ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Posted: **Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:44 pm**

Kind of false advertising for unspoiled players (aka me). My Wildfire Archmage could've thrown meteorites at people instead. =/

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:34 am**

I don't want to lose Command Staff on Telos Top, though.

(I think that's the only answer besides lowering the amount of elements Spire covers so that it works properly with Command Staff, or raising it so it covers practically every element. The latter makes it OP and probably overall better than the Staff of Awakening-which doesn't fit. And the former makes it weaker. And I don't want to lose Command Staff on Telos Top.

)

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:58 am**

Just give the completed staff +all damage or all damage types to give the effect of +all (a bit of en eye sore, but if that's what the doctor ordered...) and tweak the affinities to cover all magic-like types (off the top of my head I'd say that means everything but physical, but I'd have to double check). It requires a prodigy to get--it can only be underpowered. (within reason of course;

100% all affinity is clearly not within reason)

Edit: and yes, command staff should go for the top half--its existence obviously make it better for many characters than the completed staff because it only takes one hand, which is really stupid. Sorry for those who like it, but you know it's borderline abuse.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:50 am**

What?

No, seriously, what? This is the first time I've heard anyone call Telos Top abusive, overpowered, or anything.

It's practically the only use of the Lunar Shield or Life Drinker, wielding them with it, and while it produces some very good combos, it also produces unique sidegrades like heavy armor/shield mages.

And Staff of Archmage Tarelion trumps it for two mages(Archmage and Alchemist) cleanly, while generally being comparable to Telos/Life Drinker for staff users, excepting Corruptor(who cleanly wants Telos/Life Drinker) and Anorithil(who cleanly wants either Telos/Life Drinker or Telos/Lunar Shield).

And meanwhile, you think Allaffinity 15% is anywhere near balanced? Affinity comes in before resistance checks. Get 70% resistance and you're literally healing half of incoming damage. For any element but Physical. The affinity is already really great defensively for covering six elements-it doesn't need to be the mage equivalent of free AM Shield.

And DarkGod has specifically objected to (and tweaked the staff downwards to avoid) making the Telos Spire of Power stronger than the Awakened Staff of Absorption. Having 37% All Damage and 15% All Affinity would accomplish that very easily.

Making the Awakened Staff of Absorption better makes Elandar stronger. Elandar getting even stronger is dangerous. Elandar already gets an amazing amount of lategame kills, and is probably the single biggest threat-even without his support-of any enemy in the late game. Improving the staff to compensate for the Spire getting better also isn't that great of an option, as such, unless you nerf Elandar other ways to compensate-which would look forced as hell, considering that changing the damage type on the Staff mostly makes Elandar's Darkness offense far better, which would mean the proper compensation would be to lower most or all of Elandar's talents marginally.

Considering I've seen multiple people be happy with the current Spire anyways, I'm not sure why it needs a buff anyhow. So it's not the best Archmage staff in the world, because Tarelion's amazing for them-it still is probably better than Tarelion unless you're specifically a fire cannon.

Maybe the description needs to imply that it's Corruptor oriented, or something?

Or just add fire and remove acid? Is there going to be a time that anyone really minds that change, or that it's major for anyone besides pure fire Archmages, a common build that finds the Spire kinda weak right now? That does seem like the best fix to the actual problem here.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 3:30 am**

Lost staff of archmage doesn't require a prodigy to get and use. Staff of Telos does. That's the crux of the issue. Any classes that would want to use it get better use out of top half + other off hand item, because of two reasons already stated here: top half can be commanded, completed is underwhelming. Not to mention you need to find THREE artifacts (and have 50 cunning, but that's not hard to boost to using gear) before you can even get the SoT. Then you make it and find out its gimp. Yay... (note that I've never made it, I've just seen a SS of its stats)

Additionally, you're NOT going to get +70% resist all unless you specifically build for it, meaning you're gimping your damage or ailment resistances (maybe both), so 15% affinity all (minus physical) isn't close to as good as you make it out to be. As for ASoA vs SoT, you don't get ASoA 'til after you beat the game, which makes the argument of it vs another item mostly irrelevant.

Finally, a big part of this problem is staffs themselves. Personally, I think the entire staff system needs a significant overhaul; a large portion of the game's staffs are made worthless--even for the classes they're designed for--for various reasons. Let's take the Paradox Mage for instance. The Gravitational Staff was made for them in particular--there's no doubt about that. Now realize that any PMs that go for the Gravity tree and decide to use the GS can no longer use Redux effectively, because now your ETL of the gravity and matter trees is artificially boosted, meaning Redux will not work for them when both are maxed (which they should be if you're bothering to use either). This is just a single example, and I'd love to show more but I'd like to think you get my point already.

