Shattered Kingdoms

I think melee is really overpowered only in nicely enchanted gear as long as they can be hit by spells they're like balls of clay in the hands of a spellcaster.

Something needs to be done with enchantments then, to affect melee combat more.

From my tests, taking an example that is certainly in favor of spellcasting damage over melee damage, fighting peacekeeper templars(paladin NPCs with steel halberds FFS against a darkie priest), one would expect spells to own the priest and not the damage output of the slow and inaccurate halberds.

Yet again after a LOT of testing(hundreds of dead templars), from the overall damage I took, 85-90% of the damage came from melee(that's with the 1 hit/round since there was combat casting usually) and only 10-15% damage came from spells(including spells I cannot flat out nullify their damage like HW). And including spells that are supposed to rape darkie priests like BoG.

Keep in mind my priest's armor is not exactly crap to justify that much melee damage(almost full AC10 energy with 5-7 MP on all pieces - only one piece is not like that).

Now if that doesn't make melee overpowered in your mind compared to spellcasting, I don't know what makes it overpowered.

You may say that most players don't enchant their armor, but that is not an argument really. It's like saying if I have an item with scripted RE and I don't use it and die to a warlock, I'll blame the warlock and not my incompetence. And enchant armor is certainly FAR more common than RE scripts anyway.

Art was introduced for that very reason. Because it was too easy for anyone in basic enchants to flat out resist all spell damage. But what happened right after art was introduced? Certain builders(*cough* Taslamar *cough*) added 26523542352 items in easily accessible areas that all come with great fort, great will, great mp, great refl. Getting decent saves isn't so hard anymore, even without getting 1 single enchant armor spell casted on your things. I can think of the top of my head a full suit from Taslamar that will give you 12 fort, 16 will and 32 MP including AC10 diamond suit from grabbing items as is in easily accessible areas. If someone sits and enchants this suit(not much, adding 8 enchants per piece totally that is the decent level in my book), this suit can turn out to be 60 MP, 24 fort, 32 will. That's pretty much immunity from all spells, if you add a shield spell(and I'm not even talking about magic resistant races).

So we are back in the state SK was before art was introduced. Spellcasters are totally screwed against any decent player who has some little enchant armor done on his already decent but easy to get items. Melee damage on the other hand, it can't be stopped in any way.

PS: Then again in my tests it could just be Algorab and the overpowered keeper NPCs as usual.

I took an oath one dark and fateful day that I would never say these words, never even think the horrible, vile words that I am about to write.

D-A is right.

*shiver*

But, continuing on.

The problem isn't the raw power of melee and spellcasting. If you don't have brilliant saves, a caster can drop a damage spell on you that will hit you so hard your balls will shrivel up and fall off. Provided they don't instantly decommission you with a sleep / charm, or just instantly end you with a petrification / FoD.

Sadly, everyone (who isn't a griffon) has brilliant saves. Enchanting armor is a very difficult, very time-consuming process, it's true. But enchanted armor owns anyone and everything with magic in it. Magma may still be viable, but I haven't seen it used since the buff. A necro who actually casts spells in PK is a joke- all they can do to PK is get 15 wraiths, buff them out the [REDACTED], go ethereal, and let them do the pillaging. Even sorcerers are usually newblettes if they do anything except charming 2 of the Teron charmies, getting a tribunal NPC if they have access to a tribunal, buying the super secret expensive equippable NPC pet, buffing them all out the [REDACTED], giving them all enchanted weapons, going ethereal, and just watching them work.

The way to fix this is to take a very serious nerf bat to the antimagic qualities of enchanted armor, and then apologize for it by giving a very serious bonus to the anti-melee qualities of said enchanted armor. Thusly, both problems are solved in one fell swoop, balance is restored to the SK world, and puppies and bunnies frolic in the woods forever, despite D-A still being a bad, bad man.

Alrighty, I've been at work all day so let me sort through this.

First off, the only reason I used acid blast as an example is because it was one of the spells Edoras mentioned. I was just proving the point everyone already seems to realize, acid blast spam is no way to kill a target, it simply doesn't do enough damage to be viable.



