ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

UPDATE: This is essentially of no value now as critical points have been made that undermine my original line of reasoning. Taking those into consideration, I did add to the new artifacts/egos thread an item called:

The illuminated Eye Amulet:

+15% arcane resistance cap

+25% Arcane resistance

+10% Arcane damage

+25 stealth/invisibility (I'm not sure if those are two different or just redundant things but I'd like it to apply to the phantasm skill so…)

+3 Infravision

-15% crit multiplier

-15% heal mod.

Adds useable skill: Aegis +1 (no sure about my terminology but it's a no-resource skill… just gives the user access to the skill).

I added the penalties because without them, it seems overpowered. Thus, a 15% penalty for a very, very strong amulet for any class… well, it doesn't seem too high a price to pay but maybe one of you will have a better suggestion. I even considered a 15% global speed penalty.

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In general, the Aether/arcane mage does an obscene amount of damage but, somewhat ironically, doesn't make use of the Aether Permeation prodigy. That seems rather odd.

The end-game has some very powerful items that are pretty standard for every mage… I want to change that. I'd like to create some Aether/arcane-specific items that aren't powerful enough in a general sense for other mage builds to use at the end but are specialized enough for an aether/arcane mage to use.

I'm not very good at this and I'm just trying to kick off a conversation as I think more of this kind of thing for every class would be a good thing.

Aetherwalk is a pair of boots that increases arcane resistance cap by 5% points. I would consider it a critical item… except finding anything else to raise cap is almost impossible so ultimately, the benefit is mitigated by any pair of boots that will reduce cool-downs by 10%, etc. To fix that, I propose these items to do similar.

Arcane Brilliance (light): light radius +3, arcane resistance cap +5%, arcane resistance +10%, and +50 mana.

Hand of Disintegration (gloves): Strength +8, Dexterity +8, arcane resistance cap +5%, arcane damage +10%, Arcane Vortex cooldown -1

Into the Breach (Massive Plate Armor): Req: strength 34, Tier 3, Life +50, Magic+10, arcane resistance cap +10%, Resist all +15%, All saves +16, and Armor +9, Defense +8, Fatigue +20%, heal mod +20%, Aegis +1 (useable talent at lvl 1).

Zolis' Third Eye: +10% arcane resistance cap, +10% arcane resistance, reduces all incoming damage from unseen sources 10%, +2% global speed.

Aegis Shield: +5% Arcane, Darkness, and Light resistance cap, +12% Arcane, Darkness, and Light resistances, +5 Magic, +8 defense, +6 armor, +150 block, +10% light and darkness damage, +15% fatigue, +5% global speed, +18 ranged defense, +4 block talent, Req: 32 strength.

I've added no critical % and no bonus to magic (except for armor), spell power, etc. My purpose is not to overpower the mage but to create items specialized enough to justify using late in the game even though stronger gear exists.

The armor and shield, in particular, are more suited at an early stage to a Sun Paladin but later in the game, they would be suitable for an Aether mage. The gloves have a decent stat bonus for what I imagine is a tier 1 or 2 glove. It wouldn't have long-term value for anyone who wasn't pursuing the Aether Permeation prodigy, most likely a mage or a Sun Paladin or possibly a Bulwark.

Now, all of these items deviate from the normal goals of an archamge: crit rate, heal mod, etc. in favor of arcane resistance cap %. Ultimately, you're sacrificing one bonus for another and thus making the Aether Permeation prodigy useful. In essence, offense is being sacrificed for defense.

And yes, I am aware that this will bring the Arcane resistance up to 105% and with Aetherwarlk, 110%. That was actually my goal. A lot is sacrificed to do that in terms of damage output but it does make resistances pretty nifty with one build.

Thoughts?

Delmuir wrote:Now, all of these items deviate from the normal goals of an archamge: crit rate, heal mod, etc. in favor of arcane resistance cap %. Ultimately, you're sacrificing one bonus for another and thus making the Aether Permeation prodigy useful. In essence, offense is being sacrificed for defense.

This is simply incorrect, the whole point is that crit chance and multiplier, spellpower etc all improve BOTH offensively and defensively. Sacrificing this for arcane resistance takes away BOTH offense and defense, leaving you with a really useless stat, so actually you aren't sacrificing one for the other at all.

