Remove the restrictions from the MgS (in General)

Would anyone complain?

Why don't we make it a 40% DD reduction from base, and allow '+' to be increased to up AC.

And also remove the 'power shield' restrictions from it (No Tattoo, negates trained Spells).

What reason is there to so heavily restrict this item?

*smile*

Just to be clear folks, I believe he's asking for the MgS to have a an effect on not direct damages effect, but on the mages DD level itself, making it more subject to AMF.

*frown*

I think he is trying to compare MgS DD reduction to VB AC reduction.....

Opps! To be clearer, instead of having it as 1% per '+' have the same property but as a fixed 40% regardless of '+'.

Bingo VP! Both supporter items. Both do *similar* things, yet one is heavily restricted and has an special effect based on the amount of cash spent on it, while the other has no restrictions and special is independant of how much you spend on it.

Why the disparity?

If VB's are ok as there are, surely we must agree that Mgs's should be more like them?

kinda similar to the way a VB works isn't it?

thanks for restating what I just said.

What? you can't see the difference?

One has no cost.

The other is based on cost and has many restrictions?

How else can I explain this to you?

for arguments sake, lets eliminate all the negatives from an MgS and make it work like a VB.

The VB only gains effectiveness against High AC minions
The Mgs does what it does against any spell caster...

The VB has to make contact to do anything at all.
An MgS is an automatic.... spell gets cast, dmg is reduced.

The VB will wait 3 ranged rounds before it can even be factored into an equation.
An MgS goes to work right from the start of a battle every time.

And lets ignore the fact that their are no other shields with any other special abilities, and the penalties assigned to it (after removing the penalties you chose to remove) are less severe than any other shield in the game so every single minon in all of CB would use an MGS over any other shield in the game.....

There are still some glaring discrepencies in the way these items perform so attempting to draw some kind of comparision (even in the fantasy land you love to draw me into) is once again irrelivant at best.

VP, did you forget that the MgS cancels spells? Not every minion can use it...

"The VB only gains effectiveness against High AC minions
The Mgs does what it does against any spell caster..."

No, no, no. The VB has the same effect versus any AC. 40%. It does *more* versus high Ac, but then the MgS stops *more* versus high DD.

"The VB has to make contact to do anything at all.
An MgS is an automatic.... spell gets cast, dmg is reduced."

So? The VB can do it's thing more than once per round. The MgS can only do this if it faces more than one caster.

"The VB will wait 3 ranged rounds before it can even be factored into an equation.
An MgS goes to work right from the start of a battle every time."

No. It starts in Melee if you face CoC.

Wait! let's also say, The VB does it's thing every battle. The MgS does nothing if you don't face any casters!!!!oneone

"And lets ignore the fact that their are no other shields with any other special abilities, and the penalties assigned to it (after removing the penalties you chose to remove) are less severe than any other shield in the game so every single minon in all of CB would use an MGS over any other shield in the game....."

BoM.

So, increase the standard Shield penalty. But wait, you're not actually saying that if it was like a VB *IT WOULD BE THE BEST SHIELD IN THE GAME*. Erm, like the VB is for melee weapons maybe?

People would still use MS if they wanted High AC.

"There are still some glaring discrepencies in the way these items perform so attempting to draw some kind of comparision (even in the fantasy land you love to draw me into) is once again irrelivant at best."

How so? Post them.

very few actually. Wall and tanks are it. I like this idea. Besides, do we really want someone getting +50 MgS and +50 TSA... you complain about tanks now, wait till THAT happens. At least with this set they can never get too uber. I like the idea GL. And so do my tanks =D

I never liked mages so I am ALL for it. I was bummed when the + got removed from AC. I was bummed when the power shield catagory was created, and I am bummed that it negates all trained spells.

So I will not complain if you remove all the restrictions. Please go right ahead. If mages get relegated to enchanter/wall status, I will be a happier man for it.

Consider this, in the history of legends and stories of magic users, very few if any were central to the legend, they were helpers. Name one "spell" Merlin ever cast in battle that did damage directly to the opponent. You cannot. The legend is of King Arthur, but King Arthur would not have been a legend without Merlin helping him. Beowulf, The Illiad, all the classic tales of magic and man have fighters that are central to the story, but magic users that were there helping them along.

So GL I am all behind you movement to relegate Mages to Enchanter status!!!

I sign my name on the petition.

