theobserver
Guest
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 Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 7:32 pm Post subject: Combat Module B: Disarm, weapon wards, and rage. |
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DISARM'
Syntax: disarm
[...] Whether one's weapon type is advantageous or disadvantageous
against the weapon of his opponent will greatly affect his chances of
disarming. Also, dual wielding increases one's chance of disarming one's
opponent, unless the opponent is either dual wielding or double gripped. |
Left out of that helpfile was the most conspicuous change of them all: all disarm skills now drop your weapon/shield into your inventory, not the ground.
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'WEAPON WARD'
Syntax: cast 'weapon ward'
Syntax: commune 'weapon ward'
Weapon wards are spells that protect spellcasters from many of the
specialized weapon attacks employed by other classes. This is accomplished
by erecting a temporary ward upon the spellcaster's weapon, whose energies
will automatically be unleashed in response to specialized weapon attacks
such as DISARM. The duration of a spellcaster's weapon ward is dependent
upon his primary attribute: intelligence for mages, and wisdom for clerics.
Spellcasters who are caught without a weapon ward protecting them are very
vulnerable to being disarmed, or worse.
Having a weapon ward in place prevents a spellcaster from removing or
changing his own weapon. |
Weapon ward's first use will be to protect against disarm, but soon there'll be other uses for it as well. Why is this important, anyway? Because of the following:
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[ 77] Echuir the Witch: Cursed weapons now require a potion to remove.
Tue Apr 26 08:40:06 2005
To: All
Ach-ach-achach! Fire burn and cauldron bubble! Curses be curses, and
cursed weapons be truly cursed now! For you can no longer remove them at
all, save by using a potion from my shop! Ach-ach-achach! |
Noremove weapons/shields can now ONLY be removed by a "weapon freeing" affect. Currently Echuir sells one and Warlords have their own version. The effect lasts for a full tick (during which you suffer a severe strength penalty exactly identical to wearing two demon talismans). Unless you use weapon freeing items, wearing as many -str items as you want means you still won't be able remove a noremove weapon/shield. Say goodbye to quick weapon switches with cursed weapons/shields.
By the way, many noremove weapons also have their curses removed. In particular, good-aligns now have no cursed weapons (as you would logically expect). It's no coincidence that weapon wards were introduced at the same time.
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'RAGE'
Syntax: rage
[...] When enraged, berserkers will use their shields to smash their foes in melee
combat, rather than to block attacks. Arrows do very little damage upon
striking an enraged berserker.
A berserker cannot remove or change his weapon(s) or shield while enraged.
Certain combat maneuvers, such as dirt kick, also cannot be performed during
a state of rage. |
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'RAKE'
Syntax: rake <primary/secondary>
[...] Two-handed weapons are especially well suited for a rake attack. Be warned
that rake attacks can be blocked by shields and dodged by counterbalanced
thieves. Offhand weapons are very susceptible to being raked.
An enraged berserker will automatically attempt rake attacks during combat.
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'DEFIANCE'
Syntax: AUTOMATIC
More experienced berserkers can learn to defy many types of attacks while
they are enraged. The defiance skill grants berserkers added fortitude and
protection from blinding attacks, and a well-trained berserker can often
even recover from blindness upon entering rage. Also, the defiance skill
greatly strengthens the hold berserkers have on their weapons and shields
while they're enraged, and will allow them to retaliate against anyone
foolish enough to make any disarm attempts.
Defiance grants no protection to an unraged berserker.
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Lots of important stuff not mentioned in the helpfiles here. First of all, rage's hit/dam bonuses is completely changed -- rage now simply adds your char's damroll modifier (i.e. the base damroll your char has based on str and level) as the rage damroll bonus. (Note that the rage damage multiplier, the one that really makes your attacks jump up in damage, is unchanged.) This prevents lowbie giant berserkers from becoming death machines simply by raging and using its massive hit/dam bonus even without additional eq. Also, dwarves have an additional large damroll bonus from rage and duergars have a small one.
Another important balance change is that berserkers can no longer wield shields while raged. Many berserkers used this to circumvent the decreased defenses while raged, but now berserkers cannot shield block while raged at all. In lieu of blocking while raged now though, berserkers perform a "shield smash" attack using their shield as an offhand weapon. (Check out your score output while raged to see the hit/dam bonus on your offhand shield smash -- it's quite considerable.) Dwarves have an additional damroll bonus to their shield smash attacks.
