I'm curious why you consider your secondary and tertiary skills to be your main attack skills. I know nothing about Aquamancy, but it seems like a guild's primary skill should contain the primary kill method Is this true of other archetypes and guilds, that your tertiary determines your kill method? I know it's true in the Aeromaners, our demesnes are probably just a slight annoyance to enemies, all kills come from psionics.

Soooo untrue. Especially for the old school guardians.

Melders occasionally go crazy and try to fight outside melds. We must understand their plight; it is very stressful being a melder. People scream at you so much

Aeromancers probably have the best effects currently for synergy with telepathy, actually. I often wonder why more telepaths do not exist within that guild. It's that synergy that makes it difficult to improve skills in telepathy because any improvements there will inadvertently make it too powerful when paired with an aeromancer demesne though I do agree that telepathy is lacking in meaningful hindering abilities.

I'd say that telepathy isn't much worse than most skills in the game, however when compared to telekinesis it appears lacklustre. Mindburst damage has suffered from changes to int scaling and the introduction of beast balance for healing ego. Mindburst is probably the easiest thing to tweak as it would not affect psyvamp in groups which is the most complained about aspect of the skill.


Also Neos, I don't see your name on either side of deathsights in many arena spars, ffas or wargames. With more practice, I'm sure you'd see an improvement and you'd probably also gain a better understanding of what could/should be tweaked. It might not be fun going into a spar thinking you're going to lose - but it's the best way to get better, and will be a lot faster than waiting for changes to your skillset!

If you assume perfect curing, I'm not sure it's even possible for a Moondancer to kill someone, but they do; I'm wary of "the target can just do this" arguments.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic with this comment or not so we may have to agree to disagree on this point. Heh.

Moondancer is one of the few classes that CAN kill people with perfect curing...

People with perfect curing are a myth, an urban legend, and thus we'll never know the real truth of this whole thing.

I could never stick a sleeplock, they'd wake up instantly because they weren't tired. Hence the "I'm not sure" part.

That was fixed long long long ago.

I've won spars, and ffas. But honestly, most of my spar wins were against people who didn't know what they were doing or just plain sucked. My ffa wins were fights that seriously lasted nearly an hour, and I won because I was able to drain willpower, or I just resorted to phantom spheres.

After Rivius got better in combat, the only ways I've ever been able to kill him is by drawing the fight out and draining willpower, or spheres. My one ffa fight against Lehki, I only won because I got lucky in sticking afflictions and got him. I never go into a spar thinking I'm gonna lose, unless it's someone like Veyrzhul, Malarious, Nydekion, etc.

@Tulemrah
My primary, Aquamancy has no attack skills besides staff, and mines really doesn't do that much damage, and some damage from tsunami and drowning ticks. It also lacks any real afflictions, but that's honestly a conversation for another year and people can say "You have whirlpool/currents." and I'm gonna just ignore it for now.

A forum search of Telepathy, will lead anyone to old(6-yrs) threads in which others have made some of the same arguments that I have. One is Geb, who people recognize as someone who knows what they're doing, even the Admin. Not much has changed about that Telepathy and the Telepathy of today. Same afflictions, same attack skills, just changed damaging. And I've never said anything about perfect curing, but the sheer number of ways to cure everything from a Telepath, and the slow rate of attack combined with hindering from the opponent, and love ticking and messing up an already lackluster offense. You could say the same about any offense, but no other skillset, except TK is waiting six seconds to attack, and even if you go Deschains way of always attacking, that's still four seconds minimum, five minimum from sub if ego is low. And there's no lasting damage from TP, so you the only way to get a kill is by drawing the fight out against someone who knows at least what they're doing, or even just someone who knows how to run, or get really lucky with afflictions and phantom/claws ticks.

Unless something has seriously changed since I was a TP. It's a pretty strong skillset.

The easiest and most obvious trick is to use illusions to get them to sip health into addiction. You do that 2 times within a minute without getting super hindered and you'll mindburst them.

Good luck!

The 6, 5 for most people available things that can cure psyvamp/mindblast damage, the inability to actually stick afflictions, and don't believe there's any system that could be forced into sipping healing these days. Choosing to sip off the line, and not the actual damage showing up is silly.

In Lusternia, there are very little combos that will allow you to gain an upperhand without some form of setup beforehand. This is the reason skillsets are stronger in groups and weaker in solos. Some skillsets are more egregrious at this than others.

And this cannot change.

It is possible to be viable in both solo and group, but the solo aspect will always be much more of an uphill battle than the group aspect - to ask for a skillset to perform just as viably in solo as it can in a group is just unreasonable.

In high-tier combat, the basics of solo combat IS dependant on getting lucky. High-tier is, of course, assuming "anyone with the necessary cures, a good system, and they know what they're doing". It should not be possible to get an upperhand without a long drawn out fight to set things up. Creativity, unorthodox strategies, putting out a leg on risky maneuvers or plain relying on luck are major aspects to winning at high-tiers. If the problem is your unwillingness to rely on these, then it's natural the skillset will feel lacklustre and unwieldy.

The basics to any solid skillset is a clear killing strategy (instankill or otherwise, doesn't matter) and a couple of alternatives (optional). If the strategy has clear milestones that are difficult but possible to reach in solo (no matter how long it takes) then it's pretty much solid and only needs tweaking, unless you're looking to change the entire way the skillset works.

