What is going on with combat?????

Watch the latest Dev Hangout & interview with Chris Spears via NBNN.

 

Do you mean this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=14&v=BV6nVm6gruU ?

Thank you for the tip

 

Xail, also this:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/interview-with-chris-spears.33707/

 

*Cough* *Cough* Water Magic really, really does slow enemies enough... More than enough! You can also use Disabling Shot under Ranged to make it worse! One Ice Arrow or one Ice Fist is not much of a slow, but definitely more than acceptable. The combination of both crazy slow... Add Ice Field or Disabling Shot to the mix... ridiculously slow!

Hrmmm... You need more INT. You will definitenly notice a an overall spell damage boost & Ice Arrows are currently the hardest hitting spell! I've seen them hit around ~275.

Correction, Spell Critical Chance Bonus, meaning no extra damage is produced, but you have a higher chance to crit. it does not effect a regular spells damage.

What kind of utility would you expect from the fire tree? And, as you can see slows are currently awesome! Fire is all about Damage Over Time!

Get you some cloth armor with intelligence boost from Fustian Cloth Straps. As of now, you are right in saying that the Magic Damage Bonus does not do much, at least in my experience. We will see all that stuff balanced out in the future though.

No one is forcing anyone into using Death Magic, the system isn't forcing anyone into Death Magic... You can use healing, you recover HP in a more efficient manner using healing anyway. I can heal a lot more HP in 5 seconds with Healing Magic than I can with Death Magic. People are stuck in their old ways... They need to get out there & try different tactics. Although, I do agree there needs to be other healing sources.

 

Great video! Your explanations have convinced me to try a completely different build in R20 (until now I have been using Fire and Death magic).

 

Glad I could help Keep in mind, as @Themo Lock said, we are definitely in for huge changes next release.

 

mage's should have a spell like the "heat metal" from d&d that makes fighter want to remove there steaming hot armour

 

With body slam a tank can break root and be right next to you in less than a second, and unleash a five stack of earthquake (with reagents to prevent fizzle) while you are still stunned. He can follow that with a string of more body slams to keep you busy while he stacks more earthquake. If he gets bored he might use his two handed hammer as well. Things are never as easy as they seem.

 

Actually, just as an aside, I've found it kind of cool playing Witcher 3 that setting someone on fire gets them to back off from you for a moment while they're flailing around in agony. But, then, hitting someone with a sword also gets them to stumble and fall down, disabling them for a moment.

But I agree with the point; even if there were something like that, ice would still have to be better at rooting people than fire. The point of different spells is to have different effects, not to be the same effects with different colored sparkles. You should be making trade-offs when you choose one magic school over another, or melee over magic, or heavy armor over light armor. That makes combat fun. Otherwise, it would just that much more boring.

Just a note on the whole magic being powerful discussion. The balance for powerful mages has always been that its difficult to level in magic, because you have to start out in no armor with weak-sauce spells. They only get powerful on high level. Plus, it would have a cost in things like reagents, which could be rare or expensive. In other times, a mage might be vulnerable because he needs to meditate ('restore focus'). Then, fighters could always pick up magic weapons and armor and shields and rings and amulets and whatever else to compete with them.

 

Ah, looks pretty nice outside of the fact you have to get within hitting range to get them slowed in the first place...still wish ice arrow itself slowed like ice spells do in other games (AION/Dragon Age etc). Good video tho...Kinda looks how you would fight with archery ...But the stand still effect needs readjusted for mages if they want us to cast, backup, cast, backup. (BTW I do not have archery on my mage as of yet...maybe it's a good supplement?)

Yes, I will continue to raise Int as my general stat...I will continue to play with it in r20.

I think fire should provide high damage to creatures while they are slowed, enabling the mage to safely kill from afar.

I have crafted cloth armor, thus far it is weak. I am planning to try leather next release. I have been given good advice that it works very well for survival.

I still would rather use bandaids than life magic to heal. I will use it if it's the way it works tho. Just hoping for more of a PURE mage build than a jack of all trades

Thanks for the advice Bambino!

 

Well, Lord Baldrith, I can attest to the fact that crafted leather armor (i.e., with bonuses to STR, DEX, INT, dmg res, avoid, etc.) does work very well in PvE (Not so sure about PvP...) In my past experience, archery does not seem to produce as much damage as spells (or melee weapons) unless your score crits or combos (which doesn't happen often enough for me)

 

What's that you say? The halls of Dev+ finally resound with a classified response to all the flak the random deck system has garnered? Great. I hope this time the devs actually listen.

Yes, it is the million dollar question. I like some of your thinking, but I want to suggest an alternate viewpoint, for everyone's consideration.

I get that people who specced pure into mastering every inch of a tree feel that they deserve (and I honestly agree that they do) some nice reward for mastering a skill. However, if we give them TOO much of a reward, then it kills hybrids. I've always found that the lateral benefit of mastering a skill starts out fairly large, but diminishes with vertical growth. Um, that probably made a few eyebrows quirk.

