XRED
Request - Extend 730 fix 725
08/30/2019 12:52 AM CDT
Hi, can a GM please extend the time the spell lasts for necro 730. When sorcerers who use the spell have to leave whatever they are doing - quest, merchant, rollplay and go hunt down a suitable monster and sacrifice. It is SUPPER annoying.
The only purpose of the short duration need IS to be labor intensive and annoying- can we admit this?
The at most 45 min duration adds stress that I have to be constantly watching the clock - in order make sure I don’t lose my animate and the crystals I made.
Can we please make this more friendly for casual players? There is a reason why so few sorcerers use the spell. Bad design.
Speaking of poor game design, can we make 725 more useful? I only ever see a handful of sorcerers ever use the spell too. It’s supper annoying to go back to the guild all the time for something that does what? Holds a gem? Maybe flares when a sorcerer bolts? I can’t hit much anyway with bolting so why bother? And when I tried it out with bandits, the one thing I can hit, I don’t even notice. By the time a sorcerer reaches a high level random 10 and 20 damage flares are rounding errors and the demon becomes more of a screen scroll distracting nuisance. This is really poor design.
I do want to say the writing is beautiful with these spells and it’s sad they are so useless that few people use them.
OM1E5GA
Re: Request - Extend 730 fix 725
08/30/2019 11:49 AM CDT
<I do want to say the writing is beautiful with these spells and it’s sad they are so useless that few people use them.>
I wouldn't go so far as to call them useless, but their design def makes it so the benefits aren't worth dealing with the hassle in most situations... esp below cap.
725 can actually be pretty useful depending on the demon you summon, the problem is having to either go through the extreme hassle of learning Illusions or remembering to tell them to wait outside town/dismiss them when you return to town. Not to mention sorcerers that focus on Necromancy prolly won't have the training in Demonology to get the demon they want without trekking to a summoning chamber. Now that I'm spending most of my time bouncing between Pinefar and the Rift and very little time in any town, I should keep one around just to hold coins and maybe a couple heavier loot items I find....
730 I want to use, but is another case where the limits make it unpractical most of the time, even if you're willing go to the trouble of making crystals. I'm not, so my use of it is pretty much limited to animating dead players to get them back to town.
Combat wise, I've found them to be completely useless. At most levels a sorcerer's main defense is killing/disabling their foe before it has a chance to attack so 90% of the time I'll have killed the thing before it makes it's first attack. The guard function could be useful, but it's completely unreliable. Even if your animate actually attacks whatever attacks you, it's not likely to injure it enough to make a difference between life and death (I have the same complaint about ranger companions, but at least you just cast that spell and forget it).
Utility-wise they could be useful... if one is willing to take the time to travel to Icemule for the flowers, go out of their way to hunt trolls for blood, and carry around yet another component adding to their encumbrance (the salts might not weigh much, but between salts, books, chalk, runestones, etc it adds up). Even then, one has to regularly choose between a sacrifice that gives them 50+ mana or one that keeps their animate around (meaning it costs more to refresh the spell then it does to cast it in the first place.... 4x as much if it's a capped critter being sacrificed).
Honestly, I'd gladly see the attack, guard, and magic functions stripped from animates in exchange for a duration of 1200sec + 60sec per Necro rank. The usefulness of those commands is limited to a small handful of critters anyway.
Starchitin, the OG
A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.
I wouldn't go so far as to call them useless, but their design def makes it so the benefits aren't worth dealing with the hassle in most situations... esp below cap.
725 can actually be pretty useful depending on the demon you summon, the problem is having to either go through the extreme hassle of learning Illusions or remembering to tell them to wait outside town/dismiss them when you return to town. Not to mention sorcerers that focus on Necromancy prolly won't have the training in Demonology to get the demon they want without trekking to a summoning chamber. Now that I'm spending most of my time bouncing between Pinefar and the Rift and very little time in any town, I should keep one around just to hold coins and maybe a couple heavier loot items I find....