Incidentally, hand-to-hand damage has been noticably increased for all non-monks. Another little nugget: raged berserkers will now actually regenerate better while fighting than standing around doing nothing. Their fighting regen rate has been boosted to match their resting regen rate, so they have even more reason to fight aggressively.
Read the updated rake helpfile carefully, and notice that berserkers will auto-rake while raged. Be very careful of berserkers with two-handed weapons, since rake now works very well when a berserker is using a two-handed weapon. Dwarves have a sizably increased chance of auto-raking, and duergars have a smaller one.
As for defiance, it's the new roiy replacement. More powerful than roiy in some ways, but also more limited because it only works while raged. As you can see with the no-dirt-no-changing-weapons rage changes, we're definitely working to make rage more of a double-edged sword. Expect to see more drawbacks for rage along those lines, which will go toward limiting defiance's usefulness. For the time being though, with defiance as it is, your best shot of beating a berserker is to exploit his inability to change weapons while raged. Unless you can cast spells, of course.
Don't think that losing shield block to shield smash puts berserkers at a weakness against bows, either. We've taken the time to make sure that the bases have all been well-covered. In fact, berserkers can now positively laugh off arrows while raged, so shooting arrows at a raged berserker is a very dumb idea. But a comical one. We'll even commission some Heralds write a song in your memory.
Special thanks to Davairus for spending a LOT of extra time making sure the trickier changes (such as shield block turning into shield smash) are working correctly.
Forgot to mention -- berserkers can now throw, as per rangers. Probably forgetting other things that I'll have to come back and add later.
(Orginally posted by Burzuk) |
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theobserver
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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marsd wrote:
don't shield smash now makes berserkers kind of.. a beating post when raged? Even with defiance they only have a primary defense, parry when raged. Dodge gets removed for reasons I can relate to and have no qualms about it, but is it worthed giving up dual parry for loss of shield block in return for shield smash? |
You might check on that berserkers being able to dual parry while raged thing. They still can't, and we haven't changed that.
As for being beating posts when raged... is the extra rage damage supposed to come free? The whole idea behind the berserker is to trade defenses for attacks, and hope you can overpower your opponent before it catches up with you. Why else do you think they can't dodge while raged?
We didn't think it was fair for berserkers to "lose" the use of their shield-hand while raged though, so we gave them shield smash instead. It transforms your basic tank-mode shield-blocking berserker into a mega-damage dual-wielder at the drop of a rage. Potentially very nasty.
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Sethronu wrote:
dwarf berserker warlord anyone? |
Well, they already have the racial legacies for it.
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clifton wrote:
It'll be rage body <rake> body body body |
At least until we reach the point in the module where we fix bodyslam, yes.
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marsd wrote:
I've rolled a berserker up, and raged, they still shield block while raged, just that they have an extra hit/dam just like wielding a secondary weapon. |
Damage is dependent on your character's strength, level, and hand-to-hand proficiency, with dwarves having an additional damage bonus on top of that. On average, shield smash comes out with fewer attacks at once but more consistently than dual wield. In total, shield smash has a slightly higher overall rate of attack. At high levels, it'll outdamage dual wield unless you have a pretty good offhand weapon. Dwarves have fewer dual wield options than the big berserker races, so they do particularly well when shield smashing.
As for how much damage all that translates into, make a berserker and judge for yourself.
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JHondo wrote:
I'm wearing mostly mithril and a few other things. This is at 35th with a small buckler in my offhand. Now, I'm just a litle curious. My rage bonus to the dam roll would have normally been 19. For a Minotaur berserker at this rank, doesn't 10 seem a little low? |
Not when you consider a) the rage damage multiplier is still unchanged, and b) the per-hit stat-based additional damage bonus is still unchanged (doesn't show up under hit/dam). The problem with rage is that it has many, many bonuses stacked on top of it, most of them being invisible to players. The artificial hit/dam from rage has been the most problematic part, since it disproportionately affected low levels the most.
(Orginally posted by Burzuk) |
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