>Ain't gonna happen. Too many drones in the restricted airspace, so the rules have changed. Work within the new rules.
>Now. Do you want it to be a conversation about the new rules, or do you want it to go only one way?

It should be a crime to be this smug and condescending.

Doug, the specific reason flares win so much is because--even with new minimum 1s swing times--getting in 3-8 swings-and-chances-to-flare in the time the beastie swings just once, is FTW. You're not going for the damage from the weapon, you're going for the flares.
That's what the Bards are smokin', over there with Sonic Weapon and Tonis.

The problem I have with feras weapons is, 1) you never find them in the weapon base you want, 2) they are guaranteed to crumble at the WORST times, and 3) they never come in like an 80-charge configuration. You typically get like 10-15 swings at Strong, then again at Medium, then again at Light, and then you're out. Find a new one. Oh, and 4), they only come in Lightning flavor. BOOOORRR-RRRING.

How about 'feras' refer to the peculiar mechanic of 'flaring every hit', rather than 'some weird new material with lightning crits which oh look we already have a material name for'.

Now. They're clearly elemental.

Howsabout the Alchemy system has a way to spit out these nice zorchar crucibles, or whatever, and you put your existing feras ('feras' now referring to the mode of manufacture, like 'damascened') weapon into it FIRST, and then you put another (crap) feras weapon into it. Activating the crucible moves the charges from the crap weapon (whatever went in SECOND) over the other weapon. Now you can keep the one you like, hell, even get it Enchanted up or whatever. And it will flare on EVERY swing.
And oh look: Finally, a use for all those crap feras weapons we find.

You misunderstand as usual, Krakii. As repeatedly stated, the sorcerer treatment is my fear. So that would be an IF. If they break the current system, which is exactly what they are doing in varying degrees, the replacement needs to meet my criteria. Not in the sense that they must do as I say, but general criteria: a distinct identity for the subclasses, each able to stand alone as effective and enjoyable.

I don't think that's unreasonable. And I understand that we will lose some players who ultimately feel that the changes fall short of their expectations. I hope I'm not one of them.

>>Howsabout the Alchemy system

Oh, and damn well meant to say: "How about if we drop the Alchemy system all together and create spell lists that allow for this stuff and apply them to the appropriate professions?"

If Tav's right about one thing - creating a timesink for little advantage when other vehicles exist to provide the same effect - well, let's just suggest he's got this one pegged.

Doug

Heh. Point. I wouldn't want anyone to forego any benefit that they get for that investment.

Yeesh.

Doug

"I've yet to see one of your ideas that I actually like. That's not an insult, that's just a statement that everything you suggest is bad." -- ErykK2

That's fair. Like I just told the two guys at work when we were talking about where to arrange furniture and who to bring in and whatnot: I'm not trying to arrive at the perfect solution in a single sit-down. I'm trying to throw out fifteen different ideas; two stick, and one gets modified a little.
This is the "buffet of options" for the GMs that I mentioned earlier in the week.

Also, I don't typically look for FREE solutions. I suggest for new things to be unlocked with more ranks in the list (Kai's gains the HP recovery at +10 spells [used to be Eonak's Song]). Or improvements in Lore. Or a tie-in from another system (Alchemy especially, throw those guys a bone; or Forging). Or an added effect when using one spell in combination with another.
I'm not ever going to DO any of those systems... but I'll know where to go looking to get my work done. (Thanks, Faulkil!)

.

And in the spirit of not being insulting, forgive me, but I could not recall any suggestion that I've seen in your posts without going back to 1000 and coming forward. I like the StoneSkin (just doing SOMEthing with the darn spell; pretty much anything will improve it, and depending on how freaky we're allowed to get with a 20th level Major spell... it's got legs) thread you started, I agree with your analysis of the six or eight Warding spells, and for the most part I could get behind changing the "multiply the Haste mana cost" to "ADD the Haste mana cost" (so instead of 6/12/24/48 it would be 6/12/18/24/30). For the rest, your posts have been largely reiterating those same, or generalized "it's bad" to the GMs.

I frequently have three different approaches to approaching <the current thing to complain about> in a single post. Fine you don't like any of those, brainstorm your own. The key point being, get more brainstorming going on in here. Things can still be changed. Personally, I have hope for getting some of those Seed#s changed (to something reasonable).

