Well now, let's not exaggerate. It's not instant. If you give me 5 minutes to do that, then yeah I could apply grey/bad to everyone, but if I do, imo you deserve it.
Next, badluck doesn't do any afflictions. All it does is increase insanity over over time.
Last, I used the 1v1 log to illustrate his mistakes in light of his complaints about OP. Mainly the fact that he didn't cure as well as he should. I don't see what group combat potentials relevancy has to do with that. Plus groups is groups.
Also I like illuminati because the nature of the game makes it easy to run if you really wanted to, as I've repeatedly shown in logs. The class makes it hard to leave, so here I am, among many other hilarious reasons.
Their affliction output is hindering, and it adds to their movement-hindering. It's the hilarious group focus that is hard to match for most of the other orgs, between movement lockdowns and aff lockdowns and survivability.
I agree, deleting spix doesn't do much... but it's going to happen anyways. Blind is being removed as a defense, spix should get changes to compensate, along with glamours transfix... and aff classes in general.
It's like Enyalida said: Illuminati will punish you if you don't focus them first. They have Paradigmatics Fusion, RoA's and DMP to avoid getting damaged out easily. They pack in enough afflictions and use greywhispers/tempins to eat herb balance, while also hindering you. Not so bad yet. Now put it in group context and imagine three org's worth of killers hacking away at you while this hindermancy is going on. Then put it in the context of fireforte- and darkbeer- and firemead- induced destro burst. There's little room for counterplay except die or spam disloyalty (which people will obviously be looking out for). Not to mention...because they're not using any power during fights, they can -easily- ressurect ents, not that that wasn't a silly and impractical idea in the first place.
Can we say Researchers do the same with Ruby, Oracle and TimeEchoes? Somewhat, but not to the same extent.
Kill a Nihilist demon if it isn't attacking you(same thing applies to Celestines), that means they are saving it for a burst and hitting it once disrupts their entire timing. If it's just shackling you, the Nihilist isn't going to kill you (especially now that ectoplasm is going byebye). Also, if you survive the 10 double attacks, that's all for double attacks. No one is Scourging/Wrath in the middle of a fight.
Maybe some people have just paid2play too much, but if any Passive attack is hitting you, you should figure out a way to stop it. Do you use love against Mages? Do you use love and earwort against bards? You are telling me you let Dancers pooka you to death? You kill any ent or stop any passive attack from any of those classes, 99 times out of 100, they will not kill you, and that's usually just as good as winning the fight.
2014/04/19 01:38:01 - Leolamins drained 2000000 power to raise Silvanus as a Vernal Ascendant.
2014/07/23 05:01:29 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Munsia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:07 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Arimisia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:58 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Lavinya as a Vernal Ascendant.
Ah, old badluck. I still get some nightmares from that.
As for Homunculus, it is a double-edged blade. Bring it to a fight and you'll be getting more effects to throw a target (such as with homunculus bite), however, if you die, you're going to resurrect right there, defenseless and an easy second kill.
Additionally, you could kill the homunculus. The illuminati would get a backlash of pain as well.
I'm tankier than any Illuminati (probably tankier than Shu) and yet I die fast in groups. Well, okay, I do last pretty long, but still. "No room for counterplay except die or spam disloyalty" is definitely an exaggeration. Kelly certainly is tankier than me (as a warrior) and she has the oh-so-scary inquisition. OP'd and hated as that skill may be, it certainly isn't game over the moment she shows up. She still dies when we hit her hard enough. If the Illuminati are "overpowered" in group because they are tanky and can hinder, there's a lot of other arguments that could be made for a lot of other classes.
I'm tankier than any Illuminati (probably tankier than Shu) and yet I die fast in groups. Well, okay, I do last pretty long, but still. "No room for counterplay except die or spam disloyalty" is definitely an exaggeration. Kelly certainly is tankier than me (as a warrior) and she has the oh-so-scary inquisition. OP'd and hated as that skill may be, it certainly isn't game over the moment she shows up. She still dies when we hit her hard enough. If the Illuminati are "overpowered" in group because they are tanky and can hinder, there's a lot of other arguments that could be made for a lot of other classes.
She's pretty tanky as a bard too. Last I saw she had 7k+ hp as one alone.
