You don't. Its terrible, laughably so. Just one of those things that was never fixed to be worth using.

> You don't. Its terrible, laughably so. Just one of those things that was never fixed to be worth using.
This is the correct answer.

I made some suggestions for Pathways and Barrage a while back. Pathways mostly need some QoL changes to be usable, while Barrage needs a full rewrite. Feel free to take a look at my older posts and comment if you're interested. Or post your own suggestions if you think I'm totally off-base. It's possible some good suggestions being thrown the GM's way might inspire someone to work on them.

Pathways - http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/The%20Warrior%20Mages/Suggestions%20-%20Warrior%20Mages/view/1152
Barrage - http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/The%20Warrior%20Mages/Suggestions%20-%20Warrior%20Mages/view/1153

- Saragos

it works alright, it gives an accuracy buff to your weapon, so I found using it with a bash or a chop did pay off.

but I can only do one or two with a full charge pool.

if I could focus pathway barrage, and use up my pool while making more accurate strikes, that would be quite awesome.

-Munch-

I like the concept.

>>- Touch your elemental weapon (or any weapon) to store up a (or many?) TM spells, and then barrage later to unleash it (them) with a strike.

This is moon mage territory, not that they have a monopoly, but I'd rather be different.

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"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

>> This is moon mage territory, not that they have a monopoly, but I'd rather be different.

It's not Moon Mage territory, it's Cleric territory. Dang moonies just ripped off Osrel Meraud and planted it into their fancy blades.

> - Touch your elemental weapon (or any weapon) to store up a (or many?) TM spells, and then barrage later to unleash it (them) with a strike.

As someone who doesn't use elemental weapons and doesn't intend to, my hope would be that we could keep systems from requiring them so that they don't become, essentially, a spell slot tax for being a WM.

- Saragos

Barrage would have to be a totally unrecognizable new ability to be worth a spell slot.

---

"Warrior Mages don't bother covering up their disasters.

They're proud of them."
-Raesh

> Barrage would have to be a totally unrecognizable new ability to be worth a spell slot.

Agreed. I would take it as a spell slot if it let me infuse my weapon with a TM spell that fired with each attack (like bless or ignite without the randomness of ignite).

> It'd be neat if Barrage tied into elemental weapons, training either TM or Summoning in some capacity, and effectively allowed the user to 'do spell like attacks' with a weapon, sort of 'elemental martial arts'. These attacks could consume Attunement and/or Charge.

I think there is some low-hanging fruit here. Something with high impact and low dev time.

1. Barrage no longer teaches summoning, but it gives us charge instead of costing it. Formula remains the same. The - is flipped to a +. This indirectly teaches summoning allowing better use of pathways.

2. Barrage teaches TM based on an average of weapon skill and TM skill. It's a case to use it often to learn TM when you might otherwise be capped on a creature.

3. Barrage finishes the prep and target on the TM spell before it casts it. Prep fb 100 -> wait 0 seconds -> barrage -> Full target FB goes off on your target BEFORE your weapon hits. No mana cost, maybe a slight messaging change to suggest you used your connections to the elements to fuel the spell.

I'm solidly in the camp of keeping barrage decoupled from elemental weapons. I love elemental weapons. I think they were a pretty neat addition to the guild, I use them a lot for training extra weapons, I like that they can be made good enough so that you wouldn't be too handicapped if you wanted to kind of create your character around them. But, I don't want to /have/ to use elemental weapons to make use of other guild abilities.

I remember thinking how cool of an idea barrage was when it came out, so it is definitely disheartening that it is so cumbersome/ineffective.

My ideas aren't too much different than some of the other suggestions, but maybe more focused on the "tweak enough to make it usable" side, vs "here is how we can completely change it to make it awesome/worthwhile" side.

1. Decouple it from the active pathways. Especially with the changes to charge gain/usage where starting a pathway has a larger upfront cost, it is annoying to have to toggle your pathway on and off in order to use Barrage.

