Reasons why Magi are horrible?

Kyrra

It would be an interesting way to break into player houses. Quite a few folk have gardens and such.

Drauka

I don't support breaking into houses. My house was broken into because I didn't move when prism'd and got my rug stolen; it really tied the room together.

Xith

Yue said:

You could probably get pretty high in combat rankings fighting raja knights. Staffcast scint derp.

Unless you're trolling, I think you're alluding to their weakness to fire pre-traits.

Cold is the best staffcast, but if you meant their COLD resistance means scintilla is the best choice, I guess that makes sense. But then why Raja knights? They're no less fire resistant than anyone else. The cold resist would actually just make them harder to kill by damage, so not an optimal fight.

But damage + retard are the two kill options. Fact is, a good Magi should always win if they know what they're doing. The addition of staffstrike made great things possible in terms of prepping for retard. You finish a leg with cold staffstrike, deepfreeze, then spin retard and deepfreeze more until it hits. With staffstrike air and tremors running, it's a cake walk as long as they don't have ents/passives.

Now that I think about it, orb sigil doesn't make up for occie ents. They could probably use a plague-esque vibration to banish ents or give one cowardice on tick. Apply to other loyals to enemies too.

Terra

Xith said:

Yue said:

You could probably get pretty high in combat rankings fighting raja knights. Staffcast scint derp.

Unless you're trolling, I think you're alluding to their weakness to fire pre-traits.

Cold is the best staffcast, but if you meant their COLD resistance means scintilla is the best choice, I guess that makes sense. But then why Raja knights? They're no less fire resistant than anyone else. The cold resist would actually just make them harder to kill by damage, so not an optimal fight.

But damage + retard are the two kill options. Fact is, a good Magi should always win if they know what they're doing. The addition of staffstrike made great things possible in terms of prepping for retard. You finish a leg with cold staffstrike, deepfreeze, then spin retard and deepfreeze more until it hits. With staffstrike air and tremors running, it's a cake walk as long as they don't have ents/passives.

Now that I think about it, orb sigil doesn't make up for occie ents. They could probably use a plague-esque vibration to banish ents or give one cowardice on tick. Apply to other loyals to enemies too.

Wat. This is your strategy.

0 secs - staffstrike cold
0 secs - target applies restoration to legs
2.5 secs - regain balance, deepfreeze
4 secs - target's leg is fully healed
5 secs - target walks out of room
6 secs - embed retardation
9 secs - retard sets

What? Where is he?!

Vaehl

Just smile and nod, Terra.

Tesha

It is never like that when I fight Cain or Lothiac. They just stormhammer once and kill me through burst.

Froh

Penwize said:

I really wish burrow were made more interesting, say as a method of infiltration.  Would be so cool.

I think it's kind of a neglected skill.  When I was testing the depth, I was next to a river.  The first few levels down the river was an obstruction.  After that, trying to tunnel under the river told me that I'd need to SWIM in that direction, which of course I couldn't being packed up in the dirt like that.  Trying to drop and get things seemed odd/inconsistent, etc.

Potentially neat skill, but the only thing I've ever used it for is holing up and if memory serves long ago to get to one or two locations behind locked doors.  Maybe that's my own ignorance.

 

Veldrin

Xith said:

Yue said:

You could probably get pretty high in combat rankings fighting raja knights. Staffcast scint derp.

Unless you're trolling, I think you're alluding to their weakness to fire pre-traits.

Cold is the best staffcast, but if you meant their COLD resistance means scintilla is the best choice, I guess that makes sense. But then why Raja knights? They're no less fire resistant than anyone else. The cold resist would actually just make them harder to kill by damage, so not an optimal fight.

But damage + retard are the two kill options. Fact is, a good Magi should always win if they know what they're doing. The addition of staffstrike made great things possible in terms of prepping for retard. You finish a leg with cold staffstrike, deepfreeze, then spin retard and deepfreeze more until it hits. With staffstrike air and tremors running, it's a cake walk as long as they don't have ents/passives.

Now that I think about it, orb sigil doesn't make up for occie ents. They could probably use a plague-esque vibration to banish ents or give one cowardice on tick. Apply to other loyals to enemies too.

Actually Lightning is the best staffcast in terms of damage, it's the hardest damage type to raise your defense against.

Dragons and trolls are the only races with any resistance to it whatsoever (at level 1), else there's the galvanism miniskill or chargeshield from a magi/sylvan and the electricity resistance ring

for cold you have dwarves and rajamala, which have it at level 1, dragons who got it at level 3. There's the caloric defense (or whatever it's alchemist version is called), frost blessing from Priests (can be forced), frost miniskill and the cold resistance ring

for fire you have dragons at level 3, xorans and dwarves at level 1, frost defense (or whatever it's alchemist version is called), fireshield from priests (again can be forced), fire resistance ring and thermology miniskill

for magic you have dragons at level 2, dwarves at level 1, resistance defense (bliss from devotion, or from a class ability), the artefact ring, magic resistance ring and constitution miniskill

Then there's Penwize(I think he got it?) ring that gives a flat +10 to all resistances, stuff like algiz, scales or favourshields which boosts all the resistances.

Sena

Caloric doesn't reduce cold damage, it just protects against freezing.

Eld

Veldrin said:

Xith said:

Yue said:

You could probably get pretty high in combat rankings fighting raja knights. Staffcast scint derp.

Unless you're trolling, I think you're alluding to their weakness to fire pre-traits.

Cold is the best staffcast, but if you meant their COLD resistance means scintilla is the best choice, I guess that makes sense. But then why Raja knights? They're no less fire resistant than anyone else. The cold resist would actually just make them harder to kill by damage, so not an optimal fight.

