For some time, we've been discussing the significant impact of the change to Immolate and the desire to regain some measure of equilibrium for the wizard. There are a lot of colloquial phrases being thrown around to emphasize both the up side and down side of this discussion.

At its core, wizards enjoyed approximately 60% first strike / kill success with a highly mutant build called the 'Immo build'. The path is said to have required dedication, but in truth it wasn't a viable power build until sometime around 95 trainings - as such it was often 'fix-skilled' into, rather than trained in level after level. But once that build could be sustained in mana in a hunting ground, it became 'easy street', for the wizard.

We've spent a good amount of time talking about the impacts of various profession abilities. I think GMs and players agree that the spiritual professions have first strike / kill success ratios that are very high - but the agreement on whether there's parity ends there. Two driving factors are usually referenced - both of which evolve around the mana required to power the spiritual builds versus the mana the wizard can generate / sustain.

With the implementation of 950, wizards are a dominant force on the field of battle with multiple creatures. The problem is that most players will seek to avoid a field of battle with multiple creatures. So while useful - it's usefulness to offset this problem of High Kill Ratio is limited to happenstance based on what the wizards posting say. It's not a 'tool' for hunting so much as an escape hatch.

With all of these challenges, perhaps the answer is to find a way to address the mana situation directly. One possible suggestion:

Elemental Companion (940)
Combat
Duration 30 seconds
Refreshable
Cast on Familiar
Special - while active and for 10 minutes after spell ends, wizard is completely mana leech fatiqued and gets no return from leeching mana
Adds to AS / CS at base 25 / 15
Fire lore adds to AS / CS +1 per seed 1 (2?)
Water lore reduces mana required by subsequent spells cast by Elemental Companion

When this spell is cast, the familiar becomes surrounded by a <insert customizable, fluff description> aura. When the wizard attacks, the spell Elemental Companion allows the familiar to recast the same spell, or a preset spell stored for the familiar's use when the Elemental Companion is 'evoked'.

Add description / abilities / restrictions to suit. The key point is that trainable lores by the wizard will have some effect, and that mana cannot be generated in the field by leeching, to offset one of the more inequitable challenges wizards have in contrast to other pures. The variability (storing a specific spell for the familiar to use) allows the wizard benefits on the battlefield rather than just mindlessly recasting the same spell more powerfully. This should - if managed properly - allow the wizard to draw upon the totality of his / her complete arsenal to facilitate the single target high kill ratio goal.

Let's see others!

Doug

Unfortunately, this doesn't address any of the points I raised or solve the problem. Mana isn't the concern. Further, a single second spell cast is not going to solve the problem of attrition-based bolting and its weaknesses with EBP, etc. vs. the warding system. 950 barely delivers the solution as it is with 6 shots.

I play a paladin (shield, ohb, thw, polearm) and wizard (pure). I have a few other alts of various profession somewhere between level 20 - 30.

My level 90 paladin does not kill single targets very fast compared to the other melee classes. He is pretty much un-killable with a tower shield and only dies to my own silliness and maneuvers. He also loves groups of 4 or 5 bandits where I can cast judgement and then mstrike once or twice and kill all the bandits. As long as the mobs don't use maneuvers he loves big groups as he's awesome at killing big groups and can fry very quickly. I do have 30 ranks of ambush and can brain mobs most of the time for an insta kill or focus mstrike for 4 hits if they can't be crit killed. My point bringing him up is that I don't feel he has similar abilities to other semis or squares. Paladins feel very unique to me and different compared to the other semis.

My wizard is GoS and loved it before level 20 as he had a large supply of major fire wands and it took about 2 minutes to fry in a warcamp. Most mobs can't even get through my wizards DS with self spells and a small statue. Add in some blues and he really can't be warded by most mobs either. Once earthern fury was released it was pretty much LOL all day while hunting as everything on land became ridiculously easy. He's currently breezing through Griffon's Keen and Wyneb Temple (Just using non-channeled steam bolts against griffons and boil earth with tonis bolt and steam bolts against everything else) at level 65.

