I wasn't saying any class was better just that absolve is the best mana kill and listing what it needs for others clarification.

But seeing as you asked its easier for a celestine to get half mana through straight mana drain due to quickening compared to a moondancer. The mana drain is fairly equal, some difference but not a lot, but quickening allows celestines to have a better straight mana drain than moondancers even when counting in banshee. The straight mana drain comes out slightly in the celestines favour.

Celestines can achieve an easier lock to begin with, aeon plus passive repeating anorexia, compared to a moondancers inital lock which requires active afflictions plus aeon. I'd say moondancers have a slight advantage in being able to put you to sleep faster than celestines and having a better aeon type. Its passive repeating anorexia vs better active sleep + passive sleep + better aeon type. Moondancers probally come out better in that aspect.

I'd say celestines and moondancers are able to absolve/toadcurse equally as well but then moondancers have to spend a few moments stomping as well and as you said you must consider other facts such as the celestines having different instakills like soulless among others.

I was just comparing mana based instakills.

Toadcurse should be easier to pull than absolve for celestines you -do- have to look at other skills to find a balance with it...

Celestines: Aeon with anorexia.. not that great 3 seconds to cure and defend against. Best tactic is to try to stall out on ails try for inqui.. or get a soulless after vapors... absolve is easy if they quicken and go for takedown.

Moondancers: Passive sleep AND POOKA.. do you realize how nasty that pooka is? Sure deaf stops it but not everyone has deaf when they walk around. Ignoring pooka as hard as it is.. pixie crone banshee brownie.. did I forgot anything that is constantly useful? Oh the fae that stop other loyals from attacking.. Angel peaced.. there ya go.. you can doublewhammy sleep when you need.. use that timed right before pixie and ouch.. sleep.. stick the aeon rather fast.. let pixie continue.. vines if you want... or spring to strip defenses or whatever you feel like.. then lash them as the fae do lots of the work...

The biggest advantage guardians get is quickening.. Yet notice we arent talked about all over the place on it for being OP.. because its not.. people stall against it ALL THE TIME.. if you get them to stop running and slow them up you can get the toadcurse.. and yes icewalls do count as stopping it... absolve is a bit harder.. if you stall the quickening it goes slowly.. and that is assuming you dont hinder them in the first place.

However I want it noted I am not aiming to attack anyone as a person. But Moondancers have it GOOD. Only ones with better is.. well.. shadowdancers.. (succumb and choke ftw!) when more people are in glomdoring then their skills will be looked at.. choke and succumb with sleep hexes and fae is a MONSTER. Nil Diamante displayed you can take GROUPS alone if you know what you are doing.... helps you can order all the fae to attack with entourage though



But to be fair they DO have more kill methods.. however as limited as it may be argued... covens OWN... I wish the Nihilists had a coven power.. course also wish I could try a time instakill... like judgement.. but then again I have lots of skill ideas. They just dont tend to get used sadly... working on a in between one for crucify to use before you might get sacrifice.... as well as ideas for ressing for necro.. still screwy necromancy has 2 skills that deal with the dead.. one of which is lich.. and celest has two as well.. both actually with full use. Then again I love my self ress. Its a joyous thing..

Try what I did sit back and look at the other guilds.. think about their skills.. you will be happier if you do it right.. you have resurgem available.. what does Glomdoring have? Can Celest bring someone back as easily (pointed bad example:P)? What about Magnagora? If you look at it from the right angle you can find that your arent as bad as you seemed.. I have a few threads in here about Nihilists and possible improvements.. yet can you note the change I underwent? From we need work to.. what do others think might help a bit.. and admitted more than once we dont have problems killin when we get things working as we want.. heck I get a kick out of trying to get sacrifice to work... and that instakill takes forever and uses 10 power for just activation.. takes more for scourge and all that.. working on cutting the time and all...

Anyway I hope that gives some enlightenment to things

And yes I did edit this post.. was edited before any replies in case osmeone replied as I edited.

Did they change it so that nymph is worth something in PvP, or do you just not have a trigger for it?

It can be... if target is in aeon... and being slept and all.. they have to issue the command to attack for it to not have helped.

Then again thats a delay.. so that would help too in theory.

You have a lot of good ponits that I would agree with. Still, I think you overlooked a few things. First, pooka can be very nice, but only if you are very good and know what to do with it, and your target does not know well how to deal with it. Passive sleep is only useful if you use it with sleep hexes, if you're going for anything else it doesn't help at all. Also, wasn't pixie timing randomized with the nymph? I could be wrong, but I always had trouble timing any sleep hexes with pixie. Active aeon on a relatively short balance is basically what makes Moondancers good - without it, none of the other skills would be nearly as useful.

