The recent change to Disruption Shield is extremely disappointing:
1. It's boring and passive.
It's now just a mediocre and partial damage shield. More to the point though, it changes the way the Archmage plays and not for the better. It has lost its most unique feature.
2. It's a terrible shield. 25% damage reduction on a generally fragile character with no way to increase the reduction percentage? I no longer even take the skill when playing an Archmage. It's that bad. All it does is drain my mana faster with no significant benefit.
3. It makes you even more reliant on Celestial/Light tree... oh wait, it would appear that you no longer have access to that tree. Congrats, the Archmage is now the worst caster in the game. It no longer has the ability to tank and it doesn't do massive damage (I especially enjoyed the minor nerf to Aether Beam).
4. It's a disaster at higher levels of difficulty where large damage spikes can still kill you... draining most (that 100 bonus mana when the shield shuts down is comical) of your mana on top of that is just a perverse bonus.
5. There was no practical reason for the change. Disruption shield was a bit clumsy but that could have been fixed in a hundred different ways that didn't involve completely destroying the skill. It's primary weakness was simply the rest/instant break problem. Offering a chance to set a mana-cap for resting would have resolved that but surely there are a million other ways to have done it.
6. Now the class essentially requires the new prodigy just to be slightly less fragile.
7. Completely destroys the balance of the class. It adds a mana DRAIN a class that desperately needs mana without doing anything to increase the mana pool of the class. Aether Avatar is balanced for a completely different mechanic and yet... it remains effectively unchanged. The entire thing is incoherent now. Arcane power is even more bizarrely out of play given that Disruption Shield is no longer a stand alone skill. The entire Arcane tree is inelegant now. There's no thematic cohesion.
8. It's best effect is as a weapon of sorts... storing up damage before unleashing it BUT the damage is capped and why on earth would an Archmage want to get close enough to make use of it?!? It now makes the Ice Mage even worse because all of its close quarter damage capabilities relied on spamming low cool-down skills over and over while relying on Disruption Shield to keep them alive. Now the only viable Archmage build is Wildfire... what is up with the devs love affair with fire? Every other skill has to suck but fire is amazing?!?
9. And finally... mana storm makes no sense now. If the damage incurred drains the mana, where does the "storm" come from?!?
Solutions:
1. Either change it back or...
2. Increase the size of the mana pool and the reduction percentage via some other aether-based skill.
3. Other?!? I'm still baffled by why this skill was changed at all.
On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
Moderator: Moderator
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
Even beyond the awful tedium of emptying your mana pool between fights, old Disruption Shield was really bad in a substantial number of ways.
1: It had both ridiculous scaling and really weird scaling. It scaled very rapidly in power, then hit a hard cap, but then that cap was further adjusted by Shielding. Mind you this is still a problem that 1.6 Disruption Shield has, or at least will have if it gets number changes to be relevant, but keeps the same kind of curve.
2: The previous Disruption Shield simply had no drawbacks. It made you nearly invulnerable and then also made your resource problems completely disappear. The intent of the new design, of a very strong defense that burns through your mana pool very quickly, is far better then the old super effective one. Although, uh, the new Disruption Shield being ludicrously weak kind of flies in the face of that intention. The complement to Archmage now having resource problems is Manasurge runes being increased in power, although they could probably stand to get some number buffs.
3: Since the effectiveness of Disruption Shield depended on how fast you could vent mana, it actually made high fatigue from absurdly massive armour beneficial, instead of a bad thing. This is clearly contrary to how the mechanic is supposed to work, since Archmage is supposed to be one of the classes most affected by armour fatigue, since mana talents are doubly impacted by fatigue.
Now that I've established why it was changed and why it will under no circumstances changed back, I can begin to address the problem of the new incredibly weak Disruption Shield.
