Warmaster vs Savant, an Item Comparison.

I have played all four sub cabals between WM and Savant.  Having seen Savant for a long while now just completely shut down, I was considering adjustments that might be able to help alleviate some of the perceived balance issues without making major changes.  One thing immediatly comes to mind is the cabal gear. 

Warmaster Cabal gear offers a slew of very useful support tools.  

• In one single item you get - auto cure plague, auto cure blindness, and healing during battle.
• Through a the chest item you get expert level bonus to ALL weapons, there is also 3 versions.  One buffs the hell out of BLM's the other Warriors/serks, and another for monks specifically.
• An off hand that bleeds, which really hurts a caster because it denies tics on the short term, and can be switched from mundane to magic at will.
• The light causes your hit gain to sky rocket if you are under 50% hp.  on my beast I could heal 200 a tic with it up.

Savant Cabal gear however.

• HP and mana - The chest is hp mana, and mediocre ac.  mana.. why does ANYTHING in savant give mana.  Maybe give mana gain....but not mana.  they dont need it.  The the hp is really secondary to so many other items in the game.
• The Veil, which is nice with mirror images..and good stats.  An honestly worthwhile item.
• The light pen, a held item that hits...used to be awesome as it was unavoidable.  Now it is completely useless, A WM will get hit maybe once a fight with this.
• Battlerod, an exotic that used to pump out magic missiles..now it rarely procs.  And being an exotic that is uncursed...well what point is that to someone up against enemies that autodisarm.
• Shield - The shield...gives haste...which is very very odd.  To add insult to injury, casting certain cabal skills cancels haste, so the shield gives something that has zero synergy.  again it is no drop, but not cursed so autodisarm....
• The Balls, so this item has one of the best use effects in the game, but is cursed, no uncursed and offers little if no stats at all.  Also the most expensive cabal item in the game hands down.

So what do we do? This is ideas and suggestions.  Well I look at what is destroying Savants.  You take 200 - 300 hp a round....20% of your life.  You never have time to get any spells off because all you are doing is running.  I have been both on the giving and receiving end of this lately.  Where an old log with Slinore vs Sepahoona had me applauding him for doing 100hp a round, nowadays thats 2 to 3x the amount.   Lets itemize the gear...

Savant gear suggestions - now these are just ideas.  I would suggest using them all, or some.

• light pen - make it unavoidable again.  make it grant + Parry.  and I mean +5 parry.
• Battlerod - On use becomes cursed, on use again becomes uncursed.  Fires magic missiles automatically.  Keep it exotic. keep it one handed.  Make it fire often.
• Shield - no haste, make it give blink on use.  make the blink last 2 tics total.  So you HAVE to use it in conjunction with reverse time for it to be useful, and you have to use it on the hour you cast reverse time, and you would have to do it again to reverse it again or it wont last since a 1 hour spell will drop the next time your reverse time does.  this would go a LONG way to giving the Savant more of a chance.
• Veil - leave it alone
• Torso - double the hp.  Change the mana to mana gain, give it some auto proc.  WM gets to cure blindness the spell, so let this cure fireblind.  Or have it heal you occasionally, but a nice heal on a short cooldown.
• Efuzans ball - the trick is fun, but man its a pointless pain.  Make it one ball, make it cost the full amount you have to pay nowadays, and give it some blasted stats.  -20 ac, 40 hp - 5 spell sv + parry.  For that price it should be BIS.
• The stop watch - what does it even do? lol  It should grant slow on use in my opinion.   It is a magical STOPWATCH after all.  remove the silly curse/nouncurse from it.  Give it no stats, just 2 tics of slow.  Make it refresh every 6 hours or so.  so it would be a detriment to wear all the time with no stats.

Just some thoughts.  The Savant suggestions may seem strong.  But honestly considering how useful the WM gear is, I think it would put them in line with the others.  Here you would give savant mages more defense, some better recovery to keep up with the insane amount you can get as a WM.  It also puts their usable items at the usefulness some of the other cabals have.  Just think about it as you look at them, a plagued blinded WM gets auto cured, do you know how har dit is to blind a WM.  Why cant a savant have at least something to counter what a WM can do.   Either way I think an adjustment of their stuff is long overdo I mean common, the veil mentions Anithraeil (sp)...Thats like 15 years ago. haha.

some really good ideas here.