I'm leveling a sorcerer and cleric right now and maybe they are ridiculously easy at post cap, but my sorecerer struggles to kill nearly as well as my wizard did at level 20 and he has +25 aur and wis and is tripled training in spells. He gives up a lot to triple spells compared to my wizard who seems to be able to train in everything I want and has 30 air, 20 fire, 20 earth, and 5 water lore at level 65. Wizard spells are 40 major, 40 minor, and 57 wizard and my wizard just mows through mobs all day long like its nothing.

Have ya considered that the trade off for wizards is that its really easy to level to 100, but they're not as powerful as sorcerers and clerics at post cap because the grind to 100 is a struggle for them compared to wizards?


As I gaze over the horizon, the wind tugs at my cloak and whispers, "Adventure" in my ear.

AIM: Kaight (Matt) GS4

Already going off topic? sheesh! Bards.....they are horrible.

Ok my main problem with my wizard (he is a Halfling so his -5 AUR bonus shows up here) is CS. For that I have always been over trained in Major Elemental spells because he needed it the extra oomph. Recently I have come back down to earth and am at a 102 MjE, 77 MnE, 87 Wizard and a 202 lore build and boy has that hurt my 516. I wanted to try a 202 build before I decided once and for all how I wanted for him to go. He is a lightning mage. (We should be able to have acid and steam mages by the way)

So that was point one. Point two my CS also took a hit because of my choice to bump wizard spells up. Eventually wizard spells will get to 97 or 101. That is my choice as 917 is just that good for a wizard that will always have problems killing highly spelled mobs with CS spells seeing as he will have -15 CS over a dark elf wizard with the same training.

So two shots to my wizard's CS have been largely my of my own making but he does have 10.8 million experience so he is no spring chick. In the end his CS will be adequate to the task of milking the right mobs 100 percent of the time. Now he fails 516 entirely too often for my taste. CS is 521 by the way.

Wow I am long winded tonight. So with all that said how about this for a radical change.

Make all (or nearly all) our CS spells into also bolt spells...ie 118/505.

504...become a small damage 901 spell with a slow effect less than the CS version but activated with air lore ranks. 1 percent per rank. Attuned to air adds +10 percent attuned to lightning/air hybrid +5 phantom ranks. End roll every 20 over 100 adds a +1 to the percentage base chance to slow. Duration a static 10 seconds if it works.

512...multiple bolts of ice speed along the ground hitting creatures with 903 damage and a chance to root. Water lore +end roll similar to that above. Static duration.

514...becomes a fist of earth that tries to root with a 510 bolt. Chance to hit/turn to stone/root according to percentage of earth lore and end roll similar to above.

519...becomes a bolt spell with multiple damages impact damage and fire/cold/lightning/earth/acid/stream damage both determined by their dmg factors and lores likeany bolt spell would.

This is just me thinking and writing but if you have read this far you get the idea. IF we are to be a bolt class then MAKE us a bolt class. Have our bolts create status effects and let us combo 502 with them and each other. Hitting a creature with a combos of bolts should have multiple status effects on it like 118 and 111 causes fire flare or 512 and 908/906 causes a small flare. I know I keep coming back to wanting status effects for more of our bolts but I do not see why 118/505 should be the only ones.

gbb

>My point bringing him up is that I don't feel he has similar abilities to other semis or squares. Paladins feel very unique to me and different compared to the other semis.

Paladins enjoy the best of all worlds, so that is hardly the ideal point of comparison.

>Have ya considered that the trade off for wizards is that its really easy to level to 100, but they're not as powerful as sorcerers and clerics at post cap because the grind to 100 is a struggle for them compared to wizards?

