Forum Links 

Click to return to main page
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile  Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages    Log inLog in 
 Current Top Rated Killers 
 Next Event   Voting Links 


The event "The Assault on Taekir" is beginning in 1 day, 10 hours.

Illusionist balance and ideas thread
Goto page 1, 2  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Abandoned Realms Forum Index -> Past Balance Patch Thread Discussions
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Scrynor



Joined: 26 Jul 2021
Posts: 82
Location: New York

PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2022 5:25 pm    Post subject: Illusionist balance and ideas thread

Hello! So I've been at the pinnacle for some time now and thought it was a good time to kick up a conversation on the state of the illusionist guild.
I've got a lot of thoughts and ideas so I'll split this into:
Trivial thoughts, ability thoughts, new ideas

Trivial thoughts:
It feels like illusionists are shy on the ability to create custom illusions. I wish we had access to more special effects. Ventriloquate is great but I wish it was harder to see through. Or for players to have an option to not see through it (maybe part of the trust system)? I wish I could create standing illusions in the room. For example, I can ventriloquate a small boy saying something but I cannot put a mirage of a small boy standing in the room to go with it that shatters when interacted with. There is also no way to do general sound based sound effects like a crash of thunder for example. I understand if special effects powers would need some sort of limit to stop them from being actually useful in combat (ie putting an illusion of Trillian in every room thus messing up scan). But it would be cool to have some. And if "not seeing through them" was tied to something like trust a mental debuff to force trust would be super cool.

Ability thoughts:
I admit I am no expert here as I rarely fight. But I've done a lot of asking vets about illusionist abilities and the consensus seems to be that they are kind of weak and have many matchups you just cannot win. Going through some thoughts by spell:

Flashfire seems almost unworkably bad compared to other classes blinding options. A debuff with a 0 hour duration just doesn't make a lot of sense. Unless you have a fantastic feel for when the ticks are you could be landing it only to have it near instantaneously expire.

Duplicates are discussed like the core combat feature but it seems like they have a lot of problems. It sounds like somewhat recently they had their level cap reduced. This makes it so they are popped really easy by dispel (or worse AoE popped by invokers or consecration paladins) and easily negated by the defenses of fighter classes. This doesn't leave a lot of situations where they are great unless you really catch the opponent unprepared. I think a fun adjustment here might be an addition to feeblemind where feeblemind also makes it so all duplicates are treated as level 50 regardless of actual level.

Gathering named unique duplicates also seems pragmatically quite poor. The available options is unbalanced by alignment. It doesn't seem right that an evil illusionist is inherently better than good or neutral. And not being able to memorize them really hurts the logistics. The duration on dupes just isn't that long and you can fail to dupe, fail to get adoring eyes, or just fail to find your opponent after you succeed. Maybe this is intentional to diffentiate from necros (illusionists easier gather, short duration, necros hard gather, long duration). Another thing about the "no memorize" is that it kind of makes named dupes only useful to aggressive illusionists instead of passive illusionists. You can't keep named dupes around as a deterent against attack.
Allowing the memorization of 1 named dupe might go a long way to making the timeline more workable and also let passive illusionists have a little more thump. The proposed change of feeblemind treating all dupes as 50 would also let you use non-adoring eyes dupes better if you land feeble and therefore potentially help with the timeline. Or I suppose dupes could just last longer. Or some combination of everything.

Our phantasmal creatures are neat but are they actually useful in PVP? Maybe this is intentional? It feels like a lot time investment for delayed damage that can just be avoided by fleeing compared to straight offensive spells. It just strikes me as odd that something so core to our PVE isn't used in PVP.

Our top level spells are pretty disappointing. It is entirely possible I am missing something but people tell me that there is basically no use to eternal day, everlasting night, misty mirage, and glass door. These are the top of our food chain and all have high mana and large cooldowns. It was a little disappointing for them to not do very interesting things. I really like the concept of all of them I just wish I had viable uses for them. I was excited about glass door until I realized that any old attack would shatter it. And it's still the most useful one.

New ideas
Okay, time for just spitballin' wild ideas. Ideally, every class would feel unique. When it comes to illusionist identity I really love the concept behind terrain and misdirection. The concept of illusionists as masters of disinformation is amazing. I also love the idea of getting trapped in a web of illusions. The thought of illusionists feeling unique because the longer you fight them the more you lose your grip on reality, the more information deprived you become, the more stuff stops working like you want, the more you accidentally move into disadvantaged positions where they are more powerful is really appealing in my eyes. I would also love to see more synergy and interaction between the illusions and debuffs to really give that snowballing feel. Obviously, these concepts come with mechanical obstacles with illusionist being basically the squishiest class but I won't dwell on those details unless an idea starts gaining traction. Just throwing stuff out here!

