Mental vulns: Giants vs. ogre vs. gnome?

[WagesofSin]

Is the type of mental vuln for all of these races the same or do some have it worse than others? I keep hearing how everyone laments about Ogre mental vuln but don't giants have the same vuln(and giants dont have that awesome HP) if not worse due to their low int/wis?

[Tantangel]

Ogres don't have a mental vuln, they have a magic vuln. Magic Vuln is far worse IMHO than a Mental Vuln being the fact that any mage can take advantage of a Magic Vuln, only a few can take advantage of the Mental Vuln. I honestly think their healing made up with fighting Mages, which is probably what they were intended for when the first person of the code made them, now they wont be able to regen through the amount of HP taken from them from various classes that could eat them up just as easy before the change. If you have a Mental Vuln it doesn't matter what int/wis you have, I've had several Gnomes at 50 since the change and a few Giants as well, and mental spells landed just as easy on both, in fact it hurts a lot more on Gnomes being they're primarily mages and silence is a mental spell, lands usually on the first try, if not at most the third, but most likely the first. Giants will just be dispelled way easy, which Ogres are already dispelled way easy since it is after all magic, it should fall into the Magic Vuln category Ogres have.

[mya]

Ogres vulnerability to mental is equals to giants.

Gnomes are a different case, because they are vulnerable to mental and charm.

And all charm spells are mental spells. So they MIGHT be affected by both vulns.

In all case Gnomes will save better than a giant against dispel due to high INT.

[Malchaeius]

Ogres don't have a mental vuln' date=' they have a magic vuln. Magic Vuln is far worse IMHO than a Mental Vuln being the fact that any mage can take advantage of a Magic Vuln, only a few can take advantage of the Mental Vuln. I honestly think their healing made up with fighting Mages, which is probably what they were intended for when the first person of the code made them, now they wont be able to regen through the amount of HP taken from them from various classes that could eat them up just as easy before the change. [/quote']

This is the third or so post that you have made roughly the same complaint: Ogre regen was supposed to compensate for the damage that they from mages, and now they will not be able to compete anymore, and are therefore screwed.

Cut it out.

1. While Ogres take more damage from magic, they also have more hp to work with.

2. Ogres STILL regen faster than everyone else. Without getting into the code specifics, or quest classes, they are the all-around best regen race in the game.

3. If you compare an Ogre versus a human (since humans are more or less our base class). Unsanced, they will both take roughly the same damage, but Ogres have more to work with. Ask any mage who they would prefer to catch unsanced - an Ogre or any other race. While you will get to see those pretty damage verbs with the Ogre, it is much more devastating for the other races to fight or be caught unsanced.

4. Ogres were extremely strong versus other melees. They would heal in the middle of a fight what a lot of others would heal in their sleep. Thus in a battle of attrition, baring any major mistakes from the ogre, the ogre would clearly have the upper hand.

5. If you still do not believe me, I will run 100 rounds on test port with a drow/elf/faerie invoker versus an Ogre Ranger/Warrior/Berserker and any race of the same three class combinations. If any of my last four points prove to be wrong, I will boost ogre regen.

I personally tested this change. While I do not claim it is perfect, I also do not believe it has made Ogres underpowered or unable to fight mages. Give it some time, as it stands, no one has really tested this new change for a long enough time frame on main port to be able to make much of an educated argument.

I apologize for the slight derailing of the thread.

[Questioner]

But is it not true that an unsanced ogre versus an unsanced (insert race) invoker will always turn towards the invoker? An ogre can only take five-six hellstreams/icestorms (including one ogre-rage effect) before being killed? An ogre does not have the unspeakable strength a firegiant carries right?

[Celerity]

unsanced ogre vs unsanced invoker probably means a dead invoker

ogres don't have quite the offensive power of a fire, but -very- close to it

to beat the ogre, you need to take advantage of the vuln via dispel or something

[Calron]

But is it not true that an unsanced ogre versus an unsanced (insert race) invoker will always turn towards the invoker? An ogre can only take five-six hellstreams/icestorms (including one ogre-rage effect) before being killed? An ogre does not have the unspeakable strength a firegiant carries right?

This really depends on luck...

Failing saves an ogre will be dead in three hellstreams, in which case the invoker would win. Basically, in this fight you can't really say who will win with any degree of certainty because it depends a lot on luck.

[Hegemon]

They tend to roar at the worst times, those Ogres.

