If you're using held mana for your cyclic spells, then you're doing it in the least effective way possible. A high capacity cambrinth (like an orb) would help you a ton, but the raw channeling feat will be a vastly better option.

>>Can't even keep SLS out too long cause harness pulses like 5+ times within the first 10 seconds.

Slowing down pulses for stuff like SLS would probably just result in it attacking slower.

It also might not hurt to also look at this in the long run and realize things will get much easier later on/when you get more skill. Right now it might be hard for you to keep those spells up, but by going off epedia SLS has a range of 6-25 and moongate has a range of 5-20. I'm able to run my Necro cyclic spells in the 16-18 mana ranges and (depending on the room's energy) stay anywhere from 50-95% of my mana. Most of the time I'm keeping Rite of Contrition up at 16 the entire time I'm playing, including when I'm training other magics. But I do that with lots of harness-related feats, but especially raw channeling.

---

The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

I'm not going to rely on cambrinth for a gate. You can forget that and toss that out the door.

I stick to my complaint. Mana pulses needs to pulse a bit slower than it currently is.
This might be my ace in the hole to cancel all 3 accounts when 3.0 comes out. And please no attacks on me for that comment, that is my own personal opinion.

Renzar finally helped me get the blasted thing opened for more than just 2 seconds, but as I stated, mana pulses WAY too fast and should be addressed before release.

>I'm not going to rely on cambrinth for a gate. You can forget that and toss that out the door.

In 3.0 Moongate is a mana intensive cyclic spell that will greatly benefit from using Cambrinth. At least try it and see if it solves your issue before writing it off.

>Also, TEVESHSZAT. I'm not no newb. I have PLENTY the skill to hold a gate from long distances. ;)

Well, since the original post lacks any details to reach any sort of conclusion at your skill or understanding of the system...

What Attunement skill are you dealing with?
What did you prep Moongate at?
How much mana were you holding at the time of casting?

Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

I do have to agree. I cant comment on anything other than my own spells (MM) but I have noticed some pretty excessively fast pulse timers. MG does pulse very very fast. It burns through 60 mana very quickly on a long port that under other circumstances isnt really an issue. A tad slower (3-5 sec) per pulse would go a long way to make this spell feel more stable. SLS is really on the same page as well. Every single movement...advance, attack, etc drains mana. Which makes it 1) tricky to keep up for more than one critter... 2) inefficient to keep up for more than one critter.

I think cyclics should have a standard timer. In 2.0 when I harness 20 mana and hold it... thats cake. In 3.0 Im harnessing 20 mana every few seconds to keep a spell going... thats much much tougher. I dont want things handed to me on a platter but I feel like its a bit too rough.

And as far as cambrinth goes... Ive already expressed my disdain at the role cambrinth has in 3.0. Of all the aspects of the new conversion this is the only one that I straight dislike almost to the point of hating it. Cambrinth should be a magic aid... not the magic crutch its going to become. Without cam items a mage's spellcasting ability takes a huge hit to a point where its so inefficient its almost pointless. I do not like that one bit. I love the cam feats and cam working with cyclics, but it should be a choice not a requirement (and we can split hairs but at this point its a requirement). For that matter I dont like that we have to harness (if not using camb) to cast spells and not be mana drained in 2 casts (and by mana drained I mean unable to cast spells... not low attunement like everyone keeps assuming).

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

>>I think cyclics should have a standard timer.

Ehhh... I'm against that. I like that there are fast and slow cyclics.

>>In 3.0 Im harnessing 20 mana every few seconds to keep a spell going... thats much much tougher. I dont want things handed to me on a platter but I feel like its a bit too rough.

>>And as far as cambrinth goes... Ive already expressed my disdain at the role cambrinth has in 3.0.

>>I love the cam feats and cam working with cyclics, but it should be a choice not a requirement (and we can split hairs but at this point its a requirement).

Do you have anything in particular against learning Raw Channeling? It sounds like these issues would vanish once you learn that feat. It's a very good ease/quality of magic-life improvement feat.

---

The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

The way that it is being pushed, it sounds to me that Raw Channeling is such an overwhelming strategic choice that it really isn't a choice - it's a requirement.

