Mana shield and malforms

I feel that it is very unfair for a dark knight, when it comes to battling an invoker. We all know that an invoker can put up a mana shield and completely negate the damage output of the main skill that dark knights are built around. A high level malformed weapon represents the peak of a dark knight. It is his pride, his strongest weapon in his arsenal, his staple ability. It takes a long time to create one, even longer now with a small playerbase, and even longer if you want two of them. Few are the dark knights that can be proud of achieving this, and because of that I find it very unfair for them, to lose their biggest strength, their staple ability to an easy to use skill like mana shield.

Of course, there are ways around this - you can use mundane weapons or you can join the Nexus and a certain nexus skill. Still, the first workaround is simply, forsaking your strongest ability and the second involves a cabal ability, so it does not really change the situation in general.

In the past there was a huge outcry about archer rangers and the scrolls of missile protection. First, the length of the missile shield that the scrolls provided was reduced, then the price was increased, then the ranger arrows were made to have a chance to penetrate the missile shield, and finally the shopkeeper that sells those scrolls was made unable to be attacked, practically making those scrolls unreliable and extremely expensive. They would give a slight edge indeed, but they would provide nothing comparable to the protection a mana shield offers to malforms.

I find it odd that a skill that is so easy to use and not as important to rangers as are malforms to a dark knight gets so much attention in a direction that makes it hard for people to counter it, while at the same time there is a skill like mana shield, that is easy to use, completely reliable and offers full immunity against the signature-hard-to-obtain ability of a class that has no branches, is completely left out.

This is my public plead towards the people that are in control of FL to look towards malforms and consider whether a signature skill that is so hard to obtain should be so easily negated by something as simple as mana shield.

Thank you.

The only issue I have with this is that malform weapons were added long after the mana shield ability existed. If we can find a reasonable way to meet in the middle, sure, however I cannot think of any solution, nor have you offered any.

The only issue I have with this is that malform weapons were added long after the mana shield ability existed. If we can find a reasonable way to meet in the middle, sure, however I cannot think of any solution, nor have you offered any. I have not offered any, because acknowledging the problem is the first step. Balancing the skill itself is only a minor issue.

My original solution to the problem was to simply add another layer of damage reduction, something that is equal to the damage reduction that a magic resistant race would get against a magical weapon (a malform in particular). I did not want the discussion to revolve around the offered solution to the problem though, but rather to acknowledging the problem at first place, and then looking for a solution together.

Well you have a point. I unfortunately have not played a DK or Invoker in a very long time, so I am not aware of how difficult or not it is to get around a mana shield. As you stated, you can always equip mundane weapons to get around them, which although is a nuisance, perhaps is as intended.

Mana shield is fine.

DK's vs Invokers are fine.

DK's have many skills, and don't have to rely on mono-dimensional strategies.

Nothing forces a DK to use his malform vs a invoker, and they don't need it.

They can dual wield physical damage weapons, and charm a physical damage creature and still output very decent damage.

They can malform a physical weapon and keep it bellow X Level.

They instead of casting AFF spells for damage can cast Maledictions or Mental spells.

They can even use magic missile to erode saves through Mana shield, but dealing no damage.

If anything needs a check in Invokers is AC vs Hitroll "miss" chance (0 damage). It should be capped at 50% max 'miss' chance vs PC.

Some classes have huge problems with this due to THAC_0 mechanics.

And of course Healing consumables balance.

Yes, invokers can shut down a dk quite nicely through that.

Of course, the dk can do the exact same thing by getting a single energy drain through, potentially causing an invoker who is unlucky or spammed to kill himself.

I consider the situation fair.  I always hated fighting dks as an invoker... yes, you don't get to use your favorite toy, but I need to become extremely careful about the timing of my spell-casting while you and a high-power mundane charmy are beating the crap out of me with physical weapons, and neither of my other shields are of ANY use against you since you can cast both ice and fire.

I don't really want to be considered the one word pony here, but:

energy drain.

Not many invokers are going to be stacking up on mental saves, more likely mal saves, and landing just one of these is likely to turn a well off invoker into a "oh shit" invoker.

Beat you to it, Morl.

Edit: However, I'd disagree about the saves... I'd say that mental are generally MORE important than mal to an invoker, as a single dispel/energy drain are far more dangerous in the short term than any single mal spell landing is.  An invoker'll have the hp to handle living through a plague or poison and time to decide how to handle them, but getting dispelled by a necro mid-fight (or anything in a cabal with bashing charmies) can kill you the next round.