I always felt savants had the worst cabal eq of any of the cabals.

i think there may be some misinformation here about WM eq. Im pretty sure you need to be wearing at least 3 to 4 pieces for the auto cures to proc, and they often fail from what I recall.

You also have to consider that Gladiators cannot use any healers at all so if they didnt have some way to cure stuff on the fly they'd be super weak. I know they get some consumables but the CP cost adds up very fast when you stockpile them. I also dont recall the WM spear causing bloodloss, but I could be wrong.

I definitely agree that they should consolidate the Efuzans ball, and make it worthwhile to wear, right now everyone wears the monastery wheel who doesnt fire weapons.

I also agree that savant do not need mana items, give them HP and AC, and maybe some saves.

I agree than using a disarmable weapon is horrible vs a gladiator, its worse than no weapon in some cases. I like your idea for the battle rod, but too many free procs can add up to dangerous levels, this would have to be monitored if it was changed in addition to the light sword.

I think a nodisarm shield might be a bit OP though, I know of no auto shield disarm skill in WM, I know both glads and barbs can disarm shield but they have to use a 2 round lag command iirc.

I'd be hesitant about giving Savant an extra defense, it could swing way too hard in their favor once the EQ is balanced, but im not entirely sure. It wouldn't hurt to try and then see if it's too good or not.

If they made the light sword unblockable damage I think they would have to tone the damage down a bit. I used it a few times on my healer and when it landed it hit pretty damn hard. And it landed fairly often from what I recall. Not every round but more than once per engagement.

8 minutes ago, Kyzarius said:

I have played all four sub cabals between WM and Savant.  Having seen Savant for a long while now just completely shut down, I was considering adjustments that might be able to help alleviate some of the perceived balance issues without making major changes.  One thing immediatly comes to mind is the cabal gear. 

Warmaster Cabal gear offers a slew of very useful support tools.  

• In one single item you get - auto cure plague, auto cure blindness, and healing during battle.
• Through a the chest item you get expert level bonus to ALL weapons, there is also 3 versions.  One buffs the hell out of BLM's the other Warriors/serks, and another for monks specifically.
• An off hand that bleeds, which really hurts a caster because it denies tics on the short term, and can be switched from mundane to magic at will.
• The light causes your hit gain to sky rocket if you are under 50% hp.  on my beast I could heal 200 a tic with it up.

Savant Cabal gear however.

• HP and mana - The chest is hp mana, and mediocre ac.  mana.. why does ANYTHING in savant give mana.  Maybe give mana gain....but not mana.  they dont need it.  The the hp is really secondary to so many other items in the game.
• The Veil, which is nice with mirror images..and good stats.  An honestly worthwhile item.
• The light pen, a held item that hits...used to be awesome as it was unavoidable.  Now it is completely useless, A WM will get hit maybe once a fight with this.
• Battlerod, an exotic that used to pump out magic missiles..now it rarely procs.  And being an exotic that is uncursed...well what point is that to someone up against enemies that autodisarm.
• Shield - The shield...gives haste...which is very very odd.  To add insult to injury, casting certain cabal skills cancels haste, so the shield gives something that has zero synergy.  again it is no drop, but not cursed so autodisarm....
• The Balls, so this item has one of the best use effects in the game, but is cursed, no uncursed and offers little if no stats at all.  Also the most expensive cabal item in the game hands down.

 

So what do we do? This is ideas and suggestions.  Well I look at what is destroying Savants.  You take 200 - 300 hp a round....20% of your life.  You never have time to get any spells off because all you are doing is running.  I have been both on the giving and receiving end of this lately.  Where an old log with Slinore vs Sepahoona had me applauding him for doing 100hp a round, nowadays thats 2 to 3x the amount.   Lets itemize the gear...

Savant gear suggestions - now these are just ideas.  I would suggest using them all, or some.

