Why wouldn't you want Frostbite. AOE debil spell that knocks down and fatigues. If you like IP over that then you should go to WM Mentor nights.

PS I know that second sentence was snarky but I believe in tough love to have people learn to better themselves.

Not exactly a fix, but in case you didn't know, slot costs for some magic spells are going down. Most of those debil spells will cost less slots. Here is the list of current changes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zLgYXPfWNEA0E4g74CQkeFOgij2WPDMAud80KcCJvy8/mobilebasic

> That said, I'm super confused by your spell priorities. You're aiming for some pretty niche-use spells over some of the more powerful spells in the game!


Let me start off by saying I don't PvP, and I rarely if ever CvC. It's just not how my warrior mage plays. That said, maybe it's true that I just don't know what I'm missing, but that's a lot of slots lost to pre-reqs that are redundant. I'm okay with redundancy and theme in a tree, but as pre-reqs it just feels like wasted slots.

Single target debilitation: Arc Light(1), Anther's Call(2), Ice Patch (3)
AOE Debilitation: Frostbyte (4), Thunderclap (5)
Warding: AC (6)
TM: PW (7), MAB (8),
Utility: YS (9)

1. (-2) I used this to train debilitation while I waited for Eddy. Now that I have eddy, and I'm very happy with it, I don't have a need for AL. There is no PvE situation that I've thought that I need one single target debilitator. I can hit everything already, and I prefer an AOE debilitator.
2. (-1) Requirement for Aegis. Stats + Shield, yes please. Immobilization? Has the same problems as #1.
3. (-2) Requirement for rimefang, apparently a good killer. That may make me want frostbyte for debilitation [cyclic], but I'm not there yet. IP has the same problems as #1. I haven't needed a single target debilitator, let alone 3.
4. (-0-4*) Marked as a 0 because I may want it later (when I can combine it with AOE TM spells), but for now it's the barrier to rising mist. Something I think I'm going to need to keep training stealth.
5. (-2-4) I see this as a pre-req to shockwave. If I get frostbyte, then I don't see why I would want this spell. If I need things to get out of melee with me (stun them) then I'd just shockwave them away.
6. (-2) I don't like this spell because it hinders outgoing magics, and I don't need to hide from anyone. I see this solely as a pre-req for Aegis and maybe MoF.
7. (-2) Again, I don't PvP, so I don't need a way to control engagement on a single mob.
8. (-3) I think this is a great spell thematically, but I don't have a use for it in PvE. It's a pre-req for Aegis.
9. (-1) I hear nothing but bad things about this spell. I'd love for it to have a -stealth hinderance, but I don't see a reason to cast it as it stands.


Again, please tell me why I'm wrong, but I'm seeing this as it stands I see 15-21 slots being lost solely to pre-reqs. Many of those redundant with each other. That seems higher than it should be.

>6. (-2) I don't like this spell because it hinders outgoing magics, and I don't need to hide from anyone. I see this solely as a pre-req for Aegis and maybe MoF.

Doesn't hide you anymore. Also its cyclic warding. IDK what you have but my 912 ranks in warding are from this spell. Pick up Lay Ward for when you need to lock TM, but running this is one of the greatest trainers WM have. Also it makes TM critters actually huntable without stun stun stun death until you can evade there spells.

Not sure you are Warmaging right if you don't like AC

Also MOF isn't really needed with EE now, in my opinion. Paralysis = more better to hit then +ranks of weapon you are holding.

TC is def < Frostbite. Knockdown with fatigue while hunting is WAY better then a stun.

WM mentor night for you son.

> WM mentor night for you son.

My warmie was at the last mentor night. It was lots of fun. I'll definitely be back.

> Some of the spells you list are great for invasions, or for PvP, and getting them on your path to other spells makes you well rounded and able to handle all of the types of encounters you can have in the game, what is bothering you is that your particular path makes those spells less desirable.

That's fair, but is there any reason not to do something similar to what I proposed?

> sometimes being forced to take a spell thats good for X thing, even though you don't do X thing all the time, will help you out when X thing happens to you.

I'd counter by suggesting that not all mages shouldn't have the same tools. We already lose spell slots to enhance our guild ability, so we shouldn't lose additional slots just for the sake of forcing war mages into a set spell path.

