Invoker's enchant weapon/armour spells

[Ceridwel]

Do the Invoker's enchant weapon/armour spells get more powerful at each rank? Currently it looks to me like they enachante for one point per successful cast, except when the super-enchant happens. I'm wondering if in 10 ranks my enchants will do base improvements of say 2 pts or 3 or whatever instead of 1.

[Mandor]

nope enchant weapon is fine as is and enchant armor is near worthless. sorry.

though if you work at your enwa spell you'll make a lot of money selling that ability to people who have weapons they want to have more layers.

[Ceridwel]

Cool, thanks for the quick reply.

[MrCarb]

It will always be one point per enchant, but I think your chances of success are partially dependant on level (or maybe your level relative to the weapon's level) so you'll be able to take things further at higher ranks. Level 50 invokers can sometimes give weapons eight layers of enchantment. Luck is also important...or so I'm told.

[Grayden]

Maybe a change so that enchant armor added 10 instead of 1 would make it not as useless? Just a thought.

Grayden Grim of the Bloody Fields of Flesh

[Xerties]

[Davairus]

Says the same person that perfect rolls all his characters and spams unused AOE spells to 100%. I think the only change likely to be made to these sort of enchant spells is to make them flag rotdeath upon the item, and level-restricted, if they don't already. Maybe even a timer upon the duration of the enchantment. You guys are really sounding like spoiled brats IMO. I mean if you put +2/3 ac on every item slot, which is not hard, thats like having permanent armor/shield spells up. Its especially nice when youre a giant or something else that has trouble reaching the magic 150 ac, obviously not as big a deal when you're already easily reaching the point of diminishing returns, but even then, its still doing something. You should think about how this fits in with everything else. Like sets for instance. If an item is non-rare then you can eventually get up to -8/-10 ac on it. Now imagine if you do that to a full malicious beast set on a level 30. On a fire giant warrior. Okay, clear now?

[Xerties]

Right, terribly sorry Dav. I was thinking about how the spell would be useful to a level 50 instead of how to best trash out at level 30. My mistake.

[Davairus]

Its like I said, you're being a spoiled brat about it. Your character doesnt feeling much difference from enchant armor because ITS AC IS COMPARATIVELY UBER, especially from being suited in uber rare and unique items that don't need further enhancement. Do you really want to see that change?

[Xerties]

I'm not being a spoiled brat at all. I'm operating off of what you yourself have said about AC at the highest levels, i.e. that it's useless. As much as you like shitting all over me at any opportunity, at least be consistent with what you fling.

[Davairus]

I have been consistent, you are deliberately misquoting me to try to prove your point. I've even supplied you with ballpark figures to shoot for. You have nothing to complain about.

Like I just said, the "problem" with AC in the high ranges is the diminishing returns. This means that the effort for ac is now coming at a higher price of other more useful stats, especially hit/dam.

I'll put this in math terms for you, since you should be in calculus. We'll pretend we're making a pig pen out of a length of wire, and it has to be rectangular. So whats the best shape? You want to maximise the area of field covered. For brevities sake I'm just going to call that a square. Now, moving onto a mud character. Your offense/defense ratings combine to form a PRODUCT, not a sum. Just like square. You need to maximise the product of your hp and damage output. Get it? So you have this "diminishing returns" AC, and meanwhile damroll is still linear. You should see that AC is now a really bad trade-off. Instead of a nice square, your area becomes kind of punching-bag shaped, and squares own it. But hey, if you just want to maximise the defense rating, go ahead and do that. But dont complain that every fight feels like Tyson vs Abraham Lincoln

The only consideration I give to enchant armor viability is the TIME needed to produce those buff items. Effort and pay-off are quantities worth considering. This is why I tend to roll a 1 from max and later go on those winter runs that other players are afraid of. 6 hours spent for a tiny advantage at 50, compared to 6 hours followed by a month or two of sweet ownage wielding the vorpal with 92% bash. Enchant armor is rolling and belongs in the former category. You should have learned from the logboard that nearly all fights are actually won because of marginal advantages. And you should not expect them all to be the same size. Gear is already making a significant impact and we dont need cake +10 armor enchants available on every single item. The problem is simply non-existent. If anything enchant armor is too buff because those stats are theoretically possible.

[Xerties]

So are you saying that -30 or so AC at level 50 is going to make a noticeable difference?

[Davairus]

If your AC is not -150 you will notice a difference, this is why people often mistakenly think giants are vulnerable to magic weapons. Before that, AC is absolutely necessary. Then on the other hand if your AC is already like -250 (superbly armored or better), not only is it like putting 1 hp ontop of 200 hp, after diminishing returns its more like putting on 1/4 hp. And on top of THAT, the interpolate function breaks down after level 30 anyway, so there's no miss factor anymore after level 32 either. Even so, there's a difference if you manage to stack enough of it. Just not one worth sacrificing damroll for. Enhance armor does not do that.

[Vertas]

Quit arguing with him or he'll turn all weapons into sharpened sticks...The customer is always right Xerties...

[Davairus]

Go try this exercise. Fight a stone golem with your eq on and watch the damage it does. Then fight it naked and watch the damage again. That will show you the "noticeable" affect of your AC. Basically you wont notice it much if at all. Meanwhile every hit is being dropped possibly 4 or 5 damage for a good AC, thats just too small to be noticeable with the way damage adjectives are displayed, but there is a marginal difference easily measurable over the course of 50 rounds.

Make sure you understand what a marginal advantage is and what it means. People win because of a "slight" lead, and the opponent will often play right into it unawares. Its not just in your eq. Its things like, rolling a nice roll, training skills, having more purples, or having just had a lucky couple hits early on, or you "feel lucky" whereas your opponent is "down on his luck". Those are all examples of small marginal advantages that people have often blamed losses on. & they are quite right to. I'm saying the marginal advantage of getting a little more hit/dam is far, far greater than what you get out of maxing out AC. I also have attempted to give you an impression of what youre getting from armor to help make the point. This isnt a simple statement that "armor sucks". In fact there are some items with such massive armor bonuses, they actually trump similar +damage items. These are rare and I dont want to just spoonfeed you the identity of every good item in game. As for enchant armor it is purely a beneficial spell.

[Vertas]

I agree with that, armor doesn't completely suck, even if the damage reduction may be very small, think about how many hits that is, it adds up over time. And it can come equivalent to having 100 more hp or so in the end.

[Davairus]

That's absolutely correct. But another thing to consider about 'enhance armor', and in particular the group of things that involve stat-rolling/skill-ups, is that they provide a controlled environment for people to get a little mileage out of spending time in the game. Most people want that. The things that facilitate that need are not made to be "uber" must-have, but rather, one of a set of possible tie-breakers. The effect of them is deliberately slight otherwise they'll become necessary rather than worthwhile.

[Craginoth]

haha, davairus bitches and argues until he has the last word..

just like a woman

nice tits, stu

[Davairus]

The only reason I have posted is because somebody said the enchant spell is useless and it is to apply a correction. It would be much easier for me to just ignore that, but I don't want our game's newbies to be misinformed. If you don't want an implementor willing to talk about things, just keep acting stupid like that, and I will definitely start ignoring whatever you write.

[bassball]

I'd like you to keep answering Dav, it helps, just ignore the stupid pricks.

I have a question then, if you are at level 50 and you have -70 AC, then it doesn't matter?, or that REALLY sucks?, I've kind of had a hard time following what has been said.