Idea: magic plus-to-hit & mage ability (in General)

Well, it's late so once again my mind is full of crazy ideas. I was just thinking about how me and my tank Stalker dislike mages so. Can't live with em, can't live without em, since they are helping support CB. So I was thinking of an off the wall idea to slow them a little so perhaps they'd all stop passing me by so fast. Anyway, my idea goes like this:

Once upon a time I remember all spells having a chance to hit. However, Jon did away with this in favor of lowering their effects and just having them hit 100% of the time. Why not add the percent to hit back, but on direct damage spells only? I say drop the chance to hit on ALL damage spells to 50%. Then, add an ability for the mages, say called 'Concentration'. It could raise your hit back up to 100% when trained to 1/4 the DD spell level (similar kinda to Bloodlust and Strength). Let me tell you why I say this:

1. The classic argument: tank vs mage. We all know how everyone says it's tank and its NW against mages and their exp. With the linking of PR/NW, tanks took a slight hit. Of course, mages did as well, but both can deal without armor, especially with tattoos. Since tanks have a limit on their weapon NW before they start jumping in PR, why not add this to very slightly limit mages a little as well? Just to be fair.

2. Mage blender- I'm sure many agree with me, that until the PR and NW of most characters increases drastically, this is mage blender. A single mage with a large fireball a ToE can devastate much larger teams. This change wouldn't hurt mages that badly, just slow them down a tad bit. As is, tanks split their experience a total of five ways usually- HP, ST, DX, AMF (most of the time), and their ability. On the other hand, mages can focus on only HP, DD spell, and perhaps AMF (unless they just wanna crush enemies with a huge FB first few rounds). This would change would only serve to slow down mages to a very small degree. But it might just help. Plus mages still would have better experience focus, just not quite as drastically superior.

3. Mages need an ability- all sorts of stuff exist for tanks. But nothing is really beneficial for mages. Just putting this would add variety to the game. And who knows, maybe Jon could give it some additional minor positive effect from training the ability.

4. New items- this change idea could lead the way for new stuff. Just think, there could be an item that would give magical evasion and lower the magic chance to hit, and/or items to boost it. More variety = good, in my opinion.

5. This idea is not a mage staff. If you scanned this rant and only think of it as the FORS idea of mage staffs, I reserve a carp for you.

Well, thanks for reading, I hope that wasn't too much for your poor eyes. I just enjoy trying to be creative, think of ideas, and sharing them with others. Please feel free to give me some feedback on these ideas if you liked or disliked them, or if you have any additional thoughts. Thanks, and good night to all.

:)

1. In the long run (far in the future) with linear damage, Magic *will* outdamage all weapons. The limiting facotor was not the chance to hit, but the ability of physical damage to hit more than once a round. Make spells hit less often just widens this gap.

2. Mage blender- I think the problem is that the one way to stop mages (MgS' are still to situational) loses effectiveness the more damage the mage gets. I'm not explaining this well... :( Mages concentrate a lot of xp into their DD spell, as it's their damage dealer. Not only does this ramp teir damage up, it also allows them to resist the Mage Stopper (AMF) easier as well. Tanks need Str for damage, and Dex to hit. Both to do damage. Reduce Str to zero, you do no damage. Take Dex down, you hit less or not at all. :( I'm still not explaining this well...

3. Mages need an ability- A new ability would be a good xp sink. Give mages a strategic choice. Do more damage and resist AMF, or get this new useful ability.

4. New items- <snip> More variety = good, in my opinion. Always, as long as they are useful... *cough*TULWAR*cough*

5. And why no mage staff? It's just a weapon based CoI...

Wow, a truly unique idea (at least to me and i have been here for a bit.)

Overall I like it, though there are already items that will lower Concentration's effectiveness since any item that lowers dx also lowers skills the same amount (and it does seem that you want Concentration to be a skill.)

But the main point is I think this would be a great idea to actually implement :)

To take this further, Why not give the four DD spells thier own innate chance to hit, then create a concentration skill that works like plus to hit.

Have this skill boosted by + dex terity items (as all skills are), rationalise it by increased hand - eye co ordination if you must..

But have it reduced by Evasion.

To even this out, allow spells to hit more than once, if the pth goes above 100% like wepaons.

The mage flings more than one Maigc Missile, or multiple FBs etc (for you hard core gamers think or the D&D MM spell, or Meteor Swarm, or you Raven fans, FlameOrbs as opposed to FlameOrb..)

1. Why should mages get a slight allowance for wearing armour, when a tank doesn't? Mages rely on a DD spell to do damage, while a tank relies on weaponry, it's only fair then to have a weaponry allowance.
2. One of the advantages of being a mage, I'm not too sure it's a good idea, but it may suit the current situation well.
3. I've seen, maybe even posted myself, a new stat called "Wisdom" a required stat to give your spells they're full strength and so forth. Seems like a good idea, but you'd have to think this one through since it's a major change.

