Succumb is 15% mana drain every 4.5 seconds. This equates to 3.33 %mana/second, exactly the same as mana potion (which heals on average 15% mana every 4.5 seconds, discounting any sip bonuses/maluses). On top of this Moondancers have the 18% mana every 12 seconds (1.5 %mana/second) from fae that we already agree on. Sparkleberry is 11% mana every 6 seconds (1.83 %m/s) , and Healing scroll is variable but amounts to about 4% mana every 8 seconds (.5 %m/s).

HEALING
------------------
mana potion.....+ 3.33 %m/s
sparkleberry.....+ 1.83 %m/s
magic scroll......+ .5 %m/s

SUBTOTAL: 5.66 %m/s

DRAINING
--------------
succumb......- 3.33 %m/s
fae...............- 1.5 %m/s

SUBTOTAL: - 4.85 %m/s

TOTAL: +.81 %m/s

This means that, assuming the Moondancer has somehow permanently stuck succumb to you, you are still experiencing a net gain in mana if your curing is otherwise unhindered. I would hardly call a Moondancer's ability to drain mana so overwhelming that a true instakill is out of the question.

The onus is on the Moondancer to prevent the victim from consistently sipping/sparkling/scrolling and not just let it happen. With that in mind, the numbers above don't mean much in the argument.

Rathan:

Succumb is 15% mana drain every 4.5 seconds. This equates to 3.33 %mana/second, exactly the same as mana potion (which heals on average 15% mana every 4.5 seconds, discounting any sip bonuses/maluses). On top of this Moondancers have the 18% mana every 12 seconds (1.5 %mana/second) from fae that we already agree on. Sparkleberry is 11% mana every 6 seconds (1.83 %m/s) , and Healing scroll is variable but amounts to about 4% mana every 8 seconds (.5 %m/s).

HEALING
------------------
mana potion.....+ 3.33 %m/s
sparkleberry.....+ 1.83 %m/s
magic scroll......+ .5 %m/s

SUBTOTAL: 5.66 %m/s

DRAINING
--------------
succumb......- 3.33 %m/s
fae...............- 1.5 %m/s

SUBTOTAL: - 4.85 %m/s

TOTAL: +.81 %m/s

This means that, assuming the Moondancer has somehow permanently stuck succumb to you, you are still experiencing a net gain in mana if your curing is otherwise unhindered. I would hardly call a Moondancer's ability to drain mana so overwhelming that a true instakill is out of the question.

That's why you, I don't know, use other skills?

Just like a Nihilist or Celestine has to do, only with less mana drain going for them automatically.

Yes, but the point is, preventing an opponent from using their cure methods to maximum efficiency (likely through use of waning) is the Moondancer's win condition. The numbers do indeed have a large impact - the earlier argument was that a wiccan's mana draining is so overwhelming that a Moondancer getting your mana to 50% is an inevitable conclusion and for this reason an instakill is inappropriate.

Wiccans are better at mana draining than Celestines/Nihilists, however, Celestines and Nihilists also have more kill methods available to them through Judgement/Crucify/Inquisition/straight damage. Wiccans have far less versatility than the guardians, so it seems at least fitting to give them the one kill method they do have.

You really think it's hard to stomp a toad?

I just want a toad kill. Right now 80% of my toads are stomped by someone else :(

I think that requiring a wiccan to walk away from the group fight to chase a toad who will start two rooms out from the wiccan before eq comes back from the toadcurse is an unnecessary detriment to the raiding team as a whole considering it is the wiccan's only kill strategy. Furthermore, in areas with many looping exits, toads CAN get away, which just feels wrong given that at that point the fight is basically over.

However, you are losing the relevance of this argument - this entire train of thinking started when Eventru said that toadcurse is not, and is not meant to be, an instant kill. In response, we said that if it is not an instant kill, it should not have the same power cost as other skills with the same use conditions which ARE instant kills. Someone, using the same logic as you, pointed out that it really isn't hard to stomp a toad and at that point they aren't fighting back, so why not just make toad an instant kill and circumnavigate all this arguing. It's only because now suddenly wiccans are apparently too powerful to have an instant kill that this more detailed discussion has begun.

The issue with threads like this is that they're doomed from the get go by being insanely broad and insanely one sided. If someone wants to respond, the range of topics laid out from the get go essentially opens the door to just fire the same sort of argument right back, and the whole thing just collapses under its own weight.

