Report 650

Report #650
Skillset: Astrology Skill: Constellation
 Org: Nihilists Status: Rejected Aug 2011
Furies' Decision:
We do not believe such an upgrade is necessary and side with many of the player
comments against this report.
Problem: Currently Constellations, the Transcendant skill for Astrology, is of
very limited use. It allows the astrologer to use two different ray attacks on
their target for the cost of 1 power. These rays are only from astrological
signs, and not from the nativity or planet alignment itself for the target. What
this poses is a very limited pool of afflictions, always random, and very often
the astrological signs have multiple alignments under the same sign, which means
you do not know what affliction or attack may fire. (Example is, when you view
the astrological signs for today you would see: volcano, antlers,
dolphin,glacier, bumblebee, glacier, glacier. So if I used glacier as one of my
signs, I would get randomly 1 of the 3 attacks.). Also considering the signs
have to be different, I would not be able to use Glacier twice to try to hit my
affliction of choice. All in all, the skill is very underused, especially for a
transcendant skill, and can be made much more useful especially for it costing
power at its level.
Solution #1: Allow Planet Rays to be used, so the astrologer could use Tarox
 and Sidiak of the target's nativity for example and allow for two
 of the same sign to be used in the attack.
Player Comments:
---[Viynain on 8/7 @ 05:46 writes]:
I have no problem at all with the suggestion to enable Nativity rays to be used
more (whether it be in the capacity of mixing a natiivty+sign ray together or
two nativity rays), but the latter half of the problem is already a non-issue
with the existence of Stellium, which enables one to hit a target with all the
planets in a given sign. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, anyway.
---[Ethelon on 8/7 @ 20:50 writes]:
Stellium costs 2power to use the one sign, which is great when there are many
planets in the same alignment, which would be better use than Constellation.
Usually though, if say I'm trying to stick stupidity aeon, or even go for double
aeon in that situation, it would not be possible. Being able to use the same
sign allows for these types of attacks to be used.
---[Talan on 8/11 @ 15:11 writes]:
The whole point of Astrology is that it's very powerful only sometimes, and
there are times when constellation is more useful than others... if you want
reliable and dependable, go hexes. Astrology has a lot of very strong affliction
combinations in it but this is mitigated by the fact that they're complicated to
learn and not available all the time. Making the best affliction combinations
more reliably available is a no-go for me, and certainly not keeping the power
cost at 1p. I do not support this change.
---[Ethelon on 8/12 @ 12:59 writes]:
Stellium is the one where its powerful at certain times and it does have a
higher power cost. Constellation though, which is the transcendant skill, is
rarely ever used in a powerful way as it's way to limited. Being constricted to
only using Signs that are aligned means you can never have a tactic built around
the skill, nor can you expect to have any viable double affliction combinations.
This is what we are requesting to be fixed. Astrology as a whole is based around
it's fluxuation in being powerful and less than useful at times, but having the
transcendant skill being so variable and weak so that it's rarely ever used is
what we are looking to fix here.
---[Viynain on 8/12 @ 20:43 writes]:
As I've noted before that I've no problems with making Nativity rays more open
to be used, I must disagree with the notion that Constellation is hardly ever
used. With ambiguous messages and a fast cast rate, sticking those afflictions
currently available was very much doable and useful.
---[Inagin on 8/14 @ 09:10 writes]:
From Placeus: I'm also unsure whether this change is really necessary.
Constellation gives a few nice combinations if the planets are right. Does
Solution 1 allow zodiac and planetary rays to be used together? If sun was in
volcano and someone could constellation with sun/volcano it would be possible to
double sun (or double aeon), which would be unbalanced.
---[Ethelon on 8/15 @ 23:50 writes]:
I can see the point there, as it is already 1 power to use, would it be
acceptable to increase the power cost if the same attack was doubled up on? So
say 2 power to use the same sign or planetary ray. 2 power for double aeon is
not to strong, when the signs or planet is right. Also it can be limited to just
signs or planetary rays. I'm open to other suggestions... I know some have said
they see Constellations as useable, but from the the combatitive astrologers I
know, it's not often used.
---[Ethelon on 8/15 @ 23:54 writes]:
Would this be more workable? : As solution 1, allow for Planetary Rays of a
target's nativity to be used. If a planet is doubled up on (ie Moon/Moon),
increase the power cost to 2, otherwise the attack remains 1 power. The
Astrologer would not beable to use both a Planetary Ray and Sign in the same
attack, it must be 2 signs or 2 planetary rays.
---[Azula on 8/18 @ 03:16 writes]:
I don't quite see the neccessity for this report. I'm sticking with Talan and
Placeus c/o Inagin with this one.