A Brief Glimpse of Pure Mage Combat in R13

There's no question that I had the advantage. There's no question that I was more prepared than my opponent. There's no question that when you look at the film this wasn't the most honorable fight.

But I won, with no armor using only spells and my wits. That's what a real mage does. That's what being a pure caster is all about, and in R13 I got a brief glimpse of what I want magic to become...



My apologies to the poor random soul I attacked without provocation (for testing purposes only!). We fought a few more times after this and he got the better of me on more than one occasion. But in fairness, not many people stand a chance in a fair fight using pure magic and no armor (and no staff).

A few quick notes on some of the spells that were used. Fire Arrow is auto hit. There's no skill involved in using it. There's also no way to block it. What I'd like to see is Ice Shield actually block fire damage completely. ALL OF IT. What this would do is make people branch out their skills and spells and not rely on whatever "does the most damage over time".

This video also shows how incredibly stupid auto attack is. Here is this guy running for his life, but still firing at me with his staff. Notice I don't have a staff, or this battle would've been over even quicker.

The last thing I'll comment on is the spell Blink. The range for blink is very short, it's roughly 30 feet in any direction around the caster. It also does NOT break your opponents targeting (but does break YOURS) so using it in combat is really not viable at the moment.

 

I'm going to have to disagree a little about ice shield. Mainly the part about forcing players to branch out. I do think ice shield should be effective but probably not 100%. This line of thinking could lead to the very thing you're hoping to avoid.. everyone using the same builds. Everyone would go for ice shield because it's the best defense vs fire.

Diversifying is a good thing but what about specialists? I think each spell school (except chaos.. because you know.. it's chaotic).. should come with an innate immunity skill.. OR it's own protection spell that's effective against the same school. (innate might be over powered depending on the max % effectiveness). How does a fire mage fight a fire mage? I mean think about it.. how can you specialize in something without being able to protect yourself from it?

Each school should also probably have a more generic defensive spell that's less effective but covers everything.. except again for chaos .. cause you know.. chaotic.

People shouldn't be forced to diversify.. as that will lead to the hardcore players min/maxing their build for effectiveness.

 

Ice Shield would only be mandatory if everyone used Fire magic. What if Death and Chaos magic were just as prevalent?

BTW, Blink and fighting from a rooftop are pretty exciting. I think open world PvP will be exciting and tense even without full loot. Maybe that's just me.

I like that you were able to ambush someone with clever tactics, but that they were able to come back after the initial death and you were able to have a few more rounds of combat. Keeping the game going is fun. Having the person lose everything due to an ambush and then just ending gameplay there for both parties isn't fun.

 

Look Ma, I'm on TV! It was fun battling the other day Drocis. I agree with auto-attack on the staff. Its dumb that it keeps shooting people behind me as I'm running away. It also seems to not be interrupted by using glyphs. That being said, R13 is the first time I'm having a lot of fun as a pure mage in pvp, equipped with staff and light armor. Confusion keeps me alive against melee characters, but is probably too strong as I've only lost once to a melee build this release.

 

You did a great job against me. I don't last very long in a fair fight.

Do you think confusion is over powered? Considering it does no damage and it has a passive counter (smelling salts) it seems like it's almost perfect to me. The one thing I'd like to see is a way to block it from impacting you in the first place. I think a high intelligence score should help A LOT with this (although I don't think it has an impact now). I'd also like to see a spell that you could cast that would effectively make mind spells like confusion something that you didn't have to worry about. Of course, there would always been give and take and by using a defense like that you're opening yourself up to something else.

 

Yes and no. If there is a 100% fool proof defense for anything than everyone is going to want it. Now if you had such a spell.. every school would have to have something similiar. You couldn't really expect to make an effective fire mage if everyone had ice wall. Likewise for any other school that had a 100% defense against it. What if life magic could defend 100% against death magic? or sun vs moon or anything else?

 

It depends. I only have so many slots in my deck. Do I waste a slot on a defense that only works against fire when I will be fighting against people with chaos and death magic as well?

 

Exactly.

AND, there are two other ways you can implement something like this. For example, suppose the system worked like this?

Option 1: Ice Shield now protects from fire at 100%. But Ice Shield leaves the caster 50% more vulnerable to Earth Magic.
Option 2: Create a COUNTER to Ice Shield. Make a spell or skill that requires your opponent to cast Ice Shield for it to work. But WOW does it ever do damage against a player using Ice Shield!