Edit: to be clear, what I'm saying is they need to either make a LOT more staffs one handed, make a lot of different items into staffs that aren't staffs (e.g. lunar shield) and make some staffs aimed toward certain classes (like corrupter) into other (1h?) items, OR just entirely remake the staff system. I'm thinking option #2 is the most likely solution right now.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 3:50 am**

R_D wrote:Lost staff of archmage doesn't require a prodigy to get and use. Staff of Telos does. That's the crux of the issue. Any classes that would want to use it get better use out of top half + other off hand item, because of two reasons already stated here: top half can be commanded, completed is underwhelming. Not to mention you need to find THREE artifacts (and have 50 cunning, but that's not hard to boost to using gear) before you can even get the SoT. Then you make it and find out its gimp. Yay... (note that I've never made it, I've just seen a SS of its stats)

Ah, you mean you saw that it, among things, grants an eight turn buff that converts half of all your damage into life draining Blight damage-Blight damage which it buffs heavily?

Vampiric Gift is a 250 Mana sustain, and I have heard people say it is the main thing that makes minionless Necromancers viable. This is a weapon that gives an impact like that in passing. It's weaker, but it should not be ruled out as part of it-that's an amazing defensive bonus.

Top and "other off hand item" (The two weapons I mentioned, Life Drinker and Lunar Shield, are the only real competition-no other offhand item improves Spellpower at all, meaning that you need two specific artifacts, so the multiple artifact comparison falls flat at this point-both have the same problem.) creates 55 or 40 Spellpower respectively. The Spire gives you 30 Spellpower, but spellsurges on critical-critical hits with it can boost you up to +22 spellpower temporarily. It easily beats out 40 Spellpower in practice, as such. In a heavy firefight, it is 3 less than the Telos Top/Life Drinker combo, which is pretty negligable.

The best damage bonus you can get from Telos Top and an offhand weapon is about 45%. Telos Spire is 8% below that. You are slightly less damaging.

In exchange for slightly less damage, you get a great ability, as mentioned, massive resistance to multiple flavors of element thanks to the affinity, oh, and you gain 30% critical hit modifier. The only mage that doesn't rely on critical hits much near the end is Paradox Mage, and it's still a notable amount of their damage-this easily can end out doing more damage than the combination, not less.

Telos Spire of Power is the best staff in the game, ignoring the Prodigy cost-with it, it is occasionally trumped for, say, Archmages and possibly Alchemists, and I agree that it probably needs Fire on it instead of Acid for this reason. But it is not gimp.

Additionally, you're NOT going to get +70% resist all unless you specifically build for it, meaning you're gimping your damage or ailment resistances (maybe both), so 15% affinity all (minus physical) isn't even close to as good as you make it out to be. As for ASoA vs SoT, you don't get ASoA 'til after you beat the game, which makes the argument of it vs another item mostly irrelevant.

No, you're going to get 45% or so instead, either through actual All resistance or nearly so through various equips boosting resists, and then the affinity heals about 25-30% worth of the damage that comes through instead.

And then you're 70%ing any majorly common elements for the area you're in, so that this is still an incredible defensive package, when added to the fact that you can sap life off with your spells when you need to.

And that's assuming you don't get a crazy Limmir's Amulet or something. Or, even better, you pick up Aether Permeation for your other resist and turn 70% Arcane resistance into 45% All Resistance to leverage this with.

This effect is already really good-it doesn't need to be better.

Finally, a big part of this problem is staffs themselves. Personally, I think the entire staff system needs a significant overhaul; a large portion of the game's staffs are made worthless--even for the classes they're designed for--for various reasons. Let's take the Paradox Mage for instance. The Gravitational Staff was made for them in particular--there's no doubt about that. Now realize that any PMs that go for the Gravity tree and decide to use the GS can no longer use Redux effectively, because now your ETL of the gravity and matter trees is artificially boosted, meaning Redux will not work for them when both are maxed (which they should be if you're bothering to use either). This is just a single example, and I'd love to show more but I'd like to think you get my point already.

No, please, show me more.

If Redux is functioning off modified talent rather than raw-something I did not know-that is likely causing that unintended behavior, and the Gravitational Staff should have an Energy category boost to bandaid that. (It really should be checking rawtalent though, for this reason.)

Ego staffs need an overhaul-I don't think they compete well. But if you're saying that's an indicator of artifact staffs being screwed up, no, it's an indicator of one staff being screwed up. Please, show me more.

...Also, this really should be moved out of bugs, regardless. It's not the right kind of discussion for it.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:27 am**

Ah, you mean you saw that it, among things, grants an eight turn buff that converts half of all your damage into life draining Blight damage-Blight damage which it buffs heavily?

Vampiric Gift is a 250 Mana sustain, and I have heard people say it is the main thing that makes minionless Necromancers viable. This is a weapon that gives an impact like that in passing. It's weaker, but it should not be ruled out as part of it-that's an amazing defensive bonus.

Draining is not so great if you don't have an HP pool big enough with which you can take advantage of it (you're a mage, right?). Yes, it's great for your average skirmishes and drawn out fights with large groups of mobs, but against a lot of bosses with big burst, it doesn't matter how well you can drain if you're just killed straight up b/c your HP pool isn't very big.

That's where you'd gear up specifically for big burst power. Doing that though will leave you vulnerable as if your blitz fails, you've got a one-way ticket to the afterlife. Alternatively, you could try and go for big defense, as augmented by the staff's affinities. However, doing so will likely leave you vulnerable to ailments (which wouldn't bother you as much for the blitz tactic, as relentless pursuit and/or a wild infusion or two will give you all the time you need to burst the target down w/o ailment). While afflicted, you're liable to end up in melee range of your target (if they're melee), whereupon they'll beat the living daylights out of you through your non-existing armor (again, you're a mage right?) and phys affinity.