I mean...

Hey, I can tell you right now, I missed the massive all around DMP boost and free weapon aura I got from Moon every single day I was a knight in a city.

And, being able to have basically everyone hop up to ethereal with no real issue, as opposed to half the org asking for rides to higher planes.

And having my non-prime supermob area being nearly always unmeldable, which synergizes nicely with the "everyone can get up to the place on their own" comment above.

And I hold to the belief that fewer, very powerful supermobs are a better deal than more numerous, less powerful ones- I hope Jojobo has one supermob. I will give it a head dress and call it chief punch'em. It can be a giant humanoid tiger and can comment constantly on its favorite cereal.

Real point being that if you want to make a broad-side list of why in general cities/communes are better than communes/cities, you're going to fail hard. Because it invariably involves selective recollection, cherry picking, and other such argument corrupting crap.

If you have a specific issue with a specific thing that you feel has created an intolerable situation that bears addressing, parse it out and address it. But if you're saying (W+X+Y+Z)>(A+B+C+D), therefore decrease X and Y or increase B and A, and also, variables R, V, Y, and G, M, and L need not be considered, because they don't support my argument?

You wind up sinking your own ship.

Rathan:

Yes, but the point is, preventing an opponent from using their cure methods to maximum efficiency (likely through use of waning) is the Moondancer's win condition. The numbers do indeed have a large impact - the earlier argument was that a wiccan's mana draining is so overwhelming that a Moondancer getting your mana to 50% is an inevitable conclusion and for this reason an instakill is inappropriate.

Wiccans are better at mana draining than Celestines/Nihilists, however, Celestines and Nihilists also have more kill methods available to them through Judgement/Crucify/Inquisition/straight damage. Wiccans have far less versatility than the guardians, so it seems at least fitting to give them the one kill method they do have.

Wiccans are better at achieving the goal than guardians; this does not correlate to them needing to be both better at achieving it as well as then having the same power when they do achieve that result.

Toadcurse is not intended to be an instakill; toadcurse also should not be an instakill, unless we want to nerf down Wiccans in other areas. It's fine as-is.

Vadi can tell you that I've had this same argument / discussion with him.

Rainydays:

If you have a specific issue with a specific thing that you feel has created an intolerable situation that bears addressing, parse it out and address it. But if you're saying (W+X+Y+Z)>(A+B+C+D), therefore decrease X and Y or increase B and A, and also, variables R, V, Y, and G, M, and L need not be considered, because they don't support my argument?

But I didn't say that. In the beginning of this thread, I was very careful to lay out direct comparisons of nearly identical skills, such that W>A, X>B, Y>C, and Z>D. Really, it just irks me to no end that time and time again I see skills that do not just similar but the exact same thing in city guilds, but better. In cases where the reverse is true, and commune skills really do do the exact same thing but better, I would advocate giving the cities the benefit as well. However, people have still failed to show me a case where this is true, similar-but-different skills aside.

Rathan:


But I didn't say that. In the beginning of this thread, I was very careful to lay out direct comparisons of nearly identical skills, such that W>A, X>B, Y>C, and Z>D. Really, it just irks me to no end that time and time again I see skills that do not just similar but the exact same thing in city guilds, but better. In cases where the reverse is true, and commune skills really do do the exact same thing but better, I would advocate giving the cities the benefit as well. However, people have still failed to show me a case where this is true, similar-but-different skills aside.

And you promptly ignored any instance where communes have it better, and then, having dropped all the pebbles in one side of the scales, pointed to it and said, "See, see here the injustice between these broad amalgamations of mechanics!"

You compare very similar mechanics on either side, but you fail to account for how some deficiencies may or may not be made up in other ways in terms of the overall balance of things.

I'm not so naieve (or hypocritical) to suggest that everything is perfectly balanced, but ultimately, you're choosing to analyze a few variables, and claim that inequities between them must be resolved, regardless of the state of the whole equation.

You can't do that in a post, or even a thread. While it might be technically possible with enough effort, it's not practically feasible. So the better alternative is to address specific things, and explain why that specific thing, on its own merits, is an issue.

Its the same problem that is faced when addressing org momentum. It is a broad topic with a myriad of factors. If you bring all the guns to bear, so will the other ship in our little analogy here, and all you end up with is a lot of smoke and noise.

