Make cold snap like 717 Evil Eye.

101-124 Causes target to freeze solid No Stun; Incurs 10 seconds of hard RT

125 - 174 Causes the target to fall to the ground. Creatures will drop items in their hands. Stance will be reduced to neutral. 1 second per 2 warding margin (12 sec at ER 125 to 37 sec at ER 174)

175-198 Frozen to death, heart stopped cold! No loot. No resulting stun

199+ Shattering Death. No loot.

Character formerly known as Drauz

>Considering the fact that you twice cast the spell to immobilize everything in the room, the risk to channel is ridiculously small.

I wouldn't say everything, since crusaders, destroyers, sentries, defenders, and water elementals are all immune to this spell, and having at least one of them in the mix isn't exactly uncommon.

And this spell has literally no use in the Confluence. Not even against fire.

~ Methais

Reading the wizard nerfs:
http://i.imgur.com/hNaDm98.gif

ALSTHAR

Yup, nothing ever walks into the room during the 1-6 seconds of soft cast rt (which would leave it either completely free of being disabled, or just rooted rather than immobilzed), or after the channel. There's definitely not a multitude of areas, especially near cap, where things enter room with spells already preped or can act in ~3 seconds.

You only have to be concerned with the hard RT from the final cast where you channel. If something walks into the room while you're casting Cold Snap twice, you can easily decide not to try to shatter a target and thus not risk a channel. More so, most creatures cannot walk into a room and attack in the same action. So even if they do walk in, there's a significant chance you'll be out of roundtime before they perform any extra action.

GameMaster Estild

> ridiculously small

This is like every death my wizard has in gemstone, other than missing a sulfur trap while trying to pop boxes. I mean like every death. Where everything is going peachy until that one moment you're in offensive and then BAM dead/disabled about to be dead. Like every death.

Ridiculously small. I really really beg to differ.

You only have to be concerned with the hard RT from the final cast where you channel. If something walks into the room while you're casting Cold Snap twice, you can easily decide not to try to shatter a target and thus not risk a channel. More so, most creatures cannot walk into a room and attack in the same action. So even if they do walk in, there's a significant chance you'll be out of roundtime before they perform any extra action.

GameMaster Estild

I guess you're unaware that griffins can enter with a screech that puts you into 20s RT. You do play this game, right?

I like this version of the spell much more than I did Ice Patch! Thank you for that!

It's a nice alternative AOE to what we already have. I'm not a water mage but I saw some clips earlier in this thread that were pretty awesome.

Mana does not bother me. I knew when I made a mage that mana would be an issue and have taken steps to mitigate that weakness in the basic character design.

Chad, player of a few

>This is easier said than done. Sometimes things look terrible on paper, but when you actually use it it's better than it sounds. The update to Empathic Link is a perfect example of this. The initial reaction to it was VERY underwhelming, and actually for quite a few hours nobody even bothered to try it out. Then a few people gave it a shot and said "Hey, I know this update sound bad... But, uh... This is actually really good. Check this out! <Log of destruction>." If I had given out details beforehand, it seems pretty likely that the response would have been "This isn't good and won't get us to use the spell."

>I'm not saying you don't have a valid point, but ultimately it's more complicated than that. I can tell you right now that my next big release is something that I am dying to share with everyone. However, I know that like the 1117 update the initial player response is almost guaranteed to be "This is terrible. I can't believe you wasted your time working on this." I also know that when people actually get to use it they're going to see that it's not terrible and wasn't a waste of my time. -Konacon

One big roadblock with this whole wizard fiasco since the nerfs is nobody is going to shell out millions of coins for multiple fixskills in order to test out different builds with the new mechanics.

This could easily lead to an example like yours that sounds bad on paper but is great in practice going totally unexplored for quite a long time if not forever.

If you guys want us to really explore this new stuff and discover how great it really is with the right build, we need the test server opened up.

I'd love to try out a Cold Snap build with different amounts of water lore to see how it fares and at what point if any training more water lore becomes a waste. But I'm not going to shell out 2-3m a pop to respec just to test out new mechanics, and I doubt anyone else is willing to do so either.

We have a free fixskills coming up in a couple weeks, but who's going to gamble on that? If they try out a water lore build and it sucks, they're still going to be stuck spending a bunch of coins to spec out of it.

~ Methais

Reading the wizard nerfs:
http://i.imgur.com/hNaDm98.gif

The idea of the spell is nice, but it seems lacking. I think a few adjustments could do wonders to this updated spell. Right now it seems very taxing to get anything really useful out of the spell.

