The ineffectiveness of subtelty

Arcanis

With time, it has become more and more apparent to me that certain abilities that were coded to be subtle and stealthy have had their entire function neutralized by the advert of certain new mechanics and items. Abilities that once were designed to give no second or third party message are now triggering mechanics like "Masochism going in remission" and Masquerade illusion masks dropping. These give a clear warning to any individual to assess their location or themselves and sense if anyone has suddenly targeted them, thus making these abilities lose a part of their design.


To my knowledge so far, the abilities affected by these mechanics are:

Hunting Stalk
Stealth Stalk
Stealth Infiltrate
Phantasms Thoughtstealer
Phantasms Sightstealer
Forcemelding a demesne owned by another mage (only masochism on this) - no matter where the mage is.
Dreamweaving linking



Those are currently the ones I am aware of, but I will be adding to the list. I still wish to test to see if having certain loyals track to an individual will also trigger any of these responses.

These abilities are losing a big aspect to them, some even becoming unusable unless the person is targetting a novice or is hoping their target is AFK. I ask that masquerade masks and masochism not be triggered by subtle abilities, or at least masquerade not be and just removing the lines of "Masochist tendencies go into remission/return". In truth I really never understood the importance of someone knowing when they can hit themselves and when the ability to do so is removed since they are being attacked by another...

Synkarin

Infiltrate shouldn't be dropping masochism or stoles, it's non-aggro unless it was changed

Lerad

Arcanis said:

...
These abilities are losing a big aspect to them, some even becoming unusable unless the person is targetting a novice or is hoping their target is AFK.

...

Bolded words are my highlight.

I would like to argue that this is at best an exaggeration, and otherwise plainly untrue. In effect, none of the abilities you stated actually become unusable or lose their effectiveness. I am a stealth user, and I stalk/infiltrate as well as have masquerade (which, according to your post, can be used to "detect" such subtle abilities) and I don't feel I am being shafted out of stalk/infiltrate nor do I feel like masquerade gives me some kind of advantage against these abilities.

For one, masochism or no masochism, any experienced player or combatant knows to watch out for these things in combat. Things like ribbachi are another good example - that one isn't 'revealed' by masochism, but any combatant worth their salt knows to take things to clans instead of saying them out, or at the very least checking the room for a spy (eco bonds also can act as such) before using says. This is something entirely out of control of the user, and is fully dependant on how alert or experienced the opponent is. Such abilities are therefore "negated" by simply having someone who possesses situational awareness on the opposing side. This is also entirely true for thoughtstealers and infiltrate. I have infiltrated experienced combatants in peaced revolts for lengthy periods of time before, as well as being found out within seconds by newbies who check their diagnose often. Regardless, I still use infiltrate in a wide variety of situations, and to great effect. Its effectiveness has never been something I questioned, and I've always had reliable results from using it. If not getting an outright advantage, then at least as a distraction. The same applies for other such abilities.

Secondly, I actually think it is healthy to move away from abilities that take advantage of a player's lack of awareness. (Yes, I'm a stealth user) Sure, if someone isn't paying the attention they need to, then by all means, punish them. But abilities that force a player to do things like diagnose every 3 seconds, invoke indigo every time they move a room etc etc are not healthy. They don't add any kind of strategy to the contest. The counter for "stealth" like abilities should not be excessive alertness, but rather, experienced steps. If a dreamweaver is attacking you, and you have never seen a dreamweaver before, you should naturally be panicky and fail to use the right counters... simply because you have not the experience to deal with it. But not because you don't know what is going on because the game hides everything from you. On the flip side, attempting to dreamweave an experienced target should always, always come with a huge risk, because these should be people who know the counters and who will not run around like headless chickens, but instead use them ruthlessly to punish you for attacking them. And hiding such ability activations from them in order to maintain "usability" against these targets is simply counter-productive to a fun experience for both sides. Remember, it may be fun for you as a stealth user or dreamweaver to screw with someone else on the off-chance they aren't constantly checking defs/wounds/diagnose or other things, but it most certainly is not fun for them.

