Channel/Innervate/Energise: New ED idea (in General)

My last coupel of post (and some much earlier rants by Sure! :P) got me thing about multi minion teams supporting other minions.

It's all fine for Tanks, but we've got no DD support.

So how about an ED (and it has to be and ED, some name sugestions above, but I'm not sold on them, that boosts the DD level of other minions on the team?

It's open to ED redution, but would allow Mages some multi minion 'ommph' they are sorely lacking atm. ;)

GL, the AoL on the front minion does provide DD boost much like it improves tanks.

he clearly means in reference to minions and experience, chuck, not items.

tanks can haste, giant strength, EC, VA, etc. to improve their offensive abilities.

yeah we need more love for our mage brethren

Well, I can't say I'm against it but...
if it's something to boost any AND all DD trained on a given team then the effect should dilute as it spreads to more DD minions. ie, 1 DD minion @ 100%, 2 DD minions @ 80% ea and so on down up to and including a familiar.
Or make it really interesting, make it so that the strongest boost goes to any single minion next to the casting minion, reduced if sandwiched between 2 minions and further reduced to any minions not directly next to the caster AND any familiar (meaning NO familiar gets the full boost). Kinda makes minion placement more important than just a meat shield.
just a thought or two.

With the massive Weapon Allowance nerf in the last change month, I don't think DD needs a boost at all. Mages already do enough damage, and I cannot boost my melee weapon any further - or even re-equip my ranged weapon - without utterly devastating my rewards.

I'm all for a Mage skill that isn't a simple DD boost. After all, why not just keep training the spell itself? But an ED that boosts the level of every DD on the team? Sorry, no.

Thats kind of like having an enchanter train UC for all other minions.

I'm with j'bob when i was running my evasion minion i noticed a mage with a tat gets much better bonuses than an equipped tank at it's weapon allowance.
NSCs and CoIs should be enough to make multi-mage teams happy.

What if it only boosted the DD of the strongest/weakest mage. So there's no spread at all to other minions.

Or perhaps just the oppposite it could boost any DD spells, but give a pentaly to str and/or dx and/or evasion... something along those lines to keep it om leash.

Maybe even a mix between the two, so it only boosts one mage, but penalizes any and every tank style minion on the team.

While mages are cheap to make powerful, it does seem kind of lame that there are no spells to boost DD. It just seems like that should be a given; ie there are spells to enhance physical attacks, and spells to enhance magical attacks.

I wasn't against this idea, depending on how it fleshed out but...
the more I look at things, in relation to tanks...
1) If you're using either of the big bows you HAVE to train archery just to make them effective.

2)Bloodlust IS a damage booster but seems to have lost its luster. It seems to make more sense to just train more ST to help your ENC (to have a big weapon)

3)EC can be used by tanks but can also be used by mage teams against tanks (hurting ENC badly in some cases I believe)

4)GS and Haste are tank boosters that just don't seem to be used all that effectively (at least widespread as far as I know, do mages really want something that won't be any good anyway?)

If I were a mage (well, long term mage anyway) I'd push more for Mage items to carry AC with the "+'s".
To dredge up an older issue, I have to feel that this whole ENC thing did a lot to put mage damage back up with tank damage in that some of the bigger tank teams had to change their weapon NW's.
I don't know. I just felt like chiming in again.

How about something of an Anti-Antimagic field ? ;)
And while you're at it, why not have it work against the rest of the enemy EOs too.

Basically, a reverse DM.
Same rules as DM on EDs you cast on the enemy team (and EDs the enemy casts on itself), but this one would work only on EOs cast by the enemy on your own team instead (leaving your own EDs alone).

Obviously, if the enemy uses no EOs at all, this ED is useless.
But if they do use it, same level of this new ED will cancel an equal amount of enemy EO, especially if coming from multiple minion sources.

note : actually, I meant the same 80% reduction that DM has, so not "equal level", but "equal effect".

maybe a mage item where it increases the penetration of DD, like AG's and the such increase the X, but penetration is like the +, where it helps 'break' thru the antimagic field and reduces the feedback

ahh or

'bubble' a skill that wraps the minion in a protective bubble that protects them from x amount of dmg, acts like a buffer

or a weapon(new supporter item) for mages that ignores a certain amount of your targets AC, the variable can be a constance range 35-55ac or something

"or a weapon(new supporter item) for mages that ignores a certain amount of your targets AC, the variable can be a constance range 35-55ac or something"

I think that's a good idea for a skill. Ignore AC, 1 point per effect point, similar to Evasion's xp curve.

"maybe a mage item where it increases the penetration of DD, like AG's and the such increase the X, but penetration is like the +, where it helps 'break' thru the antimagic field and reduces the feedback "

Noldorin Spellcasters


"ahh or 'bubble' a skill that wraps the minion in a protective bubble that protects them from x amount of dmg, acts like a buffer "

Ablative Shield


"or a weapon(new supporter item) for mages that ignores a certain amount of your targets AC, the variable can be a constance range 35-55ac or something "

You might as well ask for "staves" or similar, which are on the list of FORS.

an ED for mages takes away their biggest weakness for multi minion teams: exp concentration. Allowing other minions to solve the exp concentration problem will make mages much more powerful. Giving them another AMF defense is also extremely dangerous in game balance.

