Oh, I was talking about the occasional bits of lag that everyone gets once in a while. Your question also asked the difference from 12 to 16, so my answer would still be correct.

Wait so does cha affect influencing strength or only speed or both? Have I been a trill all this time for all the wrong reasons?

Are there restrictions on the use of shields by type/class? As a mage, would having one benefit me while hunting?

Shields don't impact hunting at all I believe, only pvp in regards to parrying.

Shields work for PvE.

Can one buy a cloak of thorns in a shop now? I know they were sold at auction a while ago, but now I see people with them that I don't think bought them at an auction, so I'm curious.

No. The cloak of thorns you're seeing people with are from the bandits.

Ah, right. I don't care much about the promotion, so I forget.

Thank you, IRE, for another fun griefer promotion!

Yeah, damn cloaks, just killing everyone around.

What is a griefer promotion?

Buy one griefer get one free.

The cloaks are just annoying, stacking with the other 50 things hitting you. The masks are what really take the cake.

Bought an empowering rune, guards still take the same number of hits (8), what gives?

If I'm right about how it works... what influence buffs did you have before?

Perfume? Beast? Trans influence skill?

Charismaticaura + sycophant + dragonsblood + wetfold + beast + meld. 14 cha.

Alright, I would (wildly) guess that it works like the balance levels.

Some of the skills add a straight-up buff but some others add the influencing level. I think the rune would add to the infliuencing level, so you're just hitting the cap.

If you want to test this, try to remove one of the defenses at a time and see how it changes the influences needed.

How I see the influence system is that each mob has an ego number. Your attacks do X ego damage to them and when it hits 0, you win. Influence buffs add to this damage, but not necessarily enough so it would take you less hits in total to influence a particular mob.

That's how I've always seen, very similar to health. It's like how some things always take two blasts to kill, but once you get staff, it's still two hits. If you were to test it though, you'd find that the second hit could be a punch. It's a boost, but you don't always notice it.

My approach has always been as follows:

INFLUENCIN'
Charismatic aura is awesome
You have to pile on a ton of everything else to make a tiny difference MAYBE
lol @ influence runes

Basically what I'm saying here is that I think they are a hilarious waste of credits.

Yeah, better off buying soap.