And in the spirit of not being insulting, forgive me, but I could not recall any suggestion that I've seen in your posts without going back to 1000 and coming forward. I like the StoneSkin (just doing SOMEthing with the darn spell; pretty much anything will improve it, and depending on how freaky we're allowed to get with a 20th level Major spell... it's got legs) thread you started, I agree with your analysis of the six or eight Warding spells, and for the most part I could get behind changing the "multiply the Haste mana cost" to "ADD the Haste mana cost" (so instead of 6/12/24/48 it would be 6/12/18/24/30). For the rest, your posts have been largely reiterating those same, or generalized "it's bad" to the GMs.

Just to recap in case anyone missed them:

520 - When cast, would provide additional ASG protection, (much like 1209 as was pointed out), minus the maneuver penalties and hindrance penalties. It could also provide critical padding instead of damage padding. Either change would be a vast improvement over the current spell. Or do both, for one very nice Warmage spell to overcome our stuck in 5s RT in offensive in full leather.

I don't remember the warding spell analysis, unless you're referring to them being mostly useless. Even the new 512 could use an upgrade to provide self-cast 112 benefits, because as-is, I don't see myself ever casting it. Spending 12 mana per room for what is provided via 1 cast through 112 seems a bit unfair.

Also, I modified my 506 suggestion, to separate 506 into two spells, 506 + 504. 506 provides all the current benefits it offers now, minus the RT reduction to weapons. That part would be moved to 504, with the same implementation that 506 would receive, (4,8,16,32,etc). I would still prefer EL:E to reduce the mana cost instead of the cooldown. Attempting to reduce the cooldown, is pretty much pointless as I see it. Especially at full 2x lores and still being stuck with 20 seconds.

I do agree though that I point out repeatedly, that these changes are bad. They are, as many have pointed out, over and over. The lore implementation is horrendous compared to other classes.

Personally, I have hope for getting some of those Seed#s changed (to something reasonable).

And you seem to agree.

<<
520 - When cast, would provide additional ASG protection, (much like 1209 as was pointed out), minus the maneuver penalties and hindrance penalties. It could also provide critical padding instead of damage padding. Either change would be a vast improvement over the current spell. Or do both, for one very nice Warmage spell to overcome our stuck in 5s RT in offensive in full leather.>>

Um...1209 is DragonClaw...did you mean 1202 - Iron Skin?

Yeah, it's a deep rabbit hole if someone wants to go down it but I don't think my math chops are up to it. Too many variables (weapon base, crit randomization, flare odds, average flare damage, chance of crits on flares, etc..) for me to feel comfortable making declarative statements about one being "better".

Because keep in mind there's even more factors just between CW and plain. Since you will certainly get a better enchant on the non-cw weapon your ranges will naturally be higher when switching to that weapon.

I would say on a creature that cannot be crit-killed, there's definitely an argument to be made for DW and flares. But 90% of the time my enemies die from crits. When you're dropping a series of very high critical-range attacks one of those will usually finish the job.

From my arena run earlier today:

You swing an archaic faenor claidhmore at a long-eared fanged goblin!
AS: +281 vs DS: +235 with AvD: +33 + d100 roll: +50 = +129
... and hit for 84 points of damage!
Massive blow smashes through ribs and drives the fanged goblin's heart out the back.
The fanged goblin falls to the ground, kicks several times and dies.
Roundtime: 1 sec. (originally 5 sec.)

First hit, dead. Never gonna see that result (ie: w/ that endroll) with a DW weapon and very rarely with a flaring one. I believe that was with leather breastplate too, but I could be mistaken.

What it ultimately comes down to is time per critter. When you have a room full of targets with their ewaved RT ticking, having results like the above become extremely useful. Because every time one of them stands up and you need to re-wave, that's mana out of your pockets and 3 swings lost (cast RT).

I believe this situation changes as you level because A) It gets progressively harder to hit them at all with our poor AS growth and B) Creatures generally have more crit protection (armor or natural) so it's harder to get fatal crits on low-middling endrolls.

But I have repeated experimented with higher enchant and flaring weapons and in my testing claids have come out ahead by a noticeable degree. I do try to avoid plate wearers but even still, I found the claid won-out in my time with reivers.

Probably. Either way, it doesn't matter now. We get reactive vibe flares. Because they're so useful. Because everyone knows a Wizard can take a hit. The damage padding was bad enough, now it has reactive vibe flares as well.

What a great spell that really turns things around for the Wizard profession.

Looking at the details of the spell it does seem rather lackluster...even if those flares are more potent than top tier feras flares it's not worth training the lore for...especially not with a <10% chance at cap to occur.

When I look at the details for the spell I can't tell if it is the same as damage padding...where the damage is subtracted at the end...or if it reduces the damage before the crit is decided (which would be at least a slight bit better).