You're right, Inquisition isn't a game ender because you can run away from it. You don't run away from Illuminati without them screwing up their rotation somehow or having a friend help you out. They are the best at hindering (anyone care to challenge me on this? maybe a Hartstone with allergies built up) and have an amount of survivability that is on par with Healers and Sacraments users, not to mention the immense utility granted by Transmology. On and on and on. This will be dismissed as "complain for change" and "not that big of a deal", but it's really telling that three (half?) of the game's TAs are in Gaudiguch.
You can run away from an Illuminati. Plenty of people have and plenty of people still will. It may be a little harder, but it's definitely doable.
8 TA's total (so not quite half), sorry I like playing with my friends, people that I've played with for years.
I'll challenge you on the 'best at hindering.' 1v1 druids have got them beat hands down, druids are probably the strongest 1v1 class in the game at the moment IF they keep someone in their meld. Allergies really pushed them over the top. In groups? Any of the several classes on your side that have better methods of spamming and sticking aeon. If you work with people and coordinate your efforts, you'll do much better but from everything I've seen, including my time in Hallifax, the standard method is charge in, swing away and hope for the best. Yes, Illuminati are good, but so are Researchers, Symphonists, Cantors or whatever else class you want to compare it to.
You know why we're good, because we work on things, we plan things out, we try things. Shuyin's going to pick up if I'm dsonging someone and he's going to throw in shieldstuns rather than destruction to help it go through. I'm going to notice if Munsia/Akyaevin are chasming someone and I'm going to go into full hinder mode to help them get that kill. If I see someone being aeoned, I'm going to focus my damage and aeon-sticking affs on that target. We're willing to risk dying to try strategies out. If something doesn't work, we'll try something else.
When was the last time you, @Maligorn, sparred or fought an Illuminati 1v1? When was the last time you tried to see what kind of curing differences you could make to improve yourself? When was the last time you tried to do anything other than continue fighting in groups and running to the forums when it didn't go your way. Loralaria is a super strong bardspec, it's great in groups and can really make a big difference, but you have to focus on using it. With all the bards running around up North, you guys should work on coordinating better.
TAs have migrated repeatedly, for the record. I don't know what it tells you, but it tells me that they TA turns people into traitors (but with no extraneous balance implications). People move organizations. It happens.
Druid's actual hindering isn't that strong, especially as they give up the bulk of everything else to hinder you, not having ents/hom/etc and with a demesne that doesn't deal many or strong affs. Nor do Druids really have many options for stopping you from running or punish you for trying, really. Hindering? Yeah, eat that entangle + 10s paralysis tick. Eat it. The strongest run/movement hindering tert is Shamanism, and with the exception of weather*, all of the abilities to penalize/stop enemies from running away are easily nullified by a single stacked command. Tis no sludgeworm + heko + 2 forms of carcer + tarot movement hindering.
That said, yep. Fighting anyone but a contortionist, druids are probably the strongest 1v1/arena fighters in the game (go ahead, quote me), if they pick their tert smartly and are pitted against enemies of similar might/skill/tier. Certain combinations of skill (like acrobatics or night) and system (m&m tends to not be one) make it nigh impossible to kill certain targets, but the skilled druid should rest secure in the knowledge that it's equally hard for most enemies to kill them, unless the druid makes a big misstep early on**. Starting allergies and shielding until the enemy is hindered from climbing and then gaming elevations, nature flow (arguably buffed due to its brume-related changes) , center and skunk spray help to survive 1v1 until allergies are built and you can try a sap lock. It's a strategy built around using 2-3 skills to maintain mobility and knowing exactly how your skills actually work to possibly escape lockdowns until you can roll the dice on sap, which requires increasingly intensive gimmicks as curing strategies evolve and skillsets in general become more powerful. The druid mantra is "You will win eventually, if you survive that long." through a combination of attrition and RNG eventually screwing over your target in sap, if you keep on trying.
By and large, that all evaporates the second you're facing an enemy group and all your evasive tricks and slow buildup tend to fall flat. To pull the same elevation shuffle on a group you'd need to dissolve the entire enemy group, nd build up allergies on that same group, all while avoiding pulls and lockdowns that reduce your mobility, as well as your potential for group disruption. When you're not being targeted, your offense takes at least 30 seconds on a target to setup, assuming you're spamming seedcloud and are hitting on tree elevation at least most of the time - which tends to pull your target away from the rest of your group and necessary movement hinders like impale or pfifth. Unless you can totally split your target away from their own group and sap them before they can rejoin or you're engaged by other enemies, it's not going to happen. Unless you're a runist, that's really not likely, and even as a runist... not likely, not anymore - you just don't have anything that really prevents moving around that doesn't totally sacrifice all of your offense.