This has actually been discussed before and is mentioned in my state of the wizards document summarizing all of this. But I've leveled every pure, and while wizards may have an easier time with bolting to cap, they need blues at the least to survive in most areas. They need to hunt in offensive, which makes hunting much riskier. However, the issues you mention are the very reason that sorcerers and clerics were given significant bolt AS boosters, that only they can natively access (Curse of the Star, Benediction/Heroism with native lores) to alleviate the pain to cap. Any character, especially the other spiritual pures, can level to cap just the same using wizard wands that are commonly available as long as they have 2x Spell Aim. At cap and post-cap, they have a much higher power ceiling and the best of both worlds with access to bolts via wands also. In contrast, a wizard post-cap has a much lower native power ceiling now and due to the way CS depends on specific spell circles, they will never be effective with using a spiritual pure's most powerful CS spells whether they get them imbedded or not.

At the post-cap level, all of the classes you mention (and all professions except monks) enjoy the ability to reliably kill a single target instantly. It's just done in different ways. No one said they have to be the same, and they aren't, but the end result needs to be there.

>but I don't see any suggestions.

Every single one of my posts lists suggestions, and they've been listed before. I'm not going to repeat myself 1000 times again because people pretend they can't read.

>but I don't see any suggestions.

This entire thread will be more productive and less likely to drive Dev readers away if you stick to commenting on the topics actually being discussed and refrain from your usual attempts to force people to post the same thing 1000 times because it wasn't framed in exactly the format you desire to see or pretend that nothing was said or applies to anyone if it doesn't apply to everyone.

You'll just have to learn to respect that while you may think it's fine for you to post in your own way, the same holds true for other posters without you constantly using every thread and post to lecture about what people didn't do right. Thanks!

>>You'll just have to learn to respect that while you may think it's fine for you to post in your own way, the same holds true for other posters without you constantly using every thread and post to lecture about what people didn't do right. Thanks!

This is in fact my first premise, as you know from our email exchanges. AFE attempts fail here.


>>This entire thread will be more productive and less likely to drive Dev readers away if you stick to commenting on the topics actually being discussed and refrain from your usual attempts to force people to post the same thing 1000 times because it wasn't framed in exactly the format you desire to see or pretend that nothing was said or applies to anyone if it doesn't apply to everyone.

Which is why this attempt to continue lecturing me about what I'm not doing right didn't even register. AFE failed.

But, thanks - good talk!

Doug

"Every single one of my posts lists suggestions..." -- LadyFleur

Just for accuracy: That one didn't.

.

"...and they've been listed before. I'm not going to repeat myself 1000 times again because people pretend they can't read." -- ibid

Again for clarification: You nearly always say that you won't repeat yourself, and that your suggestions have been posted before, but in all honesty? I recall seeing very few--offhand I can think of one: "a single-target 950"--actual suggested changes, and a great, great many, "It's been said before."
I don't recall whether I saved, or just read, your State of Wizardry document when you posted the link, but my (several months old) recollection is, "good write-up of Status Now; thin on suggested solutions."
When I think of "people throwing out ideas", my brain spits out account names like Doug, PeregrineFalcon, Drumpel, Hippo-Grande, and (less so) TripleGame226. (Because he's busy mocking me. :) And recently, Curtis (might not be his account name).

My suggestion to you, is to keep a text file and haul those old chestnuts out periodically for getting aired again. You see me doing it ALL the time, because I, too, got tired of reinventing the tire every time.

>"good write-up of Status Now; thin on suggested solutions."

As Whirlin has pointed out before, it's not every player's job to come up with solutions. I've offered them, though. The goal in that exercise was to identify the problem areas with supporting data (evidence), as the GMs requested. Ultimately, while players can offer solutions and ideas are always welcome, if someone doesn't every single time, it doesn't mean their feedback is invalid. Dev is going to do what they see as their vision for the class. We still have no real clue what it is, other than we're supposed to be Gandalf the Grey instead of Gandalf the White (yes, personal opinion noted).