When cast the spell will subject non-grouped targets to a warding. Targets that fail to ward become rooted. The root status effect causes a target to have -50 AS to melee attacks, -25 AS to ranged attacks, and -25 DS (but does not stack with the -DS penalties from other status conditions such as being knocked down). Most importantly, rooted creatures also can't perform maneuvers. The spell will affect up to 4 targets, increasing by +1 per seed 5 summation of Elemental Lore, Water ranks. The duration of the root will be ((warding margin / 5) + 3), capped at 25 seconds.

Keep rooted effect and # of targets it hits.
Adjust the duration because currently the ice appears to melt faster than it should to make things worthwhile. Change the root duration to ((warding margin / 4) + 2). This will give a slight boost to the duration once the end rolls exceed 140.

Casting the spell a second time will completely encase any already affected target that fails to ward in an ice block, immobilizing them and refreshing the duration.

Keep this, this is beneficial to those that don't focus on EL:W.

Add: Chance for initial cast to encase a target in ice for 5 seconds for any endroll over 200. Once the 5 seconds is up, the target goes from encased in ice to rooted in ice for the remainder of the root duration. Also, give a boost to those that train in EL:W. Every 5 ranks EL:W, the warding margin to instant encase drops by 1. Also, every 10 ranks EL:W the instant encased in ice duration increases by 1 second, capped at 25 seconds.

A mage with 100 ranks EL:W would need an end roll of 180 (100 EL:W ranks / 5 = 20; 200 endroll - 20 = 180) and the target would be encased for 15 seconds (100 EL:W ranks / 10 = 10; initial 5 seconds + 10 = 15 seconds)

This makes the spell somewhat more useful for non EL:W trained mages, but for those that do train in EL:W it helps show the power/control they have over the element, making it more useful for them.

If a target is encased in ice (512x2) and the caster CHANNELs a bolt that causes a rank 5+ impact (505, 510, 1709) critical, there is an (Elemental Lore, Water skill / 3) chance that the target location will shatter, completely destroying it and causing 50% of the target's max health in concussion damage.

Keep this idea, but adjust it so every one that trains in EL can have a chance to cause bonus damage across a larger number of spells.

Remove: CHANNEL required. CHANNEL is if we want to have a better chance to hit vital areas, it shouldn't be required here.

Adjust the EL:W skill / 3. It doesn't make sense that someone would need knowledge in EL:W to give their other bolt spells a chance to cause extra damage. Make it take your EL ranks against the spell you're casting. If someone casts 510, it would check against your EL:E skill / 3. If someone casts 906, it would check against your EL:F skill / 3....

Spells	EL skill / 3	Chance Effect
906/908/111	Fire	Rapid melting, severe steam burns
903/907/1709	Water	Deep freeze (target stays frozen), add 10 points crit weighting to bolt
505	Air	Shatter, concussion damage
510	Earth	Shatter, crush/impact damage
904/1710	Earth or Water	Rapid melting, severe plasma burns
910	Water or Air	Shatter, severe shock damage
917	Earth	Shatter, crush/impact damage & knocks target over
917	Fire	Rapid melting, severe steam burns & knocks target over
518	whatever element you cast	see above list that matches the bolt cast

>I didn't include 901 on the list because I don't see it having the punch required to do extra damage on ice encased targets.
>518 might be overkill, but man it would be awesome to encase a handful of creatures and then blast them with 518 and watch the whole room (possibly) get destroyed!

With adjustments like this, I could see my wizard tossing out this spell from time to time. He has no water lore, but if he could instant encase a target on an initial cast and toss a boulder at them for a chance to do heavy damage, it would be beneficial to make use of time to time.

-Drumpel

> I stand corrected, Cold Snap works against earth elementals in the Confluence. Just not on anything else in there.

I'll never trust you again!

~ Konacon

I would like this spell to have a chance to instantly freeze upon first cast much like 316's immobolization effect post 150 end rolls.

I would like this spell to work on more types of creatures ie (as many of the elementals as are not already made of ice, non-corporeal undead etc).

Other than that I look forward to using the spell and finding spots where it is appropriate. 3rd floor nelemar on radicals, combatants, and maybe spectral triton defenders if they can be hit with this.

The problem always comes up though does it address a problem 410/912/909 already has solved in a better way? If this spell turned into the spell that works when those 3 (really 2) don't work then I am all for it. Barring that I would still like that type of spell to become available. I would also like to mention that another boil earth type spell in the 500 and movin boil earth into the 500's would also be helpful.