I'm not saying any of that is unfair on inherently imbalanced, that's just what it is. In my perspective at least, the majority of druid melder power is focused around 1v1 killing, which druid is really good at. In groups, squishy paralysis monkey, who's strongest asset is generally denying mages their demesnes, with other abilities coming second (if close second, in the case of radmenses etc.). Not to downplay the importance of that, but pretending that druids in groups are lockdown aff spamming hindermonsters is.. odd. They're way squishier than Illums, deal fewer afflictions (both in bulk and quality), have poorer entangle-hindering, have less crowd control as a result of the above, can't hold a target in the room as well. It's hard to overstate the utility of Tarot for groups, both offensively and defensively. All druid skills are geared around hitting a single, sapped target, by balance necessity. Deny them sap (which is way easier than killing an Illum's ents) and that's that, you've neutered most of the druid's power.
All this talk about 1v1 strengths and weaknesses is off-topic though. When does 1v1 combat happen? In all cases, 1v1 combat is at least one-sidedly elective, and except in very specific situations, NO class has enough hindering to prevent an opponent from just running away to safety. Unless we're going to start introducing mechanics that incentivize fighting in smaller groups (which has been no'd many times), I don't see that changing. Some skills/classes can be lackluster in one area of combat while shining in another, this is combat 101... but when only one or two types of combat reign supreme, things go awry in that department.
I don't know how to fix it, but discarding the idea because "You just aren't playing to your utmost' is kind of ridiculous, PlztoStop. Guilds have different strengths. In group combat, immediately dangerous or hindering abilities tend to rule over long-term guaranteed wins. Guardians, but especially the Illuminati, tend to bring that heat faster and more consistently than other guilds, even if they sacrifice their own kill potential in the long run, 1v1. Cool.
Unfortunately, the long run, 1v1 combat style doesn't really count for much. What to do? Seven sentences later and I still don't know, and consistently referring to 1v1 combat during a discussion about group control skills is still really annoying.
*Which I remember someone mentioning doesn't have a big impact on Shamans, so it must not be that painful?
**True also of Illums? Who can kill an Illum who has their wits about them? Druid can, by using allergies and staying out of the room of the target, then beast spitting hadrudin/sap and hoping disloyalty hits/sticks long enough for ents to hit the Illum. Presumably acrobats can make SOME headway. Can anyone else reasonably do so, against an Illum that checks for disloyalty and has good awareness?
Certain combinations of skill (like acrobatics and night) and system (m&m tends to not be one) make it nigh impossible to kill certain targets
I'm curious as to what guild has this combination of skills.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Oh, I didn't mean a combination of Night and Acrobatics. I meant that those are two examples of a skillset that can bork Druids, and that in combination with one of those types of things and system power yadda yadda.
I guess that for clarity that should read 'Acrobatics OR Night'.
Perhaps I should keep my mouth shut since I don't know too much about all of this (waits for the chorus)...
The skills on every archtype/kit all, on the surface, seem equally capable of contributing in a group or doing it alone. Part of the issue does come to the very definition of the word ``Balance''. Balance does not necessarily mean symmetry. We've all played some crapass game where the Mage has a spell which does exactly the same thing as a Knight's attack, or they just change the name of the spell for the factions but keep the effects identical. Wargames are a great example of Doing It Right. From SFB: 136 Klingon D7's are an exact match for 129 Federation CA's, which means in a Duel scenario the difference is sooooo slight they are ``balanced'' despite having very different technologies (I can't count the number of times I reached out and smacked a Federation Fred for being dumb enough to end a turn at range-15 off-center instead of either keeping range-16 or closing to range-12).