[Calron]

I have to disagree with you here, Malch. I agree that they were strong against other melees, but they were also much weaker against Casters and specifically communers. That was the balance of things. The same goes for all of the Giant races for melees.

Now regen is cut to roughly 1/3 of what it was. I was planning on elaborating more, but my points are just so obvious that it isn't worth posting. We clearly just see things differently; therefore, I won't go on about why ogres were balanced before and aren't now in detail.

The net result of this change is basically, ogres now regen almost the same as any other melee race. In return, they have 450 more health to make up for a vuln to all types of magic. To put it simply, any race/class that cannot find strong vuln weapons against an ogre is too inexperienced to even be considered in an analysis of balance (which cannot be said for any other race). Since complaints about ogre rangers were by far the most rampant, lets compare now.

Aside from ferals (who have fury and an extra attack, plus defense bonuses), ogres now take twice as much damage as everyone else, are affected by mals/mentals much more easily, and regen a tiny bit more.

As two IMMs now have stated that ogres are still supposed to regen "WAY more" than other races, I don't think change worked as intended. I will follow up with regen logs on the prayer forum.

[Celerity]

ogres have many more bonuses than just extra hp (50% more than giants) and regen...

large size, great stats, weapon dam bonus, just to name a few...

[Tantangel]

This is the third or so post that you have made roughly the same complaint: Ogre regen was supposed to compensate for the damage that they from mages, and now they will not be able to compete anymore, and are therefore screwed.

Cut it out.

1. While Ogres take more damage from magic, they also have more hp to work with.

2. Ogres STILL regen faster than everyone else. Without getting into the code specifics, or quest classes, they are the all-around best regen race in the game.

3. If you compare an Ogre versus a human (since humans are more or less our base class). Unsanced, they will both take roughly the same damage, but Ogres have more to work with. Ask any mage who they would prefer to catch unsanced - an Ogre or any other race. While you will get to see those pretty damage verbs with the Ogre, it is much more devastating for the other races to fight or be caught unsanced.

4. Ogres were extremely strong versus other melees. They would heal in the middle of a fight what a lot of others would heal in their sleep. Thus in a battle of attrition, baring any major mistakes from the ogre, the ogre would clearly have the upper hand.

5. If you still do not believe me, I will run 100 rounds on test port with a drow/elf/faerie invoker versus an Ogre Ranger/Warrior/Berserker and any race of the same three class combinations. If any of my last four points prove to be wrong, I will boost ogre regen.

I personally tested this change. While I do not claim it is perfect, I also do not believe it has made Ogres underpowered or unable to fight mages. Give it some time, as it stands, no one has really tested this new change for a long enough time frame on main port to be able to make much of an educated argument.

I apologize for the slight derailing of the thread.

I didn't say they wouldn't be able to compete anymore in any way shape or form that I recall in any of the posts I made. I said it would definitely make more of those battles uphill for an Ogre, IE: BMG can chop an Ogres HP down to near nothing in a few short rounds if caught unprepared. Prepared, Ogre will still be dropped down to 300hp in roughly 10 rounds, prepared meaning basic of PK needs with minimum protection being sanc, flight and barkskin with various other random spells always kept up. If I hadn't wiped my HD I'd have a few logs of BMGs totally beating my Ogres *** even with the regen.

Yes, I'd rather have an unsanced Ogre than an unsanced Human, depends on what both are dressed in though. If the Ogre has no saves and the Human has -50 saves, I might want to be the Human instead since the Ogre will more than likely get hit for UNSPEAKABLES which takes better than 500hp off per hit. Ogre at 50 will have roughly 1300-1500HP so that's 3 rounds of taking UNSPEAKABLES, usually only happens between a few mage classes, though this is all assuming anyone is stupid enough to actually stay in combat.

I even pointed out their strength versus melees in the attrition game, they totally would get stomped. Unless the melee themselves had more hit/dam and magical weapons, I'd probably give the battle to the other melee, it just depends on how well dressed they are.

