Team Combat Waaaagh

Iosyne

This discussion was created from comments split from: Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE.

Calipso

Daskalos said:

The cheap tactics aren't cheap other than the sheer, complete imbalance in team combat that exists in the game. One side has far superior ranged and hindering abilities than the other. But that's neither here nor there. In terms of pure -people- though, I haven't been on the advantage side of numbers at any given time today. Xiuhcoatl, Ellenia, Ezalor, Moirean, Ilyon... not once.

I think this general talk is what has made the game skills less unique. This kind of crying-out has made Illumination gain alooot of copy skills from Necromancy...which just seems cheap and generally childish. If anything I think new ability ideas should be thought up if you believe team combat is unbalanced (which I generally do not agree with since lifers have some very useful team capabilities (Tsunami, aquasphere, rites, etc.)).

Daskalos

@Calipso - Luminaries don't have any ranged abilities. Neither do Ascendril. Templars have javelins. Daru have telepathy, and a few Syssin but none of them are fighters.

 

By comparison, Bloodloch has Indorani - Meteor, Dopple Lust, Vampires with lure (ranged writhe),  Bloodborn with rituals that if used right are VERY strong, Teradrim which can strip defenses line of sight, -and- they have monks with telepathy as well, plus Syssin with bows natively. Add in Pit, which is the *best* team breakup skill in the game.

The disparity is very much there, whether your limited experience with combat will allow you to see it or not. It's not whining, it's a statement, one that has been made many times. Things are getting better, bit by bit, but it becomes prevalant in cases like this. Between Lust and Lure, 2 People can, at range, balancelock an opponent.  And don't get me started on Carnifex getting a disembowel clone that -doesn't- clear after it's fired like the Templar version.

Edit: 5. No personal attacks allowed.

Debate the post not the poster.

Illikaal

Calipso said:

Daskalos said:

The cheap tactics aren't cheap other than the sheer, complete imbalance in team combat that exists in the game. One side has far superior ranged and hindering abilities than the other. But that's neither here nor there. In terms of pure -people- though, I haven't been on the advantage side of numbers at any given time today. Xiuhcoatl, Ellenia, Ezalor, Moirean, Ilyon... not once.

I think this general talk is what has made the game skills less unique. This kind of crying-out has made Illumination gain alooot of copy skills from Necromancy...which just seems cheap and generally childish. If anything I think new ability ideas should be thought up if you believe team combat is unbalanced (which I generally do not agree with since lifers have some very useful team capabilities (Tsunami, aquasphere, rites, etc.)).

Aquasphere is a joke. If you die to it, then that's your own fault.

Sciomancers have an exact replica of Tsunami, except theirs is better because it doesn't require flooding.

Rites aren't that big a game changer anymore, since Luminaries rites are lacking.

A good chunk of the lifer classes have slow buildup offenses with low initial damage/crowd control, such as Monks, Zealots, Shamans, Lycanthropes, Sentinels, and Syssin. 

The only class on the lifer sad that has fairly good initial damage are Luminaries. They also dish out very good initial affliction output, not to mention crazy tanky. Classes like THIS are what are ideal for team combat. 

If we also look at monks/zealots, they are incredibly strong in teams, provided your target is prone. They also have nice ranged utility/attacks with telepathy and whatnot. The problem here is that to gurantee BBT's, we have to at least moderately afflict the target to keep them on the ground, or have two transfix users on the ready to land doubletransfix. 

Classes accessible to the opposite side of the game that have slow buildup offense include Monks, Syssin, Teradrim, Cabalists, Lycanthropes, and somewhat, Carnifex. 

I say 'somewhat' Carnifex because they are fairly manageable on their own. Most classes are fairly manageable on their own. The -biggest- problems are when some classes come into contact with another. But i'll get to that in a minute. Praenomen, Bloodborn, and Indorani are the gods of teamfights for the Shadow side of the game, because they meet the exact same criteria that Luminaries do: High initial damage output, good decent affliction output, and remarkably durable. Team compositions of Praenomen, Bloodborn, Indorani, and Carnifex are what we've been seeing all holywar, and -this- is the reason why. 