• light pen - make it unavoidable again.  make it grant + Parry.  and I mean +5 parry.
• Battlerod - On use becomes cursed, on use again becomes uncursed.  Fires magic missiles automatically.  Keep it exotic. keep it one handed.  Make it fire often.
• Shield - no haste, make it give blink on use.  make the blink last 2 tics total.  So you HAVE to use it in conjunction with reverse time for it to be useful, and you have to use it on the hour you cast reverse time, and you would have to do it again to reverse it again or it wont last since a 1 hour spell will drop the next time your reverse time does.  this would go a LONG way to giving the Savant more of a chance.
• Veil - leave it alone
• Torso - double the hp.  Change the mana to mana gain, give it some auto proc.  WM gets to cure blindness the spell, so let this cure fireblind.  Or have it heal you occasionally, but a nice heal on a short cooldown.
• Efuzans ball - the trick is fun, but man its a pointless pain.  Make it one ball, make it cost the full amount you have to pay nowadays, and give it some blasted stats.  -20 ac, 40 hp - 5 spell sv + parry.  For that price it should be BIS.
• The stop watch - what does it even do? lol  It should grant slow on use in my opinion.   It is a magical STOPWATCH after all.  remove the silly curse/nouncurse from it.  Give it no stats, just 2 tics of slow.  Make it refresh every 6 hours or so.  so it would be a detriment to wear all the time with no stats.

 

Just some thoughts.  The Savant suggestions may seem strong.  But honestly considering how useful the WM gear is, I think it would put them in line with the others.  Here you would give savant mages more defense, some better recovery to keep up with the insane amount you can get as a WM.  It also puts their usable items at the usefulness some of the other cabals have.  Just think about it as you look at them, a plagued blinded WM gets auto cured, do you know how har dit is to blind a WM.  Why cant a savant have at least something to counter what a WM can do.   Either way I think an adjustment of their stuff is long overdo I mean common, the veil mentions Anithraeil (sp)...Thats like 15 years ago. haha.

I'll add my two cents in here.  Honestly, the last three Savants I had, I wondered some of the same things about the gear.  The balls are great for regen and kiting, which is a must for just about any Savant.  Fight blind at your own peril as unless you outgear your opponents by far, you are not going to defend worth crap.  Savant seem to lack in offensiveness as far as their equipment is concerned.

The Savant rod SHOULD cast magic missile.  I mean, I watch it cast harm when I played Relle and just about cried.  Even more of an oddity, it is only nodrop.  Either make it cursed or up the procs that it does such that any Warmaster will want to disarm it nearly immediately.  Magic missile would at least help you against the saves that are stacked.   It also is balanced because it is a debuff which certain Savant abilities will diminish anyways.

The Pen is very nice, whenever it actually lands which is rare because any melee will dodge/parry the majority of its hits.  Sure, it is somewhat more of a benefit against other casters, but lets be honest, your vendetta cabal is melee focused.

As far as your offensiveness goes, there are two items that benefit it, the Rod and the pen.  Both, are based upon luck much like having a dragon.  Nothing actually boosts your offensiveness as a CASTER.  I'm not talking +spelllvl equipment here.  I mean, along the lines of magic missiles will increase the offensiveness.  Having the pen not be parry/blocked/dodged.  Even have the light siphon mana away in combat would help tremendously.

The other part of the problem is itemization.  For instance, who can actually hold the pen and still fight with full effectiveness?  It is a held item.  It means, invokers can't make use of it really, Liches can't either.  Even a cleric can only use it with holy hands, which I think is about right considering their defensive capabilities.  The balls take up a VERY important slot with 0 stats.  The shield?  Well, it works for the communers well enough but the stats on it for the pure mages kinda sucks.  I personally think that this whole c/c idea is what screws up itemization.  All casters are NOT communers.  I seperate out mages from communers.  Do they both use mana?  Yes, but in different ways.   Therefore, they do NOT need the same things in order to be effective.  An item set for communers and for mages should be implemented.  A chest piece that gives hr/dr and some -ac to communers and one that gives -ac hitgain/hp to mages.  This way, the FG cleric has some cabal equipment options for a chest piece instead of competing with the Warmaster melee for the same pieces.

The other problem I think just about all Savants have is Standard capturing and downtime.  For instance, some of the decked warmasters I have watched drop the Elemental in under an hour by dirt/flee murder tactics.  Even defending, if they have the saves, they can dirt kick you, flee, and drop the Elemental before dirt kick wears off in some cases.  Are they drained?  Yeah, probably.  But, that means either you catch them before they reach the warmaster camp or you might be fighting without your Savant skills.  The only ones who I think sit well in Savant right now are Necromancers.  Why?  Half of their arsenal is melee and forces the Warmasters to play somewhat more defensively.

