>Don't be so hard on yourself, just talk about having cake and eating it too and see where things go.

Either your trolling skills are lacking or your comprehension skills are severely lacking. I'm not sure which, but it's at least one of them.

~ Methais

LADYFLEUR

I agree that sorcerers have 8 total lores they can train in, but simplifying it to just one number is also losing sight of what the tradeoffs really are. Their 8 lores are split into 2 sorcerous, 3 elemental, 3 spiritual, and I know you'll agree that within each lore type, this reduces the choices to a 2 or 3-way split. From all the other capped sorcerers I speak with, there is agreement that elemental lore has little impact on anything but 719. This effectively makes it a no choice option. Sorcerous lores are split two ways with decent thresholds coming for both demonology and necromancy around 90 ranks, which gives them the option to have their cake and eat it too. Further, Ensorcell does not require any necromancy lore whatsoever to begin gaining energy. Despite theoretically having a 3-way split with spiritual lores, in reality, religion lore doesn't affect sorcerer spells at all. Blessings lore only provides minor defensive boosts to 107/115 and a chance at self-refreshing casts for 117. So in reality, it's mostly a 1-way split choice for spiritual lores should sorcerers decide to train in it. It affects Curse for the Sorcerer spell circle, but in reality, it's also mostly used to mitigate sickness from 130, or for 118/125 for setup or utility spells. While on paper, it looks like sorcerers have 8 lores in which they can train, and this is certainly true, the reality is that they only mostly need to train in necromancy and one elemental lore for offensive purposes.

Sorcerers have 2 sorcerous, 4 elemental, and 2 spiritual lores to train in. I did not include Spiritual Lore, Religion in my numbers. Dark Catalyst (719) is certainly the main reason to train in all 4 elemental lores, as it is one of the mainstays of high level sorcerers. It alone is enough justification to train in the elemental lores, but even without that, there are certainly benefits in other spells such as the Minor Elemental spell circle. Spirit Strike's Spiritual Lore, Blessing benefit is something you often bring up in AS comparisons, yet so casually dismiss here as if no one is training it. And a number of sorcerers do train in Spiritual Lore, Spirit Summoning, as it has great utility and offensive potential with Fire Spirit and Web Bolt - just ask Virilneus.

The base Ensorcell (735) spell does not require training in Sorcerous Lore, Necromancy to function. It simply speeds up the process for the sorcerer. The base Enchant Item (925) spell does not require training in Elemental Lore, Water to function. It simply speeds up the process for the wizard.

LADYFLEUR

Within a lore class, empaths have a 3-way split with mental lores, since for all practical purposes, transference only affects monk spells and divination isn't even implemented in any spell in the game. Within the spiritual lore class, empaths have an effective 2-way split because religion lore again affects only cleric and paladin spells. Summoning lore only affects 1115 for offensive purposes (and 1118) within the Empath spell circle, and as it is also the lore sub-type that affects 240, this lets empaths have their cake and eat it for no sacrifice.

You are mistaken if you think empaths don't train in Spiritual Lore, Blessings and Mental Lore, Telepathy. Both of them have real utility and impact in combat and empaths do train them. I'm not basing my numbers off of just asking a few players either.

LADYFLEUR

While it is true that 1115 theoretically requires both summoning lore and manipulation lore, the reality is that summoning lore provides the chance for an extra 4th cycle and manipulation lore is the chance for the instant kill.

I don't follow. That's what I said. Empaths have to train in 2 different lores to get the same lore benefits that wizards simply get out of training Elemental Lore, Fire.

LADYFLEUR

In all the current discussions, there is no point in comparing base 1115 to base 519, which are not equivalent even by the data in the spreadsheet you provided. 519 at 1x lore is roughly equivalent to 1115 with zero lore, according to that data presented. But the reality is in the discussion of the post-cap power ceiling, 240 renders lores unnecessary even for 1115 because the sheer excessive warding margin alone, with the 1% fumble rate of failure, is sufficient to render the creature dead from the first few damage cycles alone. The same is true for 240 and 317. 519 has no such boost, and being entirely crit-based except the first, much lower, concussion cycle of damage, it doesn't even compare to baseline 317 because of the additional lottery factor. If a spell isn't going to reliably kill, then I am just not going to use it when it costs 2-4 mana more than a cleric or empath's spell option already.

