Announce post #2973: Sciomancer and Ascendril revamps are here!

Autoposter

<pre>6/25/2019 at 0:27
Razmael, the Synthesist
Everyone
Sciomancer and Ascendril revamps are here!

Finally, at long last and after far too many memes, the revamp of the Ascendril and Sciomancer classes has been released!

Sciomancers will find that your three class skills are now: Sciomancy, Sorcery and Gravitation. Sciomancy has been changed almost completely, with entirely new skills.

And for the Ascendril, you will now see your three class skills are: Elemancy, Arcanism, and Thaumaturgy. As you might expect, Elemancy has also been changed dramatically, with mostly new skills.

With the presence of the elements becoming denser within Sapience after the singularity event in Spinesreach, and the planar boring event for Ascendril, mages have since found that controlling the elements like they used to is far more difficult. Spells of mixed elements channeled from the planes would often fail - the increased power making it difficult to control the multiple elements in a single spell. As such, Iernos has guided the Ascendril to learn new ways of casting spells, focusing on using a single element at a time to create powerfull effects from that element. For Sciomancers, the lure of Shadow made it difficult to focus on controlling other elements, and Earth had not been bolstered the same way as the other elements had for some reason. Guided by Nevithor, they have abandoned the other elements and doubled down on their efforts to control the destructive powers of shadow. The new density of elements has also made it far easier for mages to draw upon the ambient elements that are all around them, drawing them together into simple spells that need no channeling from the planes.

Finally, with their new knowledge of planar boring, the Ascendril are able to create a spiritual fulcrum of power using the new arts of Thaumaturgy. Sciomancers, with their new focus on purely the shadow element and the extra quantities of it at their grasp, have discovered a way to stabilize the formerly explosive singularities, forming the skill of Gravitation.

If you had either of those two classes, you will find all the lessons you had invested in its old skills have been fully refunded to you, so that you may reinvest the lessons as you please. Please note that for the first couple of days, you will only be able to learn your skills from either Nevithor (for Sciomancers), Iernos (for Ascendril) or another player with more skill than you.

Like with all new classes, there's bound to be a lot of bugs, rough areas and a lot of oversights. Doubly so considering how long this project has been in the works - that's plenty of time for things to slip through the cracks and be forgotten about. We'll be keeping on top of things the best we can as the classes settle in and find their place, and you can expect many fixes and changes from us in the first few weeks especially. So don't be too surprised by these!

For Arcanism and Sorcery, you will notice they share a lot of the same skills across the two classes. We expect this to differentiate a lot more over time. You will also notice that there is a lot of question marks throughout the two skillsets. These skills will be unlocked soon! There will be something you need to do unlock them a bit later (a day or two) so for now enjoy exploring the rest of the skills.

Lastly, you might wonder what is becoming of Enchantments now? Fret not! The Enchantment skillset will be added as one of the choices of the Mercantile system (HELP MERCANTILE) sometime in the next few days, after some small roleplay happens.

I hope you all like the new classes!

P.S. I would vastly prefer you make use of the BUG system instead of messaging me or another admin about anything broken. We are going to be paying extra attention to the bug queue for the initial release period, and that way your bug is the system and won't get lost or forgotten about like a message would.

Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 25th of Khepary, in the year 481 MA.</pre>

Tiur

Quick note for the worried: This change makes old artifact staffs weird. We'll be changing them to normal staffs with weapon customization runes, like normal weapons. Eventually. It's a bit of a never-tried thing to change up customize code like that so we need a little bit.

Razmael

Special shout out to Eliadon and Emir for sticking by me this past year or so. They were instrumental in helping to get these classes finished.

Razmael

And of course I'd like to thank the incredible Pools team for all the help and support they gave to help get this release finished. Whether it was RP/mob possession/help with the events, being a soundboard for ideas, or emotional support. An extra big thank you goes to @Valdus who saved us from certain doom. Elemancy/Thaumaturgy were always his original designs, and he came in and saved us by taking our original concepts for Sciomancy/Gravitation/Arcanism/Sorcery and improving them by leaps and bounds. And of course, @Imvra deserves a special mention for all their support in getting the lore correct, and messages spiffy.

Tiur

And to tack on to @Razmael, I agree with his thanks totally. Our team is awesome, and willing to go above and beyond to make this happen.

But also, thank him. I made these mages and they were TERRIBLE. So I offloaded them on him with a "plz halp" and moved on to fail at entirely different things. He took not-his-baby, and made it his, then made it happen.

Oonagh

To those who have custom staves and the like now are we going to have a rune for them to change weapon type if we like one of the other options better or something of the sort.
I would love to be able to convert my type, like I have ideas now....PRETTY PLEASE

That being said, I have both an artifact dagger and staff, I cannot embed a focus into.

Razmael

Yeah artifact dagger of sacrifice and other such artifact items won't work for it. It specifically needs to be the varieties that players can craft themselves.

Gadriel

Just a heads up, from a newbie that is doing the academy quests in Spinesreach for Sciomancers…

Tyilla, a Cabalist researcher says, "But there is some training in the skillset of Sciomancy which can provide a small boost to your physical protection. If you have not already, open a channel to the Earth element and CAST STONESKIN to activate this defense."