That's not to say that means it's useless, but that's fine--it should be useful if you're going to bother having it there.

Top and "other off hand item" (The two weapons I mentioned, Life Drinker and Lunar Shield, are the only real competition-no other offhand item improves Spellpower at all, meaning that you need two specific artifacts, so the multiple artifact comparison falls flat at this point-both have the same problem.) creates 55 or 40 Spellpower respectively. The Spire gives you 30 Spellpower, but spellsurges on critical-critical hits with it can boost you up to +22 spellpower temporarily. It easily beats out 40 Spellpower in practice, as such. In a heavy firefight, it is 3 less than the Telos Top/Life Drinker combo, which is pretty negligable.

No, +22 spellpower in spellsurges is not going to beat out 40 spellpower in practice if your build is not crit heavy. Stop making assumptions if you're going to actually make this a serious argument. I meant my posts as passing comments, but it seems you've taken them personally

, so if that's how it's going to be, I'll be happy to "educate" you (for lack of a better term; I don't mean to be rude, just that it's obvious you aren't thinking much of this completely through) in theorycrafting. I admit though that saying that, I haven't either before now. As such...

Giving it serious thought, if it gives affinity to all but physical, it should probably be +12% or so. Additionally, I specifically mentioned that it should be for all "magic" damages, and that physical was the only one I could think of that didn't fit that bill at the time. Giving more serious though, darkness and light should probably be removed from that list as well, seeing as their usage w/o magic is quite common. (perhaps not so much so in this game, as you don't really see them much outside of arcane items/characters, but I see that as more of a limitation stemming from the game's size more than anything [not that I think the game is too small, just saying that if its features could be theoretically expanded infinitely that you would see a good amount of non-magical use of light and dark]) Temporal is also in question, as time is always a thing, but I don't see it's manipulation outside of magic very common or feasible, unlike light and dark, so that's up for debate I suppose.

The best damage bonus you can get from Telos Top and an offhand weapon is about 45%. Telos Spire is 8% below that. You are slightly less damaging.

In exchange for slightly less damage, you get a great ability, as mentioned, massive resistance to multiple flavors of element thanks to the affinity, oh, and you gain 30% critical hit modifier. The only mage that doesn't rely on critical hits much near the end is Paradox Mage, and it's still a notable amount of their damage-this easily can end out doing more damage than the combination, not less.

Not true. My paradox mage thrived off of crits, and did average w/o. And that's AFTER I replaced my Spellblaze Echoes with Limmir's. You're also ignoring the part where you need to spend one of your two prodigies AND get lucky enough to find all 3 pieces of the staff, which is exponentially harder than finding the top half and a suitable off-hand item (I should know, I've taken STA recently).

Telos Spire of Power is the best staff in the game, ignoring the Prodigy cost-with it, it is occasionally trumped for, say, Archmages and possibly Alchemists, and I agree that it probably needs Fire on it instead of Acid for this reason. But it is not gimp.

"Ignoring the Prodigy cost" -- really? You can't ignore that. Even assuming you did ignore it, again, you have to find all 3 pieces. How many times have you found all 3 pieces on one character? Be honest now.

Assuming you ignore that as well, and you could find it in one piece straightup, it's still not the best staff in the game. I've made some pretty wicked staffs by combining just the crystal piece with various other staffs (in particular was a certain tier 3 salmon I combined it with to make a voice of telos with a pretty +25% humanoid, +20% horror, and +20% elemental damage bonuses). While niche, there's a few of other items that give good competition to SoT, and several more that *should* (e.g. Gravitational Staff). Now come back to reality where we can't ignore the prodigy cost and luck requirement of finding all 3 pieces.

No, you're going to get 45% or so instead, either through actual All resistance or nearly so through various equips boosting resists, and then the affinity heals about 25-30% worth of the damage that comes through instead.

And then you're 70%ing any majorly common elements for the area you're in, so that this is still an incredible defensive package, when added to the fact that you can sap life off with your spells when you need to.

And that's assuming you don't get a crazy Limmir's Amulet or something. Or, even better, you pick up Aether Permeation for your other resist and turn 70% Arcane resistance into 45% All Resistance to leverage this with.

This effect is already really good-it doesn't need to be better.

That's your opinion. My Summoner on NORMAL difficulty that got one-shot by an Atamathon's Giant Leap crit for 1.9k Arcane and 300 Physical damage disagrees. Did I mention I had just under 1700 max health as well (which obviously didn't matter), and it had over 35% all resist and over 45% resist to everything else? Defense is a luxury in this game--there is no such thing as being able to abuse high amounts of it for immortality, so long as RNG exists.

No, please, show me more.

If Redux is functioning off modified talent rather than raw-something I did not know-that is likely causing that unintended behavior, and the Gravitational Staff should have an Energy category boost to bandaid that. (It really should be checking rawtalent though, for this reason.)

