Telekinesis has been raped. While it originally had some kick to it, the skillset is absolutely terrible at the moment, and if I weren’t a rogue and had access to a tutor, I would likely switch to Telepathy. I consider myself to be a creative fighter, but honestly, the skillset no longer provides anything at all worthwhile to pursue. Specifically, Telekinesis gained a new ability to “make up” for losing double animated daggers.

New abilities that “make up” for a drastic change should be decent abilities. I’m going to explain below, but I think this totally leaves the subjective realm because mechanically and mathematically, the new ability is worthless. In fact, using it will actually –hinder- you. Allow me to explain:

======+How it started off - too much+======

+ Burst (and by virtue, Heartburst) was overpowered. No matter how effective your curing was, it was not possible to outpace burst vessels without running constantly. In general, methods that require you to flee from combat –constantly- with little to no associated cost are considered op.

+ Double Daggers (which locked channels) allowed Telekinetics to have moderate passive affliction speed. The substratus dagger fired every 4.0 seconds whereas the superstratus dagger fired every 6.0 seconds. These were poison based and checked Resilience. Thus against someone with transcendent Discipline and transcendent Resilience was in general fine. It was excessive against persons who lacked either of these.

======+How it was fixed+======

+ Burst vessels were originally cured only by health potion. This was changed such that burst vessels are cured by health potion –and- sparkleberry.

+ Animate Dagger was removed from the sub/super channels and added to the id channel at 8.0 seconds per hit of the dagger. To clarify: Two daggers firing every 4 and 6 seconds was nerfed to a single dagger that fires every 8 seconds

+ Clot was introducted into Telekinesis. This ability allows you to use a turn where you could otherwise burst vessels and attempt to form a clot. The target must have at least 3 vessels to clot. You can build up to four clots that require for each clot at least 3 vessels (ie. 1 clot at 3 vessels, 2 clots at 6 vessels, 3 clots at 9 vessels, 4 clots at 12 vessels). For each clot, the target cannot heal below the number of vessels required to inflict it.

======+How it has ended up - lackluster+======

+ Heartburst is largely an absolute waste of time. Burst vessel can give 1-3 vessels each time (with an equal chance to give 1, 2, or 3). Thus the average is 2 vessels per burst. This can be done every 4.0 seconds. The time to sip health/eat sparkleberry is roughly the same. Thus, it is possible to -easily- pace bursting with decent curing.

Even so, let's assume NO CURING whatsoever (ie. you have totally shut your target down). At an average of 2 vessels per burst and heartburst requiring 12 burst vessels, it would take 6 bursts at 4.0 seconds -or- ~24 seconds to kill a target with heartburst. This ranks as the slowest "instant kill" ability out there.

How does this rank in with decent curing? I have never been heartbursted since the addition of sparkleberry curing a burst vessel. After trying my damnest, I have killed -1- total persons OOA with Heartburst. In nearly every case in the arena where I've had it happen, I can kill that person in 1/3 of the time with staff damage - even against surged warriors or other titans.

+ A single dagger at 8.0 seconds is absolutely ridiculous. This is one the most extreme nerfs so far in Lusternia.

+ Clot disappoints me. In fact, the very idea of it doesn't make sense at all. Clot like Burst is restricted only to the sub channel. Why would in their right mind waste 4.0 seconds to clot someone when

1) Clot has an affliction specific message.

2) Clot causes a minor but visible amount of bleeding. If any point fighting a Telekinetic you notice you are bleeding over 20 health, you need to eat yarrow. Nothing better than an affliction that screams at you constantly to cure it.

3) Clot requires you -stop- bursting. As such in a 4.0 second time, your target can easily eat yarrow, sip health, eat sparkleberry to cure clot AND undo some of the vessels you have stacked. Even -worse-, clot does not 100% stop burst vessels from being cured. For example, if a target has -9- burst vessels, and I waste my sub channel to clot the target, they can STILL CURE burst vessels down to 3. Thus I would have to clot 3 times in a row (12 seconds... in which time someone can cure 4-6 burst vessels) to hinder burst vessel curing. Of course, I'd also have to keep them at 9 burst vessels too... which isn't likely at all.

======+How do we fix it! (imo)+======

+ The id-dagger should be changed to 4.0 seconds.

+ Clot needs totally revamped -or- removed and something else needs added

Idea to Revamp Clot (these ideas are "all or none" - this ability needs massive help):

+ Clot should be possible on the sub, id, or super channel.

