So, the age old question of how much discipline affects berserks.

I personally am a berserking\roaring barb and never dance at all. I want my berserks to be at the top of their game. So I don't train discipline and I train strength\agility\stamina more (this is correct right?). What puts me off about this is that, dances aside, doesn't this significantly hurt my BMR? I always hear that discipline is the key ingredient to BMR. Also, another thing is that to get the most bang for your buck on magic resistance we are told to train the lowest costing stat......which I am obviously not doing if I don't train discipline. Right now the gap between discipline and my second lowest stat is only 6, but compared to my highest stat, the gap is 18.

So I guess the question is, when is it better to train discipline without affecting your berserks? I {think} I remember Iayn saying that to have discipline affect berserks significantly it would have to be higher than strength\agil\stamina (is that correct)? But since I am a berserking barb, I don't want discipline affecting my berserks at all....0 negative affect. I also don't want to get pwnd!11 by spells either. This is something that i wish I could test, but I can't without spending more money. (which I won't :)

I wish I could hear from a barb guru a decisive, "If you keep discipline x lower or <something here > with strength\stamina\agility, it will have 0 negative affect on berserks."

that would be very helpful.....and fair I might add.

Codiax.


Inner peace, through outer violence.
Experts: www.robsonforensic.com

>>(I'd take dragon over nightmare anyday).

Does Dragon have a bigger intimidation boost than nightmare? I haven't really done any testing since I assumed Nightmare had a bigger boost.

Or does Dragon have a pretty nice boost that isn't far from Nightmare, but is a better choice since it does way more than Nightmare? If so I'd probably be more inclined to using Dragon then if I plan on roaring.


Vinjince

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"There are five possible operations for any army. If you can fight, fight; if you cannot fight, defend; if you cannot defend, flee; if you cannot flee, surrender; if you cannot surrender, die."

- Sima Yi

>>Ever wonder why one bonus of warpaint is an intimidation boost, and another is a charisma boost? Well if intimidation has its own global cap, and charisma has its own global cap, then using warhelm + nightmare might cap your intimidation and render the warpaint intimidation boost useless. But you can use wapaint for a charisma boost that would further pump up your ability to affect people.

Interesting. I wonder if intimidation does have it's own global cap.


Vinjince

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"There are five possible operations for any army. If you can fight, fight; if you cannot fight, defend; if you cannot defend, flee; if you cannot flee, surrender; if you cannot surrender, die."

- Sima Yi

Interesting. I could have sworn one of the GMs posted that berserk steel gives the largest BMR boost of anything. Time to do some digging!

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http://www.drplat.com - The DragonRealms Platinum Community Website. Be sure to vote DragonRealms as your #1 MUD!

I hear you there. I think the other factor is dragon slowly drains IF down, wheras with Steel the IF hit is all at the start. So initially you notice better BMR with Dragon, leading into better BMR with Steel later in the berserk (assuming you are killing things). Hopefully when BMR is reviewed these things can all be rebalanced to make sense.

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http://www.drplat.com - The DragonRealms Platinum Community Website. Be sure to vote DragonRealms as your #1 MUD!

Another thing to keep in mind is that it has been stated (if necessary I'll track it down) that discipline will only cause problems with berserks if its far above other stats.

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Magic's Death Caraamon M.,
Gor'Tog Barbarian Extrordi...Well somewhat average
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html

>>Another thing to keep in mind is that it has been stated (if necessary I'll track it down) that discipline will only cause problems with berserks if its far above other stats.

Right now this is my stat breakdown.

Strength : 36 Reflex : 50
Agility : 40 Charisma : 40
Discipline : 50 Wisdom : 40
Intelligence : 40 Stamina : 40

I saw no loss of power from my berserks as I took discipline to 50. Perhaps that is because most of my stats are relatively even. Next on the list is strength to 40 then stamina to 50 then charisma to 50.

-Galren Moonskin

!>You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde screaming in barbaric approval of your deeds.

I saw it until I was forced to up certain physicals for other reasons.

Iayn at one point told me personally I was in the hit zone, then called me a mage.

