I think Sun damage should be higher... bwahahahaha! Seriously though while constellation lets you double for sun we cant make sun better.. if that gets changed I am all for a -minor- boost to sun! (non physical damage types have some power in em).

As part of my notes on experiences thus far I am reviving the topic and replying to someone too!



Why does symbol do less to most people than cosmicfire? Damage type/source. Symbol being 100% magic is resisted by the magic skillset, magic proofing, and all magic reduction abilities. The damage at 0 resistances (denizen bashing) is comparable to staff. Cosmicfire is 50% magic and 50% heat/fire meaning fire proofings can get it and thats the majority, not to mention many races are weak to fire!


Heres what I have to say about astrology.

Spheres:
The most variable and useful group in astrology hands down. Reduce your foes resistance, their int, or even their constitution! Spheres positive? Then boost yourself instead! By using spheres effectively you can take an edge on your method or in the group. For instance, a drop in con is always nice before a damage kill, as is making them take more from magic and/or fire! Suddenly cosmicfires can be boosted past 1200 damage per hit! Lets not forget the obvious power of dropping their physical resistance in a group with knights however as that would be foolish. Of course we cant forget about int drops as this means better wrack/absolve as their max drops!

Papaxi:
This is by far one of my favorite skills in the entire skillset. A 20% drop to the max of whatever its used on (health mana or ego). While it is highly unfortunate that you can even hit ego instead of something more useful (like health or mana obviously) there is still indeed a use for it! Since Papaxi is a focus spirit cure it can be used to stack with other things to try to help stick them, such as omen and dark moon. This means someone with papaxi and omen both has a chance for focus spirit to fail and a chance to cure papaxi instead. Naturally the ability to combine papaxi with omen means better openings for damage, not to mention in groups you can cripple someone by causing their health to fall (which if its not coded in makes systems go crazy as it fails to sip past 80%).

Ascendant, Descendant, ImumCoeli, and MediumCoeli:
For those of you looking at the screen funny these should all be spelled correctly (though they might be). These are -passive- skills in astrology that take effect automatically. They boost max ego 10%, max health 10%, max mana 10% or give a resistance to all damage depending on which one (if any) are up. When you get these is based on where your from, since they are based on your city/communes sign. For instance since Magnagora is Skull then when sun is in dolphin I get I believe Descendant, while sun in skull is Ascendant. These are somewhat minor but who complains about freebies?

Sun:
Sun... what is there to say about sun? Sun is the fastest damage attack that I am aware of using eq as its base is around 2.5 (2 for a mugwump) and halves in quickening. Its damage greatly varies by guild its used on and the current alignment and is it can cutting, blunt, asphyxiation, cold, fire, poison, and psychic damage. Obviously a knight will laugh at a cutting ray but a psychic ray may be a fair bit nastier. Sun is one of my favorite ways to damage kill if I quicken crucify (to stop sips) or quicken shackles torture (to get bleeding going). Its speed in combination with the possibility of powerful damage makes it a very useful option (specially if the sphere for that damage type is negative).

Constellation and Stellium:
In all honesty much of astrologys combat can be done without these, the main use for constellation used to be double sun for damage or double the sphere aeon was in. Since you cant use the same sign its only real use is to pile on quick afflictions if theres a good combination (note it is possible to aeon and papaxi for instance) or to put on a topper (such as asthma reckless). Stellium is used mainly during the skull retrograde, which occurs once every year where skull goes retrograde and most others do so too.. this is the period you can find stellium doing aeon, damage, reckless, stupidity, and sensitivity all at the same time. It has a power cost but timed right who can stand against something so instantly damaging that its possible to win right off from there (if paired say with anorexia and impatience to go with stupidity and aeon).

Nexusworlds, Astrosense, and Astroglide:
These are slightly more unusual skills. Astrosense is useless for guardians really but nice to have (its basically scry) for wiccans who need locate people and dont want to spend gold on an enchant. Nexusworlds lets you check exactly what it says, which is of course needed with constructs and such (this doesnt look at mini weakenings). Then there is my favorite of the 3... astroglide. It is rather expensive at 5p and takes awhile to finish but allows you to move to your city/communes astral sphere (for those who cant TELEPORT MOON) ignoring most conditions. It is a very handy way to say escape water when you have 6 people after you and they distorted the gateway to ethereal and you want to get out not look for a target.


