I don't want to spin off into a tangential discussion here, but wolf is not 100% fear immunity. It only ticks about half the time, and it doesn't stop any of the 'special' fear afflictions like loneliness or agoraphobia. While that might be sad to you as one of the nine or so players in the game who even has potential access to a skill that gives passive, group-wide fear, I would hardly call FearAura the basis for declaring Wolf superior to rubeus. In fact, I find it almost laughable that you would even think about saying that the ascendant power FearAura finds more use than lust, when there are things not only like your classic lust-empress into Catacombs, but people in every raid who walk around with love potion up in hopes of lusting the enemy melder.

While ultimately I agree that moonbeam is better than Via, that was not the intent of my post at all. With both, it is clear that there are things lost and things gained, unlike the many examples I gave where the commune skill has disadvantages to the city skill, but gets nothing in exchange. Via is continental within its restriction, and this at least gives it a niche use that moonbeam will never be able to match. For this reason, it is clear that there was at least an intent to balance the two skills, even if it may have landed heavily on one side. In the examples I gave, the only response I've ever heard is that of Eventru's that RP should completely supercede mechanics, even if it means knowingly making the commune skill weaker.

Yep, I actually do think that fear to split up a big group is far more valuable than saving yourself from a meld tick, which is why it's such a big deal for people to stay together and also explains why people hate and argue incessantly about skills like gravity and choke, which deals with separation in different ways.

So yes, I do agree that group fear is a more annoying and important tactic in group combat than saving yourself only from room effects. But what do I know!

I'm also aware of what wolf does, I used it for 4+ years.

Even if most of these comparisons have merit, the actual gameplay difference is small enough that RP may supercede balance.

Nature vines vs. Cosmic web - You have access to Web enchants. Most guilds have to rely on enchants as well.

Wicca Broom vs. Celestialism/Nihilism Wings - Flying is of dubious usefulness in combat. Besides, Institute doesn't get flight at all, and there is a significant opportunity cost to sprouting wings for Illuminati.

Nature rain vs. Elementalism cleanse - You have access to the enchant like everyone else. Remember that most guilds have to rely on the enchant. Further, Nature Rain has the slight advantage of hitting room.

Nature barkskin vs. Elementalism stoneskin - Stoneskin is, assuming NO other physical DMP, an additional 4% damage reduction against physical damage types. The difference is small enough that RP can supersede it.

foolofsound:

Even if most of these comparisons have merit, the actual gameplay difference is small enough that RP may supercede balance.

Nature vines vs. Cosmic web - You have access to Web enchants. Most guilds have to rely on enchants as well.

my web alias actually just does vines first, then web and recharge, if I'm in a forest, I vine, if not, I web, all with the same alias, no big deal

I agree, vining a target when not in a forest room should take eq.

Edit: But I really am sympathetic to some of the problems, especially with toadcurse vs. absolve, but I ultimately feel that city vs. commune comparisons is very futile given that such things are most often backed up by opinion and not facts or hard numbers.

Sojiro:

For instance: you missed the important part of rubeus vs. wolf when it comes to a skill that you see way more use of instead of lust: fearaura.

Sojiro:

Yep, I actually do think that fear to split up a big group is far more valuable than saving yourself from a meld tick, which is why it's such a big deal for people to stay together and also explains why people hate and argue incessantly about skills like gravity and choke, which deals with separation in different ways.

I'm just going to point out that your argument changed between those two posts. In the first, you said wolf was more useful because FearAura is a skill of which "you see way more use", and that is to what my post was in response. However, you are entirely missing the point that FearAura is very rarely used, since so few people have access to it and those who do must take it at the expense of other, equally useful choices. I would take a skill that constantly offers me moderate benefit over a skill that very rarely offers me a considerable benefit, especially when you consider that lust from love potion isn't the only thing that rubeus stops.


