Things that I think warrant attention.

Posted by Mars on 03/21

From: Lagmonster Saturday, March 18, 10:12AM There's an alternate solution to this, which will reduce the gap of fighters and spellcasters at the same time. Raise the spirit requirements of words to match the current meditate requirement. That will give fighters 8 points of additional stat advantage against mages, something they need really badly. Personally would ask for a 50spi req in meditate to match the surgery skill... Perception requirements for words should match rudh's current requirement too, perhaps. Of course having all words be like that will hamper mages' training too much, so only words that are used in stun and sink will probably reflect this change. They'll still be attainable, but at a significantly more cost than before... All this i just felt was reasonable after looking at Mo's stats again. Dropping Mo's mind from wfw-possible to casting possible levels, he can attain close to 100 str, 90 con, tumble dex... and an entire 2nd circle cause spellbook. Basically every other skill a fighter has other than kick will be a cointoss, while every spell other than stun will have 95% chance of succeeding. Raise word req's to current meditate levels, the best Mo will have con-wise will be 77 points. Enough to make headbutt reliable. Raise perc req on words, and Every spellcaster that can dodge will be vulnerable to at least two sets of skills from a fighter. Which, imho, is the way things should be to allow fighters enough experimenting room with updated hit/dam gear and/or various nifty attempts from the fighters. Current word req is simply a joke, be it 2nd or 3rd circle, compared to the benefits they can reap from that. With some rumours of making fighters have spirit requirements for some of the skills, i think word req's should be upped.

From: Mars Saturday, March 18, 10:33AM I think that all meditate does is allow faster regen so who cares if it is lowered requirements...raising the requirements of a mage is a ridiculous concept.

From: Vortigern Saturday, March 18, 10:53AM It's not easy to be a low level mage, especially one attempting to get his/her words and cast levels before skills. This means we rely entirely on our mana source and standard combat to get us through the exp runs. We level at a fraction of the speed of a sniper or fighter because they need to rest a fraction of the time we need to rest to regenerate our mana. With the recent changes, in order to even contend with other players and m obs, damroll and hitroll is a neccessity to land your attacks. With the rent jacked up and the +dam/+hit items now all having -'s in "mag e" stats, it makes it rather difficult for us to gain these necessary bonu ses. (I don't care what people say, you need it to land attacks.) In order to have the bonuses, you need to give up quite a bit of rent spac e which might and quite often means sacrificing a chalice. (Also a necessi ty of a third circle mage, especially create.) Now, through all of this and as Mars said, needing a ridiculous amount of uncessary stats plus now you need natural dex to land attacks, who can afford an additional load of spirit? As a strength mage, I have enough of the damroll that I need, whether I want the HP or not, I have the con for the spells I need, and until lately, my 17 dex didn't bother me because I could make up for it with hitroll items. Now, unlike fighters who neglect spirit and perc entirely, being a strength mage, I need EVERY stat. If I neglect perc, spir, con, I lose my spellcasting. If I neglect dex, I won't land my hits. (And I don't.) I can't neglect strength because of obvious reasons and if I neglect my mind, then I'm really no longer a "full mage." Above all, in order to have any efficiency as far as time, experience and everything else goes, I need more spirit that I don't even have to get something that I need. And I can't even exchange one item in order to get the attributes that for the skill. All in all, I think it's a mess. My personal opinion is that damroll and hitroll shouldn't be so overbearing and important for everything. It shouldn't be a necessity to land your hits, just make them hit harder. Perhaps allowing mages that lost meditate with gradstats and new mages that need it to once again be able to use it, would be a big step back to where we were.

From: Sammael Saturday, March 18, 06:05PM This is just me, but personally, if you raise the word reqs MORE then they currently are for a 3rd circle, I just won't MAKE a 3rd circle. As it is 3rd circle honestly gets little benefit from having 3rd circle. What spells do I have that I use regularly? Immolate, gust, invis, and cure crit. Thats a great reason to come from agrabah when if I came from tara I'd have all my normal spells, minus these, and brew. If I felt like dropping stats a little, I could even poultice. I think your wrong on this one lagmonster. I fight fighters all the time and they do NOT need a boost at the current time. Staggering headbutt is just insane and unless you get seriously unlucky you can't lose. I beat straussy last night with 2 wfw's. Lucky me. For ever fight before him I've stunned at least 10-20 times and wfw'd once, at dying. I personally don't see the big deal with stun. For me anyway, regardless of how low or high my mind is, I never wfw much at all. I think fighters are just fine as they are, maybe too fine, but I'll say fine for now and I DEFINATLY don't think mage reqs should be raised. I personally hope to see spirit become a min req for a main fighter skill, maybe bash and headbutt or some such. I think fighters get enough of a stat bonus as it is and if you raise it, your making a mistake. -Sammael

From: Ptwang Saturday, March 18, 10:02PM I reckon meditate should drop to 40 spirit and chalices should be yanked.. Root also needs to come down to 45 spirit cos as it is you may as well augment for just a tad more spirit.