>>Moon Mages and Charisma. Unless you don't count spells as abilities. The highest success of Hypnotize isn't as useful as the one right below it... Or something, my MM doesn't have the spell.

Uh...highest effect is immobilization. So I don't know what you're talking about.

I am --- Navak

I've always felt penalized for training reflex to extreme levels (Prydaen). At level I often evade too much and can't parry or shield block, making it a complete pain to work multi, parry, and armors in general, especially without frying my state of mind. That along with a high multi means I'm forced to train in very high multi situations, or it just doesn't work, period.

But now with critter retreating its all utterly screwed beyond belief, aggravating the above problem ten fold and I can't train anything other than maybe shield and evasion worth a damn, so I guess the reflex issue is kind of moot.

>I direct your attention to the Moon Mage folders where there have been numerous requests to fix Mental Blast (and to a lesser degree Hypnotize) because the highest 'success' is often less desirable than the next best success. The problem is once you're past a certain level of stats, these spells will always grant the highest success even with min-prep snap

I love when even Moon Mages complain that it's too strong.

Dragoonseal

<<>The problem is once you're past a certain level of stats, these spells will always grant the highest success even with min-prep snap

<<I love when even Moon Mages complain that it's too strong.

I just want to point out you left the last part of my sentence of which qualified that statement only for situations where a moon mage is hunting critters for training. Players resist it much more than trainable critters do, so in PvP situations it works as a spell with varying degrees of success should, providing levels of success based on mana and prep time. Its not that its too strong, its more that Moon Mages typically hunt farther down the critter ladder from other guilds with equivalent stats, so the spell usually doesn't balance well in those situations because of the disparity of stats between the Moon Mage and those critters.

-Evran

<<Dartenian says, "Welcome to the Bard Meeting! Tonight's agenda will consist primarily of finalizing our plans for global conquest."

> Just stance down evasion. Experiement and find out at what % you can safely continue to dance with what you want to while working parry/shield.

>Ogre bucklers are pretty crappy shields. Find something really good and just stance down if need be :)

>-Galren Moonskin

First I just try and cut other advantages by purposely staying solidly balanced and using moves with bad defensive modifiers like circle, weave, or brawling moves in general. But if that isn't enough, and it rarely is, especially if I'm berserking, then yes unfortunately that's usually what it comes to and I'll pull yet more stance points from evasion into parry or shield. I have many macro keys to assist with this, but again these are Flaming Hoops Of Asinine Ridiculousness that I or anyone else should not have to bloody well jump through. Thus, I feel penalized for having trained reflex and multi to high levels.

I just wish Barbarians could shunt extra stance points into our Attack stance (past 100%), because I really hate splitting up defenses between shield and parry at the same time, and that just seems like a logical Barbarian ability anyway.

And yes, please never suggest anyone use an ogre buckler, I'm sure they quite literately reduce your evasion down to zero and you have nothing to go off of other than your reflex bonus.

Dragoonseal

>I just want to point out you left the last part of my sentence of which qualified that statement only for situations where a moon mage is hunting critters for training. Players resist it much more than trainable critters do, so in PvP situations it works as a spell with varying degrees of success should, providing levels of success based on mana and prep time. Its not that its too strong, its more that Moon Mages typically hunt farther down the critter ladder from other guilds with equivalent stats, so the spell usually doesn't balance well in those situations because of the disparity of stats between the Moon Mage and those critters.

>-Evran

I don't remember saying a thing about PvP.

Dragoonseal

The issue with mental blast isn't that you're penalized deliberately by the system. The problem is that the spell is screwy because stun/immobilization changed and the spell didn't change with it.

<<Calm goes through stages, at least with PCs.

It does with critters too, but the overall duration of the full success is actually shorter in spite of it progressing through stages. That equates to less time to command, more time before being able to issue any commands, more of a penalty to learning because of the initial immobilization, and more time spent recasting the spell to keep any crowds of critters managable. None of this is to say full success is not desirable in every situation or that the effect is less than useful. The point is that improving your stats shouldn*'*t lead to a reduction in the options available, which is what happens with both Hypnotize and MB when hunting critters for training even with only a moderate amount of mentals. I'm done with repeating myself.

