Timestops only efficacy is in Solo PvP. For every extra person hostile to the caster it becomes more and more useless.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor

I don't know where I failed to make my point obvious but yes, I am pretty well aware clerics make awesome tanks. Considering half the post (the other half being Time Stop) was basically whining about how they are too good.


It's fine because when you fight against 5 players you have less of a chance to kill them with it? And here I was calling it too powerful; what was I thinking?

Sorry for the sarcasm, it's just that well... Your logic is a bit funny, you know?

Not really. Basically solo pvp on a server with a player base in the hundreds is basically pridegaming and powerlevelling. The logic is sound. Get some friends then you don't have to worry about timestop anymore.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor

well is your blackguard some archmage of enourmous power capable of casting the most powerfull of spells?

Please don't even bother wasting time going down that route of thought, ILoveIceCream.

If that was how mages were going to be, as opposed to trying to create some BALANCE, then every mage spell would be buffed up to high heaven, with insta-kills, and multiple hundreds of unresistable, unsavable damage, because "Oh, it's an archmage of enormous power capable of casting the most powerfull of spells."

This is a discussion NOT about making the spell uber beyond belief, but making it useful, while still being balanced. Comparison to other classes and their spells is not just perfectly valid to obtaining this goal, but quite necessary, in fact. That's how balance is obtained.

I'm quite sure the dev's are not mentally handicapped, and are quite able to discern the difference between a Wizard and a Blackguard. My post was a reminder of the matter of comparative durations, in case it had slipped their minds (which can and does happen sometimes).

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Role with the Punches...
Elan: A 10% chance is pretty unlikely, but everyone knows that a one-in-a-million chance is a sure thing!

No, it doesn't. The discussion was about it being usable on non-slashing weapons. Pay attention.

In the hundreds you say? Well then there is no need for class balance! Because even if your character is really bad, if you have 10 friends to gang up on the guy with the more overpowered class you'll be alright!

Your pitiful attempt at implying that because I would like to see some balance changes in order to make other classes more enjoyable I have no friends warranted the sarcasm.

Do you play mage by any chance? I mean, since you have nothing to say about Divine Power I am guessing you either agree with me or you play mage and feel it's your duty to defend Time Stop with your pure, unbiased opinion.

As if anything was gonna change from my whining in the first place.

Also "on the topic": I still personally maintain that there is absolutely no reason in hell to buff Blackstaff further. Seriously.

On topic, it's not being buffed - it's being weakened it by removing dispel. We're discussing whether a new ability should be used in its stead to stop it from becoming underpowered.

And I believe that Moshing was referring to the efficacy of the Time Stop spell, which you claimed to be overpowered, to which he was responding that it is only so in solo PvP. I ~believe~ that he was saying not to try and fight someone by yourself, but to get friends.

Personally, I used to play a mage, I don't any more but I think it is a perfectly reasonable spell, and Moshing hates mages as far as I'm aware, so be careful about accusations of bias.
Counter an argument on the argument's merit, not the authors, otherwise this will degenerate into an argument and not a debate.

Edit: removed the inclusive language - I'm not the one that's changing things

As it is I would like to see it be more than just the vamp, but if nothing suitable can be found, I believe the vamp should be alright on its own.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

I think the thread ended at the quoted post, but carry on, chaps. Your RSI, not mine.

I just gave up to that point at the end of my last post ... I don't think anything constructive can be gained by continuing this, but someone may surprise me, it has happened before.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

Blackstaff functions fine as +4 Vampy Regen. Like I said. It's not your grandma's Blackstaff, and it's not canon, but it'll do. Please stop beating the dead horse. Please.

Edit: Right, +5. Anyway, ain't broke, don't fix further.

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Morgan Blancrest: The Rage from The Cage
Lucas Baker: Humble Swordsman
Wesley Fletcher: Greasemonkey Extraordonaire
Also known as: EmoPinata

I thought it was +5?



But yeah, I am inclined to agree.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

8th level spell...for plus 4 vampy regen...

*sigh* Well...not using that spell as a mage...unless im some weird spellsword gish.

Bad blackdragon you! Fancy not following the ''Prime buff bot directive'' - Tho shaly use thy hard earnt aresenal of spells to make fighters even more efficient at killing things....on pain of death!

