Right now Druids have no protection at all from Wisp either. In fact it is safer for me to ask an aquamancer to meld instead of melding myself.

As far as the saplings are concerned, in group engagements as Daevos put it, any BT can mulch in one hit on any size tree. I don't think saplings should be taking 7 hits though, so don't think I am defending that, but they were always said to take 1 - 2 hits, more if in natural forest.

Demesne Summon is an inherent advantage over Druids by the way. Druids have no such ability period. We can get a wiccan to wisp for us, if the timing is good enough. However, Mages compared to Druids come out ahead, and always have. I am not going into a "their demesne is stronger than our demesne." thing here as I think the changes to druids with Ecology helped quite a bit, but you can't deny the fact that mages are superior to druids.

Except classes are not balanced based upon groups.

Why are we comparing wisp and demense summon? Druids can't wisp. Mages can summon enemies in their demense. A druid requires a Moondancer that can wisp. Wisp is crazy right now, we all know. This has nothing to do with the sapling argument. It takes a few chops. No big deal.

Raw hindering is also a concern. Druids have swarm/briars. Geomancers have stun, prone, duststorm, stonewalls, and rubble (which doesn't hinder them). Aqumancers have deluge, needle rain (strips waterwalk), stun, prone, etc.

*sigh* Oookay:
Saplings only last 1 hour in a druid demesne not in natural forest.

Only saplings that grow for two IG years and become mature trees give wood, depending on their age.

So, it helps absolutly nothing to chop saplings, and mature trees of course take longer to chop down.

EDIT: ugh answered after i asked again

Ashteru just told you. Saplings don't provide wood. only mature trees do.

Oh yeah, and demesne summon isn't THAT big of an advantage.

Mages have summon and travel, both cost power.
Druids have as counter flow, a better travel with no powercost.


I really don't think demesnesummon is THAT good...sure, you can get them deeper into your demesne, but as a Druid, I wouldn't really want that anyway.

Ashteru,

I'm going to give you a crash course in combat tactics. Let's assume you are Munsia. You are going to raid Angkrag. I am Geomancer-X, I have a meld on Angkrag.

Would it be better if I traveled to you in my meld -or- would it be better to summon you to a location of my choice where I have the power to manipulate the environment such as a one room exit with dust storm that is mage locked? I'm sorry to tell you but being able to summon is a HUGE advantage. HUGE. HUGE. HUGE. Without demesne summon, you would have almost no worries.

For druids, this wouldn't be as effective (beause druid demesne are weaker and do not hinder), but it would still have similar potential. Being able to summon someone into the depth of your demense from an edge is very nice.

As a druid if I could demesne summon I would love it. I was really hoping pathtwist would get some much needed changes. The skill is garbage. The coders should even be able to look at the amount of times that code has been accessed and see that in a year the skill has had what... 50 calls? and 30 of those I bet were testing it when the change happened. Easy way to tell if something is crap is look at how many times that section of code is called. If it is never used, then obviously there is something needing to be changed.

Anyways, I was going to say.. druids having demesne summon.. The ability to bring someone to a room where I have set up specifically a killing zone is a great thing. It means they are fighting on my terms, not me fighting on their terms in my demesne.

What's amusing is all of the crying over an unstoppable wisp when we've had to deal with unstoppable demense summon, relying on resistances only. I still want wisp changed back so... too rah loooo.

I vote we give druids demesne summon and change willowisp to have a passive combat effect like... blindness, hypersomnia, or clumsy (kinda like spiders in the blacktalon demesne). God forbid Munsia have to waste power to summon while I just ready Hexes and kill.

EDIT:

After thinking about this, I'd be sooooo damn happy if this happened. I want a battle wisp!

I would like Pathtwist changed to be targetted from a distance, like demesne summon and not stopped by every skill out there other than walking. If you move under your own steam, then pathtwist should affect you.

I know that it's a huge advantage for Mages, and I only said as a Druid, I don't find it nearly as usefull. It depends hugely on the third skill you picked, as a Dreamweaver, I'd for example prefer to get as close to him as possible, whereas as Ecologist, berserkerfetishing poisons from afar could be as good.

It's just my oppinion after all, and if pathtwist gets changed to summon, that won't affect me anyway, so...

This is probably a slight hijack but to compare demesne summon and wisp. But I want to give a practical example of their uses.

Lets say we have two raiders, both equally skilled warriors as well as equally reckless. They both decide to raid two different distorted mining villages. Each held by a different organization.

Now the first raider ghosts past the guards using quick manuevers to avoid being revealed by distort at a dangerous location. Then moves quickly into the heart of the mine, forgoing the use of monoliths simply because they no longer assist against wisp. He also had to neglect to distort the planar gate in the village, since it was under heavy guard. But since the organization that he was about to attack had absolutely no druids around, he naively thinks it'll be fine anyway. Starting his assault, he quickly slashed through a miner, before he reached down to skillfully hoist the dead corpse onto his shoulders. And then as he was recovering his balance, he suddenly noticed a strange ball of light near his head, and felt himself drawn powerfully into a large group of guards. Ah, alas, his raid was ended so quickly, and so was his life.

Now the second raider assaults the other village, using sprint to bypass the guards skillfully. Then also moves quickly into the heart of the mine, forgoing the use of monoliths simply because they have never assisted against demesne summon. He also had to neglect to destroying the enchanted painting in the village, since it was too time consuming and under heavy guard. He was confident of his chance of success though, since he noticed that the organization he was about to attack had absolutely no mages around. Starting his assault, he quickly slashed through a miner, before he reached down to skillfully hoist the dead corpse onto his shoulders. And then as he was recovering his balance, he suddenly heard the sound of footsteps up above, and realized that it was time to go. Sprinting quickly despite the heavy weight of the miner, he dashed pass a single Nihilist, as he moved to the gate. Only to find it barred against him, but with a quick manuever he opened the gate, and dashed out, while only withstanding a few blows from the various guards there. Sweet sweet success.

In both situations, it's assumed that the village's environment will reflect the organization that held them.

or wisp terrain to terrain not just forest to forest (that makes sense to me)

it's one of the highest wiccan skills that is completely useless outside of a forest and now same area :'( but oh well, guess if i wanted to fight druids i'd be a mage

You are comparing a Wiccan to a Nihilist in this case. Wtf does that have to do with Druids compared to Mages? I mean seriously, this is the most off the wall example I have ever seen.

What stopped the Nihilist from casting an icewall somewhere to stop the sprinting or doing something as obvious as closing the damn door to the village?

Yeah....never going into the same area as a wiccan anymore if that happens...





And guys, Daevos posted hypothetical scenarios...there would be endless things to say about them, don't criticise Nihilist02 for being dumb, he's just a cipher.

Good stories.. Now, why wouldn't the first raider have heard any footsteps or signs of resistance? Yes, a moondancer can wisp a target into guards provided the raider hadn't taken proper precautions..such as tainting the area. They were reckless. It's good that you added that. Reckless people DIE!

And also, most warriors can sprint.

Oh and another point. Up until very recently, monoliths stopped wisp. Nothing ever stopped demense summon. Sorry for being redundant, but that's just how it was. Greatpentagram is also very effective when raiding as evidenced by a Mag/Glom raiding group some time back. You see. Raiding the SW isn't as difficult as most people (Thorgal!) claimed it was.

The second raider could have leapt then, but I just felt like giving that example. To show that wisp is more powerful then demesne summon. Unless you want to compare a raided going into a melded village with a druid versus a mage. But if I understand pathtwist right, the druid could put their center at the guards, and when the person attempts to escape the village they they will be pulled back in and right into the guards.