Defiance

[Xerties]

My idea is a skill for invokers called Defiance. What it amounts to is basically as the invoker gets more and more injured his spells do more and more damage. It wouldn't be a one for one thing, but more an exponential curve. For example, at 50% hit points you would only get a 10-15% bonus to spell damage, while at 25% it would be a 25-30% bonus and at 5% you'd get a 90-95% bonus. This would be something that would, IMO, help balance out a struggling class. As it stands invokers can't hold a candle to necros or berserkers at 50, struggle with warriors and shamans, and just generally don't do all that well. There's only been one invoker in recent memory that's been able to do anything, Grimp. Think how many berserkers or necros or even warriors that have just ripped it up. Quite a few. So what do you think?

[Davor]

huh?

Zehmann, Thkot anyone? Grimp was a justice who turtled more often then not, and not all that impressive compared to these two(granted he did excellent work exploring Valour:)).
Problem with invoker is that none of the good players have turned to this class lately. And idea of beefing already hysterical hellstream...
Why should they stand toe to toe with berserkers who are basically "mage killers"? What you are suggesting is that after the imms have gone through the trouble of implementing savebreaks and bunch of healing supplies they introduce a skill that would encourage sit and spamming hellstream as tactic nm1, somehow I can't see that.

And oh, hellstream, sanc, ward, protective/mana/elemental shield, word, enchant, chain lightning, fireball, two defences... Poor poor invokers, how will they cope without 100% damage boost...

[Xerties]

Apparently you haven't played an invoker lately. Zem never made it to 50, I've never even seen Thkot. Go ahead and roll one up and see how well you do, hellstream isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

[Kedaleam]

Dont worry... Wait till Afflictive module... *cough*

[Xerties]

Oh oh, good idea. Just let me hold my breath. *GASP*...................

[Esivole]

listen, when you see a hellstream 'maim' another player, it makes you lose hope in hell stream all together. or when an icicle 'injures' a fire giant. no, invokers spells are in no way beef. enchant... yay for having 7/7 weapons when you really have no use for them because you can't waste EQ space with hit and damage eq. so the 7/7 means little enough to me. f-bal.... yay? TWO DEFENCES, sanc, ward, protective/mana shields, word..... all of those are to keep your ass halfway alive while you try to run. necros have mass pets and can do nice damage in them selves, illusionist can do the same. Shamans just pwn alot with their incredibly wide variety of spells so you can never really guard against them. healers aren't supposed to do much, except stay alive a hell of a lot better than invokers. invokers can...??

[Davor]

Right.
Concerning my invoker experience
I played the other rank 50 drow legion invoker in Thkot's time, i deleted after a while, not before testing and getting the feel of char and class fully, conclusion was: interesting and far from "gimp" class but not for my mediocre skills and rather lacking ambitions learning wise.

1. invoker should not and has almost no chance in beating magic resist warrior types if they are prepaired (dwarf and the like).
I will reiterate again, Thkot as a great example of invoker play, sneaky, catching people off guard, never staying in fight for more then 2-3 rounds(unless the other guy is unsanced) always initiating or attempting to, using whole Thera to his advantage. And most important of all, knowing when to retreat, pick your battles.
Zehmann didn't hit 50 but if you saw him fight you know what I am talking about.

To cut down further heckling, I'm not saying that invokers could not use a brushup, I felt the pain myself, but all that could have been different if I adapted to it instead sticking to my warrioresque ways of going toe to toe with everyone...

If you want a stay in combat pwnnnn style go dwarf zerker and final reserve everyone... thats what Resatimm did

[Davairus]

[Kalist19]

Eh, Grimp was pretty awesome. If buy turtling you mean wording when hurt, then yeah. But if you mean hiding behind special guard, then not so much. Most of his fights were against non wanted guys. As for invokers vs magic resistant warriors? Might be different now due to save afflictives and whatnot, but back then grimp rocked all the warlords. I'm telling you guys, only way to go on invoker is massive hit/damroll. Bring out the offense. Invoker playing D will get whooped.

[Slade]

I wouldn't guess (not too much experience there) invoker to be that bad really. People play them kind of strangely with full hp and mana (<- ???) gear and stuff like that. My priorities would be hit/dam (#1 priority unless against a dispeller), save mental (for said dispeller), health (obvious). Its kind of a balancing act. I'm not going to wear some 10 hp item over hit/dam, but if its like 30 hp then I'll take that over the 2 dam item or whatever (as long as my hit/dam overall is still OK, so I'll still have a balance of everything).

Tactics wise I'd guess you just have to kind of play it guerilla style, blast them unsanced, you could run around and outlast their purples if you wanted, otherwise you could just keep trying to brute force it until successful I guess (its can probably take a lot of skirmishing attempts to pull it off sometimes). Use those scrolls and staves for healing.

The abysmal HP is a real problem... what are you gonna do..

Certain combos you just aren't going to beat if they have half a clue. Dwarf warrior and berserker = death.

[Burzuk]

[Erlwith]

Look Xerties, Invokers are pretty gay at this point. If you're going to play one, it's going to take a lot of skill to do it even at a level of mediocrity. To be "good" at it... well, they can only name a couple good ones going back a few years so that should tell you something about invokers. Right now invokers are nothing to be feared, if that's what you're going for, wrong class... but maybe they will be with the aff mod.