Also, I really wouldn't say it is harder to get a high level malform now (with the smaller pbase) as we also reduced the killcost per malform (and sacred blade) level CONSIDERABLY.

We also capped the drain on death.

So yes, we did consider this already.

I don't really want to be considered the one word pony here, but:

 

energy drain.

 

Not many invokers are going to be stacking up on mental saves, more likely mal saves, and landing just one of these is likely to turn a well off invoker into a "oh shit" invoker. Energy drain is there and can be used with or without malforms, not just that but it is not a dark knight specific skill, so it can't really be used as an argument to have your strongest skill nullified against this class.

Also, the negation of malforms puts a lot of stress on energy drain as a tool for victory against that class, which in its turn signals the invoker on what to expect and how to easily avoid the consequences of the spell landing.

As for Anume's reply, I don't know the current ranking rate, but the old one was incredibly high as it was anyway, and even then, comparing how malforms work on death nowadays and in the past, even though you've lowered the drain on death, is still a nerf, when you consider that before they wouldn't drain at all once above level 8, although, the kills needed to rank your malform from rank 7 to 8, and from 8 to 9 was absolutely insane.

So basically, the way I see it, lowering the drain on death was implemented to compensate the fact that malforms now continue to lose souls even above rank 8, and fairly so. Therefore, it has nothing to do with invokers and the subject at hand.

Despite that, you are the admin of the game and if you think that it is balanced, then that is fine with me. My personal opinion though, is that it is not fair for me to have to spend 100k gold on scrolls to partially protect myself against archers shooting at me from 7 rooms away for 18 hours, while on the other hand, an invoker can cast a skill and easily replenish it, to protect himself completely against my strongest skill.

Yes, dark knights have other tricks in their arsenal to battle mana shield, but so do rangers to battle missile shield. Still, those scrolls have sucked a nerf after nerf to make it easier for a class that doesn't need anything to get even stronger.

Telling a dark knight to use energy drain against invokers is like telling an archer to use dirt kick against targets with missile shield on - it comes natural and you are going to use those anyway.

My 2 cents.

You do not have to buy these scrolls at all, they are not necessary for balance.

You said malform was not balanced any more due to the lower numbers in the player base, and I repled to that part.

That mana shield is annoying for a dk is nothing new and something to balance the class. You are not supposed to have it easy against every class in the game.

I would have to agree here with Anume, dark-knights when they have a high level Malform weapon trumph most classes, so what if you have to actually struggle against an Invoker, I say power to the invoker to actually put up a fight against a high ranking dk (strong malform/cabal) where they can ruin many other classes...

just my 2 cents here

Beat you to it, Morl.

 

Edit: However, I'd disagree about the saves... I'd say that mental are generally MORE important than mal to an invoker, as a single dispel/energy drain are far more dangerous in the short term than any single mal spell landing is.

Errr.... Energy drain is Malediction and Silence is Mental & Charm.

But you are right, you can live and fight on through a energy drain, but a Silence on a pure mage means the fight is over.

PS: Just remember to keep half charged staves.

Something that worries me more than Mana shield is Ice storm. The level malform is able to resist Ice storms is pretty high.

For an uncabaled character this is a pain.

Since we now have "Weapon Cleave" and "Icestorm" 'breaking' burnprof weapons and completely destroying non-burnprof weapons, perhaps it would be a good idea to lower the level malforms get "Icestorm" resistant.

Or allow the flag to pass from the base weapon to the malform clone at malform casting.

As it is, a DK should never fight a Invoker uncabaled, because even if he wields another weapon, his malform can be broken in inventory.

F0xx have you tried Combat Malforms?

I know zero about them, but perhaps they are special in that they give physical damage, or perhaps they don't change the weapon damage type. Who knows, what hidden power lay dormant in this religion.

I never ever saw a combat DK.

I'm going to have to side against you on this one f0xx. I understand what you are saying in terms of balance (mana shield trumps class signature skill)...but in this situation, I would agree that DKs have enough alternative forms of taking down an invoker that it isn't a huge nerf to the DK that makes fighting the invoker an impossible (or even very hard) task. We aren't talking about massive imbalance such as spell-turning here

Like somebody pointed out above, in terms of DPS, DKs can compensate vs a low melee class like invokers through charm and normal weapons. The main weakness of the invoker is to the mals which the DK has abundant access to in addition to the energy drain trump already brought up.

In fact, forcing the invoker to always go mana shield isn't really a bad thing for the DK. Against most classes, a good invoker will switch shields to force physical weapons but try to get fire/ice damage as well when possible. Against a DK, this is very risky.