You don't need a boatload of MP to take little damage from spells, all you have to do is save against it, in many cases a suit of average enchants across the board, instead of stacked heavily in MP is the far better option. As shown in the snippets even with barely enchanted gear, saving vs a damage spell drops it into the single digits. This is true for any damaging spell that you can save against really, except magma spray, and even then, there is obviously resist elements to further nerf that damage.

Saving against petrification or FoD is also a fairly laughing matter for anyone with excess of 20 constitution. I've tried numerous FoD's and Petrifications on races with high constitution, simply their fortitude save just from their constitution is usually enough to save them from death. Add in any minimal amount of fort, and you're looking at a large fail rate.



The age affects don't really affect casters till the second age tick, and there are -very- few people that keep characters that long. The same goes for warriors, they aren't horribly affected until the second tick really, and even then they can still do just fine. I'll use Ghimgul as an example since Cannibal wanted to toot his horn. He wasn't even GM, he was two or three times aged, and it "still took large groups to drop him."



Sure, as you already pointed out though, it's a fairly contradictory statement. By bringing melee down another notch, you will also further reduce the effectiveness of charms/controls/animates/guards/etc... There's a reason necromancers employ armies of wraiths and wights instead of just one or two controls and trying to cast spells. It's because the melee damage of the animates simply is superior in almost every way. The same goes for sorcerors really, sorcerors have to rely on their charms for easily more than half their damage output. The proposed wimping would affect all of those. It would simply give casters another couple of rounds to be a caster their NPCs would do less damage, so the warrior wouldn't die any faster from the pets, but at the same time we wouldn't have the current nonsense of warriors two rounding charms.

Let me tell you, unless you have over 20 charisma, order lag is at least a round, for a race with less than 20 charisma, it's even more. By the time casters get done serving their 'o all kill' or 'o all bash' order lag, their pet is usually halfway dead, and they've got a round, maybe two before they have to order the pet to bash again so the query can't escape.

As easy as it is for casters to stand third row and quaff word if things go south, it's equally easy for a melee character to stand front row and just have to worry about a charm/control/guard because the caster won't have time to do much casting if it's a solo fight.



He didn't have shield up, I could just as easily post a log of me doing 1-2% each acid on myself. It's just not feasible to kill something that way. If you spam any spell, you lose your ability to effectively order, and without ordering your pet to bash/trip every 3 rounds, anything can escape whenever they feel like it.



You're just proving my point really, even though the game is like black and white compared to when you played, acid still is just as unviable, as are most damage spells in the game. There's a reason the majority of casters use any melee based means they can harness to kill enemies.

On a different note, I'm not making a case for sorcerors, I'm making a case for all casters so let's stop with the broken acid record. I simply used that as an example because I could easily test it, and Edoras made a comment on it.



If by anyone you mean the enchantless, and, or, griffons, I agree. Rogues on the other hand, can one shot anyone.



They could hire you to redefine the dictionary: Free - adj - Pertaining to or involving concentration, and, or, mana cost.

However, like Chem, you're in effect proving the point I'm trying to make. Casters -should- have to use spells to make up for the faults of their charms/controls/elementals/dominates/etc... However as it stands, the majority of those spells are inadequate aid, and the caster has time to cast approximately one, maybe two, before he no longer has the services of said pet, because the warrior he was fighting just tore through it like yesterday's newspaper. Shortening melee combat by a bit would give casters more time to utilize more of their spells without having to in essence either one shot said melee class, or flee for their lives, because their pet won't last much longer than that. The pet damage will also be nerfed with the melee change so the melee class the caster is fighting won't die significantly faster either, it just gives the casters time and breathing room to effectively battle the warrior with spells, instead of using pets to deal 85% of the damage. A warrior is going to outdamage a pet the extreme majority of the time.



So presumptious. Repitition is supposedly the quickest way to ingraine a thought or idea. Keep spouting it, I might believe it.