At that point, why have it as a choice? What functional benefit is there to not choosing it? At one spell slot, it doesn't feel like a significant cost. Maybe it could cost more, to make it into a real decision. Or why not have cyclic spells actually require it? Or cyclic spells can be powered straight from harness, but cost more slots?

The way that people are talking about it, not getting it really isn't a viable choice.


*I have not tried running cyclic spells off cambrinth, especially while doing various things like combat - I am going entirely by how Raw Channeling is being pushed here in the forums - that people are making wrong game choices, at a mechanical level, for not getting it.

* edit - removed an extraneous word

>>I like that there are fast and slow cyclics.

I dont mind that there are fluctuations in pulse timers but in the examples I noted its a bit too fast. Ive played with a few others and I havent noticed them moving quite as fast. I dont mind it being a tough spell... I just dont like HOW tough it is currently. As I said in Prime I can hold a gate with 20 mana for.. well for as long as I want really. In 3.0 that same gate taps me out far too fast for my skill in my opinion.

>>Do you have anything in particular against learning Raw Channeling?

My only issue is mana conservation. With the speed of the pulses and the way that non harnessed/cambrinthed spells need to be cast at a level that eats mana I simply dont like the thought of pulses of 20 mana eating through my attunement every 2 sec. And before anyone jumps me Im well aware that attunement is supposed to stay low in 3.0. Im not attempting to say I want to stay at 100% like I can in 3.0. My issue is that casting a spell at 50 mana drains about 40+% of my mana, and I need to cast it at that to both be effective at level and to train the needed skills. If Ive got mana being sucked straight from me with Raw Channeling this makes it tougher to manage for me. Sure I can sustain a few 20 mana pulses but now when I need that 50 mana spell Im at 30% and have to wait for regen.

Or I can use cambrinth or harness in small bits and avoid all the hassle... which brings me back to my previous point of why Im not happy with cambrinth and harnesses new role as magic crutch.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

>>Moongate requires some tweaking still, both its cycling speed needs to come down a touch and its difficulty to cap needs to go way up.

This Im very ok with... I dont think it should be an easy spell. It just killed me to see how fast it drains mana.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

>>This Im very ok with... I dont think it should be an easy spell. It just killed me to see how fast it drains mana.

The current situation is a bit of a compromise position between how Moongate used to function and 3.0 design scheme. I think it was a worthwhile experiment, but in the end the setup doesn't really do either justice.

-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

>>The way that it is being pushed, it sounds to me that Raw Channeling is such an overwhelming strategic choice that it really isn't a choice - it's a requirement.

The "requirement" of it depends strictly on how long you want your cyclics to run and if you can support what is essentially casting the spell over and over at whatever mana level you prepped it at.

Keep in mind that these below are all my views, so not something written in stone.

If you just need a cyclic to pulse a few times, then harnessing and/or cambrinth will work fine. IMO I'd stick to cambrinth since you don't risk nerve damage/leakage using it, but otherwise they're the same thing.

If you want a cyclic to essentially run "forever" and you have the skill to support dropping X mana into it over and over and over into infinity, I think it's much smarter to just use raw channeling than busy yourself with harnessing or cambrinth.

If you don't have the skill (or whatever conditionals) to support dropping X mana into a cyclic over and over into infinity, then I'd probably opt to using cambrinth over raw channeling, just because I can do something like drop a portion of whatever I need per pulse into the cambrinth at a time.

>>that people are making wrong game choices, at a mechanical level, for not getting it.

Players determine lots of things are the "right" way to do things. I know people who swear by the Acumen craft techs, and I think they're totally bonkers (and they feel the same about me). Someone could totally do cyclics by cambrinth/harnessing alone, it's just not as easy, just like people can craft without acumen techs, but it's not as easy.

It's a quality of life thing.

>>I simply dont like the thought of pulses of 20 mana eating through my attunement every 2 sec.

It's possible epedia is wrong, but is there a reason you're casting it at cap? The minimum looks to be 5. I think I remember that more mana lets you reach moonbeams further away, but is it even necessary to always cast that high?

>>And maybe sustainable isnt the right word but 2 spells cast at 50 mana (my cap is about 60-65) and Im drained.

Isn't this how things were in 2.0? I always cast at min and used harness/camb or else tapped out after two or three casts at max.

---

The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

Sounds like your sad about critter defenses. It affects every instrument of death.

