TM Damage on 11/30/2012 07:06 AM CST
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Kodius said he was going to talk to magic folks about this but I figured I'd post too.

TM damage is underwhelming compared to its ranged brethren. The theory, as I understand it, behind this problem is that ranged damage has been tied to aim time (used to be just to-hit, now its to-hit and damage) whereas targeting TM spells remained tied only to to-hit--no damage increase tied to targeting. The damage difference is definitely noticeable.
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 08:24 AM CST
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>Kodius said he was going to talk to magic folks about this but I figured I'd post too.

I'm not sure what level you tested at, but I was pretty underwhelmed by my brief testing in terms of to-hit. At 288 TM, and 34 in all relevant stats, I couldn't hit Forest Geni reliably with TM, while I've been hunting them in prime for a while now. My test was pretty brief, but more mana didn't seem to help either, neither did pathway accuracy. I didn't try Substratum yet.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 09:35 AM CST
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I had to work really hard to find just the right critter to work TM. Get on Elanthapedia and fine tune the critter that works best for your level. Slow spawn critters are no longer an issue. You have the shard so it isn't a problem to travel around and find the critter that can teach you well.

Dierik

The average Moon Mage doesn't have a player keen enough on lore wonkery to keep up with it.
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 10:41 AM CST
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Shard goes away when things stop being tested and start getting real

Tm target takes about 10-12 seconds for single cast spells and at level the Mage ends up with a glancing or light hit

Only way around that that I've seen is to cast at higher preps. Problem there is higher preps kill mana pools pretty fast

It's not a very good way to hunt currently. Better to use a weapon and start swinging

Maybe reduce target time? Boost damage? I don't know what but something needs to be done
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 10:49 AM CST
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Elanthipedia data is hard to parse. The rank info is inconsistent. Some people put the number of ranks in defense needed to survive, some people put the number of ranks needed to hit with a weapon. On the high end, is it the hard cap or soft cap? Forest Genius have a low end of 230 on Epedia, yet I can't hit them with nearly sixty ranks more than that.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 11:10 AM CST
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>>Only way around that that I've seen is to cast at higher preps. Problem there is higher preps kill mana pools pretty fast

Pretty much, but magic regens a lot faster at lower rates than higher(inverse of what is in prime), so you'll probably be around 40-60% full mana if you cast often. If you use cambrinth you can also juggle it a little better too.

I've only ran outta mana twice when I wasn't playing around and not using healme: trying to keep my elemental charges full in combat with testing how pathways taught, and when I was doing a PvP trying to get past someone's wards.
_________________________________
An agonizing pain fills you as you feel your tongue turn to powder in your mouth! Through a haze of uncertainty and loss, you realize that something you just said was very wrong.
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 11:10 AM CST
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epedia's greatest flaw is that the bestiary low caps aren't capable of taking into account things like stats, buffs, etc, so when someone goes "yeah I can hunt this with X ranks" it can't really factor in if they have 10 or 100 agility, dragon dance or buff-free, etc.

IMO, a better way to determine if something is good for hunting is to go off the high cap, since the cutoff for a critter giving exp isn't based on your stats or buffs.



When in doubt, http://elanthipedia.org/
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 11:23 AM CST
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Was the formula for TM accuracy stats ever post? I've heard it was intelligence before, then discipline. At any rate i'm not sure why agility would play no part in TM accuracy at all anymore. Most spells in the TM spellbooks besides maybe a moon mages telekinetic spells all encompass some kind of flinging or throwing motion. In my opinion TM accuracy should be 1 part discipline for the aiming process, and one part agility for the actual projecting of the spells. Obviously its by more than physical means but it just seems right. Also for people that picked a race based on their ability to target magic better they would be still gaining something rather than the stat workings going all into mental stats.
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 11:25 AM CST
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> a better way to determine if something is good for hunting is to go off the high cap

This is what I generally do. Forest Geni have a high cap of 325 on Epedia. So less than forty ranks below the cap I can't hit them. I'll check my Small Edged later, as it's only a few ranks behind TM.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 11:58 AM CST
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Get rid of debilitation and have those spells work off target

I think that would be a step in the right direction
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 12:51 PM CST
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>Get rid of debilitation and have those spells work off target

It is odd that there are TM spells that do basically Debilitation function (Paralysis, PW maybe). PW may be more Utility than Debilitation, but still odd that it's targeted and doesn't do damage.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 01:17 PM CST
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I would guess that the most complicated part has to do with spells having more than one function. If damage spells just did damage, you could just make them work a lot like weapons. But with spells being multi-fuction, I have no clue how they need to be structured in order to be balanced.
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 01:52 PM CST
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I think Debil would work fine if exp was based off the TM model. I'm not a fan of how debil requires you to cast at your personal cap just because it's so anti-how I use debilitation spells. With the way certain results like immobilization cap out duration-wise, it's also foolishly excessive for me to cast something at X when casting it at minimum would give me the same results. Do I really need heighten pain to last that long to cast it at ~90 instead of 4?