I would say that in most cases, guardians can drain mana more quickly, but they don't have quite as much afflicting and stalling power as a moondancer -with hexes-. A moondancer with any other specialization will very quickly lose out to a celestine, regardless of the specs. The way I always got kills as a moonie was to afflict and aeon the person up so badly that I could take my time setting icewalls and draining mana without having to worry about it. Guardians can't do QUITE as well in that regard, but well enough that I would say that absolve is a relatively easy instakill for them to pull off.

EDIT: It should also be noted that because toadcurse is really the only viable kill for wiccans, your target always knows exactly what you're going for. This gives them a pretty good advantage, since they can anticipate your moves. The same isn't true for guardians, who have a few options available to them - so, even though it might be easier for the moondancer to drain mana, it's also easier for the target to see it coming and try to avoid it.

In the end, I think toads should be unable to dodge. Still, it shouldn't be an issue - if you set it up correctly, your toad shouldn't be able to get away anyway.

True celestines do have easier instakills than absolve, despite the fact that absolve is a very good instakill. Aeon and anorexia is a nice combination, it is cureable but theres more you can do offensivly to help it out so to speak, Aeon and sleep is much more avoidable and unless your able to strip kafe aeon/sleep is just as easily cureable as aeon/anorexia. As I said guardians and wiccans probally have about the same ability to get absolve/toadcurse with a few advantages in different areas.

I agree that pooka needs changing though, you shouldn't be able to force power skills or focus spirit, doing stuff like that makes it overpowered and it's why you won't see many people doing it but I still think they should make them unforceable anyway just to stop the odd one or two who still do them.



Ya if you don't shield or web quickening will kill you most of the time, it isn't overpowered or anything because it is so easily hindered, you have to have your target a bit locked up before there's any point of quickening against most good folk, unless your just doing it to buy yourself some time force them on the defence. I'm not sure what you mean by the icewalls and absolve being a bit harder, icewalls are a neutralish action they can be taken down as fast as they are put up but I'm still not sure what you mean?



Great thing about choke is most people don't learn to fight in it, remember choke is as effective for both parties and you could easily turn choke around on diamante with the right tatics. Look at this log for an example I still think succumb needs a bigger tweak to do more against trans magic and much less against inept though. I used to kill thoros fairly easily in choke till he started to get better in it then he could stand there and do worse afflictions to me than I could to him, your best bet is to avoid the shadow'd rooms or be prepared to hit them as soon as they drop choke, they have a fairly decent equi time when it drops and you can use that to your advantage to get the first hit in, keep them webbed maby with shackles for you and throw in disfigure if you get the opportunity.

The first hit is pretty much the most important thing in a choke if you do it right.

You can still recover though, and theres a lot of skills you can do prone as well telepathic mages are amazing in choke. Plus and demense is great with choke as well.

A wiccan with a full entourage and six hexes out, in choke, is incredibly scary. You CAN recover, but it's not very likely unless you're really good. Even then, I'd be aiming to get the hell out and fight somewhere else.

NPCs should be slowed in choke, too. That would almost make it balanced then. Passive attacks + choke > any combat system.

I'd be happy with that as long as demensces, fae, deamons and angels were all slowed as well.

Slow everything or nothing at all, I say!

Choke's fine if you can tumble before you die.

Of course, if the shadowdancer is a hexe and is ready to doublewhammy with sleep, you can't.

Choke worked really well for you in this case, but mostly because Diamante wasn't really ready for you. It's bad for group fights, since he has to change targets, re-order his fae, re-draw hexes, etc. in choke to prepare. One-on-one, if he's prepared, you die.

Theoretically, you can just get awake after a sleep double before they can strip kafe in choke, at which point you tumble. Otherwise, you go in prepared with metawake up.

A skilled SD can assure a kill unless you have a very fast and well timed tumble immediately following choke, period.

Or unless you do the clever thing and hit them with lots of hexes, very quickly.

Because I can hex, clearly. Warriors are hit the hardest by choke, and against a skilled SD the only option is a fast tumble unless you are confident you can pull a slitlock or kill in one more hit (warriors are luck based, comment was made as a joke).

Even with a slitlock, won't you die first?

to malarious comment about wiccans, we're very easy to stop. at best we can have 12 hexes in a room. a guardian only runs out of tarot cards if they're not prepared with them. at normal we have about 6 hexes. it's very easy to get out of these with a simple move Narsrim showed me that completely uses up the hexes and then what. Wiccans have to redraw them and in that time at least moondancers have little options, reading a cursing scroll takes a bit and we've got waning and drawing hexes which take time on its own or lashing which isn't useful unless they're pinned. the Shadowdancers could use succumb though and their fae are better for the offense, but still. it's very easy to slow down a wiccan one on one and then leave them on defense once their hexes are gone