I've never been a TP, so I can't say for sure whether this is the case, but from what I've personally experienced (at your hands, and from others' comments) the milestones for a TP are basically finding the right situation to stick one or two high priority afflictions for a small window, and then going for the kill once these conditions are met. Notably, Veyrzhul's analysis of addiction and stupidity being the most important, in order to divert sipping to health instead of ego, so that psyvamp can put the opponent behind far enough that a sip/sparkle won't be enough to get them out of insta range.

Managing lust, fighting in an enemy demesne, chasing, terrain/map control and knowledge, are all basic aspects of combat that everyone has to deal with, and can all be overcome. As such, they play a minor role, at best, in determining the viability and OPness (or need-for-buffsness) of a skillset.

I don't see MDs being completely awesome in solo (or SDs for that matter).

It is also the biggest secret around that fae are one-shot crittable, though.

The main difference between TP and any other skillset except TK is the rate of attack. Most people can afflict/attack with more than a TP can in the same amount of time. And as I've shown, the chance of actually sticking afflictions is horrible for a Telepath on anyone who has teas, or even just anyone who diagnoses while they're still off balance. An Aqua TP or Aero TP who gets hit by love before they're attack, or even while they're off balance, and effects tick, just lost one of their afflictions, and depending on which demesne and which attack was used, the damage they just did is reduced on top of sipping/sparkle/scroll/beast/regen. Chasing is horrendous for a TP, due to unreliable hindering, and if a Telepath has to reject after regaining balance, that's 7 seconds in which the opponent can run or cure up easily. And the main group advantage TPs have is psyvamp, and it's only really good in group if you have others to pile on damage to draw away from ego, another Telepath, or someone debating. Anything can be good in groups, but most other skills still have viability in solo combat with pretty fast affliction rates and attack rates. With 5 readily available methods of curing psyvamp/mindblast damage it takes far too long to actually get someone below 50%. And addiction doesn't do much with those four other methods of curing, it simply pushes sip balance to 8 seconds, and mindblast doesn't do enough damage to make someone actually have to choose which to heal. I've listed all the problems with TP, I've not said that it sucks, but in an aspect of combat that does take place it's horrendous. I've pointed out the simple lack of more Telepaths spread out amongst the four mage guilds, if it was honestly a worthwhile skillset to take up, there would be more people using it, but it's not.
I really have no problem with psyvamp taking a nerf if mindblast got a buff to damage. Then the skill would actually come closer to have viability solo. If skills were denied buffs if they were lacking in certain aspects, just because they do good in group combat, then every skill should be denied buffs, because every skill can be great in groups.
"Hey, dreamweaving sucks in solo combat."
"Naw, you're good, you can do pretty well in a group, don't need buffs."
"Hey, warriors have problems landing the afflictions they want because of the rng. We want it fixed."
"Can't do, you do too well with a group."
That's honestly the argument I've gotten from certain people. And people complain about three Telepaths being able to quickly kill someone, but so can other groups. 3+ warriors can behead people pretty quickly, and they have faster balance, so the rate of them being able to do it is faster, 3+ Celestines can absolve someone pretty quickly, and again at a faster rate than three Telepaths. And these TP ganks can be easily stopped by simply hindering one of the Telepaths if three. With the multitude of ways to know when someone is an the local area, it should not be hard to be prepared. Hell, one reflection will stop a TP bomb in it's tracks, and you can run, while they're still off balance.
I don't need the skillset to be "awesome" in solo, I want it to be able to actually kill someone in a reasonable time, not taking over an hour.
TP afflictions besides maybe three of them don't actually help in achieving a kill, and two of them are cured by the same thing, and all three can be focused off, also one can be blocked by teas. With the fact that paralysis can be cured so quickly, if fear tickes, while you're off balance, then they've left the room and have time to cure, and you're still waiting on balance to chase, and they have time to fully cure up and ready themselves.

I take issue with you claiming 3 Celestines can absolve faster than 3 TPs can mindburst. 3 TPs can do an instant mindburst. 3 Celestines can't instant absolve unless mana somewhat low.

Well, Neos, I'm afraid we'll just have to disagree, then. Like I said, I've not been a TP, so my opinion counts for little, but I do feel that TP is viable 1v1 with a little work at actually sticking afflictions. It's an uphill battle, for sure, but many classes have this problem solo, but it's certainly not impossible. I'll have to bow out of this discussion in deference to actual TP users, who obviously know their own skillset better than I do theirs. If there really are problems that need solved, getting them envoyed should probably be your next step, then.

I didn't say faster, I said at a faster rate, and said 3+. Ceren said the same thing in the psyvamp report. Report 301 if you want to read it.



Little has changed about Telepathy over the years, maybe balance times, from what I've seen in this post, but here's part of what I've been arguing from Geb, someone who knows what he's doing in combat and that fact is acknowledged by even the admin.
http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=168007
http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=167978
The post are pretty old, 6 years, but the general idea is the same, and not much has changed over the years about the skillset. And still, if TP had no problems, you'd actually see more Telepaths, but the majority of people choose TK.