09-14-2022, 11:18 PM
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.
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.
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.