A new spell is on general preview as of tonight. The spell is named Electrostatic Eddy, it's in the Electricity book, it's a cyclic Advanced AoE Debilitation spell. It is Magic vs Fortitude. It requires Arc Light and three slots. It does nerve damage to targets, and has a chance to unhide targets hit with it. The chance increases with the target's nerve damage.

Knowledge of the metaspell Quick Infusions will now allow you to PULL an Elemental Weapon to increase its density (to a max of 6) and PUSH an Elemental Weapon to decrease its density (to a min of 4). Because there are really only three options (density 4, 5, or 6) I decided not to require the Weapon Acumen technique.

Javac
That one guy

If you have questions or comments in regard to this post please email me at DR-JAVAC@play.net.

>>I'm curious how this can be labeled as a debilitation spell when its main effect is causing nerve damage.

The ancient and venerable TM Doctrine stated that anything that could directly kill the target had to be on the TM system. Nerve damage (non-fatal) and damage capped below bleeding could remain off it.

Some spells were at the top up for this treatment (Branch Break and Ice Patch come to mind), but that did not happen for Reasons That Bear Not Repeating.

-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

Pretty cool looking spell. Both in what it does and how it looks in the room view.

Also here: WM who is surrounded by an electric storm.

The strong smell of ozone accompanies a bolt discharging through an ogre youngling.
The strong smell of ozone accompanies a bolt discharging through an ogre shooter.
The strong smell of ozone accompanies a bolt discharging through an ogre youngling.

>look youngling
You see an ogre youngling.
The ogre youngling has difficulty controlling actions.

---

Vote:
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

>>I would assume that "difficulty controlling actions" would be a fairly large debuff to the creature in question, both offensively and defensively. Is that correct? If not, what does nerve damage affect?<<

Evasion, Stealth, spell casting, Magic v. Will contests. Probably more I'm missing.

Mazrian

You're sounding pretty salty.

Mazrian

It does seem a bit much, but that's how dev works. One guild releases one thing, till the next releases something to be even stronger than that thing and so on. Then people wonder why abilities spiral out of control so quickly.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

>>Yet on the other hand it would seem exceedingly obvious that my interest in engaging in a discussion with someone has everything to do with the perceived temperament and tone of the argument.

Usually true but lots of times is unavoidable, especially when it involves a job or any type of leadership responsibility.

Except for my last quip about clerics all the other points I put forward were for discussion because they concern me as they should anybody that would find the spell's current incarnation to be detrimental. Since it affects quite a few things.

I don't read an argument here that doesn't reduce to 'but this isn't the way we've always done it!'

I've been advocating for years that the vectors for damage in DR have become badly shallow, this is a step in the right direction to a richer, more rock-paper-sissors schema.

As a TM spell, this would be worthlessly redundant. If I can hit you with a TM spell that only damages nerves, I'm going to throw up Rimefang and just kill you outright (while also leaving a permanent debuff until you're healed, piling up until limb destruction, and pulling from, with the added bonus of stuns).

---

Your search-fu is pig dung!

>> Evasion, Stealth, spell casting, Magic v. Will contests. Probably more I'm missing.

Sorry, but do we know these debuff creatures in the same way? My understanding is that creatures don't have evasion, they have defense. I'm a PvE player (we don't do PvP in TF), so is the debuff as potent for a creature?

This is my assessment after spending some time with the spell.

First, it's cyclic debilitation. That's a niche previously unexplored in the Warmage spellbook, and cyclic debil is really good, so EE is likely to find its way into the spellbooks of most Warrior Mages. I'm planning on forgetting Tingle, which I never use, to get EE, which I expect to use a lot.

In PVE, EE should give a modest edge. The DF penalties from even complete paralysis don't seem to be huge but the spell will stack them up while I'm doing other things and they're enough to speed up training the weapons I sometimes have a hard time hitting with.

In PvP, EE should be really good for several reasons.

1. It's easy to buff/barrier your way into being safe from someone's TM, but hard to do the same for a Magic v. Fort contest.

2. The cyclic mechanic leaves me free to use my active casting for other things.

3. Stacking nerve damage puts the other party on a clock so they have to deal with ME and not the other way around, which is more typical for WMs.

Bringing things out of hiding isn't too shabby either, but we have several things that will do it so to me that's not as valuable.

And in all scenarios EE is complimentary to our active debilitation and TM spells. Very solid, will be chosing this spell.

Thanks for reading.

Mazrian

Tested EE a bit vs spell casting. With a moonmage taken to complete paralysis and his discern for MB was 67 the nerve damage took him down to being able to only cast at 57. With Sear's Sense his discern was 100 and could only put 86. With potencey set at 130% this effectively made no difference with Sear's Sense. Shadowling was able to be cast at 99. Will be looking at the effects toward stealth vs the same moonmage shortly.

He has complete paralysis of the entire body.

I would think that complete paralysis would count for a bit more vs spell casting. Here's hoping the effects toward stealth make this spell worth something as nerve damage seems extremely underwhelming.

Have to say I like the sound of this one - I don't tend to get pulled into PvP that much, but this is something nice that will suit how I train and help me out, I'll certainly be picking it.

It reminds me of static discharge, only its cyclic, which is a good thing as I really liked that spell.

I think this is a very welcome addition to the warrior mage spell book, thank you very much.

I've only had a little play with the spell for now, but I like how it works. I'll have to clear some spell slots to be able to get this one

Grounding Field attuned to electric and ES don't interact with EE at all it seems.


~Worrclan, Dwarf of the Realms-

So far, I like EE. However, the towns folks do not. Spent some quality time in jail.

-Dartellum Waddle

Vote for DR: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

<I stated in the post made earlier that I was only looking at nerve damage vs. spell casting. And if setting potency to 130% is enough to mitigate complete paralysis then yes I stand by my statement that the effects of nerve damage on spell casting is extremely underwhelming.

Well, unless i'm mistaken nerve damage used to be worse a while back. I can't see nerve damage having that huge of a significance and being fair, as it would have a huge benefit of being able to shut down a casters buffing, debil and their most potent form of damage from TM. I assume by the amount you were able to prep MB at that your MM is able to cap all your spells. I think that nerve damage as it is might be a little more detrimental in that regard to a beginning to mid level mage.

I'm just speculating at this point though, I've never even really seen the spell in action so its hard for me to have any valuable input besides my experience with nerve damage.

Agreed, it is a super great at training Debil. Also, the penalty the stacking nerve damage does to offense and defense seems significant. I'm going to have to move some slots around and pick it up.

As to the density changing technique, anyone got apps on the denser (and less dense) weapons?

It's magic vs. fortitude, so I imagine Tranquility would work. I forget if Shear now works on AoE effects or not, but if it does then it should work to defend against it as well.

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

Warding ranks vs the spell wouldn't really matter, just the potency which the warding spell was cast at I think. But i'd Hope that shear would block it, though its usually pretty lame against AOE spells sadly.

Two questions -

1 ) Does engagement range affect efficacy of the target?

2 ) Being an AoE, does this interact with anti-magic abilities like WORM or Shear or Swan? I imagine, being non-elemental damage (weirdly), it doesn't interact with Toad?

It seemed like if you're losing the contest on the defender side stealth is your best bet for mitigating damage from EE. Hidden and/or invisible I was only getting hit with EE half the time that someone visible was.

---

Vote:
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html