It is not 1:1, no. The offensive and defensive factors (what determines offensive and defensive abilities for mobs in lieu of ranks) of a zombie is based on your TM plus the potency of the spell. I believe there is a general positive modifier to zombies across the board compared to other TM-based spells, plus Reverse Putrefaction is a straight-up buff to both of these things. So effectively zombies will actually have reasonably higher accuracy and damage than the caster would just by using a TM spell as a baseline.

The equipment you then give a zombie is just like anything else, it can be a pretty big bonus to damage output or defensive ability if you take the time to give it really nice gear. Of course, you also then stand a chance of losing that gear really easily, so caveat necro; I've lost a good thousand plat worth of gear (mostly crafted bows and ammo) on zombies due to everything from bugs to simply forgetting I still had a zombie in limbo and not getting my items back before it popped.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

Its probably worth mentioning that Its not really a concern to me other than I don't get how TM can become Bow ranks, or any other weapon for that matter. This is a system designed to exploit the fact TM is nowhere near conventional weaponry damage or accuracy. Add in the fact that player made bows cost nothing if made by the player using it. And honestly the ease of making plat these days is also a reason they don't let you re spec spell slots for plat whenever you want, too many players have so much they could re spec daily and never worry. The 30 day lockout makes spell slots cost real life money to reset because plat is irrelevant.

There is little to deter the argument that paying plat to make your TM better is an illogical solution for any spell. Or any combat system in the game for that matter. If the answer is just a simple "yes" necromancers can transfer TM ranks into any weapon skill in the game and give them the best weapons to further exploit the damage their TM ranks can produce its whatever I suppose. Logic didn't prevent it from happening to begin with. But I am curious how this was not stamped out from pure mechanics standpoint. If not for the simple reason they can train one secondary skill to give them complete effectiveness with an entire tertiary skill set that happens to have the largest number of trainable skills. This also effectively opens the same door that closed TKT ammo determining the spells damage because the two systems needed to be divorced.

I'm... not exactly sure what the question is here.

If you're asking "Does TM determine how effective a zombie is?" the answer is yes.

If you're asking "Why does TM determines zombie performance?" the answer is "because that's the skill we use to determine the offensive output of magic spells." (We've mused over renaming it something like "Combat Magic or Offensive Magic" but never pulled the trigger on that change.)

If you're asking "Why can a Necromancer use TM ranks to substitute for weapon ranks?" the answer is "They can't."

If you're asking "Why can a zombie do different types of damage but TKT can't?" the answer is "TKT can cause different types of damage depending on the ammo."

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

>>Critters, zombies included, don't have weapon ranks. Or ranks in anything. They just have stats, perception, offensive factor and defensive factors, no?

That's actually a complex topic. They don't have skills in the same sense players do (Which is why so few spells are direct skill debuffs) and lean on the factors like you describe, but we can also assign them specific skills in many cases - that's just a more recent development.

Perhaps I should have stuck with my first answer of "sorta."

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Fair enough. I guess when a zombie that is fuled by TM fires a bow its not TM that fuels it. Cheers.

>>Does this mean the spell Shatter isn't providing a -Shield debuff when cast on critters?

Technically? No.

It's doing something more or less equivalent however.

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

>> This is ESSENTIALLY why TKT was divorced from using weapons forged by players etc as ammunition to determine the spell damage. Hitting someone with a forged bastard sword without any ranks in 2hs or physical strength to naturally cap the weapons potential....this is so simple.

Except that was not only never how TKT worked, and that isn't the actual reason the change was made. TKT's damage calcs used to be extremely wonky by the way -- the best ammunition was not forged gear by a longshot.

I understand you find TKT lackluster now, but this is not a Necromancer issue.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

>>All Men are mortal. GM is a man. Therefor GM is mortal.

The Hypnotoad disagrees.

>>All TM spells are powered with TM ranks to increase accuracy and damage.

Yes.

>>A summoned zombie using player made bows to attack is a TM spell. Therefore player made bows are being fueled with TM ranks.

Sure.

By the same argument - Butcher's Eye is powered by Augmentation ranks, with the Chirurgia metaspell it gives light edge ranks, so the player's output with a player forged dagger is based on their Augmentation ranks...

>>you cannot actually abandon the fact that Zombie damage is increased by giving them player forged weapons the caster has no ranks in whatsoever.

Sure. But the Necromancer still can't use the bow worth beans.

>>This is ESSENTIALLY why TKT was divorced from using weapons forged by players etc as ammunition to determine the spell damage.

