I have 750 shield and around 1k evasion. With the khri elusion buff, I have 1200 evasion.


You are under the influence of the Elusion meditation, which should last around 35 roisaen.
You are under the influence of the Sagacity meditation, which should last around 3 roisaen.
You are under the influence of the Serenity meditation, which should last around 35 roisaen.
You are under the influence of the Sight meditation, which should last around 35 roisaen.


Your shield ability is now set at 90%.
Your evasion ability is now set at 100%.


Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a good strike to your back!
>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a glancing strike to your left arm and screams into the night!
>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a good hit to your right arm, sending a sharp chill through the area.
>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a good strike to your chest, sending a sharp chill through the area.


You cringe.
You say, "Wow."


>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a good hit to your left leg!
>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a hard hit to your abdomen!
>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a solid hit to your left leg!
The faint roar emanating from Erixx's forearms suddenly ceases.


Erixx says, "1650 tm."
You say, "I'm at 70 vit."
You say, "Wow."


Your body feels battered.
Your spirit feels full of life.
You have some minor abrasions to the right arm, minor swelling and bruising around the left leg compounded by cuts and bruises about the left leg, some tiny scratches to the chest, minor swelling and bruising in the abdomen compounded by cuts and bruises about the abdomen, some tiny scratches to the back.



So... that's already disappointing. With more than 500 ranks of disparity between his TM and my general defenses, he was only able to reduce me by 30 vitality. BG should not be an "I win" button, I agree, but this nerf took it too far. At level, warmages were already unable to touch me with BG, and I had to go way out of my way to get what I would consider a trying fight. Erixx -should- be able to kill me with that much of a rank difference, no matter the spell. With general changes to combat in 3.1, I feel as though BG was never a big enough threat at even ranks to begin with. I only ever really feared it from opponents who I knew were already way stronger than me. We did another test to see if a more practical PVP situation would help. Erixx cast Ice Patch on me and then unleashed the BG barrage. I had the same khri up. These are the results:



You notice Erixx attempting to conceal his spell preparations.
With a few arcane words, Erixx's eyes darken unnaturally to a shade as black as a starless night!
>
Erixx gestures at you.
A sheet of slippery ice forms beneath you!
You slip and fall forward, slamming your face down on the ice.
You are stunned!
SP>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a good strike to your back and screams into the night!
SP>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a hard hit to your back and continues to barrel on some distance away!
SP>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
A gale bursts harmlessly by you, kicking up dirt and ripping at your clothes.
SP>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a solid hit to your chest!
SP>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a solid hit to your right arm!
SP>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a good strike to your chest!
SP>
Erixx makes a sharp overhand slapping motion at you.
You suddenly sense that your defenses have been beaten, and move to minimize the damage.
Your small shield is jerked away by a sudden gale!
The ice-cold wind lands a solid hit to your right eye!
The faint roar emanating from Erixx's forearms suddenly ceases.


You are still stunned.
You say, "Fifty..."
Erixx says, "Yeap."


Your body feels very beat up.
Your spirit feels full of life.
You have some tiny scratches to the right arm, minor swelling and bruising in the chest area compounded by cuts and bruises about the chest area, minor swelling and bruising in the back compounded by cuts and bruises about the back, some minor swelling and bruising around the right eye compounded by a black and blue right eye.



This is a little bit over an overkill in terms of a nerf. I was stunned and prone, adding to the already tremendous gap in our skills, and Erixx's BG barrage could only take me down to fifty percent vitality. I can't even imagine what this nerf did to WMs on an even playing field with their opponents, when, with such a difference in ranks, Erixx can come nowhere close to killing me now.

>>Erixx can come nowhere close to killing me now.

Unless he casts... 3 spells?

I suppose before the change Erixx could kill you with one cast of BG. But can he kill you with one cast of any other spell? Is BG now better or worse than other spells under the same conditions?

ASGM Ricinus
Core, Logistics, Survival
Cleric Advocate

>>1. You don't know.

That would be an inaccurate presumption. Sometimes when I ask a question, it's my intention to see if someone is willing to answer it honesty.

ASGM Ricinus
Core, Logistics, Survival
Cleric Advocate

>>I have to dance a perfect stealth dance or AE will destroy me in three hits.

And that is why AE is next on the chopping block already. The plan was to give it the same mechanics that BG has, but it didn't work out the way I expected during testing, so I'm holding off to do something a little different.

