I want to try to understand the current situation with shaman and thieves and the levels they 'cast' (thieves casting through traps).
Now, what I'm about to post may not be widely known - but it is information I've taken off the forum at one time or another or from change notes in game, its not from the code. However, I may be about to open the eyes of soem of the players out there...
Currently shaman cast mals at their current level +2. So if you are lvl 50 you cast lvl 52 mals.
Thieves traps cast at -3 their current leve. So if you are lvl 50 you're traps go off at lvl 47.
I'm trying to understand why this is so, so lets start with shaman:
Shaman
In the beginning, its my understanding that the shaman class was
given this because they rely solely on mals, and apparantly 'needed' the power. WIth the level of saves and hit/dam in in 1.0, this may have been true. I had a shaman in 1.0 and was hard pressed to cast on people - and phantom grasp took saves back then.
Today, however, saves are much harder to come by (comparitively speaking). Add to this that deteriorate has been 'beefed up' and now scales vs your saves (higher saves = more +svs from deterioate) and shaman seem have it easy casting spells. I actually believe they do - lvl 52 mals plus the ability to reduce your saves with two spells (deteriorate + curse).
Does anyone here think shaman's need this boost? I know the class isn't what you'd call a 'beginner' class due the nature of how they kill BUT I think its really getting up there on the power spikes if you have the smallest clue on how to use one.
The other issues I have seen for a long while is the lack of high lvl poison and plague cures. Compare this to the cure for blindness. I think this needs to be addressed as well. Blindness cures are readily available in lvl 45(47??) forms. Why not the same for poison and plauge? A lvl 50 casting this will still require a few 'potions' to be used to cure. It seems to work well for blindness, I never understood why it wasn't the same for poison and plague. There are lvl 50 and lvl 60 cures, but you can't carry a lot of them and I would wager in a 3 hour (RT) battle I could run you dry. A shaman can cast these spells forever.
I haven't played a shaman recently, but I do believe with a small amount of non-winter/discord/faction rares I could, with relative ease, put away any other character at lvl 50. I do not mean to boast, I simply believe the power of the class to land spells and reduce your saves is too high.
Thieves
I hate thieves. I really hate the bastards, in fact, I make it a policy to kill any thief in my PK on sight. Every one of my characters has a RP reason to hate thieves, or if they didn't, one usually attacks or steals from them by lvl 40 and I quickly develop a reason to kill thieves on sight.
I hate seeing ideas and suggestions to improve thieves and ninjas. IMHO they don't need anything. I have had a lvl 50 thief with traps and less than half my kills were due to bj/trap/throw. I found I could rely on backstab/throw or just trip and melee due to the stealth capabilities of a thief.
So why am I here asking why they cast so low (-3 lvls). The last thief trap thread really did get me thinking about this...
As I understand it, thieves traps were originally set at +2 lvls. So if you were lvl 50, they cast at lvl 52. Once Virigoth's slith syndi thief showed the new power of traps and the pbase had a few months to work out you could trap single exit rooms so people fled into your traps, I remember the days of lots and lots of theives. Antimagics ripped spells of everyone, backstabs were behind every corner and no amount of saves seemed to help.
This was a problem. I fought thieves during this time and survived, but I'm close to an expert in not letting players set me up in single exit rooms. A lot of players died horribly over and over. Again, I thought at the time +2 lvls was quite excessive. When it was cut back to -3 levels I was glad. Thieves had to actually display some skill for their kills now (IMHO).
I was speaking to a fellow player the other day though - and at 97-100% on his traps they weren't landing. Something like 1/8 I think. I'm not here to debate the use of traps etc - I'm sure if I took a thief to lvl 50 with some 'creative' trap use I could kill players. I'm sure with some 'uncreative' backstab and throw use I coudl kill more. IMHO most thief players lack the ability to make full use of the stealth side of a thief (a lot more important on a thief than on a ninja). Many players just want to trap;trap;bj;bs;autothrow;get all corpse.
It doesn't work like that, nor should it.
However, I don't think that traps should be at -3 levels. As much as I hate to try to get thieves powered up, it just seems unfair and impotent. Why not set them to lvl 50 and let players have to carry saves to avoid them. Or not carry saves (as some players do) and bet on their melee vs a thief. A berserker is more than capable of this as is a staff wielding warrior. At -3 lvl you really don't need to fear anything but damage and lag from a trap. One of the reason's (IMHO) that chestbuster is so loved by lvl 50 thieves.
Its probably possible to use the +spell items to get trap casts up (unsure of this) but why should thieves have to try to carry the SUPER eq out there just to get what I would consider a level playing field.
By the same token, the eq exist that a shaman could reach the max cast lvl of 55. Good luck getting anywhere near the enough saves to stop them landing on you then.
So, why not set shaman and thieves to lvl 50 casts and let everyone at lvl 50 be on equal terms?
Cheers,
L-A
PS - I would discuss necro's being at -3 lvl mal (or is it -2??) casts, however this was solved (IMHO) with the introduction of soul tap. Due to some of the spells necro's can cast as well not losing zombies when they log out, I believe this to now be a good balancing factor.
This isn't true of hte shaman and thief class IMHO.
Would make people think twice and only use it when absolutely necessary, rather then, ****, thief in the lands, i'll stumble around permanetly chuckin up my guts.