Shattered Kingdoms

I'd be interested to see a response from Dulrik on this.

Art has NOTHING to do with MP, nor damage. The only save for magmar is reflex and it cannot be resisted.

Making magma use double art is [message reducted].

I could get behind the idea of the saves of the elemental being influenced by the caster, but think about it. The elemental is not wearing the lewt the caster is. Why should some hat of OMFG leetness impact the elemental?

Seriously...

Though splitting up the damage that magmar does overtime but allowing each piece to be soaked individually was a very potent nerf. Perhaps simply allowing magmar cling to ignore MP as it is listed as non-magical damage, including innate magical damage soaking. That would make it the fearsome invocation that it should be.

Why should hp mods impact the hp pool of an elemental?

Seriously!

Elementals are conjured, meaning that they exist elsewhere, and your awesomeness of HP allows you to draw a beefier one through that dimensional rift.

*nods sagely*

It's all about the beefcake.

These touch on what I'd like to see done for warlocks first. Warlocks have a lot of group/room(s) affecting spells. Of these, currently you can only use fireball in conjunction with a fire elemental without harming your companion.

Earth elementals should be immune to earthquake.
Air elementals should be immune to (chain) lightning.

That is the minimum of what needs to be done.


However, if you want to consider adding some more interest and variation between the elementals, don't just make the elementals immune to their associated element, but let them also act as a power conduit of sorts. For instance:

Scenario 1: Warlock A has an earth elemental. He casts earthquake. Drawing on the power of his connection through the earth elemental, it doubles the earthquake's spell damage (it's a pretty weak spell, this wouldn't be overpowering).

Scenario 2: Warlock B has an air elemental. He casts chain lightning. Every time the lightning bounces off the elemental it draws on its connection to the plane of air and doubles the spell damage of the successive reflections (chain lightning reflects are pretty weak, I don't think this would be overpowering either).

Scenario 3: Warlock C has a fire elemental. He casts fireball. I don't know here. This is already a pretty tough combo.

Scenario 4: Warlock D has a water elemental. This should have a different benefit. After another discussion on these boards, I've been thinking water elementals should be given some added versatility for underwater combat, perhaps an auto-haste while underwater or something.


As for magma, if code changes have nerfed the "cling" damage of the spell, this should be fixed. Does it take into consideration the material that it is clinging to? ie- directly to a griffon's or barbarian's hardened skin? to a silken tunic? to an iron breastplate? Magma clinging to someone dressed in silk wouldn't cling for long before burning right through the silk and going directly to the skin. Magma clinging to metal armor wouldn't burn through the material as quickly, but it would be attaching to a VERY fast heat conductor, causing the the metal to sear the person's skin and basically broiling him inside his own armor. Maybe some kind of considerations like these could be used to tweak the spell effects?

Water could conceivably affect cone of cold.

Comment from Dulrik: I can conceive that I would change magma spray so that the cling damage is not affected by MP. I could also conceive giving a 1 tick warning before an elemental returns home.

That would swing things to far the other way in my opinion. All it would take is one good magma spray to flat out kill someone over a period of time, cling damage while naked(which is essentially what cling damage without MP would be) is quite substantial. Two magma sprays and you're a goner without immediate healing.

Perhaps a hard cap on the % damage the cling can do to you? Something along the lines of a max of 20-25% no matter what the hard HP value is? That would make it manageable.

Sypher, you can only get cling damage once and only once. You either have cling or you don't. Also, it would take time for the cling to kill them. Since, there are spells that deal more damage in one hit (harm comes to mind) I don't see the problem of letting cling kill since it is suppose to be the pinnacle spell for warlocks.

[edit] Would it be possible that a warlock during that 1 tick warning to be able to cast their elemental again and it will literally just replace the one that is already summoned?

I realize this, however the cling goes on for quite a while afterwards, and if you're naked it can take away a huge chunk of HP like Konge said.