GBB

Methais

If nothing else, its mechanics should mostly mirror Spike Thorn's, either via spell ranks like rangers or via lore. Either way I think even the biggest Simu cheerleader in the history of everything would agree that this spell is total trash right now.

It's my favorite spell in Dev right now.

GameMaster Estild

>It's my favorite spell in Dev right now.

If only you treated your approach to wizard spells the same way you did sorcerer, cleric, and empath love (we would even settle for no hate, if no love), people would be satisfied, if not happy, with your work. It's mind boggling the disparity that exists between this Dev team's approach to wizards vs. every other pure.

"It is unlikely that we would make Boil Earth simply a wizard version of Spike Thorn.-Konacon"

Better than spike thorn works for me :)

GBB

This is absolutely the wrong way to hunt for GMs. Loud noises scare us.

~ Konacon

Kindly stop arguing in this thread. Anymore comments and this thread will be updated to be about one of the following three things, which I will choose at random:

a) Puppies
b) Taylor Swift
c) The Major Elemental Circle

~ Konacon

People are well aware by now about how the 3-4 most vocal detractors feel. To reiterate it again and again is a waste of everyone's time, GM, writer, and readers. In fact for those of us not completely hating all the ELR and spell changes, its a bummer and kind of ruins a good mood.

Those comparing to MMOs, the games are different animals and the MMOs have had crazy crazy nerf buff cycles. Some of the buffs ad less than 1% damage.

Why not just view cold snap as a flavor spell if its not the be all end all? Even if its not as good as some other spells, if it was better then people using one of the other spells would whine how they suck.

I for one don't like the rapidfire clunkiness with having the 1 sec CRT, but thats the way it goes, gotta take some good with the bad. The new cone of elements more than makes up for that nerf. The splitting of haste is a pretty good trade off for me because I now have stacked duration on what I used haste for, eating herbs, getting into OTF etc...

Rapid Fire wasn't intended to be up 100% of the time when it was originally released.
Haste was not intended to be up 100% of the time on you and your buddies in its original release.
Immolate wasn't released with the intention of being min/maxed into the only spell cast.

So those things have been changed....

A wall of negative posts is only going to serve to discourage the dev. team eventually, lots of GMs, good GMs have left because of the mass amounts of QQing.

In my book telling the whole team they suck, lack judgement, short sighted, etc... is just as bad as calling out a particular GM with personal attacks.

The ratio of mages to other classes has possibly increased or at least stayed the same since we got the ELR. Last night 58/321 when I looked. So the mass exodus of wizards happening RSN.....

I don't ignore anyone, I just look for the red posts and the posts by the non-chicken little folks, then look back if I feel I need to these days...

Do people think that they will return the spells back the way they were or something? That won't happen. I for one am amazed that we are still getting changes after all that's been said.


Just an elf about town...

b) Taylor Swift

She has some sagely advice... shake it off.

Chad, player of a few

>It's my favorite spell in Dev right now. -Estild

http://i.imgur.com/dSTbrpg.jpg

>It is unlikely that we would make Boil Earth simply a wizard version of Spike Thorn.

That's not a bad thing. But in like laziest case scenario, I'd take it.

>Don't tell me what to think! ~ Konacon

You're not my real dad!

>I for one don't like the rapidfire clunkiness with having the 1 sec CRT

Rapid Fire should have an EVOKE feature added that turns it to Burst Fire. Works like multicast, but for offensive spells instead of buffs.

Example:
incant 906 5

<insert 5 shots of 906, mstrike>
Cast roundtime: 3 seconds


>Rapid Fire wasn't intended to be up 100% of the time when it was originally released.

According to who? Because it's been that way for decades.

>Haste was not intended to be up 100% of the time on you and your buddies in its original release.

If this were the case, it would have been addressed when Haste II went away and Haste I just became Haste and had its formula reworked.

>Immolate wasn't released with the intention of being min/maxed into the only spell cast.

The reason it was the only spell cast (which isn't true anyway, people act like it one shots things constantly, most finish with 906 if Immolate doesn't kill it) was because nothing else got any big combat benefit from lore. Give people reasons to cast other spells and they will. That doesn't require nerfs.

>The ratio of mages to other classes has possibly increased or at least stayed the same since we got the ELR. Last night 58/321 when I looked.

WHO stats don't mean much when you're also the most popular pocket class.



