Posted by Sax on 10/12
Why is it that cause mages seem to have so many more advantages than
create mages? (3rd circle)
Don't get me wrong, I'm a religious c3 create player, and I have much more
finesse with c3 creates than I have with cause. And even so it's blindingl
obvious to me that cause has a lot more going for it.
For 75 mana a cause mage can get a q5 or q4 dancing weapon that far
outdamages any create charmie. For all the beam of pain, elemental special
acts, etc, I'm sure they don't beat say...a gusting sastram, a broad axe,
a couple of slothers, etc. I KNOW this for a fact. I've never been able to
kill the brahman in 4 rounds with any sort of create mage (barring instant
death vials).
And now causes get to animate wands! Whee, we can have even MORE
weapon specials that equal or are better than elemental specials.
Another argument is that elementals have hps. That's great. But I'd also l
love to have the alternative summoning spell of something with no hps and
good (as in dancing sword good) damage. Mana cost can still be 150, I don'
really mind that since the cause mage has to expend mana to get the weapon
assuming, he/she doesn't just buy it.
Heck, I wouldn't even mind if I had to go out and gather things to make
that greater damage charmie. Maybe moondust for a high damage air sprite.
Not really too sure on the kinds of items, but these high dam create
charmies could be too powerful, make it so that you need a specific item
that doesn't repop so often and is too renty to carry around in heaps.
Cause mages charmies do not have charmie hps dependent on mind. This
means 150 mana = 500hp charmy if you kill some easy level 50 mob, and
there are quite a few of those around. For just 60 mind, you get a 500 hp
tank, you can go out and get swords to offset the fact that the tank does
next to nil in damage.
Create mages spend 200 mana on a charmie that usually eventually poofs,
doesn't hit all too good unless it's doing a special (the demon bash is
sweet) the stun from the titan isn't so hot if you tend to inspire, and
I'm really not too keen on the beam of pain from the angel.
This charmie if you have 60 mind usually has...wow about 250hps or so, and
is almost never, in my experience, permanent. The elementals, if you have
60 mind, are also pathetic, unless you're a con mage, in which case, they'
are probably about 200hps. Unfortunately they don't do a whole lot of dama
during that 200 hps.
I suggest that animate dead hps be calculated the way greater elemental
hps are currently calculated. Because the way it is...a min stat c3 cause
basically gets all the charmie benefits of a 100mind c3 cause. A min stat
c3 create gets no where even CLOSE to that.
After this huge rant (scuffle), you might ask why I play almost
exclusively c3 creates...well. The answer is I'm lazy, I like being able t
to preserve my own gear, and I'm in love with gauze rolls appearing out
of thin air. I'm too lazy to go out, kill something, buy weapons, animate
them, most of the time.
From: Sax
Saturday, October 07 2000, 03:10AM
Ick went LD.
And create appeals to me probably because of temperament too, I just plain
-like- create better. But when I look at it, c3 causes have:
10 more stat points, 5 more hitroll, better armor
Better damage spells
Better tanking charmies at 60 mind
Dancing swords and wands that do comparable or more damage than
greater elementals
c3 creates have:
Instant gratification factor, I want charmie NOW I get charmie NOW
Creation of neat things like bandage rolls
Preserve
Cooler looking charmies (matter of opinion)
3 types of charmies that can hold gear
So to finish off I really think c3 create needs more looking at...whenever
I compare creates to causes I get really frustrated -vent- Thanks
for reading this rant (assuming you got this far)
Sax
Oh yeah and I'm cause. -snicker-
From: Mac
Saturday, October 07 2000, 08:08AM
How bout giving doppels fight skills, not necessarily bash,
kick etc but weapons training so it may be worthwhile to
equip them. As it is they take half your xp and don't
even do any damage.. Not really a suggestion to address
Sax's complaints but for the 2c's that were really screwed
by the change to grouping.
From: Zemus
Saturday, October 07 2000, 10:45PM
How about give creates and cause mages the dancing sword
spell. I mean the cause mage is causeing the sword to dance
or you can look at it as the create mage is createing new
life in the sword to make it attack or something :P
might be intersting if both types could have it, dont
know if it will throw things off but its an
idea
From: Darkheart
Sunday, October 08 2000, 08:14AM
Well, I wouldn't mind a 3c create option to animate things they
created -- staff of light, ice dagger, flaming sword.
Course we'll prolly have to make it so that they're not
mere illusions -- think other than for the staff of light,
everything else is fairly real in terms of words used in
them. Prolly will need a new staff spell too, or something.