The only other possible side-issue, at least for me, is that my debil was grandfathered much higher than my current combat level because my PM was so far ahead of my combats. Debil in the 400s and TM in the 300s, where most of my other combats are currently sitting. Even if debil exp goes closer to the TM model, I question if my skill is still too high for what currently counts as at-level for all my other combats.



When in doubt, http://elanthipedia.org/
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 03:30 PM CST
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I tested out debil training yesterday. Now, magic tert so that may factor in but I had no trouble min prepping halt and stun foe alternately, 5 second casts, face next and repeat. Debil was locked after 8-12 casts of each (so 16 to 24 total.) I tested halt at a straight prep of 40 and was successful, so the 5 mana minimum is nowhere near my cap.

~Katt



A gestalt draugen swipes a hooked leonine claw at Silus. The claw lands a solid hit that cuts deeply into his groin!
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 03:40 PM CST
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Even in Plat I think TM damage has been down tweaked too much. Previously they had it way too high and I think they've swung to far in the opposite direction.

Bascially with the way the system is now, you watch your spells do nothing for a dozen or more casts until the creature dies. Kind of...eh watching a creature slowly get scratched to death.
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 03:59 PM CST
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>Even in Plat I think TM damage has been down tweaked too much. Previously they had it way too high and I think they've swung to far in the opposite direction.

It may be due to what I am hunting or my skill range, but in Plat3.0 I can still lock TM in a fraction of the time I could in 2.0, though its no where as fast as the broken 2 minute lock time we first saw.

>Bascially with the way the system is now, you watch your spells do nothing for a dozen or more casts until the creature dies.

This may even be a messaging issue as well, most spell messaging seems to be based on body damage inflicted and not on vitality damage. I did some testing previously with high mana casts of BLB, and despite showing low damage on the first cast, an appraisal showed creatures to be very beat up.

Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 04:09 PM CST
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>>It may be due to what I am hunting or my skill range, but in Plat3.0 I can still lock TM in a fraction of the >>time I could in 2.0, though its no where as fast as the broken 2 minute lock time we first saw.

Experience wasn't an issue that was being addressed.

>>This may even be a messaging issue as well, most spell messaging seems to be based on body damage inflicted and >>not on vitality damage. I did some testing previously with high mana casts of BLB, and despite showing low >>damage on the first cast, an appraisal showed creatures to be very beat up.

And that's exactly what I'm alluding to. I find more than boring so see my spells doing nothing until the critter dies. And it isn't just the first cast. You may see more results, being able to cap out your spells on sequential casts, but that doesn't matter in lower level cases.

I can't care less what the appraisal says or what the creature looks like when I look at it. That isn't where the feel of combat comes from. If I see glance, glance, scuff, scuff, until the critter dies, it's really rather lackluster.
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 04:37 PM CST
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>Experience wasn't an issue that was being addressed.

Yeah, I failed at my reading check. my apologies.

>You may see more results, being able to cap out your spells on sequential casts, but that doesn't matter in lower level cases.

For general training I rarely cast anything over 30 mana, most TM spells are cast at min prep for sustained casting. However Divult and Remy are quite a world apart in skill and spells selection, so its likely difficult to draw any solid conclusions from our different observations alone.

>I can't care less what the appraisal says or what the creature looks like when I look at it. That isn't where the feel of combat comes from. If I see glance, glance, scuff, scuff, until the critter dies, it's really rather lackluster.

A fair point, messaging livens up the game and paints the images we see in our imaginations. Mechanically I think the damage is there or close, though likely quite low for the time it takes to deal and could use a bit of tweaking. Its the messaging that needs a bit of work, though I think that may not be as simple as it seems.

I do wonder how TM foci will affect this issue.

Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
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Re: TM Damage on 11/30/2012 08:10 PM CST
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>>Bascially with the way the system is now, you watch your spells do nothing for a dozen or more casts until the creature dies. Kind of...eh watching a creature slowly get scratched to death.

