Failed to deliver. Give me an explicit example. What afflictions? Citing Amaru (who played actively like 2-3 years ago) doesn't cut it.

This is a major problem I have with people like you. You can't justify your responses. You are likely the victim of the rumor mill/gossip circuit and quite honestly have no idea what Celestines are capable of doing to hinder movement. Throwing a Soulless Tarot behind blackout (which of course has nothing to do with Inquisition) isn't even relevant to this conversation. Please keep on topic.

EDIT:

If you disagree with my assertion, I want to see what lead you to form your opinion. Clearly, it's a player who fought 2-3 years ago before readily available systems, various guilds mentioned, etc. Likewise, do you have any logs? Can you do better?

Uh, where the heck did I mention soulless behind blackout? You're the one going off topic here, as there are plenty of other uses for blackout beyond Soulless. I also gave you the sort of afflictions he went through. If you're hit with Inquisition while webbed, you're not writhing out of it before the Soulless hits. It's difficult to get it all together, but really now.

And for the greater audience, I'm trying to turn this into an education endeavor. Test your skills. Don't argue something is overpowered or underpowered or this or that until you have tested it. Until you have experienced it. Until you have examined all aspects.

It's truly a disease in Lusternia. I hold Xenthos accountable because he's an envoy. He should be able to spit out to me what a Celestine can do. He should know what this "magical setup" is he's claiming. He should be able to spell it out by afflictions, by affliction rates, etc.

How does a Celestine web you, recover equilibrium, and then Inquisition you before you can initiate the writhe command, which continues during Inquisition? What's your point? If someone has terrible curing, can't writhe, and you cast web... it's useful for sticking Inquisition?

Likewise, how does blackout help seal Inquisition? There are so many secondary messages its not as if you aren't going to notice the 8 seconds you are held still and/or that you need to quickly get out of the room post 8 second hold.

So, basically, I gave you the afflictions you're looking for and you appeal to the audience. No, I haven't told you how to put them all together. I agree it's nowhere near as easy now as it used to be. That does not mean it does not exist as an option, and if you pull it off they're not getting away. Without any extra tricks, without your "hide Soulless behind blackout." You're refusing to even consider it, which I believe to be as much an issue.

You can't really rely on sticking aeon on someone at the same time as you use inquisition - it's virtually impossible to set up both of those at the same time and it's very easy to just cure the aeon before inquisition hits. Likewise sure if you get entangled somehow before the inquisition happens and you don't writhe then sure, you're screwed, but it's not exactly difficult to just writhe from the hangedman or whatever. Celestines do have paralysis as an angel power, but that doesn't take all that long to cure. The only thing I can think of at the moment that would help significantly is beast web. Narsrim is being a little psychotic at the moment but I'm not sure how you can say he's wrong.

You listed afflictions, sure. You didn't give an example of how they would work together. It's like me saying: Moondancers are super powerful because they can toadcurse. Why so? They can give anorexia.

Does that mean anything to you? It doesn't to me.

I'm just frustrated and burnt out from tests all day. It really upsets me when people who don't know what's going on try and argue. I was a Celestine. I spent months perfecting Inquisition/Soulless, and I know (as I'm sure you do) that it's not some instant-lol-instant-win. Of course, people joke about that on forums, but that's just forums.

Xenthos, however, is basically pulling the whole "I read on forums that Inquisition/Soulless was really powerful and I mean you can like web and aeon so ya, it's powerful." I think anyone who is a combatant knows better, and given this thread could potentially impact an envoy summit, it's important that we dismiss nonsense.

Eh, it's more like saying "Moondancers have Toadcurse. 50% mana. They have banshee, pooka, pixie which passively drop it, they have aeon which they can use to help hinder the victim, along with anorexia and lash when they have the person tied up."

That is also not putting together everything they have or saying how to combine them, but it does help show some of the options they have available to them.

PS: I'm really not sure where you're getting that I'm saying it's a "lol-instant-lol win". I agree that it's really easy to run away from it if that's what the Celestine is focusing on. Escaping afterwards if you're hit by it and they haven't managed to get the right preparation in beforehand is possible if you're the right class / have the right skills available.

