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and some who use to love to play here ....

...back to the oringial thread..Changes

More of an improvement to mages. The mage bonus for AR is something we magwes could live without,if you had skill. I love the added extra effectiveness of debuff spells as well as the shortened duration of debuff spells, usually <1 min. I can take out liches with one shot now. The longer buff duration is also a plus. My buffs are still the same, the only that changed aws the AR but as Joram pointed out mages don't need much AR just run around a bit.

The mage AR bonus was greatly overpowering mages, and I say this having my main character a mage. Before the change, he would get 50 AR on average, more than what my tank gets without his sheild (I think...). The other day, when with my mage, Kale and I were attacked by a spawn of drakes. I was targetted by most of them, and attacked by them, as I was running ahead, and did not die. I personally do not see any dramatic changes to the nerf of Protection. I think some people have it in their heads that any nerf against mages is caused by the players complaining about how strong mages are. Well, the fact is, they are overpowered, and still are after these changes IMO.

Sorry if I am not making sense, I never prrof read. And sorry for bringing this back into it, I felt the need.

There's 2 main reasons that I removed the mage bonus from Protection: The first is that mages simply aren't supposed to have good AR. There's not much point in limiting mages to leather/studded armor if they can buff themselves to as high or higher AR as a tank in plate.

The second reason is that, while I was pondering the above and trying to figure out what to do about it, I realized that mages essentially already HAD 'bonus AR', in the form of Polymorph. Having an AR bonus from 2 locations was both redundant and, ultimately, overpowering.

You know i look back at the noise generated by the changes and i cannot help wondering just how loud the screaming would have been had Dundee still been around.
These changes are quite modest compared to one of his brainstorms. Mondays used to be rather "interesting" since things used to be installed on sundays.

Drocket wrote:There's 2 main reasons that I removed the mage bonus from Protection: The first is that mages simply aren't supposed to have good AR. There's not much point in limiting mages to leather/studded armor if they can buff themselves to as high or higher AR as a tank in plate.

The second reason is that, while I was pondering the above and trying to figure out what to do about it, I realized that mages essentially already HAD 'bonus AR', in the form of Polymorph. Having an AR bonus from 2 locations was both redundant and, ultimately, overpowering.

Making mages a bit less overpowering is a good idea. My problem is it made my favorite character a hybrid a good bit less playable also. I mean the primary use my hybrid had for high magery was for reliable gating and good buffs. The buffs are crippled now and it sorta useless to have 108% magery and it be good for practically nothing but gating. I mean my hybrid already wore chainmail so meditation was a moot point. My buffs are dropped from a average of 14 to about 10 to 11. When your primary kill method is beating them over the head with a small sidebar of provoke, losing that much on buffs really hurts.

Ehran wrote:You know i look back at the noise generated by the changes and i cannot help wondering just how loud the screaming would have been had Dundee still been around.
These changes are quite modest compared to one of his brainstorms.

Hahaha. If Drocket were to make changes as "drastic" as those Dundee implemented during the first year as developer, a lot of people would have left this shard months ago (weed out the whinner elements of our society and all of that . . .) The so-called "flame wars" that we see right now (pleasseeeee) would seem like the most amiable of everyday conversations. And about 75% of all true flame-wars would be carried out in this forum instead of the "General" and "General Discussion" forums.
On the bright side, people who just like to complain about every single change wouldn't last long here. When Dundee made up his mind about something, all the whinning in the world wouldn't make him change his mind.

I think Drocket has opted for a more "diplomatic" way to introduce changes, and for an "older," well established shard, this may very well be the best approach (he'll live longer and happier too )

There are two things that are rather interesting about WoD monster-hunting culture, especially when looking at Mages (and their variants) in particular;

1. One must apply every single postive-enhancing spell until said character glows like a reactor.

2. "you NEED to use scrolls"

Both of these, I disagree with. Having - on and off - played Marius for a bit over a year, I can happily say that you can quite freely hunt without buffs, without leather and without scrolls. Certainly, if you want to drop yourself into a pile of greater daemons (or whatever) you are going to die, which, while raising the ire of many people, is a fairly balanced measurement.

What we all must remind ourselves about Wizards, is that they aren't particularly up-and-front warriors. Certainly, with poor Drocket trying to cater for EVERY playstyle, they have been given some leniency. Even Gandalf, uber-mage surpreme, "died" while fighting a single pit lord. (please don't argue semantics about this point, it's illustrative only) This kind of rationalisation may seem biased, but I'm trying to build a perspective. And I would like to think that Mages are a little more challenging to play, because they require timing, forethought and careful planning.

Comparing a Wizard to a Tank will never work, because I see people consistently ignore the surrounding facts. "My mage has an AR of 50, but my Tank only has 40" (example). What about hit points? What about resistances? What about Parry? Certainly, no one compares a Mages mana reserve to a Tanks. Why? It's not in contention. Nor should anything else be. Tanks are tanks; they aren't Mages. Mages are mages, they aren't tanks. The quicker that we can reach this understanding, the less work Drocket will have to do "balancing" the classes.

