>>Most of the best pvp/interaction is the 70-100 range. Once you get beyond that it really tapers off.

This.

You're in the range where you have a good portion (if not all) of the guild's abilities/spells with enough skill to use them effectively, but not so far that your prime and tert skillsets are several hundreds of ranks apart and everyone is TDP farming. Do as the others have said and go out and enjoy them, it really doesn't get any better.

>>The latest version of USOL (long after preview ending) has a very hefty min mana and is far far harder to maintain especially at lower circles.

It's not longer 15 mana min?

I was running it fine at 20 mana pulses with attunement in the 700-800s. I was able to rebuff/cast VS/etc while it was running.

>>I dunno if TR is an outlier, but even Rekon can't maintain TR for more than, like, 2 minutes and the dude is 200th circle.

Just curious, but is Rekon casting it at his cap or casting it at a level that makes it function the way he wants it to? I agree that it's a lot harder to train with cyclics these days, and I can't speak to what you need to cast TR at to see a notable effect, but is it necessary to have it going full blast? As another example, do you need to cast HoW higher than 5 to get the bless effect? If so, when does the bless effect start? I'd just cast at that amount, instead of the amount for it to train magic.

When I'm running RoC (for example), I'm not casting it at cap. I'm casting it around 12-15 because that's what has it do what I need it to do.

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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.

>Just curious, but is Rekon casting it at his cap or casting it at a level that makes it function the way he wants it to?<

I had a long conversation with Rekon the other day about cyclics. He was trying to convince me that TR is useful, which is the opposite of what I'm reading posted here by Warb ¯\(ツ)/¯. According to him he casts at 16 which keeps him nimbly balanced. Of course this is more in PvE than PvP. To learn from it, I think he said he casts closer to 30, which drains his attunement really fast. This is due to the fact that it draws mana with every pulse (20 seconds or so).

TR is a spell I use all the time. Cast at 20 mana while hunting I still manage to lock all magics while retaining at least half of my attunement. I really don't see a problem with this spell at all. This is with mid-800's in magics.

--Just a Squire

>I had a long conversation with Rekon the other day about cyclics. He was trying to convince me that TR is useful, which is the opposite of what I'm reading posted here by Warb ¯\(ツ)/¯.

I never said TR is useless. I said the balance buff is more noticeable around 20 mana but the dispel is better with a bigger cast (since most people cast debils at cap). I also said even Rekon can't maintain it at big casts in response to Sam talking about a 35 mana cast, which is almost exactly what you're saying. The only time I said it would be unusable is if it became even more mana intensive.

I use TR a lot when I fight clerics and warmies, and I use it to get augmentation and utility moving a few mindstates early in PvE.

>I don't use the spell. After my conversation with him, I played around with it for a while, but the mana I need to waste seems too high for the one-step boost in balance. I can use other spells much more effectively (and efficiently) for any combat boosts I might need.

Yeah, gouge is a more effective balance boost IMO. I only use it for the dispel.

>Test them out at the Ilithi Spars tonight. There's usually a big crowd of various skill ranges. /plug

Also, there's the Wyvern Trials every Monday. Just throwing that out there because it also rocks.

>>If I am hunting at level, and using a cyclic at (or near) the mana cap, I do have to step out of combat to refresh my regular buffs. It's dangerous to let them drop.

This is definitely a matter of perspective, but I tend to see hunting at level as "I can hunt here without buffs". You might still get dinged once or twice, but you're not doomed if a bad roll or two show up. If you're risking death if you don't have full buffs up, you're hunting notably above level.

That isn't to say you shouldn't hunt there! It's just that my understanding is that at-level is how you hunt in a neutral state, not a fully buffed state. AFAIK, GMs don't factor in buffs/super-duper-tier-gear/etc when making something "at level," and that's also why they're sometimes a bit concerned about buff/gear creep (IE: if everyone hunts with a X% evasion bonus, then it might be time to expect it when considering critter difficulty).

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>>Binu

what skill range are we talking for you?

Okay, triggered by Armifer's posts I did some long and careful rethinking about Starlight Sphere last night after my previous posts, including analyzing why I use the spell, how I use the spell, and how I use other abilities (including mundane actions like weapon training) in conjunction with it. After coming up with a few conclusions/hypothesis I implemented them and did some testing. Here is what I came up with.

