While I can look at the code and tell how spells stack up all night, I'm curious about player experiences.

So tell me about the following spells. How useful do you find them? Which are the good ones and which ones are terrible? Why?

Please try and keep the answers fairly short - there's a lot of spells here - but I preemptively appreciate the input.

Anti Barriers
Mark of Arhat
Divine Radiance
Heighten Pain

Traditional Barriers
Cage of Light
Ethereal Shield
Grounding Field
Protection from Evil
Minor Physical Protection
Naming of Tears
Calcified Hide
Aspirant's Aegis
Manifest Force

SvS Barriers
Psychic Shield
Redeemer's Pride
Essence of Yew

Integrity Barrier
Shear
Worm's Mist
Soldier's Prayer
Lay Ward

TM Barrier
Aether Cloak
Veil of Ice
Ghost Shroud
Glythtide's Joy

Empath Trickery
Perseverance of Peri'el
Iron Constitution

Cleric Stuff No One Really Understands
Soul Shield
Sanyu Lyba

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

My only two cents from a Moon Mage PvE only perspective are:

1. Standard barriers are very useful in PvE. The others are meh. Handy for situational use, but not something I'm going to be using all the time. E.g. Lay Ward is wonderful at what it does, but I only need to use it against a handful of things so I didn't pick it. I would likely temporarily memorize it if I hunt something where it would be useful. Even so, it is still less situational than Psychic Shield, which while also good at what it does, is so situational in PvE that I only use it as my training spell (no restrictions on casting, automatically known as a pre-req for better spells.) Cage of Light is also wonderful at what it does and I can use it effectively no matter the situation.

2. Shear feels too restrictive. I can see it being useful in PvP, but in PvE the trade off for the occasional stun isn't worth the cost of using it.

I love both POP and IC but I tend to over hunt a lot. IC I know isn't super effective at low circles.

---

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Mark of Arhat

Used this more than a few times and have noticed 0 difference having it up. Taking the time it takes to cast it is better used just flinging another TM spell. RIP old MoA

Ethereal Shield

Has this actually ever done anything other than train magic?

Grounding Field

Works well for 1 cast, Typically people are smart enough to cast the opposite afterwards.

Manifest Force

Only reason I survive long enough to cast a few spells

Lay Ward

Seems to do it's job.

TM Barrier

Aether Cloak

Does it's job while sacrificing the casters TM aswell

Veil Of Ice

Nice to have when you need to cast tm and can't use AC. Seems like a TM version of MAF with the exception of AE breaking it in 1 cast.


- Erixx

<Mark of Arhat

<Used this more than a few times and have noticed 0 difference having it up. Taking the time it takes to cast it is better used just flinging another TM spell. RIP old MoA

Completely agree. MoA seems entirely useless, even when I cast it at 100 mana along with a 100 mana cast of Ignite.

Bring back old MoA please!

My only real issue with HP is that it doesn't seem to do all that much when I need it most, which is against boss mobs. Light hits remain light hits.

I love CH. A ton.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>I have noticed anti-barrier spells can be used to otherwise obliterate people who don't have barriers up, might i suggest lessening their potency against opponents with no barrier up?

Obliterate?

Can't say I've ever seen MoA or HP be the turning point of a battle, meager addition benefit at best. If it ignored armor and then multiplied damage then that would be obliteration status.

- Erixx

Oh yeah, bards have two other barriers I should give feedback on...

> Glythtide's Joy
> Redeemer's Pride

I have both of these but don't use either. They're purely pre-reqs.

Since I have MISD, I'm not sure why I chose REPR rather than ALB as the prereq for RAGE. I might change that. If I were hunting something with a dangerous mental attack, I might find REPR useful, but as an ablative barrier it would be a pain to constantly recast it. Said attack would need to be in just the right zone of dangerous-but-not-too-frequent for REPR to be useful.

The fact that GJ is an integrity barrier really limits it. It only helps if it completely stops the spell, which means I need to be inflicting a large integrity hit; anything less, and the spell still hits me for full effect. But to inflict a large integrity hit, I need to be getting a large success on the stat contest. If I can dominate a target in a stat contest, odds are I'm not threatened by their TM. Especially when I can use something like DEMA to lower their discipline (and thus TM accuracy) without using my cyclic slot.

I presume we're just focusing on this list for now;

>Mark of Arhat, Divine Radiance, Heighten Pain

I don't use these as anything but Debil trainers. MoA and HP both seemed to make a difference, but the time to cast is time not spent firing off a TM, so, it's probably a wash. Not sure how to fix that. DR has no discernible effect AFAI can tell.

>Cage of Light, Ethereal Shield, Grounding Field, Protection from Evil, Minor Physical Protection, Naming of Tears, Calcified Hide, Aspirant's Aegis, Manifest Force

Mixed bag. CoL, MPP, Name, CH and AA all seem to noticeably protect, but that may be due to the messaging. CoL is a must for over hunting and feels well balanced given the moon limitation, MPP and AA are both perfect staples for their guilds. CH is potent feeling, but evidently has a 'total damage nullification' that I wasn't even aware of, which is neat, but not terribly apropos I feel given that I don't really over hunt with my Necromancer. Name, in my opinion, is fine, but accessible far too late; 40th circle is too high a requirement.