A change, if any should be put in, would be to address and shift the goals and rewards for such "subtle" activities if they are deemed to be too little for too much effort. For example, stalking is something that I've been thinking about changing, but haven't had any great ideas for. It's fairly useless not because the opponent knows when you stalk them (and experienced players WILL know, masochism or no masochism) but because usually your target moves before you regain balance from using stalk... leaving you standing there like an idiot having wasted a few seconds. The only people you can stalk and succeed at stalking are those who are standing still... and well, let's just say there's no point following someone who is standing still. I'm certainly welcome to ideas to change stalk, perhaps shift its goal from just following someone to something else. Most certainly, however, I will not be supporting attempts to make it more "subtle" because... well, it'll still be useless anyway.

Enyalida

Stalk and infiltrate have never done much, and dreamweavers are not intended for spying or assasination, seriously.

Arcanis

Lerad said:

Arcanis said:

...
These abilities are losing a big aspect to them, some even becoming unusable unless the person is targetting a novice or is hoping their target is AFK.

...

Bolded words are my highlight.

I would like to argue that this is at best an exaggeration, and otherwise plainly untrue. In effect, none of the abilities you stated actually become unusable or lose their effectiveness. I am a stealth user, and I stalk/infiltrate as well as have masquerade (which, according to your post, can be used to "detect" such subtle abilities) and I don't feel I am being shafted out of stalk/infiltrate nor do I feel like masquerade gives me some kind of advantage against these abilities.

Im sorry to say that this is a bit hard to believe. In truth, I rarely see you in the combat field, your character is not really known to be that active of a fighter. This is not an attempt at being offensive, but simply that your input that you find these abilities not to hinder your combat capabilities falls alittle flat.

Lerad said:

Arcanis said:

...
These abilities are losing a big aspect to them, some even becoming unusable unless the person is targetting a novice or is hoping their target is AFK.

...

Secondly, I actually think it is healthy to move away from abilities that take advantage of a player's lack of awareness. (Yes, I'm a stealth user) Sure, if someone isn't paying the attention they need to, then by all means, punish them. But abilities that force a player to do things like diagnose every 3 seconds, invoke indigo every time they move a room etc etc are not healthy. They don't add any kind of strategy to the contest. The counter for "stealth" like abilities should not be excessive alertness, but rather, experienced steps. If a dreamweaver is attacking you, and you have never seen a dreamweaver before, you should naturally be panicky and fail to use the right counters... simply because you have not the experience to deal with it. But not because you don't know what is going on because the game hides everything from you. On the flip side, attempting to dreamweave an experienced target should always, always come with a huge risk, because these should be people who know the counters and who will not run around like headless chickens, but instead use them ruthlessly to punish you for attacking them. And hiding such ability activations from them in order to maintain "usability" against these targets is simply counter-productive to a fun experience for both sides. Remember, it may be fun for you as a stealth user or dreamweaver to screw with someone else on the off-chance they aren't constantly checking defs/wounds/diagnose or other things, but it most certainly is not fun for them.

While the idea that a form of instant detection ability may seem better to some players, that is -not- the purpose for the creation of the Masochism configuration nor the Masquerade mask. If anything, the revealing of any type of aggressive ability onto the player (hidden abilities included), is an unprecedented side-effect of the abilities. If you believe there should be some form of awareness ability that alerts a player to whenever these stealthy abilities target them, then by all means make a report, however the utilizing of these mechanics to do so was -NOT- part of their design.

Additionally, being attack by a dreamweaver or stealth users, or simply being trailed or infiltrated by one, are two very different circumstances. If one is being attacked by a dreamweaver, they are quite aware of the situation and can take the proper actions to rid themselves of them. These abilities have always existed as they have before the introduction of these new mechanics that have now made the capability of subterfuge next to nil.

Lerad

Arcanis said:

Im sorry to say that this is a bit hard to believe. In truth, I rarely see you in the combat field, your character is not really known to be that active of a fighter. This is not an attempt at being offensive, but simply that your input that you find these abilities not to hinder your combat capabilities falls alittle flat.