You can certainly choose not to compare the 2 spells, but we certainly do and that's how we make our design choices. The 3 spells are not intended to be exactly even, as I have specifically noted before. 317 and 1115's edge is fully intended. However, they most certainly are comparable. We've already been over the whole 317+240/1115+240/519x3+515 debate, so we won't rehash that until there's something new to add there. We've also been over the extra mana cost for 519 vs 317/1115, as that's remedied through Mana Leech (516). I do concede there is a CS/AS advantage of 240 over 515, but I'm not convinced it's an issue. Who can achieve the highest AS/CS isn't going to win me over. If you want to make a case you can't function due to some disparity, we can certainly explore that.

LADYFLEUR

Pointing all this out isn't to suggest that we nerf spiritualists or anything. I mean this with absolutely no disrespect, but it's factually clear to me from your arguments here that you're a spiritualist at heart. And that's great, for you and all my spiritual pures, for which I absolutely love the direction of development you've taken them. I just wish it was possible to get you to acknowledge the post-cap disparity that wizards and the other spiritual pures face. Honestly, if the post-cap, single-target instant kill issue was solved for wizards with no cooldown on a comparable cast/kill and cast time parity level as the other spiritual pures, I would have no more to say about the state of wizards because believe it or not, posting on the forums every day about this isn't the kind of thing I or any other post-cap wizard player enjoys doing instead of playing the game.

I have yet to be convinced there is a disparity. We've been over it many times and it boils down to a disagreement over the roles of 515 vs 240. I get that you want to cast one spell and kill a target most of the time in 3 seconds of castRT. But that doesn't invalidate that casting 3 high level spells in 3 seconds of castRT achieves the same end result (a dead creature in 3 seconds of castRT), and Rapid Fire (515) allows for that. The entire reason I ended up allowing the complete removal of the cooldown of 515 is due to this fact. I also want to be upfront that even if we did decide to add another wizard spell to fill this role, it most assuredly would not work with 515, nor would it be a single target 950.

GameMaster Estild

Drumpel

Oh Estild, you aim to please, don't you? I knew someone wouldn't let me down and give me lots of reading material today!

The discussion had turned into embers. I had to throw some gasoline on it. :)

GameMaster Estild

>> Wait, 515 doesn't have a cooldown anymore if you have 200 ranks of EMC?

Correct.

-- Robert

Thank you Fleurs for post 3894 and 3895.

___________________________________

The flamepoint sand kitten hisses at a patchwork flesh monstrosity.
... 9 points of damage!

>But over a hunt - or even worse over many hunts (what else is there to do post cap?) - it becomes noticeable.

This is pretty much what I've been trying to say. Yes, you can say it's viable, but for the post-cap pure wizard who held the post-cap instant kill as the holy grail of magic, it's both a quality of life and satisfaction factor. It's just no longer fun to plink away at something even if the cast time parity largely holds.

I say this with the greatest respect when I say that sometimes Dev has so many numbers to look at, it can be possible to miss some of the forest for the trees. If looking only at individual numbers, yes, on paper it sounds like a sorcerer has 8 lores they can train in so their costs are higher. While the total training cost might be higher, the power potential is there, and the tradeoffs within each sphere are much less.

In that Dev spreadsheet, 519 on paper might look "comparable", but that 1x lore variance adds up to a lot different feel over a number of manual hunts rather than a data collection, I assume is done with the aid of some type of automated tools.

Same with the 240/515 discussion. I feel that sometimes these discussions are necessary on both sides because it's difficult for players to guess what Dev is thinking, while Estild clearly has probably ignored all of what I said all along after seeing "x-way" split because he only focused on the one single number. (hyperbole) It's far less frustrating on both sides if Dev doesn't spend a great deal of time working on something, thinking it was clearly what players wanted, when it completely missed the actual target of the problem. So thanks for this dialogue again.