Honestly, a spell like that should provide some level of temporary DFRedux on top of the damage absorbtion at the very least for a 20 mana spell.

Honestly absorbing 200 damage at cap with maximum commitment of lore sounds pretty weak.

Gonna start up my stream again in a few minutes, if anyone wants to chat there.

~Whirlin

<Just as update, we do value everyone's feedback and will likely make some changes to the original proposals. We're not ready to announce anything just yet though.

Thanks, Estild. This whole conversation has been very negative. For my part, I apologize. I'm glad we're being given the opportunity to give feedback and have our voices heard.

~Taverkin

Thank you for listening so far, it really means a lot to know the community is being heard and responded to. I just wanted to chime in with my quick opinion, and then return to the refresh and read race that has become this folder. Please consider leaving self-cast haste as is, or as near to as possible.. Also, besides wishing 518 would remain a friendly spell, I would personally like to see a higher starting number of possible targets, with the ability to train in lore or MoC to increase that number, since the proposed numbers have been a bit too hard to swallow. As for 519, although I understand the opinion that it is OP, as a post cap wizard who has yet to finish the skillset for an immo build and consistently has mana issues when solo hunting with it, I very much disagree that it is too powerful compared to other less costly(mana and skillwise) spells, and would be disappointed if it were weakened further. Thank you again.

As always thank you for being direct.

Tal.

I think that's a nice message Roy. If the serious spell work isn't to be a part of ELR I wonder if spilling the beans on that early might have been a bad move. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

That said, I can't think of any set of circumstances where them passing right through 512 and 520 without fixing their underlying uselessness wouldn't have totally bummed me out.

This year has provided an impressive number of changes BUT I can't help but feel if a spell gets altered and not fixed immediately it's likely to stay that way for years. So I'm going to make my opinions known and hope someone with pull can look at it while it's 'in service'.

I feel like 512/520 is like a mechanic opening your engine to change the carbeurator, seeing a rats nest in your intake, and then putting the new carb on w/o removing it. Um... while we're HERE can we perform a simple fix for a major problem?

RROY

I sincerely hope the Product Manager departing was not in anyway because of all of this.

Absolutely not.

Taverkin

Why do they continue to leave broken spells broken while adding irrelevant lore tie-ins? What purpose does this serve anyone? So disappointing!

Because as I said before, this is the Elemental Lore Review, not the Elemental Spell Review. If you didn't use 520 before, you can continue to not use it going forward. For those wizards that do use it, they now have an extra benefit. You can apply this to each and ever spell we're updating in the ELR.

Just to make something clear, you should not be expecting some huge mechanical benefits from the ELR, especially just because we're down tweaking a few other spells. You're getting some good with some bad, but that doesn't mean we're going to replace the loss power from not being able to maintain Rapid Fire all the time or being able to outright kill most targets with a single cast of Immolate. If you're expecting that, look no further.

GameMaster Estild

>>is the instant kill from immolate really going away?<<

Where have YOU been this last week?

>Just to make something clear, you should not be expecting some huge mechanical benefits from the ELR, especially just because we're down tweaking a few other spells. You're getting some good with some bad, but that doesn't mean we're going to replace the loss power from not being able to maintain Rapid Fire all the time or being able to outright kill most targets with a single cast of Immolate. If you're expecting that, look no further.

So basically the ELR will be lackluster, compared to the SLR or sorcerous lore reviews, AND major wizard nerfing will be coming blanket style. Let's not kid ourselves. It would have been nice to have this stated upfront instead of this pretense then that we're getting some boon for having had this happen.

Thanks for the notice so we can all cut our losses and move on.

>You hurl a stream of fire at a glacial morph!
-Whirlin

You don't find it at all specious to use 906 in a comparison vs 910 instead of 908 when insisting fire spells don't do well against ice critters?

Slushes, by the way, are the weakest ones in that particular area, I don't think morphs or madrinols have any weakness.

<Not in my experience. Maybe you're not hunting the right things. The exception of course is uncrittable critters. If I hit you in the torso, head, or neck, its death, typically.

We don't have to use anecdotal evidence to support my position, V. Do the math. Our most powerful bolt spell is hurl boulder. Assuming you hit hard enough to cause a rank 9, your crit kill rate is 32%. If you don't cause a base rank 9, it's less than that. If you take into account targets with fewer body parts (cerebralites have only head/eyes/nerves as crittable areas), non-corp, etc. it's less than that. Perhaps the fact that you have about 150 more bolt AS than normal for a sorcerer is skewing your position on this? Try bolting with 450ish AS and tell me what happens. It should become painfully clear that bolts are attrition-based spells.

~Taverkin