What could change or might be needed:
-Astroglide would be far more useful if its power cost changed based on distance from astral itself where prime was 5p, ethereal was 4p, elemental was 3p, cosmic was 2p, and astral was 1p... aetherships and aetherbubbles would count as being aways off and be 5p.
-Spider and Bumblebee are currently rather useless as it seems at best they can slow things by .5 seconds last I knew, this could use a chance to allow at least another second of focus/writhe time (so trans discipline would take 2s to focus body out) I figure it would be based on the % (which can be negative 30 all the way to positive 30) where every 5% is 1/6th of a second, thus at 30% you could add 1 second total, which at 15% you would add a half.
-Astrologists currently get double sphere time on the spheres they give themselves, however its also been suggested they should receive an added bonus to the DMP given, this is more of an iffy subject to me as I dont want to see DMP 60 (as double was suggested) to anything come up, yet it does make sense and most of the time you will get a low DMP even when positive, and even at max DMP of 30 thats 20% which is nice but isnt known to occur often.
-Does dexterity (antlers sphere) really have much use? I would rather see this effect movement time and be a short term sphere such that every 5% of -negative- sphere would slow movement by .15 seconds allowing for if nothing else a slight edge when using it.
-Astrology could use a flavour skill, such as one like 'eclipse' which might chill all enemies in the room, make it night for X period of time, and maybe do minor cold damage if lunar. If the room is already lunar or if you used solar it might do fire damage, make it morning, and ablaze all enemies.. this wouldnt be particularly useful but it would be a fun message specially if it were basin wide (purely example).
-A way to destroy spheres on a person to have some sort of effect. Such as if I give a person 6 spheres (which will generally have a power cost for more than one of them) then I can use 1p per sphere on them to destroy all spheres and do effects based on the sphere... this would of course be power costly and would need be set up for to not be excessive but I think it could be worked out.
-A way to cast a persons nativity for Xp! In most cases this wouldnt really be useful but it could have good taste and the message could be fun... 'Malarious turns the planets against you for being born, bombarding you with varied planar energies.'
-Also being able to cast a random aff would be nice for trying to confound curing by being entirely random, pulling rays from the cosmos to attack your hapless foe. We would have no control over the attack but it would give no indication of what sign it was either.. it could be any of the 18 possible rays/afflictions I figure (and you ca only have 1 papaxi at a time so this would let me drop peoples health AND mana by 20%).


Thoughts questions comments concerns? The things I really would like to see are astroglide power changes (help give it some travel utility and be more like the skillset to vary in such a way), bumblebee and spider being more influential, and having antlers affect movement. DMP effect for astro MIGHT be like 1.25 times or 1.5 times the current but no doubling. Everything below those are less thought through though flavour is always nice. Destroying spheres for an effect could be costly but might be useful based on what is done (for instance if destroying an antlers sphere stopped someone for 3-4 seconds it might be worth some power if they start to tumble or something suddenly or if destorying skull would make them lose health etc etc) which would also be tasteful and packed with variety. Nativity casting isnt really useful its just for fun. And being able to cast a ray at random isnt exact like astrology often it but it would just be something like 'You tap into the cosmic energies around you and direct them at .'

So give me your thoughts! Be constructive, if you have ideas for what could happen when a sphere is destroyed by above skill then go head and say it! Have a flavour skill? gimme! If something seems unbalanced then balance it!

Dexterity is useful for dodging and for monk damage. It also helps warriors get wound affs (though this isn't really relevant.) No need to change that.

That sphere-breaking skill isn't really necessary.

Nativity casting can be useful if someone has aeon or maybe stupidity in their nativity. Since you can give demon stupidity you probably don't need it so much but wiccans do.

Adding DMP to astrology would be really bad. Reallllly bad. Astrology was part of the reason behind the DMP changes in the first place. Letting it avoid the restrictions every single other skill in the game gets is just asking for trouble. There's no reason astrology should be DMP-free but something like harmony shouldn't.

That astroglide change wouldn't be terrible, but...more importantly (they're non-compatible) shouldn't there be a way to get down? Communes can get port moon/night now so it's not so bad, but if they were broken and for cities astroglide should be able to rescue you.

I don't even know what you're talking about with the xp thing.

