ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

The more I've been thinking about this subject, the more that the sheer power of Antimagic on a specific subset of characters bugs me.

That subset being "mindmages"-dedicated Mind skill using classes. Summoner to a lesser degree(as the Equi hit is notable for them), but mostly Doomed and Solipsist, and to a lesser degree Mindslayer.

These characters can get insane impacts on Antimagic Shield for no real cost. It's quite possible to regenerate your Equilibrium using Fungus and autocasts, and the impact on this class of character can easily break 80-90 damage reduction without any additional skills-which, considering there's a almost-never-used Prodigy for this, is rather saddenning.

http://te4.org/characters/27250/tome/19 ... d603e8c524 An example of this effect-no one much L5s it because it's overkill so badly on said characters, part of the problem. Resolve can be seen there hitting 40% as well.

A Wyrmic-which still builds Mindpower-can't come close to this, to say nothing of physical fighters. http://te4.org/characters/27702/tome/3e ... c315456090 An example of a Wyrmic with L5 AM Shield and Superpower still not breaking 70. http://te4.org/characters/10197/tome/d7 ... ffae92ce4c A similar Berserker.

As I understand it, characters like this were the original intention with AM Shield, and it certainly feels good without being ridiculous for them. And the current functioning of AM Shield can be reproduced at that higher level with Tricky Defenses.

Additionally, these "mindmages", as I'm putting it, use dedicated Nature/Psi weapons and lose nothing from going AM. It's giving up a few escape options-in Solipsist's case, barely a loss at all, and only a small one in Doomed's case.

As such, I have a suggestion: Make Antimagic Shield a flat rate 10+(10*talent level) damage reduction, and possibly Resolve a flatrate 10+(5*talent level) elemental resistance.

This has multiple effects.

First off, it makes Antimagic a more appealing choice earlier in the game-which seems reasonable to me, as the earlier game is much more physical oriented and it is generally weaker there. It is a stronger earlygame counter due to this.

Secondly, it makes Antimagic much more interesting as a category choice to those that don't build Mindpower. AM is mostly worthless without sidegrading into Will, normally. With this change, it would become worthwhile to build Mindpower for Aura of Silence and Mana Clash-both excellent skills-but if someone wished, they could also use Antimagic without any Mindpower at all. This renders some classes(Brawler, Archer, Bulwark) much more Antimagic friendly-classes that often want the arcane equipment most right now, and that have the least desire to go AM.

Considering the power on Aura of Silence for those that can use it, and that of Mana Clash, I don't think this will cause sidegrade Will build physical fighters to phase out, though. Resolve still scaling off of Mindpower could work if that's a worry, but I think the flatrate's a better idea.

And thirdly, it would substantially cut back the power of Antimagic for those mind heavy classes. Considering they will already have the most no-brainer choice for going AM, with fewer downsides and many upsides anyways, this seems like a good idea. Admittedly, this won't keep them from being mostly AM, but it keeps them from compounding bonuses on top of bonuses, as it were. And it requires more of an investment for these skills for those classes(I have seen an L1 AM shield break 40 on another character) for them to be good, which may well be the more important part.

So, anyone see any problem with the idea?

Another option is to make it scale with spellsave, instead of mindpower.
I don't mind it using Willpower, as that is of potential use to everyone, but scaling them with mindpower makes it great for mindpower classes and crap for everyone else.

HousePet wrote:I don't mind it using Willpower, as that is of potential use to everyone, but scaling them with mindpower makes it great for mindpower classes and crap for everyone else.

I have understood that "scales with Willpower" actually means "scales with Mindpower", in the code. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.

I never play "mindmancers" so I haven't noticed it myself, but SageAcrin's arguments make very much sense. This is certainly something to consider.

There are several instances where the wrong stat is claimed to be what a talent scales with...

I was refering to the willpower requirement for "using willpower"

If AM Shield on Doomed & Solipsist is a problem, I do not think changing AM Shield scaling to spell save or flat rate are the right solutions.

The problem with changing to flat rate is that AM becomes actually more powerful than not AM for most eligible classes.

The problem with changing to scaling on spell save is that there are several AM-eligible classes that get a bonus to spell save through class talents. You'd be recreating the situation with Doomed/Solipsist with everyone who pumps Spell Shield.

I think the primary issue on SageAcrin's mind is how tanky the resulting AM Doomed and AM Solipsist characters are because Resolve/AM stacks very nicely with their class damage-absorbing talents. That's probably the issue that really needs addressing, not how AM scales.

As an aside, I always did find it odd that AM effects scale on Mindpower, because I generally associate *power effects with offense, not defense.

Scale it off Willpower not Mindpower?

Well, if you want to have some fun, you can always hit AM shield the same way mindslayer shields got hit. That'll solve any tanky issues right then and there

The problem with changing to flat rate is that AM becomes actually more powerful than not AM for most eligible classes.

No, it doesn't.

The classes that would be true of are those with strong multiple statistic dependancies-Brawler, Archer, Rogue. Characters without-Bulwark, Berserker-could afford AM anyways, and pumping Will will still make the category stronger-you can't use Aura of Silence and Mana Clash, both excellent skills-without it.

Those multiple statistic dependency classes are absolutely terrible with Antimagic. It makes it stronger for classes that literally are almost never running it.