4. New items- this change idea could lead the way for new stuff. Just think, there could be an item that would give magical evasion and lower the magic chance to hit, and/or items to boost it. More variety = good, in my opinion.

May I please shout FORS?
*Ducks the carp*

From the FORS list:
Q: Mage staffs would be cool to augment magical power!
A: private explained why this is dumb with more patience than I would:

Tanks: Can become more powerful than mages, but cost lots of money to maintain. Mages: Tend to be cheaper than tanks, but also tend to be less powerful (and less able to deal with armor penalties)

I think this provides a nice balance between spending money on your chars and spending exp on them; I see no reason to change it.

Mage items kill mages... by that I mean that a mage is something that doesn't require NW, I've always used them because I dislike characters that win through NW, Mages=EXP, Tanks=NW. Since I left (and came back) it appears that tanks are now looking a lot weaker, so I don't mind your suggestion of adding a plus to hit, however I seriously think it should be capped at +100, and it would idealy begin at +100 and AMF would lower this if it was large in comparison to the DD spell. Then again, I don't like the chances of Jon using this idea. ;)

I tell you what would be a cool idea though if we absolutely must use items to give mages advantages (besides the wimpy bonuses they get from certain armor), how about some pants? I can't believe it, after so long I still see no pants.
My poor mages want pants. :(

Mages don't get an armour allowance?

Not a bad idea IMHO Gentleman, and I did think about that, but to tell the truth it's a little radical. The change I suggested was meant to be a simple little adjustment to help dilute mages just a bit. Adding multiple hits to huge spells would instantly be insanely powerful, and having evasion lower the chance to hit would make a pair of DB's way too powerful. Just think, at +200 you wouldn't be touchable by melee or by magic. No, for balance sake and to keep it simple, I still say only implement it in some form as how I originally suggested.

Warchild: one quick correction. If you had armor on the mage that reduced his Concentration ability, then you could simpley train it a little more- exactly the same as raising Archery back to 1.00 would be.

Heh heh, and here I was thinking I'd try to get some sleep tonight.

Chuckles: You're probably right on number 4. If Jon did ever add any new items based on this, he'd probably want to be very conservative. However, pretend these changes were implemented. One item example could be something that would say give the wearer a 10% chance to dodge enemy spells each time. But that's just a lame example. I'm just saying by number 4 that there would be the possibility Jon could think up some sort of item related to this. I can't give many examples, butI know for a fact Jon is much more creative me since he did make this game after all.

Mage skills would make DD based strategy thinking that little bit more interesting. Alongside 'concentration' you could have a bloodlust type skill for DD spells, that concentrates extra power into the spell but does so at the expense of your HP perhaps? A kind of suicide mage skill?

Oh and btw welcome back MrC!

:) I've always liked the idea of mages drawing on inner resources, draining themselves to power thier spells.

Increase your DD damage, but take damage yourself! :)

I think it would be a good balance to the power of the spells. Plus if you make it a skill rather than an aspect of the spell people can choose to use it. You could then extend VA to mages perhaps - but only through the use of a piece of body armour? That way you could avoid suicidal ToE mages!

#1. Why is anybody going on about mages having an armor allowance? Nobody has an armor allowance, all armor counts towards PR, it just counts less than it used to.
#2. The idea of a pth on DD should be in FORS, the point is that in general mages do slightly less damage for their whack later on, we will see weapons doing 3-4 times the spell does at the same MPR (not using weapons way too big for the char). Mages have the advantage of always hitting a single time for a slightly reduced amount, Tanks hit for more but have a huge variable in that they can hit anywhere from 0-4 times in general.
#3. How many times does Jon have to say "NO" to the idea of mage skills and weapons?

Zog,

1) Yeah, that's what I was getting at. :)
2) At an equal dex and no pth, both tanks have a 50% chance to hit each other. Tank attacks versus other tanks might be more varied, but then so is your attacker. Is defence as well as offence. Versus anything else tanks are just about guaranteed 2 hits. The MPB in the game is just about the same size as the largest DD at the mo, but hits more than once... Also, as time goes on, DD damge *will* out pace weapon damage, at it's linear, and weapons aren't.
3) Why no to mage weapons when we have armour *that does exactly the same thing*. I've never seem mage skills discussed before.

Just for comparison on point 2.

Biggest DD spell (around 700K) is on a 670K PR character.

Biggest MPB (nearly 300K) is on a 900K PR character.

I'm guessing the FB does at least 300K to 350K on a single target, so the physical attack *has* to hit more than once to beat it in damage output.

Imagine the damage of that FB when the minion grows to 900K PR. Think even the largest weapon in the game can keep up?

GL, DD spells aren't that linear unless it has drastically changed without me actually knowing, you may get the same bump in damage per point but points cost more later.
I haven't been paying much attention lately but I thought it was pretty much the same sort of process as STR and DEX, feel free to correct me.
Tanks also have the fact that they have stats and weapons to do damage which means later the combo of plenty of STR, DEX and weapon NW will far outweigh a mage with just exp (this point has been made over and over)
Also, when it comes to armor, Tanks get more for their money (when using the right armor), +'s are cheaper than mage armor's giving much more general AC and obviously more + to defend against magic also.
Finally, the point about Mage weapons should now be mute, it has been made over and over and shot down every time, mages have their bonus items just use your money upgrading them further if you want.