Ego staffs need an overhaul-I don't think they compete well. But if you're saying that's an indicator of artifact staffs being screwed up, no, it's an indicator of one staff being screwed up. Please, show me more.

Yes, Redux does not check raw talent level. I've tested it myself; it does not let me re-cast quantum spike, gravity spike, gravity well, etc. when all of the above and redux are maxed while the Gravitational Staff is equipped. You want other instances? You yourself mentioned the necromancer class; a big problem with them is cold and darkness (iirc, not sure if that's the exact element combination I'm thinking of) damage bonuses basically never co-exist on a single item. Why should they be pigeonholed into a specific build path OR pray they get the materials necessary for a SoT? Why are there hardly any blight-specific staffs (most give other things as well, diluting the focus-able power towards one specific element [blight in this case])? Granted corrupters are strong, but choosing to use a staff instead of melee weapons w/ a few blight perks pigeonholes you into spells, so you should have some great burst. Why does basically every truart that gives +arcane damage and penetration give no other damage bonus?

...Also, this really should be moved out of bugs, regardless. It's not the right kind of discussion for it.

Very possibly. Regardless though, I'm done for now, but I think the base of the thread still belongs in the bug forum.
I do want you to take one thing away from this though--there's a good chance I may come off as arrogant or something, or that I think you're a fool for thinking what you do and are completely wrong. While the former may be a bit true sometimes, please don't take any of it personally. I get really into a "good" (denoting the lack of hostility) argument, and can get overzealous.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:48 am**

SageAcrin wrote:What?

No, seriously, what? This is the first time I've heard anyone call Telos Top abusive, overpowered, or anything.

It's practically the only use of the Lunar Shield or Life Drinker, wielding them with it, and while it produces some very good combos, it also produces unique sidegrades like heavy armor/shield mages.

And Staff of Archmage Tarelion trumps it for two mages(Archmage and Alchemist) cleanly, while generally being comparable to Telos/Life Drinker for staff users, excepting Corruptor(who cleanly wants Telos/Life Drinker) and Anorithil(who cleanly wants either Telos/Life Drinker or Telos/Lunar Shield).

What?

No seriously, what? This is the first time I've heard anyone advocate Tarelion over Telos/Life Drinker for Archmages, Alchemists, or anybody.

Here are the relevant things you get with Telos/ Life Drinker:

61 spellpower (including the spellpower from +Mag)
25% spell crit
35% damage to a type of your choice, 50% if it's darkness/blight/acid
15% Blood Grasp proc

Here's Tarelion:

48 spellpower
25% spell crit
30% damage to a type of your choice, along with three off-elements.

The mana is fluff because mana is essentially unlimited for all staff users, as is the silence immunity because even with 40% you're going to have a contingency plan for silence anyway. -2 cooldown on your secondary spell is not worth a Blood Grasp, and you lose 13 spellpower and 5% damage (20% damage if you're an alchemist using Acid Infusion) on top of that. If you find Telos and Life Drinker, you are not going to be using Tarelion unless you went for some kind of triple-element Archmage. That's sort of okay because we're comparing two artifacts to one artifact here, but it is a no-brainer for every class; let's not pretend that it isn't.

As for Spire of Power, it's definitely worse than its components for fire Archmages, earth Archmages, lightning Archmages, and Paradox Mages. It's not much of an improvement for Anorithils because of the Blood Grasp proc. That makes the Spire a trap for like, half the spellcasters out there. What's worse is that for those it "traps", they lose their perfectly functioning weapon set in addition to a prodigy point, which is just devastating. If it could get say, a tooltip to show its stats in the prodigy window, it would still be an extremely niche prodigy but at least it won't be a newbie death trap.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:58 am**

I found Spire quite underwhelming for Alchemist as well. No fire damage means my backup bombs are weaker. It's +% damage is way weaker than Top+Bottom, so went in prodigy only for crit multiplier, and the fact I didn't get Life Drinker. If I had it, I'd take Crafty Hands, for extra +10% crit and +20% all damage. Naloren prodigy is pretty much best melee weapon in game, with overloading Exotic category, powerful slow, better scaling than other weapons etc., and it doesn't require anything other than one specific escort and doing easy quest. Telos by comparision is not that better, if not flat worse from Top+Life drinker and require 3 specific artifacts, one of which being, I believe, guaranteed drop from extremely hard boss.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 4:30 pm**

No, +22 spellpower in spellsurges is not going to beat out 40 spellpower in practice if your build is not crit heavy.

25 is not 40.

"Ignoring the Prodigy cost" -- really? You can't ignore that.

I obviously have not been. I've been saying that, if there's a time Telos Spire is not indisputably better than any other staff, it should be buffed-as it should in this case, changing Fire to Acid.

I thought it was implied. Perhaps not. Regardless, I don't find a Prodigy an easy cost to judge objectively, since, as mentioned, this staff provides a quite powerful skill-which is what Prodigy skills often do.

I've made some pretty wicked staffs by combining just the crystal piece with various other staffs (in particular was a certain tier 3 salmon I combined it with to make a voice of telos with a pretty +25% humanoid, +20% horror, and +20% elemental damage bonuses).