Stealth infiltrate and stalk has zero combat application. These are purely utility abilities. At best, infiltrate has a strategical application, to learn the enemy's plans, but even then, its limited range (City and Guild channels) don't make it very well suited for it in a team-fight. Thoughtstealers and sightstealers operate on a similar principle: although hearing says remotely (no need for infiltrate's same-room or adjacent-elevation restriction) has more combat application than infiltrate does, yes, (this is why I mentioned ribacchi) it is still easily countered by speaking on clans - something which every combatant who knows what they are doing will urge their team to do, whether or not there's a stealth user, psionic or illuminati they are playing against. It is common knowledge of combatants that you only say what you want others to hear, anything with combat importance should be on squads or clans. Although, of course, at the very top level, experienced combatants will know the skillsets of the entire enemy roster and therefore be fully aware of whether such abilities come into play, and won't bother urging their team to use clans unless they know. And then at the top level above that top level, there are combatants who might want to use that to their advantage, to deceive the enemy team on their intentions by giving misleading information (this is more stealthy and subtle than the game hiding messages, don't you think?) in addition to putting the actual valuable information in clans. And then, on top of that, there is the layer of meta-knowledge that the top combatants of both teams will already know what is the best course of action of their opponents, and won't even bother taking the information gleaned from infiltrate/thoughtstealers etc into consideration, or will be able to see through a poorly worded bait easily.

In summary: they don't have tactical combat application, period. They do have strategical combat application, but which is, (as I argued in my first post) easily countered by any combatant who knows what they are doing.

Secondly, while my experience in combat certainly does play a role in determining the validity of my arguments (it's harder to take a non-combatant at their word than an active combatant) my experience (or lack thereof, as you claim) doesn't negate my logic, nor does it render my arguments null and void by default. There have been many non-combatants who have a fully working grasp of combat (and skill balance) theory, and who have done very well in various envoy roles before me. If you noticed, I actually did put forth an argument with reasons as to the strategical combat application of such abilities. I also used my own personal experience for stealth abilities (notice how I did not mention anything about melds, because I have no experience with melds personally) as a basis for my arguments. I am not talking out of my ass without evidence. If you didn't mean any offense, you might want to try actually rebutting my argument instead of simply saying "I never see you in combat, so I think your argument 'falls flat'."

As an addendum, I assure you of my experience in combat and that I am an active combatant. I also assure you that I make efforts to keep myself up to date on combat mechanics, testing where needed, relying on my logs where I have them. I won't claim I have a photographic memory and remember everything perfectly, but I assure you I don't have alzheimers. I assure you that I spend a fair amount of my online-time on combat related activities, though I will woefully agree that I haven't the chance to take part in many out-of-arena skirmishes of late. I also assure you I am fairly confident of my ability to assess the combat application, and therefore the effectiveness, of various abilities based on the skillsets they are found in and vis-a-vis the skillsets of potential opponents they are often used against. Although, given that all of these claims are coming from myself, I won't blame you if you don't believe me. However, I would most certainly appreciate it if, regardless of your assumptions, you take the time to debate my argument before lightly brushing it away. But anyway, I digress.

Arcanis said:

While the idea that a form of instant detection ability may seem better to some players, that is -not- the purpose for the creation of the Masochism configuration nor the Masquerade mask. If anything, the revealing of any type of aggressive ability onto the player (hidden abilities included), is an unprecedented side-effect of the abilities. If you believe there should be some form of awareness ability that alerts a player to whenever these stealthy abilities target them, then by all means make a report, however the utilizing of these mechanics to do so was -NOT- part of their design.

Additionally, being attack by a dreamweaver or stealth users, or simply being trailed or infiltrated by one, are two very different circumstances. If one is being attacked by a dreamweaver, they are quite aware of the situation and can take the proper actions to rid themselves of them. These abilities have always existed as they have before the introduction of these new mechanics that have now made the capability of subterfuge next to nil.

I agree with you that the masochism mechanic (which was made for testing abilities, not for combat application) revealing previously un-revealed information is a side-effect. Masquerade mask mechanisms, however, has been this way since it was created. It most certainly is not a side-effect. Regardless, let's talk about masochism, since masquerade is only available to a small subset of players and thus will not have the widespread effect of rendering these "hidden" abilities useless.

Masochism revealing hidden ability activations certainly is a side-effect, and if you want to argue that it therefore should be changed back to maintain the previous status quo, you have a very strong position. However, my argument is that this side-effect is actually healthy to the game. If an unintended consequence improved the game, I would like to put forth the argument that keeping it, or even expanding it, will be in the best interests of everyone, instead of returning to the previous state. Whether or not it actually IS healthy certainly is debatable, (disclaimer: I am trying to steer this argument in that direction, yes) but to insist on changing it back no matter what, just because it was not part of their design seems fairly myopic to me. I haven't made a report, and probably will not make one, to create a new ability specifically to do this because of several reasons.