GL, you seem to have forgotten that the mage you mentioned is a single minion, the tank your mentioned is a four minion. I don't see how they're comparable. That and unless Jon has changed it, FB doesn't do max damage until melee.

And finally, these high damage mages are aggressive strategies, of course they'll do more damage than a tank that hides behind all sorts of defenses (even if those defenses are just three meat shields... I'm way too tired to go check, so I'll assume they have some form of defense rather than just HP).

:) I made a mistake really with my example above... The Pr of the character is a multi minion team, we should only look at a single archer compared to a single mage, so the 900K PR should drop a bit.

But that just makes it better for the mage...

"GL, DD spells aren't that linear unless it has drastically changed without me actually knowing, you may get the same bump in damage per point but points cost more later."

OK, they're not exactly linear, but it takes thousands of levels to change from costing 14 to 15, and what's the highest cost of abilities in CB1? x19/20? - Maybe one of the big guys from CB1 could confirm?

But this is exactly the same cost structure for Str and Dex.

Problem is (I don't know the exact formulae) it was shown in CB1 (maybe Chet/Todd/Spydah could chip in on this, I think it came from the RD/Spid battles) that damage is weighted very much in favour of low strength. doubling your strength doesn;t double your damage, where as doubling your sepll level does.

Yes tanks can spend money on Weapons.

Mages can spend money on a CoI, that just provides an larger and larger increase the higher their DD gets.

Unlike weapons, As strength has less and less of an effect the larger it gets.

There *will* come a time when buying that next "X" isn't viable.

Whether it's 20 million, or 200 million. It just won't be bought.

There is no such limit on DD damage progress. How long this will take, I've never speculated. Maybe it's far too far in the future to be of any relevance. But I doubt it.


"Finally, the point about Mage weapons should now be mute, it has been made over and over and shot down every time, mages have their bonus items just use your money upgrading them further if you want."

It was made majoritivly in CB1, before the change to armour giving an increase to DD spell per point. Just like Tank armoure does with Str and Dex.

Things have changed.

Before anyone else just says "it's been said before" or "FORS", just tell me what the difference is between a CoI and a DD increasing weapon?

Beat me too it MrC. I figured my mistake. :)

But then I consider an ELB using archer to be an agressive strat.

Still the wat the game is at the moment, the largest DD spell out damages the largest MPB on a single strike.

Thanks for all the opinions everyone, glad to hear a few people liked the ideas. However, I have to make a few points:

Zoglog:
#1: Not sure who or what you're talking about, but I never mentioned a mage armor allowance. My point number 1 said simply that tanks took a small hit since their weapons NW has a cap before their PR starts jumping. Why not therefore put a small hit on mages as well with this new ability to slow them down oh so slowly? The point of the tank weapon allowance was to slow them down a little.

#2: I must definitely disagree with you on putting this in the FORS. First, yes the title is a little confusing, and the ability wouldn't really give a plus to hit, but only take the chance to hit back to 100%. So there'd be no change to your spell once you learned it. Mages would still then have their advantage of always hitting, but only once. But you would have realized this if you had read through everything I had said.

#3: I'm not sure how many times Jon has said no to them, although I know it's quite a bit. But I figured this was a new enough take on a mage ability, just *maybe* it'd be worth suggesting.


And on the argument of mage damage vs tank damage and the long run, I definitely think tank is at the disadvantage. Not only must a team deal damage, but it must be able to take damage, via HP and damage reduction, say a ToE. Currently, a single mage has vastly so much better of focus (HP, DD spell, possible AMF), that their HP also grows enormously. Igoring a wall, 4 of the top 5 HP teams in CB2 are single mages, and adding in the damage reduction of ToE, they are extremely tough to kill. When a mage has far greater HP and damage reduction than a tank, it has an advantage for sure, regardless of NW.

But then look at NW. As an example, I fought Lieutinant Stella. Large single FB team. I got this damage, despite a my good sized ToE (300k), and an AMF nearing 150k. While my 4.35mill NW AXBow did a total of around 12k damage to her, she did this:
Fireball hit Shiraha [110596]
Fireball hit Shiraha [131081]
Fireball hit Shiraha [73801]

Those are first 3 rounds, and all it took for her to clean me up. Now, I don't think my AXBow is too bad, but I find it outrageous to take this kind of damage, especially after AMF and my ToE, from a spell. You can say all you want about how you think Tanks will overtake mages in damage in the long run, but I say it's retarded that we must all someday use immense ELB's to keep up. I wonder whatever happened to diversity? As is now, tanks only have that one way to try and damage these mages.

Ah well, enough ranting for now.

Ranged > Melee...

:P