From: Ammar Saturday, March 18, 10:17PM C3 mages are already hard enough to make as it is, whether or not it's a "full" mage with 100mind/100-91fight stat or a low mind, "half" mage. If reqs were raised, I would stop making c3 mages as well, and likely, I would stop playing them. The power a mage has ISN'T as great as Laggy makes it out to be because a) not everyone is cause, and b) even if the pk side of it is ignored, the fact will be that mages will be more vulnerable to all sorts of things in mobkill than they are now. Which affects everyon since clanned still need to mobkill to unclan. Not to mention the fact that some things that work in mobkill...don't work so well pk. Raising the reqs while leaving fighters untouched when they can put a mage out of action with either a stun or a bash every 2 or 3 rounds would, imho be a big mistake. ESPECIALLY now that it isn't really viable for a mage to use a lot of hit/dam eq anymore. The stats are just too tight. I would really like to see the a mind req of about 60 or 70 on meditate, a a spir req of 40. 70 mind would power down "half" mages, be they c3 or c2, while giving more incentive to have more than half a brain on mages. Ammar ibn Khairan

From: Davien Sunday, March 19, 04:59AM I'll add my voice to this cry as well. Mind you, I cried out for it when grad stats went in and got the response "lose some stats from somewhere" Like I said at the time ...... 100 dex/mind, spell reqs leaves TWENTY NINE remaining stat points. Meditate stats leaves NINETEEN stat points. 19 is -3 damroll, which I would point out now cannot be got back without sacrificing more damroll, which would mean you need to lose more str ... hey, that doesn't work. -3 damroll actually means quite a bit when you only do 30 damage or so per round. Not a lot, but every point counts when you fight a mob that has 600Hp and hits for 100 per round. Puny low con mage-man with 400Hp can last 4 rounds.... does 29 X 4 damage in return. Probably have to rely on ID, which most mobs are immune to. Provided you can throw. Stats are now even tighter for a full mage - I had to lose stats to get a weapon in there before the latest round of tightening. It would really suck to have to re-eq now if I ever lost my old gear. Though I could get a waterboy position on a team somewhere I guess. For those of you who think I am over-reacting again..... I am one of the average players out there who gets hit the hardest by these changes. The really good ones will be slightly inconvienced and will adapt in new ways Maybe I will as well, but chances are I will have to suffer because a few people are doing things better than the rest of us. Nobble those people, don't pick on the bulk who are plodding along, doing the best they can. Davien Holyoake.

From: Poetry Monday, March 20, 01:28PM Dont raise the req for words... Mages will become even more impossible to play at lower levels. And I dont agree that mages are too powerful, even at level 50. Im an experienced player, yes, I beat most fighter types that attack me.. but its damn hard. Sometimes a newbie fighter with headbutt 650 hps (nice horseshoe from marauder, etc) and big damageroll stands there and spams headbutt poetr all day, and comes way to close to beating me, with my 500+ who knows how many pkill fights strong experience, a damn newbie fighter shouldnt even come close.. you wouldnt believe how close they get. If you make it even tougher, than I can promise you, no one except for an expert would make one. This thread is about meditate, and yeah, 48 spirit makes every pkill mage use a chalice. Something is always wrong when all players of a certain character type outfit themselves with the same item. I think that this was Mars original point and I want to throw support to it. Let me also add, that a chalice, not only saves me 8 stat points, but allows me to regen mana as Im invis and stalking prey, some thing that meditate doesnt do, and chalices also give me an extra 60 mana... cause a 2 tick fight (at the shortest) is one chalice cause you started it thirsty, and then a second one 2 ticks later. If you are smart you can start at thirsty, and get 150 (I think) mana (you can drink chalice 5 times from thirsty?). Thats a lot of mana. My suggestion is a 70 mind 40spirit min on meditate and yank the chalice. Sounds harsh, but its much better than changing word pre-reqs. And btw, Im going to be really sad to see my chalice go. Poetry

From: Mugwump Monday, March 20, 01:42PM I don't really think the meditate req is all that bad as is, even after the changes to eq. As a 100 mind dex mage, I can meet med reqs and still have 26 str and 3dam (that's +3, not -3). No, I can't do that at 100dex, in fact I've given up one attack per round to make those numbers. If I tried though, I could probably come up with an eq list that let me have max attacks and still have very near the same str/damroll. Then again, even with a horseshoe I don't have 400 hp.... well, variety is what makes us interesting. For a con mage its even easier (could make a 100/100 list for con mage pretty easily), for str create maybe it's a bit harder.... but that's a whole other argument. The point is a mage shouldn't be as good a fighter as a fighter is. Of course, even without meditate, a mage isn't as good of a fighter. But I'd rather see 100 mind be more powerful than see mages become better fighters. Right now, as a mage you have a lot of choices to make: high fight stats, more dam or hitroll, more hp, meditate, etc., you just can't have it all. Having choices is what makes things interesting. As long as each of those is a worthwhile choice, what's wrong with that?

From: Ishmael Tuesday, March 21, 09:27AM What is interesting about the difference between a mage that can meditate and one that cannot... There is no difference between the two except one takes longer to regen and is hard to level at lower levels.....and if you are pk like me (are you pk, mugwump?) then a chalice is a necessity. I am going to throw support behind this idea, and I would suggest perhaps making a chalice a little rentier perhaps or even keep it the same so I can regen mana even faster....