How so? They were just decent when I left IIRC, has anything changed?

Non-hypothetical

Crystalspin Resonance person
Crystalspin Ruby person x5
Beast spit person ibululu;shatterplex person

Most people are going to die to that because the damage is dumb. Aeon and timewarp is an accessory. If they don't actually die to that, they're usually in range to be Timequake'd. Talk to Prav IG, he's been dominating all the queues because there's no class that can actually try and mitigate this without sacrificing their own offense/momentum.

As an accessory you have:
1 passive generic affliction gem (vapors/paralysis/3 or so others)
1 mental affliction gem (phobias/etc)
1 Forrenstaff gem (2 power, detonates to hit all enemies in the room for ~1,200 damage on balance.)
1 passive timewarp-and-aff building curse. (TimeEchoes)
1 passive affliction healing gem
1 passive shielding gem
Healing (lol)

I mean really you'll be hard-pressed to die.

It will be fun watching society collapse. Please try to enjoy the show!

Oh, damn, I need a beast to unlock my opzorz combat potential? Blast and double blast. Curse you, common skillsets and your normal lack of any compelling reason to prioritize you.

You don't, but it's helpful. +33% damage from sensitivity if they don't shrug it. Shatterplex on its own is strong, you can just knock them down in health a bit before you detonate.

Well sure the defensive power is pretty ridiculous but I remember shatterplex damage being fairly weak even from high-int races, timequake being unreliable at best, and having a tough time stacking 5 rubies on anyone smart in the first place. I dunno, though, I could be wrong. I would probably rather be an Aeromancer for the group combat power anyway, and besides, I haven't been a demesne class since demesnes could be 200 rooms.

10 rooms now. Lol. Artifacts are a must it feels like.

Shatterplex damage is solid. It won't instakill Demigods, sure, but that's when you just stall and drag their hp into kill range.

Rubies are working ... oddly at the moment and they aren't necessarily being shaken off 20% of the time on some people. But it forces them to move and run around in order to cure them, meaning that Monks and Bards will be hard-pressed to kill you. Can't cure timewarp in Octave, either, without deafening yourself and sacrificing your own song buffs as a result. Hell, anyone is hard-pressed to kill you when it's a 'run or die' scenario.

Edit: And we haven't even added bedevil or aurawarp into the picture.

Defensively you shouldn't ever die. Healing spammability with no real drawback is just insane.

Offensively the spheres do almost all the work for you, and cannot be countered by forced movement or love potion. Easy win on most really. Rubies cured by movement is just hilariously annoying and means your opponent will take massive damage, end up dying to warp insta, or run and build no offense.

Researcher is overrated; go Illuminati. That's where the real lol is at!

And if your offense happens to involve your own 'rubies' (spirits) that are strictly worse than his rubies as far as 'stickiness', you'll screw your offense over twofold by running because you'll lose 4 of your 'rubies' (spirits) for every 1 of his.

Yayyyyyyyyyy. :| As much as I am a fan of 'alternate strategies' the options here are somewhat limited.

Ninja: Both are lol (Researcher are more stronger solo than they are in groups) but Gaudiguch is ... 'ugh' right now. See NoGFX.

Well, even if all this is the case, I still would probably prefer to do Aeromancer especially since I want to take a bigger role in group combat this time around and it seems Halli is lacking in mages (?). I guess TK is the way to go, and I'm thinking Lucidian?

Lucidian TK is pretty much the staple, yeah.

edit: That or human depending on your tastes.

Well, you know, I would, but you haven't posted a new log yet.

I'm lacking in logs of legitimate CT drama so I'm hoping to find more material outside of depressive ranting at the Ama'ruination.

TP needs more love.


We have 0 solo power too.

Down with TK.

There's solo power. It's just a matter of practice, I figure.

It's very difficult to get this to work on anyone who is expecting it, since you can shrug 50% of beast afflictions and you have to land two consecutive successful spits - as well as having stuck 1-2 herb afflictions prioritized higher than re-deffing deafness - before actually sticking sensitivity, as you have to strip deafness before you can afflict sensitivity.

I mostly just do it for style, heh.

And, yeah, shatterplex damage is very manageable by most people. My only complaint with it would be that it should be weighted more with percentiles so that it does a bit less versus low health opponents and a bit more versus high health opponents.

Edit: And, the bit about them being in timequake range isn't necessarily true. If you are going for damage, very rarely will they be in timequake range after a shatterplex since one focus will immediately take them outside of the range. In order to pull off a successful timequake you have to focus almost exclusively on that.

Oh, it doesn't have a ... 'ceiling range' like burn mechanics do? That sucks.

I also could have sworn that sensitivity/deafness thing was removed around the time Bards came in, but if I'm wrong at least I'll be able to survive longer.

Oh, also, and I swear this is the last addition...

Researcher combat is different from any class I've played anywhere. It is less about "attack attack attack" and more about watching your opponent, seeing what they are open to, what they cure or don't cure quickly, what you can stick on them and then, from that, trying to time and line up a bunch of variables that will work in your favor before closing in at the right moment.