Clashing with Mana Clash

[Snow]

So after running into a group that could hit me with like 3 of these at once and take my mana bar down to 0, I have to ask how it's intended to be countered. Manasurge is nice in that it'll give you enough mana to phase door or teleport before it hits, but woe betide you if you don't have a safe spot to zap yourself to, or they're off the table from a cooldown / stun.

What's more, Mage's cheat code for low mana, Disruption Shield, turns *off* when you hit 0 mana, like all other sustains. Since Mana Clash drains your mana THEN does damage, that means that particular skill can disable it without triggering the arcane storm or refilling it at all. Are you just supposed to not get into a situation where something can use Mana Clash on you more than once before you can rest and refill?



... Mind you, the fact that this talent exists that can counter disruption shield is probably fitting thematically and balanced in that nothing else can bypass it that I know of. I just don't know how to deal with it doing so.

[Nim]

It can't be countered as far as I'm aware, no. Once you're down to 0 mana, they can't hurt you with Mana Clash anymore, obviously. That's when you'd better hope you didn't let yourself get cornered, because you'll need to bug out ASAP before they bring the hurt more creatively. That's what psychoportation torques excel at, and I recommend picking one up for every character, arcane or not. PD and tele runes are vulnerable to antimagic effects, but psychoportation isn't. Its only failing is that you need to have a way to anticipate the trouble for it to be most effective. Zigur ambushes, for instance, you can open the inventory from the world map and swap to the torque if you know there's no other way past but through. Wear it before entering the lower Nur level, no exceptions. You may not run into an oozing horror, but if you do, you'll be glad for your foresight.

Edit: This, of course, assumes that you're lucky enough to find one in the first place. Failing that, keep the distance open as much as possible. If you let them close, you're in for a bad time, period.

[Snow]

Oh god, oozing horrors. I ran into one for the first time today and that was the first time I was honestly and truly in a situation where I was like "Well damnit. There's nothing I could have done to survive that, and no reasonable level of preparation that would let me get away either." It was in the stupid alt-maze and it was by the stairs. Snatched me, put me in like 3 physical no-movement things (and wild infusions only ever work with one it seems like), and I pretty much just had to sit there and die. So not fun.

Psychoportation torque would have been an option, had I found one, and had I been willing to have it equipped in advance because I died in 2 turns of encountering the thing.

[HousePet]

No Mr Mage, I expect you to die.

[Atarlost]

So why aren't there entire races of monsters dedicated to screwing over psions or wilders?

[anandre]

I think thematically it's because mages (and everything arcane) are largely shunned/hunted by most of the world because of what happened in the past, whereas psionic powers and nature powers are seen as... well, natural, and not in the same category as magic.

[Atarlost]

I think thematically it's because mages (and everything arcane) are largely shunned/hunted by most of the world because of what happened in the past, whereas psionic powers and nature powers are seen as... well, natural, and not in the same category as magic.

That's no excuse. Where are the Rhaloran Patrols running around murderizing anyone who doesn't have any spells or runes to offset the reduced difficulty of not having to deal with Zigurite patrols? Why are unnatural horrors using power sets justified by nature? Why aren't there blight demons, who are arcane and opposed to Eyal's natural order, who have antimagic equivalent anti-psion and anti-wilder powers? Why does the Grand Corruptor teach you a crappy tree locked instead of an anti-antimagic tree unlocked like Zigur does antimagic itself?

The biggest antimagic monsters* are a horror and a demon and thematically there's no reason for horrors to single out magic as an enemy and a good reason for demons to single out nature as an enemy instead.

* orc mage hunters aren't really monsters, they're members of a civilized (for a certain value of civilized) race that just happens to want to kill you and everyone you care about. Mechanically they're monsters, but in an argument based on thematics they are not.

[HousePet]

There aren't entire races of creatures dedicated to screwing over mages, so I don't see the problem.

[Atarlost]

There aren't entire races of creatures dedicated to screwing over mages, so I don't see the problem.

The oozing horror is not a species?

[HousePet]

If it came in multiple varieties you could claim that is was an entire race of creatures, but you also claimed races.

I also have doubts about species being applicable to horrors. The different 'species' in each 'genus' are far to different from each other for the classification to make sense.

Now if you did want whole races dedicated to destroying mages, I can have a chat with Rexo and we can work something out.

[Atarlost]

Psionic, Nature, and Anti-magic have not even a single unique dedicated to wrecking them at the mechanical level. Magic has a species of horror, a caste of orcs, an entire multiracial terrorist organization, and a high level demon caste dedicated to making it useless.

Anti-nature and anti-psion and anti-antimagic abilities flat out do not exist.

[Mordy]

There's also mana draining items :p

And the Eye of the Tiger prodigy works half as well for spells than other talents !