I'm still focused on digging up the supporting data and numbers that GM Viduus suggested because it's clear he doesn't understand the argument being made yet. After Duskruin, I'll get around to that.

>As a baseline for ideas - what do you consider to be the single target instant kill ability for each profession? (save monks... poor monks) Some have been mentioned, but others are just implied, so I'm curious what that ability you have in mind actually is. That will significantly help others when framing their ideas of how to correct the problem for wizards.

Sorcerers have 717 and 720, both of which bypass elemental immunities and EBP and go straight to death with sufficient warding margin.
Empaths have 240/1115 and now 1117 that guarantee instant death with sufficient warding margin and only a 1% fumble rate.
Clerics have 240/317/312 that guarantee instant death with sufficient warding margin and only a 1% fumble rate.
Bards have 1030.
Rangers have 635.
All squares and semis using melee weapons have both high AS and aimed shots, CMANs, and abilities to fully trick out weapons with combat beneficial scripts, weighting, bane, etc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12ztCpIMioNZa61wW8xdN994RZcn5QTGQXmKHEOOPSlc/edit?usp=sharing

>At its core, wizards enjoyed approximately 60% first strike / kill success with a highly mutant build called the 'Immo build'. The path is said to have required dedication, but in truth it wasn't a viable power build until sometime around 95 trainings - as such it was often 'fix-skilled' into, rather than trained in level after level. But once that build could be sustained in mana in a hunting ground, it became 'easy street', for the wizard.

How is that a mutant build? That's about as "pure" of a build as you could get. And it's not like the other lores offered much of anything worth picking up over it aside from air lore for Haste, which war mages (the actual mutant build) loved of course.

Curious to hear your explanation on how going all in on our strongest fire spell as a wizard, even moreso in a game where you can ATTUNE to a specific element, is a mutant build.

The irony of a war mage calling an Immolate build a mutant build...

>Have ya considered that the trade off for wizards is that its really easy to level to 100, but they're not as powerful as sorcerers and clerics at post cap because the grind to 100 is a struggle for them compared to wizards?

Leveling to 100 isn't difficult for any profession in the game unless you intentionally gimp yourself. Extremely time consuming, though, sure.

Fastest person I know of to cap did it in about 6 months without scripting. He was a bard.

>Just for accuracy: That one didn't.

Technically she suggested that paladins have the best of both worlds.

>and (less so) TripleGame226. (Because he's busy mocking me. :)

It's all in good fun. You're just an easy target because of your 4523847092 campfire stories about 1992.

>My suggestion to you, is to keep a text file and haul those old chestnuts out periodically for getting aired again. You see me doing it ALL the time, because I, too, got tired of reinventing the tire every time.

She has a pretty long writeup that goes over just about everything. It's already been posted here at least a couple times during the post-ELR disaster:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12ztCpIMioNZa61wW8xdN994RZcn5QTGQXmKHEOOPSlc/edit

Back to the real issue though...how is a pre-nerf Immo a mutant build?

~ Methais

"Bards have 1030." -- LadyFleurs

Normally I hate giving ammunition to someone who is Not-Me, but truth in advertising forces me to confess...

With creatures who carry weapons and/or shields (for happy-making: both!), I typically don't even bother uncorking Disruption/1030. My go-to is VibChant/1002.
- Nervous system cannot be hit, but that still leaves L/R eye, arm, hand, leg [8 places] and head, neck, chest, abdomen, & back [5 places]; 13 of the 14 "wound locations" can be damaged by shrapnel from exploding equipment.
- Of those, seven (both eyes, head, neck, chest, abdomen, & back) can result in a death crit. (So "a bit over half" by [randomly selected] location.)
- Some locations have death crits starting in the rank5 or rank6 category. (So "a bit over half" by [randomly selected] crit severity.)

Summa: There's about a 25% chance a bard is going to smoke that critter with their 2-mana VibChant. (50% hit a lethal body part, 50% crit bad enough to kill it.)
Ballpark. In round figures. Generally speaking.