Since symmetry is so darn weak (say, for example, the Knight gets ``super swipe'' which is a cutting-based area attack at level 5, and the mage gets ``blade-storm'' which is a cutting-based area attack at level 5 and completely identical to ``super swipe'' in all respects, for example) that most would rather gag on turd than play a game which uses symmetry, all sorts of effects need to be mixed-and-matched between the several kits. Lusternia does a good job of this IMHO. This creates enough variability, versatility, and overlap that any one can bash and any three can make an effective team. In most cases the team does not have pre-programmed roles either. Sure, the Warrior can try for a decap while the Guardian hinders, but it is almost ever the case where the plan is based purely on the participants involved and archetype had no bearing since all can hinder and all can kill. The notion that X is Y just doesn't seem to hold true when I look at all the skills available. All kits can solo, and all kits can group. That seems natural and proper in my opinion.
The fundamental reason every class is capable of ``going it alone'' is a
simple business decision which will never be overturned: it is never
good to pigeon-hole your player-base when your player-base plays for
many (and wildly different) different reasons. No class can ever be
hard-cast as ``You are support only, so neeners'' any more than another
can be ``you don't work well in a group''. Notions that bards cannot
solo/kill are absurd, because I've seen them in action. ``Forever and a
Day'' was the phrase I heard, and not only is it accurate but it darn
well ought to apply for everyone.
With respect to specific skills, Balancing is not merely comparing class one single skill/trait/talent against another, but rather analyzing the entirety of potential at all levels. In fact a little variance and perturbation can often times be welcome. Wargames (and the early versions of D&D, which is based on the Wargame ``Chainmail'') applied an understanding of this. Mind you they often do it via pigeon-holing, but not always. There are techniques in analyzing how to ``slow down'' and how to ``speed up'' particular kits and classes. The trick is somewhat magnified by Ire's very welcome mandate to try to make the various archetypes somewhat ``different'' and scorn symmertry when balancing. We can't just balance empire-vs-skaven, for example, because we have several factions in play which means my X points ought to be comparable to your X points, regardless of which faction either of us chose. The task is not easy, and sometimes in error, but on the whole things seem fairly close to my (albeit lame) understanding. It would seem most of the skills at the various levels are comparable to most of the other skills at similar levels. They do not necessarily need to match-up 1:1, given that I can 1) level-up in badass via character experience, 2) level-up in badass via player experience, 3) completely decline Pvp altogether, 4) merely dabble in Pvp (perhaps the major reason why each class needs to be able to solo Pve and at least do something meaningful in Pvp). The game (technically a ``toy'' since my options are infinite and there is no ``victory condition''... unless letting the Soulless win counts) is about being able to Choose My Own Adventure, so no, I cannot see how Bard is supposed-to-be Support, or any other argument along the lines of ``X is Y''.
With respect to specific skills within a class? Well there we might find some room for debate. If class X gets 4 benefits for 3 cost and class Y gets 3 benefits for 3 cost, then we might have a conversation. It might also be moot if the issue is ``did you try to FOCUS BODY before APPLY PHLEGMATIC?'', hence the need for server-supplied logs rather than ``Foo the Brave just handed my ass to me.. in a bowl made from the back of my skull''. Some skills may very well need to be reconsidered, but are we considering the whole and total cost when making this assertion?
Do class X and class Y need to spend the same amount of lessons for these skills, and does class Y have ``better'' (I really hate subjective terms) skills at lower levels than class X? Pfarewell sounds pretty, ahh, ``r33t''. Do all the lesser skills suck? The other class gets something lesser for the same price. Do their lesser skills rock? What about any more advanced skills in each ladder? Do skills after Pfarewell seem pretty tepid, whereas the other class just keeps getting better and better? I have not heard much on this excepting for @Silvanus and @Synkarin, who have put some good thought into how everything fits together.
With respect to some other items mentioned in this thread, yes @Silvanus is quite correct. No Nihilist is going to SCOURGE twice in melee. It would be extremely rare for one to HARROW as well. The only situations where I can think of where this might be effective? Double-crunch against a cruxed foe who clearly has no idea what they are doing and do not have decent reflexes, and double-flame because your race is weak to fire and he cursed you with volcano and he is toying with RUB IGNITE and you do not know what you're doing and don't have decent reflexes. Either scenario has waaaaaay too many ``and's'' to be credible. There are similar dirty tricks (all of them have been used against Delphas, btw) the Celestines can employ. I hate incompetence in any form, so this is particularly frustrating for me since I cannot imagine any more incompetent than me, but being that as it may, this seems ``pretty close'' to ``normalized''.
