Justicars: Last two powers.

Having decided to finally bite the bullet and get to the point where my Justicar can use the last two powers in her guild's toolbox, I went ahead and got Lenisa to level 20 today. So, I can finally give the last two powers their proper reviews.

First up is meditate. This is a pretty nice buff, since it gives a nice boost to Str/Con/Dex/Per, all of which make the Justicar tougher, which is a very good thing to be in a combat-oriented guild. I'm not entirely sure how this buff scales with skill, but it gives Lenisa a very (very!) respectable +65 to each listed attribute. The only real limitation on the buff is that it lasts in proportion to how long you spend charging it up, and you can't do much of anything (even OOC actions) while charging it. Luckily, the buff actually lasts a pretty long time, even with just spending a few minutes in meditation, so it's a pretty easy thing to maintain.

Deliver judgment is an area attack, and while it does have a 5 minute cool-down, it's a very very awesome thing. Perhaps the best thing about the power is that it hits everything in the room with you that has an ounce of chaos in its heart -- apparently, when the devs were around nerfing a lot of other guilds' area attacks by making them hit less than everything in the room (see: RWs, Elflords, Sentinels...), they either chose not or neglected to do so with deliver judgment (and Justies are one of a handful of guilds/capabilities with area attacks that hit everything in the room, so it's kind of a toss-up). Most of my knowledge of the effects of this ability runs from my having been hit with it in my sojourns in Jhan while playing some chaotic bitch that's slaughtering everything there, but it appears to at the very least slow opponents and do scads of damage. Plus, it's an area attack... What's not to like?

An interlude in which Jeliza is magically transformed into a torso:

deliver judgment
You extend your silvery steel target shield of Tyr above your head in a defiant gesture.
> A nearly-hypnotic pattern of swirling high-pitched tones rises over the pumping music, then fades back into it.
Your silvery steel target shield of Tyr begins to thrum with unreleased energy. A white nimbus forms around you.
Your silvery steel target shield of Tyr erupts in a startling flash, sending waves of righteous force in all directions.
Jeliza has been mortally wounded and will die soon if not aided.
Jeliza's right arm is structured into immobility.
Jeliza's left arm is structured into immobility.
Jeliza's right hand is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza's white pine ring is torn from her.
Jeliza drops her white pine ring.
Jeliza's left hand is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza's right leg is structured into immobility.
Jeliza's left leg is structured into immobility.
Jeliza's right foot is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza's left foot is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza has been stunned.
Jeliza is affected somewhat severely by the attack.
lay hands on human
You place your hands on Jeliza.
An intense silvery glow emanates from your hands.
Jeliza's head is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza's pale purple tin chaos amulet is torn from her.
Jeliza drops her pale purple tin chaos amulet.
Jeliza's right arm is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza's left arm is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza's right leg is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza's left leg is transformed into pure order.
Jeliza is affected somewhat severely by the attack.
> Jeliza dies.


Kaboom. Sweet.

Anyhow, two thumbs up, and well worth the wait -- not that level 20 is an onerous grind these days, even for an Amberite. I'm still not 100% sure on whether or not I will be taking Lenisa to hero levels yet, but things are looking pretty good for her at the moment.

Guild review: Justicars of Tyr

The recent Almerian Expansion was particularly hard on one of my newer characters -- my Ollin Tonatiuh/Kensai who I had decked out in hyperium gear. Basically, since I had neglected to log her in within the time frame allowed for prior to the expansion, she ended up being sent into penury, losing all of her equipment. Instead of attempting to re-equip her with more hyperium gear, I decided to take her in a different direction -- since I already have a kensai, and Lenisa was basically just a thematic variation on the guild, I decided to use her to check out a guild with which I have not had much experience in the past -- the Justicars.

Now, typically the mere mention of the word 'Justicar' is enough to elicit comments about how utterly bad the guild is, so I knew that perhaps I would have a bit of an uphill battle as far as character development is concerned. I knew that the Justicars still lock the upper-level powers up behind level requirements, and while Lenisa had a bit of a head start at level 15, she would still be pretty far from using some of the better abilities of the guild. I've gotten Lenisa up to level 16 so far (much of her short time with the guild has been spent in efforts to train up her crafting skills, since those are so vital to good performance in the guild), and so don't have a whole lot to say yet about the two upper-level powers of the guild (meditate and deliver judgment), so a review inclusive of those powers will probably be forthcoming. And despite the cynicism of some players towards the Justicar guild, I've come to learn through my experiences with the Ordo Maleficus (and clerics, which tend to be similarly-maligned as 'broken') that things aren't always as insurmountable as some people might make them out to be.