[KEY NOTE: this "severity of crit" may be affected by ML:Manipulation, but I don't think it is by very much. (About 15 ranks lowers the threshold for success/explosion from 150 to 135, but above that I don't think "more Lore" makes "more success"; if it does, it's not by much. I absolutely believe that both location & severity are (distinct) RNG calls, because I've had low results be lethal/very high results be minor.)]

.

.

If they live? SURE, bring in the Disruption; go crazy.

But there are many a dead Illoke Shaman who got no more out of me than 8 mana/4 seconds of attention. (6 for Depression [-30TD, with my Lore], 2 for VibChant.)
Versus 10 mana/3 seconds (and even then, Disruption may turn into an attrition drain if you don't get good crits), it means I can stay in the field that much longer.

>I agree with Krakii that we should copy & paste 1002 to 915.

Let's really tick the bards off and copy 502 to 1002! HAHAHAHA!

-Drumpel

I've seen suggestions for attunement give phantom lore ranks.

Perhaps attunement could provide normal flares for the attuned element from level 1 to 50 with a chance to flare on any spell cast.

At level 50 these are upgraded to greater elemental flares.


As I gaze over the horizon, the wind tugs at my cloak and whispers, "Adventure" in my ear.

AIM: Kaight (Matt) GS4

>Can we have it updated with 917 results? I'm only somewhere approaching a few hundred casts, and it'll take too long for comparable data sets from the player population.

That would be a waste of time from my point of view since 917 is entirely dependent on crits, so therefore it does not reliably kill a large subset of creatures that 240+317 or 240+1115 reliably handle.

>> I don't see how it would "prove" anything either way though

Now then - back to the thread.

I'm not sure, either - but I am also curious. However, just earlier in the thread time was excluded as a potential concern. We either own that, or clarify that.

As to the conditions in which the spell are optimal (crits, positioning, etc.) those haven't been discussed. And frankly, there may be need to try to account for them. But, I won't be looking for AFE based input, myself.

But if (conditional statement warning - use of IF observed) Earthen Fury clocks in on the exact same tests at a rate between cleric and empath (or even more so if it exceeds empath) results, that is definitely meaningful and proves specifically three points.

1) These types of restricted post-cap high kill ratio spells are intended to be limited to the pure profession spell list, not the major or minor circle spell lists.

2) The relatively new and only just now being explored capability of SMRv2 (SMR Redux!!) as a viable offset to the belief that 'all magic should just work like spiritual magic' (my words, single quotes, don't look for 'em anywhere previously) holds strong promise.

3) Wizards now have a viable single-target one-action spell that answers the call for our needs.

Of all the wizard spells released in my recent recollection, this one spell might possibly maybe be able to check these three boxes. If these three conditions are tested / proven - then we can focus our energies on the power ceiling (how much is too much?) and suggesting refinements we want to see in our other spells. And of course, we would have to ensure we ask the question - "should my recommended spell improvement be SMRv2 or more classic magic"?

As for the possibility of it being a waste of time? No, not to me. And if it is to another, it simply needn't be reviewed if provided. Everyone's happy!

Doug

>>It doesn't, and I've tested this for myself on the test server.

Impressive. Will you, Fleurs, be willing to share your 10K attempts in the format the Dev team provided, so we can see the results? I can't imagine working through ten thousand casts to get a reasonable sample size, myself, without some serious back-end automation. And I know for a fact that it is exceeding 60% in situations where I use it. It's actually approaching 75% or so - but I am not 'testing' it, either and I readily acknowledge that.

So my observations differ. And scattered reports would seem to suggest I'm not alone - but they aren't 'testing' either, I would imagine.

Doug

>>I don't need to test 10K attempts to understand that 12 seconds is not an instant kill and being entirely crit reliant means it doesn't work at all for 2-3 casts per kill for many creatures.