Rares being used instead of blanks should be fixed-it was never intended, and I'm surprised Voice of Telos got through there. It was fixed on every other piece of equipment it could happen for.

That's your opinion. My Summoner on NORMAL difficulty that got one-shot by an Atamathon's Giant Leap crit for 1.9k Arcane and 300 Physical damage disagrees. Did I mention I had just under 1700 max health as well (which obviously didn't matter), and it had over 35% all resist and over 45% resist to everything else? Defense is a luxury in this game--there is no such thing as being able to abuse high amounts of it for immortality, so long as RNG exists.

Okay, I wasn't going to bring this up. But you're being A: Massively rude, and B: Showing off what I didn't want to bring up with comments like this, so.

As such, I'll note this is very big words coming from the person currently running a 150 death Paradox Mage, and who didn't clear that Summoner. Because you charged Atamathon first instead.

Why should anyone think you actually know the value of defense? And why would Atamathon killing you show a lack of value for defense, when only 10-20% more in the proper resists would have kept you from dying?

If you're taking Atamathon as your gauge-the highest damage dealer in the game, by far, barring some very rare randobosses-in your examples of why defense is useless, I feel like pointing this out is the only proper response. It's a ridiculous argument and doesn't deserve anything but scorn. Normally, I'd repress that scorn, but you've been pretty nasty, so.

Please, Mr. 150 death Paradox Mage, educate the guy with 18 Adventure clears and multiple no death runs.

If you're going to talk down to people-which I was not doing to you-you should be careful. You can tell that I wasn't talking down to you because I'm doing it now.

Here are the relevant things you get with Telos/ Life Drinker:

61 spellpower (including the spellpower from +Mag)
25% spell crit
35% damage to a type of your choice, 50% if it's darkness/blight/acid
15% Blood Grasp proc

Here's Tarelion:

48 spellpower
25% spell crit
30% damage to a type of your choice, along with three off-elements.

"the relevant things" there aren't the only relevant things to me, for my examples.

Archmages get massive Cooldown reductions from Tarelion and Mana on critical hit. Both of these effects are quite good.

-2 CD on Fireflash, in particular, drops its CD from 8 to 6, bringing it that much closer to an Alchemist Bomb in practice-huge area damage that you can constantly spam. 6 CD Chain Lightning, given that it's now a Hurricane carrier, is also pretty amazing.

Mana on critical meanwhile enables such skills as Thunderstorm to become really brutal, and in general massively eases resource problems for both classes. It's not enough for Necromancer-that's why I didn't suggest them-but it's not bad on them either.

Alchemists can be majorly into Acid, and I admittedly forgot that the Life Drinker boosts Acid damage, though. That also is somewhat old of an assessment, and I forget that there's no damage penalty from elemental conversion anymore, so Acid actually can do optimal damage there. So, granted, I'm probably wrong on Alchemists these days.

Still can't see it for Archmage, though. Definitely would rather have Tarelion.

Having said that...mmm. You make some good points, and I had forgotten a few factors(That Life Drinker covers Acid, that Telos Top actually had better element boosts than Tarelion). So, fair enough. Let's talk fixes instead.

Let's say you yank Command Staff. What elements do you give Telos Top? The same as Spire? Doesn't fix any of this problem, except for making it very bad for Fire mages. A standard Magestaff set? Makes the set generally worse, in the same way Tarelion is generally worse.

And when you look at the on paper, the gap narrows a lot in the other areas, in practice-a 15% chance of Blood Grasp, and the damage bonus if you boost Blight/Darkness/Acid is the main issue.

As such, it seems like dropping Telos Top's damage bonus by 10%, and removing Blood Grasp procs from Life Drinker, would narrow the gap reasonably. It's still the highest damage combo in the game for the relevant elements, but now more by 5% than 10%. You keep more control over your exact elements with Tarelion-making it possibly more appealing for Alchemists and Necromancers who go in for Fire/Cold damage respectively. Corruptors, the target audience for the combo, still love it. Etc.

It's still probably better, but you're right, that makes things more interesting. And Telos Top having more of a damage bonus than Tarelion is random and strange anyways.

If it could get say, a tooltip to show its stats in the prodigy window, it would still be an extremely niche prodigy but at least it won't be a newbie death trap

Also true. Even something as simple as "Telos was an unusual wizard, and his command over corruption and darkness was greater than his command over traditional magic-and his staff mirrors this." in the description would help.

I'd like the component parts to somewhat more represent the final staff, barring that... I'm just not sure how to go about it.

Maybe the Staff Bottom should have 5% damage boosts in all the elements the final staff does? That wouldn't tell people outright, but it would give a clue at least. I remember suggesting a bunch of ideas for the Voice of Telos/Staff Bottom(both of which are kinda bad right now), which would give some stronger clues about the final staff.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:43 pm**

25 is not 40.

?? Spellsurge does nothing if you don't crit, and your assumption is that you get the full crit bonus almost constantly, which just doesn't happen in practice unless you specifically build for a lot of crit, which can be good or bad, depending on your character and the rest of your build. One thing's for sure though, if you do, then there's no chance you can come close to your supposed "defense abuse" case(s) you described earlier.

I obviously have not been.

