Fungus tree - overpowered?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Not a bad idea actually. And since the basic stuff in conveyance is largely not limited by scaling (bar displacement shield of course), a great many characters could use it. Teleport could potentially unbalance rune slots, freeing up 1 or more from teleport/phase door, but that's no different then fungus and regen. Seems like a good choice.

[supermini]

My suggestion would be to make ancestral life's turn gain start at 20 base instead of 50 but let it scale double with mindpower.

As for the magic vs antimagic debate, I think it was balanced right up to the point where heroism infusions started giving a hp buffer of sorts and thus competing with shield runes. Heroism can get up to a 1000 or so "extra" hps, it gives a stat bonus for the duration and is also instant.

I like SageAcrin's idea of getting Conveyance locked...But you'd give reavers, corruptors, sun paladins access to access to phase door, teleport, displacement shield, so I'm not sure if that's the way to go.

[wobbly]

I like SageAcrin's idea of getting Conveyance locked...But you'd give reavers, corruptors, sun paladins access to access to phase door, teleport, displacement shield, so I'm not sure if that's the way to go.

Reavers in particular you'd have to decide if having a hit & run teleport from the proc is a good or bad thing.

[AlexanderR]

But you'd give reavers, corruptors, sun paladins access to access to phase door, teleport, displacement shield, so I'm not sure if that's the way to go.

My exact thoughts. Also flat-rating AM Shield and balancing it by rewarding with already almost flat-rated tree sounds somewhat boring.

Ideally, we want a situation where 90% of characters can successfully use EITHER possibility. (There will always be combos that lean more toward one then the other, regardless.)

Yeah, although I personally would like to see some reward for keeping neutrality too.
General ideas:

• * Apprentice Mage giving additional reward for bringing him certain thematically fitting artifacts: Neira's memory, Thalerion's staff etc. Good reward would actually give players reason to postpone competition of Angolwen/AM quests significantly, in fact creating reasonable third option
  * Reward for dealing with Urkis. Come on, it was their work, so why do those magi boldly ignore someone capable of defeating one of their strongest?
  * Some additional quests in Angolwen with pre- and post-East rewards.

Ideas for rewards:

• * Aegis tree - yes, it scales badly, but it's combo with Celestial/Light is good enough to cover that.
  * Permanent fixed spellpower bonus - to help those pure Brawlers with casting spells.
  * Increasing category mastery of Conveyance - giving it to someone without the category is indeed too much, but letting Arcane Blades use Displacement Shield on par with Archmages would be nice.
  * Random arcane-infused tier-4 artifacts

Those bonuses should not be given randomly and indiscriminately: spellpower is useless for someone without at least few spells, but may be OP for casters and hybrids, boosting Aegis mastery of Archmages would be bad idea for same reason, artifacts should be granted based on character's known talents - daggers for someone with points in Dagger Mastery, Shields for those with shileld combat knowledge etc.

[SageAcrin]

My suggestion would be to make ancestral life's turn gain start at 20 base instead of 50 but let it scale double with mindpower.

As for the magic vs antimagic debate, I think it was balanced right up to the point where heroism infusions started giving a hp buffer of sorts and thus competing with shield runes. Heroism can get up to a 1000 or so "extra" hps, it gives a stat bonus for the duration and is also instant.

I like SageAcrin's idea of getting Conveyance locked...But you'd give reavers, corruptors, sun paladins access to access to phase door, teleport, displacement shield, so I'm not sure if that's the way to go.

Corruptors and Reavers have a usable-at-1-point, rather good controlled phase door skill that adds disease to things. They don't need it. It's nice, sure...but they don't need it.

Now, Sun Paladins I agree is a point, but Sun Paladins have absolutely terrible world options right now. As far as reasons to buff them go, something that gives them stuff to do with their category points besides the one obvious build(Unlock Rush/Guardian, get two slots) is nice. I'm not convinced it's better than Stone Alchemy for them, either.

Besides, what good's the option if no one cares about it? Any category worth balancing against Fungus is going to have someone that gets pretty happy over its addition.

My exact thoughts. Also flat-rating AM Shield and balancing it by rewarding with already almost flat-rated tree sounds somewhat boring.