I haven't used GaF much, seems very potent for situational PvE and completely useless for PvP.

Almost all my characters were putting up MaF, but I'm not sure I'll pick it up again on all my characters.

>SvS Barriers

I admittedly don't PvP with much frequency, so I find these largely just magic trainers. Critter magic is too wonky in my mind to justify hunting critters that would make using these spells useful in PvE. For PvP, I'd be kind of surprised if you had the time to get one of these off before SvS spells started coming, but like I said, I don't PvP a lot.

>Integrity Barrier

Fairly useful against most critter magics, seems to come with enough limitations to be reasonable. Again though, critter magic seems wonky. The limitations are fairly severe.

>TM Barrier

I feel these can be a bit over powered, by in large. My sense is, and I haven't tested this against large disparity in skills, that they nearly completely shut down TM, which is pretty drastic all things considered.

>Empath Trickery

IC is wholly useless to younger empaths (<250 warding I'm not seeing any use of this spell). PoP is pretty neat, and even only pulling off low end versions of it (I can get a 180 mana cast), it seems to be doing it's job.

>Cleric Stuff No One Really Understands

At the risk of getting into GvG, I think these are chuckle worthy examples of how over developed and kitted out Clerics are. Yes? They are... neat?

I think the name of the game here is that early on, a physical barrier is very useful for hunting, since you have less ability and tools for surviving trouble, and they need a way of scaling up with you. SvS and TM barriers seem to be primarily useful for PvP, since there tend to be critter options that don't use SvS/TM attacks, which are, in any case, wonky to begin with.

<<Can't say I've ever seen MoA or HP be the turning point of a battle, meager addition benefit at best. If it ignored armor and then multiplied damage then that would be obliteration status.>>

Haha, nice, and true.

<<Cage of Light>> I've never noticed any actual functionality out of COL, but I love how it looks. It's no MAF, that's for sure.

<<Protection from Evil>> Beast mode vs undead and necros.

<<Manifest Force>> Beast mode vs everything. I think this spell could probably be almost balanced though if an attacker were able to strip ALL "hits" from it in one shot. As it is, I can recast it capped in the time it takes someone to strip it with multiple attacks (with the exception of some especially good attacks).

<<Psychic Shield>> Single-handedly the only reason my tears have not drown out the boards because of PvP vs clerics. Without psy shield, my cleric strategy is "run" (and hopefully before soul attrition is cast, otherwise, even that isn't enough).

<<Shear>> Devastatingly poor. It's just not useful in its current form. It's only worthwhile when fully capped (otherwise fully capping incoming spells tend to blow by it completely intact) and since a single outgoing spell will weaken it from the cap....it's pointless. Granted, with LW, you can extent its usefulness to slightly below capped, but still, it's just not helpful as long as outgoing spells weaken it or are weakened themselves. I much prefer the total lockout approach of old shear or AC. At least that's an excuse to make the barrier truly work.

<<Lay Ward>> Must have secondary barrier. Big bang for the buck stacked with anything else. Great PvE.

<<Aether Cloak>> Nasty good. Basically TM invincibility with an amazing trade-off on a weapon secondary guild (imagine rangers or thieves with total TM immunity). I think it'd be more fair a regular spell that could be dispelled, but it's not OP enough that I really have a reason for that request, other than the fact I play a MM.

<<Ghost Shroud>> This was outstanding vs TM at high mana in 3.0, but I haven't played with it at all in 3.1.

<<Iron Constitution>> Pretty sure this is the anti-backstab, but haven't tested it much.

<<Sanyu Lyba>> The best magic barrier in the game, by miles (even over AC). Without psy shield, this is magic immunity without any drawback whatsoever.

>>I presume we're just focusing on this list for now;

If there are barrier spells I missed that aren't on this list please let me know.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

>Consider my mind blown...

>It's a testament to clerics that you don't even play with sanyu because you're so confident in HULP. The reaso sanyu is so, so, so much better is that you don't have to see me, catch me, cast on me, or otherwise care about me even attacking, in order to nuke my magic. Lead with HULP? That assumes you, as a survival tert cleric, saw the MM or necro in the first place, right? Granted, Watch is overpowered as heck, but in a roaming fight, relying on HULP vs a necro or MM is just not even close to sanyu. Lyba is sick. I can't see how you possibly improve that spell more.

It's not that I'm so confident in HULP, moreso that a lot of those abilities (Hulp, IT, SL) have some overlap. I agree the passive ability in SL is nice and can break up a combo for guilds that need to chain some abilities together, but there's other spells that aren't as niche that solve that problem as well. I could keep SL up for guilds that need to combo abilities like Stun Foe/Halt + Shatter or I can have Anti-Stun up and Lay Ward that will either reduce/block potency or break out of stuns and let me go on the offensive. Now that the magic preview is over, and we have limited numbers of slots I don't feel that it's a required spell for me to choose. I've left spell slots open for some that i'm undecided on, and i'm sure time will tell but right now IT + Hulp and defensive abilities like Anti Stun and Lay Ward are enough to .