Seriously (I know most people will ignore this post but whatever), the plus 5 Vampy regen is a good and balanced spell...but its effectively an 8th level wizard spell unusable by them...8th. Apart from the (admittedly good) reason of fully casting levels for DC's i'm seeing less an less reason for playing a traditional cloth wearing, staff carrying wizard. You lose very little an gain alot by go down the still spell, full plate gish build.
And the old blackstaff was a weakness of such builds.

PS and before I'm accused of being a mage fan boi i play several classes including mages and fighters.

Mr T

I disagree. I reguarly party with weaponmasters, and they far outclass my cleric in their damage output. Unless we're fighting crit-immune monsters, the WMs kill the spawns so fast that my character's damage output might as well be zero.

I assume this is what you meant instead of the "getting attacked and not dying" definition of tanking, since Divine Power doesn't really help with that. Clerics are pretty good at that and so are paladins, but the most unkillable characters I've seen PvM were pale masters, monks with epic dodge, and a shifter/monk with dragonshape. I imagine dwarven defenders are good too, but I haven't met many of those.

(I haven't had much experience with PvP, so I'm not sure how things stand there.)

In other news, for whatever reason, Blackstaff is fully functional today- dispel and all. Was it reverted?

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Morgan Blancrest: The Rage from The Cage
Lucas Baker: Humble Swordsman
Wesley Fletcher: Greasemonkey Extraordonaire
Also known as: EmoPinata

It hasn't been changed yet as far as I know

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

Am I the only one who reads update notes?

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Morgan Blancrest: The Rage from The Cage
Lucas Baker: Humble Swordsman
Wesley Fletcher: Greasemonkey Extraordonaire
Also known as: EmoPinata

It would appear so, although says that it was made immediately after this thread started, so it could be referring to something else.
It didn't have the yellow light in the name so I hadn't bothered checking.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

...a not needed flame bait.



...dangerously close to a flame bait. (can easily be reworded)



...flame bait



some water-downed logic weeded with sarcastic flamebaits.

----------------------------------------

*coughity cough cough*
Wowness.
Can't we all be be friends?

*pulls out the alphabet*

A. since when was this about timestop?

B. or divine power...

C. let's take a moment and think to ourselves...humm I sence some 'logical' processing is going like..."i have opinion, someone randomly disagrees with opinion, oh noez they must be stupid or mental cause i r always right' pleeeasee omgness you know how hard it is to extract an opinion out of flamebaits? ...your ruining a thread i spent hours in, don't.

D. are you 'trying' to get this locked thereby killing any and all discussions?

E. Timestop spell....lovly, I hear some very strong opinions on oh how over powered it is....wana guess how many times I've used it to date with my epic lvl wiz? ...twice, once for freezing people and walking out of town for laughs and giggles, and once more to scribe a scroll for some other wizard. Over powered? I Generally Don't Even Use It Because There Are Less Expensive Ways To Win A Silly Pvp Encounter, and if i just so happen to loose? Oh well, more rp, and it helps with humility to not win every time, I usually find them learning experiences cause you know how many times Ive died cause someone used a timestop spell? ...None, ever, not once. So I lost for some other reason and adapted my strategy for the next time.

F. Just because this point starts with the letter F...A person who just sits there and insults another in the 'name' of proving a point FAILS at discussing anything meaningful, it pisses people off, makes the topic less desirable to read and begs the dm's to stop it.

and

Restating the 'same point' The Exact Same Way It Was Made Earlier is FAILING to explain it, use those vocabularies and think of other ways to get your point across.

G. I've exhausted my points for blackstaff, their already stated, if there's a point that hasn't been brought up yet I'd love to hear it and please do post, but If this just becomes flamed thread of utter stupidity I'm then going to request a lock.

H. To those of you who had nothing to do with the flaming, Have a nice day!. *hugs*

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Night is just another day without light.

Lawl. You'll know when i'm flaming sir.

-

Ontopic:

Dunno if it can be done but perhaps Terra can cap the Vamp regen at +6 if its going at +1/5 levels. Reward for pureclassing i suppose.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor

While I know where you're coming from, you have to remember that clerics aren't exactly difficult to multiclass. Cleric/PM, Cleric/RDD, Cleric/WM. Those are all valid options, and my main problem with that is that there is really nothing that compares to cleric in the area. The problem with Divine Power, as mentioned earlier, is that it negates any sort of drawback caused by the cleric class being secondary base attack bonus. The cleric gets full base attack bonus and full attacks per round with a single spell; and on top of that you mount all the other amazing cleric buffs.


Read OP. Read it again. Come back here and tell me when was this discussion ever about Blackstaff to begin with? You don't use Time Stop. That's great; other people do.

