After a lot of thought regarding the role of Loremaster's in combat today, as well as the capabilities that have been granted and taken away over time, I've brainstormed a fair bit of ideas for the sole purpose of helping guide the profession. Some of these ideas may have been stated before, or some might even be implemented of a sorts already.

A Loremaster's role, as defined by the administration of this game, is class high in mobility and defense. Many of us can attest to this, having so narrowly escaped death time and time again by the good-graces of some random novice providing the perfect getaway van. It's believed that Loremaster's should not inherently possess higher-end damage out of the gate, and that's actually something I think is nice - it makes us more than flying, portal-happy Knights. The Loremaster, however, should hope that throughout the fight, he or she can sufficiently erode and wear down their opponent's defenses to provide the necessarily damage potential to eliminate them.

But how do we accomplish this today, you might ask? It's true, we have the capabilities. Such things as dismounting your opponent, or nullifying their invisibility - all of these things (and more, but who wants to be handed all the answers?) serve to lower the defensive rating and provide more damage to be dealt against them. But the precarious balance we find here is whether or not the current conditions are sufficient to meet the needs of the Loremaster combatant. Some might say no, myself included, but here are a series of ideas that I propose to 'fix' the slump we currently find ourselves facing:

As a Loremaster combatant, many of you have well understood the woes and pangs of rune management within the depths of a fight. While our Knightly friends are over there rubbing their blades and hacking away, and those despicable thieves are tickling you with their over-sized toothpicks, WE find ourselves fumble-footing around balance and equilibrium both to effectively swap out runes on our blades. Why is it that the fair majority of the affliction classes within the land have a direct impact on what afflictions to deliver next - with such ease - and we do not?

The following abilities in RUNES would solve much of this problem, if not all of it.

-Mold: MOLD, granted somewhere around respected to renowned runes, will at the time of acquisition, allow the Loremaster to press one rune onto the surface of their blade. As their level within runes increases, all the way up to Crowned-Ultimate, there will be given more room for runes, up to a maximum of five combative runes at one time.

-Imbue: IMBUE will provide the Loremaster the ability to choose from the rune(s) MOLDed onto their blade to allow immediate decision to which rune-type will strike next. For example, if there is a disease, hand and cloud rune molded onto your sword, IMBUE LONGSWORD CLOUD will charge the blade to hit with the cloud rune as priority until changed. This skill would require both balance and equilibrium, but consume neither.

Next, there is a large amount of controversy over the usage of magical items being paired with physical based attacks through the use of LR SPARKLE. Examples of these span from NULLIFY-JAB, BRILLIANCE-JAB, etcetera and so-forth. When the Loremaster combatant allows their mind to expand outside the blatant combinations open to them, and delve further into the unique situations and scenarios they can create via this pairing, a wide array of options are opened up before them in order to help guide the battle in the direction they might wish. This creates necessary on-the-spot thinking and quick decision making in order to progress two, even three steps beyond the current combat-round. Understandable concerns with this practice include damage that is TOO sustainable and damage that proves TOO burst-like. This can be fixed by the toning down of equilibrium-paired jab. The hand-rune damage should remain the same, else a lowering of that might find a higher prevalence towards different combative runes that can be used when paired.

With the lowering of equilibrium-paired jabs, the introduction of singular jabs comes into play. A singular jab would be defined as a JAB or SLASH with no equilibrium-pairing. This sort of attack would forsake the added utility of magical items being used in direct combat, for different effects per rune used. The base effect would still last. (Hand still does damage, cross still causes paralysis.) This would provide a system of risk versus reward for the Loremaster. In forsaking the utility of magical-paired attacks, the Loremaster would attempt to work around the blind affliction of their opponent. If the risk is taken, and blind is encountered, momentum will be lost. Note: THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE 'SPECIAL AFFLICTION' ON AN OPPONENT AT ONE TIME!

Below is a list of suggested 'special effects' that a singular, non-equilibrium jab would provide:

Hand Rune - To be discussed/brainstormed.

Cloud-rune (affliction name: drowsy) : The special-effect of the cloud-rune would provide an affliction for roughly ten to fifteen seconds that prevents insomnia from being applied or maintained. Those suffering from 'drowsiness' will find their insomnia instantly melted away when applied, and suffer a chance to immediately fall asleep to deter automation.

Face-rune (affliction name: obsessiveness) : The special-effect of the face-rune would provide and affliction for roughly ten to fifteen seconds that induces obsessive behavior on the person afflicted. This would result in one of two options: random, periodic application of a mana-draining ability that the opponent has access to, OR, a set mana-drain for the duration of the affliction.

Disease-rune - To be discussed/brainstormed.

Cross-rune - To be discussed/brainstormed.

Knife-rune - To be discussed/brainstormed.

Zahir-rune - To be discussed/brainstormed.

Heart-rune - To be discussed/brainstormed.

Snake-rune (affliction name: disloyalty(something?)) : The special-effect of the snake-rune would EITHER: 1) A timed, ten to fifteen second affliction preventing mounting, OR 2) Not just dismounting the attacker, but sending the mount fleeing into a panic for a set amount of time (Similar to chivalric roar/intimidation).


Later, I would like to see a direct move away from the usage of flame-sigil used religiously. I have yet to come up with a concrete, effective way to do this yet, but I'm definitely putting thought towards it. Whether this involves bringing back the ability to LIGHTARC-JAB (Remember, Lightarc is the blind-removal, ARCLIGHT is heavier damaging attack), it definitely deserves some thought. This would also tie well into the addition of magical-paired attacks once again, and still provide counter-play to the blind maintenance for Loremaster opponents.


Let me know your thoughts,

Lukien