Thanks again for the detailed response, Estild. It's very much appreciated.

>That's not how it works. Each elemental lore only affects the damage of that type. To affect all 4 damage types that 719 can deal, it requires training in 4 different lores. Due to the usual diminishing returns, there's a much greater return on 12 ranks in each elemental lore vs 48 ranks into a single lore.

There may be diminishing returns, but the Wiki says that: "On a successful cast, five individual strikes are unleashed upon the target. In order: essence (health only, no critical), fire, ice, lightning, and impact."

"At twelve ranks of a given lore, the critical rank of the relevant damage cycle is increased by one level; at fifty lore ranks, it is increased by 2 levels; and at one hundred lore ranks, it is increased by 3 levels."

And due to those diminishing returns, a post-cap sorcerer I greatly respect suggests mostly training in fire lore because the initial strikes have the greatest impact. If something dies already because of cycles 1 or 2, what happens after that has little relevance to the final result.

Regardless, the fact remains that with elemental lores largely only affecting a single offensive spell, there is no sacrifice needed between prioritizing lores within the sphere for one spell or another. It all yields offensive benefit in the end.

>Yes, a sorcerer can 2x in Spiritual Lore, 2x in Elemental Lore, and 2x in Sorcerous lore. They're also spending 2-3x as many training points and each lore sphere is affecting a smaller subset of their spells in return.

And I would rather have this post-cap power ceiling potential than the sub-par choices that wizards face today regardless how much experience we have. Ironically, as you brought up Virilneus... it sounds like he would be much happier being a wizard today and I a sorcerer than the status quo we have. :\

>But I can also tell you there are a number of wizards who have no interest in hunting to have to enchant.

Yes, they're called pocket mages. That's totally fine for someone to want to play their character that way, but I disagree it is in the profession's interest to develop around that expectation. I prefer development to occur with the actively hunting character in mind, and requiring the character to be present for benefits to be retained/realized as with the many examples I've given of your and this Dev team's contributions to clerics and group spells. A utility character logged in just to cast and log off again already has the benefit of being a spell bot to provide spells. Enchanting is a privilege, not a right of every wizard who doesn't even actively hunt.

>I hope you realize the end result is that wizards end up getting paid less for the service since it's more readily available.

I have no interest in how much wizards get paid for our services. It's not even worth selling as it is for the time put in, so how could it possibly be worth any less? What I, and I believe Raggler mentioned, care about is being able to achieve higher benefits even if it takes a wizard-attuned potion or some other extra step short of attuning the finished product to the wizard.

>There's literally almost no reason not to use it.

The pre-cap, mana constrained wizards would probably disagree.

>No matter how fast you can kill something without it, you can kill faster with it.

The same is true for 240. What isn't true of 515 is that it kills in fewer actual CASTS per kill (manually hit macro keys), rather than the automated double cast by the spirit slayer. What also isn't true is that it can allow you to hit or kill creatures you cannot kill naturally due to insufficient bolt AS or CS, which 240 allows.

>No cast of any spell is guaranteed to kill any target. High probability, sure.

Yes, I'm asking for high probability, enough such that it can be reliably guaranteed.

>More so, 240 is not as powerful as it is simply because of the AS/CS boost. If that were case, I could simply add that boost to the caster's original cast and not need the subsequent casts, correct? I'm willing to be there would be a significant increase in the number of casts needed to kill any target under that model.

This is why every statement I've made about a potential fix for wizards involves BOTH the boost and simultaneous multi-casts and why I've refuted every suggestion to simply copy 240, as for bolts, 2 casts is insufficient to reach a similar level of lethal probability that the other spiritual pures enjoy.

>The Scatter was mostly intended as a group hunting area. The fact that a few professions can solo there isn't going to be enough justification to drive us to significantly increase other profession's strength just because they want to do the same.

I expect similar classes of professions (pures, semis, squares) to have a similar level of effectiveness and strength in hunting any given area in the game. There are different hunting grounds for this very reason. It's a disservice to wizards to ask us to aspire to less. This is when things become less fun and people lose interest in playing their characters.

