Most of the recent additions and changes to lusternia seem to be found in Tertiary skill sets.

Mages to weak? Psionics. Bards too weak? Illusions. Seems like lately everyone's talking about hexes and Nihilists.

What are everyone's feelings on this issue? (No, "Estarra you're a horrible person and ruining the game", comments please. The admin get enough grief as is.)

At any rate, Mages Guardians Wiccan's and Bards would be hard pressed to do much of anything nowadays with their primary and secondary skillset, it feels to me like it's just a foundation upon which they use their Tertiary skills to effect. Is this good/bad/nothing?

Do people like it as-is, or would they rather there be more freedom to switch between tertiary skillsets and that say a Healer/Astrologer/Hexer would be able to accomplish similar things. As the main skillsets would do more of the work. Or, do you like the way it is? As I've got to admit to do, I love being a more supportive Healer, and have something unique to offer the more combaty people in my guild.

With the Glamours skill, Bards hardly ever need their Song Spec. I don't even use half my offensive song effects, so about 75% of my combat song has changed to being Support effects, rather than 100% offensive as it had to be as an Ecologist.

I don't see it as either good or bad. The only situation I would see as bad is if the tertiary skill was useless and you had no choice in your primary skill. As long as something variable has some substantial impact on the way you approach combat, I think it's fine.

I don't like how they tweak bards through glamours, because by making glamours strong to balance bards, ecologist bards are not viable, never will, never will be. Seems wrong to me.

Anyone seen anyone using Runes lately?

Since Psionics came out, I really haven't heard of a mage using anything else. As with Wiccans, it's simply assumed that if you ever fight in the least, you have Psionics. Druids seem to use Runes mainly in an attempt to prove that Runes are great and everyone calling for changes to it are wrong.

I have barely any skill in psionics, I rely more on my secondary skill, phantasms/illusions

This problem also seems to be self-compounding: Since nobody bothers using a good deal of the skill sets because they suck, they never get envoy attention as the envoys will be working on attempting to balance the skills that are frequently in use. When was the last time Astrology got a major change when compared to, say, Hexes?

I have to agree and disagree with you, blastron.

The less favored ones could get less attention as well, for that reason.

Astrology Healing and Hexes have had all similar amounts of changes to them lately I believe, however, so that doesn't mesh very well. Healing's gotten succor decreased every so slightly in it's eq time, and then the eq time was removed altogether, It had paralysis added to muscles, insanity added. Astrology had a few changes with rays/signs/whatever I heard about which supposedly made it better in combat (though certainly not easier to understand ) Hexes had hexaura changed, steal removed, and one other thing I believe? They seem to have gotten equal enough notice lately. Weather or not they needed all equal attention, I don't know for sure.

Things can't all be equal in combat power though I'm realizing, I certainly have been very against changes people have suggested which would make Healing more like Hexes. We shouldn't try to turn Healing and Runes and Astrology into Hexes, we shouldn't try to turn hexes into psionics, and so on. I'm not saying "oh you didn't take X, screw you" though. Things should be decent in their own right. What their own right is, however, is determined by the flavor of the skillset.

I guess I don’t know what I’m arguing here, just trying to present my views on it.

Hm, perhaps Astrology and Hexes were the wrong skills to pick. Sorry for that, it's difficult for me to come up with proper comparisons when my brain is shutting itself down. I had forgotten about the recent Astrology change, though I recall that being more of a bugfix and less of an envoy change...

So, just to confirm, this is a two-fold complaint, right? The first aspect is that many classes seem to be focused and balanced around their tertiary (and in some cases secondary) skillsets instead of their primary, and the second aspect is that there are very few viable builds with which to participate in combat? I believe both are valid remarks, but I cannot see any "easy fix" to the solution. A complete rebalancing of the combat system and a redesign of many of the skillsets would be required in order to properly refocus each class around their primary strengths, a task that I do not believe anyone would want to work on unless they're getting well-compensated for their time, necessary though it might be.

The easy but bad fixes include nerfing the problematic tertiary skillsets into oblivion or arbitrarily boosting the usefulness of the primaries until they become more desirable than the tertiaries. Both of these solutions, however, will only serve to introduce imbalance in the long run.

As per Wesmin's post, it's not a complaint per se. I'd like Wicca to be more interesting than just summoning Fae and having them attack while I use hexes (if I had them) but it's not -that- bad that it isn't.

The balance is also weird because if astrology was as good for combatants as hexes it'd be just a strictly better skill because of the way it has team defensive and bashing bonuses. I don't really like the effect that has on combat for people without the combat skill, but I'm not sure what to do about it either.

I haven't any problem with Astrology, it's not as great as Hexes in combat, but it has enough to work with and enough perks to make it worth it anyway.

Healing, on the other hand, doesn't have much to recommend it unless you want to save money when you're bashing or want to sacrifice your offense to be harder to kill. I'm still not sold on Farcure as being any real help in group combat, though I could easily be wrong about that, and in general the skill gives you very little uniqueness, just lets you do what everyone else does, but better.

Healing does, apparently, have some tweaks in the pipeline (though it seems they're still being reviewed).

Astrology's an excellent skill, just not truly meant for combat. The problem with Wiccan tertiary skills seems to be the reliance on race (Mugwump). The Mugwump eq bonus make them incredibly important for Wiccan combat.

Tertiary skills that do need some 'fixing' would be Healing and (possibly) Ecology. Everything else is all right, really; just can't expect everything to be nice as the primary-tertiary skill.

Essentially, it's easier to balance classes by making their already-nearly-good-enough skills stronger, than by attempting to fix hopelessly broken skills like Music, Ecology, Healing, Runes, and certain primary skills.

Runes is only broken for mages - well, once you bypass the occasionally prohibitive cost.

runes isnt broken *cough geb*

That doesn't make it a worthwhile or interesting skillset. Runes is a terrible example - no other skillset has had EVERY SINGLE envoy suggestion related to it blanketly vetoed by Estarra. Not saying this as an attack against him, just as a really bizzare abnormality that makes Runes unique when it comes to envoy changes. Specifically, that none are possible. Thus, it's silly to use Runes as an example, or to discuss potential changes to it.

So... You're saying that because every change in the past was vetoed, that every change in the future is going to be vetoed?

That is quite the fallacious argument.

Except when the admin reasoning is that it's a secondary trade skill and justly slightly underpowered.