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New Magi Combat Mechanic
(Party): Person says, "Duuuuude. Mages in Aetolia got a fucking sick skill."
(Party): You say, "??"
(Party): Person says, "They can STRIKE TONE <vibe>, which makes the vibration do nothing on its next tic."
(Party): Person says, "When they strike their vibe it does an effect."
(Party): Person says, "Like striking gravity will prone/stun the opponent."
(Party): You say, ":O."
(Party): Person says, "Striking crystalforest explodes the crystalforest and makes everyone in the room bleed/strip shields."
(Party): Person says, "Striking dissonance causes epilepsy."
(Party): Person says, "Etc."
(Party): Person says, "It doesnt use equ/balance."
(Party): Person says, "So you can strike a vibe/attack."
(Party): Person says, "But you dont wanna strike too many vibes cuz like."
(Party): Person says, "Since they wont do anything on their next tic."
(Party): Person says, "You are essentially removing your passive offense for one round."
(Party): You say, "Ah ok."
@Makarios pls
Comments
Magi in its current incarnation is pretty reliant on RNG. (Stupidity proc, or Stridulation proc + confusion from plague, etc).
If I can undeaf someone and get a nice RNG strid proc and even better get a nice RNG confusion proc from plague, it's GG. Right now I'm pretty much relying on stupidity to let me undeaf and/or stack afflictions so I can stop the start of new tumbles. So any sort of move towards lowering passive effects to allow for active effects would be amazing, imo.
I made a writeup in which there were two levels of effects for most vibes, and the first level had less prerequisites and less damaging effect, 2nd level more requirements, more effect. The idea being that the first level could be aimed more at being balanced around Group fighting, and the second level more focused on 1v1.
Would be in favour of reducing passive effects across the board and then 'activating' the vibe could nullify the passive effect for X time or for X ticks, in exchange for giving Magi 'actives' that can be used with vibes, perhaps with requirements for a level 1 /2 effect.
Love magi and where it is, and I don't think it's broken, but this would be a step in the right direction imo!
tldr: Love mage, but a bit too reliant on RNG and passive effects. Lower passive effects, give us active effects in some incarnation would be fun and more skill involved.
This would obviously be a pretty massive upgrade, if implemented by itself. Seems fine, but would need to be paired with downgrades to other aspects of combat. Magi isn't exactly "weak" right now, it just has a lack of diversity in strategy. I'm all for adding options to Magi combat, because I agree with your opening sentene... however the class is balanced already. If you add 10+ new afflictions/abilities, you should shave something off other aspects of the class. Lowering damage essentially removes one kill strategy in favor of a new one, so if anything, I'd say implement this, and get rid of/nerf retardation. Alternatively, giving magi an offensive boost could be balanced by limiting its (fairly amazing) defensive capabilities.
Stridulation and Lullaby are the only two I'd have real concerns over. Those would probably have to be toned down if they were made to be on-demand.
Aside from different retardation mechanics (commands are queued instead of overwritten), Aetolia magi are pretty much the same as Achaean magi. They even have an instakill setup and other skills that make them (imo) superior to Achaea magi. So I'm not sure why you think this would make mages here out of hand. If a game like Aetolia can handle it, preeetty sure we can too. Granted, I agree with you that retardation would have to be tweaked to compensate, since this exists with different mechanics, but that's pretty much it. Further, you're forgetting that activating vibes in such a way would effectively remove their passive effect for 1 tic, which is very substantial.
Why is it always "get rid of retardation?" Retardation is unique and awesome because it's so dangerous to anyone involved in it. Also, would this really make them too OP? I mean, as is, killing people with excessive amounts of health seems pretty difficult, even if they're fully prepped and in retard. I mean, at 6k health I need like, 7 hits at a minimum with staffcast to kill them (assuming some resistances). Without a diadem, at something like 3.7 seconds of EQ each, I'd never kill them before they cure up and walk out of retard. God forbid they tumble to a monolith, there goes my entire damn offense. Granted, I'm an awful combatant, but still. Now, being able to coordinate vibes, even if it causes me to lose my next proc, would definitely open up realistic strategies.
Of course, what do I know? Mithridates and Hasar and many of the other competent Magi seem to have no real problem killing people.
My reason for adjusting retardation in the context of the discussion was simply because in combination with this idea, it'd be insanely overpowered. Also, if you're going to upgrade a class that is already fine as it is you have to downgrade something else, otherwise it just becomes a superclass (monk, for instance). Magi is already one of the best classes in the game in several areas (pvp dps, bashing dps, tanking skills, utility, LoS, and access to retardation, active AND passive curing). While I'm all for seeing magi become a more "dynamic" combat class, you can't just add lots of (balance-free) flexible affliction capability without tweaking the rest of the class. The proposed change isn't a bad one, it just would require the entire class to be rethought, as it would (as intended) dramatically change the way the class is used.
Personally I think magi's insane damage mitigation and game-breaking curing capabilities (best passive curing ability in the game, coupled with bloodboil and reflections) would be a good place to start nerfing things if you're going to start giving Magi a meaningful affliction arsenal. Something has to go. Retardation is another decent option.