Ah. So you didn't generate the results the way the Dev team did.

I agree that 12 seconds is not an instant kill. However, I remind you that you specifically said time (round time) wasn't the issue, and when I questioned that facet, I recall (without going back to try to quote) that the single macro / attack spell came to the fore.

So in my mind, I went "Hmm. . . single attack spell or macro, 75% observed kill rate on first cast. Winner, winner!" How death happens, via crit or via HP, isn't nearly as relevant to me, honestly - but I acknowledge you feel the weakness remains. At 75%, I'm not sure I consider it a weakness, though.

So, I'll await the Dev team results if offered, then. There are a couple of specific creatures that at varying levels of lore this question of weakness will be assertively evidenced.

Doug

>>I said as long as the cast time parity holds true, which it only did in GM Viduus's example for 515+519x3.

Ayep, thanks for that. And if 3 seconds for a single cast and then you're free to take other actions (like taking on the next creature that comes in) works, the barrier is then waiting to loot - or if I generalized it, 9 seconds' hunting efficiency lost. Fair? I'm not too concerned about that specifically because sometimes that 9 seconds doesn't exist, and sometimes I can wander a hunting area for 15 to 20 seconds before the next hapless victim (or at least - unengaged hapless victim) shows up.

>>I'm looking for the 1% fumble rate of failure. Anything less than that is a lower power ceiling for wizards.

Yeah, I'm not following this one - your mind makes leaps mine can't follow. Let me noodle this point for a bit, and I'll ask questions to clarify when I can make less of a fool of myself in doing so.

As to hapless effort - I may have been naive, but I expected those tests to be done already by the team, so I was asking for sharing. In the grand scheme, an hour here versus an hour on enchant (or Sandstorm, or insert other favorite) - yeah, I can wait.

Doug

>And if 3 seconds for a single cast and then you're free to take other actions (like taking on the next creature that comes in) works, the barrier is then waiting to loot - or if I generalized it, 9 seconds' hunting efficiency lost. Fair? I'm not too concerned about that specifically because sometimes that 9 seconds doesn't exist, and sometimes I can wander a hunting area for 15 to 20 seconds before the next hapless victim (or at least - unengaged hapless victim) shows up.

It's not just efficiency lost, it's effectiveness and lethality. If something doesn't instantly die from 917, it means that during most of those cycles it's also usually not stunned and gets back up to attack. Waiting out the full cycles on crit-resistant creatures is a good way to die, in my experience. This is entirely different from something dying and then you the character wandering around the area waiting for the next creature to spawn.

>I understand this won't be a popular suggestion, but maybe we could resolve this by removing instant kill altogether in favor of crits. Isn't that how weapons work? As I understand it, instant kill exists to help balance pures against crit-immune and crit-resistant critters. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) Rather than adding instant kill on top of all this, why don't we fix the offending critters and/or give the casters that need it a high-concussion spell?

Yeah, no more nerfs for anyone please. I don't think the race to the bottom for any profession enhances the gaming experience or adds fun for anyone, which should be the goal of the limited time that Dev GMs have.

>>that during most of those cycles it's also usually not stunned and gets back up to attack.

Erm. . . Temple? Because - lemme tell ya, that is definitely not what happens when the Elf throws this spell down in the Scatter. Not at all. Well, ok. . . with the exception of grizzled creatures. But its selective use, too - not 'general'.

Doug

>It's one way to look at it, but one of Fleur's advocated requirements that I support is that the fix shouldn't be a nerf to another profession's capabilities.

I understand this, which is why I don't usually bring it up. I wouldn't call it a nerf to another profession so much as resolving a bug in combat resolution. The replacement for instant kill could be a double-crit or triple-crit. The crit system in this game is very good. Why bypass it with instant kill? Conversely (sorta), why should any critter be immune to crits? We used to have critters that were fully immune to punctures. Though sensible, that was dropped because it forced everyone to use the same weapons.