Information depriving ideas:
Deny information on your current hp / mp / mv totals
Deny information on your affects and/or falsify effects timing out
Mix up information on what combat style your opponent is in (this one would have more impact if illusionists could set the style of their dupes. Phantom weapons?)
Deny or switch up information on how hard hits are landing (especially useful if paired with denying knowing your hp)

Interaction / "more dangerous in the right spot" ideas:
The idea here is if you use terrain, misdirection, etc to help fight your opponent in the right spot you are significantly stronger.
Have eternal day / everlasting night / misty mirage alter what some illusionist spells do when used in a room under that effect.
Some ideas:
The phantom creatures can be "pre-cast" in an Everlasting Night room so they auto-cast as soon as the illusionist and opponent fight in that room
Dupes switch to a divine or fire attack in an Eternal Day room
Prismatic spray always does the white beam in Eternal Day room
Shadow version of phantom creatures that are stronger in a misty mirage room (maybe this one doesn't work because it follows you)

Extra spell ideas to help you get people to the right room:
Portal gate. Cast on a certain exit it no-lag gates people who fail a save to a particular room in the same area (or maybe blinks them somewhere random nearby if that is too strong).

Other ideas:
Make dupes better?
Mental debuff "manifest fear" - Dupe attacks switch to characters weakness

Give a damage option other than dupes?
Have prismastic spray do multiple colors based on the number of mental debuffs currently on the opponent (terrain, mirdirection, feeblemind, etc)

Make them less squishy:
Similar to how razor strings and marionette use dupe slots, a spell to provide defense (Illusory shields giving a temp hp buffer?) in exchange for occupying a dupe slot. Was thinking you could start like this trying to land debuffs, then summon the dupes once you had advantage.

Hopefully this doesn't come off as critical. I've been having a blast as an illusionist. And I'm not suggesting doing all of the things. Gotta keep them balanced after all. Just throwing out ideas that could make them feel more unique, more balanced, and more focused on illusions instead of being strictly dependent on duplicates and if those fail there is no hope.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
2 0 0
Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:18 pm    Post subject:

wow that is a lot more than i expected to open

i had been thinking
a) fly spell, because scrolls are annoying
b) replace “group gate” with “group cast” so you can cast tons more stuff on your whole group or AOE your mental spells depending on context

It looks like you have put a load of thought into that so I will read over it thoroughly and table those thoughts of mine for now
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
 
1 0 0
Scrynor



Joined: 26 Jul 2021
Posts: 82
Location: New York

PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2022 11:44 pm    Post subject:

One more I forgot:
"Spatial distortion" debuff. Afflicted characters lose the ability to discern what is where resulting in AoE spells having a chance to strike the afflicted caster instead of each intended target.
Adjust as balance dictates. Just thought it would be interesting that if AoE popping dupes is the optimal play that illusionists have a counter that doesn't stop it but mitigates some and makes it risky to do if they land the counter.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Xerties



Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 484

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2022 5:45 am    Post subject:

You've got a lot of good ideas here. I really like the thought you've put into adding flavor to illusionists, e.g. hp condition misdirects (no, I'm totally not pretty hurt!).

From what I've seen I think you're right that dupes pop really easily. But a set of hasted/enlarged dupes can be pretty devastating. So, what if the more you buff your dupes the more unstable they become? Like a freshly summoned dupe would be pretty hearty, but once you haste they become a little weaker, and then enlarging makes them really fragile. Then you could make some calculated decisions about how much you want to buff your guys and when.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Scrynor



Joined: 26 Jul 2021
Posts: 82
Location: New York

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:26 pm    Post subject:

Thanks for reading it all!

The stability thing is interesting. When thinking about my proposals I was trying to be respectful of the nerf to dupes with the core conundrum being the burst damage capacity they represent. Just like ideally fighters/monks/invokers wouldn't be an autoloss for illusionists you also need illusionists not to be an autoloss for shadows/thieves/etc. I also just really want there to be more to illusionists in PK than dupe/haste/terrain/dispel with slow for fighter types. That's why a lot of my proposals are conditional or try to establish another damage path other than dupes. It would just add more variability to how you fight each class and more paths to victory than just dupe and hope you win the race.

