I was thinking about going back to the nihilists and came to this realization while trying to figure out why my earlier attempts at using wrack would fail.

So, for those of you who don't know, wrack kills someone who is below 50% mana, but they have to be entangled. To entangle them you have to hangedman/web them. I'm not sure about aslaran hangedman, but I don't want to have to be an aslaran so it's irrelevant. For a neutral eq race, if you don't use quicken before the web they will writhe out before you get balance back. So, wrack requires two set up moves, quicken, web and then you use wrack.

The thing is, someone who is a clever fighter will see you use quicken and realize you are going to try and wrack them, so they will shield. Quicken gives you enough time to do 3 moves with faster eq. Since quicken takes 4 (5?) seconds of eq and shield takes 5, and a quickened hammer takes 2 (1.5?) they can complete the shield balance before you get eq back from the quicken and first hammer most of the time. Thus, you have to hammer twice and have the third move under quicken be the webbing. If we say quicken is 4 and the hammers and wracks are 2 each, the total is 10 seconds before you can do the wrack.

Now, vial healing balance is 5 seconds and drinking a mana vial is an average of 17% max mana gain. So, the opponent will mostly likely be able to drink mana twice before you actually attempt the wrack for a mana gain of 34%.

50-34=16. If your target is above 16% mana then when you do the quicken, they will survive the wrack.

As if that wasn't bad enough, leech takes 4-5 seconds eq and the minimum amount being 16%, yet one vial drink on a 5 second balance restores 17%. So (and yes this has happened to me) there are times when you drain your opponent to 0% mana and start to do your wrack thing, and they still survive it.

While there are other things that could drain mana, like the demon paralysing them and they focus body below 50% (which is avoidable through either skill or dumb luck), eating sparkleberry on a 6 second balance restores 10% max mana. So rather than get ridiculously complicated I haven't added in every variable there is. But if someone has more than 250 mana, they would be losing 250 every 8 seconds and getting back more than 250 every 6 when you put demon paralyse and sparkleberry up against each other. With the timer difference those with less than 250 mana can also more than break even there.

The point being, wrack is a ridiculous bad skill. At least with toad curse the factor for if you succeed isn't entirely in luck even after you get them to 16% or 0% mana.

Im summary, please upgrade or replace wrack with something that isn't a waste of time and power.

Soulless?

Toadcurse will never kill a target unless every exit is blocked, if ther is even on exit they will not die. If the target sees you putting up icewalls, they know you'll try a toadcurse. All they have to do is melt one of the several icewalls, and they will never die. Toadcurse is actually more difficult to pull against an intelligent opponent then wrack, yet it is still doable.

In my opinion Nihilists just don't use their skills at all effectively. They have overpowered crap like SHACKLES which is just made for Soulless, but I've only see Kaervas use it, and badly.

I don't see why Soulless would be -that- difficult to pull off when you can paralyze, paralyze side (which looks like normal paralyze for the most part so it can be quasi-confusing), shackles, etc. with carcer... give me Soulless, I'll pull it off with just a pigwidgeon.

Next time I'll have to make sure I have enough power, then I can use scourge with shackles paralyse and some other annoying crap.

And I imagine it will be rather successful.

I used to love death tarot on Aetolia, people always complained about me using cheap skills to beat them. I'm just out of practice with tarot right now since I used crappy hexes for quite a while: carcer, fall (which seems to be bugged right now), hangedman, aeon, enigma, set demon to shackles paralyse hemiplegy, scourge I'll have to test it out when I get some time.

Carcer needs upgrading to piety-standard.

Yes. A novice skill should be like piety. Oh wait... no

I think carcer is fine as it is.

As it is, it's worthless.

Screw that... Ceres needs her own skillset where for 10p, she can kill everyone online. That'd be fair... it isn't Carcer... Ceres is what needs upgraded.

Just make me a god with none of the responsibilities and I'd be fine. That skill would be a little unfair.

How exactly is carcer useless?

It doesn't stop people?

Considering it's a -novice- skill I wouldn't really expect it to stop people from leaving the room every single time. I just see it as gravehands that hits anyone.

Then we need an upgraded Carcer. Or make greater pentagram stop people from leaving as well.

Yes!

I want soulless...It would make my life alot easier. Jello I think the problem is the people you are going against trying to wrack arnt afflicted enough. Most people I wrack I set my thrall to Stupidity, Shackles, Paralysis, Anorexia, sting the hell out of them for a while, quicken, triple leech, (quicken ends) leech, hangedman(with fool) wrack. The only problem here is you are not limited as I am with skills(I am trans Nihil, Master Tarot and Fabled Nerc) So mix it up some. The other person has to miss a mana sip minimum, and needs to be paralysised or stupid really. Throw in Aeon before the quick leech and there is no reason they should live. Provided the person is an incredible healer then breathe contagion too.