Auto Attack for magic

Also use your staff for defensive blocks

 

Btw, what are anybody's thoughts on rods? In D&D there's a wand, rod, and staff. Rods never made it into Ultima I'm guessing because RG never thought there was a purpose for them and it made things more complicated.

Mage blades?

 

Guess I've always enjoyed the concept of a pure mage expending all of his time in his magical studies and research that his other skills atrophy to the point of seeming frailty where he must use his mind and mastery of magic to compensate for the decline of his physical characteristics. The pursuit of magic and arcane knowledge as an obsession and using material items such as staves, wands, rings, necklaces, amulets and other trinkets to augment his magical power. When I think of a pure mage, he isn't holding a battle axe or longsword. But that concept doesn't really work within the current skill system or concept of this game...unless the excessive pursuit of magic and arcane studies created an attunement in opposition to physical strength related skills in someway.

It seems logical that mages should be able to imbue a staff or wand with the school of magic they are focusing on. Changing the auto-attack of the staff or wand to elemental damage of their choice.

 

Maybe, in addition to improving the mage's attunement, the staff's auto-attack could also increase in power based on the mage's base attunement. Making it possible, but more difficult, for fighters to use staffs for magic. And, also, making staves more powerful as a mage levels.

Thus, attunement would be a two-way connection between the mage and the staff, and both would increase each other's power.

The diff between a wand and a staff could also be wand - magic auto-attack, vs staff - physical attack.

 

Yes, it is vital to get that first good spell in prior to auto-attack happening. I would like it if we had more natural animation for walking/running with gear (be it leaning on staff or whatever).

 

Well what about enchanting gear in general? Multiple enchants that can further boost all playstyles not just mages per say.

An example would be a pair of gloves - maybe it can have an enchant that does +1 int, 20 fire attunement, -10 water. Another set of gloves may have +1 dex, +3% crit chance. Another set may be +3 strength, +5 bladed combat.

I have a feeling that eventually some "rare" gear will appear that has things like "-2 second cooldown on parry" or "-2 second cooldown on fireball" or "-10% reagent cost on summon ice elemental" or "sneak attack crit damage increased by 25%"

But I think I am in general agreement, that mages could benefit from an auto attack especially if it is linked to a circle of choice.

 

Depends on what you're talking about...

I think it has to make some sense, and not just feel like random advantages. "-2 second cooldown on fireball" seems a little random to me. Also, I'm not that much of a fan of stacking gear stats, feels a bit like min/maxing to me, although I guess that's in the game already.

No matter what, though, I think if there's some reagent/fizzle reduction and focus reduction, it should be limited to staves and wands. Part of the reason for would be to create a little separation between mages and fighters and between different schools of magic. Putting those advantages on other gear would nullify that idea, as well as make staves and wands redundant IMO.

As for attunement, more specifically, not as much opposed to that, at least, from how I see this atm.

I would like to see also shields that block certain types of magic, like shields that can block fire, but also I would like to see that more tied to active deflecting skills. Too many passive defenses in the game!

 

I like the idea of being able to select an elemental auto attack. It would be good if mages could choose which element, in the case of various mobs having various elemental resistances. Also have the graphic of the auto attack change based on the element.

Currently, the wand shoots a blue flame ball, and the staff does a normal flame ball. Since those items are (if I interpreted @Chris correctly) changing to increase attunements, rather than function as weapons with auto attack, perhaps the auto attack could be a simple energy bolt/ball/etc that does very basic damage which increases with attunement level, and all spells increase similarly, so that the auto attack is never greater in damage than the actual spell skills. Also, that auto attack would not function if the mage were carrying anything in their hands, except for a wand or staff.

What do you think, sirs?

 

Oh, yes, I guess I provided a reason against gear attunement right there.

Basically, I'd be afraid fighters would have 8 whole suits of armor for every different type of attunement they'd use for fighting different enemies. Their banks would be filled with variously attuned armors.

I'd rather it be more limited, like to shields, with active defenses. Just IMO.

 

If the wand/staff were adjusted to do the damage type and have a small benefit of the spell while solely being based on attunement, I think that would be pretty nifty and awesome.

Easy examples:
Fire - Shoots small fireball with a chance to do a dot
water - ice arrow with a chance to slow
sun - beam of light, deals more damage during the day
lunar - beam of night, deals more damage during the night
earth - shoots obsidian arrow with chance to pierce armor/absorption/deflection
wind - ranged lightning bolt with a chance to interrupt
life - ??????????????? more damage to undead attack?
death - ranged attack that drains small amount of life

just examples.

As for shields with active defense, I agree and that sounds like a good idea. 8 full suits of armor attuned would be interesting as that is a lot of weight.

 

If its confirmed as changing to affect attunement and get its auto-attack neutered even further (I wouldn't have thought that possible), then I can honestly say magic will be gimped as a solo purist career. It's bad enough that as a purist mage I can kill stuff faster with a sword, no skills or magic, on auto-attack than I can casting magic at it.

Where did you see him mention that?

Also, auto-attack should never do equal or more damage than the skills/spells being used (for either melee, ranged, or magic). If its left in place, it should be a steady bit of damage, but always should be less than the glyphs (otherwise, what's the point of the glyph).

 

life - attack team mates to heal them 8^)
chaos - disco balls of doom?

 

Though, if the base attunement of any gear was low, and only became magnified by the wearer's own attunement, that would help prevent fighters from having 8 suits of differently attuned armor. By that system, a fire attuned robe could benefit a fire mage greatly, but anyone else, poorly.

 

Btw, anyone know what the idea is behind Chaos Attunement? From the description, it doesn't have any negative attunement.

 

I think it was in IRC after the R22 or R23 post-mortem.

Maybe the auto attack math could be base damage + attunement score / 10.

If base damage was 1-4 points (wand damage), then having 100 attunement would add 10 points to make it 11-14. At that level of attunement, the base spells (fist spells, discharge, etc) should be doing waaaaay more damage, so the auto attack is just the cherry on top.

EDIT: INT bonuses should not apply to auto attack, since you wouldn't really be using any of your mage smarts to make your little pew pew attack.

 

I can see that, but if INT bonuses do not apply, do you think the secondary affects (fire dot, water slow, sun damage, death touch healing, stone ignore armor, ect) should apply?

 

No, just elemental type, so that if you're fighting a creature who is weak against <element>, the auto-attack does extra damage.

 

Current thinking is it has no negative because it innately can go wrong in cataclysmic ways (whether or not it is functioning that way I can't say as I don't play around with chaos on this build).

 

Ultima 1 had: Amulet, wand, staff and triangle as mage weapons i guess

personally i has suggested that when you cast a offensive spell it could give you a auto attack of t hat type

cast fireball, and then for skill level? seconds your 'mage weapon' do a ranged fire auto attack.

 

The Ultima wiki says the triangle was a type of sword / mage blade?