Foolofsound: Yes, most of these things ultimately aren't a huge deal, but the point I am trying to make is that, if the skills are so inferior that your suggestion to me is "just use web/cleanse enchant like everyone else", why even have these skills exist in the first place? Under your solution, they are serving only to remind commune members that they have skills which are inferior. However, this is less so the case for things like ToadCurse, which, as a few people pointed out, actually has a large impact on combat. Like Shuyin said above, splitting people up in a fight is a BIG deal, and when in order to get an instakill on a helpless opponent you have to leave the group and chase them around for a long time, ToadCurse is sometimes just as harmful to the group as it is helpful.

I don't think it changed at all, but maybe my wording was unclear again. If it is, I apologize.

Here:

Fearaura is far more annoying to fight against in relation to group combat than lusting. Taken within this context, wolf is far superior to rubeus given fear's tendency to spread out your forces at a fairly frequent rate. Sure, rubeus blocks more things than fear, but then its long balance (4-5+ seconds) makes it unreasonable to repeatedly put back up during a group melee.

Syntax: CHANT RUBEUS
The Ritual of Rubeus is performed during times of war. It will prevent
pacifism, lover's effects, shyness, lust, and fear.

Of those, it's pretty much just lust and fear that you see used in group combat. While stating that rubeus blocks more things than fear, it is not really all that great when taken from a practical standpoint. Plus again, long balance.

However, rubeus doesn't go down every time it ticks. I am not sure of the exact conditions when it does, but I know coding around tracking it boggled me a bit when I was in the Institute because I would find there were times I got the "shake your head in anger" message, but where it was still up afterward. Again, you are also sidestepping the argument that you are probably one of two people in the game who currently possesses FearAura as an active ascendant power, so while wolf is useful in this one single instance, that cannot be taken to mean that it is universally better. This is exactly the type of minutia I wanted to avoid though, so perhaps we can agree to disagree on this one point and recognize that this is why I did not include it in my own list of examples, of which there are still plenty.

All right fine.

Speaking of weird things that communes don't get but cities do, and connecting that to tradesperson gripes... Make the ego healing horn from tinkering heal ego of people you blow it at.

Why is wolf not universally better for dealing with fear than rubeus? That's a silly statement, set and forget is always superior to defenses you have to put back up. Lets also remember that wolf grants scent, which is pretty arguably one of the best skills in the game.

thisismydisplayname:

My greatest frustration is this: why is Toadcurse not an instakill when it has the same requirements for Absolve? Why not lower the power and add an option of TOADCURSE PERSON STOMP which instantly kills someone for 8p, the same eq loss and the balance loss equal to stomping a toad at present?

... no.

Wiccans are much, much better at draining mana. Moondancers have Succumb, Shadowdancers have Lash with a stolen shadow, versus the city amissio. Beyond this, Wiccan ents add much more mana-draining capability than their city counterparts.

Balance-wise, either fae need to be nerfed into the ground, or toadcurse stays the way it is. It's not designed to be an instant-kill with the Wiccan setup. Period.

Edit: I won't disagree with being annoyed that so many Totems abilities get farmed out into artifacts, but other skill abilities that I'd like are not. Hmph.

Sidd:

Why is wolf not universally better for dealing with fear than rubeus? That's a silly statement, set and forget is always superior to defenses you have to put back up. Lets also remember that wolf grants scent, which is pretty arguably one of the best skills in the game.

Wolf is not universally better, because rubeus does not deal only with fear. Wolf is better at dealing with fear, but universally here means 'with all things in consideration', and if you are only looking at fear you are not looking at the entire scope of rubeus. Again, this is a messy example, which is why I did not choose it.

Xenthos:

Beyond this, Wiccan ents are much better at draining mana than their city counterparts.

Balance-wise, either fae need to be nerfed into the ground, or toadcurse stays the way it is.

Toadcurse is not designed to be an instant-kill with the Wiccan setup. Period.