>>Let me start off by saying I don't PvP, and I rarely if ever CvC. It's just not how my warrior mage plays. That said, maybe it's true that I just don't know what I'm missing, but that's a lot of slots lost to pre-reqs that are redundant. I'm okay with redundancy and theme in a tree, but as pre-reqs it just feels like wasted slots. <<

I do think there are some things you aren't considering. Not all spells are useful all the time, and especially for hunting it's not uncommon to need just a few. For example, the only non-buff spells I cast for effect while hunting are Tremor, Zephyr and Fireball. It's not that those spells are the best in the books; they just work for what I'm trying to do.

I think there are some points you are not appreciating. For instance, there are some general qualities that favor single-target over AOE when you don't need to debilitate the whole room. Single-target debilitators prepare faster (8 seconds vs 12) than AOE debilitators, have longer potential durations, and are easier to cast. If you stun a room full of creatures or knock everything over, they all stop attacking and your defense learning will be impacted. And when Magic 3.2 rolls out single-target debil spells will cap with half the mana that AOE debil spells do. Spells of the same type also have differences that can be useful to exploit.

Ice Patch, Arc Light, and Anther's Call are all single-target Debil but Ice Patch and Anther's Call use a Reflex contest while Arc Light uses a Fortitude contest. Arc Light might work where the others don't or vice versa depending on the stats of the target. Arc Light and Ice Patch both stun the target as their primary effects, but some targets are immune to stunning and Anther's Call will be effective on those. Anther's Call has environmental limitations and Ice Patch doesn't work on targets that can't fall down (this is sort of inconsitent, tangentally). Good reasons exist to have all three.

Thunderclap and Frostbite do different things. You may not be able to drop your targets to the ground with Frostbite in one cast, where you could get a quick stun with Thunderclap that gives you the space you need. And some things will be unaffected by one spell or the other. I'm not saying you need both - I only took Thunderclap - but each has its merit.

Aether Cloak is an amazing Warding trainer (AC is like Eddy, in terms of training, just for Warding) and when I end up breaking down and going to Cabalists I'll probably use it all the time for anti-TM.

With due respect to everyone who likes Paeldryth's Wrath, I don't think there is any legitimate use for PW and I also hate having to spend 2 slots on it. Instead of shoving something and PWing it back to melee (where it will just stand up), why not Ice Patch it and skip a step? IDGI.

Magnetic Ballista is a neat spell in the situations where you want to camp in one spot and maximize your damage output. Unfortunately that doesn't come up very much.

YS is not great, because armor skill buffs just aren't that great. Hopefully either is function or the function of armor ranks will change in the future so that's not true. =(

In conclusion, OP, of the spells you've listed the only ones I think one should consider wasted slots are Paeldryth's Wrath and Y'ntrel Sechra.

Mazrian

>>PW would be a lot better if you could choose melee, pole or missile and you'd get pulsing blasts of air for a 2-10 spell duration to keep targets at the range you chose imo.

Maybe if it attempted to keep the target at the selected range for like 40 seconds. That would make it slightly less annoying than being Soul Bonded, but still useful.

>>YS if it was -stealth hinderance, -manuevering hinderance for plate, chain, brig.

That would be a lot better, yeah.

Mazrian

> With due respect to everyone who likes Paeldryth's Wrath, I don't think there is any legitimate use for PW and I also hate having to spend 2 slots on it.

Mazian, I appreciate the time you've taken to write the responses, but I think this line echos a major part of the point I'm trying to make. Different spells are valued differently by different people. You may love arc light because you put yourself into a position to use it. I may intentionally keep my character out of that position, so I don't value it as highly. That's great. It means that we aren't carbon copies and cookie-cutters. It's differentiation and character uniqueness, with all the flaws and benefits that provides. What I'm proposing is a way to better customize your mage without hurting other mages.

Warrior mages are in a fairly rare position for casters. Being magic prime, they can get a large number of slots (92), but they have so many spells that they cannot pick up all of them by max level. They also use spells to augment their guild ability. That's like a moon mage using spell slots to align predictions or use telescopes. This isn't a complaint, but it is a fact that this further restricts warrior mage slots.

* There are 33 slots worth of feats,
* 9 slots worth of ability enhancement (summon weapon),
* 91* slots worth of spells. *We start with the base 91 slots we have now, let's reduce that to 90 because air bubble. The recosting will reduce that by 9 bringing us to 81 slots, but the barrier change will add 10 more slots which brings us back to 92.

That's a total of 133 spendable slots at 150. You're going to have to eliminate 42 slots worth of abilities: actives, and passives. Lightening the pre-reqs only makes that easier to do, and it lets you more easily tailor your mage how you want to tailor it. It's not how someone else would tailor it, and it may change periodically, but that's okay. That's dynamic game play.