730 I want to use, but is another case where the limits make it unpractical most of the time, even if you're willing go to the trouble of making crystals. I'm not, so my use of it is pretty much limited to animating dead players to get them back to town.
Combat wise, I've found them to be completely useless. At most levels a sorcerer's main defense is killing/disabling their foe before it has a chance to attack so 90% of the time I'll have killed the thing before it makes it's first attack. The guard function could be useful, but it's completely unreliable. Even if your animate actually attacks whatever attacks you, it's not likely to injure it enough to make a difference between life and death (I have the same complaint about ranger companions, but at least you just cast that spell and forget it).
Utility-wise they could be useful... if one is willing to take the time to travel to Icemule for the flowers, go out of their way to hunt trolls for blood, and carry around yet another component adding to their encumbrance (the salts might not weigh much, but between salts, books, chalk, runestones, etc it adds up). Even then, one has to regularly choose between a sacrifice that gives them 50+ mana or one that keeps their animate around (meaning it costs more to refresh the spell then it does to cast it in the first place.... 4x as much if it's a capped critter being sacrificed).
Honestly, I'd gladly see the attack, guard, and magic functions stripped from animates in exchange for a duration of 1200sec + 60sec per Necro rank. The usefulness of those commands is limited to a small handful of critters anyway.
Starchitin, the OG
A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.
ASHRAAM
Re: Request - Extend 730 fix 725
01/03/2020 01:13 PM CST
I use 730 for one thing - bandit bounties. For that niche, they work great. Kill the first group of bandits, animate one of the larger ones (giant or something), and give it an ebladed lance. Tell Animate Attack, and watch it stun / disable / kill things while you're waiting for a stun to wear off.
Outside of this niche, I see very little reason to bother with an animate. If I hunted the rift, I might bother to try and boost an animate enough to give it a chance at killing Vrrael for me, but I don't hunt there. The only other time I've thought about raising an animate was for the sake of getting beneficial short-term spells in particularly dangerous areas, but that is rare and the critters are difficult to control.
My suggestion was to allow the sorcerer to use SACRIFICE to sacrifice some of their own health and spirit.
1. SACRIFICE CHANNEL <your name>
2. Your sacrifice goes on cooldown and you experience 10s hard RT
3. You lose ~30% of your HP
4. You lose ~20% of your spirit
5. Your animate's health (but not injuries) are restored, and the link renewed
This would be a way to allow you to keep an animate for a longer time, and you could use your abilities (i.e. 701 / ensorcell) to restore the lost health.
For 725, the primary niche for this spell is for a sorcerer with 2x spell aim, who is hunting with a group and wants to deal ball damage. 713 is a great spell if you can meet all the up-front requirements (star curse, getting outside AS boosting scrolls, and having sufficient demon lore + a demon summoned to deal meaningful damage). Otherwise, it's only handy if you can summon something to carry your silvers in areas like the rift or SoS.
Outside of this niche, I see very little reason to bother with an animate. If I hunted the rift, I might bother to try and boost an animate enough to give it a chance at killing Vrrael for me, but I don't hunt there. The only other time I've thought about raising an animate was for the sake of getting beneficial short-term spells in particularly dangerous areas, but that is rare and the critters are difficult to control.
My suggestion was to allow the sorcerer to use SACRIFICE to sacrifice some of their own health and spirit.
1. SACRIFICE CHANNEL <your name>
2. Your sacrifice goes on cooldown and you experience 10s hard RT
3. You lose ~30% of your HP
4. You lose ~20% of your spirit
5. Your animate's health (but not injuries) are restored, and the link renewed
This would be a way to allow you to keep an animate for a longer time, and you could use your abilities (i.e. 701 / ensorcell) to restore the lost health.
For 725, the primary niche for this spell is for a sorcerer with 2x spell aim, who is hunting with a group and wants to deal ball damage. 713 is a great spell if you can meet all the up-front requirements (star curse, getting outside AS boosting scrolls, and having sufficient demon lore + a demon summoned to deal meaningful damage). Otherwise, it's only handy if you can summon something to carry your silvers in areas like the rift or SoS.