"maybe a mage item where it increases the penetration of DD, like AG's and the such increase the X, but penetration is like the +, where it helps 'break' thru the antimagic field and reduces the feedback "

Noldorin Spellcasters

Exactly Sick. How about instead an item that doesn't compete with the NS or AG but compliments (like EB and EG and ECloak work together to compliment DX) the DD spell with the NS or AG (read not ANOTHER pair of gloves or CoI) to specifically combat protection/endurance. A pair of Magic Slippers... or PANTS if you will. (sorry couldn't help it but the rest is serious)
Magic Slippers. Each + increases the percentage of Protection/Endurance/AC(?) that the DD will ignore. (Including the damage reduction of the RBF) Give something else for mages to pump their CB/USD into?

If the mages get another item/skill to reduce damage reduction, it must be an alternative to Evasion, which reduces our tank attacks by a full 100% (while the damage reduction that many mage players complain about still lets some of the attack go through). That is why I proposed making it a skill rather than an item.

Call it Magic Penetration or something.

"With the massive Weapon Allowance nerf in the last change month, I don't think DD needs a boost at all. Mages already do enough damage, and I cannot boost my melee weapon any further - or even re-equip my ranged weapon - without utterly devastating my rewards. "

LB, no offense, but that's merely the weapon side of things.

Multi-minion teams, remember, are the focus here - and multi-minion mages do NOT do much damage.

You might complain about being unable to boost your melee weapon -further-, but at least you can boost it to boost your damage, as well as STR. Additionally, you can use Giant Strength to buff your damage, and Haste + EC to give yourself better chances at hitting/multiple strikes, and VA or Bloodlust can increase damage, leech HP, or both simultaneously! Not to mention weapons can have inherent specials, like vorpalness and leeching...Plus you can equip a ToA to boost your STR, therefore boosting your Encumbrance limit on that minion while simultaneously increasing damage by virtue of the STR stat.

A mage on a multi-minion team? It can boost itself a little with CoI or AG, assuming it will forego NSC (not a wise decision with such dilution)....and....it can....wait, that's it! Nothing? No tattoo that'll give it a damage increase, add to its NW? No full set of gears that enhance its offense, only the two? No support spells other minions can cast to help it out, despite the fact that its opposition can and DOES do so?


Perhaps you see my point here, and perhaps not. Nonetheless, whether you can see it or not, the diluted mages' ability to compete is very weak and is capable of receiving ZERO support from its minion comrades, despite the tank counterpart's ability to do so.


IIRC, mages use MPR alone, whereas tanks use a combination of MPR and NW to compete. Why, then, can tanks make so much more efficient usage of their MPR than mages?

That's exactly it OB. ;)

"if it's something to boost any AND all DD trained on a given team then the effect should dilute as it spreads to more DD minions. ie, 1 DD minion @ 100%, 2 DD minions @ 80% ea and so on down up to and including a familiar."

It would 'spread' just like AS. Making it a fixed 68% no matter the minion count (like GS/Haste) might be a little too much. ;)

I don't know about all this. I believe mages are the way they are because Jon wants them to be mages and not tanks called mages.
There are DDs out there doing millions of damage per round for 30 rounds while the old "ranged damage is too big" argument has been nerfed into the basement.
Now archers WITH huge weapons and gear might do a large fraction of a huge DD spell's damage but only for a few rounds. Melee tanks, forget it, they only have the melee rounds and much lower damage even with all the buffs the mages are mentioning.
Mages and tanks are supposed to be different. A DD grows linearly, while damage from a tank grows much more slowly. Double ST and damage goes up by 1/4 (not to mention that the tank also has to invest in DX and archery/bloodlust to keep that tiny growth. That's why they need buffs to compete. Sure, multi-minion mages are hurt by the dilution but that's their choice.

Ask Sute how much the largest FB int eh game does in the Ranged rounds. ;)

Then, unlike Mele/Bows, it kills his own team in Melee.

WooT?

Not to mention he grew his FB on a single minion for a -long- time.

Otherwise it would be equivalent to an 800k MPR minion. Pathetic offense.

Remember, the topic here is -multiminion- teams. I don't care how much damage a SFBM can do, because that's not the topic here. It's as silly as comparing a BoNE wielding BL minion's damage to that of a BoTH user's.


Oh yeah, Yukk, and my MPB at 850k MPR on Hejin was 1.2M, and against opponents without Evasion or with lower DX that was quad hits. There are ZERO mages at 850k MPR that have a potential for 4.8M damage a round. Trust me, the loose argument about the huge damage mages can do is not going to hold water in this thread.