1. The first thing I thought about was why I would want to use SLS. I.e. what is it's purpose in practical terms? Being a TM spell, its primary purpose is damage and TM training while in combat. Because I have other options to do both, the secondary purpose to using it is as a continuous ability that operates on its own and doesn't cost any RT. This allows me to train other skills more efficiently than if I were to use a standard TM spell. So far nothing out of the box here.

2. The second thing I thought about was how I used other abilities that directly interact with SLS in some way vs. those that do not. I realize that if I wanted to use SLS to any degree I would need to prioritize other attunement-as-a-resource abilities (i.e. spells, cambrinth, and harness) specifically with SLS in mind. In other words I would always have any attunement skill/stat buffs operating at cap and in the most efficient way possible, attunement based abilities that did not impact combat at all or were situationally irrelevant would not be used at all, and attunement based abilities that impacted combat would be used at a level that was balanced with the cost of using SLS, most notably buffs being at moderate strength and debilitations at minimal strength required to function. I.e. if I wanted to use SLS I would have to be very specific in tailoring my ability use to support it in the most precise way possible. E.g. since SLS in only able to be used at night I don't invoke shadowlings to preserve the much longer duration, thereby greatly increasing their mana efficiency particularly when cast at personal cap. Also, only casting situational buffs such as PSY or CV if the situation warrants it saves a lot of mana that can now be spent on debilitations or SLS itself. Harnessing a small amount of mana every so often while SLS is active helps to split the pulse cost of SLS into smaller chunks. Etc.

3. The third thing I thought about was how SLS functions. This is where my biggest fundamental shift in the concept of this spell occurred and is really the linchpin of this whole post. SLS functions on a resource model, which on the surface is attunement, and so far is what every conversation about its costs has revolved around. There is, however, another resource involved: the spell's targets themselves. One thing SLS really has going for it is efficient and consistent killing with minimal effort. This often results in easily killing off your available targets relatively frequently and leaving you without enough creatures to train weapons or defences. What if instead of basing resource management around attunement, I instead based my resource management around available targets?

4. Following from #3, the fourth thing I thought about was how to mix managing the target resource with other abilities that also used targets as a resource. I.e. weapon and defence skills. I was already managing those by only killing creatures if engaged with at least two of them. This way there was always at least one creature to supply the resource requirement of defence training, and a buffer of 3 creatures (the second to fourth ones) to supply the resource requirement of weapon training. In order to include SLS in that resource model, yet still leave enough resources for the other two, I hypothesized that if I were to continue training weapons with at least two creatures I could simply add the requirement that I would only use SLS to train if there were at least three creatures. As soon as there were only two creatures remaining I would release the spell, only recasting it once a third creature was reached again. This still provides a buffer of 3 creatures for weapon training and provides a buffer of 2 creatures for SLS. I also theorized that this would help manage attunement costs while still training TM efficiently, because SLS would not be continuously active all of the time but would be active often enough to still train.

With that all of that in mind I adjusted my combat script and ran some testing for a while.

What I discovered is... that it works! SLS is still mana hungry, but it kills things fast enough that reaching the threshold of two creatures occurs soon enough to not burn through all of my attunement. Weapon kills are significantly shorter, so I'm able to regain a third creature again after a short while which is enough to recoup some of the mana lost from the previous sphere cycle, and I rarely drop to a single creature so weapon learning doesn't slow down. This cycle of cyclics (heh!) along with heavily prioritizing attunement buffs while de-prioritizing situational buffs leaves me enough mana to make it possible to use debilitations and other combat spells regularly even while SLS is in the active part of the rotation.

Now. Two things. First, this is a lot of micromanagement. Every ability has to be used very specifically at different levels of mana and timing, so I wouldn't do this except via script. I.e. it's possible, but don't expect a casual player without much scripting know-how to be able to effectively manage SLS.

And second, all of this is with cyclic TM specifically in mind. Standard cyclic spells like buffs don't really have targets as a potential resource model and the nature of their effect doesn't really lend itself to a rotational effect. E.g. Cheetah Swiftness is a stat buff that is meant to be active all the time. I suppose you could loosely interpret target resource as 'under x creatures I don't need the buff, but need to use it with x+1 creatures,' but buffs don't really need that level of micromanagement. Or I'll take that one step further, cyclic buffs shouldn't need that level of micromagement as a requirement to maintain. Therefore this whole analysis/thought experiment doesn't apply to non-TM cyclics. It does however make me very happy that I have finally discovered a way that appears to work to allow me to use SLS with regularity.