>If Wyrom wants to bring parity to that, he certainly has options to make the creatures immune to various spells, but that's his call and it's not something we're going to implement game-wide changes based around.

You keep saying this, but I bring up Duskruin only as an example of repetition in combat. Whether it's Duskruin or another hunting ground, the fact remains that wizards suffer more manual casts/macro keys per kill than any other pure profession. This is the part that is important to me and affects my quality of life in daily hunting.

>Of course, players use what's efficient and effective. 515 still serves the same role as it did, we just limit it to speeding up casting to 3x the normal level. Still efficient and effective, just as to the same imbalanced levels as before.

I think this is where you may not understand what wizard players are talking about where pressing a key and holding it down is less tedious than repeatedly hitting a key/macro and waiting 1 sec to repeat the same action until the result is achieved. It's no longer anywhere near as efficient or effective, or there would be no point in me having this discussion.

>I agree that EBP can be an issue for bolting, which is why we mainly addressed that through Tremors (909), which requires no extra time on part of the wizard to use during combat (since the activation does not incur RT or castRT). It doesn't completely eliminate the chance, but removing 5% evade, 5% block, and %5 parry isn't negligible either.

It may not be negligible, but it's nowhere near parity with what the spiritual pures enjoy from the warding system and their core CS-based spells. I do use Tremors all the time, and it makes little difference.

>See my above point on disagreeing that 240 is lethal because of the CS/AS advantage. To further illustrate my point:

Here I'll refer to to my constant comments that 240 wouldn't work for bolts because due to bolt kill probability, both the AS advantage is necessary as well as simultaneous multi-cast. I tend to refrain from typing out the entire extended explanation every time as this forum has been very much like Groundhog Day, but if something isn't clear to you or Dev specifically, by all means please let me know so I can clarify fully.

240 works for WARDING spells because of the CS advantage, in addition to the fact that it has a built-in double cast. What I mean by "240 works because of the CS advantage" is that 240 with a double cast but no CS boost would not be nearly as effective. I didn't realize I needed to deconstruct the entire spell, but I do want to clarify these points.

What I mean by 240 working because of the CS advantage is due to the way excessive warding margin works. If something is warded by just a few points over 101, it's already enough to do significant damage. Beyond a certain level of excessive warding margin, to which 240 most definitely contributes, it is enough such that the damage dealt results in critical ranks unavoidable for instant death. This is what I mean when I say that 240 allows 317 and 1115 to reach effectively guaranteed instant kill probability without regard for lores, because excessive warding margin alone, along with the warding system mechanics to bypass EBP and go straight to 1% fumble rate of failure, is sufficient to result in death.

>A higher CS does cause more damage and higher crit levels, but a better result is achieved from multiple casts, which will do more overall damage and have a better chance for one of the crits hitting a vital area.

A better result is achieved from higher CS AND multiple casts, which 240 as a whole delivers. This is why every one of my requests has involved both an AS boost (which needs to be significant, because even excessive bolt AS does not achieve what excessive warding margin does) and simultaneous multi-casts. This is because the bolting system is much more lottery based than the warding system, with capped damage, needing favorable crit location/randomization for a single bolt/"cycle", and EBP.

>Some creatures are designed to be resistant to certain forms of attack, which might explain inexplicably high ETD or bolt AS. But in most grounds, it shouldn't be an issue for all the possible creatures there. I'm also willing to look into any reports of specific creatures if you think their values are too high. Bolting should definitely be possible.

And yet no creature is designed to be resistant to excessive warding margin, at least not to the levels to which the spiritual pures can boost their CS. Bolting may be possible, but it will never result in the same level of probability of kills as warding spells for this reason.

>515 doesn't deliver the result that 240 does.
>Show me how it doesn't. I'm more than willing to be convinced.

