What would it take to make you cast spells?

Posted by Rufus on 09/29

From: LadyAce Thursday, September 28 2000, 12:19PM Me personally, I end up casting some direct damage spells, in particular gust and immolate, but I would probably cast them more if it weren't for the fact that it costs me so much if people flee -- if I save the mana for a heal on myself, it's not going to miss, whereas if I'm fighting, there's a constant risk of them fleeing at the wrong moment. So I pick my times pretty carefully. I guess that's not a suggestion for change, just my $.02 on why I do what I do. -LA

From: Mandarb Thursday, September 28 2000, 12:19PM the problem with damage spells is this. As it stands so much damage is done in pk so fast that while you might do 70 damage on an immolate, your going to get bashed for 150 for doing it. Thats why stun is so powerful. Not because your hitting harder, at least not for most types. Its because your getting hit LESS. I think if all damage was just toned down a bit, this wouldn't be such a problem. If I'm a dex mage and I have 400 hp, a headbutt or bash can easily take 25-40% of my hp. My firestorm on the otherhand might do 80 damage, but its going to be maybe 15-20% of a fighters hp. Because atm the games balance is based on stun, damage spells will never be popular. So, take out all the hp gear as stated above, do an eq wipe of all old gear, make all damages lower at least in pk, and you might see damage spells used. The same also applies to mobs because if I'm fighting a mob that hits for 60 damage a round, its much more beneficial to stun the mob, you do the same damage or slightly l less then you would have firestorming but you take significantly less. So I guess I'm kinda rambling, but my point is if you make stun less powerful and damage lowered a bit, you might see things like kick and immolate and other direct damage skills/spells used more then they are now. - A mage who never uses damspells because he'll die if he does.

From: Sandra Thursday, September 28 2000, 12:22PM My two biggest things are as follows: A couple of my highest damaging spells I dislike using because of the risk of scrapping someone's eq. I will more than likely use a skill instead, so that I don't hinder their fighting by scrapping something they need. Second is sink. If I try to cast immolate on someone with less mind, and find that their sink is such that I can't get a spell thru, then I'm going to spend my mana on healing myself instead. If I have 100 mind, and they have 50, that's totally useless if their sink was gotten at early levels. So, there's my 25 cents worth on why I don't use damage spells as often as I could. =) -Sandra

From: Dune Thursday, September 28 2000, 01:04PM I have to say that Ladyace said most of it. Why would someone chant an immolate against a pkiller that could, at any moment flee and cause me to chant on air? Its nice that it only takes 16 mana when chanted on nothing, but the real big cost is the 2 rounds of skill lag on top of that. Its just not worth it to chant anything that maybe "miss" when you could use the mana for healing, that NEVER misses, and for utility spells. A lot of the time, it works out that a kick (30-35 hps of damage) and a cure crit (60 hps of heal for 64 mana) is a much better combo that that same amount of mana in damagespells that may miss, cost you mana and/or lag you, granting the enemy a free attack.

From: Trish Thursday, September 28 2000, 01:13PM imagine a poor create mage in this situation :P let me lead you outside and bolt you for comparable damage to immolate or ill just etheric void you for 40 all across! yahoo in my opinion, i just want to fight as a create mage not relying so much on a damn tank.... but i don't see that happening right now so otherwise ill have to have my tank

From: Ptwang Thursday, September 28 2000, 01:41PM Haven't read the other responses yet but making healing spells return less hps for the mana would work but then I'm one that uses damage spells anyway, you won't see me using skills unless my opponent's likely to eat my spells with sink. I guess another option would be varying skill effectiveness depending on hometown.. preferably in damage, not success.

From: Ptwang Thursday, September 28 2000, 01:50PM BTW, my ideas are copyrighted too and since I don't like them I'm afraid I'm not going to allow you to implement them!

From: Darkheart Thursday, September 28 2000, 01:58PM I use direct damage spells when i know i can win this fight regardless, or if the other guy has better healing than i do, or if he tumbles everyth else... I don't think i use healing much, mostly because i can either get ingame healing or figure that as a 3c cause with 100hps worth of hp gear, i can outdamage fighters -- given the str fighters' dam these days and tumble kicking in every now and then. Still though, when i immolate for 60 which costs me 60pts of healing, i'm dealing a net of 0, giving me no advantage. But when i kick for 30 and retain my ability to heal 30 pts, i'm gaining a 60 pt edge over a person that can't heal... if i stun a person who would normally decimate me for a round, i'm using 30pts of healing's worth to prevent 45 pts of damage or something like that, giving me a 15pt edge... Well that was overly simplified, but i hope you get the idea. Mana is too versatile to be translated into damage when skills can deal damage just as well. DH

From: Rufus Thursday, September 28 2000, 02:06PM What I got from a discussion with Mandarb after his post is that stun is used as much as a defensive tactic as an offensive one (eg, you're not taking damage at all, but still dishing it out even if you can't hit that hard). That's a tough one to fix without eliminating 'stunned' as a concept =( -Ruf

From: Screwball Thursday, September 28 2000, 04:06PM This is just an off the top of my head idea, but here goes: Raise the stats required for 3rd circle words, and work it so that the damage done increases exponentially for mind above 80. If you make it necessary to have 55 or 60 spirit to cast immolate or lightning bolt, high mind mages fight skills get downgraded, and the increased damage from spells evens things back out.

From: Lancelot Thursday, September 28 2000, 10:06PM Damage spells that do good damage have a bad side to it. besides the healing factor, for me to use a watery death I have to go over water, most of the fights not one water, Firestorm if in a room with mobs costs a Hell of a lot of mana and aggs everything. When its so easy to flee its hard to make sure your spells will be worth it. So stun is the skill that has the least drawbacks, but Its failed, backlashed, tumbled, more than it wfws. Its got enough of a downside dosent need to be changed in my opinon. Lancelot

From: Ptwang Thursday, September 28 2000, 10:39PM I guess another option would be to get rid of healing spells altogether and make meditate like root..

From: Tomahome Friday, September 29 2000, 10:15AM The denfense offence feature of stun is right on the money as one of the big causes of not as much damage use in pk. The only time i've ever been direct damage spelled as a figther(eg no sink) is when i was stunned! I fought one person who used gust a few times, but for the most part it was stunning. Taking zero damage in a round and getting a little more damage in yourself is worth alot more then just doing damage and getting bash/headbutt. And about stun being tumbled and failing, yes it does that, but it also has extremely long wfw so those two balance. Perhaps if the c hance of wfw was lowered along with a slight decrease in stunning chance it would encourage more direct damage. About the healing thing, yeah that is kinda ridculous, it shouldn't be more effective to skill/flee/heal then it should be to cast your damage spells. To solve this the mana cost could be reduced for attack spells and or the damage increas ed. Up stun and healing cost and lower direct damage spells? my two cents + your two cents = 4 cents Tomahome

From: Darkheart Friday, September 29 2000, 10:34AM I like stun cuz it's a 'pacer' for me. Any stunning skill, if they land, let me catch my breath, plan my next move, and earns me valueable time. It also happens to do quite some harm to my opponent, of course. What i see as a problem with stun is that it won't break even on some hard contact such as an immolation or a kick. Think it used to be that backstabs didn't break stun even back in the old days, but kick and other skills sure did. Maybe we'll have to go back to that system, cuz then a wfw will only do half as much damage as they do now. Dh