What kind of...LAME...aargh. NOW you're undeniably just complaining because people RUN AWAY to stop you using your instakill? That's like calling someone a sipwhore for drinking health when you're trying to pound on them! Geez!

My point, Shiri, was that if you can easily escape something, you have no room to call it the best instakill. Please turn off the auto-response-robot and read comments thoroughly

You can only easily escape chasm (well, I say can, I mean COULD) if the person doing it didn't set things up properly. Same with sap much? Take blackout-chasm, for example.

Revan you are too quick to jump to auto-insult-response mode. You could make making the most ultimate pointyist of all points ever but your insults just make you look lame.

Lesse, it takes nothing to initiate, unlike Soulless/Behead/Bashbrain/Absolve/Wrack, it had only 3 messages as opposed to 3 from Judgment, it was unstoppable by most conventional means such as prone or paralysis. Yes, why I would say it is the best instakill for the amount of efforts, power cost, or abilities that could stop it. Wouldn't you?

It does require tainted land.

Not much of a restriction, but a restriction nonetheless.

I'd disagree, by that notion, having the skill in the first place would be a restriction, or having your opponent in the room would be as well.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with the last sentence. This strategy is working amazingly for Imperian, where every class lead report, there are sweeping changes and upgrades to every class. Combat does not, or has not become pointless. Instead, the skill level of players keep rising, and the enjoyment of combat does as well. The class lead reports are huge changes, that often change the face of combat entirely, leading Imperian to feel like an entirely new game after every envoy report, where strategies and tactics change drastically from what they were prior.

Imperian has very balanced combat because of this. Classes are all equally viable (except the Idras, however, their skillsets are getting pretty much completely redone after the current class leads are through), and the level of competitiveness is always increasing.

Lusternia should be even easier to balance, and abilities can be changed/redone/designed/implemented that are much more powerful then abilities found in other realms, due to the use of power, allowing skills to be created that are powerful, yet not unbalancing, since they cannot be used over and over and over.

I really hope a game doesn't have to continually reinvent itself to keep players playing.

Not reinventing itself. People like new things, classes should be fluid, why should classes be static and remain the same for all eternity?

D&D has only changed its rules 4 times in 40 years.

Did I just hear you right? You compared D&D to Lusternia?

D&D is alot more maleable than Lusternia in many ways. First, rules may be changed, ammended or help strictly to the book depending on the DM. Second, D&D's rules allow for ALOT of changes throughout. If you do indeed play D&D, I won't elaborate anymore, but comparing D&D to Lusternia is a very bad way to support your point.

Lusternia would be like D&D if they had about 100 coders running around helping with RP and coding things on the fly so people could do what they want.

I don't see why its such a bad comparions. Unless people constantly change the way thaco and saving throws work from game to game. Which I've never seen.

Most games might change the abilities you have maybe once or twice.

Constantly changing what skills do when they arn't broken to begin with sounds more like a failing game than anything else to me.

Although to be honest, I don't think Imperian has made drastic changes exept when they were balancing the existing skills with new skillsets that came out.

Saboetuers (Serpents) with traps (darts traps included), transfixing lightwalls, simultaneous dstabs + hypnosis implanting, 3 line illusions, and new very powerful toxins available isn't a drastic change?

Hunters (a la Sentinels) that specialize in a terrain type, and get an entirely new set of animals depending on the terrain they choose (Mountains, Deserts, Forest, etc) isn't a drastic change?

Arboreals (a la Druids) able to choose an environment type other then Forest to imprint, allowing for Mountain, Desert, Beach, etc Arboreals, and allowing them to use portability in the terrain type they chose isn't a drastic change?

Lorekeepers (Runewardens) carving Runes into enemies, allowing for fast constant reafflicting, that is only stopped by applying restoration followed by epidermal? Weapons that are imbued to give epilepsy or chill or burning when they strike, in addition to any toxins they have on them?

Clerics able to smite+sap at the same time, smite + hands at the same time, smite + sear at the same time, and etc. on and on.

Those aren't drastic changes?

The hunter one is most definitly not a drastic change as its purely cosmetic.

But you make it sound like those types of changes are made every other report, instead of the what 2 - 3 years?

I also fail to see how most of those changes make huge improvments to the guilds to make them stronger and stronger and stronger into some sort of arms race as Estarra was implying.

See, you don't fight, and are never active in combat, therefore you will never understand. The changes to Saboteurs are insane, the changes to the Taekyon (Monks) are insane. Classes in Imperian are always getting more powerful, people make note of this all the times on their forums. However, combat has not become unbalanced, there has not been a catastrophic collapse, it has only gotten better.

Edit: Also, their envoy reports are quite often, hardly 2-3 years. They had one shortly before Lusternia had their first, and then they started the most recent one several weeks before we turned ours in here.