Uhm... no. This isn't a thing that ever happened. The reasons for TKT being blind to ammo is all about practicality and normalization of TM under 3.0.

>>I honestly wasn't impressed by Raesh's lack of response because it was not informative or honest.

I can stop responding to your posts if you like.

>>If you are unable to properly "lift the veil" on how the offensive factors forged with TM ranks for zombies.

Combat pets need a skill to base their damage on. That skill is Targetted Magic. Zombies are a combat pet. They are powered by Targetted Magic.

The fact that you can hand them a weapon to make them more effective is no different than the fact that you can go out and buy yourself a weapon to make yourself more effective. There's nothing special about it being a bow you're giving them, or a sword, or a well made rock. Or the zombie's natural fists for that matter (Let us not forget that Brawling is a skill. Isn't a zombie converting TM ranks into Brawling skill by the same logic?)

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Makes me curious if the OP has come across the magnetic ballista spell yet..

Joking aside, Zombie power, especially post stance change, is one of the last things I'd be up in arms about in modern DR. A great deal of effort has brought the game a long way towards a balanced approach to things.

Samsaren

>>By the same argument - Butcher's Eye is powered by Augmentation ranks, with the Chirurgia metaspell it gives light edge ranks, so the player's output with a player forged dagger is based on their Augmentation ranks...

No. Augmentation Buffs are not TM. Everyone has Buffs and they do not produce weapon attacks based off of magic ranks.

>>The fact that you can hand them a weapon to make them more effective is no different than the fact that you can go out and buy yourself a weapon to make yourself more effective. There's nothing special about it being a bow you're giving them, or a sword, or a well made rock. Or the zombie's natural fists for that matter (Let us not forget that Brawling is a skill. Isn't a zombie converting TM ranks into Brawling skill by the same logic?)

Its a lot different actually. You require ranks in said weapon and sufficient strength, stamina, agility etc to use said gear to make yourself more effective. But by handing it to a zombie you do not require any ranks in the weapon, or any stats. You are simply using TM as a secondary skill to fuel a tertiary skill. Buying your TM a weapon is not at all the same as buying your PC one. No difference? You make quite the leap with that statement.

Brawling is not at all an issue because SLS and avengers as an "example" use TM damage as "melee" strikes. You can't hand any other TM spell a weapon and increase its performance. ANY zombie could be made to fit in with the "practicality and normalization of TM under 3.0" but it was made as a stand alone example that functions unlike any existing TM in 3.0... Lets be honest. If every necromancer is handing their zombies player crafted bows and arrows which are all the rage in PVP because of their superior performance then something is obviously wrong.

Its "cheese" RP when you have PC zombies running around shooting bows and arrows and its lousy development when its the "only" option because its performance is greater than any "empty handed" or "melee" zombie.

Are barriers going to dampen the arrow being fired? Is magic resistance being factored by targets defense before the bow and arrow attack from a "tm" spell zombie? I think not. This has several glaring issues. It allows magic to determine mundane weaponry effectiveness that is not prohibited by things like Magic resistance or barrier spells. I seem to be the only one who even points out its a Secondary skills ranks allowing sue of an item that otherwise requires ranks in a tertiary skill.


>>I can stop responding to your posts if you like.

That is not my intention. I only wish to get some solid answers about why this spell goes against the design of every other TM spell in the game and why its considered okay by devs.

Cheers.

>>I think this is the issue: it doesn't. It doesn't go against anything previously released. It's using the same rules and regulations as any other kind of critter-summoning spell: the critter's offensive factor (think weapon skills for players) is based on the caster's TM, and that offensive factor determines how well they do natural attacks/attacks with weapons they're holding/etc.

You seem to think that handing them a mundane weapon and to have its effectiveness guaged by the TM ranks of the caster as the same as everything else. If it was my guild heck I'd be just like you I guess. But frankly speaking from the position of reason, its really a lot different mate.

>>Zombies use weapons no different than how guardian spirits use weapons.

Really? No. Hand your avenger a bow and arrows please and post its ranged attacks bypassing MR, barriers without any ranks in said skill.

>>Really? No. Hand your avenger a bow and arrows please and post its ranged attacks bypassing MR, barriers without any ranks in said skill.

You could hand it a tyrium broadsword, and it would bypass MR and anti-magic barriers.

This is your quarterly reminder that Dev posts are a gift of our time to you and in no ways a job requirement on our part.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>>Getting Raesh to acknowledge with a "sure" that a secondary skill of Tm is fueling tertiary bow weapon ranks for zombies was hard enough.