I'd make a list to reiterate the alphabet but since you've already taken the initiative...

All of you, cut it out.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Directed at Terra or Tormak (since you're the only DM watching this thread I think): can this be done? It seems like a great reward for pureclassing, and doesn't change the balance too much.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

5 is a rather nice number though. Makes everything match.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Fair enough.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

The niche that Clerics excel in is pretty narrow. That niche is: I've had enough time to turns/level buff at leisure, now I can line up my rounds/level spells and Divine FMS and begin the fight when it suits me.

Now, the reason Clerics pwn PvM so much is that there's nothing except for the Beholders that forces you to fight outside your comfort zone.

PvP and DM events are all about forcing the other players as far out their niche as you can. Unless you're much better at tempo management than the other chap, as a Cleric you're totally screwed.

Wumbamumbas, Sneak-cannons and Barbies and suchlike have a similar problem: their niche is hanging on the arm of a friendly buffer and outwith it they're medium even when using scrolls/potions/items.
Within it, they're more impressive than any Cleric, and I humbly invite you to run one of your buffers with Va, Frank or Stillborn if you remain sceptical. However, their niche requries an entire other player.

I dunno bout that. My barbie doesnt really need a buffer to pwn more than 75% of the server. Not saying having a companion isnt nice tho...

Divine power may give you the BAB of a fighter but it doesnt give you the wooty strength mod (unless your a cleric who just pumps strength) or the feats that fighters get. The spell isnt overpowered in terms of Amia. Like the poster above me said, clerics require time to place all those buffs on and woe betide if you're caught without them.

So, Blackstaff just gives vampy regen now? Personally I think thats pretty lackluster. It'd be better if you just made it into a totally new spell instead of a fighters weapon buff but that isnt gonna happen.

I stopped posting on this topic when the friendly discussion ended and the senseless and subtle jabs at people began. But, I'd like to post my opinions on the matters at hand.

Timestop - Nothing wrong with it, it's not unbalanced, it's situational just like many other spells and abilities. I don't run around with my wizard with timestop memorized in PvM, how many uses would it have in PvM other then being annoying.

Most of my confrontations are found out when hunting, as a necromancer you tend to get that, your know, eternal order, etc. which is great, they do their part, and I give them something to do.

Most times I run away because I am usually outnumbered and don't have the spells to deal with them, sometimes getting a dev. crit to the skull while trying, or because they invade my personal space during conversation, only to crush me as I set them to hostile.

But, as with any good wizard, she's going to have a nice welcome to anyone who wants to run in and ruin her day. And it would go something along the lines of this:

My timestop brings all the boys to a halt,
and their like,
"Damn I can't move",
damn right you can't move,
I'll kill you,
with my IGMS storm.

Chances of this happening IG = 0.5% but Chances are, you'll lose. I lose, you lose, it's not that big of a deal, just relax.

Now if you jump a sorcerer, first off, chances are he doesn't even have timestop, I would guess, and I'm only guessing, don't say you don't know sorcerers or anything along those lines, some of the most popular level 9 sorcerer spells are Wail, mords, and Gate.

But, because of their nature and their spells per day, as well as the fact they know all their spells, they can easily turn most situations in their favor. But in both cases, if you jump them with their wards down, and your swinging a great axe in their face, they'll die easy enough.

Clerics and Divine Power - A cleric is like a freight train, you can stand in front of it when it's not moving, but once it gets all it's momentum built up, you better get the hell out of the way.

Same as a wizard/sorcerer, catch the conductor(Cleric) with his pants down when he stops the train, then he's not so scary anymore. Also, entering a fight with a cleric when your fighter/sneak/whatever has been buffed up, and the cleric will most certainly feel the pain as you've got abilities he doesn't really have aside from his spells.

As Ruce pointed out, all classes fill a role, catch a cleric outside their buff to godhood, mow down mobs/players the get in their way during said mob mowing, etc. they are far less impressive. In any case, I don't see a big problem with them.

The thing is, senselessly ramming our heads together in a constant struggle for dominance and to one up everyone else, everyone just looks all the more silly. I think someone said it before, if we wanted total balance and everything to not be situational, we'd all be level 1 fighters. Even then, someone could power build their level 1 fighter to be better then others.

Enjoy your RP, enjoy your character, enjoy your confrontations, play by the rules, and know sometimes if your character has too much pride in him/herself, that doesn't give you a ticket to win every confrontation you find yourself in. If your too proud of your character to run away from a situation you know you'll most likely lose because they have a reputation to hold up, then don't expect the player your fighting to roll over and die for you.