I like the idea of illusionists having a trade space to govern. If the dupes are just more fragile for max offense capacity you are probably still going to just go dupe max offense and hope you win the race. But if you have to land debuffs to max their offense or keep them safe, or get the opponent to a specific room to do that, and you have a way to trade dupe slots for being more robust yourself, now you start making a situation where you might start with intentionally lowered dupe offense while you do the other thing hoping to switch into dupe blast mode once you gain the upper hand. But your fragile idea could play into that too. Maybe you start with the less fragile and then land your debuff that keeps them safe from AoEs and then spell them up into fragile offense mode. Lot of options here.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Scrynor



Joined: 26 Jul 2021
Posts: 82
Location: New York

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:29 pm    Post subject:

One more thought / idea (down the "how to make this viable* thread that I said I'd leave for later...)

Part of the issue with debuffs is that they have to be worth the time to do, especially for a squishy class. The other debuff classes have a means to pulling multiple debuffs safely. Necros / shamans have sleep / insomnia, DKs are more robust defensively, etc. Illusionists kind of do not. So if we lean into multiple debuffs as a path for illusionists they might need something like that. I was thinking making them the only skirmishing debuff caster could be interesting. To do that, one of their effects (either a new one or attached to something they already do) would have to suppress the free melee hits caused by opening with a mal / mental spell.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Scrynor



Joined: 26 Jul 2021
Posts: 82
Location: New York

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:35 pm    Post subject:

Oooh, or you could do a free debuff spell cast mechanic.

Something like you get a free debuff cast at your opponent when you blink. So it's a big trade because blinking isn't compatible with your dupes and you lose your sense of where you are but it could be a very illusionist unique and a crazy way to try to gain advantage running a murder / blink cycle with your dupe slots used in a defense config.

(I should really think through everything rather than multi-posting... hah)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Vevier
Immortal


Joined: 23 Jul 2008
Posts: 1642
Location: everywhere

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2022 3:27 pm    Post subject:

I'd rather see you're ideas in multiple posts than miss one! Post as much as you want! This is good stuff, I really like the idea of debuff spells affecting the dupe damage.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
 
1 1
boo,
0
Kalist19
Emissary


Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 1153

PostPosted: Thu Apr 21, 2022 4:49 am    Post subject:

Scrynor I love your enthusiasm and the thought you've put into this. You have a lot of awesome ideas.

I particularly like the idea about a spell that would mess up the info a person sees about their hp/mana/move. That sounds like a hallmark ill ability. Do you think it would work best to just provide random info or what if it flipped their info so instead of showing "current hp" it showed "total hp-current hp" so it flipped around (i.e. if you were at 100/700hp it would actually just show 600hp)?

Not sure if combat style matters much since ills have weapon ward and should typically use a staff anyways (the weapon ward prevents other classes from using combat style abilities against them).

Agree that blink, misty mirage, eternal day, everlasting night are worthless. The everlasting day is nice to mess with vampires but otherwise don't waste practices.

Dupes have awesome damage output - making them swap to enemy vuln might be too OP but it would be cool if there was a way to maybe have their damage cycle (i.e. pick if they will cycle through crush/thrust/slash or fire/lightning/ice). Or maybe this would be easily fixed by making some decent mobs with a magic attack that could be duplicated? Not something level 50 but something better than ettins.

I totally agree that the phantasmal stuff is all useless in pk. If someone landed dragon or spectre on me I'd just flee and run for 20 seconds. If they landed phantasmal griffon I'd laugh out loud irl that someone actually cast that in pk. I don't know what the solution is though. Having them stick around no matter what as a DoT might be too strong. Pre-casting would be cool if they don't all get attacks as soon as combat starts (that would be pretty buff too).

They are a little bit squishy now but that's sort of by design since they can easily get 1000hp. They are built for gambled eq since they have giant strength/enlarge/haste to help counter the -str and -dex from gambled things. They get a bunch of defensive spells like blur and you should always wear a staff for parrying. It would be easy to go too far with defensive buffs and make them more unkillable.

For dupes maybe it just needs to be a little harder to pop them?

I like your prismatic spray ideas! Totally useless in pk at the moment. That'd be cool to see it have some new mechanics.

Awesome ideas Scrynor!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
 
0 0 0
Scrynor



Joined: 26 Jul 2021
Posts: 82
Location: New York

PostPosted: Thu Apr 21, 2022 2:14 pm    Post subject:

Thanks for the thoughts!