At this point, I'm honestly not sure how to do that in a manner you would be willing to accept. I don't post repeatedly about this issue for the sake of talking about it. It's just as unenjoyable for me as for you. I've posted numerous data tables in the past, to which I got a response soon after that wizards were wasting our time so no need to engage in that further (with 519). Fine. Then we get a response from GM Viduus recently saying that the sample size was insufficient, so the data is going to be ignored anyway. This data has all been gathered and posted before, so if player numbers aren't relevant, that's why I implored you to run your own using the realistic training builds that each profession actually uses.

How many numbers do I need to run for you and in what format would you like for me to prove that the cast/kill parity is not the same for 515 as for 240 for you to acknowledge looking into it instead of it being yet another waste of my time? I'm happy to do this on the test server if you want to follow my characters around.

>Different professions kill in different ways. I'm not going to make game impacting changes simply because you want to hit 1 keystroke instead of 3. Many other professions kill much slower and with more keystrokes. You can exclaim "tedium!" as many times as you want, and it's ideally something we try to avoid, but not at the cost of imbalance or profession homogenization. And as you note, options exist to minimize it, whether you choose to use them or not.

Pure professions should all have the same options to minimize it, without profession homogenization, and every spiritual pure does while wizards don't. I'm not interested in comparing wizards to semis or squares who might kill much slower and with more keystrokes. Players of post-cap wizards mostly enjoyed playing post-cap wizards pre-nerfs because of the post-cap, single target instant kill level of lethality and quality of life and did not choose to play a square post-cap for that reason. I disagree that fundamentally changing the quality of life and power ceiling for one pure class over all the others is fair on a parity of power basis for one profession within a class.

>Even without hitting a vital location, bolts can easily deal 100-150 damage per cast, which would kill most targets after 3 casts (450 damage). It's not guaranteed (nothing ever is), but it's reliable against most creatures.

And yet because of this capped damage and one crit location, bolts easily need more than 1 cast to kill. It's in fact, almost guaranteed to never work with a single cast. It's also not reliable when one cannot overcome a creature's bolt DS, which is again not a problem faced by the spiritual pures and CS spells. I always prefer to power up (use a booster) instead of using a pushdown, which is subject to far more limitations and danger without spending even more time/wasted mana on trying to unreliably immobilize a creature from a wizard's disabling arsenal (see my document paragraph on boosters vs. pushdowns).

>In addition, we've given wizards a number of tools to better defend themselves for such scenarios. No other profession gets free heavy crit padding, negates a base 20% of all roundtime, a 25% chance to snap back through time to better defend against a physical attack, and lastly a chance to stop time to better manage a bad situation when it is encountered a few times per day.

While the tools we've been given are great, this argument totally dismisses the fact that each profession has different such tools to begin with. Empaths can 3x PF so they have much more natural resistance, and they have Troll's Blood, which helps them "snap back" from attacks and prevent death in the first place. They also have Regenerate, which provides crit padding for a short duration and allows them to instantly get out of a bad situation a few times per day. This is nothing new.

Clerics have 319, that prevents them from being successfully attacked in the first place in many instances, which negates the need for padding. Things are only useful if the resolution gets to such point that a successful hit is made. They have Miracle, to bring themselves back to life, should they suffer an unfortunate fate a few times per day.

>This is very true, but we also gave wizards the single best room clearing ability in the game. Sometimes the best defense is a strong offense. No, you wouldn't use it on a room with just 2 or so creatures, but it's also not really needed there, as the risk is much less.

You stole my line!! =P What I as a wizard wanted though was not a room clearing ability, but a single target clearing ability, for the very reason that most people hunt in single target situations on a daily basis. Rarely does someone encounter a swarm of 3+ creatures where they would run in and need mass demolition in order to ensure survival. This is more likely in a group setting, but in a group setting is where I actively attempt to power down so that everyone else gets credit for the kill. Other professions hate when a wizard walks into an invasion or crowd and everything is instantly dead.

Sorcerers also have mass 717.

>However, for my previous statement about a disparity, I intended that more as a significant gap.

In my personal experience, there is a very significant gap, or I'm quite sure I would have been playing the game the past two years instead of posting about the issue.

>but I'm not convinced that wizards are lacking in the kill speed efficiency area.