Codiax.
Forged Weapons:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Codiax#Codiax-Forged-Weapons

>>Sounds like the fact that mana is a resource that you need to manage carefully regardless of skill or level is the sticking point here. However, from a game design standpoint, I cant think of any system where mana management becoming a non-issue is a good thing. We dont want to go back to the 2.0 days where after a certain skill level you never use more then 10% of your allotted attunement.

This.

There are tools (cambrinth and feats) to help manage your mana. Refusing to use them, and saying that it's too hard to manage does not make your point. I'm not sure of your skills, but I don't know how you can say mana efficiency doesn't scale well with skill in 3.0 when no one has been able to put in the time and train their skills under the new model. All you are doing is comparing data from 2.0 to a completely new model in 3.0. Until you've gained 300-400 levels in your magic under the new model you can't say for sure if mana use scales well under 3.0. Trying to get changes made with bad data and guesses isn't really going to get you far.

>>All you are doing is comparing data from 2.0 to a completely new model in 3.0.

Id be willing to place money that what Im talking of hasnt changed. Ive done enough testing to know my mana usage is no different in 3.0 than in 2.0. The only thing that changed is that Im required to cast high in 3.0. If a GM corrects me then I will certainly apologize, but 300-400 in skill gains under 3.0 is going to change how much % a 50 mana cost takes by exactly how it does in 2.0... which is trivial.


>>Refusing to use them, and saying that it's too hard to manage does not make your point.

Im not sure where you read this but Ive said neither.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

IMO the Raw Channeling feat wouldn't be so incredibly vital for cyclics if harnessing more mana without taking damage were plausible in 3.0.

Since all of the spells in 3.0 require way more mana, it'd be nice if you could harness maybe 20% of your skill in Attunement without incurring damage, rather than only 5% as is the current rule in 2.0.

So with 1000 Attunement skill you could harness 200 mana without taking any damage, and the higher up you go from there starts to be more dangerous. And then that feat that helps with harnessing mana without taking damage would help mitigate some of that.

Or maybe you can already harness more mana in 3.0 without taking damage, I've never really tested to be honest.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

>>having it suck 15-20 mana per (sometimes very quick) pulse can get... hazardous to potential casting.

But isn't that what makes it fun? You have to choose: do you use the fast pulsing cyclic or do you use something more stable/long term.

It's like with combat where I have to choose between using attacks that keep me balanced and defensive or using attacks that tire me out, do high damage, and make me open for counterattacks.

Plus, in 2.0 you wouldn't have been able to run a cyclic and cast other spells at the same time. I'm not sure how doing both being hard in 3.0 is something that can throw people off their normal habits, since before now it wasn't even possible.

>>I dont like mana pulsing out like that... it feels like... bleeding. I like having control over cyclics other than RELEASE <SPELL>.

Isn't that the tradeoff? Barely any micromanagement when it comes to mana management or lots of roundtimes which indicate the work you're doing for that kind of micromanagement. I think there are going to be situations where either one can be the better choice.

>>Now in 3.0 we are required to cast high to both be effective (my 7 mana DOs of death are gone but 30-40 mana DOs work) and to train.

It's possible I just never went in a situation needing it, but I rarely cast high power TM spells when hunting at level. The only thing that changed for me is debilitation training, and that's more a result of my debilitation being vastly higher than my combats.

>>But you dont think you should kill the lower critters easier than you did when they were the hardest you could do?

This already exists. Once you vastly outclass a critter, the system essentially flips over to what looks/feels/acts like the older combat model, where you explode things left and right. I don't know how it looks on the back end, but from a user perspective it feels like any kind of minimizer/buffer/etc that would prolong combat gets removed and you can jump straight into super-duper-apoc deathblows.

>>What good is skill if a 50 mana cast always takes 40-50% attunement?

But it doesn't/shouldn't. Now that harness and power perception merged into the same skill, using mana essentially also increases your power perception skill, which in turn lets you detect better mana, which in turn lets you use less energy when casting spells.

>>Is the ferrari faster and better (camb/harness) well sure. But can I efficiently do it with a gremlin (straight casting) I should be able to.

It matters how you define efficient. Does your gremlin break down every other block? Sure, you'll still reach your end goal, but it will take longer to do so.