I've played all 4 subcabals as well and noticed similar things. I even once asked why that pocketwatch was like that and add to the fact that I thought it would fit either on your waist or even a front pocket like on a torso piece. Come to find out it fits ABOUT your body and for only +2 managain, the chasuble is a better item to wear because it's at least +10 managain and +5 hitgain on top of having +hp and +mana and better stats for meditation and trance. An item that was at one point probably average at best, in the world of EQ today it's worthless and I was still told that it the Savant items were quite powerful. I see Savant really only allowing Qclasses/Qraces a place to shine where everyone else basically suffer in most cases anymore. I know the argument made recently was that a Mage can get 1300HP and they couldn't before, but that's not really true either since older logs proved that many people who wore the right EQ could sit at 1300HP regardless and mages had a lot easier time taking on melee opponents than they do today. So what exactly changed in that time?

Warmaster has had pretty much everything buffed specifically more for Gladiators. When other Cabals lose their standard they lose all of their Cabal powers, yet now Gladiator can keep theirs up to Trusted in some circumstances. On the flip side, in Savant some skills/spells were swapped in terms of what rank within they'd gain their Cabal skills/spells and nerfs on their items over the years has meant that they definitely don't have the upper hand anymore by any means whatsoever. This is where Qclass/Qraces can actually put this into perspective more easily though. This is mainly because some of those Qclass/Qraces are still a mystery to many players though and even with Halloween Madness opening up the doors to play them in recent years, it's still not enough time to figure out the class. I'm still finding things out from varying classes I never knew about until I played them for quite some time.

As far as the proposed changes to their EQ go, I'd be all for it with every suggestion made. Even then though I don't think  it would be enough. They're very lackluster anymore and it's more a novelty of the past than anything else. Where Warmaster keeps gaining perks, Savant loses theirs. Though I admit that Thieves get the most synergy from being a Gladiator, putting them in the hands of someone who's familiar with them wrecks almost everyone in the game. Look at Danpher as the main example. Not only magic resistant (which makes any mages day a pain at times) and add in the saves EQ he would be wearing before the changes to the Heirloom and it left one vuln open which was basically physical damage. Now that he's got the Carcasse though (which grants you barrier while in combat from time to time), he loses that vuln to a degree assuming Barrier hasn't been changed. Will this situation happen all the time with every player who tries this combo? Most likely not, but it's also in part due to the player behind them and how well they know the class overall along with exploits that can be made through such a combo making him extremely difficult to defeat for pretty much every melee. Forget being a mage trying to do so, with his AC, saves, and insane hit/dam, you're not going to be hitting him hard enough to drop his HP and your spells will be laughable at best against him. There's a reason why every time a Savant sees him online they quit out.

If we don't change Savant in any way or any capacity, I would suggest heavy nerfs for Warmaster. Why is it as a Gladiator you can use items like the mask of discord and rage gauntlets, but as a Barbarian who can use magic gets the message that it's not very Warmaster like to do that? That's very hypocritical to me considering I see usable items as more of a means to grant you abilities that are magic like just by using it and only Gladiators who don't use magic can actually use it but not a Barbarian. I know as an Inductee you can't touch items that allow you to see invisible either and if you attempt to it slips from your grasp just to hit the ground. Maybe that should be the case for ALL usable items as at least a Gladiator that isn't an actual Warmaster Item. This tweak would mean that Barbarians actually get to see something out of it as well and it prevents Gladiators from being too over the top.

The success rates at which Warmasters can cure their blindness and such is ridiculous. Yeah I've seen them go through a stack of them before without success, but I've also seen people use two or three and be successful at curing them. Make the bleeding go away on that spear as well. And yes it does bleeding damage which can allow them to track you if you go to try and run if you're lucky enough to survive the onslaught they're bringing. @Manual Labour They can also go do a few Guild Tasks to get up blades quickly too. At Hard if you're sent to kill a MOB you're going to get 100CPs for it and 90CPs if it's just a fetch quest. As a Medium Quest though it's 80, which in most cases you end up not having to put much effort into gaining them due to the ease of it. I had a character about 6 months ago that didn't choose to go through any Cabal that by the time I had finally hit 50 I had so many CPs that I'm not sure how the hell I came up with 12000 CPs while never being in a Cabal. I didn't farm the Pitlord or the Gor'gorak and although I was a Crusader I only had around 3k before getting approved. -700 AC, hit/dam of 60/53 and 1200HP and Danpher still dismantled me twice. My stats were pretty good and I still don't understand why I couldn't get him below 50%.