And it IS incredibly weak now. It only prevents 25% of damage, but then also has a flat cap on how much damage it can prevent and also destroys your ability to do anything if it reaches that cap. Oh, you can still Phase Door/Stone Wall away after Disruption Shield goes down and reset the fight, but Archmage really doesn't need more incentives to do that. And, just in case the above badness wasn't enough, it only works when protecting your very tiny life pool, instead of your huge shields.
I don't buy Archmage's defenses being weak even considering that Disruption Shield is now essentially removed, however. They still have Time Shield for early on and Aegis' broken scaling for the rest of the game. However, fully utilizing those defenses requires really annoying stuff like inspecting enemies for damage shield penetration egos and constantly taking time outs to refresh your absurd shields. Disruption Shield, despite being incredibly annoying to keep up, was still less obnoxious then keeping up your normal damage shields.
As for fixing 1.6 Disruption Shield, there are really two ways to go with it:
1: Make it something that works even without any other damage shields active, like the old Disruption Shield. To do that you'd just need to tweak some numbers to make the ratio more generous and block 80% or more of incoming damage. This still has the issue where you want to have your damage shields block things instead of your mana bar, so this would still make Archmage a colossal pain to play. However, having sloppy management of damage shields rewarded with resource damage instead of death is still better then the status quo.
2: Make it work alongside your damage shields to make your ehp pool even larger. To do this you'd just need to make Disruption Shield apply before shields and maybe buff the numbers a little. This wouldn't really solve the problem of needing to only engage enemies when your damage shields are up though and buffs the part of Archmage's defenses which are already strong.
As you can see, you really need to rework Aegis on top of buffing Disruption Shield to be not garbage in order to make Archmage properly playable. The class is such a mess design-wise that I'm honestly not even sure where to start with that, but it clearly needs to be done. Implementing the #1 method would be a huge step towards making them less annoying to play though, even if it negatively impacts the balance of the class.
I'm not really sure what to do about the arcane storm though, it could honestly probably be removed entirely and no one would care.
Once Disruption Shield is made relevant again, then you could do the Trained Reactions thing where the damage/mana ratio is affected by your fatigue. This would help to make robes be a compelling choice on Archmage, like they're obviously supposed to be.
1: It had both ridiculous scaling and really weird scaling. It scaled very rapidly in power, then hit a hard cap, but then that cap was further adjusted by Shielding. Mind you this is still a problem that 1.6 Disruption Shield has, or at least will have if it gets number changes to be relevant, but keeps the same kind of curve.
2: The previous Disruption Shield simply had no drawbacks. It made you nearly invulnerable and then also made your resource problems completely disappear. The intent of the new design, of a very strong defense that burns through your mana pool very quickly, is far better then the old super effective one. Although, uh, the new Disruption Shield being ludicrously weak kind of flies in the face of that intention. The complement to Archmage now having resource problems is Manasurge runes being increased in power, although they could probably stand to get some number buffs.
3: Since the effectiveness of Disruption Shield depended on how fast you could vent mana, it actually made high fatigue from absurdly massive armour beneficial, instead of a bad thing. This is clearly contrary to how the mechanic is supposed to work, since Archmage is supposed to be one of the classes most affected by armour fatigue, since mana talents are doubly impacted by fatigue.
Now that I've established why it was changed and why it will under no circumstances changed back, I can begin to address the problem of the new incredibly weak Disruption Shield.
And it IS incredibly weak now. It only prevents 25% of damage, but then also has a flat cap on how much damage it can prevent and also destroys your ability to do anything if it reaches that cap. Oh, you can still Phase Door/Stone Wall away after Disruption Shield goes down and reset the fight, but Archmage really doesn't need more incentives to do that. And, just in case the above badness wasn't enough, it only works when protecting your very tiny life pool, instead of your huge shields.
I don't buy Archmage's defenses being weak even considering that Disruption Shield is now essentially removed, however. They still have Time Shield for early on and Aegis' broken scaling for the rest of the game. However, fully utilizing those defenses requires really annoying stuff like inspecting enemies for damage shield penetration egos and constantly taking time outs to refresh your absurd shields. Disruption Shield, despite being incredibly annoying to keep up, was still less obnoxious then keeping up your normal damage shields.