>>My problem is I see no growth in mana management out of my 500+ ranks. 50 mana drains me the same now as it did 200 ranks ago.

Doesn't this imply that you're casting spells in rooms with the same energy from 200 ranks ago? If you're training up all your magics, that shouldn't really be the case. You'd have better overall mana available just because your attunement went up with everything else.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

>>if harnessing more mana without taking damage were plausible in 3.0.

But more harness skill helps mitigate that, AND there's a feat for it, AND I'm pretty certain you can [eventually] get the same roundtime straight harnessing as you get for using cambrinth so why bother in the long term to begin with.

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The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

>>It's like with combat where I have to choose between using attacks that keep me balanced and defensive or using attacks that tire me out, do high damage, and make me open for counterattacks.

This is where I see the difference between using 30 mana and using 50. Do I want to hit it or do I want to explode it.

>>I'm not sure how doing both being hard in 3.0 is something that can throw people off their normal habits,

I actually wasnt referring to it in that sense. I dont cast while cyclics are going since I dont have battle cyclics other than SLS. I look at it from "I just ran my cyclic spell that was pulsing 15% of my mana away and now I need to cast <insert spell> at level and cant." Im not knocking folks for taking that feat... I just dont want it nor should I be required to.

>>Barely any micromanagement when it comes to mana management or lots of roundtimes which indicate the work you're doing for that kind of micromanagement.

Again I dont really have an issue with cyclic spells and harnessing. My only beef with cyclics was they were too sucking mana too fast. Which has already been addressed by Armifer. So my interest in cyclic spells is over.

>>but I rarely cast high power TM spells when hunting at level.

Im not sure what you hunt but I have to use far more mana than I do in 2.0 to hunt with TM in 3.0. Do I need to cast at 60? No. Can I cast at 10 still? No. To be any sort of effective Im having to cast at the 20-30 range. Otherwise I miss and scrape. And thats with higher TM then my hunting area.

>>This already exists.

Not in 3.0 to my knowledge (this is purely from my character perspective). My magics dwarf snowbeasts, but I kill them no faster with TM then I do with my at level small edge. Unless Im putting 50 mana into casts anyhow.

>>But it doesn't/shouldn't.

It does for this guy. Maybe that changes in the 1000 rank area but as I said in a previous post I think thats a bad design. We added all these new ranges so while 50 mana shouldnt be dropping me 40% 70 mana shouldnt be dropping a 1000 rank that far either.

>>Does your gremlin break down every other block?

Heh touche... I tried a bad example here. Say a typical everyday sedan then. Reliable but not sporty. Shaving a few % mana is what harness and camb should do. Right now they negate % drain from spells almost entirely. This makes them king. And the problem (I believe anyhow) is that natural casting doesnt grow like it should. If it did then harness and cambrinth wouldnt be as necessary as they are now. If you wanted to save a bit more mana youd use them otherwise youd do just fine without them. Hence making them an aide not a crutch.

>>If you're training up all your magics, that shouldn't really be the case.

I am. Trust me I wouldnt make this argument if my skill ranges were lopsided. And thats my problem. I should see more mana, my attunement pool should be larger, spells shouldnt drain me as much as they did. But they do. And this is the whole problem I see with how things are going. At best I see maybe a few % difference after huge jumps in skill. In this new system of expanded ranges there are huge areas of improvement that could be made in mana efficiency.



~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."

>Moongate requires some tweaking still, both its cycling speed needs to come down a touch and its difficulty to cap needs to go way up.

Glad to hear that. I'll await the next update to a Moongate tweak but as for now, the current system for the spell completely sucks.

>That said, "Do X or I'll cancel all my accounts" doesn't impress me.

Pretty sure I didn't say that. :)
But nice try at word twisting.

>And just how else are we supposed to take this?

>>This might be my ace in the hole to cancel all 3 accounts when 3.0 comes out.


Offhand, I'm guessing that it was more of a "this straw might break my camel's back" than an ultimatum - but it did have a bit of the ultimatumly feel.

<<The way that it is being pushed, it sounds to me that Raw Channeling is such an overwhelming strategic choice that it really isn't a choice - it's a requirement.>>



I found that the above to be absolutely true for empaths and guardian spirit.



<<The real thing DR needs is to get out there to the kids who actually read books.>>