While we're poking away and changing things on Test, is there any chance HyH could get a area[aka cast creature] (non grouped) option? As much as I get a kick out of watching Liuri zap me while we're fighting assassins, having another option could be really neat and a nice boon to group hunting.

Samsaren

That would be cool for all offensive cyclical spells as well if it's not already an option.

Not that I have a problem with friendly fire. Having multiple characters progress through adan'f warriors with names starting War-, I'm used to the getting MB'ed, DO'ed, shot at, kicked, punched, bitten, etc. by people claiming to be friends.

>>Yes, I saw the post also about removing the caps and lowering the maximum possible benefit, but I echo Shenae's concern about the usefulness of the spell at any point south of endgame. At 60 ranks of strength, reflex, or agility (and keep in mind "Holy Titan" is attained at 60 in all stats, AND typically happens when people get to around 140th circle), it only provides a 9 point bonus.

>That's certainly nothing small, but until now we've been used to attaining a 15 point boost based off skill and devotion. This turns into a pretty significant nerfing to present clerics who aren't at "endgame" yet. And clerics with say, 45 in their stats will attain 6 or 7 ranks of boost (not sure how it rounds), coming down from +15 (if they had adequate augmentation and devotion) seems very harsh.

>Very few clerics will ever hit 100 in those attributes, as magic primes tend to focus on mentals for obvious reasons first, so lowering the cap has the possibly unintended effect of making benediction significantly less effective at boosting the very stats we usually have trailing.

Capping rank and stat buffs at 334 Magic or 40's in stats has no scalability. Now those buffs grow with the character, I think the change was needed, and making Benediction less effective in the beginning and ramping up its bonus based on skill is a good thing.

>>Clerixhax,

>And to respond to your point, it doesn't really ramp up based on skill, it seems like capping it at 15% bonus of your current stat is more of the barrier than the augmentation/pm ranks.

I understand the actual bonus is based off percentage points of your attributes, TDP's are generated from increased skills, which in turn raise your attributes thereby providing a larger bonus. So it kind of does ramp up based on skill. Novice to mid range Clerics are receiving mid range bonuses, where as the more experienced Clerics are able to provide a more potent boost.

>At 130% potency, it will hit it's point-cap of X% of current stat points before you even get to where you can cast it at capped mana. And you can do 130% potency for it since you can reduce duration since it'll be going into your orb anyways.

You can also do that with the rank based bonuses too with potency, alignment and SAP. That still doesn't justify why a mid level character should be receiving close to the maximum amount of bonuses to skills/stats from spells. It was a good thing to lower the bonus to give lower level people something to work into, and it was a good thing to remove the caps so it can keep scaling for high levels. Why again is it bad that mid levels get 4-6 bonused stat points and 150th circles get 10-15?

I'm struggling to understand a worry about "usefulness of a spell sub 100 in stats" when you can indefinitely bonus 4-6 points in Strength, Reflex and Agility. To claim a spell isn't useful unless you're receiving 15 points to 3 stats is asinine.

>I'm struggling to understand a worry about "usefulness of a spell sub 100 in stats" when you can indefinitely bonus 4-6 points in Strength, Reflex and Agility. To claim a spell isn't useful unless you're receiving 15 points to 3 stats is asinine.

I don't disagree with your point that unless it's 15 stat points the spell is useless. But I think it does diminish the usefulness of the spell at the lower end, at least it does for me. I'm going from whatever amount profuse provides, 12 IIRC, down to faint for 3.

>until now we've been used to attaining a 15 point boost based off skill and devotion. This turns into a pretty significant nerfing to present clerics who aren't at "endgame" yet."

This is an excellent point. I know that change will make the spell something I can eventually grow into, but frankly it feels like by the time I'm able to get back to or pass the amount I'm able to add now I wont notice the change as much.

>Clerics who put most of their points into mentals might only have 40-45 str/ref/agil even as they're crossing well over 100th circle.

Using myself as an example here. As a 72nd Circle Cleric I have 30 in Str/Agi/Ref. I trained that way mainly because I don't seriously hunt and it's pretty much a hobby to me. I enjoy spending my time in game working on other skills, but when I do hunt it's nice to be able to see the benefit of all my magic training augment my stats in a meaningful way. I notice a big difference when I use Bene with 30 points and can raise them up to 40+. I honestly don't think 45 in an unreasonable amount for a circle 70+ to have in those stats. I can't imagine noticing as large of a boost to my hunting ability increasing my stats from 90 to 105 for example. It seems like at that point the amount of stat boosting really isn't going to add as much because of the high ranks I already have in my skills.

> The one and only defensive skill buff they get is MAPP which the wide majority will see from the nerfed side (needing around 500+ defending+evasion before nearing the old capped effects, let alone exceeding it)

They removed SoL's +shield use bonus in 3.1? That's a pity

>I guess it still sort of does, shame on me. Most Clerics will still see nothing more than nerfed benefits, but that's better than nothing I guess.