No one has ever said that wizards are lacking in the kill speed efficiency area. Where wizards are lacking is in the single cast/kill for the same total kill time area of disparity. If a spell/combo doesn't result in a high enough probability to almost guarantee a kill, it feels, from a player standpoint, like slinging spaghetti against the wall. I don't want to be slinging spaghetti against the wall as a post-cap wizard, nor is it what I envision Gandalf doing. I would expect to be able to achieve a level of offensively boosted lethality such that I can smite a creature down in a single cast/macro hit, like every other pure. From a player standpoint, this is what feels cool and fun, and it is the holy grail of a post-cap pure's magical prowess. If I wanted to sling 3-6 bolts at a creature from now til infinity, I could have stopped at fresh cap and achieved the same thing. What's lacking is the post-cap power ceiling potential.

>I've personally watched a number of the wizards who post on these forums and you guys can certainly tear through creatures. That's not to say other casters don't too, but I don't see this huge gap.

Other casters do at a much less tedious and guaranteed rate, which I'm sure is something that can't be easily discerned from just looking at high level numbers. It's why I suggest you run those 240/317 and 240/1115 numbers and see what the results are vs. what you expect wizards to achieve with 515+bolts. Note that in those 240 casts, I count a double cast as a single actual manual cast/macro hit.

Methais script hunts occasionally, and I don't, but I also have almost never gone hunting for the last few months outside of bandits anyway because of the tedium. I much prefer to play my other characters instead.

>In the hunting scenario, the empath (to randomly chose an example) can move into a room / area and encounter one creature. One cast, one loot and one second later (perhaps faster on a good connection and a good day) that empath can likely move on. The wizard in that same situation might be able to equal the feat, albeit rare - and so the wizard is likely to take two casts, or possibly even three, meaning that one encounter for the wizard from moment of meeting to moment of being ready to move again could be two times, or even three times as long. Some hunting areas make standing around in the same room (environment) rather risky. Movement is often considered a defensive strategy, with those rooms well marked where the environmental effects can be less.

>In the hunting scenario where the empath enters a room / area and encounters two creatures, that empath can get a cast off, loot and can likely move on in about a second - fading into the environment and pausing three or four seconds to see if the second creature will follow. If not, the empath can opt to do another strafing run. This holds true for almost any number of creatures - but higher numbers of creatures changes the dynamic a bit. The wizard in that same situation will likely either at the outset fade into the environment, or take a greater risk and try equaling the feat. Success is much less likely than for the empath in the scenario proposed. But here's a nuance.

Something that I think would go a long way toward addressing this, even if it only worked with bolts, would be an EVOKE version of 515 that does a triple cast of whatever spell you're casting. Like a mini 950, except without being able to use multiple spells at once. One version of 515 can't be active while the other version is active.

Incant 515 EVOKE -> incant 906, and 3 Minor Fires shot off at once for 18 mana with a 3 second cast RT. What would be wrong with that?

>I can't stress this enough, but a few people posting on the forums does not constitute a majority.

I can't stress this enough either, but a few people posting on the forums doesn't mean that anyone who's not posting isn't in agreement with those who are posting. Basically neither your statement nor mine means anything relevant, because there's no way to prove anything beyond it.

>But I can also tell you there are a number of wizards who have no interest in hunting to have to enchant.

Those are typically called bots, with maybe a few rare exceptions.

>I agree that EBP can be an issue for bolting, which is why we mainly addressed that through Tremors (909), which requires no extra time on part of the wizard to use during combat (since the activation does not incur RT or castRT). It doesn't completely eliminate the chance, but removing 5% evade, 5% block, and %5 parry isn't negligible either.

And then when you're fighting something immune to Tremors (which plenty of stuff at cap is) and you can't do anything about their EBP, warders still continue to not care one bit about EBP vs. anything. EBP simply should not apply to bolts. Block maybe because blocking a bolt with a shield would probably make sense in most situations, but not evade or parry unless they're sporting a lightsaber.

Sort of unrelated: How fast/slow do our bolts actually travel anyway? Are they all slow moving like bullets were on old NES games like Contra, giving the target plenty of time to think about it for a minute before moving out of the way?