A Praenomen/Bloodboorn need only slash with a high damage weapon, or even frenzy which does high damage on top of a stun, and dwhisper any two afflictions they like. The affs won't particularly matter, unless they're all silly enough to whisper the exact same ones, but still, the initial attacks do somewhere around 20% or more of someone's HP. Indorani are also gods due to their bone daggers hitting someone for 20% of their HP with even a decent magical audit. There's also hangedman, which is without a doubt, the single most powerful hindering affliction in the game, and will continue to be until Indorani get revamped 3(soon) years from now. The bonus damage they get from their entities (and if they chain meteors together as well) can, and will rapidly become overbearing in a team situation. There's also lust that requires 4 seconds of rejection time. Lust can be tossed WAY faster than anyone can reject it. It can be used as hindering mechanic in teamfights for people that have no off-switch for auto-rejecting lust. Those of us that do have off switches sometimes forget to turn them back on after fights (because we're humans and we forget things) and end up getting lusted because of it.

As I said earlier, Carnifex on their own aren't that bad at all. I can't even remotely backup that statement when come into contact with an Indorani. All it takes is a simple trigger for any Carnifex to automatically impale someone off of hangedman, since hangedman has no requirement, or drawback to using it repeatedly. Since it also has low balance toss times, its fairly easy for someone to remain permanently entangled. Why is Carnifex impale so bad compared to the others? 1. Because the impale time is not only significantly shorter than that of a Templars, but the damage is also higher. 2. Because not only is the 'dsb' (pole wrench for Carnifex) -way- faster, but the damage it deals is similar to that of a disembowel, which is high in nature anyway. 3. After  a target is disemboweled, they blade is automatically removed from their gut, and requires them to be impaled again. A Carnifex's blade will stay in your gut the entire duration. They gave us Disperse to help deal with writhestack crowd control chains, but it's a joke considering how long the cooldown on Disperse is, and how quickly hangedman/impales can be chained together. 

We had this same problem some years back when Darkies would stunlock people with old Teradrim/Vampire Frenzies back when stuns didn't have diminishing returns. They gave stuns diminishing returns BECAUSE of that. Yet, we somehow can't get diminishing returns on writhestacks, which is backwards logic. As long as this problem exists, team compositions of Carnifex, Indorani, and Vampires will remain the as gods of team battles. Until then, we can't do anything except

Which we have done for years. We don't have to like it, though. 

Zun

This is why we need Dragoons, guize.

Toz

Monk is pretty good for more than just 'hope they're prone and bbt'. And you oughtta consider using woodlore trip while you still have it.

...And yeah, Carnifex wrench staying in is fairly OP. Should be cleared on use.

Daskalos

"While you still have it" - Why you be taking away our few team synergies while leaving the abomination that is Indorani in place?!

Illikaal

Toz said:

Monk is pretty good for more than just 'hope they're prone and bbt'. And you oughtta consider using woodlore trip while you still have it.

...And yeah, Carnifex wrench staying in is fairly OP. Should be cleared on use.

@The first part of your post - abso-fricking-lutely. I was just referencing 'highest possible damage' that you could bring to teamfights with as little setup as you possibly can. But yeah, Monks are good for telepathy, kai cripple, enfeeble, banish, etc. Still, those skills are only useable in an intricate team comp that doesn't fit into today's teamfight meta. 

What's dominating teams right now is highest possible damage + crowd control with the least amount of setup possible you can pull off. As of now, Shadow side is just loaded up real heavy with these types of skills. They're going to continue to dominate too, unless something ever gets done about writhestacking, which I doubt it ever will. 

Angwe

They aren't taking away Woodlore trip. They ARE folding it into our existing Dhuriv skills, which (I assume) means that Dhuriv trip will have a stun soon.

Illikaal

Ezalor said:

Daskalos said:

The cheap tactics aren't cheap other than the sheer, complete imbalance in team combat that exists in the game. One side has far superior ranged and hindering abilities than the other. But that's neither here nor there. In terms of pure -people- though, I haven't been on the advantage side of numbers at any given time today. Xiuhcoatl, Ellenia, Ezalor, Moirean, Ilyon... not once.

Eh, even when we were rolling you guys in fighting only Ilyon and I are in the actual Order. We had like 6-7 hours where all of you quit trying and went afk...and we got 14 shrines during it. I just left for 3 hours and you guys got close to 40 shrines.

No fault of yours of course. All of Iosyne's Order people pretty much quit the game and we haven't been inducting new ones.

Pffft! You know I aint even scurred to 1v3. I just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore XD

Toz

One thing that drives me absolutely bonkers is when people don't pre-kai going into a rush. I don't know why no one does it, opening with a banish of the indorani, or a cripple of someone (with lycans in a group? Trollolloll), or an enfeeble is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Yet somehow, getting kai feels like pulling teeth sometimes.