2. Improve the overall balance of the ability. There are a number of ways to improve the balance of any ability, and this one is generally under-powered, which is why people don't use it. Bringing it up could be done by tweaking any of the different balance points of frequency of use, charge cost, ability effectiveness. Right now it can be used as frequently as you have a spell ready to cast, it uses a large amount of elemental charge, and is not much more effective than just attacking then casting, or vice versa. Frequency of use I don't think could really be tweaked faster to improve the balance, the way the ability works. I would be in favor of adding a sort of internal cool-down similar to heavy TM or something, and then reducing the elemental charge usage and greatly increasing the abilities effectiveness. As less of a tweak, I would also be in favor of reducing the elemental charge usage and increasing the effectiveness by a smaller amount.

While I dont think Barrage should necessarily need an elemental weapon, I think it would be cooler if it "charged up" a weapon with an elemental spell, and when you struck with it, it unleashed an effect of some sort. I dont necessarily think it needs to be the spell. I thematically like the idea of charging up a weapon with magic power and unleashing it like a laser beam of frost/fire/whatever, or charging up an arrow or bolt and when it hits it does something similar. Thats how I personally see Magic/weapon blended together to a "barrage". Personally I dont particularly find anything exciting about casting a spell and slicing something at the same time. I can do that already with only a minimal RT difference.

Thats just my 2c.

>>To be fair, barrage also improves the effectiveness of the melee attack; just not by a lot. If all it did was put the spell cast and melee attack together to save one second of RT with a huge elemental charge hit, then it would possibly be the worst ability in the game, instead of just really bad.

Its pretty close to what I described, at least thats how it feels

Sorry, that's supposed to be

Scenario #3 - element #1 weapon, element #1 spell

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"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 do like the idea of BARRAGE being a Warmie only combat move (similar to SLICE or LUNGE) that interacts in some way shape or form with Summoning, TM, and the used Weapon.

I like this path as well. I have been out a while so am ignorant of the caps, but my suggestion for barrage is something that takes a page from barbarian analyze. For instance, the barrage command lists two random attacks from your current weapon and two TM spells currently in your spellbook. Completing the sequence within 60 seconds results in the final attack, whether weapon or spell, seeing a worthwhile increase in damage and accuracy. With enough skill, averaged between TM, summoning and held weapon skill, the final attack could approach the damage cap for its category. This would also result in worthwhile summoning experience and consume less charge with more skill.

The specifics are better left to folks who work with such things but this might make things a little more interesting and make the payoff worthwhile.

A weapon modification would be nice, like elemental cambrinth.

Maybe with enchanting?

---

"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

>>Maybe barrage can help break past barriers.

Thats a thought, although I feel like the pathways would be better suited for that from a make-sense perspective but whatever.

Pathways, Barrage and regular, are on my list to investigate updates/fixes to. There's just not much we can do to a TM spell to make it better. Faster targeting, more damage, more accuracy... These are also not equally powerful buffs.

>Touch your elemental weapon (or any weapon) to store up a (or many?) TM spells, and then barrage later to unleash it (them) with a strike.

I want to make a WM spell battery of some type since both other Magic prime guilds have one, but determining what that would look like has been a major block for me. I don't want it to be a copy of either existing ability, but not sure how else to do it.

>As someone who doesn't use elemental weapons and doesn't intend to, my hope would be that we could keep systems from requiring them so that they don't become, essentially, a spell slot tax for being a WM.

I have no intention of adding more functionality on top of Elemental Weapons, for this exact reason. Some people find it useful and some don't. To me, that is the mark of a well balanced ability so I don't want to tweak it too much.

Please continue throwing ideas out. I'm reading (if a bit delayed).

Javac
That one guy

If you have questions or comments in regard to this post please email me at DR-JAVAC@play.net.

> I want to make a WM spell battery of some type since both other Magic prime guilds have one, but determining what that would look like has been a major block for me. I don't want it to be a copy of either existing ability, but not sure how else to do it.

Some ideas:

* Barrage, as stated. Cast a TM spell at your weapon. The blade stores it. You can store up x number of spells based on your summoning+tm skill. You then unleash fury with each attack.

* Make it a little different than usual by not making it a spell battery. Instead, make it an elemental charge + mana battery. Cast the battery. Whenever you gain a charge, it stores a bit in the spell. Invoke the spell to have it do something flashy, give you charge back, and then refil your mana bar by a suitable amount based on the return.