Maybe try to switch the point of view around. If invokers DIDN'T have mana shield vs such a high output + oprog-heavy set of weapons...

It'd be interesting to fight an invoker using the malform anyways against mana shield. I don't know if mals will land or not....my guess is that they will.

I've used my malforms against invokers as Nashmurlan, in attempt to drain their mana and because of the advantages that the certain religion gave me when fighting casters/communers and while mals do land, you can't deal ANY damage at all, and the draining attempts do not work either, because of mystic tendrils. Also, any competent invoker will completely ignore the damage that comes from the charmie, due to blind from firestorm + very high AC from enchant armour. Either that, or they will simply kill the charmie fast due to the high damage output from area spells.

In a fight against an invoker where you can't use your malforms, you are simply a combination between a heavily gimped warrior and a heavily gimped shaman, because the mals you cast are 3 levels bellow those that a shaman casts.

As for **miskahn's **comment that a DKN with malforms trumps all other classes, that is simply not true. This impression comes from the fact that those DKNs that have high level malforms, have managed to obtain them at first place, which speaks that they are very good with the class itself, even without the malforms. Now when you add to their already existing power the power of malforms, they are formidable force indeed. But, if you give a DKN with 2 full malforms to someone who can't obtain those malforms on his own, he will be very fast to lose them. So it's all a matter of personal skill, as usual.

Celerity brings a good amount of points on her own (not surprised about that ), but as I said earlier, it can simply be made that mana shield cuts the malform damage in half before all other damage reduction come to play. This is a huge advantage on itself without making the DKN give up his signature skill, for which he has worked hard to obtain.

I gave the example with rangers, because people complained that you can negate their signature skill with a simple scroll, and those scrolls got nerved so much that buying them now makes no sense. When it comes to dark knights though, you are simply not allowed to use your signature skill, and now people argue with me that, "Well, dark knights don't even need a malform!", when those same people have made posts in the past, saying that a DKN without a malform is nothing. 

Yes, you don't need any particular skill against any particular class, but the lack of a particular skill, especially if that skill is the one that defines your class, can be a huge obstacle. If you look at at DKN's skillset, you will notice that there are 2 skills that define the class: charm person and malform weapon. And if you think about charm person, it's simply a gimped version of beast call or raise corpse. So what are you left with? Malform weapon. And this is negated.

How is it fair to treat archer's signature spell different than dark knight's signature spell? I see no balance reason for such discrimination. Is it because DKNs are less popular class than archers and less people complain about the thing I try to change?

And lastly, I would like the IMMs to consider my history - I am not one to make suggestions aimed on improving the classes I love, while completely ignoring game balance. I am the one that made the suggestions to nerf blademasters (some of them got implemented too) which are arguable my favourite class. The way it is now, an invoker can shut down a dark knight pretty easily. The only other possible comparison of a shut down is a blademaster against a necromancer, and that thing needs to be looked at too.

A major difference between those scrolls and mana shield - mana shield is only available to one class.  Those scrolls are available to anyone with the scrolls skill, which is quite a few classes.

A major difference between those scrolls and mana shield - mana shield is only available to one class.  Those scrolls are available to anyone with the scrolls skill, which is quite a few classes.

I very well understand that, but what percentage of their damage comes from their bow? 20%? 30% even? So -30% is enough for nerving the counter to their signature skill, but then -100% damage is not enough for a change? And we all know malforms are not just about damage, so forcing a DKN to not use their malform means more than just damage for them.

Once again please, understand that I am not rooting for complete bypass of mana shield. What I want is mana shield to not 100% negate the damage from malforms.

I honestly (and yes, I've played several DKs) don't believe a mana shield nerf is necessary. I've had my number of kills versus 3 or 4 sigil invokers in my time. Not easy, but not impossible either.

What percentage do you propose?

And shame on those sigil invokers for dying to a DK..shouldn't happen if they play well..I think that says more to skill levels involved than the class balance

I honestly (and yes, I've played several DKs) don't believe a mana shield nerf is necessary. I've had my number of kills versus 3 or 4 sigil invokers in my time. Not easy, but not impossible either. That's the thing - you don't think it's necessary and so do I. But then, I didn't think that all the changes regarding the scroll of missile protection were necessary too. With this suggestion I want to see how consistent the playerbase and the staff is with their reasoning.

You can't change (or want to change) one thing because it shuts down a signature skill of one class, but then refuse to change another which does exactly the same, to even greater extend!

Isn't this called bias?

@Cel, I don't know, anything that is not a complete removal of the damage is good, but I believe something between 25-50% before all other damage reductions come into play is fair.