Focus and Fizzle

Alright so I was messing around with different things just to experiment and I found two different features that caught me off guard. I'll explain them both and then talk about it.

First is focus based. You can combine two identical glyphs to get a reduced focus cost of 5.

This shouldn't be a static reduction it should be percentage based. Melee have way lower costs to their abilities so they can essentially fight with a slight reduction (half of the glyphs) while completely out of focus. Magic abilities have an average of 10-30 focus cost (some higher) so they have to combine way more abilities to make this system useful to them.

The fix: Have it percentage based, for example 20% reduction each time you combine a glyph.

Edit: I really enjoy this system as a healer, it adds more complexity in deciding for focus cost or quick heals (two glyphs instead of one). I really do like the system just needs some fine tuning.

Second is fizzle based. When using a wand your fizzle changes while moving or standing still. If you have a base fizzle of 0% and you equip a wand you will have a fizzle of -10% while standing still and 20% while moving.

What...? I like the idea of having different weapons change different stats while moving or not but this one makes no sense. A wand should be a mages go to weapon while running and a staff should be while standing still.

The fix: When they fix the focus drains of these weapons I do believe it would be really cool to have staves reduce fizzle (or possibly increase crit or another stat? ideas?) while standing but slightly increase it while moving. Do the exact opposite for wands so each of them are useful for different types of mages.

 

@Darkstarr you should read this.

 

Something similar was discussed in another topic. This is what i said there, and i think it fits as a proper answer here as well.

 

and UO was so simple...

 

In theory in some "realms/universes" wands/staves either help to channel magic or even are required. Sense we are going with an attempt at classless then it can't be required. I don't mind if it helps in some way to be honest. I just don't want it to be extreme in either direction but for a "pure" mage build I think wands/staves should be the go to weapons so having them help with either fizzle or possibly help with not being interrupted COULD be a cool mechanic.

 

Of course, that could work. The beauty of thinking mechanics for magic is that they depend on the concept of magic people have. I stated "no fizzle reduction" because of the reasons i included in my post. My thinking of wands not lowering the fizzle rate was meant to give a reason for mages to go without anything in their hands, which make sense too.

I'm ok with either option. What's a must is to fix the way wands and staves work. Right now they're pretty useless, and having the same effect on fizzle as a bow... well, pretty sure you know the drill

 

As I said elsewhere in the talk before R11 @Chris said it would be a multiplier, so staves and wands would have a smaller than 1 multiplier and other weapons would have a larger than 1 multiplier for Fizzle (and focus).
But what happened in the release was a hard number....

So I think they just didn't have the time to get it in properly.

Also note that Bows work the same for magic users.....


And finally note that running around has no penalty at all for melee....