KaylaWe need to have a talk about Witchery
#1
Hello! Your local witch here! After a lot of reflection, I feel like witchery is really under-tuned for the amount of risk you get. I can only speak from the perspective of the cult of misfortune, which has an extra nerf on top of everything else, but I'll get to that later.

I am prefacing this by saying that I really love Witchcraft flavor and have relatively enjoyed my time, but I however believe that being a witch is overly punishing for the little upsides it has.

I will be comparing witchery to necromancy in this since I know nothing of holy and I mainly want to compare the "Evil" classes.



Witchery

Downsides :

- Your soul is bound, which means you can never go back to a normal life and it forever brands you as "evil" to most factions and faiths.

- To bind your soul, your name is written physically in a book that someone can, at any point, with 0 effort if they have their hands on it, open and instantly out you as a witch since everyone can somehow read it. That means that if the person that introduced you to the cult gets capped with their book on them, you are instantly fucked.

- If you are in Misfortune's coven, you have a mark on your body that is an instant tell that you are a witch, on top of the book thing. So even if they do not have the book, properly strip searching you will out you as well.

Upsides :

- The only combat upside you get is Hex. Nothing else. It is a -10 vit nerf with an "impulse" that can be entirely ignored or downplayed, which it often is.

- A few "utility things". Those certainly have some usage, like telepathy, or dream walking, or the charm potion, but I was told repeatedly that you can dev some of those things (like dream walking) without being a witch, which greatly devaluates the positive. The problem here is also that while they are nice to have  none of this is enough to stop the three biggest factions all ganging up on you, as we've seen with 20+ witches becoming around 5 in barely a month.



Necromancy



Downsides: 

- None? Its essentially taught like medicine. You have no obvious tells in any way, no name in any book, nothing that outs you. As far as I am aware the only "risk" is being caught with the Litany of Undeath which you have no reason to have on you at all time.

Upsides:

- While they lack the utility of witches, they can quite literally create a self-growing army that does their bidding. We are currently seeing how crazy that can get. It certainly can and is currently allowing them to wage war against the world with relative safety.



Am I crazy to think that it should basically be the opposite? Shouldn't the ones able to hide down a hole and send up an army of undead to take over the world be the ones that have easy ways of being outed, and not those who barely gets much of an upper hand over others?

I feel like witches were lacking something. Perhaps a proper settlement where people can't gank you at 4 am every day? Or maybe an ability to properly summon forces to defend themselves? Anything really to justify instant outing and death upon capture...




This is in no way a salt post by the way. I myself am doing completely fine with my character and am going trough a very fun arc and such, but when I sit down and think about it I just can't explain why witchcrafts has so many downsides.
#2
By the way, funny little tidbit about being a witch.

Once you sell your soul, you are dependent on the one you sold your soul to since you need access to the book in order to get any new skills.
If they end up dead, gone, or decide to just outright leave you and run away with the soul? You are stuck as a soulless person that can't continue developing witchcraft on their own.

The latter issue of signing your soul away only for the witch/warlock to just leave you is particularly notable, since the warlocks with the books get the benefit of gaining more essence by getting as many signs as they can, consequences to others be damned.

Basically? There isn't an incentive for witches to fulfill their end of the deal when they get people's souls. Be it a beneficial one for working with those who signed, or the risk of adverse effects should they ignore their part of the agreement.
#3
Not to mention faith as well, since with Faith you can give your allies Buffs such as prayer which is a +5 mana buff, or Blessing with is a +10 vit buff, even if you take a -10 in turn.

Or the up there stuff like anoint champion or shoulder burden, even removing Age DR for a year, it even unlocks holy magic for you, i think.

Between Necromancy and Faith, there's little reason to ever go for witchcraft because you don't get much from it other than having to live a more dangerous life. It's like outlaw but you're more likely to die because of it. At least with outlaw you'll maybe be permed every now and then but usually there's no outright reason to take you out.
#4
(09-14-2022, 11:35 PM)TheEternalFlame Wrote: Not to mention faith as well, since with Faith you can give your allies Buffs such as prayer which is a +5 mana buff, or Blessing with is a +10 vit buff, even if you take a -10 in turn.

Or the up there stuff like anoint champion or shoulder burden, even removing Age DR for a year, it even unlocks holy magic for you, i think.