So let me just kick off the review by saying that the Justicars are a decently-solid melee guild. Of course, this isn't saying a huge amount, since, after all, the Adventurer's Guild is also a decently-solid melee guild these days, and there aren't even any special requirements to join. But the melee ability of the Justicars is a boon, since unlike some other 'underpowered' guilds (such as the Ordo Maleficus), Justicars always have the power of a good old-fashioned ass-whooping to fall back on.

Augmenting the Justicars' melee prowess is what I consider to be their primary guild power: their equipment. Now, I have to make the confession that I have cheated a bit in this arena... The two great rings of smithing which augment Lenisa's ensemble do wonders to increase the quality of equipment she can craft at Tyr's forge. But even so, Justicar equipment is some really good stuff -- and it should be, considering that Justicars are encouraged to spend so many specialty points in crafting skills. There really isn't a whole lot of room to criticize the Justicar equipment... The armor is solid, and can be crafted piecemeal (so that it can be accessorized with odd pieces such as a dactid), the weapons perform special attacks, and even though you might want to carry a back-up (for order-resistant foes), the weapons are generally good enough to not make you look twice at most things you might pick up. The only real criticism I would have about Justicar equipment is that the new map expansions make it somewhat onerous to get -- you have to travel to the Ivory Tower to craft it, and it does not persist between incarnations. On the plus side though, it does stay with your character if she gets killed and resurrects herself, somewhat alleviating the requirement to go naked to retrieve one's corpse from a potentially dangerous environment. Something like an ability to keep Justicar equipment between incarnations would be nice, especially considering the general largeness of the world nowadays.

Another nice benefit of the guild is the guild tower, which has some really great trainers. Of course, the trainers in the Ivory Tower are not exclusive to Justicars -- any Questor of Tyr can use them (a fact I discovered when setting up my old RW/Questor character who I made basically for the entertainment value of having a scry-proof, invisible Lord Questor, as well as being able to grab the One Ring from Ahrikol at any time by using the Lay on Hands ability in order to blast off his pimp-slapping claw (reported that as a bug, and it's no doubt since been closed... :P ), but they're still a really awesome perk for the Justicars.

The other abilities of the guild seem somewhat lackluster... Cleanse allows you to cure disease or poison on anyone except yourself, which seems sort of nice for if you have a lot of followers, or just want to get rid of the plague in an area, but otherwise, not so much. Consecrate area allows you to make an area ordered, which apparently has some sort of effect on things, even though I don't know exactly what. Meditate sounds like it could be useful -- a general buff to abilities that's 'charged up' by spending time meditating... I don't know a whole lot about it yet, since it's still level-locked for me. And finally, deliver judgment -- an area attack that messes stuff up for chaotic people, which can be used every 5 minutes and (at least from what I've seen in the past having been hit by it in Jhan), actually does pretty decent damage. Again, level-locked for me, so I dunno how well it will work when Lenisa uses it against the ravening hordes of chaos. So two pretty useful/awesome abilities to look forward to, with most of the 'ho-hum' things out of the way, I guess.

Since Justicars are one of those guilds which have limited rapid travel options (no guild teleports, unable to join Brotherhood of Wine and Song, probably unable to join Stalkers of the Gate...), I decided that I might like a horse of some sort for Lenisa. The good part of this is that Justicars get 6 spec access in equestrian, riding, and mounted combat -- perhaps a holdover from the days when they could summon griffons and dragons to serve as mounts. Of course, this access seems to be going to waste just a bit with Lenisa, since most of the mounts she can get at the moment seem to share the characteristics of being fairly fragile and not at all that courageous, meaning Lenisa ends up running a lot if she goes into combat mounted. She's got a pegasus from Centaur Isle right now, but is definitely looking for something better, especially since the pegasus she's got is very chaotic, which might become a problem when Lenisa grows up into th deliver judgment ability. Maybe I'll assassinate Tiamat with Porphyria and see if any dragons or drakes hatch from her eggs. Since Lenisa can't just do the knight trick where she just lays hands on her mount and everything is good (although she can totally cure it if it gets the sniffles), other options seem just a bit limited.

Anyhow, there's really not a whole lot more to say at the moment about the Justicars... They're a decent enough guild, even if they've been left in the cold a bit as far as updates/power increases are concerned. Maybe more updates to come, if Lenisa doesn't get deleted in a fit of pique...

Witches, part 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

So with all of the supposed weaknesses of the witch guild (see previous post), I started my character with the goal of mitigating those weaknesses somewhat. This is an approach I have tried in the past by making two of my previous witches as fomori, which offset the inherent squishiness of a mage class with supernal durability access, natural armor, natural weaponry... Of course, fomori also don't have much charisma to start (a key attribute for witches), as well as a bunch of strength in a guild with essentially no specialty access in strength. I think the highest I ever got a fomori witch was somewhere around level 20.

