Knighthood

As I wrote in my previous post, I reached knighthood, and now I would like to share with you my thoughts about this Wartune feature.

As you know, the prerequisite for knighthood is at least 12000 points in tatoo. I wrote in more detail how much henna / adv. henna you need for this. As a mage, I can choose between arcane and restoration path. The arcane talent is damage skills, the restoration is heal skills. It's even simpler than the previous skill tree: there, you had to choose 5 skills to put in your skill bar. Here, you have only 5 skills to put there. The skills themselves are very simple too: 1 small 1-target spell (aka lightning), 1 small aoe (aka rain of fire), 1 big 1-target spell (aka delphic) 1 big aoe spell. Also there is an 5th skill wich restores 1200 rage and dispels 1 negative buff, for a mere 100 rage. There are also 4 passive skills with miscellaneous effects.

You can switch to the restoration path if you like, for that you need either 16000 total in tatoo, or have to use normal henna to change what bonus your abilities give. The 3 heal skills do nothing just heal, and they do it quite poorly. So even in group situation, I think the arcane path is better as long as there will be a time limit for fights. If you need heal, bring a poseidon :) 

Advantages of the new skill system
1.) The big skills base damage is really big. 480-530% damage, you will deal almost as much damage with these as with your sylph skills. Comparison: criminal trial 530% damage, Odin Apocalypse Judgment 400%+ damage. Surely sylphing boosts my ATK rating by 20%, but still, the knighthood skill can compete. In World Boss, now I deal about the same damage in sylph and non-sylph. In arena, now I can kill opponents with the first aoe, and many I kill before they can sylph.

2.) Acquiring the skills grant you +20% ATK, +20% HP, +30% MDEF. That's sounds an enormous boost. BUT. Do not forget that you lose "Mana Master" (+15% magic attack boost), "Healing empowerment" (+20% MDEF)  and "Sturdy" (+10% HP), or the equivalent of skills for other classes. Also there are some talents, like "Iron Wall" (damage received 14% less) which some say you will keep some say you will lose too. So the actual gain is much less than you would think.

3.) Talents. The talents are the real boost here. I had 90k bound balens, of those I spent 50k and got 14 talent points. You can buy offensive talents (+10% res reduce per level, +10% intensity/crit per level) and defensive talents (+10% tenacity/block per level, +10% to 2 resists per level, +10% influence/penetration per level). These gave me more BR boost than the skill bonuses.

Disadvantages
It has some disadvantages too - as you know, Wartune is never without a nerf, and any new feature is a good opportunity to take something away.

1.) No heal skills. No suntoria or restoration. I undertand that the devs wanted to resolve the problem with the forever-lasting fights. Still, a mage who can do nothing just nuke is just an archer. So yeah, we mages are now archers. Although I stopped using suntoria since a while, I miss restoration badly. It makes difference in many situations.

2.) No stun. Yeah, your influence skill does nothing after knighthood, just gives you partial protection vs non-knights stun. There will be a moment when everyone will be knight, and stun will be irrelevant. But until then, its a bit funny when knighted people stand stunned for rounds due to delphics and frost bolts and can't return the favor.

3.) No purify. Really, the 5th skill which dispels ONE negative buff for 100 rage is NOT a purify. So make sure you play with people who do not make knighthood and can still purify you.

4.) Rage. The skill "hear Elemental" (receive +2 rage each time you deal damage) is no more. Although the basic damage spell gives 10 rage instead of 6 now, you can't just cast an aoe and gain rage instead of losing it. So rage is now a problem. Especially with the cloth nerf taking away starting rage, prolly we will need to use rage rune again. Which is a pain since it means no more guardian rune. (Heal you must keep it, it's the only way to heal now).

Summary
So in summary, you lose EVERYTHING (heal, purify, rage, stun) but you will deal more damage. If you do not have a truckload of bound balens saved up for talents, the gain is just slightly better than the loss. Right now, knighthood is for cashers only, so these people have the bound balens for talents. When knighthood becomes free (I'm sure non-payers can reach it in max 4-6 months) then this will be a problem - although it seems a new item will be added, which you can substitute for bb when upgrading talents. If you have only limited access to talents (like most of us), I recommend offensive talents instead of defensive ones. And yes, casher will have a gigantic advantage here with talents, which you can't compete with up, even if you reach knighthood eventually.

Consequences
Still, do not think that knighthood is an optional thing. All must reach it before or later. Knighthood equipment, titan system and I bet a lot other stuff will require it as a prerequisite. 
Also do not forget that getting the skill points takes an enourmous amount of XP. It takes month to max out your "knighthood level" and take full advantage of skills. So the eariler you can start it, the better.



Salsa

And here is one final point. I have been to a salsa weekend with my wife. It was an insane fun, we danced like 8-10 hours each day. On the pic you see us, in Sat evening there was a costume party with dress code from years 1920-30. And I didn't miss Wartune at all :) So there is life beyond the game, and if anything, I can suggest you dancing. If you have a partner already, you can get a better bond with her/him. If not, you surely will meet someone there, lot of singles. If everyone on Earth would dance, there would be no wars and no crime :)