Enjoy your character for what it can do, not what it can't do, we can't all be the same.

The only thing I would like to pass on has been bolded, the rest, you don't really need to read.

On Blackstaff-
I have been using a fair amount lately, testing it out, and it is still very effective and helpful to anyone you travel with. Well worth the 9th level slot, especially in epic hunting areas, as most spells are fairly useless there.

I often extend it and use it instead of say using timestop, everyone's healing budget goes down, those with High AC quickly regen their wounds and there is less down time. The spell is a blessing for any melee character.

Why anyone would want to see this spell reverted to it's caster only state is beyond me, its very helpful on a mob crawl, and adds more to a group then a haste bot.

+1 regen/6 levels seems fair to me, as opposed to +1 regen/5 levels, Gives a pure class caster only a slight advantage when casting the spell, while a multiclass gains much more in other areas, and would lose very little and still have an effective spell in PvM spell with +4 regen to anyone they cast it on.

If there is another reasonable effect to add to it, it should be low DC.

Other then that, the spell is useful, use it and see what it can do, it would be nice to be able to put it on creature weapons as well though.

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I sleep with the Libris Mortis under my pillow.

---Carstina Blackweave---
Speaker of Tarkuul
Headmistress of the Magisterium Mortis

Here I was looking at some discussion high as hell on morphine since I just had a surgical kick in the face to fix my nether jaw and I come across this. Best thing I ever saw...

I didnt read though the entire discussion but yes, mages are buffers or nuclear warheads and they can only kill single targets before they need to recharge. So a mage who want to excel in PvM *NEEDS* something to buff preferably a party and if you're buffing a summon and yourself when you got a party:


And this was about blackstaff? Blackstaff is sucking magical energy toy your hp or something instead of dispelling keep a fit nicely doesnt it? +4 - 5 vampy reg will make most meleers a happier person, especially so with the red-glow.

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Fear is not evil… It tells you what your weakness is. And once you know your weakness, you can become stronger as well as kinder. - Gildarts Clive, Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima.

My final imput into this topic...IMHO I disagree with the whole ''YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG'' spiel. There is no such thing as doing it wrong. If someone wants to make a melee wizard minus still plate, ftr levels etc that is their choice. It's sub-optimal, but their choice.

Secondly it is borderline rude to another poster as you somehow feel that you know better and the other person is a noob.

Thirdly why should it not be caster only? Tensers, Acid sheath, the touch spells, elemental sheath, all caster only, all melee orientated. Yes thats right caster *DO* research and implement *melee* spells even if they are sub-optimal just in case.

Fourthly why oh why are arcane casters buffers and since when? This is Amia all over...traditionally bards and clerics are the supreme buffers and arcanists are fragile offensive cannons/utility specialist. Except amia where melee is king and its all about self buffing. Seriously how many clerics buff others before themselves? bards? Thats right hardly any. The only reason arcanists do is because the suck so hard at melee that no amount of buffinf is very effective (save gish builds and you know what is way more popular on amia than a pure ''cloth & staff'' arcanist? You guessed it a gish build ).

I very strongly sense that many people on this board have a vested interest in keeping some classes as their personal heal/buff bots, and justify it with comments like 'it wouldn't be useful otherwise, its a party server' blah blah... At the end of the day buffs should exist, but an 8th level ftr buff in an arcanists spell list? I think not...

Mr T

Maybe +2 SR/CL or something...

Dunno if it's already been sorted or if anyone suggested already, never read through every single post.

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Ael'thil Rilyn'tlithar
Previously known as: Anubis

something that makes it usefully able to be cast on the magic staffs in the game.. opposed to only the 2-handed nonmagical variety.

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

Good thing you can cast blackstaff on any melee weapon then? Besides, I'm going to leave it alone for now.

I'm gonna add the details to the sidebar since I apparently forgot to do that.

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Fear is not evil… It tells you what your weakness is. And once you know your weakness, you can become stronger as well as kinder. - Gildarts Clive, Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima.

Last time i tried that was ..well when I actually bothered learning blackstaff on my first wizard.

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

??? I'm not seeing any info in the sidebar about Blackstaff. Wondering what the spell actually does.

Any melee weapon, Vampiric Regen +CL/6, IIRC.

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Characters:
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Seto

PM me if you need something with them.