Shattered Kingdoms

Edoras, nothing you could do would stop me from PvP. PvP makes up 70-80% of my interest in SK these days. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate player courtesy as much as the next guy (and do my best to extend that same courtesy to others).

The reason I personally enchant the crap out of my gear is because I don't want to get charmed, put to sleep, or petrified.

Got blinded? Eat a pod. Got hit with fear? Guess you better decide if you want to go back in there or not with your formation jacked. Got hit with the Ain spell? Might be time to GTFO.

And Nightwing, there's no need to explain in detail how your proposed change would drastically reduce the time required to make a good suit. I know it would. I call that a wimp to debuff spells. And I disagree with it.

There are people with full MP adamantite which is just as good if not better than full MP dragonscale with magical vestments and melee has no problem ripping through that.

jhorleb, I'm in close to the same boat as you: PvP makes up at least 40% of the interesting time I spend in SK, and would constitute far more than that if I didn't enjoy the sit-down RP of the people around me.

However, PK only occupies 5% of my playing time at best -- more than 70% is spent enchanting. There's something inherently wrong with that, I think. And I would feel completely differently if I actually got something out of it, but my suit is still exactly the same as if I went in; and looking at the math, I can understand why. Maybe you already understood how the system works; but personally, looking at the hard statistics of enchanting I posted earlier, I'm tempted to never enchant another item again and just go into the battle with a defeatist mindset.


I guess the comparison I'd like to draw is toward brewing: I remember four years ago the abysmal success rate of brew made it a chore at best. Do you feel like the improved brew rate has actually wrecked the game balance? I personally think it only changed the amount of time I spend in brewing, so that I can potentially get back to PK and being valuable.


Let me ask another question for you: how many hours did you spend putting together your current suit?

Does anyone else miss when we just had MP/MR?

Nightwing, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the ENTIRE reason why you're spending all your time enchanting lately because I've hit you with ~3/8 sleep stave brandishes? Wouldn't that issue go away if any of the following were implemented?
* Sleep easier to resist
* Get rid of sleep staves entirely
* Lower the level of sleep staves
* Reduce the number of charges on certain sleep staves (might not help you as much)

As for your question about brewing, I don't think that change had that much of an impact, actually, because:
1) The finite number of high quality vials is the real limiting factor on high end brewing of defensive buffs like ironguard, stoneskin, resist elements, sanctuary, spirit aura, etc.

2) The change was closely followed by jacked up economy changes that made the average cost of vials increase: thus "low end" brewing like heals and recalls ends up about the same because the success rate increased but the average cost/vial also increased.

The change you're proposing to enchant armor would be FAR more game-altering than the brew change was.

As a priest, would you really PvP without a good suit even if sleep and charm got the nerf bat? Most people wouldn't. It's just enchanting that suit requires 3+ hours every single time, which most people don't have or (understandably) don't want to spend. Against you and other veterans, debuff spells ARE weak, and will be regardless of whether sleep and charm get taken down a notch or enchant armor gets a boost.

If you get hit with Ain's spell (Which as far as I can tell doesn't actually have a save on cast), you're dead meat if you don't have 20 or more willpower. If you get hit with dispel (Which is probably going to be cast at you multiple times in group PvP due to holy word), then you probably lose every buff you have and are extremely weakened for the rest of the fight. If you fail a save on a curse your team had better win the fight or you're probably going to die. If your fortitude and reflex isn't good enough to resist color spray blinds over a fourth of the time, you're going to be severely hampered against a sorc that spams it because you'll be blind almost the whole fight even if you factor in cure blindness herbs. Fail a XXX save on Crucible spell? Enjoy running away or dying. Fail a XXX save on Druid spell? Enjoy dying. Don't have enough MP on your suit? You're going to die to physical damage or spell damage.

You keep saying that you've only enchanted your gear to prevent petrification, charm and sleep, but the problem is that because you've done so, you seem to have overlooked that there are plenty of other spells that will ravage you just as badly if you didn't have those fort and will saves, regardless of any countermeasures you bring with you: It's just that petrification, sleep and charm are the most popular spells to use right now. Anyone using curse, certain cabal spells, holy words, color spray and fear could screw you over just the same without fort/will saves: And I don't know how long it's been since you've played a melee character, but going into battle without great protection in addition to those saves on each piece of armor (And having that armor be good quality) is nigh-suicidal.

How small the does the player-base have to get before you acknowledge that requiring hours of enchanting to make yourself competent every time you die is unacceptable by most players? I'm not saying that enchant armor shouldn't take time: It should. What I'm saying is that it takes -too much time- and is more likely to be harmful than helpful, and that's not something you can explain away by saying that only a handful of spells are imbalanced.

Honestly, I'd be interested to hear how much time you spent on your current suit: I haven't even identified it to know exactly how good it is. Then, how many times has it been junked? If your answer is zero (Which, I have a feeling it is), then how much would it have detracted from your gameplay to have to spend those hours re-enchanting that suit were it junked every time that you've died in PvP? Keep that in mind, because the vast majority of players get full loots and have to start over every time they die.

There isn't anything ridiculous about the Guardians. I'm just an active patron. The fact that other tribunals have some glaring issues just means that they need some attention. For the record, I offered.



I only smoke stuff when I'm dealing with the Dreamscape! Nah, not really. Didn't add that staff, btw. Maybe I'll bother with it. Your attitude about it isn't exactly inspirational.

Sorry if I come off as abrasive. I've always been miffed about the fact that Mirans got the best PvP staff in the game by far, seconded only by death. It's the sheer number of charges that's the most broken thing about it.

I'm also sorry for getting on your case about the guardians. Some of my rantings were made without full knowledge, as you well know (Though it was the best knowledge I had at the time.)

Mira, you forgot to note my smilies indicating an extreme amount of tongue-in-cheek good-natured sarcasm. Please don't take that comment personally.

While I won't say I wished all cities were as inconveniently unapproachable as Sith, I will certainly applaud your activity and approachability.

It's just the three-hit combo of the amazing sleep staff, the amazing tribunal, and the best religious spell in the game (alongside remove compulsion) that kinda adds up to be a tough pill to swallow when you don't get to enjoy any of those fruits of your labor.

If I could roll a drow Miran priest Guardian, I would in a heartbeat. It'd be awesome.

Let's look at another angle though. If enchant armor was changed then priests and sorc would be much more willing to enchant for other people. I know that when I have played melee getting a priest or sorc to enchant for me was like asking someone to have your child. No one wants to do it, even if they do offer it's more like...yeah I'll do it...eventually...

A uber suit consists of about 120 enchants, and that's REALLY uber. A generally well enchanted suit hovers around 100 enchants. A nice change I think along with changing enchant would be to make it so people need ~25 to 30 of one enchant to effectively save against it, so people have to pick and choose what they want to save against. So if someone wants to have good saves against will/fort then they have to sacrifice MP/reflex/and...MR even though MR isn't much of a sacrifice. Or if they choose to enchant for a well rounded suit well then it can be that, but it will be a mediocre save to all instead of being good saves against one or two.