SL also doesn't help against IP + BG, or Dazzle/MB + SLS either (idk if this is a valid tactic anymore, I haven't faced a MM in 3.1.)

>If there are barrier spells I missed that aren't on this list please let me know.

Sorry, I misread the list and had a brain fart moment. Tranquility aside, the list seems inclusive for barriers.

I also dig Karthors MaF suggestion.

>I agree the passive ability in SL is nice and can break up a combo for guilds that need to chain some abilities together, but there's other spells that aren't as niche that solve that problem as well.

Nice? Break up a combo? Wow. This spell shuts down all my magic for around 45+ seconds. Which is absolutely HUGE in pvp. Being weapons tert I can no longer fall back on them in at level pvp. Should see me and Traim sit there and try and shoot each other with crossbows. We both gave up on weapons like 3 fights back.

SL is not a barrier but I am glad it was brought up, cause not only does it make me not able to cast on the cleric, but I also cannot put up my own magic ward, cast any buffs, heal my pet, or cast any spell whatsoever. If this spell was cyclic, Then i might understand. But it has absolutely no drawback and reduces my ability to cast spells for about 30-45 seconds depending on the cleric.

I hunt exclusively undead/cursed creatures (and Necromancers, but that would actually have to happen for me to say anything about it) so this biases my opinions.

<<Protection from Evil
- I don't leave home without it. It is the second spell I put up in my buff sequence, and it never falls while I'm in combat. When I'm in transition to a new hunting area that I'm scraping the limit of my hunting ability to be in, I feel like it serves a truly vital role. This is the peanut butter to...

<<Minor Physical Protection
- the jelly! Lets face it, I'd use these two spells just for the interlacing messaging, but really, what Cleric wouldn't wear this all the time while hunting? Since I always have the PFE/MPP combo up and hunt undead/cursed mobs, I can't tell which is more responsible for keeping me from getting wounded from incidental hits, but I consider them both equally a part of the sandwich. I do still get wounded from incidental hits over the course of a hunt with both of them up, so they aren't a unstoppable wall of OPness in my opinion.
MAPP is the bread, if you were curious.

<<Ghost Shroud
This always competes with Hydra Hex for me, depending on what I want to do more. In single combat PvP, I'll run this against anyone who attempts to use TM on me, and I haven't experimented enough to tell how much of an impact it really has.

<<MAF
- Although I understand its value in PvP, I haven't PvP'ed much so I don't feel I can render an opinion on it.

<<Soul Shield
<<Sanyu Lyba
- I'm clueless what SL even does. I put it up in one duel, but the person outstripped me so much that my watchsoul never connected. I haven't come across a spell casting mob yet in PvE, although my next hunting area contains them. Lack of experience = no opinion.

---

If you act like prey, do not blame me for acting like the predator I am.
DR_Shaidval @ AIM

Barriers by themselves aren't generally too much, but some classes are able to stack 2-3 barriers on top of each other and completely break the system, combine that with the vitality barrier for having full health and people can become unkillable for the first 10 hits, regardless of ranks.

> Can't say I've ever seen MoA or HP be the turning point of a battle, meager addition benefit at best. If it ignored armor and then multiplied damage then that would be obliteration status.

I was speaking specifically about clerics using their anti-barrier to boost AE. Clerics have the ability to stack debilitation, curse, anti-barrier, and AE to decimate people well beyond their ranks. This can be done in very quick succession fairly easy

>>Iron constitution for empath

That was on the list :P

>>Tenacity for barbarian
>>Sagacity for thief

These aren't spells you silly wabbit! (Though depending on how the barrier review goes it's entirely possible you'll see some ripples into both classes)

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

I forgot to mention another issue I have with shear:

If I cast shear in combination with LW the LW gets the first shot at the spell. This is probably a good idea since you don't waste your shear on weak spells and any spell that breaks past lw is now weakened against a full power shear. Unfortunately that means that shear does nothing and pretty much just wears down from my own spell casting and puts me at risk of a stun as long as LW is up. I imagine finding a solution to this would be difficult but it means I rarely use shear. Funny, after giving feedback about shear I am starting to wonder why I learned it after the spell review was over.

Please do not turn this into the "Clerics are OP'd thread".

We already know this. It is not news.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

<<SL also doesn't help against IP + BG, or Dazzle/MB + SLS either (idk if this is a valid tactic anymore, I haven't faced a MM in 3.1.)>>

Good point. As far as I know, SL won't block any cyclic incoming TM, right? I didn't know BG bypassed it. As a tactical matter, it doesn't help me that I can use SLS but no other magic because a buffed cleric at-level (even pretty far below level) is going to be just fine vs my SLS if I can't rend or disable. But, in the spirit of not making this a vs clerics rant!

I think that, in general, a lot of attention needs to be paid to barriers that cannot be dispelled at all. Cyclics, barbs, and thieves, all fall into that. Invulnerability to dispel or rend is a massive advantage and should be accounted for one way or another.