The homonculus is different than the demon-thrall or the angel-companion. Sure, we might still ``kill the entourage'' in any event, and they do serve similar functions but even a newb like me is not going to think (or should not think) ``#define Celestine Illuminati''. The skillsets differ a bit, so it's no surpise the entourage also have differences. They serve different fictions, despite similar (but not same) functions. 136 == 129.
When one encounter someone else the options are 1) you will flee, 2) they are going to flee, 3) they are not alone and know what they are doing, or 4) you are not alone and you know what you're doing. Regardless of class/archetype/kit there is no option 5 (unless you count ``die like a baby'', which is what usually happens to me....).
I'm sorry for this long-winded rant. It's just there are SO many moving parts here we need to keep them straight. A single domoth/karmic/divine/mundane/astrological blessing can make or break someone, let alone how the skills fit into the class as a whole, let alone how the various classes fit together as a whole, and we still haven't gotten into Divinivus vs Undead or Full Moon vs New Moon or Nighttime vs Daytime. There's a lot going on here, and I think the rush in some of the comments (in either direction) somehow miss some of the more ``big picture'' aspects. This is very complex system which needs a little more thought than off-the-cuff or knee-jerk reactions.
Are Delphas, Enyalida, and Lerad having a post length contest I'm unaware of? That being said, Delphas is my new favorite player for understanding the depth and difficulty of the simple word "balance."
TAs have migrated repeatedly, for the record. I don't know what it tells you, but it tells me that they TA turns people into traitors (but with no extraneous balance implications). People move organizations. It happens.
TAs have migrated repeatedly, for the record. I don't know what it tells you, but it tells me that they TA turns people into traitors (but with no extraneous balance implications). People move organizations. It happens.
Oh god, all the power with no responsibility, it gets to you!
Hey, hey, some of us can resist!
You're only semi-loyal. You've classhopped. Only a matter of time before you get tempted to wander away and see what all the fuss is about this awesome new thing called Aeromancy.
I like your argument, and you should comment more often. No, I don't want Lusternia to turn into Star Wars: The Old Republic where every single skill on the Republic side has its mirror on the Imperial side (seriously godawful amounts of boring PvP). I've already said my piece, so I won't do any more posturing. Just this. I want logs of people succeeding over Illuminati hinder that aren't elite PvP gods. Failing that, I just want logs proving that they can be beaten with a reasonable amount of force and strategy, regardless of who does it.
Delphas isn't the only one with understanding, he's just the only one who feels the need to exhaustively post on that particular subject :P. In my post at least, I was assuming there was understanding of what balance means, in the sense @Delphas described.
I'm just a little confused what @Delphas's point was in going through the long description, though. Was it to contest the idea that you can compare guilds/archetypes/skills to each other? Because I definitely don't think that's the case, as long as you have context.
My main point was that people keep bringing up 1v1, and while that's a perfectly reasonable area of competence in a few ways, it is not the main mode of combat in Lusternia. That is, being very powerful in a group at the cost of being less powerful solo is better than the opposite - because like-it-or-lump-it, combat in Lusternia is a group affair.
The only conflict that mandates 1v1 situations are spars/duels and battlechess (and arguable freeforalls). In flares, domoths, villages, raids, wildenodes, ganks, and orderwars there will always potentially (read: Exceedingly likely) be groups of combatants duking it out, not 1v1. The only time a 1v1 fight happens is when both parties of the combat voluntarily elect to join in the combat and to not run to safety or call in a group, which doesn't tend to happen very often outside of the arena.
I was lamenting the fact that when this is brought up, suddenly 1v1 is used to justify group mechanics, when that isn't appropriate. The types of combat require and reward different types of abilities and behaviors.
EDIT: And no, not every class is suited to (or necessarily capable of) going it alone. That should be the case, it is not the case. That very thing is why I'd prefer it if there were more reasons to fight alone or in smaller groups, as it would allow greater personal viability and flexibility, without making things too hilariously overwhelming with a large group.
Comments
Next, badluck doesn't do any afflictions. All it does is increase insanity over over time.
Last, I used the 1v1 log to illustrate his mistakes in light of his complaints about OP. Mainly the fact that he didn't cure as well as he should. I don't see what group combat potentials relevancy has to do with that. Plus groups is groups.
