<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=328236.msg15698218#msg15698218">Quote from: Hexed on 28-12-2020, 16:10:41</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Been thinking of mystic adept instead of pure mage. Is losing astral travel that big a hit?<br/><br/><br/>@RSGAlex what's the difference? Dont have books at work so not sure what the stream is.<br/><br/><br/>@PixelatedPixie it's fine to knock off the rust. Hell I've only played quick games at conventions so fairly shakey myself. As for first run I've no preference myself at the moment. So lewd up the shortstack caster much as ya want.<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>The actual major loss is that you need to have at least some system mastery or a good amount of focus to not spread too thin. Having to do any assensing in person and in the meat can easily be taken care of with a spirit or watcher (and govi in that last case). Plus while you can't quite chase an astral form, if it's sticking around enough you can zap with a mana spell and that was usually the better choice in Astral Combat if you didn't have very specific builds. And if you go by FA's strange changes, there's the enchanting loss. It takes too much investment for Advanced Alchemy and most of the tricks that you can do with regular alchemy and a Vault of Ages are just too swingy.<br/><br/>Now that I've sprayed my two cents around about somebody else's stuff, here's the tentative numbers on mine and the breakdown for what it means both for my character and any potential team. Starting with the Decker Sub package means going with One with the Matrix (8 pt version), Focused Concentration, and Better on the Net (tentatively Sleaze). It means I can do the decker thing of protecting the team's stuff with Sleaze 7 and Firewall 6, as well as more of my own stuff with that max of 12 items now. Probably start with the Oracle Paragon because it makes all my forms better and I wasn't really getting good initiative in meat without drugs anyway.<br/><br/>Starting with a stream means that while I can hack (or more likely whistle up sprites to hack) I can't do the defense bits of the decker kit to start. So the gains need to be worth it, thus knocking the Machinist stream out of the running. Don't have the money or karma to start tricking out drones and Sharing and that much extra Noise Reduction aren't worth any of the opportunity costs. Similarly, Sourcer's non-Fading stuff is all too far out for this build to take advantage of, so that leaves Cyberadept and Technoshaman. Cyberadept helps bounce back my Resonance and Overdrive+Hard Nanohives leads to a fun way of making a little extra scratch/helping out the team. Plus the other 'ware I have is all Cyber, so if I scrounge around to also get Focused Concentration I can run with my defensive 'ware boosted for a little extra defense and slowly work in more chrome. Technoshaman lets me get a sprite on demand easier, Sprite Pet eventually works a charm once I get lucky enough to get a higher level Machine Sprite. Plus there are a few ways to make use of the Great Form powers even at low levels.