Er, the two ideas aren't connected. I was thinking of the Conveyance reward without that.

I don't like simultaneous nerfs and buffs. Way too hard to balance.

* Aegis tree - yes, it scales badly, but it's combo with Celestial/Light is good enough to cover that.

Yeah, let's justify "Mages all get something really powerful" with "It's okay, fighters can salvage it with a second category point" and ignore how powerful the same combo is for mages.

The only way Aegis really functions is if you somehow come up with a way that only AM-capable characters can get it. Short of some weird Zigur betrayal scenario, it's hard to imagine. And it's a lot of work for questionable gain.

[BoomFrog]

I find stone alchemy and celestial light to be the valuable alternatives already compared to fungus.

The benefit of neutrality should be saving a cat point and having access to a wider variety of escort rewards and items to use. The problem is to use arcane and anti-magic equipment you have to stick to infusions and only reactive magic like premonition. It would be nice if antimagic only interfered with class skills, not runes and charms.

[AlexanderR]

The benefit of neutrality should be saving a cat point and having access to a wider variety of escort rewards and items to use.

Where have you seen it, lol? As soon as you learn your first non-inscription spell, you are locked into the Agolwen case. Even Worldly Knowledge (a prodigy!) won't give you access to desirable categories. "Saving a cat point"?? I don't recall spending any cat points on magic escorts with most of my characters. Even Light (the only viable tree as whole) is barely useful for everyone except Undead/some Necromancers. Items to use are always the same. No one would ever risk wearing antimagic equipment for prolonged periods of time - even if the only spells of my skeleton brawler are shielding runes, having them disrupted during a fight is too much of risk.

Speaking of "wider variety of items", what's up with all those nature-powered slings/shots/daggers/shields? If they are brought upon by forces of Nature, they should at least be more friendly to those without arcane taint. Otherwise they should just be arcane-powered. And plenty of arcane-powered artifacts are really not that useful for some arbitrary bulwark. Accelerating burns? Fine, but how do I burn someone as Berserker? Oh, this sword is only fully usable by Temporal Wardens? Then it just should not be dropped for anyone else! Seriously, don't magi need food? Do they make money from thin air? Probably so, because most of arcane-powered artifacts look like something, made by mage for himself, without considering things like crafting expenses or possibility of selling it someone in future.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Oh, this sword is only fully usable by Temporal Wardens? Then it just should not be dropped for anyone else!

Uh, no. This is completely ridiculous. Items in the world don't magically make themselves exist only for you. If you go to the local bookstore, I'm sure you see plenty of books you have no interest in. Or if you go to the local grocery store, you find food you don't want to eat. (Or are even incapable of eating. People have peanut allergies, lets destroy all peanut products in towns they live in, so they don't run across it.)
Off class loot is just a natural part of the experience. And when you start finding all these epic staves, it's time to run off and play an archmage/alchemist/anorithil/paradox mage. Found a bunch of amazing heavy armor? Start a bulwark next. Off class loot tempts you into new classes.

Seriously, don't magi need food? Do they make money from thin air? Probably so, because most of arcane-powered artifacts look like something, made by mage for himself, without considering things like crafting expenses or possibility of selling it someone in future.

If you're wondering how they eat and breath,
and other science facts (la la la),
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a game,
I should really just relax!"

For Tales of Maj'Eyal... 3000.

[Sirrocco]

I'd like to add my name to the list of people saying "Conveyance at Angolwen after Urkis".

- It gives a nice, balancing tree, so that you don't get something for zig and nothing for Angolwin
- Lack of teleport options is already one of the major drawbacks of antimagic. This accentuates that - and the idea that the antimagic option makes you buff and tanky and gives you lots of damage absorb, while the Angolwen option is most useful in running away? That feels right to me. Also gives something for Tarelion to do other than just sit there and look wise.

Additionally, I like the idea of Ancestral life getting somewhat smoother scaling with respect to number of talent points. As it is, it feels like the equilibrium regen is the only reason to ever put more than one point in. One point is awesome, but anything beyond that feels wasted.