Also I like illuminati because the nature of the game makes it easy to run if you really wanted to, as I've repeatedly shown in logs. The class makes it hard to leave, so here I am, among many other hilarious reasons.
I agree, deleting spix doesn't do much... but it's going to happen anyways. Blind is being removed as a defense, spix should get changes to compensate, along with glamours transfix... and aff classes in general.
Can we say Researchers do the same with Ruby, Oracle and TimeEchoes? Somewhat, but not to the same extent.
Maybe some people have just paid2play too much, but if any Passive attack is hitting you, you should figure out a way to stop it. Do you use love against Mages? Do you use love and earwort against bards? You are telling me you let Dancers pooka you to death? You kill any ent or stop any passive attack from any of those classes, 99 times out of 100, they will not kill you, and that's usually just as good as winning the fight.
Ah, old badluck. I still get some nightmares from that.
As for Homunculus, it is a double-edged blade. Bring it to a fight and you'll be getting more effects to throw a target (such as with homunculus bite), however, if you die, you're going to resurrect right there, defenseless and an easy second kill.
Additionally, you could kill the homunculus. The illuminati would get a backlash of pain as well.
I'll change cities if someone wants to kickstart me credits, pay my fines and fast track me to cr6, champ and avatar.
I liked this thread more when it was about cantors but apparently I can't keep my head low enough when I start playing again.
I find it much harder to run away from a Druid or an Aquamancer than I do an Illuminati, especially since ghosts can't walk over water.
TAs have migrated repeatedly, for the record. I don't know what it tells you, but it tells me that they TA turns people into traitors (but with no extraneous balance implications). People move organizations. It happens.
The skills on every archtype/kit all, on the surface, seem equally capable of contributing in a group or doing it alone. Part of the issue does come to the very definition of the word ``Balance''. Balance does not necessarily mean symmetry. We've all played some crapass game where the Mage has a spell which does exactly the same thing as a Knight's attack, or they just change the name of the spell for the factions but keep the effects identical. Wargames are a great example of Doing It Right. From SFB: 136 Klingon D7's are an exact match for 129 Federation CA's, which means in a Duel scenario the difference is sooooo slight they are ``balanced'' despite having very different technologies (I can't count the number of times I reached out and smacked a Federation Fred for being dumb enough to end a turn at range-15 off-center instead of either keeping range-16 or closing to range-12).
Since symmetry is so darn weak (say, for example, the Knight gets ``super swipe'' which is a cutting-based area attack at level 5, and the mage gets ``blade-storm'' which is a cutting-based area attack at level 5 and completely identical to ``super swipe'' in all respects, for example) that most would rather gag on turd than play a game which uses symmetry, all sorts of effects need to be mixed-and-matched between the several kits. Lusternia does a good job of this IMHO. This creates enough variability, versatility, and overlap that any one can bash and any three can make an effective team. In most cases the team does not have pre-programmed roles either. Sure, the Warrior can try for a decap while the Guardian hinders, but it is almost ever the case where the plan is based purely on the participants involved and archetype had no bearing since all can hinder and all can kill. The notion that X is Y just doesn't seem to hold true when I look at all the skills available. All kits can solo, and all kits can group. That seems natural and proper in my opinion.
The fundamental reason every class is capable of ``going it alone'' is a simple business decision which will never be overturned: it is never good to pigeon-hole your player-base when your player-base plays for many (and wildly different) different reasons. No class can ever be hard-cast as ``You are support only, so neeners'' any more than another can be ``you don't work well in a group''. Notions that bards cannot solo/kill are absurd, because I've seen them in action. ``Forever and a Day'' was the phrase I heard, and not only is it accurate but it darn well ought to apply for everyone.