For the hp/mp/mv info deny I think it has to full deny the info or fully randomize it if the spell is going to be worth casting. And I really love combining it with another that mixes up how hard hits are actually landing. Just mass confusion. Just an inversion of the stat would be easy to figure out, especially if you are scripting. Although that weaker version could work if it was an extra effect tacked on to something else we already do. That extra bit of confusion might push an ability not-worth-doing over the line.

I agree combat style doesn't really matter unless we had phantom weapons to let the dupes play the triangle game. I more just listed it as the type of concept we could start thinking about but it definitely isn't a finished idea.

I really love tying other stuff into these abilities. I think that concept is very cool. The blink-free mal just sounds super fun to me. And I love the idea of other stuff being stronger in various ways in the rooms under perma illusions. It just has that "step into my web of illusions" / "don't attack a mage in his tower" fantasy vibe to it.

I mostly based my dupe suggestions off of your input in other log threads. I agree that the "manifest fear" is probably too strong. Up'ing dupe damage like is one way to help against fighter types who defend against them easily by making the blows that land punch harder but it hoses up balance agianst everybody else. What did you think of the "feeble makes them level 50" concept? I was thinking landing a mental debuff restoring them to their former pre-nerf glory (but still with more restrictions on what you can dupe) might be an elegant solution. In theory, that makes them harder to block / parry / dodge helping against the fighter type issue and harder to dispel pop (maybe? does it do that?) but doesn't have a huge impact on the people they are already strong against. And it comes with the delay to get them there to help with the opening round burst damage issue and the knowledge that you are compromised and should run for the person being attacked when feeble hits. How much does that proposal help in your eyes?

Yeah, I just want the phantoms to be useful somehow because they are so cool. That was just one idea that played off of my "help eternal night" goal. It might be strong but not insane. It's really restricted if you can only do it in and eternal night room with that cooldown. We could spitball other ideas too. Pre-casting them in any room just for a single swing is another option but seems a little less interesting and kind of trip-wirey as opposed to the "if I get you to my illusion room you're in big big trouble" vibe I was going for. Any way to autocast them would make them at least somewhat useful. Maybe you could imbue each one onto a dupe and then if all 3 get AoE popped by thunderstorm all 3 phantoms are magically up? Or attach them to something else we do. I dunno. Just spitballin'

Yeah, you definitely don't want to make them unkillable. That's why I was trying to suggest added robustness as a trade space rather than straight "make them tougher". Giving up dupe slots for defense still sounds cool to me. I like that vibe of resource management between O and D.

Yeah, harder to pop. Or popping having consequences. And you could tie it debuff or conditionals to balance.

Yeah, it would just be neat to have an alternate path to damage. Being able be like, okay my dupes are gone but I've got 3 mentals on them so prismatic is super banging now would add a lot of complexity to the matchup where people need to assess how much peril they are in.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2022 5:59 am    Post subject:

First of all the custom hologram w/ strong ventriloquate is fine, nobodys going to care about that if it just stands around (and thats what makes this kinda useless) , if that is fun for you we can implement. I would think it would be more useful if you could actually hologran yourself in from some far away spot and talk like you are in the room, but holograms of smaller mobs should be fine.

But then custom sound effects, well this is bards territory, illusions are about "street magic" -about sight not sound. a bit more like hypnotism. it seems an illusionist might find easier to deceive a person that they are deaf than to believe they have heard an explosion, to believe they are unable to yell than to believe they are hearing yells, thats the boundary of illusionist /bard, at least that was my take

The entire "park in a room where you are OP" sounds like monks in their temples again and that was definitely overboard. also, its not consistent with the other things you said later. on the one hand you said you really love the idea of this debuff with blink skirmisher. on the other you want them to basically nest on the spot with no duplicates and just be super tanky until "the right time" (what would that look like? when you are in awful condition because you did no damage, you suddenly do a "rocky" comeback?). its unclear what would be the benefit of having hunting abilities anymore. word, gate, haste, memorize dupes etc. might as well throw that all away because your best option is to sit in one spot and wait for the battle to come your way ultra-passively. and players know what passive really means. it means boring. nobody who has an IQ above 80 is going to walk into an illusionists eternal day room to get shit-kicked in there by OP phantasms.. i would say replacing eternal day/night with two kinds of AOE bubble that make opponents either take more damage or deal less damage would give you a straight-forward choice of which to use and no reason to have to deal with a cooldown as long as you have the mana to cast it, and we can skip the furious masturbation chamber.