[pheonix89]

A few thoughts on the Angolwen reward aspect.
1. It needs to include some way of regaining Mana while resting, so you don't need to use up an inscription slot on manasurge. (I also think all classes with a mana bar ought to have intrinsic regen while resting, even if they don't get intrinsic combat mana regen.) The antimagic tree has equilibrium restoration in resolve and fungus has it in ancestral life.
2. It doesn't neccessarily need to be as strong as the antimagic rewards, because it has a much smaller opportunity cost. All it costs is giving up on going antimagic or getting psiblades from the shop for non-mages and penalizing you for using antimagic items. Anti-magic locks out something like 1/4 to 1/3 of the egos and arti's in the game.
3. It needs to be something that gives a bigger overall boost to non-mages than mages. Mages aren't taking an opportunity cost here.

I would suggest Aegis - unlocked and at 1.0 if you didn't have it, unlocking it if you have it locked, and +.1 if you already have it open. Possibly include 1 free point in arcane restoration if you have no points in any aegis talents.

My reasoning: Arcane restoration is liable to be weaksauce if you don't pump spell power, but the later talents have their uses anyway. Adding a damage shield to direct heals and boosting the power of shields you deploy are handy tricks, even if just used to support the effect of infusions and runes. Its also the only existing generic spell tree besides Stone-Alchemy I can see getting if I could on a wyrmic. Oh dear god the crazy synergy of the fungus loop, sudden growth, shielding and arcane shield.

[SageAcrin]

3. It needs to be something that gives a bigger overall boost to non-mages than mages. Mages aren't taking an opportunity cost here.

I would suggest Aegis - unlocked and at 1.0 if you didn't have it

I'm just going to go over here and hit my head against a wall a while.

[pheonix89]

3. It needs to be something that gives a bigger overall boost to non-mages than mages. Mages aren't taking an opportunity cost here.

I would suggest Aegis - unlocked and at 1.0 if you didn't have it

I'm just going to go over here and hit my head against a wall a while.

Ok, yeah, I'm an idiot. My reasoning was something along the lines of almost all the primary casters already have that type of heal+shield tree, so they aren't getting a new capability. Then I forgot completely that they still benefit from the sustains in Aegis boosting their native defenses while I was writing that, even though I brought it up a bit later.

Maybe what is needed is just a new tree. All the common generic mage trees have ISSUES in this role. Doesn't help that magic has NO fringe benefits as a stat that non-casters might want, while just about everyone wants willpower.

[SageAcrin]

I still like Conveyance for this, but I suspect I have a higher opinion of that tree than most people.

[wobbly]

What makes you think it's necessarily a low opinion of the tree? I'd love to have a controlled phase door + a teleport on a beserker. I'm just not sure they really need it. If you'd normally take a controlled phase door rune it's freeing up that slot too, which equates to an extra heroism infusion or wild or ... I'm more inclined to think it's overpowered then under. It's giving conveyance to an alchemist too. Yeah they've got other teleport options but you can never have too many escapes. Maybe 0.9 is better just so you can't reach 5 in phase door?

Edit: In fact I would probably never take gem portal on an alchemist if I had access to conveyance

[SageAcrin]

Yeah, this is why I'm suggesting locked rather than unlocked.

Admittedly, Alchemist would benefit, but Alchemist has always had access to CPD Runes and Teleport Runes. And Gem Portal, which does not take a category point to get to.

I would say that this is why it's not actually all that dominate-long term, there's somewhat of a question of what it does that another slot wouldn't have done, for less Generic investment. It does produce better effects, but at a heavy Generic cost.

In Alchemist's specific case, it does make for a good option, but Alchemist themselves already had a good world option in Celestial/Light, a basic lock in Advanced Golemancy, and Fire Alchemy is a popular choice for many. And they're one of the lower sets of options for a Category point, and have one of the worse sets of Generic sinks-in other words, they're one of the better options for this, much like Corruptor is, or Reaver, or Sun Paladin...and I still can't say it feels like it's much more than competitive for anyone.

Is it bad? No, of course not. I just question it being imbalancingly incredible for anyone, and it's certainly rarely terrible, either, thanks to the relatively low spellpower scaling.

Oh, and I consider 0.9 pretty bad for it. Then it really doesn't do anything Runes couldn't, for the first two spells. Probability Travel would still be okay, as would Displacement Shield on some, but it makes it far more dull.