ASGM Ricinus
Core, Logistics, Survival
Cleric Advocate

>>I'm curious - what do you guys as the developers/balance people believe to be an acceptable amount of time for a fight that outmatched to last?

Personally, I'm less concerned with how long the entire fight lasts vs how various spells/abilities compare to each other with regard to costs and damage.

>> And should it be possible for it to go either way?

Possible? Well, depends on how overclassed the situation is, and how effective each participant is with using their ability set.

ASGM Ricinus
Core, Logistics, Survival
Cleric Advocate

AE and BG have slightly different problems. BG isn't targeted, so with the one cast you can direct it toward any target you choose, though without the targeting, the damage and tohit math can suffer. Because the spell is cast once and causes multiple hits, by all rights it should use the formulas of the multi-strike paradigm, because using the single strike numbers gives the caster 6 full powered spells for the price of 1, and that's way off the charts when we look at balance. In practice, without targeting to back it up, the spell ends up being a better tactical spell to use sporadically at the most opportune times to extend an advantage rather than to create one, especially since using it this way would incur no additional RT.

AE is a targeted spell, which I have already tried to scale back numerous times. I reduced the number of bolts. I made the bolts wildly inaccurate when the target leaves the caster's area, even more so if the target was moving quickly. Those changes have still left it as a spell that uses single strike mechanics, and still doing 3 times the damage per cast as any other single strike spell, when the target doesn't flee at least.

>>in that it is one of the primary offensive spells that clerics use in every fight.

By the way, this is generally how we know for certain that a spell is overpowered.

ASGM Ricinus
Core, Logistics, Survival
Cleric Advocate

Is the aim to give players personal preference in the damaging spells they use?

If the aim is to give all spells 'balance', wouldn't you have to make every spell essentially identical, with the only variance being the type of damage (read slice vs puncture, etc, and fire vs. holy, etc) and the cosmetic appearance of the spell? It seems that every time a guild gets a spell that is even remotely better than what is available to guild X or guild Y, the nerf-sledge gets brought out and the spell goes from being fun to useless, thus leaving a sour taste in the mouths of those who PvP.
Part of the appeal of each guild is their individual strengths and weaknesses, not just the cosmetic aspect. Figuring out how to work within and against those limitations is what makes the game fun, at least for me. Most guilds have something that makes them 'OP' when viewed from the outside, but in my estimation that is mostly just a 'grass is always greener' situation. In my opinion, less time should be devoted to trying to whitewash every guild so they're all equally unimpressive, and more time devoted to the things that players have been asking for for years, i.e. more/different critters, crafting halls, new areas, etc.

>The aim is to not have a couple of spells be so good that everyone feels like they have to have it to compete.

It seems the perception is less that this was the case and more that there was only one viable tool, and now it is unviable.

- Starlear, Warrior Mage and Lieutenant of Ilithi's Crystal Vanguard -

>>I'm not a fan of spell reviews when they are required, and the idea of doing one on a player's request seems a bit much to me.

Then yeah, I gotta agree with Erixx. Without already knowing and being able to speak to the numbers and ranges, why are you nerfing our spells when it appears you're taking away the only decent pvp damage we have?

Please roll back the changes to BG until we have a WM centric GM who knows our spells and can tweak to current game balances.

---

"Game balance is sobbing over in the corner as it considers the ramifications of AoE Blufmor Garaen. Your spell slots send their condolences." - GM Raesh

>>I'm not a fan of spell reviews when they are required, and the idea of doing one on a player's request seems a bit much to me.

Why? Who better to listen to than players who have been actively struggling with these issues for a while, players who experience the problems firsthand and see what is wrong in the context of regular gameplay? We are customers using your products and offering feedback on what we like and what we don't like and why. The spell review does not necessarily need to take place immediately. Through this thread, I never intended to suggest the impossible. I understand that there are priorities and other concerns and there are many, many players voicing many, many things, but this is something that relates to a common theme when any ability changes occur: PvP is, more often than not, negatively impacted. I understand that changes will always occur at their own pace when GMs are ready to dedicate their attention to the issue, but I want to draw attention to the fact that there -is- an issue, and that it -should- be acknowledged.

>Samsaren
That pretty much sums it all up.

