apparently gencon will be going live this year. is there going to be a sanctioned mw event for the con? if so, count me in for it.

most people generally agree there are certain mages that are top tier compared to other mages. there is disagreement on who is strongest among those top mages, but the list overall is consistent enough. I think it is more than simply a mage that has 10 channel is by definition stronger than all others. some are strong because of their stat card abilities and/or training and the 10 channel is just a huge bonus.

below is the list that are mostly considered to be strong compared to the remaining mages. of course there are considerations such as timed events, or unlimited time, but these are mostly the best mages.

in no particular order:
wizard, necro, priestess, and druid

I propose some testing for inverting the environment. what if the paladin, straywood bm, and the above mages channel 9 (druid perhaps 8 ) instead and all other mages were set to channel 10? would people's opinions about who is stronger change significantly? no question the above mages have strong abilities. would reducing their base channeling balance them out enough with the increase on the rest of the mages help level the competition to be a lot closer than it currently is?

just something to induce some deep discussion (rather than have this devolve into a tier rant of any kind) and provoke some thoughtful comparisons. would this channel change make most of the mages more competitive ly even overall, rather than simply saying all mages channel 10? raising the channel bar for everyone to be equal  such as the next admw event does not change the strong abilities of the top mages. so rather than raising everyone up, consider having them essentially swap places channelwise. does that help the lower strength mages get enough of a competitive boost - generally?

it seems interesting to me. and I know how much the mage channels influences the decision people make when deciding on which mage to play in a serious competition.

I thought this would be an interesting topic.

we have had a lot of new members recently, which is awesome. together with many of us who have been here for a long while, thought it would be cool to see if folks would give some history or info about how they chose their forum name here.

mine comes from the fact that in my second tournament, gencon 2013, we had to register our book and as part of that, we had to name our book. I was playing an air wizard for that event, and came up with zot for all of the zapping and lightning bolting/blasting things I planned on doing. I joined the forum shortly after that event so stuck with that as my forum name.

  mine is suppression cloak. awesome artwork, really makes me wish I had such a cloak. inside the game it is stellar too.

 dancing scimitar. cool thematics, mage staff for art too, and helm of fear is sinister.

ok clearly it is renewing spring.

  followed by ballista which is fairly awesome and thematic. raincloud is just neat.

so any and all replies to this thread have to explicitly state:

"besides renewing spring which is clearly the correct answer, i would say: "

then you can mention your second and third favorite conjuration after renewing spring. all failing to do so, will be incorrect and sent to the back of the line to ponder their mistake.

i would like to know what folks favorite spell in the game is. it does not have to the best spell, or one you even put in books, maybe has a cool name or effect you like. perhaps it has your favorite artwork. just which spell is your favorite in the game. now not the top two or three, just one. edit - ok maximum of two.

i think mine is forcefield. cool picture, awesome effect. limited to my second favorite mage forcemaster. it also reminds me of the ninth level mage spell prismatic sphere from d&d.

i also really like the artwork for supression cloak. i think it would really great to have that in real life.

looking forward to hearing what everyone else likes.