Heh, I like it when other people argue for my skills. Sucks to be an SD who has "even less" mana drain than an MD since succumb was deleted in favour of choke! Too bad though that only SDs get skills. Then we'd have some cooperation like here instead of everyone ganging up on the skill.

@toadcurse: There was indeed a discussion that convinced me of Xenthos' point. I'm alright with it mostly, except that the Ethereal Serenwilde hugely favours defenders due to the proximity of the exit (and location of most battles) to the nexus - so it's easy to run away when people are being passively hindered by liveforest and other things. It's alright in 1v1 otherwise, unless you're really bad you mostly catch up to the toad.

edit: Sorry, I didn't address the topic properly enough. I feel that the differences noted are miniscule and are a good thing (I do get jealous of some skills even Moon has) - balanced diversity makes it interesting, I'm not a fan of mirror balancing.

When I saw the topic of this post I entirely expected it to be the opposite. You think cities are better than communes...? The fact totems is so delicious it has artifacts made from it alone says alot. You compare stoneskin (elementalism - mages) to barkskin ( nature - druids AND wiccans) and did you consider beyond that? Lets look at drawdown/nightkiss... hey look more DMP to all than almost every city guild gets.

Communes were given better DMP and more situationals. Cities were given more broad skills aimed at offense or defense. If you can compare night to necromancy and say necromancy is better I will correct your prescription.

By the way, Eventru, Rathan's use of "arbitrary" in his opening post is pretty much spot on, in a mechanical sense. In an RP sense, there certainly was a reason and a valid intent in making things like vine require forest (though that's be debunked by the line descriptors quoted by some other people, but there COULD have been such a valid reason) but mechanically, in an isolated comparison between vine and web as castable spells? There was no reason beyond whim (that has been stated).

Of course, like akui has pointed out, isolated, specific comparisons on singular abilities are not a very holistic approach to determining inter-org balance. It is possible, however, to eventually explore inter-org combat theory to the point where you can make a reasonably valid value-statement about whether nature vines is underpowered in comparison to cosmic web. That will require, however, extensive theory-crafting and hypothetical analysis backed up by subsequent experiments and statistical data on the level of most scientific, academic disciplines, something that isn't really possible in a game.

Isolated, specific comparisons based on a hypothetical, presumed imbalance, however, is the basis of any impetus for research and testing, and subsequent correctional action. In that regard, Rathan's thread is at least on the right path. Making the value statement that communes are gimped in comparison to cities should be something that we reach later in the day. My advice to Rathan: make specific, isolated threads that start with a single, isolated and perceived imbalance (A vs Z). Forum users will then bring up their opinions and offer evidence, and they will start pulling in all the BCDs and WXYs that akui mentioned in his post, and through discussion, there will eventually be a reasonably well-explored and supported argument for changing or not changing mechanics to correct any imbalance. "Communes vs Cities" is definitely too broad a topic for a game where the basic algorithms and formulae behind individual abilities are kept secret from even envoys. Something like "Vines vs Web" might fare better in a discussion.

Lerad:

By the way, Eventru, Rathan's use of "arbitrary" in his opening post is pretty much spot on, in a mechanical sense. In an RP sense, there certainly was a reason and a valid intent in making things like vine require forest (though that's be debunked by the line descriptors quoted by some other people, but there COULD have been such a valid reason) but mechanically, in an isolated comparison between vine and web as castable spells? There was no reason beyond whim (that has been stated).

The fact it makes sense due to roleplay alone excludes it from being 'arbitrary'. If it required flying and they belched up the vines, that would be arbitrary.

Eventru:


The fact it makes sense due to roleplay alone excludes it from being 'arbitrary'. If it required flying and they belched up the vines, that would be arbitrary.

Eeh, it barely makes sense for roleplay given the lines.

Nature feels more like a forest skill as opposed to a... nature skill. Unfortunately the more interesting option isn't implemented, that being having the skills work in natural environment types with slight modifications (i.e blend would just need a list of natural environments, vines could actually trap them in environment appropriate stuff if need be, flow would be same restriction)

Give more forest people the ability to create forest. Songs, a wiccan skill-- something.

Just let people make dryads indoors as well. Bam fixed.

Sojiro:

Just let people make dryads indoors as well. Bam fixed.

Best suggestion in the thread. :o

Yeah I know, I'm on a roll. B)