Xavin

No no. What would make holy wars good is if the winning order actually got any essence. After the Haern/Chakrasul war that I declared we got negative five million essence for winning, and our offerings/shrine destruction more than covered the essence we lost from shrines going down and using order privs.

Bug was filed, essence was never given back to us

Ilyon

Daskalos said:

Luminaries don't have any ranged abilities

This is largely a matter of perspective (what exactly is a "ranged ability"?), but between beckon and rites, I wouldn't consider luminaries lacking in this regard.

Bloodborn with rituals that if used right are VERY strong,

Bloodborn do not have any ranged rituals. Used to, but that was all removed years ago.

Teradrim which can strip defenses line of sight

Not line of sight, and shamans are a hard counter to that ability.

Illidan said:

Sciomancers have an exact replica of Tsunami, except theirs is better because it doesn't require flooding.

Which one is better is very much debatable.

Praenomen, Bloodborn, and Indorani are the gods of teamfights for the Shadow side of the game, because they meet the exact same criteria that Luminaries do: High initial damage output, good decent affliction output, and remarkably durable. Team compositions of Praenomen, Bloodborn, Indorani, and Carnifex are what we've been seeing all holywar, and -this- is the reason why. 

Huh, when did vamps become "gods of team fights". They're solid, yes, but not that spectacular compared to what others can do.

A Praenomen/Bloodboorn need only slash with a high damage weapon, or even frenzy which does high damage on top of a stun, and dwhisper any two afflictions they like. The affs won't particularly matter, unless they're all silly enough to whisper the exact same ones, but still, the initial attacks do somewhere around 20% or more of someone's HP.

If artifacted. Which applies to many classes.

It can be used as hindering mechanic in teamfights for people that have no off-switch for auto-rejecting lust. Those of us that do have off switches sometimes forget to turn them back on after fights (because we're humans and we forget things) and end up getting lusted because of it.

Why anyone would have an auto-reject trigger is beyond me. So abusable, that.

Macavity said:

correct me if i am wrong...

But I wish other orders could get in on the action as well!  help defend and what not.  Seems to me some orders are so dead that even a Holy War doesnt affect them because there is no one there to defend.  Perhaps we need to reduce the number of Orders like we did with the Houses and going to do with the Guilds

Not a particularly good idea - it would turn every holywar into a world war, without adressing the inherent problems (it's the defiler count that primarily matters).

Seir

I'm really not going to argue with you too much Ilyon as it usually is a point in futility. Not because you're right, but because I think you lack perspective when it comes to certain abilities and mechanics.

Your first point on ranged abilities: Your assessment is incorrect on what 'ranged abilities' are. Ranged abilities are abilities that allow a class to do damage or fulfill some kind of role generally over line of sight or more commonly: the local area. This includes, but is not limited to: Archery, Doppleganger, Telepathy, and Lure.

You are correct in that Bloodborn do not have any ranged rituals.

Teradrim can strip defenses in line of sight if sand is present. Yes, this ability also goes through shield and barrier and functions as mind strip without the pre-existing condition of a mind lock. I don't think it should go through shield, personally. This mechanic existed in old Teradrim and it was the focus of debate in the past. While I do feel it is important that a Shaman should be present to counter a Teradrim in some respects, an incredibly quick erode that goes through everything and can be used at range is pushing it.

Quake is better than Tsunami. There's no real difference. There's no real pre-existing condition for Quake to be used. You can just have someone part adjacently, run in, and quake a group out. Tralendar did it with ease. Tsunami requires flood to be on the ground, which we cannot do adjacently. Someone has to risk running into the room in order to flood and then allow the other person to Tsunami. More risk. So yes, Quake is certainly better.

Vamps aren't "gods" of team fights. I'd say that honor belongs to Monk and Indorani. Lure, however, has an incredibly large range and is a relic from an age where people thought old Bloodborn was a good idea and when we had blackbiles. It really just needs to become a copy of beckon at this point.

Praenomen/Bloodborn damage: I think your damage with Bloodborn is relatively fine after I saw the numbers. I'm still mostly of the opinion that the problem lies with the low physical audits of certain classes. However, Praenomen have flown under the radar for a long period of time and are capable of outpacing most classes in terms of afflictions and damage. The passives and ent combined can do upwards of about 800-900 damage while the vampire is hitting for a good 1,200-1,300. Yes, this is a little silly given everything that Praenomen have like passive blackout and incredibly good survivability. Given all the gripes you had about Sentinel, I'm rather astonished that you're defending Praenomen when they're doing the exact same thing in terms of damage and afflictions.