I'm more curious what the thought is on Gladiator's ability to basically enchant their weapons to give more hit/dam to them. From what I've seen it seems to be quite a bit better than the enchant weapon spell after coming across a weapon that had been multiple times, and when it comes to the melee's who can use it to great effect means they're getting hit/dam that few other Melee's can hit without sacrificing too much in terms of saves. There's a certain point where AC and hit/dam have diminishing returns which only seems to further hurt any mage too. It means that even if they can get -1000 AC that it's only there to feed their own ego or joy in knowing how high they could get it. It doesn't really stop that diminishing return hit/dam Warmaster from still being able to have the saves needed to protect themselves from the Savant and still have enough hit/dam to be okay missing strikes because their damage is still really high. Berston can haymaker off your protections which means he could potentially dispel Sanctuary, maybe even disarm you in the first round after, and if you get a few bad rolls on flee chance because you're bottle necked in due to your Cabal placement, it's possible to get enough damage in that you'll be beyond hurting unless he's not really aiming to kill you right there.

Essentially what you're looking at is buffing a Cabal that has seen pretty much nothing but debuffs since it was created which is fine because I agree that the EQ is pretty worthless except for those two items. I would honestly rather see that the WM items were changed along with the Cabal as a whole though because even though a Savant can be strong and take out most of the characters in the game, WM is the only one who could take them all out with greater ease even though people are far more familiar with those classes than they are with the Qclass/Qraces that thrive in Savant. Change the torso piece into a singular piece so that it doesn't just buff every melee. Nothing in Savant or any other Cabal buffs everyone that will be joining the Cabal. It's usually going to buff a couple with a decent boost, but not everyone. Why do they get such a huge boost to healing anyways below 50% HP? Savant Mysterum can at least lessen the damage dealt, but nothing really lets them heal that much that quickly. Sure 100HP, but not 200. There's just a lot that seems to go into trying to buff a subcabal up that has a lot of perks already where the opposing Cabal has spent the same amount of time having nerf after nerf dealt to them not just as a Cabal, but even to mages in general.

So a few things I want to bring up:

Changes to not happen in a vacuum. You bring up Warmasters and Savants in the context of them only fighting each other, and making changes based on that. Making Savant gear more powerful will not only affect battles with Warmasters, but it will affect battles with everyone else as well. In my opinion, the equipment arms race is the problem that causes a lot of imbalances, not the solution that fixes them.

My second point would be class imbalance within Savant. The combat landscape of FL has shifted dramatically compared to the restructuring of Cabals between 1.0 and 2.0, and maybe it's time to take a good look at what makes classes perform the way they do in the new meta. Can a skilled player pick any of the classes available to Savant and perform well with them? Can a player with average skills perform on par with them? It seems to me like a few choice casters (invoker, necromancer, and maybe psi?) are able to hold their ground against a lot of the melee characters we see in WM, with qraces tipping the balance enough to make some of the other classes at least keep up with the Warmasters (undead bmg is a good example). I guess I feel like equipment is only part of the problem, and perhaps it is time to considering changing/replacing some of the cabal powers to better fit into the way the mud looks today?

Archbishop brought up another point as well: capture the flag. It is fun and promotes battle, but also heavily favours melees. Savants are unable to protect their altar from a Warmaster, but a Warmaster that is free to pummel a Savant for three-four-five rounds is going to get them really close to dead. There are some bursty classes in Savant, but a necromancer, cleric, or battlemage would barely even scratch a melee in the time it takes for the melee to kill an altar. Perhaps the method of claiming/returning a standard should be tweaked? At the very least give the Air Elemental some spellcasting ability so attacking the Tower isn't just about dirting and getting extra rounds when reengaging, but there's some damage being handed out from the guardian as well.

I agree that Savant EQ needs updating, this is for certain.

However I think there is a misconception about how strong Warmaster is.

All it takes is one really buff combo, like Danpher, to give all Warmasters a reputation of being absolute beasts.

I think this is unfair to the cabal. It would be like saying Knights are OP because Ivesianna.

There have been a lot of Warmasters who have come and gone and most of them were not impressive, many were even fodder.

Warmaster has the impression of being strong right now simply because they have a couple of dedicated players who log a lot of hours and have drawn attention to themselves.

Danpher and Berston have been running the cabal for I dunno how long now but I would even be hesitant to classify them both as OP. Danpher has a WAY better record and I'd be very curious to know what those two PK stats look like outside duels. I would wager, based on the combo, that Berston has died to more people than he has killed. Danpher probably has an excellent PK ratio outside of duels though IMO.