1) I am a stealth user, and I'm not going to envoy a nerf to one of my flavour skills with minimal combat application and situational strategical application when there are better things to do. I might if there was nothing else on my agenda, of course.

2) I didn't notice any effect the masochism mechanic had on these hidden abilities - I simply wasn't thinking about it because it wasn't on my radar. I didn't even feel that it was a positive side-effect until I read this thread and started thinking about it.

3) If there already is a side-effect that does this... why would I want to make a new report to do the same thing? If there is a compelling reason to put it into the game, then we might as well use it if it already exists. Of course, if we want to expand it further, certainly, there would be a reason to make a report to make the effects more far-reaching.

I think we'd have a more fruitful discussion if we shifted the focus of the argument from "please change this back" to "do you think this is a good idea" instead. As a stealth user, I assure you, masochism hasn't curtailed my ability to subterfuge. Trust me when I say that, because the most fun I have in Lusternia after combat is shenanigans with my masks.

Arcanis

Lerad said:

I think we'd have a more fruitful discussion if we shifted the focus of the argument from "please change this back" to "do you think this is a good idea" instead. As a stealth user, I assure you, masochism hasn't curtailed my ability to subterfuge. Trust me when I say that, because the most fun I have in Lusternia after combat is shenanigans with my masks.

With my own experiences, the 'masochism effect' has been giving combatants an extra edge to capitalize on, admittedly myself being one of them. My my point in this case would be with melds. The moment an enemy mage has forcemelded over my own meld, I will know because my masochistic tendencies will go into remission. This is especially useful on Prime, which would alert me that someone has just declared on me and thus I can capitlize on this. Additionally, a mage could be standing anywhere, let's say for example on prime nexus, and instantly know if an enemy has attempted to breath their meld on their cosmic plane for example, which has been the case.

For stealthy abilities, there's things like dreamweaving link. An ability that was suppose to be hidden, as dreamweavers generally dont have much to capitalize on (sleep attrition tactics are viable but are rather tiresome to go with, not to mention many consider it a lousy way to fight). A nice aspect to them has been the capability of being sneaky, which I feel is being diminished by not being able to follow targets.


Agreed that I should have expanded on the combat situations. I feel things like thoughtstealer and sightstealer, though a high tier combatant would be checking for, should -not- be given an alarm that immediately tells a combatant when they are likely hit by it. There is always the chance of sneaking something in unnoticed which a lot attempt to capitalize on, but to place an immediate alarm on them basically makes them a near always fail.

Lerad

I'm not sure how big a deal it is to know your meld is being broken from another plane (like I mentioned, I've not been a melder) but I concede that it certainly is a valid concern.

Dreamweaving link as a spying ability? Well, I suppose it can be used to get into areas a dreambody otherwise cannot, but you can spy pretty normally by just sitting there as a dreambody without needing to use link anyway. I don't think there's really an issue dreamweavers face with masochism, is there? It also remains useful in combat (link your teammates to follow them around and help in combat).

I don't think thoughtstealers are that bad off. Obviously, you don't thoughtstealer a combatant who knows what the diag means, but instead aim for midbies or lowbies who might not diag as much, or might not understand it even if they do see it. After all, in combat, combatants would diagnose fairly often, I know I do, at least. I know I'm projecting my habits onto everyone else, but generally speaking, if you're aiming to glean strategical combat advantage using thoughtstealer, doing it on anyone other than a midbie or newbie would almost certainly ensure it gets caught and the opponents alerted anyway, even if masochism did not alert them.

(Side note: if I were a phantasms envoy, I'd rather change thoughtstealers to have actual combat application, like give an aff or something. Actual tactical advantage > some nebulous chance of possibly valuable strategical intel)

Thoughtstealers might lose utility as a spy-for-RP/politics-purposes tool with masochism declaring it, I guess. But it is in those kinds of situations that having something the opponents can catch to clue them in on spying will improve the game. It's cool to gain political advantage, but the other side needs to have a reasonable way to catch it as well. Being a skill that allows remote listening in, and only dispellable for 8p (critique, right?) defending against thoughtstealers can be frustratingly difficult (especially if you target midbies/newbies, who are more likely to appear in such settings than in a team-versus-team brawl). Things like infiltrate and eavesdrop require the stealth user to be within reach, and therefore putting himself in risk, and things like burying an eyeball to spy using Crow will need the user to show a message to everyone in the room. If anything, just showing the generic masochism line to one person, which might be missed if everyone is talking, is actually pretty stealthy already.

