I personally am excited for novice WMs; access to eddy and CL at low levels (probably around 20 to have the TM, debil, and feats) is awesome. I played one a while back and it was a lot of fun shooting kinda-mostly-maybe aoe fireballs, but to have a full blown aoe spell at level 20 is so cool.

>>* Loss of burst damage potential (DB+BG).

Huh?

>>1* More elemental damage, less physical damage.

Huh?

My summary:

A bunch of spells that you care about are getting cheaper.

Electrostatic Eddy - 2 slots instead of 3
Chain Lightning - 1 slot instead of 2
Tremor - 2 slots instead of 4
Shockwave - 2 slots instead of 4
Frostbite - 2 slots instead of 4

A spell you might sort of have cared about got more expensive.

Zephyr - 2 slots instead of 1.

Overall the WM package costs 7 less slots, which is very nice.

Frostscythe is a thing and is armor piercing. It's awesome, go test it out.

Dragon's Breath is way better as Heavy TM than it is now. Has a longer cooldown but hits harder. Go test it out.

Weighting of lightning spells toward mostly electricity - dunno, might be better.

Weighting of spells with only physical damage toward one component or the other - possibly a push, possibly makes them more powerful. Dunno, go test.

Weighting of BG, Rimefang to physical component - Not a fan, not as strong as when balanced between physical and elemental.

Elemental Efficacy - this is...different. Sometimes it makes a big difference and sometimes not. It's going to be weird until you get used to it.

Overall WMs are making out very well and I wouldn't complain about anything but the BG/Rimefang changes.

Mazrian

>>* Loss of burst damage potential (DB+BG).

You haven't really lost burst potential here because DB now does a lot more damage, only problem now is the cooldown is longer from the get go. I did enjoy the Heavy version in test, though.

>>A bunch of spells that you care about are getting cheaper.

The vast amount of spell slot reductions has made me excited for this for update from the get go.

>>Frostscythe is a thing and is armor piercing.

I'm not as optimistic about FRS because I feel its too niche, but that doesn't make it bad. I think it's going to take some time outside of Test to determine whether its worth the slots.

>>1* More elemental damage, less physical damage.

This isn't across the board. FR and some Electricity spells were weighted more towards their elemental components, that's a definite boost. Some spells (Rimefang and BG) were weighted towards their physicals, that's a definite downgrade.

>>Elemental Efficacy - this is...different. Sometimes it makes a big difference and sometimes not. It's going to be weird until you get used to it.

I think Efficacy is meant to balance out the fact that the other Magic Primes have things that effect their mana already (Moon phases, Devotion). I'm not sure its something anyone will ever fully be able to account for in their casting, other than hunting areas.

>>You can't shoot off as many DBs in a short amount of time, and for some reason I thought DB and BG was going to share a timer so you couldn't double up. I'm probably wrong here. The heavy TM component of DB may mean more burst.<<

IMO it's an improvement. DB as it is now is a pretty weak attack even if you catch your target at the right moment. Heavy DB is a nice big bomb in the same circumstances.


Mazrian

Dunno. Hard for me to get good impressions because all the stuff in my skill range that is fire rainable either has a ton of fire resistance (Cabalists, Wyverns) or a ton of cold resistance (Ice Archons, also way more buff than Cabs).

Though maybe I could test on Armadillos now that I think about it.

Theoretically Fire Rain got a little better than it was and Rimefang a little worse.



Mazrian

<<can the scythe be picked up?

Nope, it just is a messaged effect now rather than creating an actual object. That part of the old Frost Scythe exists as Icy Infusions in combination with summoned weapons now.

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<< Shape weapon to Scythe option added if we have icy infusions

It technically is already, since the crafted scythe template is exactly identical to the crafted bardiche template which is already the turned form of the halberd shape. Changing the template that form points to from bardiche to scythe seems like a reasonable request to make of Javac as a nod to the past that only really amounts to a noun change from the player's point of view.

<<or even more fun have shape weapon to small scythe, scythe, large scythe to cover small, large and two-handed scythes like it used to?

This wouldn't be as likely at all, since they'd have to create completely new crafting templates to cover these.

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aw, at least it's being thought about. i liked its gruesome messaging. i apparently liked it so much a saved some from back in the early 2000s... it made organs flop outside the body! fun! :)

You gesture at a glutinous lipopod.
A lance of silvery-blue light forms between your hands. Turning slightly, you throw the lance at the lipopod!
A sickening crunch fills the air as the aether lance pierces its left cheek, shattering the bone and covering its chin in steaming blood.
The air fills with an ear-piercing squeak as the glutinous lipopod collapses and dies.

A lance of silvery-blue light forms between your hands. Turning slightly, you throw the lance at the lipopod!
A line of liquid fire forms on its chin as the missile parts its skin and reveals the bloody mass of bone beneath.
The air fills with an ear-piercing squeak as the glutinous lipopod collapses and dies.

You gesture at a glutinous lipopod.
A lance of silvery-blue light forms between your hands. Turning slightly, you throw the lance at the lipopod!
The shaft of shimmering aether strikes its neck at an angle, piercing the skin with gruesome force. Barely missing the major artery, the lance drives into the bone of its spine.
The air fills with an ear-piercing squeak as the glutinous lipopod collapses and dies.


Your spirit feels strangely stronger.
>
Your spirit's overwhelming strength subsides, returning to normal.

You gesture at a rock troll.
A lance of silvery-blue light forms between your hands. Turning slightly, you throw the lance at a rock troll!
The majority of its chest disappears as the lance pierces its body in a spray of blood and bone and gore. Fragments of reddish-white bone pierce its skin, and one of its organs flops uselessly outside of its body.

You gesture at a blue-belly crocodile.
A lance of silvery-blue light forms between your hands. Turning slightly, you throw the lance at a blue-belly crocodile!
The lance pierces its ear with a wet popping sound, swiftly traveling into its head to erupt from the other side in a spray of bone, blood and grey matter.