In every game that Lust exists, people have auto-reject triggers that can be readily toggled on and off. You don't see the need because shadow isn't subjected to lust and doesn't even need a lust trigger. It's a boon to you folks, actually. Typically, if one was to manually try to reject lust, they'd more than likely get lusted again and summoned because the Indorani will likely outpace them when it comes to throwing it with doppleganger. It's not as bad since the time to reject was cut down from 4 seconds to 2, but yes. People are using it as an active form of disrupt since it basically functions as another form of "entanglement".

Illikaal

I...can't even wrap my mind around how a liaison could say something so ignorant. 

Sarita

Can we get all this combat stuff into a different thread?

Ilyon

Seir said:

I'm really not going to argue with you too much Ilyon as it usually is a point in futility. Not because you're right, but because I think you lack perspective when it comes to certain abilities and mechanics.

That feeling is mutual. Last reply here, as we're derailing this thread quite big-time.

Your first point on ranged abilities: Your assessment is incorrect on what 'ranged abilities' are. Ranged abilities are abilities that allow a class to do damage or fulfill some kind of role generally over line of sight or more commonly: the local area. This includes, but is not limited to: Archery, Doppleganger, Telepathy, and Lure.

Forced movement is a ranged attack.

Teradrim can strip defenses in line of sight if sand is present. Yes, this ability also goes through shield and barrier and functions as mind strip without the pre-existing condition of a mind lock. I don't think it should go through shield, personally.

I have the class, you know. Sand slice does not bypass shield, it strips it second (rebounding is first). The requirement of a sand is an analogy to the mind lock requirement, as sand simoon causes a loss of sandstorm, thus requiring resummoning. Overall the preparation time is comparable to mind locking.

Quake is better than Tsunami. There's no real difference. There's no real pre-existing condition for Quake to be used. You can just have someone part adjacently, run in, and quake a group out. Tralendar did it with ease. Tsunami requires flood to be on the ground, which we cannot do adjacently. Someone has to risk running into the room in order to flood and then allow the other person to Tsunami. More risk. So yes, Quake is certainly better.

Aquasphere is the reason why the difference is debatable. Unlike flood, it cannot be parted.

It really just needs to become a copy of beckon at this point.

Reluctancy to clone attacks aside, I'd be quite fine with that.

Praenomen/Bloodborn damage: I think your damage with Bloodborn is relatively fine after I saw the numbers. I'm still mostly of the opinion that the problem lies with the low physical audits of certain classes. However, Praenomen have flown under the radar for a long period of time and are capable of outpacing most classes in terms of afflictions and damage. The passives and ent combined can do upwards of about 800-900 damage while the vampire is hitting for a good 1,200-1,300. Yes, this is a little silly given everything that Praenomen have like passive blackout and incredibly good survivability. Given all the gripes you had about Sentinel, I'm rather astonished that you're defending Praenomen when they're doing the exact same thing in terms of damage and afflictions.

Praenomen just got a rather noticeable downgrade (the spear/trident change).

In every game that Lust exists, people have auto-reject triggers that can be readily toggled on and off. You don't see the need because shadow isn't subjected to lust and doesn't even need a lust trigger. It's a boon to you folks, actually. Typically, if one was to manually try to reject lust, they'd more than likely get lusted again and summoned because the Indorani will likely outpace them when it comes to throwing it with doppleganger. It's not as bad since the time to reject was cut down from 4 seconds to 2, but yes. People are using it as an active form of disrupt since it basically functions as another form of "entanglement".

You do realize that monolith sigils stop empress, right? Just uh, drop one?

Mastema

I rage that as a Carnifex all people need to do is hide behind rebounding, then touch shield. Why the hell did they design the class without a real raze @-) As it is they do this and I am stopped dead in my tracks, unable to do squat.

Moirean

Imho, tsunami is more powerful defensively, quake offensively - being in a flooded room is what you WANT when you have enemies trying to move you to them. Tsunami can instantly be used against a rushing team, and I would spam it on my Ascendril to great success. Quake, on the other hand, is great for rushing in and breaking apart a team - although, again, flood does stop this. I think quake is definitely more powerful in a mobile fight, but in a situation where people are entrenched (and thus, the room is likely flooded) tsunami wins out.I like the interplay as it adds a level of complexity to forced movement and it makes you evaluate which team defences and attacks are important in which situation.