Have you tried weapons? This is more a function of 3.0's damage model than TM in particular. Vitality acts like natural armor; against any critter that teaches you well, the first several hit (read: half dozen or more) are usually small to moderate while you wear down the critter's vitality or inflict wounds.

Magic may still need an uptweak, but providing specific examples (spell used, mana level, critter used against, TM ranks, stats) would be constructive in claiming TM might be underpowered.

From my perspective, it quite in line with ranged weapons, as those are much weaker in general, too. Slings are taking 50+ hits to kill a critter, thrown weapons and bows about the same.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/01/2012 12:47 AM CST
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I don't know if anything has been changed or whether I've just seen strange streaks of data in previous nights, but I did more testing tonight and TM seems considerably better to me. Testing vs elder armadillos, fully aimed slurbow shots with quads killed in an average of 5-7 shots. Fully aimed capped spells (burn and PD) killed in an average of 4-5 casts. I missed a few times with fully aimed slurbow shots and I never missed with TM. For comparison, in prime, I will always one shot kill an elder with a fully aimed TM spell at half mana and I will average 3 shots a kill with the crossbow (LX though) fully aimed.

There is a 300 rank disparity between my TM and xbow skill, but I was previously seeing xbow outperform in shots per kill in 3.0. However, I was not previously using 100 mana or fully targeting. Multishot spells like TKS and TKT do considerably better than either bow or single cast spells in terms of DPS (obviously). All in all, it feels more fair to me. I can hit a bit better with spells, in terms of damage and accuracy, but I need to use a ton of mana and can't keep it up for long. On the other hand, I can shoot forever.

PVP vs an overclassed (meaning there was really no chance of me missing him) paladin, TM outperformed my slurbow pretty noticeably. I was actually pretty stunned at how well a paladin could stand up to ranged. Tanking seems like a real, real thing for those with great plate armor and some good spells.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 02:49 PM CST
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Keep in mind that your first hit with ANY weapon is probably going to be a lighter one, because most of the damage is absorbed by vitality.

--

"The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true." -E.A.P.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 08:33 PM CST
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>Keep in mind that your first hit with ANY weapon is probably going to be a lighter one

Any comment on the accuracy issues at lower circles? I haven't tested again recently, but I was able to easily hit Forest Geni with 270 Small Edged, but had quite a bit of difficulty with 288 TM. I can hit with buffs like Pathway Accuracy and Substratum, but I still feel like it's weird I have to buff to hit with more ranks.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 08:41 PM CST
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On my wife's baby bard she could barely scratch things with BoS and Stra. Both seemed very in accurate. Her TM is the same as her weapons and she tears the same things up with mundane weapons. That along with pyre now being a while out of her reach left her asking me how she could train TM.

75 or so ranks.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 09:04 PM CST
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>Forest Geni with 270 Small Edged, but had quite a bit of difficulty with 288 TM.

Noticed similar. With 273 small edged (a reasonably balanced sabre), 47 agility, I was able to take down shalswars fairly readily (fully buffed up). With same-ranked 2HE/HE/Polearm (forgot to test Bows), all horribly balanced, I whiffed. Disablers helps a bit, but not much. With 314 TM I couldn't hit worth a darn, with pretty much any TM (AOE and otherwise), with Pathway Accuracy up. Forgot about Substratum, admittedly.

Now, take the caveat that when hunting closer to 'my level' (which I guess is a touch above adan'f and gryphons now) I learn TM and weapons just fine.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 09:14 PM CST
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>47 agility

This isn't useful for a comparison to TM unless you give mentals as well. TM no longer uses agility in its calculation. All my stats are pretty much even, though Charisma and Wisdom are both one below everything else. 34/33 in stats.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 09:55 PM CST
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>This isn't useful for a comparison to TM unless you give mentals as well.

Oh, sorry. Didn't think stats affected TM, just the disablers and whatnot. Listed agility for the weapon. 47 Cha/Ref/Agi, 46 Int/Wis/Str, 44 Sta/Disc.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 09:57 PM CST
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>Didn't think stats affected TM

I'm sure some stat affects TM, but I'm not sure what in 3.0.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 10:19 PM CST
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Target damage may have been tweaked some due to Spell Stance. They can try more potency . Still.... poor vivisection...
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 10:22 PM CST
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>>I'm sure some stat affects TM, but I'm not sure what in 3.0.