(ignoring the prodigy cost)

Oh right, you factored it into your argument when you said... um... hmm... I'll get back to you on that.

I thought it was implied. Perhaps not. Regardless, I don't find a Prodigy an easy cost to judge objectively, since, as mentioned, this staff provides a quite powerful skill-which is what Prodigy skills often do. The skill is not prodigy worthy, and nor is the staff if it gimps you to use it.

If I'm understanding this right, then ignoring your backpedaling for a moment, I agree that I don't think it should be a prodigy if the completed staff is unchanged. The luck requirement of finding all 3 pieces is a big enough challenge as is. Perhaps a different requirement should be imposed, similar to the quest requirement for making Limmir's Amulet? Not sure, but if the other requirement isn't difficult/strict enough, the completed staff should be changed to accommodate. Back to your backpedaling (again, if I'm understanding this right), then if you're saying that "it was implied" that you think the skill is not prodigy worthy, nor is the staff, then I regret to inform you that this is not the case. Nowhere did you ever imply such a thing--in fact--you implied the opposite, if not flat out stating it.

Rares being used instead of blanks should be fixed-it was never intended, and I'm surprised Voice of Telos got through there. It was fixed on every other piece of equipment it could happen for.

All this does is nail home my point that the staff system needs some sort of overhaul. I had no idea that it wasn't intended--I've never gotten the crystal piece on any of my mages before. (you can bet your bottom dollar I'll always find it on any AM character though

)

Okay, I wasn't going to bring this up. But you're being A: Massively rude, and B: Showing off what I didn't want to bring up with comments like this, so.

I told you not to take it personally, that I'm not great at any amount of grammatical finesse, so scratch A. As for B, I'll demonstrate shortly why you have no reason not to bring up B. (you'll understand what I mean as you read further)

As such, I'll note this is very big words coming from the person currently running a 150 death Paradox Mage, and who didn't clear that Summoner. Because you charged Atamathon first instead.

The Paradox mage is my nightmare difficulty test run. I didn't clear the summoner because I wanted to infuse the Lifebinding Emerald I got as a quest reward from the Alchemist in Derth with something, but I hadn't gotten any blank V. jewelry. Didn't see the point in bothering to get any if it meant doing so after clearing the game, so I decided to try Atamathon before I cleared. Obviously Atamathon didn't agree with this choice.

Why should anyone think you actually know the value of defense?

Who says I know the true value of defense? I'm just saying it's obvious that you don't. Defense is good, but this game is set up so that--barring the solipsist which everyone knows is broken--defense stacking will not win any battles that an proportional amount of offense couldn't.

And why would Atamathon killing you show a lack of value for defense, when only 10-20% more in the proper resists would have kept you from dying?

Because I couldn't get that 10-20% more resists without sacrificing enough of my HP to negate the benefits the added resist would provide. I didn't need any offensive gear--I planned to wear him down. It was working too; he had 24 or 25% hp left. Everything equipped was devoted to defense. Keep in mind this is with insane luck in 4k randarts (how I was able to get my hp that high in the first place; got a ridiculous cloak with 440-some hp or so).

If you're taking Atamathon as your gauge-the highest damage dealer in the game, by far, barring some very rare randobosses-in your examples of why defense is useless, I feel like pointing this out is the only proper response. It's a ridiculous argument and doesn't deserve anything but scorn.

It's not like I had to equip any offense or anything--my defense is that high because I could afford to build tanky, because summoners are nearly imbalanced. Their weakness stems from their inability to kill tanky bosses with good sustain. (Massok with 2 regen infusions, unstoppable, bloodlust, and enough power to one-shot everything but my rank 5 turtle comes to mind.) It's not a big weakness though, hence why they're close to imbalanced. If I still die to a random atamathon crit with such a tank-devoted build that has great item luck, what chance do you think 90% of the other classes (all the ones without innate super tank abilities) have against a strong random unique? That's still assuming normal difficulty. The answer is that they don't--they depend on enough defense to survive the initial hits in a fight and then kill everything with offense. The only classes that can do w/o that are the imbalanced ones or ones with innate super tank abilites (like Stone Warden, for instance).

Normally, I'd repress that scorn, but you've been pretty nasty, so.

So you've been... what? before this?? Deny it if you wish, but the undertones are unmistakable. You're upset that I want the Telos Top nerfed, and so you're doing everything you can to defend it. That aside, I even specifically said I mean nothing personally, and that anything I say that might seem like an attack is just my ineptitude at proper use of English. Despite this, you act as if you're surprised at my tone and that I mean to insult you. I'm beginning to think you're just a troll and never meant to have a serious discussion in the first place...

Please, Mr. 150 death Paradox Mage, educate the guy with 18 Adventure clears and multiple no death runs.

Oh noes, it's like my in-game performance is in direct relation to my intelligence and game knowledge. While it's an indirect indicator I grant, you could be a mathematical savant and understand the game's current balance and how make it better to perfection, but be unable to ever beat the first boss. Unfortunately for you though, while I'm no savant, I am clearly smarter than you in theorycrafting (as automatically made obvious by your lack of understanding regarding telos top's imbalance and SoT's UPness), AND a better player than you--I simply have joined later than you and had less time to play. But please, go on about how a single statistic invalidates what all the other evidence points to.