Either way, whether you want to keep it as a political/RP flavour spy ability or a proper combat ability skill, I don't think there's a need to make thoughtstealers not trigger the masochism message (or some other line). Meld breaking being clued in by the message is probably the strongest argument for something that is detrimental due to this side effect. The others? Not so much.

Ciaran

TL:DR ... ???

Arcanis

Ciaran said:

TL:DR ... ???

We were discussing how certain abilities that dont have second or third person message (meaning dont alert someone) are triggering messages like "masochistic tendencies go into remission (config masochism)" and the masquerade masks suddenly dropping. I know for a fact that attempting to link to an enemy does make their masquerade mask suddenly drop,meaning masochism probably also fires at that. We were discussing the importance of certain abilities and if it is a real concern or not.

Enyalida

Let me reiterate, as both a player with many years of playing a dreamweaver and many years being an envoy, dreambody is not intended to be primarily a spying or assassination tool. Even without silent linking, it is poor at either goal, serving only as hard to shake harassment.

I'm at work and can't comment much more than to tell you to stop beating that particular drum, it adds nothing to your argument.

Ssaliss

Personally I wouldn't mind if the stealthy abilities didn't break masochism, but I certainly want the masochism message to remain when it is broken. It's an excellent tool for telling when you're attacked with a single trigger,  instead of having to make something far more complex (such as "if given an affliction or health damaged or taking mana damage or taking ego damage or detecting meld broken or forcibly moved or...").

Arcanis

Enyalida said:

Let me reiterate, as both a player with many years of playing a dreamweaver and many years being an envoy, dreambody is not intended to be primarily a spying or assassination tool. Even without silent linking, it is poor at either goal, serving only as hard to shake harassment. I'm at work and can't comment much more than to tell you to stop beating that particular drum, it adds nothing to your argument.

Dreamweaving is perhaps the pinnacle of spying capabilities, with even mentions of it in lore being used for, quite bluntly: spying. The idea of utilizing dreambody to try and push afflictions (without having to puncture) is digging your own grave. No one uses dreambody to try and somehow enhance their combat combos. The most it could be useful in combat is perhaps by flinging motes and being untouchable...until a group realizes and everyone uses Kether and psiblades...

Maligorn

No...the most use of Dreamweaving comes from A. blackout ticks for your demesne and B. cheesing someone out by making them tired.

Elanorwen

Arcanis said:

Enyalida said:

Let me reiterate, as both a player with many years of playing a dreamweaver and many years being an envoy, dreambody is not intended to be primarily a spying or assassination tool. Even without silent linking, it is poor at either goal, serving only as hard to shake harassment. I'm at work and can't comment much more than to tell you to stop beating that particular drum, it adds nothing to your argument.

Dreamweaving is perhaps the pinnacle of spying capabilities, with even mentions of it in lore being used for, quite bluntly: spying. The idea of utilizing dreambody to try and push afflictions (without having to puncture) is digging your own grave. No one uses dreambody to try and somehow enhance their combat combos. The most it could be useful in combat is perhaps by flinging motes and being untouchable...until a group realizes and everyone uses Kether and psiblades...

First, let's learn mechanics before we start arguing about how useful dreamweaving can be in combat.

You cannot. I repeat, cannot fling motes at targets that are awake or that don't have a punctured aura. To puncture a target's aura, you need to be awake and not in dreamform. So sure, you'll be flinging motes at enemies until they realize and everyone starts using kether/violet/psi blades? Uhhh.... in what world? Either the enemy is engaged with your group, at which point your teammates are pissed at you because you're running around in dream form rather than doing something more useful like breaking enemy meld/melding/staffing or they're not at which point you're either harassing some novice that can't say... hey, something's poking at me.... or you're just sitting there, being useless.