I honestly wasn't trying to be snarky, I was really curious (hoping) that SoL didn't get changed. Looks like they did make it so you can either summon and use a shield or get the +skill bonus, which seems odd you would have to choose between the two.

I do agree, and lament, that across the boards it looks like battle Cleric's are losing a fair bit of their combat prowess. I'm not huge into training combat skills but once these changes are rolled out I'm pretty sure I'll be even less inclined to go hunting.

>I wouldn't say that. I think clerics and barbs are the only guilds that can still buff evasion and shield and of the two, barbs are the only one limited as to how many buffs they can maintain at once. That's huge, especially with 20% caps. I'd kill for an evasion buff on my paladin in 3.1 for DFA alone.

I see your point and don't dispute the validity at all, therefore I would have to change my original statement to "I do agree, and lament, that across the boards it looks like *aspiring young* battle Cleric's are losing a fair bit of their combat prowess."

I'd stated before I do appreciate the changes being something to grow into as you advance. I think removing the ability to cap your spells at "mid level" gives you something to look forward to and adds meaning to advancing. But I wont deny that in doing so it leaves those of us who have strongly focused on magic in lieu of combat skills in the weeds. As I had also stated before, I always enjoyed the fact that despite my lack of combat skills/stats, my vastly superior magical talent and devotion would help to compensate and give me an edge by augmenting my meager combat skill. Because of the change it still does, but in a very underwhelming way.

>I hope I don't get lynched for stating this, but I think clerics probably have the most complete spell suite. Offense buffs are perhaps the only weak spot, but that's more than made up for by possessing the best debilitation spells in the game.

I have no problem with the Cleric's spellbook at all. I don't think we lack for anything except perhaps an Intel/Schol Buff of some nature. But that really depends on your view of the guild I suppose. I consider Clerics to be more like holy mages and scholars, leaning more in the direction of the moon mage guild on the spectrum than combat heavy warrior mage, but again, that's just personal observation. I'm sure there are others who would disagree and view it completely opposite.

>I see your point and don't dispute the validity at all, therefore I would have to change my original statement to "I do agree, and lament, that across the boards it looks like *aspiring young* battle Cleric's are losing a fair bit of their combat prowess."

I understand what you mean and I agree that it takes a lot of the oomph out of stat buffs for low and mid-game. However, I don't agree that it has any greater effect on clerics than other guilds with stat buffs. It would be nice if there were some hard minimum +stat bonus, but that sounds tricky to balance and the stat buffs as they stand in 3.0 unfairly tip stat contests in favor of the guilds with the most stat buffs. That's my feeling as someone whose main character is in one of those guilds with lots of stat buffs.

>I think warmies can buff shield and evasion simultaneously, unless SUF and AEG changed?

I thought the evasion buff was removed from SW (assuming you meant SW) in 3.0 in favor of a reflex buff, but SW still buffs evasion according to epedia, so you are correct. Warrior mages can, too.

Now... If someone tells me bards have a way I don't recall of doing it too, I'm going to start to wonder whether it's a survival + armor tertiary perk and barbs just got it since they can't keep too many buffs up. (In case it doesn't carry well in text, I'm just kidding.)

I did mean SW, my mistake, and I haven't checked to see if it's still there in 3.1.

As for Bards, I'm not sure, but I'm fairly confident they don't have a shield buff. I don't think shield buffing is that common actually, is it? AFAIK, only Clerics and Warmies can buff it?

>As someone with a good magic background you're able to utilize those magic ranks to provide you the ability to augment your lesser combat ranks to a degree(read higher %bonus), but if you're lacking the knowledge of how to effectively use that bonus you wont make the most out of it (read amount of bonus towards skill). That makes sense. Someone with 1000 evasion will be more knowledgeable about increasing their skill while a novice may boost their evasion with their higher magic ranks they just won't make the best use since their knowledge of how evasion works is less than the better combatant.

This is a great assertion of the situation and makes perfect sense. Academically everything you said is perfectly logical. On paper I have no problem with the lowering of the % bonus and removing the skill/hard cap. But in practice I would prefer to see higher magic ranks compensate more for the skill you're buffing if it's significantly lower. E.g. Having ~300% more skill/ranks in Augmentation/Warding than Evasion/Shield granting you 20 - 25% bonus in lieu of 15% doesn't seem impractical, heck make it a magical feat you'd need before you can get the benefit.

At the end of the day, I do understand that the direction spells/magic/etc is being taken in is a positive thing, and airing my grievances over a conflict of opinion with the situation carries about as much clout as me walking up to a thunder storm and saying, 'Hey fella, keep the noise down'