Jon, Please let HP from AS help ENC. (in General)

I know in the changelog it states that HP from the AS spell does not help endurance.

However, I do believe it should.

My reasoning:

There are some characters who rely on hp from AS, especially those using the ROS.

Without the HP from AS helping END, they will have very little END to use items.

Essentially making the ROS nearly worthless as a tattoo, especially on a tank character. Due to the fact AS has less effect per minion the more minions on a character, this should not unduly skew the game.

I specially remember a character by Nerevas that was 2 minions. First was a 20 hp CoC mage with heavy armor, the 2nd was a pure AS enchanter supplying hp for his character. Under the current system, characters like this will cease to exist as well as variations of them.

Thoughts?

I completely agree.

I completely agree.

I agree, and not because my char relies heavily on AS :)

Seriously, though, Encumbrance makes not only the ROS useless, but the AS spell itself. Why would you train it when natural HP is so extremely vital to the game now?

I 66.67% agree.

Don't calculate it at full value of the HP maybe 2/3rds.

I agree, and I wonder about Jon's reasoning for doing it differently.
(Not in a skeptical way)

AS was 1/2 worthless in CB2 due to DM.

Now it is less so, but still have a nice place to let enchanters help boost a mage or a tanks hp.

In short it kills off any idea of using a tank enhancing enchanter such as GS, AS & Haste, right?

Somebody could equip a rather large RoS and get a huge AS on their team. Which in turn would give them a rather large boost to the encumberance limit. Which would allow them to equip rather large NW.

They could do that with GS or Haste I guess but they're a bit worthless cast over a whole team.


Making AS help encumberance makes encumberance pretty much disappear at high levels.

Yes, the ROS would give AS a boost, but only on the minion training the AS. The benefactors of the increased HP get no addition to their END limit. I'm not arguing for allowing it as I'm still on the fence (like my opinion being swayed matters).

That first sentence should read:

Yes, the ROS would give AS a boost, but only increase the END on the minion training the AS.

guys... there's no "D" in Encumbrance......

"ENC"

I could make the fat fingers excuse, but I won't. Thanks for the correction :O)

"Somebody could equip a rather large RoS and get a huge AS on their team. Which in turn would give them a rather large boost to the encumberance limit. Which would allow them to equip rather large NW."

Yes, certainly someone can do that. But DM does break through the ROS at least partially in most cases.

If you want to count 1/2 the HP given by the ROS no problem there, but a decent portion should help.

someone may have already said this, but perhaps as could grant enc to the minion casting it based on its effect rather than the total team hp granted or to each minion on the team based on hp granted. i hope that is explained clearly enough. basically it would only help the minion casting ablative shield and only the effect level.

^That is a very good idea. It should be based off of the effect somehow, since the effectiveness changes.

Then it can also be affected by DM like EC does to the ENC of Tanks.

Well obviously DM would effect the AS spell first, then the resulting gained HP per minion would be used in the ENC calculations.

Having the HP from AS count towards ENC is one of the ways that 4 minion tank based teams can compete.

Right now tanks have to spend xp on: Str, HP, Dex, skill, and perhaps a low protection.

Mages have really only: evasion, HP, DD.

Given the fact tanks need a lot more NW in armors and weapons, having a minion casting AS is a perfect way to help a 4 minion tank out significantly.

Given the fact AS does not always cast due to DM, it is a chance tanks will have to take. Use AS to try to get your ENC up with the caveat that DM can nuke it, or train HP and lower your Str and dex for certain ENC.

Choices are good. This is a chance for a great one.

AS cannot effect ENC and still cast over the whole team.

That allows one minions trained XP to increase the ENC for all.

Defeats the purpose of having a seperate ENC score per minion.

Just like GS?

GS effects the whole team. And casts for 66% of its level for each minion no matter how many there are.

AS has a diminishing return with more minions, more then compensating for the bonus it gives to ENC.

But if AS does not give ENC bonus, teams that rely on the ROS and AS are dinosaurs. At least tank based teams. One cannot have enough ENC, especially as a 4 minion team.

Like GS.

Except AS is far more useful than GS over a mutli minion team...

And if you're actually using GS to power a 4/5 Physical team, then you need the ENC.

AS helps everyone, Tank, Enchanters, Walls and Mages. It's an easy, always useful cop out for increasing ENC.

Certainly GL,

AS does give a nice initial benefit of HP.

However, the changes are really neutering a lot of characters. As I stated, with the minion based rather then character based ENC calculations, 4 minion teams are especially under the gun now.

About time...

It's always grated on me that there is *no* strategic aspect to minion count. More is always better.

Now, that's not always the case.

A great change imo, one stance I don't think I'll ever change. ;)

Understood and thought hard about this thread.

However, with tanks needing NW armor, missile and/or melee weapons this change does skew things a lot towards mages, especially on multi minion teams.

Def. Mages are now more multi minion friendly.

Also, I think the reinforcement of choosing between a large Ranged/Melee weapon, or a balance of both is a good thing as well. The WA was just too large for this.

Although, I understand Jon doesn't want a WA for ENC, but I'm leaning toward some flavour of this. ;)

Or maybe even something like 1H Weapons and X Bows not offering as much ENC as other weapons.

Like i stated in the oter thread:

Why does GS affect it but AS doesnt?

"AS is not real HP so it will not affect it."

Ok? GS is not real STR, so why does this affect it?

It is fake strength, like steroids.

I understand the GS vs AS thing as being (as Ranger said GS = steroids for all) but AS is just a big force-field.
If your minion is in actual fact stronger, then they get more ENC.
If they train more HP (more robust) then that makes sense for more ENC too.
A big force field doesn't buff a minion in any way.
I say this as a heavy AS user. I agree with the reasoning behind it.
The only thing that pains me is that with a lot of the other affects this is really hurting multi-minion tank teams. Anyone (except maybe Ranger with his huge MPR) who is running a 4 minion tank based team will be hard pressed to equip their tanks to optimal battle-readiness. Of course, that was part of the intended effect. CB tanks are going to need to become "tanks" in the WoW etc. way, with huge strength and HP for damage sucking ability just to be able to be offensively effective. Of course then they need to also train BL/Archery to keep up with that oh, and their DX needs to keep up. It's the same old battle except now they can't throw on extra armour to survive or extra weapon + to compete without first adding strength and HP to increase the allowance.
I went a bit off-topic there, but the intended point was that a tank now has to do it all themselves and support enchanters have become less useful. So a 4 minion team with one tank means that with the 1/4 share of XP, that tank now has to provide all the HP they can on top of the other requirements in order to field decent weapons/armour.
I guess thie is also a TG/HG/TSA/HoE buff ! Those armours should pay for themselves.

Smalls, GS is 'meh' compared to AS. GS is good, but specifically, and you really need to set up to use it to any effect.

Have a single Tank, you get an E as a second minion. You want to use that minions XP to help your Tanks ENC. You could Train GS, and get a good increase (and increase the Tanks Damage to boot), but doing so would do little for the E. Sure you oculd equip your E with a Wepaon, but then you need Dex. And then you start havign a two tank Team.

So you decide to use AS. The AS increases your Tanks HP (and in this case thier ENC). It also benefits your Tank by letting your now useless E be a meat shield and/or lower spread damage. Keeping your Tank alive longer.

AS it a lot more helpful, and easier to make helpful, than GS.

Which is why GS gives you an ENC increase. ;)

I thought of that also, why GS and not AS give ENC boost.

However, it is hard on those who use other strategies to compete, at least I believe so.

So I leave it to Jon to decide given my discussion of why I believe it should.