bukowski wrote:I'm just starting my first character tonight and I've read some Beginner Guides so I don't feel too clueless. However, the guides addressing the whole issue of stanzas, bricks and the modular action system are plain confusing. Are they basically an extended macro that chains together successive actions/spells? Should you use them from Level 1 or is there a recommended starting range? Are they used in the same way for magic and fighting as they are in harvesting and crafting? Please let me know if you have found a website or forum post that helped you gain a better understanding of this.
Thanks!
Every action you perform is made up of "stanzas". A stanza is just a building block used to make an action.
For example, if you look at the "Increase Damage 1" action, it's made up of the following 3 stanzas:
-Default Attack Fight Stanza
-Increase Damage 1
-Consume 3 Stamina
NOTE: you can see this by opening your action progression window ('a' key) and right-clicking on the Increase Damage 1 skill and choosing "Info".
These are the building blocks for that action. They control what the action does. The Default Attack Fight Stanza makes that action into a fight type of action (vs. magic, craft, or harvest actions). The Increase Damage 1 stanza means that when you use that action, the damage of your weapon is increased. Finally, the Consume 3 Stamina stanza means that when you use this action, 3 of your stamina points are lost.
When you train in an action, you gain access to all of the stanzas that make up that action. You can then create custom actions using any of the stanzas you have access to.
When you create custom actions, you have to balance the "cost" stanzas with the "credit" stanzas. The cost stanzas are the things that add benefits to the action (increased damage, accurate attack, acid damage, etc.). The credit stanzas are how you pay for the cost of the spell. They're things like sap usage, hit point usage, increased casting time, decreased range, etc.
So let's say you want to create a new acid spell. You would first choose the type of action you're creating (celestial missile, in this case). You would then add the "Acid Damage X" stanza so that the spell does some acid damage (X being the particular level of acid you want to use). Next you need to add credit stanzas to pay for the cost of the acid spell. You can add things like a range credit which reduces the range of the spell, a casting time credit which increases its casting time, or a sap usage credit which uses some of your sap.
You can mix and match the credits to pay for the actions in different ways. For example, you could have an acid spell that was very short range (big range credit stanza) but used very little sap. Alternately, you could have a different spell that had a long range (small range credit stanza) but used a lot of sap.