Why do we have severe DD penalties in ranged? (in General)

I was discussing this with novice.

Why are their such hard penalties in ranged for DD spells?

Perhaps they should mirror the penalties ranged weapons have. That is penalties in the first 3 rounds, then they fire normally.

And again, I really really would like to see a skill for at least FB mages that let them "concentrate" and not hit their own minions in melee rounds.

"Perhaps they should mirror the penalties ranged weapons have."

Only if they have an 80% penalty in the first round like my SoD does.

The SoD does not have an 80% penalty in the first missile round.

Melee rounds are different as missile only tanks have those penalties.

For those curious about the ranged DD penalties, this is from the wiki:

Ranged penalties for Magic Damage

Without a Helm of Clearsight 58%/55%/52%/49%/46% reductions in rounds 1/2/3/4/5 respectively
With a Helm of Clearsight 58%/55%/52%/49%/46%/0% reductions in rounds 1/2/3/4/5/6 respectively

Read this: http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002hzN

I was being generous with my 80% guess.

Thank you Demi,

Those are quite severe penalties.

My initial feeling was that the penalties could be reduced by training DEX. The change would finally make DEX not completely useless for mages. However, unless there's also a hefty defensive bonus for DEX against damage, mages would still be better off just training the EXP into DD -- especially if the fights last numerous rounds.

As for removing the collateral damage from FB, I disagree. Doing that would make FB the obvious spell for most DD teams, overpowering it beyond the rest.

"As for removing the collateral damage from FB, I disagree. Doing that would make FB the obvious spell for most DD teams, overpowering it beyond the rest."

It would depend on how much XP is needed for the skill to be effective.

And again, I really really would like to see a skill for at least FB mages that let them "concentrate" and not hit their own minions in melee rounds.

You could have a different effect - The DD is more effective the less damage is taken in a round.



Of course, any skill would be good for mages. I was just using Armor Proficiency when I was playing a mage, and my armour wasn't even that good.

As with most skills, one would likely make any mage skill cost 1/5 to 1/4 the DD level.

Well, if you allow a skill to reduce/remove the collateral damage, that skill would become a standard necessity for players running that strategy -- just like archery for the majority of archers. That part I'm okay with. But what would happen to Fire Familiars? You wouldn't be able to junction the concentration skill, so the demand (read: usefulness) for them would plummet.

"But what would happen to Fire Familiars? You wouldn't be able to junction the concentration skill, so the demand (read: usefulness) for them would plummet."

Uh yeah you could?

I know, I know, the AoJ seems like magic, but it really isn't.

Ranged weapons also receive a 40% damage reduction. The DD penalties are technically 40% less.

Skills junction over to familiars. So a skill taking away the friendly fire of FB would work just fine on a FF.

You can junction skills onto familiars. Looks at dudemus's jig, it has evasion on it. The AoJ *is* magic.

" You can junction skills onto familiars. Looks at dudemus's jig, it has evasion on it. The AoJ *is* magic."

bloodlust now! ; )

I stand corrected. This would actually boost the interest in FF.

> bloodlust now! ; )

Enjoy it while it lasts :)

Those penalties include the ones that are also experienced by Ranged weapons. This happened when the number of rounds increased.

This is why you'll do more damage with your ELB in melee, but hit far less.

I really feel there isn't any real reason for ranged penalties for DD any longer. Just another archaic mechanic.

btw Nightstrike, that was very foreboding D:

It's becuase Ranged goes first, and can't do the same damage as Melee.

So we have linearly increasing DD that fire in Melee. And some that fire in both.

They have to be penalised in Ranged, so that people live to Melee, and Ranged and the first 6 rounds aren't the be all and end all of CB, while still having enough 'oomph' to hit with the same weght as Melee attacks in the Melee rounds.

If you got rid of the Ranged penalties we'd either have two cases;

1) Overall DD damage must be lowered to compensate, which makes DD damage in Melee craptastic (with no way of turning it off, unlike being able to Use a Melee Weapon to turn off a Ranged one)

2) DD damage remains the same and everyone dies to FB/MM in Ranged.

That being said, I'm loving the idea allowing Dexterity to Reduce the ranged penalties, this would give Mages reason to train DEX to dodge Dex based blows. SG/CoC would lose out though.

speaking of DD damage, I think it should be of a formula like a*(DD Level) ^b, with b being just over 1 (like 1.05)

something like 60% * FB Level ^ 1.05.

Reasons:
1) It compensate for the higher level of armor in the late game so that it do relatively constant damage while not doing too much in the early game.
2) We all know that the armor are only getting better as we approach total physical immunity. (TPI (TM))

But GL the reduced strength of the ranged DDs already compensate for the ability to fire first. If anything, I'd rather nerf their damage even more and get rid of ranged modifiers than have them hit for such a tiny portion of their strength in ranged.

"But GL the reduced strength of the ranged DDs already compensate for the ability to fire first."

Yeah. ;) That's why it's there. :P

"I'd rather nerf their damage even more and get rid of ranged modifiers than have them hit for such a tiny portion of their strength in ranged."

That's just an indirect buff to FB (and a nerf to MM, who would have had more rounds at full power before any such change). And it's only a buff to FB becuase of the Friendly Fire.

The Melee Rounds need to hit equivalently to Melee Weapons (for whatever internal base, x and number of hits per round this is balanced for) for DD to be of use.

The only case for lowering DD damage as a whole would be if its surpassing that of all equivalent Melee Weapons.

As an aside, would you be in favour of reducing Melee Weapon damage in order to remove Ranged Weapon penalties?

PK,

The recent huge nerf to armor has made armor far less effective and almost impossible to get to total physical damage immunity.

Add in ENC and only the highest tanks/walls can try to approach it.

The 40% was applied to both physical and ranged.

The actual penalties are pretty small, 30% in round one then decreasing from there.

Allow magic to hit multiple times a round based on the dex gap and the level of the spell. Effectively give each spell a hidden "pth" to determine how frequently it can be cast; FB/CoC would have very low pth (shallow curves) while MM would have a high pth (steep curve). Add the dex gap component and you make dex useful for mages as well...

Just thinking at 2 am...

Do FB/CoC then hit like the SoD? One to-hit check made versus the first target to determin how many/if all the rest of the targets are hit per round?

Or would this be calculated seperately for each minion attacked?