Dreamweaver has no spying capabilities beyond the part where you can float into a room without being detected unless someone randomly does chockmah/indigo which nobody these days does simply because nobody would ever think of dreamweaving being used in that particular fashion because it is useless in that particular fashion. Heck, your every day mage has more spying capability with StolenThoughts than a dreamweaver does. These days, yes, what Maligorn says is relatively true. If I was a Hartstone, chances are I'd be a dreamweaver because I feel it works quite well for the skillset and sneaking a sap under a blackout long enough to where an enemy can't see the vines or the stag stomp that hit them in the process.

Moi

Lerad said:

Thoughtstealers might lose utility as a spy-for-RP/politics-purposes tool with masochism declaring it, I guess. But it is in those kinds of situations that having something the opponents can catch to clue them in on spying will improve the game. It's cool to gain political advantage, but the other side needs to have a reasonable way to catch it as well. Being a skill that allows remote listening in, and only dispellable for 8p (critique, right?) defending against thoughtstealers can be frustratingly difficult (especially if you target midbies/newbies, who are more likely to appear in such settings than in a team-versus-team brawl). Things like infiltrate and eavesdrop require the stealth user to be within reach, and therefore putting himself in risk, and things like burying an eyeball to spy using Crow will need the user to show a message to everyone in the room. If anything, just showing the generic masochism line to one person, which might be missed if everyone is talking, is actually pretty stealthy already.

I feel that StolenThoughts, Infiltrate and Eavesdrop should all not be revealed by masochism. Putting the onus on the conspirators to convene in remote locations and to only discuss significant matters via cryptic implications and/or after running through a checklist of anti-spy precautions is better for cloak and dagger RP than having all spying abilities give a warning message that something is potentially up.

Enyalida

Look, I intimately understand how dreamweavers work. I've used all the tricks and envoyed it a few times. If you think that a dreambody spent their time using motes, or that you needed puncture to use motes in group combat, your grasp may not be as firm. It takes quite a few kethers to scare off a prepared dw.

Anyways, this has come up before and I'm reiterating the official position, per Esty, seriously. It's intended to provide an avenue for those with poor curing to participate in group combat in limited fashion with less risk.

Arcanis

Elanorwen said:

Arcanis said:

Enyalida said:

Let me reiterate, as both a player with many years of playing a dreamweaver and many years being an envoy, dreambody is not intended to be primarily a spying or assassination tool. Even without silent linking, it is poor at either goal, serving only as hard to shake harassment. I'm at work and can't comment much more than to tell you to stop beating that particular drum, it adds nothing to your argument.

Dreamweaving is perhaps the pinnacle of spying capabilities, with even mentions of it in lore being used for, quite bluntly: spying. The idea of utilizing dreambody to try and push afflictions (without having to puncture) is digging your own grave. No one uses dreambody to try and somehow enhance their combat combos. The most it could be useful in combat is perhaps by flinging motes and being untouchable...until a group realizes and everyone uses Kether and psiblades...

First, let's learn mechanics before we start arguing about how useful dreamweaving can be in combat.

You cannot. I repeat, cannot fling motes at targets that are awake ---

It was at that last word that I honestly stopped reading your post...you start off with "let's learn mechanics" then say "cannot fling motes at targets awake. How am I suppose to at all even slightly take you seriously?

Maligorn said:

No...the most use of Dreamweaving comes from A. blackout ticks for your demesne and B. cheesing someone out by making them tired.

Look at my post again. I said 'Dreambody'. which is what the previous 2 posts was about. Again, the usefulness of 'Dreambody'. When it comes to Dreamweaving, the most usefulness you can get is, as you said, blackout ticks in which dreamweaving has one of the best blackout hits in the game.

Elanorwen

Arcanis said:

It was at that last word that I honestly stopped reading your post...you start off with "let's learn mechanics" then say "cannot fling motes at targets awake. How am I suppose to at all even slightly take you seriously?

Then you should've kept on reading. A few words later you will see what it says. I will quote it for you so you can learn something.

You cannot. I repeat, cannot fling motes at targets that are awake or that don't have a punctured aura.

See that bit at the end there? Yes, clearly, I'm an idiot and you're not. Now, next time, let's read everything that someone is trying to say rather than just going off on people, shall we?

EDIT: By the way, that is why nobody takes you seriously. But hey, let's shoo the people that are trying to teach us something off, shall we?

Maligorn

I can't believe Tweets was closed because people were antagonising you when you clearly bring it on yourself with snooty ass posts like the above.