How are MD ents much better at draining mana? I will admit that this is true for the SD with redcap fae, but otherwise the only fae which affect mana at all are the banshee and maybe the pixie if you want to count the mana cost of insomnia. I wouldn't say we are so much better that an instakill is entirely out of the question, especially given the high power cost of a wiccan offence coupled with the high cost of toadcurse.

Rathan:

Wolf is not universally better, because rubeus does not deal only with fear. Wolf is better at dealing with fear, but universally here means 'with all things in consideration', and if you are only looking at fear you are not looking at the entire scope of rubeus. Again, this is a messy example, which is why I did not choose it.



How are MD ents much better at draining mana? I will admit that this is true for the SD with redcap fae, but otherwise the only fae which affect mana at all are the banshee and maybe the pixie if you want to count the mana cost of insomnia. I wouldn't say we are so much better that an instakill is entirely out of the question, especially given the high power cost of a wiccan offence coupled with the high cost of toadcurse.

Banshee, pixie, pooka (how are you forgetting the pooka?). The banshee does a significant chunk all by itself. Pixie is an additional 100. Pooka is a minimum of 250 (possibly more if you use another ability that your target has which consumes more than Focus Body).

The banshee is way better than a redcap at draining mana.

Rathan:

Wolf is not universally better, because rubeus does not deal only with fear. Wolf is better at dealing with fear, but universally here means 'with all things in consideration', and if you are only looking at fear you are not looking at the entire scope of rubeus. Again, this is a messy example, which is why I did not choose it.

Yeah they aren't directly comparable, but in general, given the fact that scent has been given a dingbat artifact while rubeus has no such counter, I would say wolf -is universally- better than rubeus. I don't really see how you can argue that. I think of all the skills rubeus stops, fear is by and large the best and you should have seen the complaining when wolf was 100% immunity to fear.

Sojiro:

The banshee is way better than a redcap at draining mana.

Yes, and I included the banshee. The shadowdancers get both the banshee and the redcap, which is why I included the redcap separately as a reason that the SD are better at draining mana. From my testing, banshee drains about 10% of your mana every 12th second. Assuming a mana pool of 4000, which is conservative enough to include low int races, the mana drain of all the common fae combined comes to only 18% mana a tick, which is barely more than sipping mana potion alone, far from unreasonable when you consider that potion balance is less than half of the time of a fae tick.

At 4000 mana, you have:
400 from the Banshee
100 from the Pixie
250 from the Pooka
= An additional 750 mana drain when they tick.

This is in addition to the standard drain, and Moondancers have Succumb which (on a 1v1 level) allows for passive recurrence while the Moondancer focuses on other things. Shadowdancers have to actively drain but also have the Redcap.

Rathan:


This means that if I can find one single case in which rubeus is better than wolf, then wolf is not universally better. I hate to get hung up on a word, but "better" and "universally better" are two very, VERY different things. Case: person walks in with love potion, rubeus blocks it but wolf does nothing. Therefore, wolf not universally better. Furthermore, as I have said multiple times, wolf is not 100% immunity to fear. It only ticks those times you see the "The courage of the wolf drives the fear from your spirit" message, which seems to be only about half the time. Additionally, since combat is balanced around the top, the fact that there is a dingbat item for scent means that you cannot apply scent as an advantage of wolf, because in the hypothetical absolute top tier all combatants will have the pig nose (and most top-tier combatants do). Now please can we move away from this point.

I didn't say wolf was 100%, I said you should have seen the complaining WHEN it WAS 100% (which it was at one point). I see that you're playing semantics, I consider universally better to be which skill would you choose everytime, if you could. Would you choose to have Wolf or Rubeus, I pick wolf, and I bet most other people would to, and yes, that's in general in all cases, I would rather have wolf than rubeus. I'll drop it for now, but I believe this is one of many cases where commune skills are better than city skills.

Wolf is definitely better than rubeus. However, damn you Laetitia.