Yeah, Ogres have the highest HP of any race in the entire game and was able to regen at a huge rate compared to other races as well. I think Dwarf is a great choice as well for some of these classes that Ogres can become. Assuming you had a Dwarf that could become a Ranger you'd have a Ranger much like a Halfling Ranger but with roughly 400 more HP, with magic resistance, poison/plague resistance with 3 less strength and some other stat differences I can't recall, the fact of the matter is they can't become Rangers which is probably a good thing. Thing is I don't know why people would play an Ogre over a Dwarf Warrior, as both are extremely dependant on EQ, there's a difference of roughly 200-300hp between the two. Dwarf with consumables could've easily bumped his regen up towards that of the Ogre before the change, and assuming both are equally equipped and the Dwarf gets a trip off before the Ogre got a bash off, it's probably going to lean more towards the Dwarf, and even if the Dwarf does flee, he can eat the consumables assuming not blind and then go for the trip again hopefully before the tick hits. Say the Dwarf is dual wielding magical weapons that are noremove while the Ogre is stuck wielding disarmable vuln weapons. To be clear basically with the example is that it could go just about any direction to either person depending on skill. You can't test that on test port ever, it's only something you'd have to try out in real time.

Now as for the change to Ogre regen, I haven't ever said that it was a bad change, I've simply stated that it has given people who have problems fighting Ogre anything more of a chance to beat them. This makes it great for some people and it just means people who play Ogres have to find out a way to be able to get around the slower regen. In fact I've actually agreed with this change, all the while just simply stating the fact that I believed that the whole point of the person who coded Ogres to begin with were basically doing so because Ogres were probably intended to fight mages mostly as in AR they were usually melees in their equivalent of WMs fighting off mages that would be dealing massive amounts of damage and the regen helped balance out the high output of damage the mages were dealing. Not to say that it makes them completely pointless to fight other mages, it just makes them harder to fight.

[Malchaeius]

I have to disagree with you here, Malch.

I do not mind at all that you disagree with me. Just show me your facts. I already have my logs and calculations to back mine, and I will be more than happy to compare them with yours.

I agree that they were strong against other melees, but they were also much weaker against Casters and specifically communers. That was the balance of things. The same goes for all of the Giant races for melees.

Again, all melees have issues against communers - yet with the previous healing rate, along with their hp, ability to save with roars, and high damage output, Ogres were not, and I repeat, were not the weakest, or even the top three weakest, versus casters and communers. I can name three other races that would be in this category before one could contemplate Ogres.

Now regen is cut to roughly 1/3 of what it was.

Nice guess, but wrong again. The closest figure is half. Unlike all other races (barring qraces/classes), Ogres did not have a fixed healing rate. The lower in hitpoints you were, the faster you healed. So at 10 hp, an ogre could easily gain 300-400 hitpoints in one tick. That roughly translates to an ANNIHILATEs or ERADICATEs. This is what made the dirt, flee, sleep, technique so popular with Ogres. I will put it this way, under the old system, an Ogre was healing about six times as fast as all other races. Now it is roughly three, yes THREE times as fast.

I was planning on elaborating more, but my points are just so obvious that it isn't worth posting. We clearly just see things differently; therefore, I won't go on about why ogres were balanced before and aren't now in detail.

I am not attempting to be rude, but no, your points are not obvious. I am looking at the old code, and comparing it to this new one, and no, ogres were not by any means of the word balanced. There is a reason why Ogres were considered the best melees.

The net result of this change is basically, ogres now regen almost the same as any other melee race. In return, they have 450 more health to make up for a vuln to all types of magic. To put it simply, any race/class that cannot find strong vuln weapons against an ogre is too inexperienced to even be considered in an analysis of balance (which cannot be said for any other race). Since complaints about ogre rangers were by far the most rampant, lets compare now.

Wrong. Ogres heal upwards of three times faster than any other race of the same class, and they will make up that 450 health before another race even reaches 70% of their max health. I have tested this.

Aside from ferals (who have fury and an extra attack, plus defense bonuses), ogres now take twice as much damage as everyone else, are affected by mals/mentals much more easily, and regen a tiny bit more.

An Ogre taking an icestorm will roughly take the same damage as a Fire Giant taking Ice Storm. An ogre being dispelled will have the same penalties to their saves as will giants. You can put almost any races good points out there to make them look good -> and Ogre still heals around 3x faster than normal races, they are huge (i.e. excellent lag), strong, can roar, etc.

As two IMMs now have stated that ogres are still supposed to regen "WAY more" than other races, I don't think change worked as intended. I will follow up with regen logs on the prayer forum.

I await your logs with great anticipation. If there is some kind of bug with how the Regen is working on main port, I will be more than happy to get it fixed. Yet if the issue is that they are not healing like they used to, then I am afraid that is intentional.

RE: Tantangel

I apologize if I misread your post/posts.

