cows no problem, I really dont stand a chance in PvP fight as I dont have much of anything in geomancy. But illusions isnt as bad as you think, you can easily throw off herb and vial balances and throw off equilibrium uselessly. Reflection is pretty rockin when teaming, have 2 attackers and 2 reflectors, or what not. But I have only won one pvp fight, sorry furloch, and he really didnt put up a fight.
-Oryan

Using Geo/Aqua staff still takes equililbrium, aye?

EDIT: Not balance?

Yes, it takes Equilibrium. And god forbid if one of your legs is broken, you can't use your arms to point a staff at someone...

Yup, nor can you point a dagger at someone. You CAN still dance though.

And despite claims to the contrary, poor Celestines and Moondancers can't heal with broken arms or while prone.

That is a horrible thing I think as far as using skills goes. How can you not heal yourself under any circumstance if you have taken the lessons to learn the bloody thing. Its completely useless if you can't break off a lock fast enough. All that healing power is completely useless. If more than one leg is broken and your sitting you can't heal your legs.

Abilities with arms shouldn't be negated because you can't bloody stand up to attack.

Ah, the healing's not SO useless though. It's just the little things that make it difficult to use. It'd be handy if it did work as the post said, though.