The probability of finding all these artifacts to even bring yourself up to around 110% arcane resistance is extremely unreliable. The build you suggest makes use of a very select few artifacts which you will be lucky to even find one of. Random artifacts that contain the more common egos are reliable and therefore superior.

Something coming along with resistance penetration will also spoil your day and end your run if you're playing anything above NM, even with all these artifacts as you're relying on the "combo" to stay alive.

Also massive plate armor and shields aren't really used by archmages, both require 4 more generic points and STR requirements, which you don't really have.

So… what's your point? That the items should be better, ha ha… or that it fails to produce an effective defensive bonus to justify the cost?

This is where I struggle with this forum… this kind of response. It's not clear what you mean and worse yet, it's not helpful. If my premise is unsound, make that case. If I've missed an element that is so critical as to render this unsuitable, please offer a correction.

I'm aware that mages rarely use shields and the cost of them but why shouldn't gear exist for them to be able to? If this theoretical build isn't suitable for Insane (although, what is, outside of a Wildfire mage?) then please offer your superior knowledge (and I say that without sarcasm) to improve this concept.

I'm also aware that one will rarely find each of them in every game but having such items exist will make transfers more appealing and thus, more people will donate money to be able to do that. Getting people to spend money is something I happen to be good at. Designing items, not as much…

So, let's try this again… is the premise of specialized gear faulty (I find that dubious but…) or do these need to be improved? If the latter, please offer up some suggestions.

Yeah, for an Aether mage they're too weak compared to crit multiplier and healmod. They also don't add anything to the game besides promoting Aether Permeation from a completely useless prodigy to a mostly useless prodigy, while diluting the drop pool with bland, useless stuff for everyone else. The solution isn't to throw more items into a pool of stuff where you're likely to only find one or two pieces of the "set" to fix a broken prodigy, the solution is to just fix the prodigy.

This would be a case where you'd be making the main game worse to make the character vault more attractive (presumably to encourage donations), except personally I think the character vault is pretty lame anyway. If I wanted complete access to my choice of artifacts I'd just fire up console mode and generate every artifact that way.

Ah… now that makes sense. In fact, given that this is a game not inclined to grinding (like say, a Diablo), your point is very well taken.

Thanks…

Well, as for fixing the prodigy, that was my earlier suggestion and I still think the better one...

To summarise my points, in order:

1. Crit chance and multiplier cover both offense and defense, whereas this "investment" only covers defense and is worse than the former.

2. Finding these artifacts is unreliable, considering they are essential for this "tactic" to work.

3. It is weak to resistance penetration.

Specialised gear is to the effect of increase x damage or improve x category, they aren't requirements for a build but rather additive.

Your point is to add items to compensate for Aether Permeation, whereas the issue is with the prodigy itself, in that other alternatives are simply better.

As I mentioned in another thread if it converted all damage you took into Arcane and Disruption Shield upped the cap or something to that effect, then yes it would be used. Then Arcane mages would have a good combo using Aether Avatar to trigger Disruption Shield (assuming it doesn't go into cd) and even then you have 15 turns that you have to cover somehow, I guess with Stone Wall.

Note: This would free up a category point, meaning Arcane mages might actually be a thing comparably to Wildfire mages.

I also agree with donkatsu's points.

Relying on the vault for builds isn't something the game designers have really done because this isn't pay2win.

I don't know what you want me to say really, I think there are a lot of prodigies that could be changed and there are many that could be nerfed, but I don't think items are the best way to balance them.

Yes, good points all.

Given that input, I'll return to the drawing board… it is my goal to help make some more viable builds and I'm trying to focus on one class at a time.

Right now, Wildfire mages have great gear, great skills, and long-term viability. I think cold mages are the most durable but beyond Normal, they're dodgy. I'd like to open it up a little…

Thanks.

I actually wonder why Aether Permeation isn't already "convert all damage to arcane". Aside from obvious ward abuse (that can be prevented by e.g. adding "aether" damage type which check against arcane resist but ignores wards? idk), what are the pitfalls? Why would it be too good?

It wouldn't really work with wards anyway, as you block instances of damage, ie same problem that bone shield has.