A big problem I have noticed with balance here is that it is often taken to an extreme. You don't have to fix the same problem two ways. Buff Savant, and leave WM alone for example. Just like with the current imbalance in EQ, just tone the melee EQ, you dont have to also buff C/C at the same time. One change at a time IMO and then see how balance is affected.

Maybe WM does need nerfs, I don't really know, but if you plan to buff Savant then do that first then see what happens. Just be careful because even right now there are already weak Warmasters and strong Savants, too big of a change could make things worse.

Just read Lexi's post and I agree with her, we need to look at the big picture not just char A vs char B. One thing I disagree with though is the assessment of the cabal guard strength. The Titan has no sanctuary and gets absolutely mauled by Necromancers for example. All cabal altars are relatively weak so outside shamans pretty much anybody can retrieve pretty easily. Melee definitely have an edge in taking the standard but Warmasters are probably the worst at protecting their Titan overall. Many savant characters can heal their Elemental and in theory any savant (as well as almost every other non Warmaster) can find ways to rescue the cabal guard. Only a Warrior or Ranger Gladiator could rescue the titan, barbarians have more options being able to use specific items that could grant a pet .

my comparison is about cabal gear equivalency.  That is it.  It is not rooted in any one players performance. 

Savant gear is poorly itemized and less effective for the classes it serves than any other cabal out there. 

fyi if strong means the last 2 years..then right now is correct.  WM has dominated Savant for nearly that long.

I'll give an example of then and now from my own perspective. Back when I was actually decent at PK just a few years after I first started playing the game, I rolled a mage and rolled almost every big name at that time. I was creative with how I did it and I managed to take out almost ever WM at that point in time 13 years ago before I decided to join Savant. I had it in mind and afterwards I managed to keep that rolling and ultimately just deleted because I got tired of coming out on top most of the time. Years later I played the same combo and found that I couldn't pull off the same thing. Outside of players having gotten better, so too did the buffs to WM change the name of the game where Savant had nothing but debuffs for the most part. Add in all the new EQ out there that they can use to their advantage along with perks of their own Cabal items, Savant just got the shaft overall.

Yeah, EQ between Cabals is drastically different compared to some others. Each Cabal has a good thing about it and a bad thing about it that we just learn to avoid purchasing on later characters. Where Savant has two useful things though, Warmaster have pretty much everything in their shops being extremely useful for almost every melee joining. I'm still very much of the opinion we should tweak Warmaster items more than Savant despite the fact that the EQ changes suggested are pretty good overall. The reason for this though is because it swings the favor into Savant's corner when facing anyone who isn't in WM to begin with. You're potentially making it so that a Savant mage will be far superior to any other mage out there while at the moment they're still at least better off than most mages who would fight a Warmaster. Don't get me wrong, I still like them more than what they currently are, but to me that's the direction we probably shouldn't go. Changing WM items would at least make it so they'd have at least a little harder time against mages.

I'm not saying that WM is a Cabal that will give everyone the ability to be OP either though by leaving them as is. It's really only one SubCabal that shows off the insane power people can have. Put Danpher in any other Cabal and tell me if he'd actually be that good as he's been in WM. I don't think he'd be able to pull off some of the feats he does if he was, and add in the fact that he can haste himself as a Gladiator by using a piece of EQ that a Barbarian couldn't use sounds to me like it should be looked at. If anything a Barbarian is shit on more than a Gladiator in some aspects. They may not be able to use Temple Healers, but they can definitely use hit and run tactics more easily than a mage. As a mage you have unreliable blinding techniques where most melee have pretty reliable techniques. Hurting from a battle? Just dirt kick and flee to take a nap. Sure you're going to take a couple more rounds of damage, but in many cases they're looking at melee damage that's insignificant and maybe a few higher damage spells, but they sleep before a tick to heal far more than a mage. In my experience, fast healing as a mage and fast healing for a melee seems to be drastically different from one another. About the only time I matched their healing was with 3 items giving between +5 hitgain to +10 a piece. This is in part due to the fact that melee CON stat is higher than most mage CON stats. Melee can also capitalize on murder rounds where a mage in many cases can't  due to limited strikes and no pets in some cases as well to double up the rounds on it.

