Familiars (in Changelog)

DD familiars now train 10% of lvl as HP. Spell trained is not decreased. (Yes, this adds up to 110%.)

All familiars will now appear _behind_ their minion in the fight order if their minion has no DD spell and does not equip either a ranged or melee weapon. (Yes, "all" includes TJK familiars.)

hah sweet.. No more worrying about the single mages who hide behind their ToJ :) Thanks Jon

I think you need to work on your reading comprehension. This wasn't a single mage nerf, not even peripherally.

Single Mages have a DD spell, therefore they still hide behind their familiar

bah, yeah, I read that wrong :-P got way too excited

So basically if the equipping minion is an enchanter the familiar appears behind the minion?

It would be easy just to learn a very base MM at 8 xp to make the familiar appear in front of the minion if you want it that way. Would not do much damage but also would not take much if someone has a large AMF.

They can also avoid it by simply equipping a whip... I'm not seeing much point behind that little change, heh.

Actually the whip idea is not that good. If you have an enchanter that you want to boost with AS and have a GA also, a whip vs a cobf wearer (if you can hit) would be very very bad.

The point behind that little change of order?!?

My thoughts: Who cares if an enchanter lives? Aren't they meant to die or at least be meat shields? Why have a familiar be the first meat shield? In an EEMM for example many would want to equip the tattoo on the first M to keep if back in the lineup. Now they can just equip in on the second E allowing the first M to have a higher AC by equipping more armor. Very nice change indeed. Subtle maybe, but very nice.

Actually, subtle changes are the best!! That just shows how well balanced the game already is. Kudos.

great change

Is Decay consider a DD ?

yes

great change. :)

Just had a thought (wow. :P)

DD familiars having HP might not be as great as it seems, considering now it'll go to your PR as well, and lessen your fight rewards. It does make it more powerful though, so that's useful.

wow ... now i will get my DD minion a nice piece of shiny body armor and a brand new CoI .... hey enchanter can you hold this jiggy for me ....

I'm happy about this one, especially as I suggested the familiar behind the minion option in the poll! One slight niggle though. Tattoo Of Ice - the best place for CoC is at the back, or at least as far back as you can put it. This change means that unless you have an enchanter as your last minion you can't place CoC as you would need to be most effective. Apart from that though a very interesting change. =)

I love it too, a EEMMM-team looks way better than a EMEMM-team ;)
I'm a bit worried about my ToF-familiar getting into melee now though.
Anyway, nice change! Thanks Jonathan!

Wouldn't if be better if a DD Familiar positions itself behind a minion wielding a weapon?

Increased to 20% of lvl as hp. Spell trained still not decreased.

Yeah, I figured they would get a boost since ToAs and ToEs were still better.

Well, honestly, a smart game designer will employ more boosts to things rather than nerfs. People generally feel better about a game when they don't feel as if they're "losing" anything. By boosting the DD familiars, he generates more interest and buzz rather than disdain that would come from nerfing.

...and a bad designer will often do the same thing. The difference is that one of them then ends up with vicious upwards spirals; the other does not. :-)

We say nothing of bad designers here. =)

Jon has kept a very good balance among things and I applaud him for that. Notice that I didn't say all boosting though. ;)

I am not going to judge the change itself, but, aren't the familiars becoming more important with the latest changes than the minions?

Or the boost is happening because to make DD familiars more balanced to ToE and ToA.

In any case, I see people training more Dispel magic to keep the HP of DD familiars lower (lowering the AS).

Is this working right Jon:

Increased to 20% of lvl as hp. Spell trained still not decreased.

--Jonathan, March 28 2005 12:28 PM EST


My Fireball minion is 170k+ level and has less then 10k Health.

fixed

Thanks, it has 36k health now which seems reasonable.