Hi Raesh/Grejuva,

Just as a heads up I did some more testing late last night.

Did the 150 max mana thing get removed for AOE's? I saw them back to 100. Either way, I noticed a difference in CL it seemed to be a lot better. Maybe the weight towards electricity helped it on the critters I was testing on (umbral moths).

Frost scythe definitely lost a little bit of oomph but still seems quite powerful. However this isnt a surprise you mentioned the armor piercing template was tweaked a little.

Tested DB specifically since you mentioned you have not had any feedback.

So, my feelings are overall positive. It definitely has more oomph than before. THANK YOU for the huge duration bump! it seems like a capped cast lasts around 40 minutes... and on the high end of a spit it is capable of this:


You sharply inhale, drawing upon the power of your internalized fire, then violently spit a bolt of churning flame toward a fuligin umbral moth!
Some of the fiery breath breaks against its uncanny wings.
Dragonfire buffets the fuligin moth's abdomen, twining into roaring pillars, and for a moment it rolls in scarlet flames! When the smoke clears, only a charred black ruin is left of the torso.
A fuligin umbral moth's wings spasm one last time, drifting away from its body like a cloud of acrid smoke. The creature goes still, now nothing more than an ungainly mound of disintegrating shadow.
Roundtime: 1 sec.


The only strange thing I see is that it definitely has some erratic behavior in its damage for not a whole lot of rhyme or reason as far as I could tell. This is without me attacking or otherwise doing anything but waiting for DB to come back up on these bad boys. It can eradicate them in a single hit... or do something more like this:

You sharply inhale, drawing upon the power of your internalized fire, then violently spit a bolt of churning flame toward a fuligin umbral moth!
Some of the fiery breath breaks against its uncanny wings.
The incendiary spittle blasts it in its abdomen.
The fuligin moth is lightly stunned!
Roundtime: 1 sec.

R> l moth

You see a fuligin umbral moth.
The fuligin moth has severely swollen and bruised abdomen compounded by deep cuts across the abdomen.
The fuligin moth is bleeding with discoloration in the abdomen and from the abdomen.
It is wearing nothing!
It is carrying nothing!


Now I'm not advocating it to 1 shot creeps constantly, just wondering if this is the intention of the new Heavy TM spell template to have a high variance in damage... from moderate to very high? Or is this just an issue inherent to DB specifically because it is not an explicitly targeted spell, and more of a "Free cast" spell?

Either way, I personally think with the increased duration and damage potential it would seem like a spell most Warrior Mages would want to take, however I am curious if we will be getting a true "Targetted" heavy TM spell at some point?

Thanks much for your time.

>>Now I'm not advocating it to 1 shot creeps constantly, just wondering if this is the intention of the new Heavy TM spell template to have a high variance in damage... from moderate to very high? Or is this just an issue inherent to DB specifically because it is not an explicitly targeted spell, and more of a "Free cast" spell?

Was curious about this as well.

I can echo what TOTLIIO is saying. The spell is definitely improved and I noticed increases to both critters and PCs.

As an added comment, I would say I am definitely going to keep DB for the time being, but I'll have to be weary about using it as a first shot in PvP. Even as Heavy TM, it suffers under the Vit Barrier.

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah.. the frost scythe testing was with the same mobs i was using last time. I casted it a boatload at max mana, fully targetted. As I said, it hit less, it seemed slightly noticeable but I wouldnt call it a complaint, just it seemed to be slightly weaker. It might have to do with the weight changes made to it also?



>>You should certainly not be one shotting regularly, particularly anything that's even remotely a threat to you. If this is happening please let me know because it means one of my adjustments to let Heavy TM punch a bit more above it's weight has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

I wouldnt say it was regularly. It happened one time (and I outclass fulgin moths fully buffed.. 1350 base TM on test so with subs that is pushing it pretty high... I am sure that is contributing). I was just taking note that it seemed to have a very high end of damage potential (a one shot) but also a lower end (a small wound, also unlikely to be the lowest end based off of skill).


>>As for the damage variance... that's likely normal. All attacks are fairly swingy in how hard they hit due to how accuracy and damage are married in DR. That's not something I'm going to be able to (Or really, willing to) overcome.

I was wondering if that was more just part of the template or perhaps could also be attributed to the fact that DB doesnt benefit from a full target bonus.

>>Yes, you're still slated for Flashfreeze at the very least but because Grejuva came to me with the idea of making Dragon's Breath heavy TM it's unlikely to make 3.2's release. (Which is good, writing TM spells can be extremely time consuming and that'd be a silly thing to hold up a project like this over).

Appreciated. I didnt want to come off as complaining about it not being a full TM. It has its place and I like the DB change overall. I just feel like we are missing something until we get that big targeted heavy TM spell, so I for one know I am looking forward to it!

Raesh, while we have your attention:

Any idea on what the prereqs for Flashfreeze will be? When these changes roll through, I'll be getting a few refunded points and I want to be wise in the spending.

Okay. Just making sure it wasn't Fortress of Ice or something. I wasn't sure where in the tier class it fell, though I was assuming the upper due to it being heavy TM.