Let me make sure I understand affinity as it pertains to orders. Correct this if I'm wrong.



It seems to me that gods need to start forming non-org cults, maybe just a clan for all members who are interested in the order, but aren't neccesarily in the right org.

Can you only use the metals listed in comms? What if you want bronze?

Or brass.

Well, you can only use those comms, but I bet you could call your sword "bronze" if you wanted. Maybe use an mix of iron and gold and pretend it's tin and copper?

Hope so. If not, MORE METAL FOR THE PEOPLE!

Glamours SS to Ecology SS - pros/cons. All other things being equal, which is better in 1v1? The only Ecologist I knew was Xiel, but he won by the very fact that he's Xiel so I can't really tell how the two compare.

The Banes can be useful, since they're incurable. Smudges and fetishes aren't bad offensively (judging as an outsider who hasn't used Ecology firsthand).

All-in-all, though, I'd say that Glamours is the more powerful skill.

We are not discussing affinity, and I've a ton of bricks back in the shed I will come down on you with.

Isn't it usually a bad sign when a large enough part of the playerbase is so unhappy with a feature that you have to ban even discussing it?

If it had existed from Day One, people would be much less gripey about it.

On the other hand, people have been very gripey about things that existed from Day One that they don't like... so, I'm not sure that's a completely valid point. Definitely plausible, but... yeah, we've proven we can be quite gripey about things that have existed for a long time.

See: Lich/Trueheal.

Did trueheal used to be more awesome than it is now?

Yes.

It's been hit a few times. One of the fun ones was the infamous TrueMaker™.

Unfortunately it's just something the administration feels is important to the health of the game, in spite of how players may feel about it. It's a stand that was decided to be taken, and so it was.

The reason it is banned as a topic, however, is because the topics always became nasty, full of bile and vitriol, and simply become impossible to moderate and leave everyone feeling sore and angry for quite a while.

It's just best not to discuss it, for better or worse.

People (i.e. Amaru) were just more creative with it back in the good ol' days.

You can't say that not immediately giving back both balance and equilibrium isn't a pretty big change, though.

I also believe the barrier length was dropped significantly, but that was a very long time ago.

Edit: Also, powerspikes did not exist back then.

You're absolutely right. I should've omitted the 'just' there. I tend to overuse 'just,' anyway.

Trueheal with Powerspikes has got to be the most fun way to die, I think.

The banes and a passive fetish are the main reason for a bard to use Ecology, although there're creative corner cases for all of it. They're not similar at all, but I don't know that one is necessarily better than the other, unless you're terrible, in which case you want Glamours because Glamours doesn't care if you're a nublet. Glamours basically does more, but with no precision, whereas Ecology isn't as hefty, but you have control over what you're doing.

Sorry if this is a bad discussion topic, but it isn't directly about affinity, just a response to this second part. Erase me if needed! That would be a good way to get around things, Shaddus, and I think (but could be wrong) that Orders used to have clans way back when before the OC-MC-IC system. I doubt that is going to happen because I think the Administration in general want to avoid having non-org followers period.


EcoCharms are also pretty awesome (especially at higher levels) for damage reduction, and are a lot cheaper (but just as effective) as illusoryself if you know which damage type you plan to encounter, or if you have a racial weakness you want to cover up.

How is the damage on Astrology's meteor determined? Is it just by the number of negative spheres, or does it depend how negative they are as well? Does anyone have numbers showing damage on the same target using consecutive numbers of negative spheres (i.e. from one, two, ...)?

It's based on the number of spheres. I'd show you numbers but my meteor testing notes are missing.