If you're going to talk down to people-which I was not doing to you-you should be careful. You can tell that I wasn't talking down to you because I'm doing it now.

No, I can just tell you're offended (again, when I even specifically said I don't mean any of it personally) and so you want to make it obvious rather than subtle. That's ok though, because you're only making a bigger fool of yourself the more you type. I'm sure many other players are enjoying watching you play "the fool" (reference to a court jester in case you didn't know), and so I'd like you to go on, but you're getting out of hand, and if you do continue I'll be forced to ask a moderator to sort this/you out. Please don't make me do that, I don't want to, whichever mod that would end up being called doesn't want to have to, and I'd like to think you don't want me to either.

Here are the relevant things you get with Telos/ Life Drinker:

61 spellpower (including the spellpower from +Mag)
25% spell crit
35% damage to a type of your choice, 50% if it's darkness/blight/acid
15% Blood Grasp proc

Here's Tarelion:

48 spellpower
25% spell crit
30% damage to a type of your choice, along with three off-elements.

"the relevant things" there aren't the only relevant things to me, for my examples.

Archmages get massive Cooldown reductions from Tarelion and Mana on critical hit. Both of these effects are quite good.

-2 CD on Fireflash, in particular, drops its CD from 8 to 6, bringing it that much closer to an Alchemist Bomb in practice-huge area damage that you can constantly spam. 6 CD Chain Lightning, given that it's now a Hurricane carrier, is also pretty amazing.

Mana on critical meanwhile enables such skills as Thunderstorm to become really brutal, and in general massively eases resource problems for both classes. It's not enough for Necromancer-that's why I didn't suggest them-but it's not bad on them either.

Alchemists can be majorly into Acid, and I admittedly forgot that the Life Drinker boosts Acid damage, though. That also is somewhat old of an assessment, and I forget that there's no damage penalty from elemental conversion anymore, so Acid actually can do optimal damage there. So, granted, I'm probably wrong on Alchemists these days.

Still can't see it for Archmage, though. Definitely would rather have Tarelion.

While that may be relevant for you personally, that's irrelevant for the purpose of the argument. The debate is whether the SoT is worth taking on anyone right now, and the answer is no, because anyone who it would be useful for can just use Telos Top + Lifedrinker (or Lunar for anorithil). I don't think its primary "user" was ever meant to be the Archmage, so I'm honestly not sure why you're even talking about it, save for the fact that it would be decent for them if my idea for the change went through, after which it still wouldn't be obviously better b/c of the skill c/d on LSoAT and because it doesn't require 3 artifacts and a prodigy to use.

Posted: **Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:20 am**

R_D wrote:Draining is not so great if you don't have an HP pool big enough with which you can take advantage of it (you're a mage, right?). Yes, it's great for your average skirmishes and drawn out fights with large groups of mobs, but against a lot of bosses with big burst, it doesn't matter how well you can drain if you're just killed straight up b/c your HP pool isn't very big.

Heroism infusions effectively increase your HP pool in a big way, making gradual heals actually pretty viable, but I agree that with just base archmage HP, draining is nigh useless. But yeah, heroism infusions are very good now.

R_D wrote:No, +22 spellpower in spellsurges is not going to beat out 40 spellpower in practice if your build is not crit heavy.

Most of my endgame equipment setups for mages end up with 70-100% spell crit. Alchemists and Paradox Mages less so, but still you only need 2 crits for Spire to pull ahead for the entire rest of the fight, and in practice that happens pretty quickly by the time you're playing with tier 5 equipment.

SageAcrin wrote:Please, Mr. 150 death Paradox Mage, educate the guy with 18 Adventure clears and multiple no death runs.

You are the only person I have seen who keeps touting the number of clears that they have as some sort of badge of merit. The fact that you even keep track speaks volumes about your character. Obviously, any character with triple digit deaths is meant for experimental use and not "serious play", as you would realize if you had an ounce of sense. No wonder you can clear the game so many times and still draw such absurd conclusions.

R_D wrote:I'm beginning to think you're just a troll and never meant to have a serious discussion in the first place...

Posted: **Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:44 am**

donkatsu wrote:
R_D wrote:Draining is not so great if you don't have an HP pool big enough with which you can take advantage of it (you're a mage, right?). Yes, it's great for your average skirmishes and drawn out fights with large groups of mobs, but against a lot of bosses with big burst, it doesn't matter how well you can drain if you're just killed straight up b/c your HP pool isn't very big.
Heroism infusions effectively increase your HP pool in a big way, making gradual heals actually pretty viable, but I agree that with just base archmage HP, draining is nigh useless. But yeah, heroism infusions are very good now.

R_D wrote:No, +22 spellpower in spellsurges is not going to beat out 40 spellpower in practice if your build is not crit heavy.
Most of my endgame equipment setups for mages end up with 70-100% spell crit. Alchemists and Paradox Mages less so, but still you only need 2 crits for Spire to pull ahead for the entire rest of the fight, and in practice that happens pretty quickly by the time you're playing with tier 5 equipment.