* Make the battery not store the spell, but store "time". You can put fully prepped spells into the battery. Then you invoke it. The next spell you target is immediately fully targeted and seconds are drained from the battery. The battery could say this was elemental fury or something to make it thematically appropriate.

* Make it your familiar. You can touch the familiar when you have a fully prepped TM spell. The next time you cast that spell, the familiar casts it with you. Double the damage.

* Cast it. It creates an orb of aether energy around you. Mana you would normally gain is fed into the orb until full. At any time, you can point at something and it casts in rapid succession one of each basic TM spell you know until it runs out of mana.

* You, three other warrior mages, and an empath can each get a sigilated ring aligned to a different element. Charge them up. Raise them into the air and summon an elemental that lays waste to your enemies.

* You can have it extend off aether cloak. Any harmful spell cast at you is stored up. When you point at something, all of that magic is released at some level of power and sent back to the caster.

* You can raise up elemental totems to protect you. They're centered on the room you're in. It's a ritual spell to summon them. Then you can invoke the totems to enhance all the spells on you and in the room, doubling their duration. So a spell battery, but not a battery, but useful all the same. This takes a full charge, and you can do it as often as you want so long as you have a full charge to expend.

* Store up x basic spells of the same alignment. The next time you cast a spell, one of those stored is cast along side it. Casting spells counter to your alignment will cause the spell to fizzle.

> I have no intention of adding more functionality on top of Elemental Weapons, for this exact reason.

Fair, but there's so much more we can do with this without forcing someone to summon an elemental weapon, per se. For example, allow elemental weapon infusions to work on mundane weapons. While it's transformed, it will bond to you. Being attracted to your person. The transformation can sometimes cast a full prep of the basic spell it's aligned to (what barrage is now, but minus the full prep).

>>The lore, perhaps, could be something involving Aether, perhaps holding the spell pattern in stasis or holding the energies in a pocket and then unleashing them. Something along those lines that uses the WM confound.

Sounds like a sigilated ring... but for buffs. I think its a cool concept though.


>>I’d like to really see Barrage be its own thing, its own special attack, though. This is because we have a LOT of TM spells and it would be very hard to balance between them. I think a nice way of approaching it would be to allow the intro spells covered by Elementalism only, and let them “flavor” the attack. We know that everyone has one of those spells, and it saves us from having to try to balance the ability against the entire WM arsenal.

Agreed. I think Barrage should have different effects based on what element you want to barrage with. I think thematically the attack + tm is boring. Just make them their own thing imo.

>>The Ethereal Pathways are another matter. If TM doesn’t have enough ways we can make it better, it might be appropriate to just re-imagine the entire system as something else drawing on the WM’s connection to the planes, perhaps providing extra “things” that TM spells could do based on each element. A slowdown effect perhaps for ice, a burning DOT for fire, etc.

Pathways really need to be able to boost a TM spell to be able to bypass wards and magic resistance imo. Right now they just dont seem to do anything at all for the most part.

It would be neat if barrage allowed 2 Tm spells to be used at once with a cool down ala DB. Couldn't be contrasting elements (ex Fire and Water) and had to be single target (multi-strike single OK like FS). Some how target and 'absorb' the spell and then target a second one and unleash both at same time.

>path focus barrage

>target fs 50

Fully targeted

spell 'absorbs'

>target lb 50

fully targeted

spell 'absorbs'

>barrage

Unleash hell!

I dont feel an improvement to tm is really needed. Maybe additional options like a hot styled tm mediated dispel, or dots or dats or such, but i think that's all sort of just pulling more cherries on an already fairly cherried sunday.

What sets and could continue to further set warmies apartfrom moonies and clerics, i feel, is magical physical combat. Barrage coud be the guild skill that does a mess of things around that. Anti magic, enhanced elemental, adding debuffs or buffing the warmie, restoring or soending attunement, etc.

Personally i think spell batteries have been done already. While useful, i think the gyst should either be make OM an analogous pattern spell or dont try and duplicate it for other guilds. Magic users should have to maintain their buffs, and its already overpowered that clerics can perpetually keep their buffs up with fairly minimal investment or effort, though, keeping buffs up isnt that tricky anyway given even simple scripts.