feeblemind to make your duplicates level 50 was a feeble idea because youre going to be able to land that spell 1 out of 20 times. now that said, Vanisse and I did talk about a way to be able to duplicate the oozes to a higher level than they are, but we didnt really settle on anything. i thought this would be a great addition and the oozes would obviously seem much more scary than they really are (especially to newbies seeing illusionist fighting for the first time) and that goes in with your initial wish for custom illusions. but that mechanic isnt the right mechanic to pull this off, it would be often unworkable and shockingly bad to be able to dupe 3 crappy oozes and then feeblemind someone to secure level 50 dupes. the idea we were leaning into was just to somehow refrain strong nightmare-ish mobs into memory, like by just casting dreamstruck with it out to level it up maybe. not on a typical "exp" system

buffing dupes to make them more unstable, i mean, why? popping sucks. didnt we just put in last patch that wearing saves made it less likely for your dupes to actually burst? the idea there was a duplicate didnt just "pop" like a balloon, it would go away because you lost control of it, which could happen any time it took damage. so you could arguably lose all your dupes by sleeping. why would your dupes be more unstable by buffing them? i would think the opposite would be true. the more threat your dupe is, the more it puts the fear of god into your opponent, and thereby makes it more unlikely to pop because you have won the mind games. i could see dreamstruck adding extra insurance against popping dupes

landing debuffs to maximize offense of dupes, see your feeblemind suggestion. this is wishful thinking. again, why? people are just going to get some saves on, and then that gives you 1 in 20 chance to land any of those spells. you will have no offense, and if by chance you land one spell they can just reset the fight, and this class will be fucked.

prismatic spray being improved by the opponent already being debuffed, i mean, doesnt make sense. sorry, but do you know what a prism is? it is a glass block, it diffracts light in a way to emit a split beam (because light of different wavelengths travels at different speeds through the medium). prismatic spray doing white light means the prism failed to do anything cool. conceptually, your opponent having being debuffs should not really be expected to improve the laser you are firing at them, unless one of those debuffs is a vuln to that lasers damage type. i think its kind of cool that they cast the random debuffs, like a beholder does, like how green ray is poison damage, and i think that needs to stay. it seems like being able to control the damtype of the laser beams is something we should save for psionicists who will not have the duplicates to rely on.

The phantasms being fled from is something we could've fixed a long time ago. It is very easy to make them stay on the target and attack even if they run off. it could actually interrupt them while they are running, which would be more useful than the damage itself to a pursuing illusionist. Imagining a guy getting tied up by a flapping psionic dragon as he runs away seems entertaining. I believe these spells have to fool the opponent (save vs mental check) before they can deal their damage (save vs aff check). i would say, instead of what you wrote earlier about doing your debuffs to make your illusions stronger, turn that on its head. better if taking hits from these phantoms would lower victims chance to save vs spells, (and we have three types, so we have one for each kind of save), so that you use phantasms offensively to improve your chance of landing debuffs. and those phantoms can tie in with dreamstruck for hitroll-toting illusionists to further benefit from. hitroll would increase the damage of these spells by improving success rate

regarding running around with no illusions and having super defense because you have no dupes. sorry, wrong philosophy. you are playing a mage class. we play wizards for bigger offense - not to sit and turtle all day.a good defense is a strong offense here. you dont want to be caught unprepared. i will append on that note though, you didnt mention blur at all (which makes a save check) , and i know its for a very good reason. that is because it is RNG-based defense. a "chance" of defense is just not workable for a mage with only parry and 650 hp from a suit of hitroll equipment and a mental break item. it really does not compare to simply casting mana shield and shrugging off all spell damage, or barrier and shrug off all physical. illus get stone skin and armor, adding minimal damage reduction, but both of those seem better than blur in a real fight. what turns out to be the illusionists best defense actually is landing the slow spell (for a 100% fact), and what I was getting at with "groupcast" was to be able to slow everybody in the room down quickly. defensive benefit. would go nice with the bubble mentioned earlier. blur + staff + slow is for sure very tanky, and you can put gnome wis in the mix for great parry, too.. making that DR bubble a bit more int-based is a natural choice to encourage an elven illus. perhaps we could do this as a racial legacy first to see if its good or breaks the game

as for "popping", we could have mirror images and dupes exploding when they are destroyed too, so yeah, just go ahead and AOE an illusionist, if you feel like eating 500 damage.. easy way to solve that problem. enlarged duplicate popping for even more damage would make the opponent feel altogether helpless i would say. its the mirror image pop where the value really is though.