>Even without hitting a vital location, bolts can easily deal 100-150 damage per cast, which would kill most targets after 3 casts (450 damage). It's not guaranteed (nothing ever is), but it's reliable against most creatures.

Which can often turn into 4, 5, 6, 7+ with EBP. And no it's not all that rare either. It's just something you have to play a wizard to appreciate the annoyance of.





~ Methais

>> it wouldn't allow one to uphunt the way 240 does.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask - because I feel I missed that turn.

If we're talking well post cap, what up-hunting is there?

Doug

>If we're talking well post cap, what up-hunting is there?

While our characters may have well post-cap levels of experience, in reality, they are numerically level 100. As such, uphunting is any creature level 101 or above, any grizzled/ancient creature from a bounty, a boss creature in any other circumstance or invasion... etc. etc. It's the same reason our level-based disablers largely don't work on creatures in the Scatter, for example.

Look Estild all those points are all well and good but you really haven't touched on the main topic of the thread. Why can't you allow water lore to unlock minor steam with minor fire?!

Keith/Brinret/Eronderl

Keith is correct

-Wyrom, APM

Keith is correct.

-GameMaster Estild

>There's been no justification to make the case that wizards should be able to enchant faster than they already do, and even if we did, I hope you realize the end result is that wizards end up getting paid less for the service since it's more readily available.

If enchanting was done only by wizards, and any item could be enchanted (however difficult), then there would be more to enchant and an improved player-to-player market for enchanting. Or, take enchant away from wizards completely and give them something that isn't so saturated in merchant/premium services. The mechanics and underlying concept for 735 are some of the best I've seen in the game, as they provide a significant secondary reward for active playing time. They should be deployed more broadly than to just one profession, though. Every profession, actually, should have something like this.

>>Every time I use 515 and mash macros for bolt attacks, I don't think, "wow! This is so much fun!" I think, "is this thing EVER going to die already?!"

So you don't think launching successive bolts of elemental fury at a target is 'wizard' enough? I think maybe you would be happier with another game in which all professions have the same mechanics with different names.

>I think maybe you would be happier with another game in which all professions have the same mechanics with different names.

I would be happier with the wizard game we had before that allowed us to launch a big blast of wizardly fury at a creature (pre-nerf 519) or a simultaneous slew of bolts at a creature at effectively second 0 (rapid fire with 0 CT) like what spiritual pures can still achieve. I realize we will have to pay a higher mana cost for these abilities, but I would expect wizards to still have the ability to boost up to this level of offensive power that the spiritual pures still enjoy in terms of post-cap, single target instant kill probability.

I would also be happy with a sorcerer not coming into the wizard folder to tell us what is wizardly. Telling a paying customer to go to another game as a solution is I'm sure something Simutronics supports though given their desperate efforts to get customers to return.

>If you want to argue their gaining more in the post-cap area since due to this setup and there being almost no opportunity cost, that's fine - make that point.

This is exactly what we've been doing for the past 2 years. Did you miss all those posts or something?

>But that's not the same as saying they only have a 2-way split.

This seems like a pretty pointless angle to debate in the first place, but since we're going that route...sorcerers have 606 total lore ranks to split between a total of 808 trainable ranks between sorcerer, spirit, and elemental lores, which gives them 75% overall coverage. Wizards have 202 out of 404, which only gives us 50% overall coverage. But again, this is a pointless topic to even debate.

>Look Estild all those points are all well and good but you really haven't touched on the main topic of the thread. Why can't you allow water lore to unlock minor steam with minor fire?!

I'm getting my pitchfork right now. Estild has stated that easy quality of life things (quick wins) are the ideas he wants from us, not fixes to bigger problems.

>So you don't think launching successive bolts of elemental fury at a target is 'wizard' enough? I think maybe you would be happier with another game in which all professions have the same mechanics with different names.

We were fine with the mechanics we had before that got nerfed into the ground. Thanks for your insightful sorcerer feedback though. You weren't around for GP2 from the sound of it.

