BMG's & Magic Missile

[Cephirus]

If you up the lag reduction of reflective shield, what is the purpose in having Force Field at all? I would never use it.

[Imoutgoodbye]

*quietly wonders why protective shield hasn't entered the conversation as he bites into his toasted turkey and cheese sandwich*

[KRins]

*sandwich cheers with the Rev* I think protective shield is a little redundant as BMGs get force field which is basically the same + a healthy little flaming rocks from the sky deflection property. I am pretty curious why reflective was nerfed. I mean... you could essentially keep it weak even if it did reflect the tiniest bit of magic damage, which said BMG isn't resisting via spells. There is no way on god's green earth you can convince me the nerfed reflective is anywhere near on par with other lvl 50 spells. I mean DI...literally any of them... are more useful than reflective the way it is. Hurricane? Better. BMGs do need a little rebalancing in my opinion... but I think most of the suggestions here are kinda worthless (lightning bolt anyway). Of course then I consider BMGs to melees, have a nice laugh, and wonder when true warrior race diversity will come... and why there isn't a hand to hand warrior lore...

[Cephirus]

Well without hand to hand, everyone would get owned by monks. Hand to hand is not really a weapon class. Yes, it is using them as a weapon, but I think the idea here is that warriors train to use specific weapon types. Anyways, going to try and keep this thread from getting derailed. Part of the reason for the initial toning of Reflective shield is that with it reflecting magical damage, it was nearly every round hitting your opponent significantly. Add on top of that the blades, and dancing blade, throw some actively cast damage spells on top of that, you easily have a damage output that has the potential to rival an invoker. I don't think anyone here is going to say that invokers need more defensive spells.

Now I know that it was mentioned to tone that damage, however, the damage from non-magical sources and reflected is pretty fair in my opinion. However, I think the spell is currently coded so that you cannot affect one without the other. I am sure with Zhokril's absolute amazing skills, that could be changed, however there are definitely balance issues.

[corpsestomp]

You guys just need to master Meditation of Blades.

em mumbles incoherently about noobs.

[mya]

Wow... I wasn't aware a completely uncurable blind was somehow worse than a blind you can counter in about...5 different ways I was able to come up with before I finished chewing a bite of sandwich.

5 ways???

The difference is that Sear Blind is quite high power stuff, at least if you are doing it right.

You go through Gyvels like candy trying to cure it. Even Communers have a hard time getting rid of the thing.

Add Slow/Thunderclap and your Dex drops.

Add Chill Touch/Shrink and STR drops. (Well sometimes, not everyone has +STR gear.)

Now you cannot get more gyvels out of your pack. :eek:

Want a good balanced UP for Battlemages.

Allow dancing blades to cast the spells weapons have.

Now, if you dance a Fire Lance, you do not get breathfire damage/blind.

Now, if you dance a Sharp Glaive, you do not get sharp/wrath damage.

[KRins]

5 ways...gyvels, dark reds, cure blindness, temple healers, and cabal healers. Absolutely none of which effect fireblind. Short of UBER limited gear or cabal powers its impossible for a BMG to increase their spell lvl so I can't figure out why a lvl 50 sear blind would be any harder to cure than any other level 50 blind. If you can land a blinding sear, slow, thunderclap, chill touch, and shrink on someone...they are 1. even worse at PK than me. 2. you got insanely lucky those all landed before someone got meleed/mal'd/nuked to death. Considering some of the absolutely insane things dancers can already do there is no reason to further buff it.

[H&R]

I know from experience that sear blind is harder to cure with potions than other blind spells, such as flashfire.

[f0xx]

I know from experience that sear blind is harder to cure with potions than other blind spells' date=' such as flashfire.[/quote']

That is because its level is VERY high.

Also Mya, you don't need slow to prevent someone from getting potions out of their backpack, they can't get them out at first place because they are blind

When I fought Virarc he was able to easily blind me even when I was with -30/40 mal save and being a dwarf.

Now, thunderclap + sear blind is real bad. Real real bad.

[mya]

Also Mya' date=' you don't need slow to prevent someone from getting potions out of their backpack, they can't get them out at first place because they are blind [/quote']

I know, this is for preventing them from refreshing the supply.

3-5 Givels may cure 1 sear blind.

But they don't cure 2.

[f0xx]

I know, this is for preventing them from refreshing the supply.

3-5 Givels may cure 1 sear blind.

But they don't cure 2.

3-5 gyvels for a sear? Multiply that by 3-4 and I will agree

[KRins]

What sears are you getting hit by f0xx? I've never needed more than 4 gyvels for any blind except once when I caught a blind from a mal spell lvl decked shaman.