Heroism infusions eh? I actually have several extremely potent heroism infusions on the paradox mage in question (at least one of them gives over +20 to stats and requires I be over -1000 to die), so perhaps I ought to try switching up some of my infusions for some heroism. I always knew in the back of my mind that they're good and I ought to give them a serious look at some point, but I keep forgetting whenever it would be relevant.

As for the crit, that's pretty insane. I guess I'm just not getting the right gear drops to get that kinda crit rate on my PM; I never really paid much attention to crit, as most of my time playing this game has been spent with classes like Summoner or Temporal Warden, the former not really caring much at all about crit, the latter not having any breathing room to build for it (b/c you basically need as much of every stat you can get EXCEPT cunning). Combine that with the fact that I wanted to test Corrupted Shell, so I went for max Constitution after Magic, so my cunning only has a base of 43 at level 50. Keeping this in mind, if you do manage to get that much crit AND you get the all the necessary pieces of the staff AND are on the right class, I can finally see a scenario where the thing is not gimp. However, that's a lot of conditions, and I don't see why it's practical to have such a niche prodigy. That being said, there are quite few other niche prodigies, perhaps even more-so (more niche); the question is "Is this an issue that needs to be addressed? If so, which ones should be 'fixed?' Some of them? Or all of them?"

Posted: **Thu Feb 21, 2013 3:51 am**

This has degenerated into a mass of insults. I didn't help-but it was like this before I made any.

I'm not going to have my opinions ridiculed by someone far worse than the game at me. That is the point I was making. If you want to prove you're better, get an Adventurer clear with something. Or don't bust out ridicule. I don't have any problem giving out as much as I take, believe me.

Skill is based on achievements, not words. And I don't mean the kind that pop up and tell you you've saved all the people in Derth.

For the Telos buffing point I made- http://git.develz.org/?p=tome.git;a=com ... d31d826a6e - This commit is from DarkGod buffing the Staff to a higher level, then having it pointed out to him it was stronger than Absorption, probably, at that point.

He does not like the thematics of it being stronger. You can try to argue with him. I suggest you use the same tactics of talking down to him you have with me.

For the rest, I don't really frankly care what you guys think. I was going for a nice discussion and you guys have personally attacked me all the way home. With Donkatsu jumping in on the side of the person attacking me. Naturally.

My suggestions are that the Acid damage get changed to Fire damage on Telos Spire, that Telos Top get damage% dropped 10%, and that Life Drinker lose the Blood Grasp proc or have the chance lowered. There has been-in this, somewhere-good points made, and be damned if I can't separate good points from the people that make them.

Otherwise, I'm done.

Posted: **Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:51 am**

SageAcrin wrote:This has degenerated into a mass of insults. I didn't help-but it was like this before I made any.

Wrong again. Read back to the previous posts. It's quite obvious...

I'm not going to have my opinions ridiculed by someone far worse than the game at me. That is the point I was making. If you want to prove you're better, get an Adventurer clear with something. Or don't bust out ridicule. I don't have any problem giving out as much as I take, believe me.

Skill is based on achievements, not words. And I don't mean the kind that pop up and tell you you've saved all the people in Derth.

Do you have problems reading, or did you already forget my point about skill != game knowledge and wisdom? Even assuming you are better at this game than me (which you aren't, I simply haven't had as much time to play it as you), you're obviously wrong here regardless and either don't have the gall to admit it or don't want to in an attempt to somehow avoid some potential nerf to the Telos Top.

Code: Select all

For the Telos buffing point I made- http://git.develz.org/?p=tome.git;a=commitdiff;h=25e6cff13f1ea6326ffad8338c140dd31d826a6e - This commit is from DarkGod buffing the Staff to a higher level, then having it pointed out to him it was stronger than Absorption, probably, at that point.

He does not like the thematics of it being stronger. You can try to argue with him. I suggest you use the same tactics of talking down to him you have with me.

His reasoning for not wanting it to be stronger is for a specific purpose. You can easily work the buffs around making it not outright stronger by fine-tuning the adjustments to fix the current issues it has without "lolbeststaffevar" stats. Do I have the answer to how? No. Do I need to have the answer to make a point that it's a good idea? Also no.

For the rest, I don't really frankly care what you guys think. I was going for a nice discussion and you guys have personally attacked me all the way home. With Donkatsu jumping in on the side of the person attacking me. Naturally.

Like I've said a thousand times; I never intended to "attack" you. I made that very clear. I said "don't take anything personally, sorry if it comes across that way, it's just my writing style." I even said that I like "good" arguments (those without hostilities and insults). YOU were the one that devolved it to that. You and you alone. Period.

Otherwise, I'm done.

News flash: you already were "done" about halfway through all of this (as in, had no new valid points to propose) and should've stopped replying a while ago (if you only intend to continue the "debate"). Note that I've never have and still am not saying that "all points you make = wrong by default." Pre-posting edit: I had a long winded paragraph about how I think you're still a cool person, but I've lost respect for you, but you probably don't care, blahblahblah. However, I decided against posting it and am just leaving this in to say the base points it contained.

ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Telos upper half has Command Staff, complete staff doesn't

Telos upper half has Command Staff, complete staff doesn't

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