The overall idea here I like for changing the item, but I've got to play Devils Advocate in a sense as well. Looking at both sides of the coin and seeing how it may effect a specific circumstance is great and all, but in most cases when suggestions are made people only look at the "hard coded" enemies and not everyone else in the game. Nothing is stopping a Savant from killing people outside of their enemies with the only exceptions being alignment and religion. And even then they can be justified through RP to some degree. The same thing could be said for WM, though WM seems to be more focused on specifically battle and death to enemies rather than death to the world. I'd expect them to get an Outcast before any Savant would for having that mentality. I would say if things were tweaked in Savant Cabal that they be tweaked with minor changes. I really liked the weapon proc idea, but perhaps have it proc'ed while fighting enemies more frequently and anyone else it would be infrequent or as it is now. That pocketwatch is trash as it is now though and would probably see more use if it did anything better than what it does. Like +10 hitgain, + 10mana gain and maybe +30hp I wouldn't even be upset if it still couldn't be removed. Leave the vortex tap +10 and it would be worthwhile. It's in line with many of the newer items in the game and doesn't make them incredibly overpowered against those outside of WM who would fight them if they so chose to.

You make so many assumptions, and i believe you are causing diffusion in the discussion.  There is no just looking at the hard coded enemy.  That is however the best direct comparison.  I am making no suggestions to nerfing anyone, and I don't support any such changes.  

The point is to take the most basic, easily adjustable factor, and make it equivalent.  Focusing on the one issue.  If you compare then to Syndicate, Knight, Watcher, Tribunal, Warmaster, and Nexus, you find they are lacking. 

"Savant Cabal gear is poorly itemized, and lacking in useful usable and combat proc abilities." 

My suggestions are all around correcting this one issue.

There is another thing to point out in all of this.  I understood it to a degree back in 1.0, but not in todays FL.  We have magic resist races.  Notice the emphasis.  We have races specifically designed to resist magics.  Do we have the mage equivalent to this?  Not really.  Magic resist affects nearly ALL magic.  Sure, there are some spells which deal physical damage, but the toolkits used to maximize those spells suffers from magic resist in the first place (I'm looking at battlemages and flashfire/sear).

Now, hear me out.  Add to that the abilities to deny casters or communers the ability to use spells.  I'm not just talking fury.  I'm talking silence, headbutt, mana denial, blasphemy.  Add on top of that magic resist.  Now, yes a melee can be disarmed, but that is not the same as command denial.  Sure, a melee can be bashed/charged, but they will still melee.  A caster that is silenced is up **** creek if they don't have melee capabilities or shields.

What if there were a race that was made that was melee-resist?  I don't just mean mundane like giants.  I mean flat out melee resistant.  Would that unbalance the game?  If your answer is yes, then carefully consider why that is not the same case for magic resist against casters?

Battlemages are essentially melee resistant to all mundane weapons and can stack more magic AC now than ever before.

Invokers by contrast can be completely melee immune to all magic weapons and can also stack incredible amounts of mundane AC.

Aside from disarm there are other ways to stop melee output with affects like blind, shrink, slow, calm, fear, hysteria, weapon lock, weapon push aside, and battering affects from weapons and shield to name a few.

Throw in a ton of skills/spells that can drop strength and dex by large amounts, this also definitely affects melee output.

I have to agree with Kyzarius on this one, keep it simple and make Savant EQ more on par with the other cabals and then see what happens.

edit: Im also 99% sure that Gladiators cannot use the Mask of Discord and Barbarians can use the Gauntlets of Rage.

5 minutes ago, Manual Labour said:

Battlemages are essentially melee resistant to all mundane weapons and can stack more magic AC now than ever before.

Invokers by contrast can be completely melee immune to all magic weapons and can also stack incredible amounts of mundane AC.

Aside from disarm there are other ways to stop melee output with affects like blind, shrink, slow, calm, fear, hysteria, weapon lock, weapon push aside, and battering affects from weapons and shield to name a few.

Throw in a ton of skills/spells that can drop strength and dex by large amounts, this also definitely affects melee output.

I have to agree with Kyzarius on this one, keep it simple and make Savant EQ more on par with the other cabals and then see what happens.

 

edit: Im also 99% sure that Gladiators cannot use the Mask of Discord and Barbarians can use the Gauntlets of Rage.

I agree with Kyz on keeping it simple.  I was simply pointing out the static as opposed to the things you can do.  For instance, notice there is rock/paper/scissors for everything you pointed out.  Get enough hr/dr and a battlemage will not defend well.  Invokers are a special case, but they are not immune to physical damage and have to put a shield up for it and maintain it.

