Afflictive Module: Necromancer and Illusionist Afflictives.

[Burzuk]

NECROMANCERS

Before we start, astute observers will notice that mages are becoming increasing specialized in their particular save type: maledictive for necromancers, mental for illusionists, and by inference, afflictive for invokers. You'll be seeing more along these lines as we continue on with the current change module.

In this latest batch, the biggest change for necromancers -- acid blast -- was a long time coming and should be no surprise to anyone even remotely paying attention to the mid-level necro niching. More important, however, is how this fits into the larger picture for mages: that powerful, spammable, unprepped (i.e. no affbreaks or other requirements), and PK-optimized afflictive spells are rapidly becoming the domain of invokers, and you can see how clerical afflictives have already been addressed to fit this model. Despite this trend though, the other two mage classes still have some new ways of dishing out damage without encroaching too easily into the invoker specialty of spamming afflictives during PK's. For necromancers, their current slate of damage spells is:

Reaping blade: Not so much a damage spell in and of itself, but creating necromancer weapons gives necromancers a new way to "build" their power by improving their weapons for killing high-level mobs, as well as for PKs against well-matched opponents. Because of the "killing blow" requirement for strengthening reaping blade, this rewards necros who actually equip themselves offensively with damroll, instead of defensively with hp/saves and letting their charmies do all the work. Anyone who prefers the old school "run and gun" style of hyper-offensive necromancers (such as Quazark, who did most of his killing with just golems + fast acids) will really benefit from reaping blade, as well as from...

Rend life: The new definitive necro damage spell during PKs. This spell's power relies heavily on how damroll-heavy a necro is willing to make himself. Before you pish-posh about the concept, remember that Grimp easily attained 50+ damroll as a mage (and as a gnome one with a huge vuln at that), and a similarly-equipped level 50 necromancer would not only be dishing out massacres with his melee attacks, but now devs and oblits with rend life as well. Stack the golem/zombies damage on top of that, and you're looking at an extremely potent offensive combo -- if necros are willing to take some risks and give up health/save boosts to achieve it (as Grimp did with an invoker). In the hands of a decked necro, rend life is by far the strongest direct damage PK spell that a necro can wield. Be especially cautious of a necro who goes this route, since rend life damage bypasses saves, physical/magic resistance, and even mana shield, meaning you can be at the receiving end of an extremely fast and brutal beatdown if your spells/defenses should lapse against a damroll/rending necro. By the way, those who don't intend on using rend life at all are probably better off using regular weapons instead of reaper weapons, since decent rare weapons have higher averages and (in most cases) better hit/dam as well.

Acid blast: Yes, no more easy acid spam. If you're not level 50 with a heavy investment in afflictives, I wouldn't bother using acid unless you want a way to initiate without eating counter and/or saved-spell attacks.

Toxic flux: Even though necros should be more reliant upon their mals and charmies now during PKs (unless they're willing to go all-out offensive damroll), they still need a reliable anti-mob damage spell to help raise zombies, and also for leveling (especially since they can't even haste/slow their groupmates like illusionists can). Toxic flux fits the bill, and without any dependencies so that even naked necros can take on mobs as needed. You can use it as a PK spell, but it isn't very unreliable unless your opponent has wretchedly bad mal saves, so I would use something else instead unless you're desperate and/or feeling lucky.

Chorus of anguish: Doesn't deal much damage to begin with, and its AOE nature limits its effective use. Doesn't cast as fast as before though to limit spamming.

The net effect of these changes is that in terms of direct damage, necros don't really deal direct damage effectively during PKs until they get really high up in levels (and eq). However, when you consider the huge surge in power they gain in the middle-levels (by which point they already have animate dead, both their golems, and all their mals), it makes sense to spread out the direct-damage development for a necro's later levels. Mid-level necros are now far more charmie/mal reliant than their level 50 counterparts, who have more options to choose from.

By the way, sleep-flee-sleep spam (and the similar ecstasy-flee-ecstasy spam) no longer work, since failing those spells temporarily protects the victim from additional attempts in the same manner as blackjack and strangle do. Another necro cheese flushed down the toilet.


ILLUSIONISTS

Interestingly enough, illusionist damage spells are now almost entirely mental in damage, making them much more dangerous against giants. This is amplified by the fact that the new illusionist spells factor both caster and victim intelligence heavily into the equation, so giants should be on the lookout for being carelessly picked off by illusionists.

Hob spark: The default anti-mob spell for illusionists. For PKs, it's reliable only against giants with poor mental saves, especially if the illusionist has high int and/or level advantage. Otherwise though, the victim has a pretty good chance of saving. My advice: initiate with something like colour spray, then switch to hob spark so that you don't eat hits from initiating should they make their hob spark save. On the plus side, hob spark can do quite a bit of damage against giants, especially when paired with...

Dreamstruck: This shocking grasp replacement came a little bit late to be included in the original change note. If you remember old psychic purge spell for psionicists, you have some idea of what dreamstruck does. The plus side to dreamstruck is that it bypasses mental saves completely, offering illusionists an extremely potent spell against even targets completely decked in mental so long as they're geared appropriately for it. The downside: illusionists need to be boosting the "accuracy" of the dream's chance of striking by stocking up on hitroll if they plan to use this against anything other than mobs. When fighting against a hitroll-heavy illusionist, you'd better load up on way more mental saves than you thought you needed, or else you'll find yourself getting dispelled left and right once he's had a chance to land his dreamstruck on you. Against mobs, dreamstruck is a great set-up for any of the other illusionist mental damage spells, from the lowly hob spark all the way up to phantom dragon (and remember, dreamstruck increases both damage AND duration of those illusionary animal spells). This makes dreamstruck a very useful leveling spell, especially since mobs don't get a save from dreamstruck.

