Reasonably cool update.

I was hoping for foraging bonuses but, well, that's because I want crazy stuff.

Thanks a lot for taking a look at this quirky spell and giving it an update.

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>Daid: Pretty sure you have a whole big bucket as your penny jar. You never have only two cents. :p

Does anyone have insight into what this spell actually does? The wiki claims it enhances "some activities the Perception skill enhances" on one line and then claims "the spell is helpful for any task that utilizes the Perception skill" on the next.

I've heard sorcerers claim it helps with Illusions training (Perception factors into success) but I'm not sure I've ever heard someone claim it provides creature maneuver defense. My understanding is that we don't really know what it does.

Silvean's Player

We've stumbled on yet another Mystery of the Contradictory Wiki, my dear Lylia. The case is less severe than that of Planar Shift but we must sharpen our perceptive faculties to the utmost if we are to clarify the situation. Prepare the now 5-minute cast of 402!

I'll give this a little time to see if some answers crop up and I'll fix the article. I don't like cutting information out of the Wiki unless I'm confident it is misleading and some improvement can be made.

I can't tell you how monotonous and scroll producing it was stacking 402 before this change. Sometimes it felt as though I spent more time spelling up than actually hunting. Expending 2 mana every 5 minutes to keep it up is certainly seems more efficient. Nice change!

Chad, player of a few

I always felt more confident hunting bandits wearing Presence (402) both for the presumed benefit of seeing traps and spotting bandits. The additional benefit of mock Arcane Decoy (1701) was also value for me to spell tank dispelling hunting grounds.

Nice update, and thanks for the additional info!

Um, quick question - did I go from 'assured to find hidden and invisible' in the same room to 'maybe find'? I know it only happened when cast, and only affected that room, and thereafter required search.

But before, I could find all but the maximally trained hider - and even then, a couple of searches would usually out them. I haven't tested but the announcement sounds like a slight downward tweak from my personal experience.

I'll do some more personal testing, but - accurate?

Doug

Post 13!

>Here a little more information on Presence, I hope it clears up some of the mystery. The spell provides a bonus when performing activities such as disarming a trap, searching, or using a wedge, and many other activities that take perception into account. Overall the spell provides about a 20% increase in your total perception ranks. The spell also provides some help in defending against ambush attacks.

Thank you very much for clearing up some of the mystery. There's still a lot of mystery, but I'm excited about getting some NIR confirmations and numbers!

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>Daid: Pretty sure you have a whole big bucket as your penny jar. You never have only two cents. :p

Although I sorta saw this coming, I have to say I'll miss being able to stack Presence. Specifically, this is a staple spell for my crossbow-shooting lockpicking bard. Bards have a lot of spells to juggle as it is. Even more if you count GoS sigils. Having to constantly throw spells and abilities back on is a pain. And for a character who pretty much always benefits from having Presence up...this is somewhat of an inconvenience.

That said, this was not an unexpected change. Presence was never intended to be a four-hour, always-on spell. For most casual users of the spell, the five minute duration is a really big improvement. It's a great utility spell with a variety of applications. The additional ability of being able to spot hiders is a plus (although my stealthy sniping ranger might disagree).

Overall, I think it's a positive update. On a strictly personal level, however, I'm going to miss the "old" way...

~ GtG

As much as I'd prefer to be positive, I agree with Whirlin.

I can't imagine a anyone thinking some small chance of being able to point at someone in hiding is worth a single TP in air lore. Increasing the perception effect would be much better rather than an incredibly situational and inconsistent pointing effect. Either the person will have no hiding (in which case I can just search) or they are good at hiding and it will have no effect. No one really partially trains hiding do they? 2x-3x or bust.

Removing the stacking is clearly a downgrade. 1 min to 5 min is not really relevant with a spell that you either want to use once or have up for a whole hunt.

With regards to hunting what is the rationale? I can run a script that'll keep the spell up for me (thus, no change other than a very small mana penalty) or if I don't run lich, I'm penalized into manually refreshing it every five minutes. Does that sound like fun to anyone? The logic here is suspect.
This would only be a solution if the problem you are trying to fix is:

A) Not enough busywork during hunting.
or
B) We want to subtract 8 mana over a 20 min hunt.

If you don't want bow users to gain the benefit either remove it or put a cooldown. I don't see any practical change here other than a minor annoyance for the hunters who use it.

I like Daid's foraging idea (but tide to earth lore) better.

Having just hunted with the changes I can readily say I love the change. Less time spelling up. More time hunting. :)

I'm not a capped wizard. Still under 50. Stacking 402 has had me spelling up more than hunting in the past. Now I can get all my base spells up to 4 hours without the added time it took to add 402 while my base spells melted.

