ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I got as a reward from the apprentice mage the ring of elemental fury!!! I had already seen such a ring in Angolwen, but could not afford it. So I was very happy, but I tried to really see what is the real advantage of such a ring and I arrived to the conclusion that it is insanely overpriced (or underpowered).

It increases most of your damages by 10%, gives 3 to cunning and costs 500gp.
The formula that gives the base damage of a spell is rather intricate, but, finally, it is more or less something like
a + (sp + ma)*b
where a is a small value (20-30 depending on the spells and the talent level), b depends on the spell and your talent level (and is approximately in the range 1-2.5), sp is the spell power and ma your magic stat.
I have a level 19 mage, with magic at 42 and sp at 81.

Now compare the effects of the elemental fury ring and of some increase in magic. You can find rings of magic +6 in Angolwen or in the dungeons (I has even seen up to +10). Gaining 6 in magic will give you +6 to spellpower. So, sp+ma will gain 12 (compared to 123) and your damage will approximately gain 10%.

This can be verified. For instance with this char and manathrust maxed, with a magic at 42 (and sp 81), the damage of manathrust is 249. By adding 6 to magic, the damage is 264.5, that is an increase of 10.2%.

The conclusion is that a ring of magic +6 is definitely better that the elemental fury as
- it also increases the effect of other spells (heal, sense, etc)
- it increases the base damage of spells and is is better if you have other damage enhancing items (I think that if you have an item that increases your damage by x% and another by y%, the final damage will be base * (1+x+y) and not base * (1+x)*(1+y) but I did not check in the source code)
- increasing magic increases your spell save (for this char form 53 to 56). Dunno how to compute the actual effect, but is is obviously slightly better.

You also have a small increase to spell crit from +3 in cunning of the ring of EF (for this char 14% to 15%), and on the average this gives a couple of extra % in damage, but IMHO it definitely does not justify the difference in price. A ring of magic+6 is around 25 or 30 and the ring of EF is not worth a price 20 times higher. And if you have the adequate ring and gems, it is also better to ask the creation of a +4 or +5 stat enhancing ring for 50-60 gp.

Maybe this analyse is not true for a low level char (but he surely cannot afford this ring!), for talents not maxed (but in general it is better to max some talents and to mostly use them) or for a high level char (but there are much better damage enhancing rings in the last dungeons).

I think there is a similar problem for the staff of destruction that can also be found in Anglowen. It is more useful that the ring of EF, but most staves of wizardry that you find in the last dungeons are better than it and are 10 times cheaper.

My opinion is that the price of these items should reduced (for instance at 150 gp) or their power increased (say 10% damage, 5 cunning, 5 magic for the ring).

I think you're comparing apples to oranges.

The gains you see from spellpower are linear effects. In other words at 5/5 talent level your 6 magic will always return X damage increase. That X damage increase will sometimes be greater then, less then, or equal to 10% of overall spell damage. As your spellpower increases the % increase of damage you see off of magic goes down.

Make sense?

10% damage increase is always 10% where as +20 damage is only 10% when your spell is doing 200 damage.

(To put that another way, 10% is nothing when you're spells are hitting for 50 damage but when they're hitting for 200 it's a lot more. That said if you think the Ring of Elemental Fury needs a buff you could propose something in the ideas section).

You are right. I was comparing for this specific char.
As I said for a high level char, this may not be true. But he probably can find ring that increase magic more heavily or give +30% to a specific damage.

Anyway, I think that this artifact is really overpriced and should be buffed to have a better balance price/power.

(And I did not post is the idea section to avoid to give too spoily information )

If Elemental Fury is underpowered (only seen it in shops to date, so don't have firsthand experience), maybe make it like Ring of the War Master and up Fire/Earth/Water/Cold/Ice/Quickfire/Quake/Storm masteries instead?

You can build a similar ring, a Fire Opal Ring that adds 10% to all damage types, for 90 gold pieces (70 for the jeweller, 5 for the gem and 15 for the Mithril Ring, if you are very lucky and can find one in the shop ).

It seems to be somewhat overpriced.

I saw this ring in a shop, looked at it, and thought...'meh'.
What about, say, boosting the damage increase to 15% and/or also giving resistance to all elements?

Yep I think Elemental Fury was a very early artifact and is concomitantly underpowered. I would add 20% resistance to the elemental damages and it becomes a less useless ring (I don't think DG necessarily wants artifacts to always be better than ego-class items but for 500 gp it is kind of weak. Ring of Ulmo vs. a ruby ring? Interesting choice. Elemental Fury vs even an opal ring? No contest.)

I would say specifically change the ring of Elemental Fury to
This way it's like two rings in one, but a bit more powerful than both put together. Adding such high damage resists is dangerous because it very well could turn into characters that have greater than 70% resist damage resist to almost every damage type. That isn't a good thing, as it really would turn into a 'get kit' game and not a 'build and win with these strategies' game.

Another option for elemental fury would be to reduce cooldowns on a few spells -- say, flame, lightning, freeze, noxious cloud. Perhaps also flameshock and chain lightning.

Making an Archmage-only artifact is less than desirable IMHO.

Well, cryomancers, pyromancers, and arcane blades too.

But I always took it as a mage-focussed artifact anyway. Fighters and archers deal the bulk of their damage as physical, so would get more mileage out of a ring of massacre, or a ruby ring..