[samag08]

I say make reflective shield go back to the previous levels of damage reflection but have zero lag protection. If you want lag protection then stick to force field. If you are outdamaging them throw on reflective but risk the lag.

[f0xx]

I say make reflective shield go back to the previous levels of damage reflection but have zero lag protection. If you want lag protection then stick to force field. If you are outdamaging them throw on reflective but risk the lag.

Reflective shield offers next zero lag protection at the moment anyway and as people said battlemages don't need anything.

[L-A]

The don't need anything - they are an exceptionally hard class to fight. They can hurt you:

* Via melee (blades, dancing, disarm so you get SMASHED by their melee)

* Via spells (aff, mental and maledictive)

They are hard to hurt as:

* They have as many defenses as a warrior and 75% of these aren't based on weapons proficiency or even having a weapon (lessoning the effect of disarm).

* They have great ac - a drow bmage in non-rare items can have -400ac if done correctly.

Melee's suffer badly vs bmages.

The main weakness of a bmage is:

* Other casters who can deal very high damage - usually invokers.

* Communers as bmages cannot deal super high damage, but rely on not getting hurt much and being able to deal very decent damage.

* Upkeep - spells eat mana every tick to maintain, another reason long and draw battles don't agree with them.

* Spell management - lots of affects to correctly micro-manage. It can take some getting used to.

Also:

* They tank VERY well, especially if you have someone to cast sanctuary on them. Even better if its a cleric.

Its a very strong class - most often called a 'tank' for a reason. It doesn't need anything. I'm so glad to see ref shield doesn't put out MASSIVE damage even when you get weapon selection right. They certainly don't need oprogs on dancing blades. The weapons iteself hurts enough as is.

L-A

[Celerity]

I think a bmg can out-attrition a cleric. They regen so fast...

[The-Nameless]

stopping mana regen on a class that relies heavily on upkeep spells?

[Celerity]

Only evil clerics there...

[Mmm Coffee]

The don't need anything - they are an exceptionally hard class to fight. They can hurt you:

* Via melee (blades, dancing, disarm so you get SMASHED by their melee)

* Via spells (aff, mental and maledictive)

They are hard to hurt as:

* They have as many defenses as a warrior and 75% of these aren't based on weapons proficiency or even having a weapon (lessoning the effect of disarm).

* They have great ac - a drow bmage in non-rare items can have -400ac if done correctly.

Melee's suffer badly vs bmages.

L-A

This just isn't true any more. Play one and try to get away with using Reflective Shield against a giant. Simply stated, the changes to RS have made it so they have to use force field against melees unless it's a non-giant. Even enlarged, bash will get you for 2-3 rounds which means you aren't casting those mals/affs/mentals in the first place.

[Aulian]

What sears are you getting hit by f0xx? I've never needed more than 4 gyvels for any blind except once when I caught a blind from a mal spell lvl decked shaman.

Sear blind is hard to cure. Fighting Morchial I can remember chewing easily between 25-40 red potions in about 10 minutes of combat.

Sear = Nasty Blind

[L-A]

This just isn't true any more. Play one and try to get away with using Reflective Shield against a giant. Simply stated' date=' the changes to RS have made it so they have to use force field against melees unless it's a non-giant. Even enlarged, bash will get you for 2-3 rounds which means you aren't casting those mals/affs/mentals in the first place.[/quote']

I never saw reflective shield as such a game changing spell actually. Force field was mostly my choice against melee's unless they got their weapons wrong in which case I changed over.

Ref. shield was always a situational spell. I'm just glad the days of spamming it before the fight and getting stupid amounts of damage are gone - I never understood why that should work.

L-A

[Mmm Coffee]

Because they can't reliably lag and don't dish out Invoker damage. Things may be different now as rare-availability has declined - it may be less difficult to land key spells. I haven't had the time to experiment lately.

[L-A]

Because they can't reliably lag and don't dish out Invoker damage. Things may be different now as rare-availability has declined - it may be less difficult to land key spells. I haven't had the time to experiment lately.

That's true - I always found the nice ac and great melee defense made up for it (as well as field dressing which heals). Just about buying time to let your melee and sharpmetal do its thing.

I'll have to roll another and see how it is - I do know clerics were no fun though and they are prolific now which won't help.

L-A

[Balgashang]

I know its a real late reply, but i've been gone for over a year, with Thragor (evil cleric) I had zero trouble with battlemages, except for Morchial heh

[f0xx]

I know its a real late reply' date=' but i've been gone for over a year, with Thragor (evil cleric) I had zero trouble with battlemages, except for Morchial heh[/quote']

You will most of the times have zero problem with ANYTHING if you are experienced player no matter what you play, unless it is played by more experienced than you