New Mage EQ! ... Maybe. Don't give me that look!

All I'm thinkin is powerword kill, powerword kill.

Bwhahah, too bad I'm a joke at any mage.

Sorry nothin constructive here, mages seem okay to me. Again, I feel like that's my lack of pk prowess. Perhaps class only gear, like Avalon which would aid mages. I don'taagree with race gear. Like, so you're telling me a human cleric could wear something, but not undead or demon. Then its like fae only eq, okay that's a pcombo, so why not just solidify the reason to roll that instead of ect. I think the problem lies not in the mage aspect but the overwhelming versatile melees we have today. Again, but that's after years of people working on their skills with said class. That's my 2c. Good ideas all around though

As anything with FL and its playerbase, the problem has been quite exaggerated.

Sometimes I understand perfectly why the IMMs don't create public discussions about balance.

As anything with FL and its playerbase, the problem has been quite exaggerated.

 

Sometimes I understand perfectly why the IMMs don't create public discussions about balance.

No idea is a bad idea f0xx. The best solutions come from conflict and a range of input. The immortal staff are 5 whilst the pbase is 30.. Why would you exclude the ideas of 83% of the people who may have something constructive to contribute?

You know you're always welcome to exclude yourself if you don't have anything to add - just don't hit post.

The issue with +saves gear is that its a real sacrifice for a Melee to take on large amounts of save gear. They are always other melee's you have to fight too. Having a full saves suit is like -50 across the board (including +svs vs spell which adds on top of other saves modifiers) will mean you are going to struggle against any other melee with 20/20 hit dam.

And exactly the other way around - all hit dam, every caster and communer is going to rape you. 

Mages do have a higher level of survivability and adaptability. Warriors in particular have to think about having the right weapons and switchable armor to be competitive.

My bad, replace ranger by dk then. Want to have a dk with blurr? no?

Staves -> ranger so not either.

Scroll -> you're back at dk, ninja, etc.

The issue with + spell gear is that you end up with uncurable blindness and the like. We've had these people in the past (e.g. battlemage / cleric / shaman) and once you were blind you could either run off blind if you were able to, teleport or you'd die. 10 gyvels and still all fails. We don't want to go back to that. (Yes, this is just an example.)

Not wishing to argue about spell level, I just wish to add that I remain unconvinced in this matter.

The issue with +saves gear is that its a real sacrifice for a Melee to take on large amounts of save gear. They are always other melee's you have to fight too.

The issue with HP gear is that its a real sacrifice for a Mage to take on large amounts of HP gear. They are always other mages you have to fight too.

Naruthiron

Are you referring to the sword in the tainted valley? Because outside of L30 DK's I never seen anyone wield it.

Also regarding the level of EQ with spells. If stuff is the same, a spell cast at L35 (-15 levels) is pretty close to the max saves, even if he is naked. Add some gear and you will not be landing it unless he rolls the magic number. That's is analogous to why offensive wands suck. To low level.

If it's an aff spell, then it's easy, since even saved they deal damage. But Mal's and mentals need to pass saves to do stuff. If I was using low level spells, I would be increasing frequency of casts in order to actually get some of them to land.

He doesn't mean that sword. I've used that on my Druids a fair bit - it's not that bad.

If also be really surprised if a lvl 30 had it. Killing the tainted shadow? Puleeeeze. I've seen that thing put down pinned chars

I am not referring to any sword currently available. It isn't even a sword. More of a dagger. Or a fang.

As for mals and mentals on gear as an autocast option: I really doubt I would do that for the above reasons. I will talk with the imms better at balancing than me to make sure im not assigning more worry to it than is needed, but passive maledictions and mentals are a scary thing for me to think about. Afflictives seem best suited in my mind, for the reason you noted.

Adding spell level or reverse saves is a real balance issue (in my opinion) because the power of the mages should be dictating the strength of

the equipment.

All defenses and saves aside, If a naked mage can do 250 damage in 1 spell to (random mob) then a well dressed melee class should be able

to do 300. Jacking up spell level even 1 could make the melee class damage look obsolete, lets not bother going into what would happen if

they started missing saves vs +spell lvl damage

I think melee eq should be all -saves, + hit and or + dam with very little -ac while mage eq should be all -ac and +hp and or + mana to balance

melee on mage combat, THEN start adding in pills, potions, scrolls, skills and spells to compensate for what each class cannot get from equipping

so that the classes can fight melee on melee and mage on mage.

Its been mentioned that 1 piece of eq (or item of sort) can throw off the games entire PK balance and I truly believe that, I also think its only going to

take 1 good (available) piece to balance it back out.

UC

Can you introduce a piece of equipment that prevents monk chii bolts from neutralizing protective shield? 

Not to mention that many of the top tier mage spells have duplicate uses or abilities. 

Rays and Paths that blind, dispel etc

Invoker hell streams which target and destroy +aff saves gear, other gear and equipment.

~The list goes on. 

I have literally stopped fighting an invoker because I lost too much equipment in the process.

It's going to be hard to make hybrid items that don't bleed over to melee chars. Items with hit roll and mana/hp/ac together would be nice. Maybe some items could be class limited to avoid the balance issue.

Volg has some really crazy stuff planned for his new area. A lot of mage stuff, but also hybrid and a few melee (with a different focus than you'd use usually). Some of it is going to be a real alternative for the top-notch items we have in now.

One item is going to be a non-rare (so always available) not much worse item than the rare item most people get there now (non-mage).

Instead of creating more + spell lvl eq would it be possible to create eq that aids with spells in other ways, since this seems to be the main argument.  (Though I'll admit I haven't read every post)

Such as eq that:

Lowers the cost of spells

Makes males and affect causing spells to land easier without having higher level affects

Add spell modifiers;poison and plague cast together or simultaneously (several ideas come to mind here)

Raises the cost of affl spells but makes them do more damage

Instead of creating more + spell lvl eq would it be possible to create eq that aids with spells in other ways, since this seems to be the main argument.  (Though I'll admit I haven't read every post)

 

Such as eq that:

 

Lowers the cost of spells

Makes mals and affect causing spells to land easier without having higher level affects

Add spell modifiers;poison and plague cast together or simultaneously (several ideas come to mind here)

Raises the cost of affl spells but makes them do more damage

So basically, +spell level EQ?

There will be new items that have some interesting effects on spells.

You make me want to roll an invoker.

Or a bard...

Or......

So basically, +spell level EQ?

In a manner of speaking yes, but different still.  There is nothing in the game like what I described.

You make me want to roll an invoker.

Or a bard...

Or......

Roll a psion!

Instead of creating more + spell lvl eq would it be possible to create eq that aids with spells in other ways, since this seems to be the main argument.  (Though I'll admit I haven't read every post)

 

Such as eq that:

 

Lowers the cost of spells

Makes males and affect causing spells to land easier without having higher level affects

Add spell modifiers;poison and plague cast together or simultaneously (several ideas come to mind here)

Raises the cost of affl spells but makes them do more damage

I get what you mean. Like what the meteorite does for Battlemages. 

Doesnt really change the spell but the enhancement is oh so nice.