[X] My Assistant

So on one hand you say they're not useless, but on the other you say one shouldn't bother with them because slaughter is better? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Something NOT useless doesn't mean they will be useful.

Actually, it means just that, as it is direct double negation of a same word.

If it is useless, it doesn't have an use. If it is useful, it does have an use.

And right now, illthid(notice how I didn't suggest boosting it) gives mana enough to directly heal - not exactly the most MP-effective thing to do in terms of saving HP more than vampire, or more mana to get SP more than banshee, albeit this is a bit more on the fringe. And even with illthid, you're still sacrificing time for mana.

Joe: I see people killing Mithra, Yuki and proceeding to kill FSM, IPU and RL with that system, so how about having to defeat entire lower tier before advancing onto higher one?

This post has been edited by Lement: Dec 6 2012, 10:47

Something useless is what most people don't want to use in almost any occasions, like cloth/leather/longsword/shortsword. Something useful is what most people feel it's the most comfortable/efficient way to do things.

So is ethereal mace useful or useless for heavy melees? Is estoc useful or useless for light melees?

Joe: I see people killing Mithra, Yuki and proceeding to kill FSM, IPU and RL with that system, so how about having to defeat entire lower tier before advancing onto higher one?

Seems a bit much. Maybe limit higher tiers to only being accessible once previous tier clearing?

varst: But if the equip is always outclassed in all respects for all builds, I'm fairly certain to say it is useless.
Joe: So always 3 tokens to get higher? Seems not so bad, but what I mentioned would still take only 11 tokens to clear whole RoB and gives out all the arena token drops it usually does, meaning you'd probably lose more tokens(less blood tokens though) if you just cleared FSM and IPU.

I would rather have the drain procs on every crits, TBH. Letting them to have a chance to proc is way too OP in long GF/CFs.

Or make the drain proc multiple-turn like ET.

Having drain proc on crit is more OP than what you mentioned - it is more OP than what I suggested, even, as melee crit doesn't have too much trouble to surpass the 25% rate of drain the best drain weapons have.
Multi-turn of 3+ drains at current rate, ditto. At same total drain: Makes worse.

ET would be better if it was instant, so drain would be worse if it was duration, unless it was the same drain per turn, and not spread out

Even then it'd be worse as you'd have to wait and not get drain from monsters you kill.

Suggestion: when monsters are spawned, in addition to them having #mkey_(number) id have them have MID(number) id or class as well. Would make pure .css monster highlighting possible instead of using post-load .js to add it.

This post has been edited by Lement: Dec 6 2012, 16:40

So on one hand you say they're not useless, but on the other you say one shouldn't bother with them because slaughter is better? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

useless for most but not everyone.

I can drain 234.6 HP from a monsters every few turns, but by using that mace I lose 2600 damage. For some that little bit of health could help if they have a few 1000 Health. Having 25k-35k health, it doesn't really do much of anything. Then there is Regen II and its +2300 health/turn

for mana you only get a few points, high mana regen or IA slots can get you more then that a turn. Frith was using Illithid because of his mana problems. But with higher damage you clear rounds in less turns so all your spells last more rounds so you end up using less mana over the same number of rounds.

Banshee give you so little SP that its almost a joke. Maybe if you only have a few 100 points it could work but if you have that much of a problem with spark/spirit shield going off all the time then maybe it would be best to get more phy mit or stun monsters so you don't get hit so much.

This only worsens the problem. If an small image had trouble loading any additional scripts (that have to load AFTER the image at least attempts to load) would be even more likely to fail or eat more bandwidth.

The script will obviously load first... also it will be a tiny fraction of the size of the image.
Furthermore, failed load is not necessarily due to lack of bandwidth but some network issue.
And by reloading the same script every time it gets cached.

This post has been edited by mrttao: Dec 7 2012, 01:58

Frith was using Illithid because of his mana problems.

I used it because I was too strong for Scythe. You need to waste enough turns to have skill 1 and 2 ready at the start of each round.

I used it because I was too strong for Scythe. You need to waste enough turns to have skill 1 and 2 ready at the start of each round.

PA+scythe & bleed is nice if you play IWBTH. But wouldn't you rather use a high damage weapon and give up power/slaughter for more phy mit? The killing speed & base damage could be the same but with higher mit you should be able to play longer.

are you still using a scythe when you play IWBTH or did you change to an estoc? Frith's new one is pretty nice, its too bad the bleed is low.