Maligorn

You've got an experienced Stealth and 2 DW users telling you you're wrong, but Arcanis is always right when he has his big ideas, huh?

Maligorn

I mean, okay. I appreciate your ideas, to be honest. I like that you're trying to change things up. I'd see about asking Tanin to become Geo envoy even. But don't be surprised if people disagree with you.

Arcanis

Maligorn said:

You've got an experienced Stealth and 2 DW users telling you you're wrong, but Arcanis is always right when he has his big ideas, huh?

An exper...Lerad admitted he doesnt even use his abilities for combat nor really enter it, and experienced dreamweavers? You're calling Elanorwen an experienced dreamweaver? The only one whose opinion I might consider here would be Enyalida as she has been known to use the skill.


"Snooty" posts or not, Im actually using logic while individuals such as yourself and friend attempt to throw mud and state points with no backing, or, in the case of the 3 posts above, you misreading. Criticism with sound reasoning behind it is acceptable, but individuals giving criticism for the sake of being negative (such as terms of "Learn mechanics first"), are just a waste of mine and others time.

Maligorn

Yeah, actually, I do consider Elanorwen to be a competent Dreamweaver as a Hartstone druid. Beggars can't be choosers when it comes to feedback, believe me -- and talking down Elanorwen, while it might be the popular thing to do, only exposes you as a A. person who wants to be a cool kid by joining in on the bullying and B. makes you look even more stupid in front of others, considering your own competency. And while Lerad might not be a very active combatant, he's not an idiot nor is he incompetent in Nekotai and Stealth. I expect him to be good, as the Nekotai envoy.

Neos

Arcanis said:

An exper...Lerad admitted he doesnt even use his abilities for combat nor really enter it

wut

Maligorn

Lerad said:

Secondly, while my experience in combat certainly does play a role in determining the validity of my arguments (it's harder to take a non-combatant at their word than an active combatant) my experience (or lack thereof, as you claim) doesn't negate my logic, nor does it render my arguments null and void by default. There have been many non-combatants who have a fully working grasp of combat (and skill balance) theory, and who have done very well in various envoy roles before me. If you noticed, I actually did put forth an argument with reasons as to the strategical combat application of such abilities. I also used my own personal experience for stealth abilities (notice how I did not mention anything about melds, because I have no experience with melds personally) as a basis for my arguments. I am not talking out of my ass without evidence. If you didn't mean any offense, you might want to try actually rebutting my argument instead of simply saying "I never see you in combat, so I think your argument 'falls flat'."

As an addendum, I assure you of my experience in combat and that I am an active combatant. I also assure you that I make efforts to keep myself up to date on combat mechanics, testing where needed, relying on my logs where I have them. I won't claim I have a photographic memory and remember everything perfectly, but I assure you I don't have alzheimers. I assure you that I spend a fair amount of my online-time on combat related activities, though I will woefully agree that I haven't the chance to take part in many out-of-arena skirmishes of late. I also assure you I am fairly confident of my ability to assess the combat application, and therefore the effectiveness, of various abilities based on the skillsets they are found in and vis-a-vis the skillsets of potential opponents they are often used against. Although, given that all of these claims are coming from myself, I won't blame you if you don't believe me. However, I would most certainly appreciate it if, regardless of your assumptions, you take the time to debate my argument before lightly brushing it away. But anyway, I digress.

Lerad didn't admit to anything of the sort. Now you're just making shit up Arcanis. Did you even read what Lerad had to say?

Arcanis Credibility score continues to plummet!

Ciaran

It seems like a good idea to have these 'sneaky' skills not get revealed by masochism/masks dropping.

All that other stuff is just noise.

Tridemon

Well, let's be honest, I am not a terribly effective combatant... but frankly, the main application of weaving thoughtstealers at someone that I've found is confirming that someone is still in the area, or hitting someone in an area where they're enemied before they can get out so that you can pursue without declaring.

Synkarin

99% sure thoughtstealers and sightstealers have messages when you receive them, meaning it wouldn't even matter if they dropped masochism/masks because you still see it.

Could do with a confirmation though.

Neos

Synkarin said:

99% sure thoughtstealers and sightstealers have messages when you receive them, meaning it wouldn't even matter if they dropped masochism/masks because you still see it.

Could do with a confirmation though.

Seeing the message is based on illusion checking. Report 824

Synkarin

Well there you go, I was kind of right