Necromancer VS Psionicist (advice needed)

23 hours ago, Anume said:

Maybe someone else has a few tips for a mage player.

I have a nice tip for you, player of Malkael. If you play a mage and get petrified, ALT+F4 and go make a sandwitch. At least your tummy will be full when you get back to the PC.

I honestly don't know what pleasure does one get from playing an alteration PSI. All your battles are always the same:

1. Sit in one room and spam petrify

2. Lower saves

3. Telelock

4. Drain mana

5. Open with paralyzis

6. Proceed to spam one spell (that does a tremendous amount of damage and ALSO drains mana)

If the psi has half a brain, he will never lose. 

If you are a heavy melee and the psi is a handicapped 4-year old, you stand some chances at winning the encounter, by smoking sanctuary herb and just trying to straight outmelee him. If the PSI is actually someone who knows what he's doing though, like Kyz for example, just go make a sandwitch.

mmmm tastey sandwiches!

Best PK advice ever, right?

As @f0xx pointed out, even if balanced (which it is not), the class's playstyle is boring for both sides.

If you have to be extremely creative to fight something, that is a quick sign that something isn't quite right.

Petrify could use a complete remake if you even want to keep the spell. Not a very fitting spell for psionicists to begin with though in my opinion. Hypnosis and sleep are much more fitting for the class.

If you really want an 'alteration' spell, give them polymorph. Lots of much more interesting things to be done when you can change your target's race (and some conditions/reasons to not change everyone to a giant for mental vulns -- don't be lazy with it -- maybe a selection of non-player races that do different things).

I would dump petrify in lieu of more interesting status effect spells. Let them trick their opponents into thinking their weapon is a different type or change up terrain effects or something in that vein. Alteration fits that stuff. Maybe allow them to change a targeted incoming spell to another category. Change their own resists/vulns. Transmute between mana/health/moves.

Perhaps something to change their mental output to another type.

Shouldn't be able to 'uncharm' undead charmies as well. That is what turn/destroy undead is for. Again, they should be 'altering' charmies, perhaps randomizing their attack type or abilities.

Lots of fun things could be done.

Here are a few things I do not understand about this path of Psi.

They sit there and spam petrify (NEVER fails, no matter the saves or ring of abyss)

Their pets fight still while your are petrified, meaning if you are already spelled up and the pet bashes, your bash lagged and they can open right then and there with paralyze.

Petrify is 5-6 hours long.

Paralyze, tele-lock and molecular leash. These combined is too much. Forcing you to do nothing but try to flee a few times and then attempt to out run while you are paralyzed, because you can't recall or teleport. Good luck.

And the illusions, there does not seem to be any kind of cap on illusions like there is to charm. There should be a limit to what can be illusioned just like there is to what can be charmed by a DK.

On top of all this, even IF for some slight chance you get the opener and start to win, NOTHING stops the Psi from petrifying you just to escape.

Oh, don't let me forget that you cannot heal anything while you are petrified, meaning if the Psi opened the fight other ways like vs an ogre, he could dmg you down, petrify then sleep for 4-5 hours then GUARANTEE the win.

People complained when I played Kyril (Savant Petrify Psi) for the same reason. Nothing was changed back then, but I was given trouble by some strong undeads/Vampires at the time. I also am 99% sure Planar Rift was bugged (Holy damage, but did grazes and hits to any undeads including mobs). Seeing that Petrify was fixed and/or buffed I'm sure it's extremely powerful now. I was beating some powerhouses without the illusions spell. Heck, I was considering rolling one until I saw Meliael on the scene. Oh well, I'm curious to see how this class progresses based on pbase discussion.

Lol, I remember when Hebh (vampire) naked completely steam rolled my Elf Ninja wielding the Rod of Light and was decked by thrusting me to death. Couldn't enter a single command from when the fight began by me and I died to a naked vamp who then fulled me and became super decked.

What gives me hope for this game though, is the fact that this whole discussion is even possible.

This particular path has been aching for rework since the time Wyslign was rolled, and that was like ~10 years ago (holy crap)!

The problem back then was that, whenever such a discussion started, an IMM would show up and say, "Qstuff isn't allowed to be discussed in the open forum", and the topic would be locked. It was hilarious. 

So the fact that this thread hasn't been locked yet, gives me some hope indeed.