PA+scythe & bleed is nice if you play IWBTH. But wouldn't you rather use a high damage weapon and give up power/slaughter for more phy mit? The killing speed & base damage could be the same but with higher mit you should be able to play longer.

are you still using a scythe when you play IWBTH or did you change to an estoc? Frith's new one is pretty nice, its too bad the bleed is low.

What armor does not really matter for just Arenas.
But no I use a Estoc now. I pretty shitty one but it does the Job.

Bleed would need a little rework to be competitive with PA.

An AoE-conversion spell.

TL;DR: Magic the Gathering's [gatherer.wizards.com] Radiate crossed with the Channeling proc.

The *general* idea is to have a supportive spell that will proc a "Next spell costs more, and if targeted becomes AoE". "Costs more" requires care, so I put some effort into balancing it below.

Attempt at balancing:

In looking at the spell list on the wiki, the AoE variant of a spell is almost always 3x as mana-expensive as the targeted variant when unleveled, and 2x as expensive when leveled fully. The exceptions to this rule are X-Nerf (which when leveled is the same cost as Nerf) and Soul Fire/Soul Burst, which increase the AoE cost more than the above.

Except for Soul Fire/Burst, making the mana component of "costs more" 3x when unleveled and 2x when leveled fully would result in this spell being as-good-as or weaker-than any specific AoE spell (weaker-than being Nerf/X-Nerf).

(note that an unleveled base spell and a fully-leveled AoE conversion would result in a mana cost roughly halfway between the unleveled specific AoE and the fully-leveled specific AoE - the player still has a tangible benefit to leveling their specific AoE abilities)

Mana cost for the AoE converter itself: Not sure how to balance properly.

Action Speed wise, the relevant wiki page says that AoE spells start out 0.4 slower than the targeted variant, going to equal speed when fully leveled.

Thus, my suggestion would be to make this spell have a base speed of its own around 1.0, and in addition make the modified spell 0.8 slower when AoE conversion is unleveled and 0.4 slower when fully leveled.

The result here is that the specific AoE spells will be better than this one (with the exception of the top-tier Soul spells, which are an annoying exception to the trends the other spells follow), but less flexible. This also permits things like taking extra time/mana in order to radiate Silence or other such spells that don't have an AoE variant.

Additionally, this would allow a player who wants to focus on filling tanks or other abilities earlier on to still have *access* to a less-efficient AoE.

And, finally, this would save slots in the quickbar.

EDIT: Just realized that since a radiated Soul Fire wouldn't cause Burning Soul to explode, that case *may* be sufficiently balanced as well (although that is much harder to quantify). On the other hand, a radiated Soul Fire proc'ing Burning Soul on everything might be less balanced than expected. Ugh.

This post has been edited by xyzzyplugh: Dec 9 2012, 01:27

No, it is just as balanced if the explosion/radiating by itself is balanced. However, with spells that have previous AoEs as it is, just the additional MP cost and HP damage(Think of focus!) is really substantial. In fact, if it doesn't give any substantial MP-economy/DPT benefit it won't be used for those, as enough APs for mage aren't particularly costly.

On the other hand, when I looked at wiki, I noted the damage AoEs always have previous level single-target damage and trade about equivalent amount of MP efficiency compared to damage of previous level of AoE. If <spellname with single target variant> were t2 single-target, t3 would cost 2.(88) times more.

This post has been edited by Lement: Dec 9 2012, 02:28

Suggestion for Economic Perks:
They are not so good any more so instead of just removing it at some point how about:
a) Make them work on Arena Clear Bonuses and double the effect of Credits dropped by Monsters.
b) Make it generate a few Credits each round regardless which mode. Amount should be calculated by Difficulty Setting and level of the Perk.

This post has been edited by Ichy: Dec 9 2012, 15:04

Suggestion for Economic Perks:
They are not so good any more

Just double their current effects.

Just double their current effects.

That would make them too OP, and it worsens the credit inflation problem. A better idea would be to give those perks some other kind of bonus that's not related to credits at all.

That would make them too OP, and it worsens the credit inflation problem. A better idea would be to give those perks some other kind of bonus that's not related to credits at all.

uhm less Forge Items required without losing out on delicious forge EXP? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)