Best Of

Slight derail that probably adds nothing for the discussion.

I'm admittedly not super familiar with how shrine powers work, given I was under the impression that shrine powers used on large shrines still affect order enemies up to two rooms away from it, and I am even less familiar with how shrine powers work with someone who is Avatar.

I'm guessing they are treated as 'mobile shrines' and their enemies are treated as order enemies for the duration Avatar is up, which then probably makes some sense how people were getting hit by shrine paroxysm when they weren't enemied to the order in the first place.

Avatar is a power in and of itself that boosts stats/gives additional health. It's essentially the donning of a skin that will remain active within a 2 room radius of the shrine it's proc'd on. As soon as you break that radius, the overlay drops and your stats go back to normal.

Paroxysm isn't order enemies, it's enemies of the person who beseeched the shrine for the power. That's why people were getting hit who aren't Order enemies (as that's a very small list indeed.) There are some powers that attack the enemies of the Order member that beseeched, there are powers that attack their personal enemies. Conversely, there are powers that heal only order members in the room and there are beneficial powers for your personal allies in room. The ORDER PRIVS list is fairly comprehensive.

Slight derail that probably adds nothing for the discussion.

I'm admittedly not super familiar with how shrine powers work, given I was under the impression that shrine powers used on large shrines still affect order enemies up to two rooms away from it, and I am even less familiar with how shrine powers work with someone who is Avatar.

I'm guessing they are treated as 'mobile shrines' and their enemies are treated as order enemies for the duration Avatar is up, which then probably makes some sense how people were getting hit by shrine paroxysm when they weren't enemied to the order in the first place.

Avatar is a power in and of itself that boosts stats/gives additional health. It's essentially the donning of a skin that will remain active within a 2 room radius of the shrine it's proc'd on. As soon as you break that radius, the overlay drops and your stats go back to normal.

Paroxysm isn't order enemies, it's enemies of the person who beseeched the shrine for the power. That's why people were getting hit who aren't Order enemies (as that's a very small list indeed.) There are some powers that attack the enemies of the Order member that beseeched, there are powers that attack their personal enemies. Conversely, there are powers that heal only order members in the room and there are beneficial powers for your personal allies in room. The ORDER PRIVS list is fairly comprehensive.

I think your argument heavily discounts the ability to fast travel from the Master Shrine and immediately place yourself in the room that is required to hold in order to infuse the Orrery, thus bypassing presently existing defenses (to include ensorcell) and allowing yourself to bunker down. You immediately get to bypass ranged attacks, fortifications, and can instantly begin an assault OR bunker down on the room that we'd need to take in order to win.

While trolling a small Order is not something that I would do, or Nisavi would do in game, I don't feel like structures/mechanics that are commonly leveraging towards order conflict should be leveraged in Orrery. Not unless the shrine raisers are willing to potentially get themselves Holy War'd over it, and my opinions on Holy Wars in general are largely negative.

If it is determined that shrines are allowed, I believe that shrines in Open PK areas should be fair game at all times to defilement and not subject their defiler to defilement aura. Let's be honest with ourselves in that raising a shrine requires less risk with ylem shards in order to raise it instantly than it does for a defiler to remain in the Open PK area for 15 minutes to complete the defilement. Regardless of how significant or not the tactical advantage is for a shrine to be at that room, it is still an advantage -- and one that requires someone subject themselves to being Open PK for 24 hours in order to negate. To put it simply: the effort to counterplay is extreme by comparison to the risk it takes to raise said shrine, and the advantages that it offers.