By immortal request, this is my reasoning on why lich and necromancy in general should be downgraded. It isn't just a personal or only-affects-necromancers thing. This is something which affects the whole of Lusternia's balance, because it is one of the main contributors to Magnagora's monopoly on power, and have you ever looked at RANKINGS recently? I welcome responses to this. Let's see...

-Mags fight in teams. BOOM, there goes any of the enjoyment you get from combat. Why is this? Because the Avenger system allows it. He who has the biggest teams wins. Unlike, say, Achaea, the revolutionary new system prevents any kind of honour from existing. What does it cost Daevos to bring 3 webbing noobs along with him? Nothing. What does it cost them? Nothing, because if I waste my time killing them later for under 1% experience, they'll hardly lose anything.

-If you do finally get a 1v1 fight with a Mag (see, combat logs section, me and Daevos) who can be almost impossible to kill due to skills like the one Daevos used to bring his mana from 70% to... 160% of his max. Instantly. Don't forget lich. 18+ strenth, anyone? Omen, causing Daevos to do 3-4k damage to some people? Ghost to instantly escape any situation, with no way of anyone harming you or pulling you out of it?

-Now, let's see..



Right. So, when a necromancer dies, they have about 20 seconds to move their soul to a safe location (note, they can go through doors and obstacles), and then they are reborn with NO LOSS, so they can re-lich, def up, and come back. And don't forget that whoever killed them loses any offensive effects, and usually some power to kill them, and gets NOTHING from it.

Now let's see what happens when someone else dies. In the majority of cases, they have to pray for salvation. The last time I did this it cost me 50% experience.

Let's see the arguments FOR lich, I've heard:



Well boo hoo , the fact that it makes necromancers essentially unkillable means you can get enough villages for power not to matter. It's one of the contributing factors to the fact that Magnagora has 4 villages, as many as the other two city/communes combined. Don't forget that a lot of people are attracted to Magnagora BY skills such as this. In addition, it takes me anything ranging from 5 to (see my duel with Daevos) 160 power to kill a necromancer. A kill I gain nothing from, but if I lose, I lose 50% exp.



It would be just as good roleplay if it was weakened. There is no justification from an OOC perspective for the current situation.



Maybe they do, but the other IRE games have a lot of balancing factors, IE restricted PK.

Now, it's never any good being negative. Let's see a few of the things which could be implemented to balance this out:

(Lich)

-Make the power cost MUCH more noticeable. I don't think this is really a good idea, but it could help. Alternately pick a more 'roleplay' style cost, such as making lich have a 50% chance of killing the necromancer. Or a bit less extreme, a ritual involving the corpse(s) of other players.

-Make lich happen INSTANTLY, in the same way as Achaean soulcage. So when the lich dies, they are immediately resurrected with an equilibrium disruption, having lost no experience but all their defs and power. This would mean that having died (note, death is the end for everyone else) there would be a high chance, in -PK-, for them to be hindered and killed again, properly this time.

-Limit lich so it can only be done once per RL month. This would prevent utterly ridiculous situations like me duelling Daevos, killing him TWICE, and still gaining absolutely nothing from it. I wonder why he's ranked 16th and I'm ranked 62nd? 60 minutes, a lot of tarot cards, a lot of herbs and a lot of power after the beginning of the duel, I've killed him twice and he's just coming right back at me, unaffected.

(Necromancy in general)

-Make throwing eye sigils at the ground throw people out of ghost, and eye sigils on the ground prevent movement of ghosts.

-Give Omen a shorter duration or the obvious choice, make it only affect the damage of the person who cast it.

Please share your thoughts.

Amaru, you're like Tranquility, you'll complain about everything that kills you, and everything you can't kill . Instead of making Lichdom completely useless to the point Vitae is much better, just give us another skill, but I doubt any divine is seriously gonna consider nerfing a trans skill just cause you want experience while dueling. In fact, I'll trade lichdom in for Trueheal anytime, cause that prevents me from dying and losing all my defs alltogether.

As's been mentioned before, the whole thing with the Lich skill is kinda sucky.

If it lets them get away, the killer is PO'd because they just wasted a load of time and herbs.

If it doesn't, they get PO'd because it's basically a 20 power vitae that does the whole night/day thing too.

I seriously think something else should be put in entirely.

It's not a freakin' negotiation.

Lich's overpowered, plain and simple. Delete it, then deal with making the skillset viable. That's the order it goes in.

Lusternia's dumped most of the stupid ideas from the other IRE games - why not this one too?

I always had Lich up as a Nihilist, and I died so many times. I used to be level 59, and went all the way down to level 52. And I always Liched.

So if I understand your reasonings, Amaru, you want to just...never die to a necromancer and...have no problems killing one? No one beats you in a duel or one on one, yet you whine and complain about everything that gives you ANY kind of trouble? Reeks a bit spoiled.