VIVA LA TANKS

So Sef, if MgS s have no restrictions, Mages get relegated. Much like High AC Tanks.Walls facing VB s? ;)

Besides, I wouldn't really mind the restrictions being removed from MgS s. You could have single Mages using them, or Single Tanks. :D

VIVA LA SINGLE MINION! :D >;)

mgs effect is always effective, it may have to wait for CoC but it was working before that on fb/mm. vb CANT go early.

the possibility of missing is not an advantage when vb has a brutal + upgrade curve. mgs or AC for that matter has no chance of missing.

vb is only effective vs high ac minions, otherwise other weapons are beneficial. mgs is always most effective shield vs dd

the damage a vb does is also based on its x even if its effect does not. an x1 vb with 40% ac reduction still does nothing. a kat and vb with the same nw and same x, the kat will do more dmg than the vb to a 0 ac minion, because of the steeper upgrade cost of the vb. its not all free dmg and not always the best like you're saying.

Sef, the legends of Taliesin are the only ones that come to mind. I don't know enough about Enduki and Gilgamesh to add that... I'm sure there are some mage centric legends. They just aren't the common ones. ;)

My dad would konw loads. ;)

Pit;
"mgs effect is always effective, it may have to wait for CoC but it was working before that on fb/mm. vb CANT go early."

And a MgS isn't effective at all if you don't face any mages. VB isn';t effective at all if you don't live past ranged....

"the possibility of missing is not an advantage when vb has a brutal + upgrade curve. mgs or AC for that matter has no chance of missing."

The upgrade of a MgS is more brutal than a VB +. The VB can miss, the MgS does nothing versus 1/4 of the DD spells.

"vb is only effective vs high ac minions, otherwise other weapons are beneficial. mgs is always most effective shield vs dd"

A massive MS does more versus physical attacks, a MgS does nothing. A VB always does it's thing versus all armour. Oh and Endurance. And protection.

"the damage a vb does is also based on its x even if its effect does not. an x1 vb with 40% ac reduction still does nothing. a kat and vb with the same nw and same x, the kat will do more dmg than the vb to a 0 ac minion, because of the steeper upgrade cost of the vb. its not all free dmg and not always the best like you're saying."

Shold have said ELS. ;) The kat has lower base dmaage than a VB so always does less, no matter what AC and has a steeper upgrade cost.

OK, without comparison, why should the Mg be so restricted?

"There are still some glaring discrepencies in the way these items perform so attempting to draw some kind of comparision (even in the fantasy land you love to draw me into) is once again irrelivant at best."

How so? Post them.

I beileve I just did.... I'm not sure what it is that causes your vast confussion so I will try to expalain in more depth.

"The VB only gains effectiveness against High AC minions
The Mgs does what it does against any spell caster...

No, no, no. The VB has the same effect versus any AC. 40%.
It does *more* versus high Ac, but then the MgS stops *more* versus high DD. "

(The VB only gains effectiveness vs higher AC).

VS 0 AC the VB has 0 effect, vs 100 AC it reduces AC 40 points, vs 400 AC it reduces AC 160 points. A higher base dmg weapon would do more damage vs 100 AC than a VB does vs (effective) 60 AC.



"The VB has to make contact to do anything at all.
An MgS is an automatic.... spell gets cast, dmg is reduced.

So? The VB can do it's thing more than once per round. The MgS can only do this if it faces more than one caster. "

Or the VB can miss all together on every swing.... seen an MgS NOT block dmg from a DD spell lately? (excluding Decay obviuosly)



"The VB will wait 3 ranged rounds before it can even be factored into an equation.
An MgS goes to work right from the start of a battle every time.

No. It starts in Melee if you face CoC. "

It does wait for Melee if you face CoC, that is a good exception you pointed out.... now point out the exception where the VB does ANYTHING AT ALL DURING RANGED.

They will both work in melee, but there is a chance the VB will miss (see above) BUT the MgS also has an opportunity to work during ranged where the VB does not.



"Wait! let's also say, The VB does it's thing every battle. The MgS does nothing if you don't face any casters!!!!"

The VB does not do "its thing" in every battle. It's thing is hacking down high AC to a managable number... If you do not face a character with a high AC the VB becomes pretty much like any other Melee weapon. (see above) the VB also has a good chance to miss all together.



"And lets ignore the fact that their are no other shields with any other special abilities, and the penalties assigned to it (after removing the penalties you chose to remove) are less severe than any other shield in the game so every single minon in all of CB would use an MGS over any other shield in the game.....

BoM. "

Why would my Enchanter ,DD mage, or Wall possibly need a bonus to Str (granting some damage reduction) instead of a straight up reduction to DD, and AC to fend of melee attacks?

"People would still use MS if they wanted High AC."

In your pretend world the MgS is now granting AC, there is no reason I would use an MS over an MgS if I could get a comprable AC out of both.



But wait, you're not actually saying that if it was like a VB *IT WOULD BE THE BEST SHIELD IN THE GAME*. Erm, like the VB is for melee weapons maybe?

