The major elemental spell 520 - Mage Armor has been released. This spell replaces the previous spell Stone Skin.

Mage Armor manipulates the elemental forces within a wizard's body, forming a layer of elemental energy that shifts with their movements. This self-cast spell provides additional protection from physical attacks in the form of critical padding.

The base amount of padding for native casters is somewhat at 20 Major Elemental ranks, increasing every 15 Major Elemental ranks to a max of heavy padding at 95 ranks.

Note: Non-native casters can only achieve light critical padding with this spell, and elemental aspects are not available to non-native casters.
Note: The critical padding provided by this spell and it's aspects stack with other forms of padding.
The armor can be further enhanced by focusing on specific elements to further shore up defenses via CAST <Element>. Focusing on an element will produce additional defenses based on lore training in the respective elemental lore.

Focusing on the Fire Aspect of this spell allows a mage to channel his defenses into stronger offensive attacks.
Focusing on the Water Aspect of this spell boosts the mage's defenses against dispel attacks.
Focusing on the Earth Aspect of this spell will shield the mage in a layer of rock when he becomes stunned.
Focusing on the Air Aspect of this spell will allow the mage to carry more.
Focusing on the Lightning Aspect of this spell will stun all enemies in the room for a short time when the mage becomes stunned.

More specific details can be found on the wiki at this link https://gswiki.play.net/Mage_Armor_(520)

Credit to goes GameMaster Konacon for working on the code for this release.

Viduus

Isn't the Friday news dump for bad things?

Tease! It's still Stone Skin. :P (Kinda.)

prep 520

You recite a series of mystical phrases while raising your hands, invoking Stone Skin...

Your spell is ready.

>cast water

You gesture.

A layer of raw elemental energy forms around you.

Doug

Just a brief update.

From "first cast" of 520 with CAST <ELEMENT>

Fire - works
Earth - works
Air - works
Lightning - works
Water - only works if you cast an element other than water first, then cast again with water (so two casts required to get to water).

Spell Active shows Stone Skin (as per LadyFluer's post)

And after casting it up, when stopping (to continue testing)

>>>stop 520
>>With a moment's concentration, you terminate the Stone Skin spell.
>>The layer of stone surrounding you crumbles away.

Doug

250 ranks at seed 3 summation = +20 or upper end of masterfully according to the Wiki, so something must be incorrect somewhere or I'm not understanding it. Still very interesting though!

---

You're forgetting the base padding for the stunned effect, before lore training is considered in the calcs.

Viduus

Never mind, I understand it now. Thanks!

I removed it in case you want people to figure this out on their own, but this is very nice. Thanks!

If you get a chance, is it possible to set INCANT settings for the elemental aspect so it defaults to a particular aspect with mana spellup? Thanks!

This looks like a pretty awesome and fun spell.

-- Robert

A powerful whirlpool is suddenly overtaken by a windy vortex!

>>>stop 520
>>With a moment's concentration, you terminate the Stone Skin spell.
>>The layer of stone surrounding you crumbles away.

Fixed.

>>Water - only works if you cast an element other than water first, then cast again with water (so two casts required to get to water).

>>Doug

I'm having trouble replicating this issue. Is it still an issue for you? If so can you consistently cause it, or is it random?

As a side note I'm aware of the issue with spell preps, mnemonics, and spell active messaging, and have a fix for it, but I can't push it just yet. The description shouldn't impact the function of the spell - aside from being able to use the new mnemonic.

Viduus

>Once I'm certain the core functionality is working as intended I'll circle back to this to see what can be done.

Thanks! Once the other messaging is updated, will there be a way to determine which elemental aspect we've chosen in case we forget?

>>I'm having trouble replicating this issue. Is it still an issue for you? If so can you consistently cause it, or is it random?

Wasn't at the time, could reproduce it consistently. But. . . now I can't! I'll keep an eye on it though. And I like the random incant too. ;)

Doug

5 points of padding from the initial cast.
+3 points for having 65 MjE spell ranks.
+5 or +6 points for having SWCP armor

I will have 13-14 points of crit padding when I cast the spell. Awesome.

If I happen to get stunned:
+13 points for having 130 ranks EL:E
Total of 26-27 points of crit padding.

That's actually pretty cool. I'll have to see how things work out from this point on. Nice update from what I see.

-Drumpel

520 should be excluded from use with 420 since 220 also cannot be imbedded/blessed as a Major circle spell.

There is absolutely a reason to exclude it because 220 is excluded. I wish all wizard spells would stop being given away like water to every other profession. Wizards can give everything away but are much more limited in what they can get from other pure professions as it is, so there is zero need to further this imbalance.

>>I'm having trouble replicating this issue.

Sent a log - seeing how I can best recreate the problem.

Doug

>520 should be excluded from use with 420 since 220 also cannot be imbedded/blessed as a Major circle spell.



I thought this was a joke until I saw the responses. While I get some of the other reasons, the comparison to 220 is silly. No one who can normally cast 220 can cast Magic Item Create. It takes extreme efforts to imbed anything from that whole circle. By that logic, they should make 501 thru 519 not able to be imbedded, too.

The spells do completely different things. For example, 219 is not imbeddible, but 519 is. They just have the same last 2 numbers. Mage Armor is already specifically balanced for "non-native" casters.

>I'd think you should make an argument that 200s spells should be more available in holy receptacle instead of making 520 inaccessible.

I'd never argue for this as I believe every profession should be treated less as bots instead of requiring every character to eventually need every spell to get by again, regressing to GS3 levels of accessibility.

>I thought this was a joke until I saw the responses. While I get some of the other reasons, the comparison to 220 is silly. No one who can normally cast 220 can cast Magic Item Create. It takes extreme efforts to imbed anything from that whole circle. By that logic, they should make 501 thru 519 not able to be imbedded, too.

The 200s circle is definitely imbedible: Clerics can imbed, but only into orb gems, not magic items.

https://gswiki.play.net/Holy_Receptacle_(325)#Spell_Imbedding

Would it be possible to add a cooldown to spell active/active spells for the water aspect dispel block?