Spider and bumblebee are by no means useless, but a little buff to them couldn't hurt.

I think Nejii, Synl and I, along with a few others went over this the other day somewhere. I can't remember the whole discussion.

I thought that Astro users, should have some way to make their spheres be stronger now, not for the regular person they cast it on. But only for self casting. I know that astrology is supposed to be a support class, but as it stands, they pay to trans a skillset to help others, but don't get much defense for themselves from it (with the DMP changes).

Their needs to be someway to give them a perk for being astrology and more defense from it, and keep all others who are just receiving spheres from them to get the regular "DMP influenced" buffs.

Maybe a trans skill that multiples the effect of self casting by 1.5 or 2, which would equate to a 50%-100% increase in the sphere when self casted? I can't remember what I agreed on Nejii with, the other night but it seemed like it could work at least some to help out the astrologer more, and limit it on the non-astrology playerbase who are just seeking buffs.

I don't think we agreed on anything, but rather than a 50% increase or something, a +5% to all spheres cast on yourself wouldn't be too bad.

My comments:

Constellation and Stellium:
I do only use stellium when things are retrograde in skull anymore, but constellation is something I nearly always use if I want to use an affliction that's not nativity based. Unless I'm planning to absolve next equilibrium or doing inquisition, I have free power and can regenerate it fast enough so it doesn't hurt to throw an extra affliction, even if its not terribly useful.

What could change or might be needed:
-Astroglide: I've always found it worth the cost no matter which plane I was on. Even on astral, I'd spend 5 power to tess to Celestia anyway if I didn't have it. I'm not sure what Shiri means about getting down or rescuing for cities. I just astroglide to the node, then transverse my way to prime.
-Spider and Bumblebee: I've never cast a negative sp or bb sphere, though I use them if their positive, since I can. Wouldn't really mind their change.
-Self-casting of spheres: It could make sense for spheres to be stronger when cast on yourself, though double strength would put it close to where it was before the DMP change, I think. That's probably not best, since it was changed from that to begin with. Perhaps a flat bonus would be better? Or something less than x2.
-Antlers: Useful for some non-guardians, so you could cast it negatively on those you face.
-Entirely random ray: I don't think I'd use that, in lieu of a something I knew the result of, given the large selection.
-Effects of destroying spheres: Perhaps instead (and less complicated, or so it seems to me at least), an effect or power ability stemming from laying a set of six spheres on a target. A certain set(s) of spheres might be required which could be constant or change in time, so that you're risking some of the spheres being buffs to the target so that you can set it up. It's just an alternate idea, without promoting it.

Astroglide needs a way to get down. While city astrologers can glide and transverse down, it leaves commune astrologers gliding and...on a sphere where they can't transverse. With the Moon/Night Altar, we now have a way off astral but if those constructs get destroyed, we're back to no way off unless you tesseract or find a way to Cancer/Capricorn and you're not enemied to a city and have near trans planar. I personally use astroglide now instead of the mirror on Moon bubble because I like hunting bulls and don't just want to end up on some random sphere.

Antlers is useful, if not for yourself, then for others. I use it on monks and warriors mostly. A buff to Spider and Bumblebee would be nice, but in no way would I want to see what they affect changed. I don't think I'm really understanding the want for changing sphere destroying. If they have a buff sphere and you destroy it, they no longer have that buff. Seems good enough for me really.

Excellent people saw the topic come back.

Lets see here...

-Astroglides power variation would make sense because it shouldnt take the same effort to cross 4 planes than to move from astral to another sphere.
-As for a way to use astroglide to actually get back... hmm perhaps a reverse astroglide? 5p from astral, 4 from cosmic, 3 from elemental, 2 from ethereal, and 1 from prime that returns you to the nexus as you follow the astral energies back to their prime root?
-Does Antlers make a noticable difference? Last I hear dexterity had a very tiny effect on wounding.
-Spider and Bumblebee can still use a buff to effect.
-Resistance spheres used on the astrologist could get 50% more effect? Or 5%?
-Based on the spheres you give them is fine, the idea was just to give some variety. Like if they had the spheres of every cardinal sign it might do this. etc.

Oh and it took me a minute to understand what this meant Shiri
'I don't even know what you're talking about with the xp thing.'

That was X power.. Xp... not experience. Cast their entire nativity for X number of power.