A magic resist race merely has to roll and they have the benefit.  I know there are detriments as well, so that wasn't what I was pointing out.  I was simply pointing out something that someone said a while ago.  That it is amazing the Nexus has a skill to overcome resistances for melee and that Savant has come up with no solution for resistances from spells.

Let me be clearer with what I was proposing.  Currently, the Savant skills allow you to play the attrition game.  The Savant eq does NOT reflect that.  What Warmaster eq has gives it an offensive boost.  It's skills give it an offensive boost as well.  A magic resist Warmaster is a two-edged sword for any Savant.  Not much you can do to negate that except for outplay them.  It means your offense is cut regardless of skill level.  Invokers again are the special case as they have means around the resist with Call lightning for halflings and Jet Steam for duergar/dwarves.

I am suggesting that Savant eq reflect more offense to the classes that are Savant capable.  This offense should even be enough to make them a threat to Magic resist as well.

I agree with some of what you say. My last post was mostly pointing out the ways to reduce melee output as you had previously stated there are a bunch of ways to stop c/c from using spells but no ways to stop melee from meleeing.

@Manual LabourConsidering I'm not sure if it has been changed, but I have had a Barbarian tell me within the last 6 months or so that they could not use them at all and the message came up as it's not a very Warmaster like thing to do. Having had a Barbarian, I couldn't even use staves due to a similar message which essentially just turned me off to the subCabal in general. Maybe it's just specific items though that they can or cannot use I'm not 100%, but I do know for a fact that at the time I was told about it IG that they couldn't.

@Kyzarius Yes, I understood your reasoning behind it and I agree with what you proposed in changes, but if you don't take the overall picture into consideration the question becomes then whether or not by boosting those items would upset the little balance we have or if toning down other Cabals EQ would have a more positive impact? Honestly I'd love to see all of those changes being done to their EQ, but with the toning down and tweaking of other EQ in the game being headed by Lloth I believe could mean we may be going in the opposite direction of what they intended to fix in the first place. The only thing I typically buy when going into Savant is the floating item and I'll buy that held item if I'm playing a Healer or an Illithid since that's about the only time I've found it to be most useful. If their weapon were to go off more often with magic missile that would be great because it means that magic resistant races could possibly be less of a bother to them as it stacks saves against them.

I'm not bashing your idea overall, and I do know you invested a good bit of time writing up your proposed changes, but I also can see other drawbacks to it too even if they're very minor. I'd probably buy all the items if I were to join them in the future if they were tweaked like you suggested. If these changes were made though, we'd see the difference in what people wear considering. In every other Cabal there's usually about 2 and maybe sometimes 3 items that are actually handy to have and useful in practical use. I've played every Cabal and I haven't been in a single one where I wanted to purchase more than 2 or 3 pieces which is pretty on par overall. The main difference I do see though is that Savant items were tweaked for the worse over the years  while WM skills were tweaked for the better of their synergies. So changing the items sold in Savant seems to only slap a band-aid over a knife wound versus changing and tweaking WM items to nerf them. Either way though you still have the exact same issues you have currently. Mages getting rocked by melees because of the amount of damage they deal forcing you to have to attrition which not everyone is good at. Add in the fact that melee in general can out heal most mages, and the items don't matter when you go from 1000hp to 500hp because their parry sucks ass  and caps at 105% but not only that, but they also can't heal for shit. I'm not saying my thoughts of changes would be ideal, but at the same time I'm not ready to say that your changes would do much more in terms of being balanced between the two or all Cabals in general. Yeah it would make them more on par with other Cabal items, but when a Cabal that used to do fairly well against Warmaster is now one of the least joined Cabals outside of a Qclass/Qrace, and even then they have great difficulty is saying something more than just Cabal EQ needing to be tweaked even if it would be for the better.

I do not want other eq tonned down.  I want Savant EQ on equal footing.  That is the ONLY picture being looked at.

wipes blood and tears from his eyes

i think i might be at work

Did I hear BMG's are getting magic missile?  :P

Idk, ogre warriors get cure disease and cure blindness at no cost...is a bmg having magic missile on a weapon proc really that obscene in the context?

4 hours ago, Manual Labour said:

I agree that Savant EQ needs updating, this is for certain.

Or syndicate for mages... Why anyone would play a mage hoping to use that gear is beyond me.