Effectively, you just need two aliases

The first sets the target for jade, beryl, amethyst and emerald gems.
The second sets the target for garnet, opal, onyx, bloodstone and sapphire gems.
Turquoise and Diamond cannot be targeted, while ruby is targeted on cast.
Use the first alias to set the defensive gems to yourself, but also handy if you are just using them to help someone else.

It's better this way, because if the gems effects change from offensive to defensive or vice versa then the coders don't need to worry about also fixing up a code for a "crystalplex target offensive/defensive" command. Also, if you were to have something complicated like... positive effects but only when targeted on yourself, such a command would be useless.

One more thing...

Can it be made so that defensive harmonics innately target the caster when initially spun?

As far as my micromanagement comment is concerned, I was primarily referring to the fact that you must choose a target for each individual gem — because there are quite a few gems available. Assigning targets manually is out of the question; even with aliases, attempting to split offensive and defensive gems between more than one enemy or ally (respectively) would definitely constitute micromanagement. Say you want to target half your offensive gems at one enemy, half at another, half of your defensive gems at yourself, and half at an ally... whew.

Requiring balance and equilibrium to target them simply compounds the above-mentioned issue. Thus, people are gravitating towards putting all defensive gems in one alias, and all offensive ones in another, kind of like StarCraft squads. Doing anything else would require increasing amounts of micromanagement. Also, compared to before (when they were all just passive), having to select two different targets during combat in addition to everything else you'll be doing does make the class more complicated, I think, if only somewhat.

In and of itself, though, I agree that requiring balance and eq isn't a draconic measure.

Yes, it would be annoying. It would also be the same thing Wiccans and Illuminati have to do if they want that kind of split. I can't think of a reason you would both want to do that and want to bother with actually doing it. I just use an alias that order my offensive fae to attack someone, pigwidgeon to follow, and call it a day.

This seems like the only thing needed now, do it.

I concede the point. I'm not intimately familiar with Wiccans or Illuminati, but I knew they had entourages, and now I see the connection.

I'd say this change also significantly strengthens Researchers in 1 vs. 1 compared to before.

One more minor request:

Please allow INGR GEM as a generic way to ingemrift the various gems.

-revive-
Well, I had thought that there'd have been more harmonic changes over the last few weeks, but now I'm hearing that we have to wait for the special envoy report to come out. So I'm just wondering if the additions to our crystalwand/crystaltool are already in the works, or if we should submit all those ideas along with the report. It's fun to write and come up with ideas, but if it's already done then better to expend time on other things!

Here are a few, simple harmonics changes that would be really awesome:

* Allow all crystals to be spun with a target via: crystalspin . This sets the target for that gem in your crystalplex while it is spun. Should work for both defensive and offensive crystals. Target must be in the room.

* Have defensive crystals spun without a target default to the spinner. I.e. If I spin an amethyst with just "crystalspin amethyst", then the amethyst will be added to my crystalplex targeting me.

* Allow: crystalplex target defensive . Also allow: crystalplex target offensive .

* Allow: crystalplex activate all. Also allow: crystalplex deactivate all.

* When you kill someone, and your gems are targeting them, those gems should revert to untargeted, instead of being removed entirely from your crystalplex, causing you to have to respin them.

And one slightly more involved one:

* New skill: REJUVENATE. Syntax: crystalspin rejuvenate. Required gems: diamond, emerald, ruby, sapphire. When rejuvenate is spun all crystals in your crystalplex are renewed to their maximum duration (i.e. 100 for non-wand and 150 for wand gems).

No. It would be awesome. But no.



To add to the thread, I think that we should keep the *stones and *gems as temporary effects.

I really would like to see formations/patterns personally. Especially one that would give us flight and some that would work with the power that we have stored in our spires. Though I'm trying to think of abilities that we might find useful that last longer.

Anything to make spire useful would be awesome.

Spire is kinda useful when defending continuum, you just don't put it at a sphere and you can use aeonfield with half your doubled mana and ego if that one is ever attacked plus effectively four sips of vitae if you die on continuum with it fully charged.

It's just the power bit, I have 199% reserves and it would be interesting to see if I could science something with all of that. Unfortunately, at the moment the only thing that is coming to mind would push us towards the other guardian classes(Crystalline entities, etc).

as in sonic screw driver?

Definitely definitely definitely. (Though if the first one goes in, the second one becomes unimportant.)


This one is boggling: when targets die, druids don't lose demesne effects, wiccans don't have to resummon fae, bards don't have to start their songs over, etc. so why should one have to respin all those crystals in the middle of combat? (And it's not just if you kill them, it's if anyone kills them.) It's crazy. The current behavior makes so little sense it ought to be a bug, not an envoy report issue.

Mechanically, I'm pretty pleased with the effectiveness of spins right now. At first its a bit of a chore, but you get used to managing all of them with proper aliases.

Not sure how I feel about the combogem skills. They could be slightly better for their price. Maybe I'm just chintzy when it comes to spending power/gems.

I figure gems we can get a lot of, so for the 0 power cost the gems are all right. The stones though... I was thinking maybe after their explosion they can leave a cloud/fumes in the room that lasts 5-10s and does a weaker version of the stone (e.g. mendingstone and curing, or balestone and timewarp effect)

It's not the using up the gems, or the difficulty of making aliases, it's the time it takes to get all your effects set back up, and having to do that in the middle of the fight. I wouldn't mind having to spend another gem, or having to do another alias, it's that long delay at the worst possible time that is crazy. Maybe as a compromise, when a gem is getting destroyed because its target is gone, you get five seconds during which you can crystalspin the same kind of gem at no equilibrium or balance loss? Then it'll still cost a gem and an alias, but make it feasible to keep your effects up as you change targets.

A gem disappearing upon the death of its designated target has been bugged and the Admin has classified it. So hopefully some fix will be forth coming in the near future.

I wish it was so that gems still remained through log-out.

Also, Geb is the new Institute envoy, so bug him! A lot!