As for fixing 1.6 Disruption Shield, there are really two ways to go with it:
1: Make it something that works even without any other damage shields active, like the old Disruption Shield. To do that you'd just need to tweak some numbers to make the ratio more generous and block 80% or more of incoming damage. This still has the issue where you want to have your damage shields block things instead of your mana bar, so this would still make Archmage a colossal pain to play. However, having sloppy management of damage shields rewarded with resource damage instead of death is still better then the status quo.
2: Make it work alongside your damage shields to make your ehp pool even larger. To do this you'd just need to make Disruption Shield apply before shields and maybe buff the numbers a little. This wouldn't really solve the problem of needing to only engage enemies when your damage shields are up though and buffs the part of Archmage's defenses which are already strong.
As you can see, you really need to rework Aegis on top of buffing Disruption Shield to be not garbage in order to make Archmage properly playable. The class is such a mess design-wise that I'm honestly not even sure where to start with that, but it clearly needs to be done. Implementing the #1 method would be a huge step towards making them less annoying to play though, even if it negatively impacts the balance of the class.
I'm not really sure what to do about the arcane storm though, it could honestly probably be removed entirely and no one would care.
Once Disruption Shield is made relevant again, then you could do the Trained Reactions thing where the damage/mana ratio is affected by your fatigue. This would help to make robes be a compelling choice on Archmage, like they're obviously supposed to be.
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
Okay...
1. The fatigue issue was so easy to solve that you did it in your post. If you don't want mages with heavy armor, just tie fatigue to mana conversion.
2. No drawbacks?!? Nearly Invulnerable? Neither of those statements are even remotely true. The fact that it required management was a drawback and the long cooldown for a shield, but also, it's hardly necessary that every skill have a drawback. More to the point, that principle isn't even applied consistently across the game. That's an absurd criticism.
Also, it hardly made you invulnerable. There was manaburn, for one... but even if it was overpowered, it's an easy solution. Simply make damage-shield penetration apply to Disruption Shield. That way you'd get the same effect of partial damage blocking that this new one does but with the old effect. You even add some weird mechanics such as... shield penetration doubling the mana increase on the shield, thus making it more likely to collapse. There's a million solutions... but what was picked was the most asinine solution I can think of.
I had only two complaints about this game... the unbelievable garbage that is the Necromancer and the tendency for bloat in class design (they expand instead of perfect).
1.6 is the first thing done that undermines my faith that good decisions will be made going forward. It's awful. I disliked the rage of embers expansion (see bloat versus perfect criticism) but this 1.6 is so baffling in its decision-making that it feels like it was done by a committee of people who hate the game. MORE reliant on inscriptions? Why is that appealing? Every class has dozens of skills but the same 3-5 will everyone's bread and butter?!?!? What the hell is the reasoning there?
Anyway...
1. The fatigue issue was so easy to solve that you did it in your post. If you don't want mages with heavy armor, just tie fatigue to mana conversion.
2. No drawbacks?!? Nearly Invulnerable? Neither of those statements are even remotely true. The fact that it required management was a drawback and the long cooldown for a shield, but also, it's hardly necessary that every skill have a drawback. More to the point, that principle isn't even applied consistently across the game. That's an absurd criticism.
Also, it hardly made you invulnerable. There was manaburn, for one... but even if it was overpowered, it's an easy solution. Simply make damage-shield penetration apply to Disruption Shield. That way you'd get the same effect of partial damage blocking that this new one does but with the old effect. You even add some weird mechanics such as... shield penetration doubling the mana increase on the shield, thus making it more likely to collapse. There's a million solutions... but what was picked was the most asinine solution I can think of.