Colour spray: As with acid blast for necros, this offers an afflictive option for illusionists, but only for those willing to match it by wearing appropriate afflictive breaks. Neither mage class has a non-dependency single-target afflictive option now.

Prismatic spray: Quite a bit of potential damage with this spell (and without the nagging afflictive dependency), but rather than having dependency slapped on this spell, prismatic spray is now AOE to make it a bit trickier to use in combat, easier to counter with bystander mobs, and ineffectual for chasing down opponents compared to a directly targetted spell. Illusionists have been lacking an AOE spell, anyway.

Duplicate: Like reaping blade, this isn't a damage spell in the traditional sense, but obviously it's an illusionists main "PK damage" spell anyway. The number of duplicates that an illusionist can control at each level now matches exactly the number of zombies a necromancer can control at the same level. It's true that necromancers also have golems, but duplicates hit harder and more accurately than zombies do even before factoring in illusionist buffs on the duplicates, so I don't see much of an issue here with toning down mid-levels illusionist power the same way as was done with necros. Mages, after all, should be best played at 50.

Still lots more to come in the afflictive module.

[Slade]

I don't get it.. necros get potential to be marginally better with tons of damroll (not so easy) and the weapon + the damroll dependent nuke. Otherwise they are slightly weaker (-acid), or if not that, then just straight up harder to play, already being challenging anyway. Other than mid level ganking, necros were mediocre to begin wtih anyway.

Illusionists.. don't necros only get two zombies at 50? So theres a nice nerf. Illus were better than mediocre, but not overly so (though again, mid level ganking). But they gain.. uh.. for the hard work of gaining tons of hitroll, instead of getting marginally better straight up like necros, they get better dispelling after dreamstruck (joy.. [and why not 'dreamstrike?']), and a giant killer niche w/ hob spark. Other than newbies or raged zerkers, the illusion spells obviously don't mean shit in PK. And again short one dupe unless I'm mistaken (hope so). So harder to play and nerfed even stronger.

I just don't get it.. when is the last time a good player ever feared a necro or illu at pinnacle lately? These two classes were already among the hardest classes to pull off, and probably mediocre overall.

edit- If ganking was such a problem why not just scrap the dependencies and make colour spray and acid blast level 45 or so spells?

[Erlwith]

Uhm... what about the fact that necro zombies are permanent? are the illusions permanent now?

[Hrash]

Wow, even though I started a new job, I'm sooooo tempted to get a necro to 50. Of course I would suck since there's a lot of new changes, but I'm willing to risk it. Reaper's blade is so incredibly similar to malform weapon that dkns get in forsaken lands....*DROOOOOOLLLLL*

[_Clifton_]

Alright, what effectively happened was that illusionists got made a lot stronger indirectly. What was an illusionists biggest weakness before? Having to dispel their opponents. Now, with dreamstruck (purge was amazing by the way) what you have is an incredibly potent combination for the illusions. Imagine -- terrain, misdirected, and easily dispellable target plus 3 dupes at 50 (they get 3 at 50, necros get 3 zombies too iirc). The reason that you haven't seen any impressive illusionists or necromancers at 50 lately is because they are a pain in the ass to rank. With mindstruck, this also amplifies the potentcy of their ranking spells (big pluses since those spells rock). Anyway, don't be surprised to see a very powerful 50 mage sometime soon.

[Davairus]

[Resatimm]

Necros get 3 zombies at 50, not 2.

[Burzuk]

Main issue here Slade is that you're looking at the changes as a final product, rather than as a waypoint in the direction they're ultimately headed. Necros and illus still have upcoming changes both in the Afflictive Module and afterwords. What's more important is what "type" of class we want them to be and the sorts of ways they're to be played. The changes make it clear that simply stocking up on pure hp/saves and slinging aff spells is NOT going to be the M.O. for these two classes, since they already have charmies to provide damage for them. Thus, they need to work harder and make some sacrifices to inflict direct damage in combat (or rely on the other non-damage spells at their disposal). Compare this to invokers, who only have direct damage in combat as their main source of damage. (And you know the Afflictive Module is going to be ultimately about invokers one way or another, right?)

That said, even for now, making the appropriate tradeoffs will still allow illusionists and necromancers to be quite proficient at dishing out direct damage with their spells. The only question is whether people are willing to make the necessary adjustments if they want to play necros/illus in a more invoker style.

By the way, if we simply wanted more people to play necro and illu right now, it'd be rather trivial for us to increase zombie damage and duplicate duration for now. But then , we'd wind up having to tune those skills down later after necros and illus receive some of the new skills we have planned in the future for them, at which point the artificially propped-up necro/illus start complaining about us "nerfing" their charmies and whatnot. That's why I've said that it's more important to look at what types of changes are being made to them to get a better sense of how these classes are to be played.

[MrCarb]

how long are people immune to sleep after it's been cast on them? I didn't think this sort of thing was neccessary for sleep because
a) it's much less likey to work then blackjack
b) decent mental saves make it virtualy impossible to land sleep and
c) sleep/flee/sleep/flee = lots of free attacks from the victim

[Gygh]

I don't mean to sound like a brown noser or anything, but I'm really likeing these changes. They're both creative and smartly done to fit in with the sort of "rock, paper, scissors" thing that Ar has going on- mages have a choice between offensive and defensive (necros going for damroll instead of hps/illusionists going for hitroll instead of hps).

The only thing I've seen wrong so far is for the rend life spell, if the target is immune (ie. undead) it says "Your toxic flux has no effect on undead" (or something to that effect).

[MrCarb]

oh, i don't want to sound ungrateful...these changes are cool. If anyone knows how long you have to wait before recasting sleep i'd beinterested though. If someone is wearing no mental saves i think its still wise to try sleep as much as possible....just want to know how much IS possible.