However, I'm of the belief that Inquisition should not be a 1-2-3 process. It should require other preparation beforehand beyond just rubbing Soulless. If there are issues with accomplishing that, well, that's for the Envoy process. I'm not a fan of just doing the same thing over and over until it works or you run out of power. Inquisition is powerful enough that that is a general path taken-- by you, even. In fact, you're even defending Soulless' 0p cost based on this path.

That was exactly Desitrus' point as I read it, and that's the one I'm defending. You're justifying it with things like "run away during preparation" and passives that stop it, but... I just do not see the overall setup the same way you do, I think.

I'm not picking a side in the argument, but I have to say that Xenthos is one of the last people that comes to mind as a "rumor mill/gossip circuit" guy.

What is this "right preparation"? I was a Celestine. I have no idea what you are talking about nor does Shamarah. We were both competent Celestine combatants. We've already dismissed the silly example involving aeon and web. Do you have another? Likewise, the only guilds that do not have the abilities to easily escape are Ebonguard with Crow and Serenguard with Moon/Stag. That is it.

I don't think Shamarah completely dismissed it. He did mention beast web (beast web / inquisition, at least until it's changed, and you've got your web even with no preparation at all. However, I will admit that is not what I was actually driving towards). That general path is the preparation. He did say it was very difficult, and perhaps this is something that can be looked at, but the rest of my post which you've conveniently ignored is still every bit as valid IMO.

The thing is that if you change soulless to cost 1p, you're never going to be able to fling it during inquisition, because by the time you recover the power, inquisition will be over.

I actually sort of agree that it would be good if it was more practical to set up interesting combos before inquisition, but it isn't viable to do so with the class as it stands.

Most guilds have a linear combat progression (warriors tend to be the exception). Druids? Saplock. Telepaths? Mindburst. Wiccans? Toadcurse. And so on and so forth. As a Telekinetic Aquamancer, I had four aliases for Telekinesis (and I rarely used 2 of them). I would cast phantoms, claws, and just repeat 2 different aliases over and over until I stacked enough bleeding to kill the target in my demesne. There was no great strategy or mystery to it.

It was also terribly boring so I changed guilds (much like I did with Celestines). However, trying to outright nerf Celestines on the basis that they are linear when other guilds are too is just ridiculous. If you want to redesign Sacraments, please do! It's one of my most hated skillsets in all of Lusternia because it has zero versatility, but as a rule, I don't buy into the nerf now, we promise we might look at it later and potentially fix you deals. They rarely work out.

Eh. That's a better point. Hm.

I'm not actually sure how the Inquisition glows work since Celestines usually try to hit them the first time they show, but if you wait until a later glow, wouldn't that help you regain some power?

That isn't really practical, you're just giving them more time to run away.

The bulk of your post veered off topic. You also failed to explain the magical setup again. I'm not suggesting Celestines aren't boring - they are. I'm suggesting that the suggested change would accomplish one thing: it would make the class unviable in combat. They would have no method to ever kill someone who could remotely cure, and it would totally negate the entire purpose of Inquisition (what good is an lengthy second stun, when you can't do anything worthwhile during it?). Why waste 11p to strip defenses other than to be annoying? As stated, it's easy enough to avoid so the skill would essentially become worthless. Celestines can already atone to quickly strip defenses if they cared just about that aspect of the ability.

As food for thought: Paladins don't use Inquisition. Why? It doesn't do anything for them. What exactly would it do for Celestines if they could Soulless behind it?

Does anyone else think it's funny that in almost any other game (fighting game, shooter, really almost anything), pulling an eight-second stun on your opponent would pretty much guarantee your victory, but in Lusternia it's totally worthless unless you can instantly kill them during it? I think this has a lot to do with how easy it is to run or play defensive in Lusternia.

Well that's just because of the power aspect of the game. Judge is infinitely more powerful if you can whore it 40 times in a row in piety. Aeon (Vodun) is more useful when you have a skillset like Curses to back it up with a actual affliction lock + sleeplock + concussion (vodun) + voyria/crotamine. The list goes on and on.

Combat tends to be very top heavy in Lusternia. Most guilds pack a lot of punch in a short period of time, and if they fail to capitalize, they lose the investment whereas in other IRE games, you can repeat over and over with no real drawback or slowdown.