>>YS if it was -stealth hinderance, -manuevering hinderance for plate, chain, brig.

Even though it is an extremely neat function, I strongly doubt that 2.0 YS is going to make a comeback, since it essentially removed a core aspect of WMs being armor tert.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I think any prereq scheme is consistent with goal of having guilds offer more options than available slots, and some may be more appropriate than what we have now for a game in which there are many more spell choices.

For instance, instead of prereqs being constructed along elemental lines, they could be constructed along functional lines. ie: There could be a path for TM spells, for Debil spells, etc.




Mazrian

> Spitballing, by way of example.

That's the direction I'm suggesting. Redundant spells fulfill each other's pre-reqs. I think thematically it makes sense to have meta spells (elementalism++) that fulfil those requests, but we're essentially saying the same thing at this point (with our own flavors).

>>This problem was already acknowledged and fixed on the first tier of spells. I'm simply asking for that fix to be extended to the upper tiers as well.

Elementalism is a 0 slot metaspell that lets you bypass 4 slots that are redundant spells that are there to serve as a way to make sure every WM takes a TM spell as their first spell. Once you are past that barrier it makes sense to let you bypass the others to gain access to the rest of the spell books.

The next level in the WM spellbook consists of 26 spell slots. How do you justify metaspells that let you bypass all/some of those slots since they are spells that are not redundant to each other, and how does that not make slot choices mean less?

Pre-reqs exist in all spellbooks for a reason. If they wanted the more powerful/unique spells to be available without investment in that elemental branch then they would have just made every spell available after Elementalism. They didn't do that because they want you to invest in each branch to get the better spells, and for you to have to make hard choices with your spell slots. It sounds like they have been successful in doing that with the WM spellbook. Lets hope they can do it with the rest of the guilds.

tl;dr It's working as intended and it just sounds like you don't agree with the GMs that you should have to make choices with your spell slots.

> As long as you're assuming taking all the magic feats is even a semi-reasonable thing to do you're going to be disappointed with the number of spells your remaining slots can buy.

> We can't buy all of our spells, without any magical feats, at max level. There are several feats that I would call mandatory, and many more that are highly valued. With all of that in mind, I think having the ability to tailor your own progression should be seriously considered. Spells that are artificially inflating costs for the high powered/high utility spells seem both against the magic 3.* paradigm and not something we should be forced to spend slots on.

I agree

>>> I don't see them re-working pre-reqs to make it easier for WMs to get more spells/feats.

Personally, I believe that every spell should have two or more optional prerequisites where possible and logical. Although this is not a goal of the GMs' they have slowly moved toward spell tress that reflect it, in my opinion. My last attempt to make reasonable suggestions to improve the spells trees of the characters I play (MM, Cleric and Necro) didn't amount to much. Although the Analagous Patterns tree is the ultimate example, the Necromancer spell tree is one I think is very well done with prerequisites:

https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Necromancer_spells

These are my comments for the warrior mage tree:
1) Overall, most of the trees are well done as is.
2) PW is the sole prereq for Vertigo and Thunderclap, possible include one or both of the other T2 spells as alternate prereqs would help. Those spells are fundamentally different in character, however
3) Frostbite is the only prerequisite for Rising Mists and Ice Patch for Rimefang but you need one of those for Veil of Ice or Fortress of Ice. Unlike the air tree, I don't see why this makes sense based on the character of the spells themselves.
4) Tingle makes about as much sense as Arc Light for Electrostatic Eddy and might make a reasonable alternative prerequisite, especially given that the same idea was used for lightning bolt.

>>> While I like the A/B options that show up in the Necro spell tree (mainly because I dislike VOD/like PV, am okay with BUE/think KS is silly, and love CH/PHP but think WORM isn't worth it), in the end they're mostly straight lines.

It was more the A/B options I was referring to. I agree that there are a lot of straight lines in other spell books, but the prereqs are mostly logical. The animation, SC and TN trees are pretty much perfect the way they are. BB and CF could have HP as their prereq, but the structure is OK as is (BB does have the better argument for change). You could argue that EoTB should have Obf as its' prerequisite and maybe that RoC and RoG should require any of the other three as a prereq.

If you want a good example of a tree that needs a lot of work (in my opinion), both the Ranger and Paladin spells trees have almost no options, with the Ranger tree being the worse offender. Having said that in some cases the paladin spells have a prerequisite that is more advanced.

https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Ranger_spells
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Paladin_spells