I'm not complaining about the PKability of a sorceror, it's still very viable. I'm simply pointing out that the whole game is based on melee, because that's the path to PK success. Even you mention the big army tactic, it's the best way to go, just load on the melee. Once again however, this thread is not about sorcerors, it's about spellcasters in general. A warlock or priest can't gather a huge army without -extreme- preperation, the type that would require hours upon hours in advance. Warlocks and priests are lucky in the regards that they each have access to one spell that is harder than your average bear to save against. Magma spray, and harm, however even those spells can be reduced to piddly amounts of damage with proper buffs. Furthermore with the extreme influx of high level weapons into the game in the last several years, -anyone- can get their hands on a stoneskin breaking weapon litterally anytime they need one. Many with reach even. A warlock stands next to no chance against an class with reach in solo combat.



This is one of the points I'm trying to convey. Anyone with enough patience can make themselves completely immune to 98% of the harmful spells in the game. Leaving casters to rely on nothing but the melee capabilities of their pets in such cases. Which are just not adequate enough to stand alone vs other melee, unless you amass huge armies of them.










The last several suggestions are something I could see working. Especially the last one as it serves both to bring spell damage back into some sort of competitiveness with melee damage, without shafting the melee classes horribly either. Melee classes would still have the advantage of taking reduced damage from pets and guards, casters would have the advantage of actually having spells that are worth casting.

As it is right now, PK in SK is all about who can grab the most melee NPCs or crank out the most melee damage. Why does anyone even roll casters if they simply PK with them almost exactly like a melee class. The only difference is using 'order all' infront of all your commands.

Sad but true.

Uh, I'm sorry, but casters are [REDACTED] fine. Except for possibly warlocks. Sorcs, OMG my apprentice level damage spell won't kill you!. Or OMG my one hit kill doesn't land every time I cast it, so I'll just be a whiny little [REDACTED] and stop using it completely!
Seriously. You shouldn't expect to be killing people with Acid, that's not WTF sorcs do, if that's what you want, play a warlock, but wait! Why play a warlock when I can play a sorc and get the best adveturing/utility/lewt gathering/hoarding class, and then WHINE to try to get them to be better in combat than warlocks!(who don't get [REDACTED] except PK spells) Not to mention if you equip your charm Sorcs are already 100x better in PK than warlocks.

Sypher, seriously. This thread is ridiculous. Sorcs aren't supposed to be the SUPER PK CLASS. If you want to be the super PK class, their non-pk abilities need to be massively wimped. Warlocks should be a PK class, they get [REDACTED] for abilities that don't involve PK.(and they still suck at PK)

Hell, weren't you guys complaining a short bit ago about, "omg fighters can PK while naked and with a steel weapon, that's overpowered!"

IF THEY ARE NAKED(or in crappy armor) THEY HAVE NO SAVES.

Actually the thread is about how overpowered melee is compared to spellcasting and all the points are covered I guess.

That's why sorcs and necros play their classes like melee ones with o all, because it's far more devastating for a charmie or a wraith army to deal damage than casting any spell.

Of course you'll be against that because you never have any saves on your EQ. Most others disagree with you though.

So, I'm against this idea to wimp enchants...Because I never have any enchants...D-A how [REDACTED] stupid are you?

No, you'll be against enchants affecting melee damage more.

That way combat will last longer, that's what Dulrik wants after all. Not 2 warriors killing another PC in 2 rounds.

2 warriors can't kill another warrior in 2 rounds, unless the two are buffed to hell and the 1 is a [REDACTED]/naked/unbuffed.

2 warriors should be able kill everything else in 2 rounds, sorry.

There are plenty of defensive spells to avoid melee damage. Hell, there's a shop in the game that sells OP'd stone skin staves.

And I'm pretty sure D-A talks about how zomg awesome Feanor is everytime there's a log with him in it. Now all of a sudden it's ZOMG HE GETS HIT TOO HARD! *CRY*

Melee is fine, except for the fact that 3 subtypes are ridiculously overpowered.

Kama, Khopesh, and Battle-spear. Dunno, if Flamberge belongs on this list.