But you wouldn't know where they're coming from - the sky is sorta all over the place.

Of course it's true. How many times have you been hit by rage in the last few months? 1? 2? I know I haven't been hit by terror for months and months and months and if anyone would be, I would be.

Rage and terror aren't utterly useless, just rare enough that when they do work non-trivially, it's a special event, not something that makes tripleflash any less overpowered.

It's generally "up." Unless Sojiro is around.

Also, you know exactly where it's coming from-- the *exact same place* as the last one. After all, they have to set up a new Rage/Terror coven if they move.

Glom used Terror (with flooding) to win Wildnodes like a month ago. A month and a half possibly. There was a Rage coven -yesterday- during the Avatar raids. Worked quite well, too.


@ Xenthos: Oh, so you're going to prepare to dodge every single direction in the sky? Yea, that's what I thought.

Did you not bother to read my post? Just maybe?

"Also, you know exactly where it's coming from-- the *exact same place* as the last one. After all, they have to set up a new Rage/Terror coven if they move."

Edit: As I've been asked if I'm defending tripleflash and this change: No, I'm not. I am, however, disputing the somewhat shoddy logic being presented!

Except that still doesn't work. I mean, sure the Coven could be north, northeast, southeast, east of me, but then what? The moonburst is going to come flying out of the sky, not go west, northwest, southwest, south.

It either 1) Comes straight down from the moon, or 2) Comes from the direction of the person who cast it. Given the message of it beaming out of their hand... it is being directed towards you from a distance. There's no "Hey, I'm going to make it loop around the area twice and zap the person's ankle!" It's like a long-distance arrow arcing towards its target.

And the coven can't be in all those directions! It can only be one direction. The attack's coming from there.

1. Moon is big. It's range is the sky. My point stands.

2. It's a magical arrow that -can- loop around twice and go for your ankles. I mean, it goes through trees and can fly across the Basin (at times). Assume that the next time you walk outside, someone in Russia is aiming an arrow at you (also assume that such is possible). Now, try to dodge it. Alternatively, assume that someone two blocks away is aiming an arrow at you.

First one? Probably not. If, however, they're aiming 5 arrows at me and there's a bit of time in between them-- I sure as heck can dodge the rest! "Hey, the first one came from there... time to find cover (invoke shield/go indoors)". This sort of thing is done quite often against artillery from the 'local area'.

Invoking shield/going indoors = cover = works fine.

Tripleflash/dodging = relying on predicting where the attack will come, but not actually concealing yourself = does not work fine.

My point stands!

No, it doesn't. It being changed for "balance reasons" would be a point that stands, but this one doesn't-- because, well, if you're able to dodge an attack knowing where it's coming from, you're able to dodge an attack when you know where it's coming from.

For what seems to be mechanics reasons, it was coded so that distance attacks just all occur the same way, despite the fact that an intelligent character could easily put a few pieces of information together to figure out where future attacks are coming from based on the last ones. That's fine, but saying that someone with very fast reflexes and spending 10p to speed up those reflexes couldn't dodge when they have gained details on the attack patterns is incorrect.

Just not easy to code. And definitely not worth it.

I am skipping some pages but heres some notes in case anyone didnt cover em.

1) Stun isnt taken from blanknote and probably wont be

2) The glamours changes were not what we envoyed, they are the admins solution to them

3) Monks got slowed down but actually afflict better than 'speed classes' if you include venoms and all (then again BC and BM can too.. wounds + venoms)

But that's just it - an acrobat would not be able to predict the attack patterns when the person is standing several rooms away. There are two possible theories on how moonburst from a Rage coven works:

1. They invoke the power of Moon, allowing their bursts of magic to come raining down from the sky. In this case, it could come from any direction -and- from any person in the coven; an acrobat knowing the general direction of his enemies would gain no advantage to dodging because the attacks are raining down from the sky.

2. The moonburst comes flying in from the direction of the person (much like, as you said, a long-range arrow). Even then, the acrobat would not know which of his enemies was going to attack next (from Moonie 1 to Moonie 5), as all he sees is a large burst of magical energy. Secondly, he would not be able to study the movement patterns of his opponents to be able to predict the correct next attack. An acrobat dodges my axe because he realizes that when my rarm moves a certain way and my larm moves another certain way, my axe is coming for his head - similar dodging cannot be done at range, and especially not against a magical attack.

Even if Moonie 1's moonburst comes from the northeast, how is the acrobat going to predict a) when the next attack is going to strike; B) which bodypart the next attack is going to strike. Also consider how much time an acrobat has between Moonie 1 changing the words and the moonburst blasting away him away.

Hence why Improved Evasion is an OP Rogue/Monk skill.

Oh, wait. Wrong game.

Given that we don't know all the details here, it's hard to argue realism. But here's a thought. If the attack is instantaneous... like a bolt of lightning or such, then there's just no dodging. It happens so fast that there's no reaction time at all. But regardless of where it comes from, if it's slow enough to dodge and there's this big bright blast of energy or whatnot hurtling through the air... yeah, I'd say you can see it coming and try to move your body out of the way. Of course, blindness should be a way to curtail dodging.

Though if we want to promote realism, a lot of skills need changed. Lots.

Can't you just INVOKE CIRCLE to stop a Rage coven? Or, like, go indoors? Tripleflash != your solution to all your problems.

And, I agree with Salvation that you can't see the moonburst coming. With the person in the room, you could see them "building up" a spell to be cast in your direction, perhaps as someone rolling their hands together and a ball of light forms or raising their arms high to call down the moon's light (however it works). You cannot see it being prepared from afar, however.

Indeed you can.

First of all, that does not mean that we should ignore all realism and simply state, "But skill x isn't realistic!" Rather, we should work on incorporating as much realism in various skills and abilities as possible.

(Second of all, I'm arguing with Xenny for the sake of arguing with Xenny.)

This moonburst aiming stuff is easily a contender for most inane discussion on an otherwise serious topic we've had in a long time. The way Synl's taking it as seriously as he is is pretty funny given his comments on other threads too.

To 1) Read the Moonburst messages for a Rage coven.
2) Same way you can tell where a same-room Moonburst is coming from if you're "facing away" from the Wiccan (though, again, this is likely another mechanics thing that's not actually implemented because it's more coding than it'd be worth). Moonburst from a distance is just a "long-range arrow". It'll have a flightpath, and all of them will come from the exact same place. Knowing that, you've got plenty of time to start working on predictions.

To Shiri: Don't you love discussing how skills work, from an RP standpoint?

How have you determined that the burst of magical energy follows a single flightpath? That is, how do you know if Moonie 1's moonburst will follow the same trajectory as Moonie 2's mooburst? They may be long-range ranged attacks, but they are also magical in nature (it's a burst of magical energy, after all!) - to group them with everyday arrows and say, "Well, of course they can only be cast in a specific pattern and cannot be aimed at various targets." is incorrect.

Furthermore, if moonbursts are indeed arrows, then it would imply they are heat-seeking arrows. A Rage coven standing on the other side of Faethorn manages to hit Synl every single time with their moonbursts, despite Synl quite obviously standing far away and underneath a lot of trees. As such, it would imply that magical energy must always hit its intended target - either acrobats should not be able to dodge moonbursts at all, or everyone should have a chance of dodging moonbursts (or rather, the moonburst missing).