I dunno...looks just about right to me.

I agree there, geomancers are bad, but they at least have some chance of winning when they sneak in chasm, while their opponent tries out various ways of stopping it, aquamancers are just so sad even 4 of them can't kill me, and I'm not all that tanky as an aslaran. Aquamancers definately shouldn't be made tankier, but their offense needs some drastical improvement.

I'll try that next time Shamarah.

And on a side note, woot! We're beating the Geomancers as the worst guild! I feel so proud.

The druids need their Stag increased a little, but otherwise, they can't complain. The skillset Runes is really good if everyone instead of whineing about it learned to use it. There are MANY different uses for demesnes which I've YET to see anotehr person use besides myself. I recall it was hard to have any chance against me in my Demesne, hell, even outside of it I was damn hard to fight against. Runes is great how it is and giving them the anorexia ability would be to much. Illusions is AMAZING, I hate fighting people with that skillset and those that know how to use it will praise it.Now, I can't say much about the Aquamancy and Geomancy skillset so they may need beefing up, but otherwise, the rest is fine. Seriously though, there are other ways to fight, with or without your demesne that apparently people need to learn.

Well, where should I start, first and foremost, it should be noted that you were not a mage. You are of Hartstone, who have hands down the best demense abilities in the game. Your demense was so much better than both the mage demenses, that there is really no comparison. You also get sap, which is a aeon that goes through quicksilver, and can only be cured by cleansing or scrubbing. There is also that fact that when you fought as a demense user, most people couldnt cure, and ger/gyfu was enough to lock someone down, especially with the insomnia/coltsfoot bug and your demense giving asthma. And Illusions as a skillset is weak offensively, its main use is as a spy, even Improved and Programmed are of limited use because they dont protect you from your own illusion. There is really only three useful offense skills in the set, Illusion, Phantoms, and Reality. I have been fighting mages since the beginning, and while they stood a slight chance when my level was low, and my damage was gimp. Now I can slaughter them almost effortlessly, and their demense is only a minor annoyance, I can also kill their pet within a few hits, if I wanted to. But there is really no need since they are only a slight annoyance as well. But I will admit that Runes could be good, if the power cost was lowered and they were given anorexia.

As I said, the Druids are fine, they by far are the most powerful of the Demesne users. I also pointed out there are many tactics the magi fail to see or use. Aside from that, I fought many people outside of my demesne using nearly Runes alone, the current powercost of Supersling is fine how it is.

I still think you fail to realize the difference between then and now. There is no way in hell, that a mage can kill me with Runes alone. Or even come remotely close to it. And I do know the power of the Geomancers, atleast since I've been working with Arilyon for awhile now to find the hidden potential in her skillsets. And almost every tactic that I can come up with intensive testing and study, depends on the target being incompetent at curing. Even a moderate amount of skill, is enough to counter them completely.

I misread what Daevos stated so had to edit this, sorry. I agree Daevos, Runes alone is not enough to defeat you or anyone else with any decent level of curing.

Excuse me... you said the supersling power cost is fine? I think I speak for everyone what I ask: Are you drunk?
Supersling as it is now is a waste of power, and is fundamentally flawed because of that. 3 power is way to much my friend. If you're blind to that, then I don't know what sort of counceling can help you.

This is a pretty good example of how to take a perfectly viable argument and completely reduce its credibility. This isn't a good post. This is a troll.

The problem with Ethelon's assessment is that he is basing it on back when most did not have cure messages and had no clue what a certain rune would do. Also most were below 30 back then, and point staff was enough damage to pretty much take anyone out. Now the world has matured and many have an idea of exactly what a mage can do in his demesne and how to counter it.

When I looked over the full skillset lists and tested them, I saw the flaws in them and the ease at which they could be countered against in later levels. I saw how levitation could easily counter some of our demesne attacks, with us having no way to strip the person of that defense. I've had a person use phantom and reality on me, and noticed that most of the mental afflictions given are the ones with a fear component to them. Could be extremely bothersome in aeon, or help Vlock a person if you had passive attacks giving asthma and anorexia. Without those possibilities, the two attacks are annoying at best to an opponent.