However, @Alaskar, the reason people normally suggest deleting retardation is because frankly, it is a pretty broken mechanic for most classes, and in most cases, it turns combat into a tumble chase and/or sigil war, because fighting in retardation is simply out of the question for most classes. It's also almost a guaranteed kill if dropped in full vibes, provided you don't escape in the 2 seconds it takes to drop. Combine this with the fact that for people with any kind of latency, retardation is pretty much instant death. Another reason is that retardation in group combat is pretty game-breaking. IMO the fact that an entire raid group can be slaughtered by a single vibe being in a room makes my argument for me. The existence of "ret traps" is yet another reason - as it's ENTIRELY too easy to just sit adjacent to retardation/frozen ground with alertness triggers, and snipe people walking by for nearly guaranteed kills. The only counter to this is walking around with metawake up 100% of the time.
Oh look, Aegoth disagrees.
I forgot to mention, another reason people tend to want to see retardation go away is retardation/torc, which, if you don't also have a torc, completely breaks combat.
I disagree mainly because you don't really know most of what you're talking about at all. Insane damage mitigation? LoS? "game-breaking" abilities? If the class were even half as good as you describe, most of the game would go Magi. As it is, you just make yourself look foolish with all this hyperbole. How about you go artie out a Magi and see how you fare against Jhui, Hirst, Rangor, Xer, Rom, Ellodin etc.. or any combatant who actually knows what they're doing.
I have played magi, extensively, artied, on two characters - mark on both. I am not offended by the fact that you don't seem to know this, as you're relatively new. In fact, Ernam was a Magi for his entire in-character life, up until I got back from my last deployment a few months ago.
However, I have gone against everyone you mentioned (excepting Rom, actually), as a Magi, and have reached the same conclusion that Hasar and yourself have reached, which is the exact reason I left the class. So, I am not disagreeing with you about the state of the class. Magi end-game has always been about stacking artefacts and brute damage, not excelling in "complex" affliction-based combat. Since the Achaean combat environment seems to be changing towards something where all classes are effectively "separate but equal" in all ways combat and bashing related, I completely agree that if that's your goal, then you should change the class to be more affliction-heavy and dynamic.
I personally don't agree with this sentiment, however. I don't believe that all classes need to be "equal". I think that priest having a weak offense and being incredibly powerful defensively is fine - because that defines the class. I think that forestals being more powerful in forests than outside of them are fine, because that also defines the class. And I think that magi's niche has always been "simple but powerful", making it an excellent class for both new people and midbies, while still being able to contribute massively for skilled and heavily-artied fighters.
I know it's not in fashion to say that "Some classes just aren't amazing at 1v1 combat, and that's just the way it is.", but it's a fact. Some classes are better at bashing, some classes are better at 1v1 PVP, some are better at group PVP (including Magi), and so on. What each class specializes in should be as much a part of your class selection as any other factor. What you shouldn't do is choose a class that "is what it is" and rant and rave about what it lacks. If you want complex affliction-based combat, then join a class that provides that, because it isn't magi, and that's just reality. Honestly, it'd take a complete overhaul of the class (something which has, in fact, been dicussed repeatedly), to achieve what you're truly asking for.
Perhaps you should try serpent out, @Aegoth, you seem to be no a mission to prove your excellence, and there's no better way to do it. We've also noticed that you're already proficient with a bow.
I do appreciate the input and opinions, but can we avoid back and forth attacks on each other? Doesn't add too much to anything, unnecessary toxicity.
To the competent Magi out there: What do you do against people with massive amounts of health? My standard setup is to at least prep legs and head, then drop retard and break head with air, then both legs with water, then start damaging, but I can't imagine that working on someone with a certain amount of health. Should I try a weapon and venoms or save up for a torc orr...?
Basically, dagger / way to hit with venoms allows for a lot of creativity and more options.
Delayed, but.
Aetolia retardation also only lasts for 30 seconds, I believe (don't quote me - I remember browsing the announce for those magi changes as a matter of curiosity a few months ago). Its a very big mitigating factor to their upgrade regardless of the exact figure; and the fact that commands are batched not bottlenecked can't really be overstated, either.
We're definitely interested in looking at magi (in the future - not right now), but I don't think it'd be a global upgrade such as this. While the mechanics are very dated, they're also still very potent.
Instances where you have to respin:
- leaving realms
- dying
- failing a retardation attack
And then in gank situations, where most classes can be ready to fight back as soon as they target their opponent, Magi are confined to elementalism by default, which arguably has no means of killing without crystalism. So you either:
- spin the 4 or 5 vibes for a damage stacking strat (plus reverb)
- spin enough affliction vibes (plus reverb) to last through retardation. With aldar it's 3.0 eq per vibe, so like minimum 24 seconds response time.
You could argue that Magi have so many defensive tools (reflect, shield, aerial, sandling, icewall, ice ground, the defunct gust, bloodboil, purity) that they are gankproof as far as dying is concerned.
But if they're to fight back and kill the opponent, while potentially moving from room to room, Crystalism needs a proposed fix for that.
The ones I've heard are:
- some kind of vibe rift, where a set(s) can be stored in a dimensional pocket to be called out when needed
- stasis vibe - prevents out-of-room decay when spun in the room (except reverb)
Off the top of my head:Hrm, are you sure?
Its not in any of my lists that I can see.
I have a fair amount of arties but not maxed out on damage yet. And for being one of the damage stacking classes, it's tricky to finish off a dragon sometimes, or other tanky classes. Ideally you use holocausts to help finish the job, but people can either dodge those or try to outdamage you first. Low-level magi will find this most challenging, which I think is why an extra fire-resistance self-defense has been suggested several times for Magi.