Here, the height is simply the level of the skill tree, the WIDTH is the degree of utility of the passive to actions outside the skill tree:
|\ 9
|-\ 8
|--\ 7
|---\ 6
|----\ 5
|-----\ 4
|------| 3
.\-----| 2
...\----| 1
------------
First, you'll notice that I suggest more levels to the average tree. I like deep skill trees, it lets pure builds reach for really amazing skills. You put those super skills too low on the tree, everyone grabs them. Second you'll notice it's not just a triangle. I believe that the first one or two skill tiers should represent investment. Nobody gets to grab all the benefit they want without paying their entry fee. As the first few tiers are passed though, the passive effects and conjunctionals (things like combo powers, or passives that feed multiple tree needs such as stat bonuses) that occur begin to benefit the tree in question more and more. By the time you are in tier 5 (the current cap for most trees) the lateral benefit is less than that even at initial investment. Past that, we start to see that all the master is getting is more and more power exclusive to the tree he is mastering. I think that is how it should work. The initial investment into each tree gives important general purpose tools. Heals, cleanses, durability, attack speed, carrying capacity, stuff that we all want. As the master pushes deeply into the tree, the passives granted become very focused on the power of that tree. So special sword moves that only work with swords, and passive effects that only benefit one school of magick, massive reductions in the penalties caused by a certain type of armor, etc.

That way, if you push to master a tree, you get vast power WITH THAT TREE, but if you hybridize you get large quantities of passives and effects that work well with diversity.

I'm thinking also that at tier 8 or 9, there should be some big, FAT passives, that give amazing benefits. Like, near the top of the Heavy Armor tree, a passive that negates fizzle chance caused by armor on certain magick schools. Like a passive near the top of the Death Magick tree that doubles all damage dealt by Death abilities. Like a passive near the top of the Fire Magick tree that lights the character on fire when they cast a fire spell, dealing retributive damage to anyone striking them. Like a passive near the top of the Blades tree that causes your attacks to apply a stacking bleed that does very little damage, but drains their focus and slows them. That way when someone masters a skill tree, they don't just get a handful of expensive but flashy spells, they get real, serious power, making them better than mere dabblers at every single ability in that tree.

 

On this in particular, I see a big comprehension problem. Yeah, you MIGHT be able to heal more efficiently with heals than with death magick, but when you add in an equivalent ATTACK spell to every cast, so that you are doing that much damage, can you still keep your costs as low as with the one death spell? How about time consumption? You want to cast a heal and an attack spell for every death spell I cast? Think you are keeping up with me there? Speed = power. In every way, in every example, speed is power.

And then we get into talent points needed to learn those effects, and space consumed in the deck, simplicity of UI, and of course the consequences of the random draw system. Since drawing my one death spell gives me instant access to both dps and self heal, whereas you might get all your heals, and none of your damage, or worse yet, all of your damage and no heals. Then you aren't healing fast enough, and efficiency becomes pointless because dieing is very very inefficient.

By its very nature, the concept of death magick's life draining attacks is more elegant, compact, affordable, and efficient. So maybe it costs more per HP gained. I can ALWAYS just have self healing Life magick on the side.

 

I dont believe skill trees should be the total basis of a good build anyway. We can add and subtract from the damages and effects til the days end, but if we do not get some interest and fun in this whole process it just seems lame. It is too cut and dry to be a fun system. I know I have mentioned before but I probably will mention again. So for skills getting the skill does not give you skill. How indepth and well you do a skill is and should be based on what you do with that skill. Have you learned to properly use fire, ice, or any of the skills. Hopefully the development team will give us an interesting and indepth take on buy a skill does not mean you are an expert with it. I want you to experience the game. Getting a skill does not mean you know how to use it. So I probably will keep harping on things like this. To tweak and balance the existing skills is fine for now, but overall not at all what I am hoping for this game. That is a mediocre game. I feel that it is a mistake to not add in details that will make the game interesting. Getting a skill like we do is not anything fun or interesting. It is costly, yes it is, but is it fun or itneresting, Well no. So take me away to the fields of fire to train with the irritable, interesting, and sometimes comical masterful NPCs, and make me run through fires so I can learn to use fire and tolerate fire and enchant with fire and don't miss out on the details of this game while we are at it please, please, please.

 

Yes. I think that using skills more should make them more powerful. Like a fire mage should get better at fire by using only fire...and ice/fire mage should be better at both ice and fire...any further than that and you are diversifying too much to become more powerful as too much = less power...That's how I've always felt on magery and other forms of combat.

The way it is now...you are just going down a tree and not really improving in skills. You are adding another copy of the same spell with no benefit to how good you are at that spell...I don't like this.

 

That's the thing... It's not an "equivalent ATTACK spell to every cast." Just because I hit you with a Death Touch with 30 damage, does not mean that I get 30 health... They changed it a couple releases ago... You get a portion.

 

@Womby You're give away my secret sauce! lol! But, really Body Slam is very good... @blaquerogue put it in action on me.

 

You miss the point. I don't just "get a portion", I also HIT YOU FOR 30! All in one spell. You go ahead and find a mix of spells that gives as much healing AND AS MUCH DAMAGE, and then check how many spells you are casting, how many talent points it cost to learn them, how effective you are at getting equivalent dps and hps, and how much focus you are spending doing it.

Death magick that was faster at self healing than self healing was would be INSANE. As is, it's just more elegant, but not more efficient, nor more powerful. Just more elegant.

 

Hehe, I am definitely right on point & have already have found the right mix of spells that give me as much healing AND AS MUCH DAMAGE... As I said, I stick to my word, Death Magic is not OP... I think you need to try mixing up some High DPS Fire Spells or perhaps some Ice... Throw some Healing Touch in... golden! Your Death Magic will not out heal or out DPS me and I'll still have more focus than you.

 

Death touch is a good deck filler but hasn't been a must have for months.