*good* ideas, anyone? (in General)

Mages, as noted before, need a skill. Only tanks really get specific skills (such as Bloodlust, Vampiric Aura, Archery, UC, et cetera) and, to balance it a bit, I think Mages should get a skill or two as well.

My suggestion is this: I don't care what you'd name it, but make a spell to increase power for mage spells. The downfall on it would be to give it a percentage chance to miss or hit. The chance to miss increases in proportion to the DD spell itself - E.G. If you have it at 1/4 the DD's lvl, it increases the damage by 1/3, but gives a 1/5 chance to miss. So on until it doubles the damage (and gives a 50/50 chance to miss or hit). I don't really know how the specific line would work or anything like that, I'm simply saying that would be the counteraction to the increased damage.

Other ideas are the ability for the mage to pierce armor with its spells, to change a spell to be strictly ranged (for example, increase FB's power in ranged while reducing its effectiveness in melee until, at 100% effectiveness, it fires in ranged rounds for double damage, but doesn't fire at all in melee. Against an opponent with no AMF, this would be killer, but against an opponent with a high AMF....the mage would be left defenseless in melee rounds. Just a thought.

Also, earlier the idea of vampiric arrows was mentioned by someone in another thread. This is a GRAND idea, in my humble opinion, and it would bring the now-lowly ELB to par with the axbow.

Other ideas are to have a skill that allows you to sacrifice one section for another (e.g. sacrifice the ability to have any offensive enchants in order to have two defensive ones, and vice-versa).

I dunno. I like changes, I like changemonth, and I like thinking about different ways this game could be improved beyond how currently amazing it is. After all, the more options you have, the more you have to think about how you'll plan your strategy, and isn't that supposed to be the basis for winning, anyways?

I consider myself burnt toast in advance, as the flaming should commence in great volume within 30 seconds of this thread hitting the forums.

/flame

Why not just take the xp you would put into such a skill and raise your MM/FB/COC even more and stop this griping about getting a mage skill?

You could say the same for Bloodlust then...

Ha, BL would give you way more damage then putting that same xp into strength.

If you consider the above "griping" of any sort, go back and re-read it.

I'm simply offering a suggestion. Mage-based skills. I like the idea.

sssimmo, you make quite a valid point.

mages dont need any skills. mages already do ton more dmg than majority of characters with tanks. Only the top players spend a ton of money into getting their tanks to do a lot of dmg and is still not as comparable as dd can do in one hit.

What I want is a magical weapon, like a mage staff that will increase DD spells. Maybe similar to a melee weapon but only has + to upgrade. Every +1 will increase the DD by 1%. In order to make it viable, make the upgrade cost high like a CoI. That way mages have a weapon of their own.

Well, you can't get enough people to agree that increasing mage damage (no matter what the cost) is good for game balance. The only skill that makes sense is a mage specific protection. However the only mage specific damage is AMF. (One could say seekers but they still can hurt anyone and protection against it would make them pointless as rare ammo.)

An all-or-nothing AMF blocking skill is the only thing I can think of that is worth considering. For balance reasons, particularly because of Decay, I have suggested that the skill multiplied by some digit be compared to the total AMF of the opponent. If your skill does not match ore exceed the AMF then you take full AMF damage, otherwise you take none.

Yet even then one could argue that raising the level of your DD spell is infinitely better, and they may be right.

Well if mages get mage staves, or a skill to further boost their linear damage rate, at least consider making all the AC in armor protect vs magic spells. Not just the +.

With the recent changes to the ToA and Bloodlust, tanks do not hit anywhere near as hard as before. I think Ranger could attest to this. However I still get hit from FB Mages just the same as before. Also, tanks now have to train some measure of DX and/or ST in combination with HP and BL/Archery whereas mages still only have to train HP and FB/CoC/MM. And, let's not even get into NW issues and how much disparagement there is between mages and tanks.

That's why I suggested mage-specific skills, Glory - so they dilute the experience. Using a percentage chance to miss, the dilution is worth it, but the chance of winning becomes more random.

What could be considered that I just thought of is a sort of anticorn - A helm that as you raise the +'s, it decreases the damage you take from DD spells cast on you by a percent. Like the corn, you couldn't very well raise it to even so far as 25%, due to expense...but it would help tip the balance. Thoughts?

Oh yeah, and don't forget vampiric arrows. I like the idea of those.

Odd you obviously aren't familiar with what the + enchantment of most armors still does, reduces %(albeit less than 1% per +) damage to both physical and magical damage.

I like my Rings of power idea in the retarded ideas thread so much...

I'm gonna vary it and include it here.

The Powerful Magic Skill, keeping it at 1/4 of your DD will double your caster
level for the purposes of AMF. No additional offensive power, not useful against everyone and it dilutes mages XP.

yes, I understand how it works, Zog. It would simply increase that same effect. And that doesn't seem like all that much of a RS to me, novice....but that's just me, I suppose.