The quest is still having you cast stoneskin for armour and trying to use a staff. I'm sure this is being worked on, just wanted to point it out on the off chance that it slipped through the cracks.

Macavity

Tiur said:

Quick note for the worried: This change makes old artifact staffs weird. We'll be changing them to normal staffs with weapon customization runes, like normal weapons. Eventually. It's a bit of a never-tried thing to change up customize code like that so we need a little bit.

Can we also get an option for refunds of the staff if we do not want the rune?

Tekias

The choice to turn them into runes is to make them refundable (at least partially). Customs aren't normally refundable, but at least this way you can get a tradein or something.

Macavity

Tekias said:

The choice to turn them into runes is to make them refundable (at least partially). Customs aren't normally refundable, but at least this way you can get a tradein or something.

the artifact staff that we got years ago, was not a custom one, but simply one to buy to take the place of the one that could have been conjured in the skill set. I just want to make that known and for consideration. To be honest I dont remember how many credits I used on it, but do not think we should be limited to the 1/3 credit return of it.

Tekias

The way I got mine was to buy a custom. It has no powers attached to it (and when I did attach a power to it, then removed it cause I realized it's stupid to not be able to share a hunt arti, it went POOF as powerless artis do). Trust me, been talking to Tiur about this since I tether-swapped to see about the possibility of getting my two custom staves refunded, and this is the result of waiting months on a decision from Admin.

Also that whole 'staff went POOF' thing was a headache for Tiur when that happened, too. Lost my staff for a week, I think.

Belgarion

Is this where we post about how amazing the event was? Cause it was pretty awesome..highly interactive, very very cool!

Macavity

I am not sure if this has been asked, but with Vibes being gone now, will ab vision vibes be updated to give us access to see glyphs or even phantasms?

Oonagh

@Macavity glyphs show in room in purple text you can see them. They aren’t like some ambient effect like rites. I’m not sure if you can see when a mage is using their aegis but it has to be activated and channeled for use it’s not a persistent effect otherwise. As for phantasm it’s like an illusion that just lingers in a location

Emir

You can see when the Aegis is being used and who is using it. 

Macavity

ab vision vibes had an area affect not just room. was looking to see if that will be the case for those as well.

Tiur

We'll replace it!

Emir

I'm 99% certain there was not an area effect for vibes.

Macavity

Emir said:

I'm 99% certain there was not an area effect for vibes.

yeah there was, it only showed the person and what vibes they had, but not the location in the area

Vibration Status Owner Seconds left
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Tekias

Nope, showed same room only. Can confirm from experience

Gadriel

So I am running around Lodi testing out my skills and I started using Shadowprice with Ruin. I can cast it twice before I have to stop using it at the current level of training. The AB file for repay says that Whenever you slay a target, one of your shadow debts will be repaid for free. However, my shadowprice isn't going down when I slay the target. Is this a bug that I should report or does the level of the thing slayed affect the repayment?

Emir

It means players. Whenever you kill another players character, you will regain your debts instantly.

Gadriel

Oh okay so it doesn't work on Denizens. So I'll either have to use repay or use cast until the price drops back down. Thank you

Gadriel

Shadowprice for players as well? It works on denizens but the damage is the same between it and just casting ruin. Turned on mobdamage and both ways are doing 325 damage, or am I misunderstanding the ab file?

Emir

Using Shadowprice has different effects for different spells. For Ruin specifically, Shadowprice would only effect other players, because the Shadowprice only effects how many afflictions it gives in the attack, not the damage or the equilibrium cost.

For bashing, use Shadowprice alongside Gloom once you learn that ability. It will be a damage increase because Glooms shadowprice effect is that the spell no longer consumes equilibrium to cast. This means you can combo it together alongside another bashing attack like so:

You use Sciomancy Shadowprice Gloom on a misty apparition.
Shadowprice for speed, you quickly send your shadows to curse a misty apparition with the weight of
their whispering gloom.
You have scored an ANNIHILATING CRITICAL hit!!!
Damage done: 8064, magic, magical
You use Sciomancy Fever on a misty apparition.
Oscillating shadow out towards a misty apparition, you bring a chilling fever to his body, sending
the turmoil through his veins and gut.
You have scored a STAGGERING CRITICAL hit!
Damage done: 636, magic, magical
The final blow proves too much for a misty apparition, who expires, pitifully.
Experience Gained: 684 (Bashing) [total: 6954548]
Having slain a misty apparition, you retrieve the corpse.
A rush of energy fills you as you feel ready to deliver a devastating blow upon your next target.
Equilibrium Used: 2.32 seconds

Tekias

Tiur said:

Quick note for the worried: This change makes old artifact staffs weird. We'll be changing them to normal staffs with weapon customization runes, like normal weapons. Eventually. It's a bit of a never-tried thing to change up customize code like that so we need a little bit.

Any ETA on this happening?

Kalinaar

Any chance we'll get the next promo announcement before the weekend hits? 

Tiur

The promo announcements are always on the 1st! Wrong thread, too :P

@Tekias I'm sorry, we forgot! Will get that done.

Kalinaar

wow don't know how I did that! Thank you for responding still! lol

Aros

For these new classes, will the style scrolls be edited eventually to reflect the new abilities?