blink/murder was in another patch thread somewhere, ozaru didnt like the idea, its already written up and rejected, although maybe your take is different enough to be worth looking again, but we shouldnt keep re-trying to get rejected ideas added to game. https://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12919

you need ozaru, bladefury (if he even wants to post anymore) and grayden to give you pvp takes on these ideas

not being able to fly self is the biggest buzzkill IMO. mainly because fly scrolls eat right into the money required to gamble hitroll stuff.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
 
0 0 0
BlackWidow



Joined: 24 Apr 2014
Posts: 470
Location: Yes

PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2022 9:46 pm    Post subject:

Everlasting night actually has a niche use... Not just giving a vampire a free outdoors room to spend their time during the actual day, but depending on the location (areas with fields or caves, or even just the roads within some places) this could also allow the illusionist to aid any rogue friends (particularly thieves)... Hiding is affected by the overall lighting, and nighttime makes some difference from my experience.

An evil illusionist (particularly a drow) might actually *want* the effects of everlasting night available because it prevents a druid's sun blast from taking place (this requires daylight). Niche use but my point is it's not completely useless.

I'll probably respond to this more later but that was what I noticed immediately.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Scrynor



Joined: 26 Jul 2021
Posts: 82
Location: New York

PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2022 10:50 pm    Post subject:

Isn't that niche use of everlasting night already covered in superior fashion by misty mirage though? It can cover multiple rooms following the illusionist and provides hiding unless I'm reading the help wrong.

(I'm going up respond to Dav it's just a delightfully big one and I'm visiting family this weekend).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 1:55 am    Post subject:

BlackWidow its a bit too niche, really, but we dont have to delete it. its just a hell of a cool magic trick to make it seem like the night is lasting forever. that is in the bible and done by god i believe
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
 
0 0 0
Erlwith



Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 1626

PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 12:07 am    Post subject:

love you guys but the illusionist and invoker "Redo" PAINED my soul. it was so silly imo. and now to hear that we need to buff ill again is just like... wtf.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Dogran
Immortal


Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Posts: 1794

PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 2:26 am    Post subject:

Erlwith, illus were changed recently which is why people are saying that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 3:35 am    Post subject:

Erlwith since you have been gone a while let me fill you in. Patch threads are think tank sessions. we may debate the shit out of a skill but ultimately do nothing because we don't have enough agreement
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
 
0 0 0
Kalist19
Emissary


Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 1153

PostPosted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:07 am    Post subject:

I mean, I played an ill for over a year and did a lot of pk. Not sure if that somehow just got missed (ie mentioning bf as ill pker). Posted some ideas above and scrynor had some cool ideas.

IMHO fly and group cast wouldn’t help them in pk. They’d be p nice qol things but don’t expect that to improve their pk ability by a tiny bit.

A few things that would actually help ills in pk (summarized from above):
1- spell that messes with opponents ability to see hp/mana/move - super cool
2 - make dupes harder to pop or make them do damage when they pop (cool idea dav)
3 - give spell that allows to do magic attack (generic magic maybe to avoid vuln) or at least access to some kind of decent magic attack mob (currently only ettins for fire damage and they suck)
4 - tweak blur so it procs more

Any or all of those would instantly make ill pk more viable in current AR and we won’t joke anymore that “the best way to kill someone with an Ill is to haste a third party and hope that they get the job done”
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
 
0 0 0
BlackWidow



Joined: 24 Apr 2014
Posts: 470
Location: Yes

PostPosted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 11:01 pm    Post subject:

There actually is another magic damage mob for evils... And it can be memorized too. It's actually *marginally* better than the ettins but still far from optimal.

Here's a hint: it's possible to play a character which is like these mobs.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
 
0 0 0
Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Fri Jun 03, 2022 5:33 am    Post subject:

using save vs mental to protect your own dupes from popping, has done so for a YEAR, read patch notes.
https://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13468

Last patch had this
*blur now checks save vs mental of opponent, so it can work better if they don't have saves. conversely, its possible a level 15 poncho that casts blur isnt your best bet at level 50.

idk how you played over a year and dont know that. i'd say our helpfiles are terrible but it also assumes reading them
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
 
0 0 0
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Abandoned Realms Forum Index -> Past Balance Patch Thread Discussions All times are GMT
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © phpBB Group