I had only two complaints about this game... the unbelievable garbage that is the Necromancer and the tendency for bloat in class design (they expand instead of perfect).
1.6 is the first thing done that undermines my faith that good decisions will be made going forward. It's awful. I disliked the rage of embers expansion (see bloat versus perfect criticism) but this 1.6 is so baffling in its decision-making that it feels like it was done by a committee of people who hate the game. MORE reliant on inscriptions? Why is that appealing? Every class has dozens of skills but the same 3-5 will everyone's bread and butter?!?!? What the hell is the reasoning there?
Anyway...
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Zizzo
- Sher'Tul Godslayer
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Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
1.5-style Disruption Shield had one vitally important job that AFAICT nothing in 1.6 covers: emergency mana restoration. One solid Mana Clash will leave you low on hit points with all your defensive sustains knocked out¹ and no mana to heal/escape/protect yourself with. Disruption Shield filled that crucial niche of giving you a few turns of protection to get your proverbials back together, plus helping you get your mana back.
Maybe I was using Disruption Shield wrong all along, but that's all I ever really used it for. Trying to use it as a "walk-around" general protection shield was too much of a hassle to bother with, and I usually had enough other shields to cover that department. Without it, though, I'm pretty much going to have to start officially retiring and abandoning all my Archmage characters at the entrance to Gorbat pride.
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¹ I gather that's no longer true in 1.6, but the rest is still bad enough.
Maybe I was using Disruption Shield wrong all along, but that's all I ever really used it for. Trying to use it as a "walk-around" general protection shield was too much of a hassle to bother with, and I usually had enough other shields to cover that department. Without it, though, I'm pretty much going to have to start officially retiring and abandoning all my Archmage characters at the entrance to Gorbat pride.
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¹ I gather that's no longer true in 1.6, but the rest is still bad enough.
"Blessed are the yeeks, for they shall inherit Arda..."
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
Just passing by to note that I'm not happy with DR as it is an I do plan to change it for the better hopefully.
Namely it is reading your post that brought back disruption shield to my mind to find something better for it.
Oh and about inscriptions, I fail to see how the game is more reliant on them; it's always been so; but now there is not a good half of them that simply suck; how is that a bad thing ?
Thanks
PS: I'm not sure how this applies to embers of rage, as the campaign is actually smaller and faster .. how is that bloat compared to age of ascendancy ???
PS2: And yes I know necromancers need a revision
Well you obviously seem to heat some of the decisions yes; which is fine really. Now please, imagine one instant that you are me; that you have spent 10 years making a game. Do you think you think you would willingly continue if you hated it? So yes while I do understand that some decisions you do not like, have some restrain in the way you talk: I am not your enemy here and I am more than willing to listen to your argumentsDelmuir wrote: I had only two complaints about this game... the unbelievable garbage that is the Necromancer and the tendency for bloat in class design (they expand instead of perfect).
1.6 is the first thing done that undermines my faith that good decisions will be made going forward. It's awful. I disliked the rage of embers expansion (see bloat versus perfect criticism) but this 1.6 is so baffling in its decision-making that it feels like it was done by a committee of people who hate the game. MORE reliant on inscriptions? Why is that appealing? Every class has dozens of skills but the same 3-5 will everyone's bread and butter?!?!? What the hell is the reasoning there?
Namely it is reading your post that brought back disruption shield to my mind to find something better for it.Oh and about inscriptions, I fail to see how the game is more reliant on them; it's always been so; but now there is not a good half of them that simply suck; how is that a bad thing ?
Thanks
PS: I'm not sure how this applies to embers of rage, as the campaign is actually smaller and faster .. how is that bloat compared to age of ascendancy ???