A tip though, you have to make fair comparisons. Ogre or Human vs a mage, both naked, you will want to be the Ogre. Ogre or Human vs a mage, human -50 saves, Ogre naked, that is a no brainer (and should not really be kept in mind when attempting to balance). Ogre or Human vs a mage, both -50 saves, you may still want to be the Ogre. Ogre or Dwarf vs a mage, both with good saves, now that is an excellent situation to think about (although it tipped more towards the Ogre under the old system of HP regen).

Ogres were not unkillable before. However, their old insane regen gave them way too much of an unnecessary edge.

[The Lemming]

I await your logs with great anticipation. If there is some kind of bug with how the Regen is working on main port' date=' I will be more than happy to get it fixed. Yet if the issue is that they are not healing like they used to, then I am afraid that is intentional.[/quote']

Any one know how many times he has said this now, I dont have that many fingers.

[TheNewGuy]

Good job Calron. You pissed Malch of so he went into code specs.

[Calron]

I have nothing against Malchaeius or any of the staff, nor have I ever, TNG. They do a great job, and I am only trying to help them, and the game as a whole. I try to be completely constructive and detailed(when I have the time) as much as possible. I've played my share of ogres and I really honestly do not mind if they are adjusted for balance. However, judging by what he said, I think the change is not working as it should in the game. By my logs (I'm still waiting to get a more substantial test number before I post them as I'm sure Malch has before making this change) an ogre (fully/moderately satiated hunger/thirst) right now is averaging a regen of 92.75. Chars near condeath with 8 con regen for more than 30 hp per tick.

[TheNewGuy]

Chill, it was meant as a pun at Malch, who dropped down some code info.

It is very good that you try to help, and you do it in a mature an constructive way. So no pun intended (to you).

[Ex-D&Der]

Not sure I understand the crisis here. If ogres are gimped now, then I'm sure the IMMs will fine-tune. Everyone was bitching about ogre rangers, so some kind of change was inevitable.

Also, it may be true that the old regen made up for the magic vuln (as Despiser long maintained), but I think the point is the vuln is supposed to be a real weakness, and not made up for. That said, I do think the vuln to all types of magic is an unusually broad vuln, which merits an unusually broad racial perk, but let's see how it works out now before getting our panties in a twist.

Perhaps now someone will actually play a stone giant ranger.

[L-A]

When it comes to vulns, think of it like this:

Ogres are vunlerable to magic - that is, anything and any damage type that isn't mundane will trigger their vuln. Its a wide sweeping vuln - hence ogres are not recommended for non-experienced players as you will find yourself dead in a hurry if you don't know what you are doing.

For other races, the vulns are restricted to single spell types and damage nouns. Some vuln damage nouns are easier to find on weapons than others (eq ice vs mental).

For resistance, it works the opposite way ie a dwarf will take less damage to anything cast and any non-mundane damage nouns.

Being certain races with vulns/resistances can give significant advantage in class matchups vs classes that do not have ready access to their vuln. A good example of this is giants vs bmage.

On the opposite side of the coin - it can really suck to face someone who does have easy and ready access to your vuln. It can suck even more if you aren't prepared in the right way eg ogre with no saves.

The last thing you will want to think about is that all races who have vulns have something to make up for this. The key to doing well with these races is to exploit your advantages and while minimising your disadvantages. It sounds simple but you'd be surprised how many people lose battles because they never thought of this.

L-A

[Tantangel]

Not sure I understand the crisis here. If ogres are gimped now, then I'm sure the IMMs will fine-tune. Everyone was bitching about ogre rangers, so some kind of change was inevitable.

Also, it may be true that the old regen made up for the magic vuln (as Despiser long maintained), but I think the point is the vuln is supposed to be a real weakness, and not made up for. That said, I do think the vuln to all types of magic is an unusually broad vuln, which merits an unusually broad racial perk, but let's see how it works out now before getting our panties in a twist.

Perhaps now someone will actually play a stone giant ranger.

It's not that it was supposed to make up for the magic vuln so much as it basically helped them out some with it. Many mages could outdamage an Ogres regen as is, and some classes could even outright stop it altogether. Even your average melee with the right things could put a stop to an Ogres healing rate. I didn't know that that was Despisers argument, but I'd have to agree with him on that point. Not to say that I absolutely hate the change as apparently some people have thought, but I agree with it, it made Ogres totally hard vs. some people, and this change made it to where those people wont have such a hard time. Hell I never even thought of that as a possible change to them, it was probably even better than dropping any stats or anything since they can still be as strong, just not as unstoppable.