Illikaal

Because, you can't quake with the same defensive power that you just described, right?

/logic. 

Seir

Tsunami hits everyone. It wouldn't really make sense to Tsunami our own group out. The whole point to that ability is to displace a group of people from one room if they have it entrenched. I don't particularly see the defensive value in having our own locked down room and potentially flinging allies out of said room. I see a lot more value out of Quake than I do for Tsunami.

Edit: Though, yes. As Illidan just said, the same defensive potential is in Quake too. It's easier to part a room adjacently and then have someone go in and quake than it is for both people to walk in, one floods, and then the other tsunamis.

Edit 2: I'd like to add that we have tried and experimented with these tactics before. It was very hard to pull off a Tsunami on darkies because as soon as we entered the room, we generally got struck by passives or something else. You're not subjected to passives when you are in an adjacent room. As a failsafe, one person can part the flood and the Sciomancer can be dismounted. That way, in the event that the room is re-flooded, the Sciomancer doesn't walk in to the flooded room because of the 'you need to swim' message. The Sciomancer can just have an alias to walk to an exit and then promptly quake. Yeah, it's a lot easier to coordinate and pull off with Quake than it is with Tsunami.

Moirean

Illidan said:

Because, you can't quake with the same defensive power that you just described, right?

/logic. 

You can't quake when the room is flooded. A good defensive setup includes a flooded room. In my opinion this make tsunami superior when you are entrenched, such as when you are defending a lesser or guarding troops or a shrine. Of course I think quake can be used defensively - if I had it, I'd be spamming it whenever more than 1 person ran in chasing me - but I still think tsunami is better for when your team is hunkered down.

Seir said:

Tsunami hits everyone. It wouldn't really make sense to Tsunami our own group out. The whole point to that ability is to displace a group of people from one room if they have it entrenched. I don't particularly see the defensive value in having our own locked down room and potentially flinging allies out of said room. I see a lot more value out of Quake than I do for Tsunami.

In my opinion, pushing your own group out can have tactical advantage, especially if they know to expect it and especially if you are outnumbered. It's not always useful, no, but neither are howls/roars or retardation in a team fight, but those do make appearance in the right situations and with the right teammates. In objective-oriented fights in particular, such as lessers, I would drop wardings or use my rod or use tsnumai on my mage to give myself a window to finish getting the ylem.

Illikaal

So don't flood. Block, Double Block, and Icewall instead. It's not that hard. There's not a single skill beckon/ranged skill that I can think of that Icewalls/Blocking won't stop that flood will.

Seir

Illidan said:

So don't flood. Block, Double Block, and Icewall instead. It's not that hard. There's not a single skill beckon/ranged skill that I can think of that Icewalls/Blocking won't stop that flood will.

On the subject of skill disparity, shadow even has more classes capable of blocking than we do. We don't have any spirit classes that can natively use archery (Syssin doesn't really count since the guild doesn't really give out the class that openly and it's more available to shadow than us.), we don't have anything equiv. to doppleganger (darkies don't even need to have reject lust in their systems at all), we don't have anything similar to sand slice (so you have yet another ability to summon people away from the group that can't be blocked short of not having a Shaman unlike the Shaman vine grab which has a counter outside of having a Teradrim). The only thing we have is Telepathy (which can be blocked during ylem conflicts) and Cataclysm, both of which you also have access to.

Yeah, if you don't see the problem then I don't know what to tell you.

Seir

I'd like to note that I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that which has been a pretty obvious disparity for ages in Aetolia. I dislike the fact an ability like Rite of Banishment, which counters an entire skillset, has to exist solely because of one entity. I dislike the fact that an ability like Clarity has to exist because Lure can cover an obscenely large range as an entangle-beckon.

I'm all for unique abilities between sides but not at the expense of balance. I can live without some degree of originality if it meant that group combat became more about the individual talent and coordination of the fighters involved rather than shadow side bombing us with ranged attacks while we can't really do anything back until we've thinned out enough for them to engage us.

Aldric

Suddenly that April fools joke sounds like a wonderful idea.

Seir

Aldric said:

Suddenly that April fools joke sounds like a wonderful idea.

Ugh. No. I don't want carbon copies of classes, I want the mechanics to be similar. There can be unique abilities across sides, but they should be up close and personal abilities and NOT ranged/beckon type abilities.

Angwe

lol @Ilyon's political non-answers

Calipso

Damn @Ilyon beat me to the post to counter all the....wrong... said by people apparently considered experienced fighters of Aetolia.