PS2: And yes I know necromancers need a revision
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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anonymous000
- Thalore
- Posts: 165
- Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 5:07 am
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
I seldom play Archmages and therefore I don't have much comment on Disruption Shield, but indeed I think the release of 1.6 is a bit rough.Delmuir wrote: 1.6 is the first thing done that undermines my faith that good decisions will be made going forward. It's awful. I disliked the rage of embers expansion (see bloat versus perfect criticism) but this 1.6 is so baffling in its decision-making that it feels like it was done by a committee of people who hate the game. MORE reliant on inscriptions? Why is that appealing? Every class has dozens of skills but the same 3-5 will everyone's bread and butter?!?!? What the hell is the reasoning there?
Firstly the scope is too large, the time gap between 1.4 and 1.5 is one year, and that between 1.5 and 1.6 is two and a half year. Too many changes are stuffed into this release, and all game changes are interrelated (like weaker Disruption Shield would require buffing Manasurge, and buffing this might further affect the balance in some ways). So it is difficult to have a full picture about how all these changes will affect the game.
Secondly the time allowed for beta is out of proportion. For 1.5 we had 1.5 months for beta test but for 1.6 we had one month only. I know we had an "alpha build" hidden in a pinned message in Discord for a long time, but how many people could find it, post detailed comment about it and letting the devs know is another story. That leads me to point 3:
Thirdly I have always been a little bit suspicious about the use of Discord. I don't have the official statistics, but I think Discord siphoned away some traffic from the forum. Detailed evaluation of the game (like this post) does not happen in Discord, and even if there are some nuggets of insights you can't expect the devs to read through each comment. On the other hand the use of Discord also made this release very nontransparent, I think if you searched through Discord you might be able to know the rationale behind Disruption Shield changes, but you can't expect anyone to do so. I see many people are baffled about some changes in 1.6, if the rationale for such changes have been posted somewhere in the forum at least we would have some chance to find it, discuss about it, and think of some better ways to improve it. This does not happen, or at least most of such discussion only happen late in the public beta. Call me an old fart but I have always thought the effect of an official Discord channel for this game is toxic, actually I have once thought about suggesting to close it down but thought the better of it. Hey it is the trend after all so I don't think it is wise to go against it, but we need to make people aware that comments and suggestions for the game is best discussed in forums
The result is we had 30 pages of traceable comments for 1.5, but we only have some random comments scattered around Discord and some in the forum for such a huge release. At the same time, time spent for alpha testing is regrettably wasted because we could have solicited some useful comments much earlier, like we don't need to wait until beta 2 to revert the saves changes.
p.s. as for Necromancer, as mentioned somewhere in Discord there are plans to revamp it in 1.7. One thing I dislike especially is that the development for Tome now seems to be shrouded in a veil of secrecy(or in the semi-secrecy of hidden somewhere in Discord). It is understandable for expansions because we would not want to spoil the surprise, but why is it so for class revamps or mechanic changes? I know the devs might not be actively hiding such things from the players, but I remember in the past the devs would publicize it somewhere in the forum (like what was done for TW / PM / Mindslayer revamp) so that players could involve in the design. At the same time things posted in Ideas by the players are looked into, discussed, and could be made part of the game. This is not the case anymore, or maybe again it is due to Discord siphoning away some discussion for the game.
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
About Discord; I'm an "old fart" like you, I do not like it. But this is 2019 and I can't stop the time from moving forward; adapt or die. The game is feeding me; I do not have much choice.
And if there was no official discord, the discussions would spread even further on other discord servers, other channels and be even less available; this is the lesser evil.
I do keep on encouraging people to go post their remarks & bugs to the forum because as you say, it is a way better system for actual discussion.
As for the gap between 1.5 and 1.6. Yes it was too long. Nay it was far too long. I know it, I've already said I'm sorry about it and I'll try very hard to not let that happen again. The last years have not been great mentally for me, I won't dig into this here because frankly this is private but yeah I've had months and months where I couldnt even get myself to work on much. I'm not looking for pity mind you, just to explain how things came to where we are.
So yeah, I've let myself get overwhelmed, and trust me it annoys me way more than it annoys you ! :/
As for a veil of secrecy? The git is publicly viewable!