The only reason you aren't getting much villages is cause celestians either don't even bother trying or are immensely outnumbered cause everyone rather bashes or logs off the moment a village revolts, the number of celestians on QW drops like a brick at revolting...when we raid your villages, 75% of the defenders are serenwilders...I think your city just lacks the motivation and courage. Then again, more kuddos to the ones that try anyway, since they know they're pretty much gonna lose cause everyone else logs off.

Well, there is a couple things you have missed. As a soul and as a ghost, you cannot move past an eye sigil. It says "a strange telepathic force blocks you from entering that room" (I think). If you completely nerf Lichdom, sure Ur'guard might be killable, but you are running a pole up the Nihilists rear-end. Nihilists are far from as tanky as Ur'Guard.

I think if you're going to consider downgrading lich and necromancy then you should look into the offense of said classes as well. If you compare nihilists and celestians...

nihilists- half mana kill if target is bound, torture, crucify/sacrifice.

celestians- half mana kill (any additional reqs?), inquisition combo, judge.

It's obvious which is better, and by no small amount, since torture requires the target be bound (paralyse doesn't count). Even enlarged people writhe out of hangedman or normal web before balance can be regained, so the demon has to always be on nothing but shackles if we want to use two of our three killing methods, which lowers our affliction ability by a lot. And I've never heard of anyone dying to crucify/sacrifice, I would trade it for judge in a second. Hell, I would trade our mana kill for judge as well, it's just not feasible to use it with the entangle requirement.

So if necromancy gets downgraded again, buff nihilist (and maybe ur'guard) offense to be fair. Nihilists are gimped offensively compared to most classes, but lich makes it all right currently.

Regardless of whether Nihilists need upgrades because of necromancy being downgraded, ur'guard sure don't. It's not as though the Serenguard can do anything with Moon or Stag (okay, maybe facepaints), and no one's complaining about them.

Interestingly enough, I recently received a long treatise on why liches and necromancy needs to be upgraded.

Could this be the perpetual example of the grass always looking greener on the other side?

Necromancy could do with being upgraded in general, I imagine, but things like Lich and (I think) Ectoplasm really need cleaning up. It's more that Necromancy is very...um...well, it really represents different skill levels well, put it that way.

Nihilists and Moondancers both need some upgrades to put them on par with Celestines, but only small ones. I'd -love- to have my angel be able to entangle, and moondancers can do some amazingly fast mana draining, although toadcurse isn't as good as absolve.

And Thorgal, there's no need to be aggressive. It isn't my advantage I want, it's balance. I believe fully that any Guardian who heals like me, will survive like me in duels. Celestines do have some good offence, but it's nothing amazing. If I could afford artifact weapons, I'd go knight over Celestine. A lot of people don't realise how nice it is to be able to kill with damage. It's the best way of operating in teams, for sure.

Celestines may be good at duels, but look at say, Geomancers in teams. There are no -major- imbalances when it comes to any of the Guardian classes.

One of the reasons Celest is so outnumbered is that a lot of people make a character aiming for skills like lich.

Silvanus, if you lost a lot of experience using lich, it was probably because you didn't use it properly. Take Daevos as an example, I've killed him -once- properly, and that was when he ran from a duel after liching and I had to chase him down. I've never even seen him die a proper death besides that.

Maybe, but you forget inquisition (a skill you have) STRIPS lichdom, next to EVERY other defense. Whatever way you look at it, Sacraments is much more effective than Necromancy, take away Lichdom, and you make it completely inferior, just like it is in achaea.

It's a case of people never being satisfied with what they have. I've never asked for my class to be upgraded, but I know a lot about the 'treatise' you're talking about, and I know it was the idea of a bunch of necromancers, who pressured other semi-fighters into signing it. Get some big necromancer to create some ideas about why it isn't strong enough, and a lot of people will be happy just to be the 'good cooperative OOC guy' and go along with it.

As it happens, the person in question was Valek. He's the only person who's ever beat me in a duel, and arguably Lusternia's best fighter. I spy with my little eye, an inconsistency.

Inquisition does NOT (note, NOT) (repeat, NOT) strip lich. Look at my log of duelling Daevos.

No, its because for a Nihilist ti-trans his skills, can only kill if you use up 26 power, then 10 power for Lichdom. (Enigma, Fool, Scourge, calling Demon). Then, you either use 3 power for torture x however many times you torture, or you put up fool again, or you crucify (8 power). Nihilists use power a lot more often then Ur'Guard, so we don't have unlimited soucrge of power like most Ur'Guard.

Can't you def up in the arena like other Guardian classes?

Don't say 'it's against your morals' or whatever, because the immortals are aware it's being used for such, and it hasn't been changed or commented upon.

Shouldn't deffing up in the arena to conserve power be considered a bug and not done?

You make the best arguments Amaru

It should strip lich. If it doesn't it's a bug.

No. It is not a bug. You can use the arena for whatever purpose you like.