The main problem i have with the current create scheme is that
roots are really no good even if you have heaps of mana left.
How about an ability to create poultices instead? About the
same healing as cure light, perhaps, but with the same mana
cost or so as roots... of course, this is an addition to
the current root spell, just for 3rd... but in any case, guess
the point that need to be addressed is more ways of making
mana useful for create mages. They can't even prep their
charmies, heck, can't even hand over swords and staves of
light and stuff to their charmies. Equipping them with newbie
light armor and shield is about it.
(Lower the costs on flaming shrouds and shields, have them
be handoutable to the caster's charmies, we'll have some
fun stuff going on :p)
DH
From: Israfel
Tuesday, October 10 2000, 10:28AM
I like the idea flaming shrouds/shields/staves/daggers/swords being
handable to charmies, as long as they're handable ONLY to those mobs
charmed to you, not to players, other mobs (i.e. someone else's charmies)
etc.
Or perhaps greater summons could come with spells that protect themselves,
say, wall of thorns for a greater golem, self renewing even when moved,
or some sort of aura around angels/titans that makes their opponent take
more dam if opponent is of the opposite align.
Haven't really thought this through seriously in terms of balance, (too
tired). But c3 create could really use a boost in some way.
Israfel Shadowleaf
From: Mugwump
Wednesday, October 11 2000, 09:20AM
While I lean toward believing that create is less powerful than cause
in some ways (in terms of rate of xp gain, pkill, usefulness to groups,
etc.), I don't think I would include charmies in that assessment. I
don't see how a dancing wand could be more powerful than a
homunc or dopple holding that wand. As for weapons with specials,
homuncs can wield those too, and are cheap enough that you can be
choosy about having one with lots of hp to wield it. And while
dancing swords may be capable of doing more damage than a greater
elemental, even my skinny elementals have a big advantage in hp. A
single elemental can solo many mobs their own level (or higher). A
dancing sword... um, doubt it.
One thing that I think can be done to give create a small boost in
pkill is perhaps cutting down on the number of spells that are
illusions. Currently, any mage can render a half dozen or so spells
useless for the duration of a fight with a single spell.
From: Skar
Wednesday, October 11 2000, 10:23AM
Once again, I'd like to see no charmies have their hp rely on their
master's hp. In my opinion, charmie hp should be based on some
relationship to their master's max mana -- 100% for greater
summonings, 50% for greater elementals, 25% for elementals and 12%
for homunculi.
Dancing swords and animated corpses should also have hp based on max
mana while also interacting with weapon quality or mob level. The
more mana you have, the more hp your charmies get.
I prefer a solution that uses max mana rather than mind because if a
mage sacrifices rent space to increase their mana, they're going to
be weaker in combat. An 800 mana mage is a godawful wimp. They need
good charmies to compensate.
An idea I submitted once was to begin coding spells that relied or
could be augmented by material components. That way mages could get
more powerful spells, but they would be limited because of the
difficulty obtaining the item, rent cost, etc. You could even have
material components that you had to quest for or that you couldn't
rent. A component could be permanent, have multiple uses or poof
after only one use.
For instance, change the doppelganger spell. Alone, it creates an
exact duplicate of the mage. Using different material components,
you can get different mobs with more damage, maybe a few fight acts.
Change the greater summoning spell so that you can use a material
component to summon which mob you want. Have your chances of
summoning be affected by your alignment.
Using material components could also change the mana cost of spells,
affect the strength of damage spells or the duration of prep spells.
Of course, making mages carry around a bunch of stuff to get more
powerful spells would make them even weaker if they had to expend
significant rent space. The augmented spells would have to be worth
it.
Finally, I'd make a new COMPONENT item type. You could recognize
components with the identify spell, but you'd have to experiment to
discover what it did.
From: Splat
Wednesday, October 11 2000, 09:58PM
I disagree with so much emphasis to be put on mind or mana.
Low mind have less mana to create charmies and regen it
slower already, when you get down to 60 odd mind you'll
find yourself rarely using them as it is. I had a char
at about 80 mind but brought him closer to 100 just so
I could make better use of pets, and that's a cause mage
whos pets hps don't currently depend on the casters mind
or mana. No need to make it worse.
From: Splat
Wednesday, October 11 2000, 10:03PM
Oh yeah, perhaps you should look at the formula for hps
on titans etc, it used to be based on the casters con
or hps but when it went to mind it was way off the original.
I mean I had 40 con, 60 mind and my charmies dropped by
over 100 hps.
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