Anywho this topic seems to have hit a soft spot for Lifer players, perhaps you should contact your friendly neighborhood Liaison if you believe the abilities in Aetolia are very unbalanced to a side?

P.S: btw, if it makes you boys feel any better, Telepathy is the king of ranged combat, literally by definition.., and both Telepathy classes are on the lifer side. I'll let that mull over before spam disagree from lifer players appear.

Moirean

go away phantom quote box uggghhh

I suppose this isn't something I can convince you of, but I was playing my Ascendril and Moirean back to back in the same day when I was last here, and I had horrendous timing, so I often ended up logging in for a few hours on the character that was terribly outnumbered. I'd be like, "man I wish I had x and y and z skill for us to use right now" when we were getting overrun. When the fights were even or we had more, my side's skills seems pretty darn good. I think perspective and circumstances play a big deal in how powerful or weak each side's skills and choices seem.

To address the points raised:

Tsunami is fun.

Lifers have fewer classes who can block, which means that flooding a room is much more useful. Lifers have a group movement that is based off a room being flooded. I think, in that regard, it balances out, although I suspect this is more fortuitous luck than any intentional game design. There is obviously an issue that arises when you are trying to force moment via beckon - flood becomes a roadblock, then - and I think Lifers should be restored the blocking abilities they used to have (bear morph).

Using icewalls is really a flimsy counter for abilities in strong team fights. You don't want to just shut down your ranged options most of the time (although situations with telepathy can go well with icewalls). Icewalls are good for shutting down snipers and trapping people, but just shutting yourself in with one limits your ability to pick people off.

Darkies have always had more archery options (Paladins vs Infernals and Syssin), but I would absolutely LOVE to see knights get archery back, or for archery to be even made into a sub-set of weaponry and make the arti bow/aiming an upgrade that does more damage/is faster/whatever than normal archery. Archery, however, isn't the only ranged option. Handaxes have always been underrated, but are even nicer now that they are LoS and not just adjacent room - if you time your ranged attacks, that stun can be lethal.

Clarity's (original) purpose is to serve as a one-time defence against certain mental attacks, akin to how fitness prevents the first hit of kalmia. It was later adjusted to also reduce lure range, which was a great change. I dislike how lure currently works. I don't mind the range, but the writhing in addition is just too much, and vampires can use it basically like old doppie hangedman spam to disable people at range. Make it pull, but remove the writhe, or reduce the range. 

From what I've seen, sand slice (if that is the remote def stripping skill?) appears to function the same as telepathy's strip, except sand is the requirement instead of a lock. Disabling telepathy in a lesser makes that problematic, yes, but you can strip that barricade from an adjacent room, so there is some counter. It's not a complete shut-out. Also, remember that radiance is a pretty potent option offered by telepathy, so if you can get a lock, you basically can force the refiner to abort or eat a death.

Dopplegangers...I'm just going to sidestep that discussion because the last one on forums was very heated.

Traps, convocation, neckdrag and the new Sentinel drag should be included for the lifer movement options. I don't think they have been mentioned, but these are all excellent abilities to break apart a team. Convocation, especially, with its new change - I hear it strips mass, now, so you don't even have to set up traps with allsight and firewalls. Can you lay down 2 rites and just coordinate the summon? If so, that's an instant grab.

The change to stability is also a big boon to Lifers - I'm so jealous that after my years of hating the artifact, I switch out from Sent and it gets changed. :P Being able to actually move people with stability is a big deal.

I like the unique options each side has. I've fought on both sides, and longer and more extensively as Lifer, so, if anything, I think I am biased towards it. I miss skills I used to have for me and my team! I think there are definitely some spots of disparity, but the combat system has lots of counters and part of high level combat is about using those well. I'd rather see more ways to give people OPTIONS to deal with stuff, rather than outright changes or removals.

Illikaal

Calipso said:

Damn @Ilyon beat me to the post to counter all the....wrong... said by people apparently considered experienced fighters of Aetolia.

Anywho this topic seems to have hit a soft spot for Lifer players, perhaps you should contact your friendly neighborhood Liaison if you believe the abilities in Aetolia are very unbalanced to a side?

P.S: btw, if it makes you boys feel any better, Telepathy is the king of ranged combat, literally by definition.., and both Telepathy classes are on the lifer side. I'll let that mull over before spam disagree from lifer players appear.

Except, you and Ilyon both have proven to be less than competent on the battlefield. I'll let that mull over before you spam disagree/troll.