ANNOUNCE NEWS #1119
Date: 6/23/2008 at 19:51
From: Estarra, the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Ecology Updates

Ecology Update
Ecology has been given a special review and ended up undergoing a pretty
major update. You can look for these changes:

- Charms have been giving a very large upgrade for the amount of damage
they can potentially absorb.
- Hillsmudge - the delay in the mud affliction is now much stronger .
- Finsfetish can now use mantakaya and calcise.
- Female ecologists in Serenwilde will get a vixen familiar instead of a
fox.
- FetishArmour - Ecologist can use their fetish to meld with their
animal companion, making the animal invulnerable (but of course you give
up your fetish).
- SmudgeDrop - animal familiars can drop smudges.
- FamiliarSting - Armoured familiars can do poison attacks.
- FamiliarBerserk - Armoured animal familiars can do poison attacks at
double speed.
- FamiliarGuard - Armoured familiars can attempt to block attacks.
- SnakeBane - A timed curse that makes the target more susceptible to
poisons.
- BatBane - A timed curse that increases damage music attacks as well as
egovice,manabar,powerspike. Also increases earache time, lasts 60
seconds.
- HerbBane - A timed curse that has a chance of making eaten herbs give
ego and mana damage instead of curing.

Penned by My hand on the 14th of Juliary, in the year 209 CE.

BatBane I'm iffy about. Why would you put a bard-specific skill in ecology? Moreover, why would you make that skill a damage skill?

Presumably to give Harbingers and Spiritsingers at least some small motivation to take Ecology over Glamours.

Presumably to give Harbingers and Spiritsingers at least some small motivation to take Ecology over Glamours.

Otherwise, the things that the admin put in that didn't come from the envoys look entirely more awesome than our ideas.

Thanks! To pat myself on the back, I'm usually the one who ends up designing most skills (for better or worse!), and in this case, I predominantly redesigned necroscream, wildarrane and ecology. (Necroscream, however, we ended up using more from the special reports than the others.) I do like to consider myself one of the top designers around, at least when it comes to creativity, innovation, thinking outside of the box, etc. That said, if we ever do discover someone else who is good at skill design, you can be sure we'll be all over him or her like bees over honey! As the envoys could tell you, design is a lot harder than many may think.

That or druids a skill that is entirely useless unless they group with a bard?

That or druids a skill that is entirely useless unless they group with a bard?

Thanks! To pat myself on the back, I'm usually the one who ends up designing most skills (for better or worse!), and in this case, I predominantly redesigned necroscream, wildarrane and ecology. (Necroscream, however, we ended up using more from the special reports than the others.) I do like to consider myself one of the top designers around, at least when it comes to creativity, innovation, thinking outside of the box, etc. That said, if we ever do discover someone else who is good at skill design, you can be sure we'll be all over him or her like bees over honey! As the envoys could tell you, design is a lot harder than many may think.

- Charms have been giving a very large upgrade for the amount of damage
they can potentially absorb.

- FetishArmour - Ecologist can use their fetish to meld with their
animal companion, making the animal invulnerable (but of course you give
up your fetish).

- FamiliarSting - Armoured familiars can do poison attacks.

- SnakeBane - A timed curse that makes the target more susceptible to
poisons.
- BatBane - A timed curse that increases damage music attacks as well as
egovice,manabar,powerspike. Also increases earache time, lasts 60
seconds.
- HerbBane - A timed curse that has a chance of making eaten herbs give
ego and mana damage instead of curing.

The stings, I dunno, I don't have a familiar yet though I'm an ecologist. Snakebane is probably to deal with knight immunity I would think. Hopefully there's messages for when they wear off so that I don't have to make a timer.

Stings... are not bad, 3 power for 5 poisons which are shruggable (at trans resilience I was shrugging 4/5, with snakebane on some people they were still shrugging 4/5) is kind of meh, but it helps.

Snakebane... see above. There are no messages for the banes wearing off.

Familiarberserk... basically rushing for familiars, another 6 power skill, almost useless given the speed that the familiar stings at to begin with.

So far the nicest features IMO are fetisharmour, familiarguard (doesn't work against denizens, may just be a bug... hope that's the case) and the smudge delivery.

Though I do love all the changes.

edit: had the powercost on berserk wrong. fixed

More info on stings?