Fleurs continues to raise valid points, which I'm sure will get ignored because apparently death by 1000 (+348297402 with EBP) mosquito bites until they eventually run out of HP (because good luck with killing via crits with any sort of reliability at all) is what makes wizards fun now and anyone who isn't having a blast with it are playing the game wrong and should just pack up and leave.

And probably sell the character to someone who needs a pocket enchanter too to be fixskilled to 202 water lore.

Great talk guys.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/8b/a6/35/8ba6350c6d5a87d5f67173e42008ba15.jpg


~ Methais

No other profession has experienced such drastic and fundamental gameplay changes as the wizard professions that resulted in a massive post-cap power ceiling nerf since the change to GemStone IV when the clock was reset.

All professions within a certain class (pures, semis, squares) should enjoy parity in offensive power, while having different abilities.

Playing another class is not an option for those who don't want to buy another capped character like a trading card. "Playing a post-cap character of every profession" is nowhere near the same as leveling a character from 0 to post-cap. By missing the journey, one misses the tradeoffs and only sees one facet of the picture, which is not an accurate way to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the class.

GemStone isn't another game by some snowstorm company where you can cap in a few months without being an AFK scripting bot or buying someone else's character for cash. Which Simutronics officially does not support, so I don't see that suggestion as a valid alternative. People are complaining because they spent nearly 20 years on a single post-cap character to get to a certain point.

>Though, from the sound of it, you would likely find something 'wrong' there because it isn't whatever you imagine it should be.

Actually, I play every class because I enjoy how it is at the time I rolled up a character. I don't play a class because I aspire to one day advocate to turn it into XYZ mutant warmage class. I also don't comment on any other class than the ones for my mains because I don't care. If I'm not heavily invested in a class or my characters are pre-cap, those are the characters that will adapt and either quit playing if it becomes something unenjoyable for me, or I'll just fixskills. Post-cap for a wizard pure main, there is no fix available now.

>>All professions within a certain class (pures, semis, squares) should enjoy parity in offensive power, while having different abilities.

This statement does not reflect my personal opinion, and thus should be marked as false. All professions should provide meaningful differences and should feel at parity only when comparing ALL aspects of the class to another.

>> GemStone isn't another game by some snowstorm company where you can cap in a few months without being an AFK scripting bot or buying someone else's character for cash. Which Simutronics officially does not support, so I don't see that suggestion as a valid alternative.

If you were to be AFK scripting to reach cap, you would be missing the journey. You would miss the tradeoffs and only see one facet of the picture, which is not an accurate way to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the class.

>This statement does not reflect my personal opinion, and thus should be marked as false.

That's your opinion, which I mark as false. Next.

>All professions should provide meaningful differences and should feel at parity only when comparing ALL aspects of the class to another.

One pure profession should not be so lopsidedly different and sub-par vs. the other pure professions at a post-cap level, which wizards now are vs. sorcerers offensively and utility wise.

>If you were to be AFK scripting to reach cap, you would be missing the journey.

I don't AFK script or buy characters, or I would have "post-cap characters of every profession" like you do.

>So, am I correct in that key strokes/macro buttons/whatever is the issue?

Quality of life and the post-cap power ceiling of achievable probability of a guaranteed kill are the issues.

>There is also the issue that things have changed and nobody likes change.

People don't like change that breaks things without fixing the holes left behind and told to move on after spending nearly 20 years on a single character. It's disrespectful of all the customer time and money spent.

>515 doesn't deliver the result that 240 does.
>Show me how it doesn't. I'm more than willing to be convinced.

515 doesn't deliver anywhere near the same probability of a guaranteed kill as 240 does, and it's completely out of the question when it comes to uphunting.

Estild says it does, which is why I am having this discussion with him. Irrelevant suggestions to buy another capped character or play another game aside, it was quite productive.

I'm interested in what kind of proof Estild is willing to accept to continue the discussion about 515 vs. 240.

Yes, please. I think the design team has done a great job keeping this game moving forward and fluid. For me, Gemstone isn't about killing power parity ... it's honestly about the lack there of.