Everyone who's been playing this game for some time understand the "asynchronous" nature of FL, which means that a class will be stronger against class A and weak against class B.

There should be no class though, that absolutely leaves you 100% unable to do anything but run (and this particular path even prevents you from running away most of the time).

The alteration path illistrates perfectly what bad balance is.

Imagine this situation:

You are a shaman ==> You can't fight back because you are manaless.

You are an invoker ==> You can't fight back even when you regain some mana, because your staff will blow in your face. Of course, you can try removing your staff and then fighting back (hehe).

You are a gladiator ==> You can't use stance because you are manaless, and you can't use consumables to put sanc up. Of course, you can fight without stance (hehe).

I can go on for quite a bit too.

How this subclass has survived for so long in this state is beyond me.

I don't mind that Petrification exists. It's an interesting skill. And I certainly don't mind that a PSI can use it to escape. There are other PSI paths that have escape options and better ones. Just like Good Clerics have portal, Healers gate and other stuff.

Petrification should be a one use non savable spell that needs to be casted when not engaged and that simply halts PK. Allowing the PSI to either run, meditate/sleep, refresh some key spells. That's a powerfull utility thing.

What pretrification shouldn't be is a unsavable sleep that allows you to cast spells that would normaly wake a person. PSI has other non damaging buffs he could cast.

I played and fought counless times vs Dreamers PSI who had to work to either debuf you or sleep you through poison and they were a solid challange. Were they a pain to fight, yes. But never did I feel it was an impossible unfair battle. IF Dreamers can do it, why should Melee PSIs who are a lot more powerful have this head start in PK ?

16 hours ago, Zhurong said:

Lol, I remember when Hebh (vampire) naked completely steam rolled my Elf Ninja wielding the Rod of Light and was decked by thrusting me to death. Couldn't enter a single command from when the fight began by me and I died to a naked vamp who then fulled me and became super decked.

Got a log @Zhurong?

3 hours ago, mya said:

Petrification should be a one use non savable spell that needs to be casted when not engaged and that simply halts PK.

Halt PK when not engaged in combat? If your not engaged in combat what PK is there to halt?

Lost me @mya, could you explain?

I'm under the impression she means (at least) to stop a battle you're not involved in, but only if you're not involved in it.  Such examples are getting the jump on someone involved with mob such as Valcor or your ectoplasm.  Flee/return.

Thanks @Magick.

I had not considered that at all.

Seems so near to a q-thing moral/rule violation. Unless the petrified person is impervious to the original opponents abilities. 

Who knows, everyone defines fair play in their own way I suppose. :notme:

3 hours ago, Fool_Hardy said:

Halt PK when not engaged in combat? If your not engaged in combat what PK is there to halt?

Lost me @mya, could you explain?

Opener only like Cleave, Charge, Sleep, Vamp Skill, PSI skill, Blackjac, Strangle, etc ...

And it halts PK, because for the duration of the effect you can't harm them, and they cant harm you. But you (the PSI) can heal, run or buff up.

Although I have not successfully killed an Alteration Psi, I think it is more than possible. If you examine the logs, you can see that although the timer on Petrify does seem long, so is the lag on some of the spells the psi is using. There have been some great suggestions I think, the first and most obvious being sanctuary refreshing. We have been looking at the damage dealt, all while sanc was dropped on Malkael. If the first thing done was to put back up sanc, his chances of survival would not only greatly increase, but allow time to (if the leash was applied like in the first go-round, but not in the second) break the leash and get away to recover some. That second round would have actually been a very decent opportunity to try and turn the tables on the psi, had you put back up sanc and fled and gathered your army, now you would be facing the psi without another petrify (likely) and your position greatly improved.

I personally see nothing overpowered about this subclass. Like all psi's, it has some very key weaknesses that many involve timing to exploit. A patient player that is paying attention to where they are at (in terms of both physical location and affects on them) can quickly turn the tide in their favor. Also petrify is not overpowered in my opinion.

13 hours ago, Cephirus said:

I personally see nothing overpowered about this subclass.

Sorry, you see nothing OP about a class that has an unblockable sleep, can drain all your mana, completely destroy your mental saves, prevent you from fleeing, telelock you (all that while you sleep) and then dish out a spell that hits for === and still drains 100 mana per cast and also has an uncapped charm (which is actually something new for me too)?

And you see nothing OP about that?