It's a "sure" response in the sense that saying "Casting teleport lets you avoid ferry fees and athleticism checks" or "Warding magic bypasses armor skill because it reduces damage before the armor check is made" would get something similar.

>>Necrolord "Don't worry noob, just train TM and then cast a zombie. You can just hand your zombie and weapon in game and you can have it swing for you!"

Still not sure what the problem is here, or what you think the solution should be. Should zombies skills be a reflection of player skills? Should this work for any summoned mob?

>>Necrolord "Yeah and don't worry about pesky magic resistance or barrier spells that normally cancel out your TM. Our TM is special cool sauce!"

Except physical barriers work just fine.

>>Necrolord "Just hand the zombie a bow and arrows! It'll easily bypass their pesky ranged defense against melee attacks!"

Why would a zombie firing arrows bypass ranged checks? It's no different than any other mob in the game that fires a weapon.

>>Necrolord "now go! And cast strange arrow til you can cast a zombie spell to be your tertiary weapon skill set."

"Summoned mobs fight for you" is literally the purpose of summoned mobs.

As mentioned, you seem really fixated on the fact that zombies can use weapons, bows in particular, with the assumption that it is bypassing... something that shouldn't be bypassed.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>I said it would bypass the defense of being at "ranged" to avoid melee attacks.

So is the argument that zombies have to use melee attacks? Why is this the case? Are summoned mobs not allowed to do missile attacks at all? Did anyone tell Mudmen or Glassmen about this yet?

>>Sorry I seem to think to use a weapon you should require ranks in said skill.

The zombie is the weapon. The skill to use the weapon is TM. Is your argument that zombies should only use specific attacks to count as "fair"? Does this mean players should not be allowed to summon mobs that use missile attacks, or weapons in general? Does this include "natural" attacks, like claws or really long arms?

>>Sorry I don't believe you should be able to hand your TM spell a weapon and it use it as effective as your TM decides you can hit in combat.

What is the difference between a spell that creates a ghost that spits heavy/heavy/heavy plasma-goo at something until the effect ends or a ghost that can hold a weapon that fires heavy/heavy/heavy rocks at something until the effect ends?

>>Its obviously not a concept that is in action anywhere else, despite your reaching.

Except Guardian Spirits.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

... if anything, TKT is a good parallel to zombies - a Moonie can, with zero ranks in HT or HB, fling a heavy hammer at a target using just their TM ranks. HAXOR!

To the OP: I'm curious, did you get killed by a zombie with a bow and your feelings are hurt over it, or are you just jealous that Necros can augment their pets with bows?

>physical damage but so do many other TM spells

I think spells that don't do physical damage are a very very very rare minority... HE is one of the only that comes to mind actually.

>Sorry I seem to think to use a weapon you should require ranks in said skill. Sorry I don't believe you should be able to hand your TM spell a weapon and it use it as effective as your TM decides you can hit in combat.

OKay... if we're going to be this esoteric... why?

Do you think bows are actually better weapons? TM is a weapon skill. It uses the same math to decide what you can hit in combat. It uses the same math to determine damage. (It uses the same math to calculate experience!) The conceptual difference between shooting a bow and shooting a TM spell is the game looks at the arrow's damage stats or the TM spell's damage stats after it hits.

>Sorry I don't believe you should be able to hand your TM spell a weapon and it use it as effective as your TM decides you can hit in combat. Its obviously not a concept that is in action anywhere else, despite your reaching.

This concept isn't in action anywhere else because TM foci were never released, and TM spell templates are still slightly nerfed compared to a weapon template because of that. Functionally, holding a TM foci was/is intended to hand your TM spell a weapon and allow it to do full weapon-grade DPS.

The problem you're seeing is that TM spells are currently operating under what I would argue was a somewhat short-sighted nerf (but whatever, Dev is doing a pretty bang-up job all around and I can look past it, we're on the same blasted side) which might be partially addressed by the proposed (approved?) "cannon" TM spells.

(Does that make them canon cannon?)

And I don't understand what TKS has to do with anything -- ancient TKS did damage based on the physical dimensions of the item and had nothing to do with actual weapon math. If you ever used TKS to shoot an arrow, you were doing it wrong. You should have been shooting the longbow.

Now everybody sit down.

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Re: Life mana Spell preps

You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.

>>The problem you're seeing is that TM spells are currently operating under what I would argue was a somewhat short-sighted nerf

Unless something changed I don't think this is the case. My understanding is that TM spells currently scale with crafted missile weapons. TM is going to push it past that because you'll then be trading the DPS of a physical attack going alongside a magic attack for a pure magic attack DPS setup.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.