That's a lock to stick aeon, so my point kind of stands.

I thought my vague stab was better then no explanation,

I wondered the same thing. I think it's the way the existing classes are designed.

Well, everyone shrugs poisons here, whereas only a few people do in the other games. I get the feeling that we also have a lot more masked attacks and attacks with a random component... I'm wondering if things like the number of multiply-cured afflictions, the availability of healing abilities, and differences in balances make strictly balance-stacking affliction classes non-viable. (I don't have any combat experience in the other games.)

We do have more masked and random attacks. Everything there seems to be very precise, which actually makes it more flexible because you don't end up with attacks that just end up better. Example: most hex afflictions are totally useless here because everyone's curing has to be amplified to cope with some of the insane offences we can get here. Think of something like claustrophobia or vertigo. Systems cure them more out of habit than anything else. Guilds have methods of sticking afflictions, they don't really overload them: imagine a druid without sap or a wiccan without aeon/choke trying to afflict anything.

A finesse affliction class wouldn't really make sense with the power system. How could you assign a powercost to dstab?

Probably the same way you assign power costs to telepathy: the afflictions are free, and you have an instakill that costs power. Or really nice defences that cost power, or a brief speed enhancement that costs power, etc... The difference would be that telepathy afflictions are slow and masked, and dstab afflictions could be fast and unmasked, requiring good stacking and good use of illusions to stick.


I'm not sure I get the example. When you say "everyone's curing has to be amplified", do you mean that there are more multiple cures and more healing abilities available to people? The point of administering something like claustrophobia or vertigo is because those afflictions have an equal chance to be cured compared to more dangerous afflictions with the same cure, or compared to a defence removed by the same cure. Why would there be a difference in how you prioritise their curing here compared to the other games? This sort of thing has actually been minimised in Lusternia: I've been told that coltsfoot used to cure insomnia randomly, whereas now it only does so if you have no other coltsfoot-curable afflictions; there was the recent change to myrtle not to cure deafness if you have truehearing or blindness if you have sixthsense.

You can probably ignore most of my post, it's pretty horribly thought out now that I look at it properly.

Erm, so as not to derail too badly:

It doesn't, though. Shamarah's a better fighter than I despite the fact that I have a quite good system and he doesn't. Automatic curing lets you focus on watching what your opponent's doing, whether afflictions are sticking, and think about what to do next. For me, it makes things more interesting than the desperate scramble to keep on top of afflictions. Top fighters should be able to kill you if you stand there and cure perfectly; your offence - slowing down an opponent - is usually an integral part of staying alive, and the better fighters who cure manually probably have a very strong offence. (Krellan's even said this before.)

@Sham: Aren't linear triggers a liability in aeon/sap, or do you have checks for that?

I know for sap and choke I just always had my system take a break for a bit and picked it up manually, then reengaged it when it was cured.

Dstab here would probably have two power, judging from the other skills of the sort. Berserkfetish is the closest, and it's two. Supersling is two as well. Doublewhammy is a good bit better, being masked, and it's two as well.

Now that I think about, power is actually part of the reason I don't like Lusternia's combat as much. It focuses more on power management than on having a wide variety of skills you have to juggle properly.

I use nexus aliases for healing, but other then that, no triggers, mainly because I'm too lazy to get ZMUD or Paliside and can't figure out how to make triggers with Nexus.


Not sure if I count as an actual fighter though

I make very liberal use of zMUD's "deactivate all triggers" icon (click the little gun in the bottom right corner).

Anyway, I LOVE the power system. It means that you actually have to give serious thought to what abilities you're going to use when, and how those will impact the rest of your offense, and you can't go all-out all the time or you won't necessarily be able to pull off whatever instakill you're aiming for in time. It also prevents people from whoring out ridiculous abilities.

EDIT: As for the point about manual curers tending to use classes with strong offense - yeah, that's probably true. Wiccans are a great archetype for manual curers because they can immobilize most (read: non-toptier) people without too much trouble. That's not to say it isn't possible for other classes, though - I did it as an aquamancer and celestine too, so, eh.

Amen to that! I agree!

But our combat seems so much more linear and uninventive, because the only moves that really impact people cost power.

I was a manual curer in Achaea and did just fine. I simply can't do the same here. Demesnes, wiccans, double masked afflictions...yeah, bad. I tried for a while.

There's a lot of truth to manual curers typically having a strong offense. Anyone else notice the archetype of all the listed manual curers? Yeah. Nerf.

Finesse afflictions classes don't work the same because of the number of afflictions with both herb and purgative cures. You can't stick someone four goldenseal cures like you could as an Achaean bard. You try to do the same with pennyroyal and half of them will go purgative. Aeon on purgative balance and paralysis as a separate balance might contribute to that a bit too.

I think there's also a difference in balancing philosophies. In Achaea, two extremely competent fighters will take a long, long time to kill each other. In Lusternia, two extremely competent fighters will be racing each other for kill conditions. Warriors are eventually going to get you on wounds or damage. Bardic and dreamweaving attrition will eventually wear you down. Wiccans, guardians, and psions will eventually outpace your curing far enough to get an instakill or lock. Mages of all kinds only need a couple slips to get you behind on health curing. A smart druid will eventually get the saplock. Everything would need to be scaled down to get to the Achaean standard.

Also, I think one of the differences that gets me is that in Achaea, I was piling things on, working toward something. Here, it's much more about timing things to hit all at once and getting someone locked up. Like as a druid, you don't stack a bunch of stuff over the long run and eventually slip in sap, you make sure you can slap it on at the right time so you can get eq back before they cure it.

urazial manuals, one of the reason he can't cure. I learned what echoing was like a week ago, but i'm way to lazy to add them in now. I have it for the glom bard song since i can't catch that in group fights which i learned the hard way. I should really add more highlights too. i've got about 12 combat related highlights that actually give me a clue to something. that whole highlighting by herb cure sounded like a good idea but i'm pretty much out of room for convienient macros to my style. I never knew Sham manualed, that's really cool.

Ha yeah it's really hard to try and cure and attack at the same time. I was just lucky I picked the moondancers as my first class and only class so far. they turned out as a really good choice, second to potentially the shadowdancers. linear triggers are tough with aeon and choke, i always delete ones that get in the way of aeon or choke, or i change them to be a highlight. I like warriors depending on who it is. a hard hitter like Nico or Hyrtakos or anyone that gets those slit locks in one go can ruin me if I'm not watching it at all. Which is why i tend to just parry head stance head and leave it there even if I'm fighting Hyrtakos who tendons so crazily, I wish he was a Seren. if I get locked and try to cure it normally or sip or trying to heal deepwounds then the basic symptom reflexes i have loop endlessly until i can move the stupid laptop touchpad mouse thing to the nexus gun to shut the triggers off. it's crazy annoying, but at the same time, offensively I have a lot more options with my pooka against warriors.

...you use a laptop touchpad mouse thing!?