And equipment oriented classes like this feel the loss of Arcane equipment much more strongly than Mindstar classes. That's why not every Berserker or Bulwark-who can float the statistics-is going Antimagic instantly. An effect which, incidentally and largely coincidentally, is strongest on those multiple statistic dependency classes I mentioned.

And there's always the loss of Runes, which is a quite notable downside.

If there's an exception to these rules, I can't think of it. They mean that Antimagic will still be a sidegrade, not an upgrade.

I do agree with your assessment on spell save, however.

I think the primary issue on SageAcrin's mind is how tanky the resulting AM Doomed and AM Solipsist characters are because Resolve/AM stacks very nicely with their class damage-absorbing talents. That's probably the issue that really needs addressing, not how AM scales.

Won't address the problem for any later classes, though-even if I agreed, which I've argued with other people on at other times.

For a short version that doesn't directly argue that, though...If one skill is overpowering a class, it is better to work on that skill than the other elements-especially when it's part of something that's meant to be a sidegrade. For these classes, it's closer to an upgrade, which needs to be worked on within their class, somehow...but for now, not compounding that by rewarding them even more would be a good start.

And as people have pointed out, it's not really a thematics issue. Mindpower sorta makes sense, but so do a lot of other things, including a flat rate gain.

Hello, nice to see my char here

I don't know much about doomed or others so I will only speak about solipsist.

As for this particular case i would like to highlight a few points:

1) This char is a melee solipsist, solipsist having a very limited mobility (you actualy need to walk to your targets!) they of course need to be able to withstand heavy damages.
Everything coming at a cost maxing will/cun over everything else (check the other stats) also mean that this come at the cost of str (and thus armor / physical save), dex (def), mag (spell saves), con (hp) even if it has less impact for solipsist.
The char you have shown as exemple are good exemples, they have less wil and con but they have other ways of surviving, wear heavy armor, have more hp, passive armor/def/resist/saves bonus, ways to more easily go to/go out of melee range and so on.

2) Saying that going am come at not cost in untrue, ie for solipsist your only shield absorb only 50% dmg and takes one turn to cast (not 100% absorb instant shield like the rune), plus your only escapes are movement infusions and dreamwalk (which need psi to activate and thus become useless when you need it) and you get a huge speed malus when your psi is low making escape very hard if not impossible without teleport.
Needless to say that loosing the ability of loosing rune is not costless at all.

Another point less know is that loosing the capacity of wearing arcane stuff is also an handicap as solipsist's psi (which is at the same time your mana and your life) take double from fatigue and thus mostly limits solipsist to tissue stuff most of which is either arcane powered or oriented for nature based classes. The char that you linked earlier is a good example, he didn't wear any boots until level 30+ ! because of am restrictions I barely found anything to wear (save the amulet) before high peak. Most the stuff he is wearing came from (very) intense farming of far portal, and even so there still are several items on him that sux.

3) I guess that any class can get some awesome stats if farming (a big lot in that case) the farportal and spending tens of k in artifacts.

4) At the end atamathon still killed me

I think AM is fine now, some classes can take more magic damages some less, some have standing power, some mobility, some stealth.... i don't think a berserk would trade rush for a better am shield

I would like to see it not scale at all, or with a best of scenario. Also not require high will to level up.

Canderel wrote:I would like to see it not scale at all, or with a best of scenario. Also not require high will to level up.

I would like this as well. I love it the way it is on my solipsist, but it very hard to qualify on other non Will based classes beyond the first few ranks.

I like the 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 static absorb with no requirements idea.

Maybe you could have the amount of equilibrium generated by damage scale down with higher willpower so there is still some advantage to high will classes?

I still think it would be nice to have some sort of synergy with spell save. Since spell save doesn't reduce damage, and antimagic talents do.

I think that scaling with your best stat would open up a lot of rather interesting new character ideas, as such this would seem to be the best solution.

I prefer flat/level-based scaling, as I also do for racial skills, though that doesn't encourage gearing towards better antimagic (apart from category mastery increases). Perhaps it could be a function of mindpower, and to a lesser degree, physical power.

Antimagic could also be unique in the sense that is uses flat scaling and gains power primarily through +antimagic category mastery. Or, arcane-disrupting items could explicitly improve those skills.

I decided what was needed was some data confirming the need for a balance change. I wrote a quick script to screen scrape Follower status from recent winners (first page only, through b42). Here it is, if you want to modify:
Here's what I found.
<CLASS: #AntimagicWinners/#Winners>
solipsist: 23/25
wyrmic: 19/25
summoner: 18/25
cursed: 16/25
doomed: 11/20
berserker: 6/25
mindslayer: 5/7
brawler: 3/14
archer: 2/17
rogue: 1/12
bulwark: 1/15

AM is almost mandatory on Solipsist, but it remains simply a legitimate option on Doomed. Classes that naturally pump Willpower and are inclined to be nature-powered greatly benefit from AM, but Doomed has a lot of synergy with many arcane artifacts. The physical melee characters do not benefit as much from AM.

If you decide to change AM so that it boosts the effects of AM Shield and Resolve for Wyrmics and Summoners, I think it becomes a must-have for those classes. It is close to a must-have already. I agree something is busted for Solipsists, but I think the answer there is to change the class.

Should AM be an equivalently good option for every class with the ability to take it?

edit: added cursed
edit2: added mindslayer