Are you sure?

Thanks @mya. I knew you were making a point and that I was failing to understand you. :clapping:

Honestly when I first was talked to after getting Psi by Kyzarius IG and he had discussed varying paths, when I first learned about petrify I was amazed since I didn't have direct access to the help files before (honestly it's been over a decade since their release I don't see how opening up the help files for all to read would hurt or hinder the class at all), it turned out to be quite ruthless. If it is to be toned down without making it so that it still lands regardless, it should at the very least have a cool down timer of 12-24 hours before it can be used on the person again, but only AFTER it has worn off that it should be able to land again. This gives the person a chance to think before they use it as a run away tactic or a opener instead of a possibility of both. If the Kinesis path had one of their strong spells toned down ~15 months ago, it's time that an Alteration Psi has one of theirs done this time as well.

If duplicate can manage to land that easy on difficult MOBs, perhaps it should only be able to be used on MOBs that you kill instead similar to animate corpse except with strength damned immediately. This means that they don't have access to a quick MOB that's strong to help them in combat on top of all their other perks. Their melee output already pretty much beats most  other classes in straight up combat, add in a strong MOB with duplicate, possible other charmies, and finally leave open the possibilities of petrify the same and other added affects. In that instance, it leaves very little hope for someone to survive and it was just a fluke that he really survived the first encounter anyways. Why do I say this? Look at the trend. Whenever one of these path of Psi come along and end up in a Cabal, the enemy Cabal stops playing. That's usually the big factor that proves it's too much for one class that can survive and output more damage than most others. The people who don't quit continue to die continually hoping for a chance at getting the upper hand, but typically don't.

If the illusion mob has the same stats as the real mob then the spell needs to be put in check like animate dead was, however if the illusion has depleted stats then they should be able to cast it on anything. A question that should come up is what level is the illusion? Cuz if the illusions are casting spells (which is cool) those spells should be level 50, not level 60 because the illusions rank copied the mobs rank.

Taking people's turns away is the ultimate way to win every PK especially vs a mage. A melee class has more of a chance as the bulk of their damage is done from attacks so they don't 'need' turns to deal damage, a mage however needs their turns to do damage so when their turns are taken away because of unpreventable spells it's basically just a record padding fight.

If someone tells you to just avoid the petrify or lead first because there is no way to save against or prevent it then they are not taking into account the class you are playing. If you are a mage class ( log out ), if you are a melee class (stand in one spot and spam murder), hopefully you will have enough hit/dam to go toe to toe.

Its nice to see a strong mage but I think it's the wrong kind of strong, petrify is completely OP vs other mages while 'meh' affective against melee classes. 

If the affects of petrify remains the same I'd suggest a 0-1 hour timer on it with an additional cool down timer of 1-2 hours. Me personally I'd change petrify to put penalties on 2nd, 3rd and 4th attacks, by doing this you would remove the OP factor vs mages while making the PSI path more competitive vs melee.

UC

6 hours ago, f0xx said:

Sorry, you see nothing OP about a class that has an unblockable sleep, can drain all your mana, completely destroy your mental saves, prevent you from fleeing, telelock you (all that while you sleep) and then dish out a spell that hits for === and still drains 100 mana per cast and also has an uncapped charm (which is actually something new for me too)?

And you see nothing OP about that?

Are you sure?

First of all, there is no way that you would have enough time to drain all their mana and the laundry list of other things you mentioned. Otherwise we would see that being the case in the log. You are exaggerating how devastating petrify can be, when clearly you would not have time to do all that. Also, draining mana takes a lot of time and casts. Against a mage you are better off just out damaging them as a PSI, it is a way more efficient and better use of their mana.

The first round versus the second round display some very important differences in potential outcomes. You just have to keep track of where you are at in terms of positioning and decide if once that petrify drops and you get sanc back up, do you have the juice and leverage to overtake them, or are you going to run for it and give it another round.

2 minutes ago, Cephirus said:

First of all, there is no way that you would have enough time to drain all their mana and the laundry list of other things you mentioned. Otherwise we would see that being the case in the log.

You assume that just because you don't see it in the log, it's not possible?

You are wrong.

I've done it to others and I've had it done to myself multiple times, and can even provide logs.

You on the other hand don't seem to be very familiar with PSI abilities and how to effectiveiy utilize them, so why even argue?