+ A single clot should hinder burst vessel curing totally. 1 clot should hinder curing burst vessels period. It should not only stop curing when 3 or below.

+ Clot should have the same message as burst. Thus if a target sees him or herself hit with the burst message more than once in 4.0 seconds, they know to eat yarrow - but it isn't painfully obvious.

+ Clots shouldn't cause any bleeding.

I think these four changes -might- make Telekinesis again viable. At the moment, however, it is terrible.

Agreed.

You know that burst vessels cause small but visible, constant bleeding too?

If you ask me, applying all these changes might make Telekinesis too powerful. But some should be applied (specifically, lowering the dagger hit time to 4 seconds and about 1 or 2 out of 4 suggested clot changes). This specialisation seems to be a bit weak now.

How does telekinesis in its current form compare to other tertiary skillsets? With the exception of runes, hexes and tarot... I would still say it is near equal to the usefulness of quite a few.

I do agree some small (ie, not what you've listed) tweaks could be applied to telekinesis, but I'm not sure that is so much different from other skillsets.

Athana did come up with a nice quite creative way to get the heartburst off, heartburst is still viable you just have to work at it now as opposed to just straight up bursting, the daggers do seem a bit poor though 6 seconds would probally make it useful to use and clot is useless without illusions or hiding it but you can hide the clot anyway with blackout.

Heartburst is still doable, as Forren has proven.

I agree the dagger should go to 4 seconds.

The clot changes you suggest are far too good. Between clot stopping vessel cures, and throatlock stopping eating, I imagine people would be falling pretty fast, though I've never been good at pondering the effects of psionics changes.

Tarot >>> Telekinesis for guardian combat.
Hexes >>> Telekinesis for wiccan combat.

Runes just needs help in general.

I don't agree with all the changes Narsrim suggests. Heartburst is possible to pull off, and I do it quite regularly. However, it takes a good deal of work and illusions, combined with abilities like bubble and stoneflesh, to hold someone in your demesne til they drop.

Clot on any channel but sub would be too powerful. It should be changed to do up to however many vessels it can hold at once. (3 vessels, 1, 6, 2, 9, 3, 12, 4) This would make it harder to cure a currently insta-curable skill. You should not be able to cure til all of the clots are cured.

I thought the dagger 8 second thing was a bug.


Umm yeah I think clot is ok as is right now, especially combined with other telekinetic skills. But I agree that the dagger is way to slow. And it seems we are back to nerfing skills because not all people are trans disicipline (like me) and in doing so it is hindering high end combat.

Now, I have heard this so many times, but never from a divine, so can someone tell me if this is true... ALL SKILLS ARE EVENED OUT AT OMNITRANS.

If so and that is the practice, then I am not sure why the daggers got nerfed in the first place... The venoms used on the daggers could have been changed. But I dunno...

Thank you.

Most of the reason was because of mantakaya locks. I still say that the problem was with focus body, not the venom itself. Warriors can whore mantakaya just like we used to be able to.

Clot can actually be fairly easy to detect.

Yeah, telekinesis is really a pretty lousy skillset right now. I sure wouldn't use it if I were still a mage.

Because the entire forum community seemed to think they were too powerful (including me). I thought they needed nerfing a little, but the way they have been nerfed - which must have just been the easiest admin option - has over nerfed em.

Regardless of what happens, I'll stick to telekinesis just for the sheer coolness of the concept. My character can fling you throw a wall without moving a muscle. However, I really think clot needs help.

Depending on what other changes went in, clot would be ok on Sub and Super, since if you're using it on super, then you can't hide it in choke. That means that they can just instantly cure it. I still don't think I'd really use it on Super, but it wouldn't be overpowered, as far as I can tell.

I also like the idea of clot maxing itself out (4 clots at 12 vessels). Combined, I could see choke/bursting up to 9-10 vessels and then burst/clotting the last couple up to 12. Even though the message wouldn't be hidden, it would still serve a purpose. As it is, most people I've been sparring (and granted, I'm still learning) just diagnose after a choke anyway, so it's almost impossible to stick clot against anyone after the first time.


I never used the dual daggers since I only just started trying to get serious about combat, so the 8.Id dagger doesn't seem quite as bad to me relative to others, but I think it could stand being at 4/6 seconds.