I don't think I've ever, or at least much in the past come to the forums to discuss things that WOULD be implemented. I'm happy to discuss (and change) stuff based on feedback though
And if there was no official discord, the discussions would spread even further on other discord servers, other channels and be even less available; this is the lesser evil.
I do keep on encouraging people to go post their remarks & bugs to the forum because as you say, it is a way better system for actual discussion.
As for the gap between 1.5 and 1.6. Yes it was too long. Nay it was far too long. I know it, I've already said I'm sorry about it and I'll try very hard to not let that happen again. The last years have not been great mentally for me, I won't dig into this here because frankly this is private but yeah I've had months and months where I couldnt even get myself to work on much. I'm not looking for pity mind you, just to explain how things came to where we are.
So yeah, I've let myself get overwhelmed, and trust me it annoys me way more than it annoys you ! :/
As for a veil of secrecy? The git is publicly viewable!
I don't think I've ever, or at least much in the past come to the forums to discuss things that WOULD be implemented. I'm happy to discuss (and change) stuff based on feedback though
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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anonymous000
- Thalore
- Posts: 165
- Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 5:07 am
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
If you would allow me to make some suggestions for future releases here:
1. Limit the scope of release. My point was not about the time gap between releases, but about the sheer scope of it. Too many changes are included in this release at once, so on one hand it is difficult for you to grasp the full impact of all these changes, and on the other hand it is difficult for the players to fully absorb what has been changed and make insightful comments in a relatively short time span. Making the scope too large also make further adjustment more difficult because the changes are too intricate, so you might find updating one aspect necessitates updating another, ultimately it leads to wasted work and difficulty in balancing stuff as a whole.
2. The time allowed for beta should be made in proportion to the scope of the release.
3. Yes Discord is here to stay, but I think starting a thread in forum to collect feedback is a great idea and you did the right thing for 1.5. It would have the effect to channel feedback back to the forum because people would know this is the official thing and their comments will be listened. Also by inviting people to provide feedback I think people will be more actively posting their comment about the releases
1. Limit the scope of release. My point was not about the time gap between releases, but about the sheer scope of it. Too many changes are included in this release at once, so on one hand it is difficult for you to grasp the full impact of all these changes, and on the other hand it is difficult for the players to fully absorb what has been changed and make insightful comments in a relatively short time span. Making the scope too large also make further adjustment more difficult because the changes are too intricate, so you might find updating one aspect necessitates updating another, ultimately it leads to wasted work and difficulty in balancing stuff as a whole.
2. The time allowed for beta should be made in proportion to the scope of the release.
3. Yes Discord is here to stay, but I think starting a thread in forum to collect feedback is a great idea and you did the right thing for 1.5. It would have the effect to channel feedback back to the forum because people would know this is the official thing and their comments will be listened. Also by inviting people to provide feedback I think people will be more actively posting their comment about the releases
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
I sure do
1. That's (also) what I meant indeed
2. Yes
3. I'm nto a fan of one thread, in essence it's not much better than a chat log (it is better but still very unorganised). I much prefer one thread per issue. Maybe a temporary forum section for them though
1. That's (also) what I meant indeed
2. Yes
3. I'm nto a fan of one thread, in essence it's not much better than a chat log (it is better but still very unorganised). I much prefer one thread per issue. Maybe a temporary forum section for them though
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
Perhaps it's time to un-sticky the monolithic 1.5 Beta thread, then...darkgod wrote:3. I'm nto a fan of one thread, in essence it's not much better than a chat log (it is better but still very unorganised). I much prefer one thread per issue. Maybe a temporary forum section for them though
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
I imagine he was referring to tinker escorts, as a wild guess!PS: I'm not sure how this applies to embers of rage, as the campaign is actually smaller and faster .. how is that bloat compared to age of ascendancy ???
Re: On 1.6 Archmage Disruption Shield, et al.