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>>Short version: I changed my thinking about SLS from it being a spell that is maintained 100% of the time in combat and struggling with attunement management to it being a spell that is situationally switched on and off based on target management and attunement management happening on its own as a result.

This is a good thing. Cycle TMs aren't intended to run all the time. SLS is a little bit of a special case due to the hoops I had to jump through to get it to work under 3.0 design as a psuedo-pet which is why the mana level changes so much depending on if it's being used or if it's just in passive mode.

-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

>>Attunement at 720 would be enough for the primary magic reqs for a 150th necromancer.

TBH, I never got much use out of measuring things by this metric. No one is looking at crafts and going "I need 600 forging to make that? But that's almost what a Bards / Traders needs to hit 150th!"

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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.

The reality of DR requires that the magic system must meaningfully scale to 1200+ ranks (theoretically 1750, but it doesn't quite make it), circle requirements be damned.

We could do that scaling better, and I'm open to suggestions for how, but the heart of it is that no, at 700 ranks you cannot be close to capping out what magic can do.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

<<Plus, look at the way the rules of magic were rewritten as a whole for 3.0. Magic terts are expected to have the same magic skill as magic primaries these days. The fact that a 150th Paladin only needs three magics in the 300s by 150th doesn't mean all their spells should be "easier" to cast.

Just devil's advocating here, but Kodius has explicitly stated several times that this is actually one of the primary reasonings used to scale Barbarian abilities to need less magic skill than spells do to be as effective. It is scaled based on them being magic tert.

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>The reality of DR requires that the magic system must meaningfully scale to 1200+ ranks (theoretically 1750, but it doesn't quite make it), circle requirements be damned.

>We could do that scaling better, and I'm open to suggestions for how, but the heart of it is that no, at 700 ranks you cannot be close to capping out what magic can do.

I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I'm really happy with the way magic works now. The only issues I have with magic have more to do with certain spells that are probably slated for review anyway. The only complaint that comes to mind, and it's more a wish really, is that there aren't very many really cool esoteric spells to make me look forward to "You have gained a new rank in your ability to (magic skill)."

>> We could do that scaling better, and I'm open to suggestions for how, but the heart of it is that no, at 700 ranks you cannot be close to capping out what magic can do.

Absolutely, but I am not asking to cap USOL out. I am just saying that you should be able to use the ability in some form before 150th circle.

>>I am just pointing out that being able to use an ability at 150th circle (or its equiv. ranks) does not mean it's easy. It just means an advanced adventurer can use it.

>>To make cyclics harder basically means cyclics can only be used initially by adventuers who are 125th-150th and not fully capped until your skills cap.

While I understand where you're coming from with usability at lower ranks, I don't think it's unfair to need around 600-700ish attunement + a good mana room to run USOL at minimum to +5 minimum while casting other spells and never having to stop it ever.

Obviously talking from the way cyclics work now and not whatever the proposed solution GMs are seeing will be, but yeah.

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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 think more guilds actually need cyclic balancing with respect to the choice that gets made. Clerics and Empaths have the most significant choices to be made, I feel.

>>TBH I feel like it matters on how "serious" you are to casting high level spells in combat.

Target SPELL 25 / Harness 25 x3 / cast can be done in a good mana room.
You could also Target SPELL 5 / Harness 15 x 6 / cast without any real mana troubles if you're okay with spending a whole 6 seconds more.

But this also means you'd have to be super dedicated to just using magic. IMO most players (including myself!) tend to be more the "target spell"/do a bunch of other combat stuff/cast-types. We don't like to "waste" those few seconds doing mana management when we could instead spend it on two or three combat moves.
<<

I feel like this is exactly right.

Armifir: Sacrifices are already made in the name of mana management that might not be apparent - Choosing to harness instead of cast straight (trading RT for attunement), which rooms a player chooses to hunt in (limiting hunting locations to use attunement efficiently), the casting routine the player uses, etc. It can look from the outside like someone's cutting loose and that the attunement pool isn't a limiting factor while from the player's POV their behavior is constrained by the need to maintain attunement. They're making tradeoffs in other resources (time, hunting options, spell selection) rather than running themselves out of juice. If that's the case - and in my experience it is but I can just speak for me - then IMO the system is working.

Mazrian