~ Methais

Reading the wizard nerfs:
http://i.imgur.com/hNaDm98.gif

Unfortunately just because it might be the same 4 or 5 individuals that are loudly discouraged with the changes wizards are going through, doesn't mean there aren't a great many of us who are waiting fairly silently in the background for a more balanced outcome. I may not agree with everything they say, but I agree with a lot of it, and I'm sitting back hoping that at least some of their concerns get through. I'm friends with plenty of wizards that are not delighted by the ELR and frankly get more and more discouraged that we're ever going to find the right direction for wizards, with each new spell release or update. We just don't post very often on the boards.

Sadly, Cold Snap simply falls short again, primarily because it's another case where wizards are spread too thin having 4 different lores. We suffered huge losses with our big 3, and right now, focus needs to be put on spells that are functional for all wizards right out of the box. The main reason I dislike this spell so much, is because it's actually kind of awesome with a huge investment in water lore, which is hard to swallow now since we're all still picking up the pieces of haste the only way we know how, with massive air lore training. With all the other changes, it's also made it hard not to at least have 10-20 ranks of each of the other lores just to hit those low seeds. So now my new spell is collecting dust, right out of the box, which really seems worse then no change at all. Personally, I'm never going to find investing 24 mana and 6 seconds to freeze everything in the room for what seems like a few seconds longer then it takes to do it, a worthy use of my time and mana. However, it testing it out some today, I had a brief glimpse into how awesome this spell could have been in certain situations.


You channel.
You hurl a large boulder at a sand devil!
AS: +566 vs DS: +397 with AvD: +40 + d100 roll: +57 = +266
... and hit for 164 points of damage!
Every bone in the left arm shattered and scattered about!
The devil's clamshell shield falls to the ground.
The sand devil is stunned!
You hurl a large boulder at a gnomish bandit!
AS: +566 vs DS: +246 with AvD: +40 + d100 roll: +51 = +411
... and hit for 183 points of damage!
Left arm is torn from shoulder!
The bandit's reinforced shield falls to the ground.
Powerful blow shatters a gnomish bandit's frozen left arm, causing 164 points of damage!

[You have 8 kills remaining.]
The gnomish bandit falls to the ground and dies.
You hurl a large boulder at a human brigand!
AS: +566 vs DS: +175 with AvD: +40 + d100 roll: +32 = +463
... and hit for 222 points of damage!
Blow to head removes skull!

[You have 7 kills remaining.]
The human brigand rolls over and dies.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
Roundtime: 3 sec.


So I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but it does indeed work with Cone of Earth. I only have 10 ranks of water lore, so it's only barely working for me. In certain situations, probably not while solo hunting, but at least in a group, or in bandits, or anywhere else I'm just sorta kicking around, I would totally invest 24 mana on a setup and another 18 mana on a cone to shatter a bunch of stuff. That's just friend impressing coolness right there, even if it's not a spell you're going to use every hunt. The only problem is that dang water lore requirement again. Others have already came up with the solution. Tie the lore that you need to shatter to the spell being cast. Then an air mage can shatter with air, or an earth mage with earth, or even fire with fire, why not? Since it's taking 24 mana and 6 seconds to setup, it would actually be a perfect group spell, in the sense that once things are frozen, other party members, with various attacks, could also activate the shatter. Crushing damage from weapons? Bard vibrations? Think of the possibilities and the fun you could have in a group. I've also thought that for some of these spells, why couldn't we have a percentage scale based on overall lore, rather than a specific lore? Even if you couldn't get 100% activation, what about 50% at 202 ranks of all lores combined? This spell should never have been cold snap, it should have been elemental snap! Let's start getting some changes that show the love to all wizards, not another change that forces us to choose between being one thing or another.

I hear ya Raggler, I like a lot of the changes via the ELR as the only nerf to my playstyle was Rapid Fire... I hate the clunky 1 sec CRT, but don't mind the cooldown, and I like the fact that it doesn't autoprep anymore.

If it were reworked such that EMC had to be trained in to use it with higher level spells which when unlocked would disallow the low mana cost spells. So early on 901 would work without the 1 sec CRT, but it would require 202 or 303 ranks to be able to Rapid Fire 435. Say at 303 ranks the lowest spell that could be Rapid Fired would be 10th level, at 202 ranks you could only Rapid Fire 20th circle, but the bottom spell would be say 6th circle. You would need EMC at level at least to be able to Rapid Fire with 0 CRT so if someone wanted to plink away with 901 it would be without any benefits from
cooldown reduction and still have the 1 sec CRT.

With a mage able to 910 Rapid Fire the limiter would be mana...

Sorry I'm tired so this might not be worded clearly.

Just an elf about town...