I know of a couple of games that handle mana shield/0 mana options.
1st, DotA, which has a mana shield talent on Medusa. The rate is 60%, and levels in her skill reduce the amount of mana burned per point of damage absorbed. A rate of 50% effectively doubles HP, while a rate of 60% does even more than that (I can't recall the exact calculation off the top of my head). A rate of lower than 50% is probably not going be worth it for a class that actively uses mana.
Crucially, Dusa is a ranged auto attack hero who is not reliant on her mana to be effective in combat, just to survive. One of her talents damages other heroes and steals their mana (all heroes in dota have mana), but also costs mana to use. Mana drain is also fairly common in DotA, which sets it apart from other games (any hero can buy a mana burn item and a few have it innately) as being a good comparison.
Electrician, in HoN (a dota clone sorta) has similar mechanics but is melee and his shield damages those nearby while he has it active. He also has a way to get mana from enemies.
Both of these characters were fairly low but consistent damage dealers who worked off of being extremely tanky with low or zero mana requirements for dealing damage. Their mana bar became an extension of their health bar, essentially, and they had abilities that allowed them to sap mana from enemies.
Now, crucially, Mana shield is extremely difficult to balance on a Mage class. Generally, if it is useful on a mage class, it will be beyond broken on a non-mage class. This is because Mages are naturally less tanky and more reliant on mana - so a 60%, more than Effective HP doubling value, may still be weak.
Granted, that could be dealt with by disabling it on Npcs, but that does feel a bit clunky.
Essentially, balancing a classes' survivability around a stat they otherwise do not use tends to work out well (for instance, mages and stamina might not work perfectly in ToME since a mage pumps willpower anyways).
I thought disruption shield was interesting before, but incentivized playing weird.
2. Asheron's Call had a lifetap, and a stamina tap spell option for mages who ran out of mana. Mages almost never used stamina, but the spell had a chance of fizzling and had a lengthy cast time. It's honestly better suited for ToME than it was for the real time MMO, IMO.
1st, DotA, which has a mana shield talent on Medusa. The rate is 60%, and levels in her skill reduce the amount of mana burned per point of damage absorbed. A rate of 50% effectively doubles HP, while a rate of 60% does even more than that (I can't recall the exact calculation off the top of my head). A rate of lower than 50% is probably not going be worth it for a class that actively uses mana.
Crucially, Dusa is a ranged auto attack hero who is not reliant on her mana to be effective in combat, just to survive. One of her talents damages other heroes and steals their mana (all heroes in dota have mana), but also costs mana to use. Mana drain is also fairly common in DotA, which sets it apart from other games (any hero can buy a mana burn item and a few have it innately) as being a good comparison.
Electrician, in HoN (a dota clone sorta) has similar mechanics but is melee and his shield damages those nearby while he has it active. He also has a way to get mana from enemies.
Both of these characters were fairly low but consistent damage dealers who worked off of being extremely tanky with low or zero mana requirements for dealing damage. Their mana bar became an extension of their health bar, essentially, and they had abilities that allowed them to sap mana from enemies.
Now, crucially, Mana shield is extremely difficult to balance on a Mage class. Generally, if it is useful on a mage class, it will be beyond broken on a non-mage class. This is because Mages are naturally less tanky and more reliant on mana - so a 60%, more than Effective HP doubling value, may still be weak.
Granted, that could be dealt with by disabling it on Npcs, but that does feel a bit clunky.
Essentially, balancing a classes' survivability around a stat they otherwise do not use tends to work out well (for instance, mages and stamina might not work perfectly in ToME since a mage pumps willpower anyways).
I thought disruption shield was interesting before, but incentivized playing weird.
2. Asheron's Call had a lifetap, and a stamina tap spell option for mages who ran out of mana. Mages almost never used stamina, but the spell had a chance of fizzling and had a lengthy cast time. It's honestly better suited for ToME than it was for the real time MMO, IMO.