I have killed many a persons with newbie kick, thus the idea that "you can still kill with it" is a bit moot. On a target who lacks a decent system, anything that can achieve a kill state will kill - but that in no way relates to the viability of the skillset.

====+====

At the moment, I consider Telekinesis to be weaker than Dreaming and Telepathy. Why? Telepathy needs no real explanation - it is just downright better atm. Dreamweaving at least provides deepsleep/passive motes. As i said earlier, anyone who I kill using Telekinesis, I can kill -much- faster with damage. Thus, being able to have them falling asleep constantly and some passive afflictions (alongside a rather sexy active blackout) would be far better than a skillset I don't even waste my time using.

As far as other skillsets go, you cannot compare Telekinesis to Tarot, Hexes, etc. Any sort of attempt to draw such a parallel is idiotic because you have to look at how Telekinesis works for Mages.



I'm fully aware. Of course, I doubt you are aware that a burst vessels causes around 12 bleeding per vessel whereas a clot causes over 50. Thus it is painfully obvious when you do and do not have clots - and even if you screwed up and accidently ate yarrow - what does it matter? It isn't like Telekinetic mages consume herb balance for anything else.

Whatever failings it has, it's countered to some degree by insane skills such as barrier.

And forcefield.

Its good for bashing, and for barrier. I never liked it that much for combat.

To explain my position further, I don't think heartburst with the sparkleberry addition was widely accepted as pointless. We've had it for months now, and I am quite sure in that time it has been used effectively in combination with other abilities. It's not easily obtained at all, clearly its a difficult kill to pull off, but I think that is appropriate. The clot addition did nothing to detract from this kill, and instead -improved- it. Did it improve it a lot? Probably not, but so far a few people on these forums have said they can see strategies where it would be useful. I agree the clot ability could possibly be moved to one of the other channels, but in functionality it doesn't seem necessary to change.

As for daggers, while I am aware you had absolutely no problem with dual mantakaya poisons before, I think it is a good change that purely passive poison delivery is no longer a winning strategy in telekinetics - I think the other abilities in the skillset are enough without accessing the full spectrum of poisons with above average delivery. I also thought id channel was supposed to cycle at 4 seconds while you had full ego, increasing in time as you lost more. It sounds like a bug that the daggers are locked at 8 seconds, has anyone been able to confirm if this is intended or not?

I also reject your assertion that telekinesis as a whole is worthless. Damage reduction, the ability to use ego as a prime 'health' stat so charismatic races can become extremely tanky, one of the most powerful and effective hindering abilities in existence, two afflictions that can stack focus body cures, active blackout, a difficult instakill, and targetted defense stripping are all still included in this tertiary skillset. Now, there are definitely some abilities that need tweaking - pyre is one that I've never understood the use for, and sweat seems fairly unhelpful unless you can use a sweat/throatlock/breakarm combo, which I doubt. But I think it is less than honest to say it is worthless as a whole.

The last point I'll make is something that was ruled out for psionics in general, and yet it should not be overlooked: hindering. Blindness, impalement, peace and sprawled prevent a psionicists offense. Other classes must also face entanglement, transfixion, clamp, ropes, shackles, crucifixion, paralysis, broken arms, and in some cases clumsiness, which all hinder their offense until cured. In this list, it is easy to see which is going to be the most readily achieved and stacked against a target. If psionicists are harder to hinder in offense, like dreamweavers, then it seems reasonable their offense will be less because of it. I'm not sure that's true in the case of telepathy, and the triple-action possibilities make simple comparisons difficult, but it is definitely something to keep in mind.

I love how people who aren't active combatants (in fact would generally rank far below average) love to tell us in Lusternia what is and is not a viable strategy.

Case in point: "Telekinetics can stack 2 focus body cures"

Reality: For 6 seconds off channel balance, I can give someone leglock/throatlock at the same time. Whoo!

Can you not stack two focus body cures? Is it impossible to have leglock, throatlock and paralysis afflictions at the same time? No, it's not. So therefore you can stack two focus body cures, which is all I said. I didn't say it was a perfect, easy combat strategy, so don't twist my words.

I love how people who are active 'elite' combatants love to ignore what's convenient for them personally, and declare in broad sweeping statements that their own skills are rubbish and undeniably in drastic need of improvement.

I also love how those same 'elite' combatants generally dismiss other points of view with purely ad hominen reasoning.

For the record, both leglock and throatlock are insanely nice in group combat. Telekinetics are quite strong in such. /should-be-obvious-comment