There is a clear line to be drawn here between capable classes and gimped ones. Warriors and rangers are perfect examples of ready to play classes that got completely done up from bottom to top with the combat mod. These are going to be your choices if you want to play capable classes. Thieves and Invokers are two other perfect examples of classes that are so gimped (either by being stripped of skills/spells or just not being updated with the newer and newer game changes) that just playing them adequately takes a better then average skill level.

[Davor]

[Davairus]

The fact both invokers and rogues still have cheeses, by definition, means that they can't flat out "suck". If it does flat out suck nobody will want it (e.g. fire shaman)

[beia]

Fire shamans rock eh?

But Mages need no more skills they are already beastly if you play them rite.

[Erlwith]

Davor, that's all well and good, but it still doesn't change the fact that Invokers are under equipped. That is my point, not that anyone is too much of a noob to be good at an invoker. Frankly, when you can only name less then a handful of "good" invokers in as long a time frame as we have you're either stating that the entire playerbase as a whole (save those two or three players) suck and are newbies, or that the Invokers are not at their full capacity. I think the fact alone that their getting an overhaul speaks volumes to the fact that they are not a complete class, and as such are not as leet as some of you are trying to prescribe. They have some of the tools they need (and as such tools that can be used by an experienced player to overcome their downfalls) but not *all* of the tools a class would need to be balanced. Basically, Invokers kind of suck in pvp, but a great, smart player can turn even the greatest pitfalls into their advantage.

And aside from your clever quips, I really don't believe "Balance" is about invokers being equal to warriors, or anything of the sort. I believe that it is a balance in functionality. Can this class function, and do a, b, c and d. Invokers aren't at what could be their full potential, and while I don't endorse a skill like defiance, saying that "you suck at invokers because you're a newbie" is a complete fallacy. You suck at invokers because the class isn’t complete, and even with their strengths it’s going to take an exceptionally experienced player to really shine.

[Vhrael]

Uh... there are tons of "great invokers" in the history of AR.

The problem is that with the current changes to combat and weapon skills, they're still "old school". Atari 2600 (invokers) vs. the PS3 (warrior-types), y'know?

As for the class being "complete" or not... again, that's dependent on changes that occur within the rest of the game. Before warriors got hobble or overhead crush (or weapon/combat advantages), people would've argued that they were more or less "complete," but if you asked players today if they want to go back to the old system, many would say they like things how they are now. Invokers just haven't had their "upgrades" fully implemented yet.

Give it time. I'm fairly certain that the afflictive module and changes will be coming around pretty soon, and then a more thorough reevaluation can be done properly.

[Davairus]

A major cause of invoker sucktitude is the player grabbing tons of +hp instead of getting some +hit/+dam and using cure preps. Completely overlooking those skills is a newbie mistake.

You should look at the prep skill like this:

scrolls = energy scrolls, medic scrolls (cabal)
staves = cure critical staves

Example:
Paladin will complain he doesn't have much mana for wraths and cures, and about his crap regen, but he has staves. So he could just brandish red and whites and just get it for free. Well or he could just say paladins suck and pretend it can't happen. The same goes for invokers with their poor hp regen, necros going dam for rend life, thieves and ninjas both get scrolls. The durability is all in the preps. A low hp is much easier to manage than it probably seems, the benefits of hit/dam are obvious.

You don't see a warrior not using sanc just because he has to walk for purples, do you? Well an invoker not using cure preps is just the other side of that coin. Its an important and necessary distinction that (A) warriors aren't able to use or do anything about those items, while (B) invokers can just dispel purples.

Unfortunately conventional wisdom dictates to put a mage in +hp, which is wrong. If you're saying an invoker isn't a good class, its a dead giveaway that this is what you're thinking, and yeah, it dont work, and wont ever work.

In future I would suggest not taking acknowledgement from the imms that some changes needed to be done as a sign that the class is crap. Invokers most certainly are not. Thieves, better than any other class, can monopolize preps. Its just a matter of getting a good suit first like with any class.

[Erlwith]

None of my posts are meant to be a gripe, firstly, I know things are coming and I'm not rushing them. Simply saying that not being able to fight well with an invoker has less to do with the skill of the player and more to do with an out of date spell line.


As for invokers being so awesome, I'm waiting for the proof.

[Davairus]

For one, the very reason guys try to get away with "brainless spam" hellstream in the first place, is because it is somewhat dangerous. But that's by no means all invokers have to do.

How about a mage hitting caps through sanc with his melee. Its really just a matter of getting hitroll/damroll items and enchanting a weapon. Ever experienced getting massacres from a mage after he dispels you? Its not only healers and shamans that can do that - they just don't have a "spam hp eq" mindset because they can cure without preps.

Try chain lightning vs multiple opponents. It outdamages hellstream easily. Its cast delay is sufficiently low to prevent multiple easy flee/murders to, making it a better spell against fighters that like to do that.

Try fleeing after hellstreams, so you don't get caught in the second round of melee hits. Then initiate with your hellstream just after that would have happened. You can avoid a lot of damage that way.

Try fireballs, they hit harder and cast much faster than hellstreams. Does this sound like a spell that sucks? Its really lethal.

Try murdering. Any class with a good hit/dam has a good murder.

Oh but, all that sounds nice, but nobody ever played a scary invoker in practice? Right....

Gnome invoker (before the fixed vulns) vs fully pimped stone berserker Warlord
http://www.network54.com/Forum/109789/message/1123178456/Grunky+vs+Taurth+-+who+will+be+squished-