-Evran

<<Dartenian says, "Welcome to the Bard Meeting! Tonight's agenda will consist primarily of finalizing our plans for global conquest."

>THIS WAS CODED IN THERE FOR THAT EXPRESS PURPOSE. It wasn't some byproduct of evolving systems like with MB.

That is entirely beside the point. Someone said that they couldn't think of another ability where training a stat had a negative effect. It has been pointed out on several occasions that MB and Calm are in this same situation. It is undesirable to train Charisma if you intend to use these spells on critters, because you lose versatility. Just because it was not designed that way, does not mean it isn't that way now. How it got there isn't what the discussion was about.


Elemancer Opieus, Journeyman Warrior Mage of Elanthia
>Aren't I pretty, now fall down on my ice, fool! ~ Axillus

>I see your "negative effect" of training charisma

Aparently you don't. It's been said a couple of times. The total time a creature is hindered is lower with higher success. The penalty may be greater for some of that time, but it is still less time.

>You just find it less useful because you were too lazy blah blah

I don't even have either of the spells. I was pointing out another ability that training a stat has negative effects on. The spells become less useful with more Charisma. That is all anybody has been saying.


Elemancer Opieus, Journeyman Warrior Mage of Elanthia
>Aren't I pretty, now fall down on my ice, fool! ~ Axillus

>>The discipline penalty is unique because it is an intended effect.

Felt the need to bold that.

Vinjince

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"There are five possible operations for any army. If you can fight, fight; if you cannot fight, defend; if you cannot defend, flee; if you cannot flee, surrender; if you cannot surrender, die."

- Sima Yi

Hi,
So I trained my discipline up one point yesterday (to 26) and my berserks are seriously suffering. I've noticed a big decrease in their power and duration and a noticeable increase in inner fire usage.

Here are the rest of my stats:
Strength : 30 Reflex : 30
Agility : 30 Charisma : 28
Discipline : 26 Wisdom : 25
Intelligence : 26 Stamina : 30

I did some research and I found a forum message from 2006 where Navak reported the same sort of thing when he trained discipline 1 point to 26. His physical stats were higher than mine are though.

So my question is this: is 26 discipline a big threshold for berserks? I always thought that if I kept my discipline a few points below str/agi/stam then I wouldn't see an impact to my berserks. Will I be able to undo the damage by training up the physical stats? My intention is to primarily berserk but keep my discipline high enough where dances are somewhat effective for niche purposes. I hope I haven't borked that by crossing some invisible line in discipline.

I don't have logs of before I raised discipline but I can get one from after.

When I enter combat I always berserk stone first (from full IF) and dance a bit to get my defenses moving and to get a good swarm going. When my IF reaches full again I berserk blood and get down to business. When IF reaches full again after that, I add berserk nightmare. I could never maintain cyclone with the other three for very long, so I rarely used it.

I don't have firm numbers here, but I'll try to be as accurate as possible. Before I raised discipline, berserking stone from full IF would drop me to "over your height again above you" and it would take a minute or so (I never stopwatched it) to fully recover and berserk blood. But now, after raising discipline, it went to "nearly your full height again above you" when I used stone and it takes about three times as long to refill - I'm guessing due to the IF burn during usage. Again, not firm numbers, just antecdotal, but I've been using this strategy long enough that I have a pretty good sense of how long it takes to refill.

The defense and damage protection from stone isn't as strong now, but the better example of lower berserk power is from blood. Before raising discipline I was getting hits of good/solid/hard with my first few strikes. But now I'm seeing brushing/glancing/light. Either the skill boost or the strength boost isn't what it once was.

As for durations - previously I had no trouble keeping all three berserks running at once. From my stone/recharge/blood/recharge/nightmare invocations I would have a solid 15 minutes before stone would drop and I'd restart the process. But now my IF isn't even refilled from launching nightmare before stone drops. That might be because it takes me longer to get to the point where I can berserk nightmare as well as reduced duration for stone.

I'm always in combat when I berserk. I'm continuously in combat (I try not to kill the last enemy before a fresh one enters the room). I have no encumbrance, the weapon isn't damaged, and I begin my hunt without any wounds or scars.

Hope this helps.