I don't know if it was overly harsh when that's what we're told we're supposed to work with. BG was extremely strong but it was almost well tuned with how the rest of our TM toolkit mostly doesn't work in PVP situations. Can't snap cast at high amounts or backfire. Take damage and to hit reductions if we do cast early. Stun from any source(damage or debil) can make us completely lose the spell. Any type of line of sight issue(stealth, leaving the room, inviso) makes us lose our target pattern. Mana constraints when working with both keeping a target still and casting damage spells high enough to do reasonable damage. The time(usually lost) in a PVP situation when all these things are factored in. Harshness simply comes from the frustration when we're further penalized under a system that feels as if it's actively working against us at every turn.

>>Wouldn't BG fall into the same type of category as thrown? You are not actively targeting and thus you do not get the added benefit of the target bonus, which is similar to thrown vs bow/crossbow.

This, unfortunately, is something that had already existed before this nerf. A lot of people are misremembering the situation because their thinking is based on how 3.0 combat existed. At -that- time, yes, BG was kind of a crazy good spell that did equate to 6 fully prepared damaging spell charges. However, since the release of 3.1, where combat changes were overhauled and ranks were tightened, BG became much, much, much less powerful. I'm not sure if it was something changed within the spell's framework at the time, or whether it was just a byproduct from the general combat changes, but BG was, for all intents and purposes, working as intended. The mage had several charges of a spell that hit about as hard as, well, a thrown weapon for TM, if you wanna use that comparison.

Much like how thrown weapons are not as powerful in combat 3.1, BG too suffered that same fate. During even fights with mages who were around my level at that time, such as Artarashai, BG did practically nothing. In fact, I would go so far as to say that an even thief fighting an even warmage at the same level is... likely one of the most one sided fights that could occur. If anything, it feels as though this recent BG change was influenced by what people saw in much higher warmages unleashing havoc on much lower characters. Of course an Erixx or Venistrualis level mage is going to kill people in 4 hits, that's just the rank disparity. I feel as though GMs were not looking at enough data based on equal footing, and were instead focusing on how the situation looked from a lower player's perspective. I would be more than happy to offer my time to help test BG on several levels of adjustment if it could mean bringing some balance back to, what I think, is one of the most interesting spells that a WM has at their disposal.

>>Furthermore, are you not able to actively prep (and target) another spell while you have BG going on?

A WM can have BG up and cast whatever spells they want. That kind of limitation would definitely be too harsh against the WM.

Stupid question: can a WM stack up db/bg/mb/etc. and just point/spit/laugh to victory? Obviously I assume not because this discussion wouldn't be happening. Is the damage too low?

This thread answered both of those questions. Yes, every combination is too low, on every level of combat now. Stacking BG with DB is a good strategy, but DB also does little damage. It can be combined and supplemented, but the fact is that locking and targeting a TM is the WM's only option of damage at level, and it just can't be done. Their debilitaters lack the same level of power as other guilds, so they can't hold their opponents in the same room long enough, none of their immediate spells pull stealthy fighters out of hiding, and, well, their immediate attack options don't do enough.

Will someone with higher magic than mine do an at level-ish test for me?

find a buddy, buff yourself out, and perform the following sequence.

0) Have DB|BG already "on"

1) fire off a good debilitator - should be successful

2) prep your "best single shot tm spell" capped out to the gills

3) burn your db/bg

4) cast that spell

And share the results please?

---

"Game balance is sobbing over in the corner as it considers the ramifications of AoE Blufmor Garaen. Your spell slots send their condolences." - GM Raesh

>>And share the results please?

Is the target supposed to be simulating an AFK opponent, or is that unintentional?

It's going to depend on a lot of factors, some of which are hidden from the testers. You're not going to get much out of that other than "this seems like, to my subjective interpretation, not much/about right/a lot".




Mazrian

Not sure if it's up for discussion, but I thought the ideal BG nerf was just upping the per-strike RT to HT-level seconds rather than reducing the damage. Practically speaking, once cast it's just a TM-based elemental HT in my mind anyway. My fear with BG nerf was that it'd become the throwing blades of TM. It doesn't look like it's that bad, but it really doesn't look all that scary if its current damage is well represented by the OP, in which the target is the squishiest guild in the game.

BG's a really cool, unique spell I'd hate to see WMs stop using in PvP. Bear in mind this is my opinion based on the OP. I haven't done any first hand testing.