Between Necromancy and Faith, there's little reason to ever go for witchcraft because you don't get much from it other than having to live a more dangerous life. It's like outlaw but you're more likely to die because of it. At least with outlaw you'll maybe be permed every now and then but usually there's no outright reason to take you out.

It doesn’t unlock holy magic…
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#5
(09-14-2022, 11:38 PM)Penguin Wrote:
(09-14-2022, 11:35 PM)TheEternalFlame Wrote: Not to mention faith as well, since with Faith you can give your allies Buffs such as prayer which is a +5 mana buff, or Blessing with is a +10 vit buff, even if you take a -10 in turn.

Or the up there stuff like anoint champion or shoulder burden, even removing Age DR for a year, it even unlocks holy magic for you, i think.

Between Necromancy and Faith, there's little reason to ever go for witchcraft because you don't get much from it other than having to live a more dangerous life. It's like outlaw but you're more likely to die because of it. At least with outlaw you'll maybe be permed every now and then but usually there's no outright reason to take you out.

It doesn’t unlock holy magic…

It does however open the door wide open to developing it. However I don't think thats really an argument of faith VS witchery because witchery does the same with occult. It doesn't unlock occultism but it certainly makes deving it easier.

But once again I personally know nothing of faith so faith is not really part of my discussion. I can't speak of it, I'm too unexperienced.
#6
(09-14-2022, 11:18 PM)Kayla Wrote: - If you are in Misfortune's coven, you have a mark on your body that is an instant tell that you are a witch, on top of the book thing. So even if they do not have the book, properly strip searching you will out you as well.

That's not specific to the Coven, as one can learn by reading the wiki page. Although it is a 'mostly flavor' aspect and someone can hide it with magic, probably, but not hashed out or publicly written. It's something worth discussing among the staff to determine the specifics because we likely want to avoid strip search roleplay.

As for Witches in general, there are some things planned for them when we add Class content. I do however think it's one of the most attractive classes right now: telepathy, dreamwalking, hex, the way you gather essence with coven sabbath, all the potions you get, being able to summon someone, etc etc. There's a lot to work with, but the inherited risk that comes with it is strong, although not quite outweighing necromancy.
#7
(09-15-2022, 12:53 AM)chance Wrote:
(09-14-2022, 11:18 PM)Kayla Wrote: - If you are in Misfortune's coven, you have a mark on your body that is an instant tell that you are a witch, on top of the book thing. So even if they do not have the book, properly strip searching you will out you as well.

That's not specific to the Coven, as one can learn by reading the wiki page. Although it is a 'mostly flavor' aspect and someone can hide it with magic, probably, but not hashed out or publicly written. It's something worth discussing among the staff to determine the specifics because we likely want to avoid strip search roleplay.

As for Witches in general, there are some things planned for them when we add Class content. I do however personally think it's one of the most attractive classes right now: telepathy, dreamwalking, the way you gather essence with coven sabbath, all the potions you get, being able to summon someone, etc etc. There's a lot to work with, but the inherited risk that comes with it is strong, although not quite outweighing necromancy.

Thank you! Honestly just hearing this makes me happy.
 
I wasn't saying that Witchery was completely unattractive, I personally have been having a blast with it as you well know! But I was curious on if the risk was worth it, or if more was planned, and this makes me happy to hear.

Seems like we are on the same length about it.
#8
Me here hoping witches get demon summoning so a battlecuck can make into them and give them justice over their much stronger but less useful necromantic counterpart.
#9
Part of the issue is just how the current witches played vs how the Necromancers played. We literally killed 3-4 witches in Vdalion because they walked up to us and basically dared us to do it.

Witches are meant to be stealthy, to thrive on intrigue and plots. They literally have the ability to communicate completely silently, while also having the ability to make their own disguises, and using dreamwalking can communicate across vast distances without needing to be seen traveling, while also the leader of the coven can spy on people. They can generate their own special points by holding sabbaths.

They are an absolute TOOLKIT of spy shenanigans and the Coven instead ran around fighting people and even quite literally screaming 'I AM A WITCH. BURN ME PLEASE.' at anyone who would listen. Which, while funny doesn't exactly mean witchcraft is bad, so much as the coven didn't play to their strengths of witchcraft.
#10
I think you are missing one of the main benefits of witchcraft, the special potions that encourage them to actually be valuable and secretly trade with people in cities, versus necromancers that can offer... blatantly evil ore and not much else.

I agree that witches just have a playstyle miscommunication, or in other words, a skill issue.
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