But damage + retard are the two kill options. Fact is, a good Magi should always win if they know what they're doing. The addition of staffstrike made great things possible in terms of prepping for retard. You finish a leg with cold staffstrike, deepfreeze, then spin retard and deepfreeze more until it hits. With staffstrike air and tremors running, it's a cake walk as long as they don't have ents/passives.

Now that I think about it, orb sigil doesn't make up for occie ents. They could probably use a plague-esque vibration to banish ents or give one cowardice on tick. Apply to other loyals to enemies too.

Actually Lightning is the best staffcast in terms of damage, it's the hardest damage type to raise your defense against.

Dragons and trolls are the only races with any resistance to it whatsoever (at level 1), else there's the galvanism miniskill or chargeshield from a magi/sylvan and the electricity resistance ring

for cold you have dwarves and rajamala, which have it at level 1, dragons who got it at level 3. There's the caloric defense (or whatever it's alchemist version is called), frost blessing from Priests (can be forced), frost miniskill and the cold resistance ring

for fire you have dragons at level 3, xorans and dwarves at level 1, frost defense (or whatever it's alchemist version is called), fireshield from priests (again can be forced), fire resistance ring and thermology miniskill

for magic you have dragons at level 2, dwarves at level 1, resistance defense (bliss from devotion, or from a class ability), the artefact ring, magic resistance ring and constitution miniskill

Then there's Penwize(I think he got it?) ring that gives a flat +10 to all resistances, stuff like algiz, scales or favourshields which boosts all the resistances.

Caloric doesn't give cold resistance, I believe, just blocks the freezing affliction. And don't the different staffcasts have different base damage, before resistances?

Edit: And ninja'd, predictably.

Valden

Sena said:

Caloric doesn't reduce cold damage, it just protects against freezing.

Does this include the effects of Nairat on a Runeblade?

Aerek

Yes, but Nairat hits with two levels of "cold", which is why you still start shivering after it fires. If the target didn't have caloric up, he'd be frozen solid off one proc.

Eld

Caloric won't reduce damage from attacks with a nairat runeblade, though, if that's what you were asking.

Veldrin

Pretty sure it used to lower cold damage as well, though I could just have heard wrong at some point in the guild days and it just stuck.

And no, all staffcast's base damage is the exact same thing. It's why it doesn't matter one bit what you use to hunt with.

Eld

Veldrin said:

Pretty sure it used to lower cold damage as well, though I could just have heard wrong at some point in the guild days and it just stuck.

And no, all staffcast's base damage is the exact same thing. It's why it doesn't matter one bit what you use to hunt with.

Just because it's the same against denizens doesn't mean it's the same against adventurers. I don't know magi stuff, though, I just thought I'd seen people talk about different staffcasts doing different damage; maybe they were referring to resistance effects, or maybe I'm misremembering.

Kaden

It's the same base with variations depending on what resistances your opponent has at a given time from what I can tell. Lightning and ice are the ones that have the least resistances available, since caloric doesn't reduce ice damage. I personally prefer ice during the rare times that I decide to go for damage.

Jonathin

Dissolution = magic

Scintilla = fire

Horripilation (sp) = cold

Lighting = ...

Those are the differences. The damage itself is based on your intelligence and has the same base damage. People talk about what one is better because of pre-trait resistances. Lightning used to be the de facto best simply because of the lack of ways to raise your resistance to it. I'm not sure what it is these days, unfortunately.

Drauka

Where's @Sena with the numbers?

Sena

What numbers? I'm not 100% sure of staffcast damage, but I'd estimate 300 + 15% of max health, before int/resistances/etc.

Drauka

I'm a newb to the numbers and formulas, thought you'd know as you seem to show up with "here's the facts or facts as they seem" info when people are unclear on mechanics numbers and such.

Sena

Drauka said:

I'm a newb to the numbers and formulas, thought you'd know as you seem to show up with "here's the facts or facts as they seem" info when people are unclear on mechanics numbers and such.

I'm just not sure what numbers people are unsure on, or what I'm expected to know. It seems everything has been answered. All staffcast types have the same base damage, and I think Veldrin's list of resistances is complete.

Although there is also the effect of being underwater on fire/cold damage. I never got around to testing that.

Yue

Magic damage seems like it would be the highest (pre-defences) with a collar?

Lightning seems like the smartest choice, on account of fewer resistances and a nice proc.

..and yes, I was sort of trolling, alluding to raja's weakness to fire pre-traits.

^ Your retardation prep would not work on me. I don't know who it would work on.

^^ That does not mean that there aren't viable preps for retardation.

Hasar

A quick trick is to have a full set of vibes in one room, and throw retardation elsewhere (so it's not sitting in your room with your full vibes, killing them). Then focus in your whole set into wherever your opponent is, and break something as ret comes in. If they're not expecting it, and you break something usefully, can work well. Much better than spinning a disc and embedding. 

Or get a friend to truelock them, and get firewalls and some adduction vibes.

Kaden

Could also prespin discs. -shrug- They'd run off only to find you haven't embedded yet.

Yue

Yeah, ummm..

You should not be spinning discs mid fight, except in special circumstances.

That's like waiting until you're getting doublestabbed by a serpent to start putting up defences.

Find a room nobody uses (Barracks in Cyrene, any room in Shallam, etc.) to keep your vibes.

Vaehl

That's not what he means.

Yue

I disagree with your disagree. That is precisely what Hasar means. I wasn't referring to Kaden's advice, which could also be good advice to provide situational advantages.

Vaehl

I disagree.

Penwize

Oh Reginald....

Iocun

Eh, I stopped caring so much about magi spinning messages since most of them wised up enough to pre-spin or focus. I only concentrate on embedding now for turning on metawake/pre-envenoming. I can always turn metawake off again and wipe if it turns out not to have been retardation.