It is one of my strongest opinions that the classes cannot be balanced. It is something I happily accept. With five characters, I can take my strongest combatant hunting, and my most skilled trader, erm.. trading, and I can live happily. The classes will never be balanced, because they cannot be put in the same light. The notion that they should be is absurd. If I wanted to be as good as a tank, I'd strap some armour on Marius, give him a sword and make him fight bad guys. But I don't. I like using Necromancy. I like raising the dead and furthering evil and finally taking over the --

well, I got a bit ahead of myself there, but the fact still remains: We get what we're given. I've never had any issues with Drocket's changes, because I know he has the betterment of the shard in mind. We're also very lucky in WoD, because I've played on a few other shards, where they constantly toy with monsters' speed to even things up. To put it into comparison: as fast as you can run with a horse, is about one eighth of the time a wraith can fly across the screen and hit you twice. Blade spirits were actully just plain scary.

I believe, as WoDians, we should - if anything - be trying to worm more Wizard spells out of Drocket, than anything else. There's certainly a few ideas in mind I'd love to see put into order.

- Marius the Black
Never Outran a Blade Spirits on that Shard

Marius the Black wrote:Both of these, I disagree with. Having - on and off - played Marius for a bit over a year, I can happily say that you can quite freely hunt without buffs, without leather and without scrolls. Certainly, if you want to drop yourself into a pile of greater daemons (or whatever) you are going to die, which, while raising the ire of many people, is a fairly balanced measurement.

No disagreement here, I've done done that as well, well, sorta, never all of it at once.

Comparing a Wizard to a Tank will never work, because I see people consistently ignore the surrounding facts. "My mage has an AR of 50, but my Tank only has 40" (example). What about hit points? What about resistances?

While the comparasons are not perfect, they do serve a purpose, when, for example, my mage has an easier time than my tank does standing beside an Ogre Lord and letting it beat on him while he kills it, something is a bit awry I think. (Side note, just to awnser your rethorical questions as things stand now after the changes mage AR 44, tank AR 49 with shield 66, I still think mage AR is a bit high but ..., strengthwise they both have about the same approx 130 fully buffed.

It is one of my strongest opinions that the classes cannot be balanced.

Probably not completly balanced no, the best that can probably be achieved is sort of close to kinda blananced.

Blade spirits were actully just plain scary.

Been playing on a shpere shard eh? I'll see your blade spirit and raise you an energy vortex *cringes and flees in terror*.

Thanks Drocket for making game bit more challenging. The step was tiny, but direction was right.

Now there is again more than just one monster to be afraid of.


Million thanks!

Bromix / Maddox / Julumax / Rokkax

p.s. strange that NONE of my characters became unplayable after these changes -only difference is that now I sometimes even have to THINK a bit before rushing in the middle of mobs =)

It's no secret that I don't like the recent changes in relation to 2 of my characters. They have forced me to change those 2. Bear with me a second before anyone gets ticked off.

Since mage hybrids are now virtually impossible, it forced Tommy to become a pure mage, with provocation thrown in. That change was not really a big deal. Now his spells just do a little more damage than before. I think the changes will actually make MORE pure mages than there were to begin with.

Now here's the funny part. I had one of those super tanks, (really high AR, low damage ability,) that became absolutely worthless. Carlos has been changed into a Virtue Guard, (About 500k worth of changes for skills and equipment.) If it wasn't for these changes I don't think I would have found out the awesomeness that are Henchies. I don't know why I haven't done this up until now.


So my opinion on this matter goes like this:

I hate these changes.
Thank you Drocket for the changes, I kinda like them.

I hope that makes sense.

Mages should never be able to buff their armor to anything near what a tank gets. Mages might be able to drop the stats of the mob beating on them with curses and such, but to stand toe to toe with an ogre lord is quite frankly absurd. I do it all the time, and laugh. If you can't hang with the big dogs, stay under the porch and whine with the pups. I am soooo sick of hearing people whine about this and that concerning changes, not that I haven't voiced an oppinion over the changes myself from time to time, but never to the point that I was crying about quiting. If ANY of you want to quit, please do so and do us all a favor, keep it to yourself. Save for a very very select 3, I like all of ya and enjoy your company greatly, that said, I would not even bat an eye if you just had to quit cause your mage couldn't take down 3 ogre lords and a titan anymore. Hell I would love to let Keel have a bit more playtime, but it just isn't as quick. Mages need to be able to do massive damage and take a brutal attack. Right now they don't, mages make better tanks than tanks do. I honestly believe that tanks should have their damage doubled, and mages have their armor seriously restricted. The psuedo evil one is correct saying the two classes will never be balanced, nor should they be. BUT!!! Their strengths should be addressed as well as their weaknesses. I get a higher strength than Keelarr does...If I were stripped of mana, I could kick his sorry butt with just my mage staff. That is a sad thing. And now for something completely different! You like the way things play now? hey make a pol shard and run the scripts YOUR way. It is simple and fun. Otherwise shut the hell up and work with it. While we all have a say, it is best to say something, not sit and whine about the problem. If you step in dog crap do you cry? or scrape it off and avoit the pile the next time? Simple rule of thumb, if life hands you lemons, get some of Grandpa's Goose Vodka and make lemon drops!

i already run my own pol 96 shard :> even fixed the lag ya get on pol 96 while riding mounts from aos

fitzchivary wrote:i already run my own pol 96 shard :> even fixed the lag ya get on pol 96 while riding mounts from aos

Great! Now you can enjoy your shard and make all the changes you want, instead of whinging about a shard that you don't actually "play anymore".