I started off this time with the decision to make a new witch who was a little bit more of a finesse fighter, so I decided to go with a zenun. Zenunim, amongst other things, get flight spec access (for better dodging), bonus specs in stamina and recuperation, and access to regeneration. They also get ungodly levels of charisma, good dexterity, and good mental stats, so they seem a bit closer to ideal witch. Plus, they're demonic, which is a good bonus. I joined spearmaidens for the combat skill access (although I had considered wandslingers, as well), so at the very least, I would have a decent melee combatant with an aura that hastes me, finishes off morted opponents, and offered a bit of protection. Plus, I would have a character that was able to turn invisible and use some damage-dealing spells.

Using this build, I found myself advancing relatively well, although I really didn't take off until after I discovered just how much the guild's curses can make the difference in a fight. Now, I'm used to playing guilds whose primary powers focus on popping in and unleashing a world of hurt in the form of lightning bolts from eyeballs (ELF, RW, OZM, RM) or else unending amounts of slashity-stabbity (Kensai, Knights, Brutes, Rangers) -- after all, most of the guilds on the mud are built on the model of allowing one to perpetrate extreme amounts of damage upon an unsuspecting world in the quickest time possible. This is generally a good model, and I have no real problem with it. But it's also a model that the witches don't squarely fit into, since witches, more than anything else, seem to be debuffers. Witches get a lot of traction not by being able to out-damage the competition, but by being able to make their opponents just as squishy as a witch. It's really a different way of doing things from the way most guilds operate (although lots of guilds get debuffs, there are really none that seem to work them as well as witches do). Hex an NPC, and suddenly they're dodging less often, attacking less often, hitting less often... In short, they're turned into as poor combatants as the typical witch.

Now, while the debuffer role would seemingly be most effective in a group, where their powers would allow the other members of the group to inflict Satanic amounts of rape upon the unwashed masses, the very act of grouping with a witch appears to violate the basic ethos of the guild. After all, witches are supposed to maintain secrecy about their membership in the guild (to the point where they're listed as 'adventurer' in their whois profile, despite the fact that it really doesn't fool anyone, and makes everyone assume that any adventurer over the mid-teens in level is secretly a witch). So, grouping sort of kills the whole secrecy thing. After all, who's dumb enough not to suspect that the lady in the corner -- you know, the demonic-looking one surrounded by a shroud composed of the stolen souls of her victims -- who keeps whispering to herself for some reason, is in actuality a witch? And to a certain extent, the secrecy is completely justifiable -- after all, they're hunted by the church of Yehovah, which has a really nice cathedral and masses of homicidal knights, while all Samael's followers get is a grotty old shack in the middle of the woods. So, for the most part, I tried to build a witch who could go it alone, which means getting some combat ability apart from what the guild offered -- a 'pure' witch would be pretty cool in a mixed group, but unfortunately, that just doesn't seem to fit the whole idea behind them.

Anyhow, that's about where I am with my witch now... Sort of pondering whether or not I want to take her to hero level or beyond. What I really hope for is to get a few other people together to play witches, so I can get some groups going now and then.

Witches.

One of the things I like to do from time to time in the game is to attempt to play characters in guilds and associations that don't get played very often -- Porphyria originated as an attempt to make a viable character that remained an adventurer her whole career (an idea I revisited later on with a tuatha character I got to about level 32 and then deleted), I've gotten two brutes to hero-level... Obviously, I also enjoy playing the more popular guilds as well, but I have found that just about any guild can be playable (and enjoyable), no matter how much some people might talk about a certain guild 'being broken', 'sucking' or 'needing an update'.

So my latest real project character: A zenun Maleficus. My first impressions of the Ordo Maleficus guild were not at all kind. It is, amongst all else, a Den guild, which means it has help files that aren't quite as forthcoming as those for other guilds, it has hard level requirements for the use of a couple of the higher-level powers, some of the powers have rather serious cooldown requirements (if a ringwielder can pop off hundreds of area attacks an hour, why does my only real area attack have an hours-long cooldown?), and it hasn't had much dev-love for quite some time. I've run a few characters through the gauntlet of this guild, not really getting anywhere, and even got frustrated and deleted a level 30-something tuatha with a psychic healer talent who I brought over from the Elflords.

With this character, I've finally been able to find a play style that works for a witch... For the most part in the past, I was bummed that the witches, on their own, did not seem to offer a whole lot of bang for the buck -- Most of the damage-dealing powers cost a lot of SP, blood foci are hard to maintain, and witches are inherently pretty squishy (they get little decent combat specialty access).

(Will continue in next post)