If the VB was the best weapon in the game, I would be using one. Not only would I be using one, 200 other players would also be scrambling to use one. Of those 200 players, the players who have 100k+ NW tied up in their "sub par" MH's would CERTIANLY be looking to trade out their weapons for a "better" weapon that would allow them to put 50 - 100k back in their pockets or at the very least into their WA..... wouldn't ya think? Maybe they are all just REALLY stupid.... I think you should be the one to tell them though.

Why does everyone insist on trying to remove the "rule" because of the exception. I before E except after C works for 90% + of all words, but not every word. Why throw out a rule that helps you spell believe and receive correctly just because it does not work for weird?

As of right now, there are 5782 active users, and of them the maximum possible VB users is 208 and getting smaller.

So of the active users, 3% of them COULD relegate your high AC wall to enchanter status AND that percentage can ONLY get smaller.

There are only 196 Mage Shields. So yes removing all the restriction would be a small tiny step to relegating Mages to enchanter status, but certainly not nearly enough for me.

But ANY step forward is better than no step at all, so forward with the relegation of mages to second class citizen status. AND forward with the making of USD spenders on AC NW to think twice about sinking one more USD into their massive NW

VIVA LA TANKS

GL ignoring your post from the other thread, and hoping to draw comment on a new topic....

"OK, without comparison, why should the MgS be so restricted?"

Simply put, if I could equip an MgS on all my minions, and it added AC, I would...

Any DD based character in the game would be screaming bloody murder at this change. Imagine if you will a FB mage casting against my team of 3, each with a +20 or 30 MgS. Two of my minions sporting a decent sized TsA, and 2 AMF's negating 40 - 60% of their spells off the bat, and sending the dmg back to them.

The MgS needs to be restricted so as to keep DD a part of the game.

The only thing I say about this, in the negative, is that it should NOT be able to be used on a ToA. Completely makes AMF worthless if you can use this. Omg, I am sure PitSpawn will agree, if his single archer had a MgS nothing could stop him! So make it add AC, give it constant reduction, but keep the Power Shield effects.

I sort of assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that GL had his tongue in his cheek when he made this post, in hopes of showing that the VB needs some sort of balancing factors just like the MgS does.

My responses about removing the MgS restrictions were done in that vein, I think the MgS is fine, I do not think it needs any changes.

Granted I feel the same way about the VB, but that is another thread entirely.....or is it?

Remove the restrictions from the MgS

With that as the title i bet it is lol. The MgS does not NEED a change. But it would be nice if it added AC. Very useful. Though, I am still of the opinion that if you take away Power Shield effect you are asking to give some mages burst blood vessels.

The biggest restriction in my opionion is that it negates spells cast by the wearer.

If it weren't for that, I would have 2 equiped right now, which would still be overpowering with a decent AMF.....

This thread was taken almost word for word from another thread earlier this morning.... So I think the original point of it was to try to illustrate discrepencies with the VB....

I would love to see some changes with the MgS (just so I could equip one) but think those changes would make for A LOT of mad mages.

How about this: Make it so equipping a VB renders skills useless like the MgS renders enchantments useless. And a small reduction to its base damage to make it a bit worse than a Bth vs unarmored minions.

I would also like to see it moved to the "power items" category but that would not be fair to these like Nymandus who already based their strat on using a VB with a TOA.

No one wants Mage Shields. I sold mine for 2,345,678 to Central bank, and it was had a name that expired in 11 months 29 days and it was Net worth: $2,858,056. Personally I liked it for my Single tank, cause I didn't have to train amf to 1/3 of someone's spell to get the same damage reduction, and the dex penalty for shield + two hander + bow was only gasp 7%. I didn't use a ToA cause I rented a +45 trollskin, which made for practically no damage from magic for the first round it was ridiculous. Do the TSA and Mage Shield DD reductions stack by addition or multiplication? Cause from what I saw it seemed like they were added together. I really didn't care about base decay. Yes, I would be dead if they had decay, but who cares not many use it (2% of all minions have it trained).

VB should get it's base lowered just to make it somewhat less viable. Personally, I'd like to see it negate every reduction completely and be like 30x Two handed. That way you would have to be committed to using it, but it would still be useful. No longer would you just slap on a vb just cause it's there, you'd have to make a consideration about it on what chars you want to specialize against.

I'm all for it, I love my Mage Shields! While we're at it, let's lift the DX penalty, and the -5 penalty to trained skills.

I'm just happy that we've moved past the awful "UC is overpowered" phase onto the poor, maligned Vorpal Blades... :P

Viva La UC Tanks!