Magic = Wisdom,Intelligence,Discipline

Being that most TM are purely magic based damage spells. Some of the Cleric spells use the Spirit attack stats and its possible a couple like TKT might use the Mind attack stats but for the most part thats the stats that affect TM. In that order BTW... Wisdom is the biggest modifier.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 10:23 PM CST
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IIRC, Genis are a poor tester for magic too. They do have a bit of magic resistance, AFIK, having semi-undead/evil properties. Which could be why you were seeing a difference in your LE vs TM against them.

Falker
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 10:32 PM CST
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>IIRC, Genis are a poor tester for magic too

I don't seem to have any problem with them in Prime. I've been hunting them with TM and ME for ten or twenty ranks of both in Prime. Did Magic Resistance change significantly?

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 10:34 PM CST
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> Did Magic Resistance change significantly?

From what i recall it went bye bye. Except for a couple random things like undead MR which is still alive and bending the laws of making sense.

~Tezirite Renzar Lorrani

"Power is merely a stepping stone to more power."
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Re: TM Damage on 12/03/2012 11:51 PM CST
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>On my wife's baby bard she could barely scratch things with BoS and Stra. Both seemed very in accurate. Her TM is the same as her weapons and she tears the same things up with mundane weapons. That along with pyre now being a while out of her reach left her asking me how she could train TM.

TM training isn't actually that bad, since you can quite a bit of experience on a near miss. I can mind lock TM with my bard at 100 TM in snowbeasts quite easily. It takes about 10-12 minutes or so. Of course, in that time I only kill 2 snowbeasts. But I can learn TM.

This compares to weapons, where it takes about the same amount of time but with twice as many kills.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/04/2012 08:42 AM CST
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TM dmg should b agil and disc
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Re: TM Damage on 12/04/2012 09:37 AM CST
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In 2.0, yes. In 3.0 its mentals.

- Starlear -
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Re: TM Damage on 12/04/2012 12:57 PM CST
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>TM training isn't actually that bad

We're not talking about training. We're talking about to hit. I cannot hit things with TM that I can easily hit with less in a weapon. Mostly total misses, and occasional hits. Where as with weapons, it's occasional misses, and mostly hits. Whether or not it trains is irrelevant. The skill is useless if I can hit things with less ranks in weapons. I think part of the problem is balance/position. Weapons have methods of building both of these and doing damage, TM has no way to build either.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 12/04/2012 01:07 PM CST
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>>We're not talking about training. We're talking about to hit. I cannot hit things with TM that I can easily hit with less in a weapon. Mostly total misses, and occasional hits. Where as with weapons, it's occasional misses, and mostly hits. Whether or not it trains is irrelevant. The skill is useless if I can hit things with less ranks in weapons. I think part of the problem is balance/position. Weapons have methods of building both of these and doing damage, TM has no way to build either

Yup not sure whats wrong with it but something is off, Starlight sphere especially just whiffs 50% of the time. I can train it just fine assuming I hit things with it.

_______________________
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Re: TM Damage on 12/04/2012 01:10 PM CST
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>We're not talking about training.

Someone posted a question about how they would train TM. I was responding to that. See the part that I quoted.

>On my wife's baby bard she could barely scratch things with BoS and Stra. Both seemed very in accurate. Her TM is the same as her weapons and she tears the same things up with mundane weapons. That along with pyre now being a while out of her reach left her asking me how she could train TM.
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Re: TM Damage on 12/04/2012 01:12 PM CST
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>Someone posted a question about how they would train TM. I was responding to that. See the part that I quoted.

And her issue with learning is that she can't hit things with TM that she can easily hit with similar ranks of a weapon. You learn much less if you miss on every attack, even if you learn some.

Elemental Lord Opieus, Master Warrior Mage of Elanthia
"For a bunch of radical empiricists, the Philosophers' system relies on a whole lot of faith." ~Armifer
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Re: TM Damage on 12/04/2012 01:15 PM CST
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>And her issue with learning is that she can't hit things with TM that she can easily hit with similar ranks of a weapon. You learn much less if you miss on every attack, even if you learn some.

Right, and I responded saying that that is not my experience at all. I learn TM as well or better than mundane weapons, despite pretty much only missing and landing grazing hits, and killing at half the speed or less.

If you're missing by a lot, you won't learn TM, but if you're anywhere close to the ranks of what you're hunting you will learn TM through misses just fine.
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