A highlight that shows when the spell drops with a macro handy to recast it is far more efficient to me.

This change appears to benefit all levels of those who use the spell.

Chad, player of a few

You know you previously could have used rapid fire to stack 4 hours of 402 in like 20 seconds right?



<It's a 2 mana spell, why can't it just be an additional benefit for someone who is training in air lore for some other reason? A number of low level spells provide benefits that I wouldn't invest the TP for as my primary reason for training. But they are still a nice bonus when packaged with other abilities that benefit from the same lore training.

That's a totally valid point of view and it was my initial reaction (I train in air lore). If it didn't come with a nerf, I would be much more positive about it. But increasing busywork for every hunt is hardly worth a once-in-a-blue-moon pointing thing.

For people who use this spell while hunting it's overall a downgrade with very little purpose. Balance and fun are in constant challenge. If you're going to decrease one, it should benefit the other. This change has done almost nothing to improve the inherent balance of the spell but has lowered the fun for 402 hunters by adding busywork. So I call it a negative change.

>> Stacking 402 has had me spelling up more than hunting in the past.

While I understand this sentiment, even before you could've chosen to simply not stack it to the full four hours. This is what my lower level characters do - they just stop at a ~15 minute duration (or whatever I think will get them through their next bounty/rest cycle).

>> I can't believe how many people stacked this up to hunt with it.... I mean.... REALLY?!?!?

Additional perception (even if we didn't know the specifics until this thread) plus low level dispel fodder... I can't believe how many people (especially at higher levels) don't stack this spell to hunt ;-)

>> For people who use this spell while hunting it's overall a downgrade with very little purpose.

This pretty much sums up my view on the change. 402 has (almost) never been about finding hidden/invisible creatures/characters for me. It was about the perception increase and benefits while hunting.

this whole thing about whether 5min is an improvement or not reminds me of the debates about when a temporary tax reduction goes away... thats a tax increase, right?


Anyway back to the topic at hand I do not see the game design advantage of limiting it to 5min vs. the standard 20min duration. Odd.

Any chance the duration could just be upped to 15 minutes? If you want the detection ability you still have to cast it again. Anything wrong with helping me being a little lazier and not having to recast?

I imagine its not people are ungrateful as much as an issue why it had to be nerfed to be improved. They could have easily tied the extended duration to training in air lore as well and preserved the strengths for both factions of people. Face, the addition of air lore as it is in its current state, while a benefit, really won't change why or how its being cast by the average individual thus making the change inane.

I agree that a 10 minute duration would be better. Most people could manage a hunt with a 10 minute duration. And it becomes less of an overall annoyance.

Having said that, SAVE YOUR ANGER people! If we start complaining about the trivial spells, when it really matters, it will be like crying wolf.

>Worth noting that for non-wizards the 5 min thing is probably a positive change. I can't imagine trying to stack 402 w/o rapidfire (which may no longer work soon so maybe this change is for the best).

Yes.

Kaldonis stacked 402, 403, and 404 w/o Rapid Fire before entering the Confluence.

>I can't believe how many people stacked this up to hunt with it.... I mean.... REALLY?!?!?

Confluence has lots of dispells. Having 1701 (it drops like a rock), 402, 403, 404, 104, 105, 112 to mitigate the chance of hitting, say, 425 or 712 is definitely worth it.

But it takes a looooong time to stack those. This is why I'm very pleased about the change (even if the Lore benefit is more like a "bells and whistles" upgrade...it'll be better for trolling my wife in theory, when I ever get elemental lores for DC). I already hunt with 140 up the whole time, and 5 minutes is noticeably longer than 90 seconds.

> It also much more negatively impacts armored casters.

I agree with Whirlin here.

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>Daid: Pretty sure you have a whole big bucket as your penny jar. You never have only two cents. :p

Seems like discrete list it is.

Tal.

Just to clarify my post from yesterday about 20% bonus to perception, the bonus only applies when defending against ambush attacks. While this may seem like a sizable bonus, its actually a pretty small one. I have updated my original post to reflect this clarification. Also, as GM Estild has already stated, this spell does NOT help with aiming.

-GameMaster Cyraex

I'm curious where the notion that 402 helped with ranged weapon aiming comes from. There are two notable guides on the GSWiki (Nuadjha's Art of the Bow, and Whirlin's Pure, Archer, War Mages Guide) that both say 402 helps. Whirlin's guide claims 404 helps. Neither show any reference to how they possess that information. I'm sure it didn't come out of nowhere.

Chad, player of a few