I've used Supersling with illusioning the cure for one of the afflictions immediately after (You can Supersling and illusion in the same round, but you can't illusion and Supersling). I've used programmed and improved illusions and they do have potential. Unfortunately, we do not have the actual afflictions needed to make them effective. Eventually most good fighters learn how to heal basic afflictions, making affliction abilities less effective when used alone. The purpose of illusions is to help trip up a person's healing, allowing the attacker to move the person towards some sort of venom lock. Druids have the passive and active abilities to allow for such, Geomancers and Aquamancers do not.

Enough of my semi-rant/semi-classlead report. I do want it known that plenty of people playing Geomancers or Aquamancers have experience fighting in other IRE games. We know how to sit down, think up combat combinations, and then test them out. We can also see when a skillset is lacking if it does not have support from other skillsets to make it useful. Runes are pretty good for Druids, because the Druids' demesne provides the other afflictions needed to make runes effective. For Geomancers and Aquamancers runes and illusions are not nearly as effective, because their demesnes do not supply what is needed to augment said skillsets. Leaving Geomancers in the end with pretty much Chasm and Aquamancers with run-staff-run.

I was discussing some things with Geb. I came up with the following suggestion for Jellies:
Jellies

Then jellies would constant afflict in 4 or 5 second basis with sensitivity, asthma, epilepsy, itching, scabies, pox and paralysis. These are given randomly. All these effects of afflictions come from the fact that the Jellies are poisonous. These venoms affect skin and nervous system. The messages from Jellies are a bit similar and vague like in order to make healing a bit hard but not impossible.

I'd like some feedback on this on those who read this post.

I did thing jellies giving paralysis would be a good idea, actually. As for the vague affliction messages, I'm thinking that if your idea was viable (I don't know), there could be two affliction messages, one for the nervous and one for the skin (and, er, paralysis and asthma). That way you at least know vaguely what you got.

EDIT: Jellies giving paralysis, not stun. They already do stun. Shut up, Shiri.

If mages are worst off then hartstone is a very close second .. for one, we share the runes skillset with the mages and also get demesnes, and while they are sort of portable, it takes valuable seconds of eq to meld whatever room you get jumped in and then if you want to do anything useful its 8 power and more eq to call on everything

They also do a lot less damage than mages.. In a recent test cudgel which is the equivalent of staff but supposedly 100% cutting damage tested at a pathetic 200 damage to someone with a 55% cutting greatrobe, most people would barely notice that.

EDIT: Mostly just ignore me .. its what happens when one starts raving on about something at 1am without reading all the previous posts.. although i still think the 200 damage is pathetic

Your demesne is also easily better than an Aquamancer or Geomancer's, even after the Aquamancer changes.

THe Hartstone Druids are quite powerful. If anyone says otherwise, they are sadly mistaken. I don't even want to begin to list the viable strategies, and how their skills feel very coherent, as they all work together quite nicely.

Runes and Illusions, when used together effectively are very nice in the hands of a capable Mage, however they lack any serious ability to completely hinder or kill anyone. Anyone could make a simple trigger to heal off a rune slung at them, and the ability to give one affliction every 3 to 4 seconds is pathetic. Coupled in the fact that we can only illusion after a rune is slung, the chances of the illusion handicapping someone's curing ability is low. I could phantom someone and sling runes at them all day and that would do nothing.

Also, when you look at the afflicting abilities, Nihilists and Celestines could give 2 afflictions with their demons/angels without giving messages sometimes and at no cost to their eq and balance. This is far superior to our Othala rune that gives an affliction but costs 2 powers to use and can easily be countered with a simple diagnose or allheale or our crappy doublesling that uses 3 powers.

It has been stated that something complex is in the work for the Geos and Aquas, but from what we've gotten so far, I don't think giving us one more ability that eats up a ton of powers but will rarely be used can bring us up to par with the other classes. As of right now, all 3 of our trans guildskills will rarely be used since they are either too power-draining (doublesling), hits us just as bad (maelstrom), or give afflictions that can be cured easily (reality).

So what your saying is resilience effects the geomancers attacks but not the aquamancers.

Why do aquamancers do heat damage anyways? Why not ice..or will the fire elementalists do ice damage?

That was explained. It's steam.

Roark mentioned on another thread that the heat damage was one representation of water being covered as all of steam, ice and just reg'lar water. Staffcast, icefloes and flooding respectively, by way of example.

EDIT: 'cept Dumihru's too fast for me. *cough*