I personally like Option 2 the best, and think we should have this formula throughout every sigil in the game.


Fire Sigil BLOCKS Water Sigil, Earth Sigil COUNTERS Water Sigil Block
Water Sigil BLOCKS Fire Sigil, Air Sigil COUNTERS Fire Sigil Block
Etc....

This makes it so nothing is ever OP because there's always a block and a counter to the block.

 

I find this turning into an interesting question. We've only been talking about 100% defense but any shield spell would also have limited effectiveness vs most everything else as well would it not? An ice wall would surely block wind very effectively.

What I'm after here though is more flexibility and strategic decision making. Though number of slots is a good point I hadn't considered. I maintain however that the only way to potentially achieve a 100% protection against something is mastery of the same school that something is from. Fire and Ice/Water are almost always portrayed as polar opposites.. and in the case of mages.. natural enemies. If anything they're each typically weak against the other. It's the mutual weakness that balances them out.

What I would probably do.. for defensive type magic.. is have one school they're strong against.. one they're weak against.. and everything else somewhere in the middle.

 

Now we just need rogue mechanics to climb houses with grapples and ropes and jump from rooftop to rooftop

 

I hope the stealth mechanics are more than just push a button and you are invisible. I hope camouflage requires a special modification for your gear and it only works in leather armor. Oh yeah, and you can't use sneak attack with anything but a short sword or a dagger.

 

You should be able to sneak attack with anything. This isn't D&D. It's just a matter of balancing damage. I've always hated the fact that daggers and short swords get a bad rap. A dagger is still long enough to run most people completely through. The whole point of a sneak attack is that your opponent doesn't see you.. not that they don't see what weapon you're using.

 

All weapons get a bonus for hitting in the back.....no one is SNEAK ATTACKING with a polearm. They can get bonus damage for hitting in the back, fine. But it's not a sneak attack...your opponent is just really really non-perceptive.

 

By that definition there's no such thing as a sneak attack.

If I'm sneaking.. and you don't know I'm there.. how is hitting you with a pole arm less of a sneak attack when you don't see it coming?

 

By the way, on the stealth topic, I would hope there's some sort of balance skill for light armor, the kind you would use to walk on tightropes, but it would also help in PvP areas where you would get knocked down during battle. Currently, you just have knockdown resistance under heavy armor, Knight's Grace. I can't imagine you should be able to resist stuns or knockdowns that happen with stuns, but knockdowns that happen without stuns should be resistible..

 

I'm saying the game shouldn't allow you to use a sneak attack with a polearm for that very reason....cause we'd know you were coming.

 

Last I checked.. pole arms don't make noise. How are you going to see them if they're behind you?

 

I'm not going to argue with you about polearms being a sneaky weapon. I don't know why you'd dig your heels in on this. The grass is green and the sky is blue, Bowen.

 

Because stealth is a matter of not being seen or heard.. unless the weapon makes noise on its own or can be seen through the back of your head or in some other way gives you away.. the weapon is irrelevant. No weapon is a "sneaky weapon". The sneaking part comes from the character, not the weapon.

 

As illustrated in... (jump to minute 3:30 if you're in a hurry)


Jokes aside, let's not forget about ranged sneak attacks!

Back on topic, I pretty much agree with Drocis' toughts and the direction of this thread regarding the OP. Having skills with counter mechanics and skills that dispel the former may make combat pretty interesting; it can make a combat between pure mages a battle of versatility, not the fire spell exchange that it seems to be at the moment. It may also help in making the gap between hybrids and pure mages wider, since pure mages are more likely to have an attack the hybrid can't counter, and to have general purpose counters to defend himself from the most common attacks, and for some specific that he wants to avoid. This being a must is hardly debatable, the question is... why don't we have this now/are we going to have it in the future?

Auto attack is indeed dumb. And even dumber regarding staves/wands. I see almost every mage uses a bow because it gives the same fizzle reduction than wands and doesn't drain focus, and if nothing changed from the last release, bows do more damage than staves.

That blink spell is pretty sweet! to me the distance seems right... blink should be a short range teleport after all. Nonetheless, that target thing is huge, and it probably work in the other way; the caster conserves the target and his opponent loses it ("where did he go?").