With respect to specific skills, Balancing is not merely comparing class one single skill/trait/talent against another, but rather analyzing the entirety of potential at all levels. In fact a little variance and perturbation can often times be welcome. Wargames (and the early versions of D&D, which is based on the Wargame ``Chainmail'') applied an understanding of this. Mind you they often do it via pigeon-holing, but not always. There are techniques in analyzing how to ``slow down'' and how to ``speed up'' particular kits and classes. The trick is somewhat magnified by Ire's very welcome mandate to try to make the various archetypes somewhat ``different'' and scorn symmertry when balancing. We can't just balance empire-vs-skaven, for example, because we have several factions in play which means my X points ought to be comparable to your X points, regardless of which faction either of us chose. The task is not easy, and sometimes in error, but on the whole things seem fairly close to my (albeit lame) understanding. It would seem most of the skills at the various levels are comparable to most of the other skills at similar levels. They do not necessarily need to match-up 1:1, given that I can 1) level-up in badass via character experience, 2) level-up in badass via player experience, 3) completely decline Pvp altogether, 4) merely dabble in Pvp (perhaps the major reason why each class needs to be able to solo Pve and at least do something meaningful in Pvp). The game (technically a ``toy'' since my options are infinite and there is no ``victory condition''... unless letting the Soulless win counts) is about being able to Choose My Own Adventure, so no, I cannot see how Bard is supposed-to-be Support, or any other argument along the lines of ``X is Y''.
With respect to specific skills within a class? Well there we might find some room for debate. If class X gets 4 benefits for 3 cost and class Y gets 3 benefits for 3 cost, then we might have a conversation. It might also be moot if the issue is ``did you try to FOCUS BODY before APPLY PHLEGMATIC?'', hence the need for server-supplied logs rather than ``Foo the Brave just handed my ass to me.. in a bowl made from the back of my skull''. Some skills may very well need to be reconsidered, but are we considering the whole and total cost when making this assertion?
Do class X and class Y need to spend the same amount of lessons for these skills, and does class Y have ``better'' (I really hate subjective terms) skills at lower levels than class X? Pfarewell sounds pretty, ahh, ``r33t''. Do all the lesser skills suck? The other class gets something lesser for the same price. Do their lesser skills rock? What about any more advanced skills in each ladder? Do skills after Pfarewell seem pretty tepid, whereas the other class just keeps getting better and better? I have not heard much on this excepting for @Silvanus and @Synkarin, who have put some good thought into how everything fits together.
With respect to some other items mentioned in this thread, yes @Silvanus is quite correct. No Nihilist is going to SCOURGE twice in melee. It would be extremely rare for one to HARROW as well. The only situations where I can think of where this might be effective? Double-crunch against a cruxed foe who clearly has no idea what they are doing and do not have decent reflexes, and double-flame because your race is weak to fire and he cursed you with volcano and he is toying with RUB IGNITE and you do not know what you're doing and don't have decent reflexes. Either scenario has waaaaaay too many ``and's'' to be credible. There are similar dirty tricks (all of them have been used against Delphas, btw) the Celestines can employ. I hate incompetence in any form, so this is particularly frustrating for me since I cannot imagine any more incompetent than me, but being that as it may, this seems ``pretty close'' to ``normalized''.
The homonculus is different than the demon-thrall or the angel-companion. Sure, we might still ``kill the entourage'' in any event, and they do serve similar functions but even a newb like me is not going to think (or should not think) ``#define Celestine Illuminati''. The skillsets differ a bit, so it's no surpise the entourage also have differences. They serve different fictions, despite similar (but not same) functions. 136 == 129.
When one encounter someone else the options are 1) you will flee, 2) they are going to flee, 3) they are not alone and know what they are doing, or 4) you are not alone and you know what you're doing. Regardless of class/archetype/kit there is no option 5 (unless you count ``die like a baby'', which is what usually happens to me....).
I'm sorry for this long-winded rant. It's just there are SO many moving parts here we need to keep them straight. A single domoth/karmic/divine/mundane/astrological blessing can make or break someone, let alone how the skills fit into the class as a whole, let alone how the various classes fit together as a whole, and we still haven't gotten into Divinivus vs Undead or Full Moon vs New Moon or Nighttime vs Daytime. There's a lot going on here, and I think the rush in some of the comments (in either direction) somehow miss some of the more ``big picture'' aspects. This is very complex system which needs a little more thought than off-the-cuff or knee-jerk reactions.
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I like your argument, and you should comment more often. No, I don't want Lusternia to turn into Star Wars: The Old Republic where every single skill on the Republic side has its mirror on the Imperial side (seriously godawful amounts of boring PvP). I've already said my piece, so I won't do any more posturing. Just this. I want logs of people succeeding over Illuminati hinder that aren't elite PvP gods. Failing that, I just want logs proving that they can be beaten with a reasonable amount of force and strategy, regardless of who does it.