Current endgame balance: a hooch-fueled rant

[Hoochfox]

$%^& eitr-weave.

I'm sure some math whiz is gonna jump in and decimate my opinions with Pythagorean logic and some heavy quote from Nietzsche, but it seems to me that eitr-weave is utter trash-tier armour. It sports all of the disadvantages of heavy armour (displacing the speed advantage of the Fenris set, which is the final light set and now two tiers out of date), but without much advantage in the protection department. But! It does offer some meagre boost in the regeneration department for eitr, which we currently have a level of 0 in. Super awesome cool. Look, even the flavour text for the set basically says "yeah, wearing this armour really sucks. Enjoy!"

Good thing we can still play viable archery builds and avoid level grinding magic, yeah? I'm gonna mess that 'Queen' up with my fully leveled Snapspine, or resort to my currently maxxed-out Himminafl if that doesn't pan out.

AAAHHHAHAHAHAAAHAHAAHAAAAAA I'm gonna go beat Pac-Man.

[Jadis]

I approve this message!

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Just dodge when you are attacked. :)

[Hoochfox]

Originally posted by morrganstain:

Just dodge when you are attacked. :)

As a habitual light/Fenris set user, I am accustomed to "dodge" meaning "walk away calmly," not "roll and pray."

[glass zebra]

The meagre boost of 100%? Magic has blood barriers, skeletons and ranged perma slow. They might have 0 armour value on that armour and you can still be an invincible deity of fire with your skeleton army. I am frankly confused why the armour value is 3 tiers over fenris and has the same movement as root. Mages don't need to be that fast or tanky to survive.

It does not take a ton of time to get your first levels and you don't need level 70 to beat the queen. If you play with full blood focus, you will also hardly ever want to dodge and try to parry everything that can be staggered (it will work 100% of the time if you have a barrier on you, no matter how high the damage is or what weapon you are using to parry. Parry stagger 2 star seeker soldiers with a stick and take 0 damage, knockback or stagger yourself).

Seriously the Queen was so easy with fire balls and running. Magic has extremely high burst, but super low reg (even with the set) and that makes kiting very easy, especially since you use 0 stamina when bursting and have full eitr reg while sprinting. Giving it no speed penalty would be ridiculous and I would be fine with it having more. Those adds also die to 2 fireballs on range, without even needing to aim well.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by Hoochfox:

Originally posted by morrganstain:

Just dodge when you are attacked. :)

As a habitual light/Fenris set user, I am accustomed to "dodge" meaning "walk away calmly," not "roll and pray."

That works too. Most of this complaint about armor is just a skill issue. :)

[Nerevar]

you cannot max out spinesnap and himmin currently. level 3 is the limit due to the forge missing an upgrade station.

also the eitr weave set is a noob trap. there is no good reason to use it over the heavy set or fenris if you like to live dangerously.

the eitr regen isnt even +100% despite what it says.

and eitr regens by itself like stamina by default. with rested buff (which you should have active anyway) you only need 1 eitr food to make effective use of the staff of embers which is the primary major deal on magic tools currently.

the protection staff is grossly unbalanced currently and shouldnt be used. itll balance itself out with the last 2 biomes hopefully since its power is maxed in terms of hp shield by now while enemies will hit harder and harder.

the other 2 tools arent worth it imo. froststaff is worse dps than mistwalker combos.

but embers is overly useful to have as an option. ranged aoe dmg is just very useful in generel in alot of areas in the game.

alot of players make the mistake of eating 3 eitr foods and relying fully on magic and the bubble. but that is glass cannon style. make 1 mistake with the bubble and you just die. plus need to level up blood magic just for that.

ashlands will have a new light armor set a new magic set and a new heavy set once it releases sometime next year.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the protection staff is grossly unbalanced currently and shouldnt be used. itll balance itself out with the last 2 biomes hopefully since its power is maxed in terms of hp shield by now while enemies will hit harder and harder.
[...]
make 1 mistake with the bubble and you just die

It does not matter at all how hard an enemy hits. If you have a bubble on yourself, it will always block 100% of the damage of the next hit (even if you are naked) leaving no poison or fire dot either, even with a level 1 staff at skill level 0. Gaining levels makes the bubble survive more than 1 hit though, but even without that it will always negate 1 mistake completely. The power definitely is not maxed for most players, since the shield scales up very strongly with skill level, so you will have a much bigger shield in the last 2 biomes. I frankly threw away my HP food for an Eitr food on my knives user just to use the staff to erase my mistakes that otherwise kill me (and to parry 2 star seekers), which does sound unblanced of course. Maybe they will add more multi hit enemies that can't be staggered on parry.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the other 2 tools arent worth it imo. froststaff is worse dps than mistwalker combos.

The frost staff is good for slow support from range or to kill seekers soldiers. You can get behind them and keep that button down until your Eitir is empty. Slowed they will be able to turn slower than you can walk around them while attacking with that staff. Otherwise it has less dps than the fire staff though. The skeleton staff is extremely powerful if you go into a tank parry role and otherwise still useful to have enemies target them instead of you. Gjalls love them. It is also frankly passive "free" dps that keeps runing while you do something else and there is no reason to not take free dps if you have Eitr to spare.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the eitr regen isnt even +100% despite what it says.

How much is it instead? I need ~27s to fill my bar with the set and no other buffs and ~54 seconds without any buff at all (~18s with Etir set and rested). Seems to be a 100% bonus and 50% with the rested buff, which is up to a 50% dps increase (minus reg-locking cast time, so closer to 40%) on longer encounters. That absolutely does not sound like a noob trap but one of the strongest set boni so far. Can use another helmet though without much difference or breaking any set bonus. Another upside

[Mharr]

I also suffer from my favoured gear sets always being several tiers out of date. I really hope horizontal progression fills out after the main progression of biomes is locked down.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Mharr:

I also suffer from my favoured gear sets always being several tiers out of date. I really hope horizontal progression fills out after the main progression of biomes is locked down.

I'm mostly waiting for a sneak set that is not a lot slower than Fenris and does not lock up the cape slot ~~ The other sets are all usable for the entire game (troll is too, but it annoys me still). I'd definitely keep that silver helmet on my sword user for longer though, because you can't beat that look.
Don't forgot how important morale is in combat!

[Sleepy]

Staff of Protection basically makes all armor obsolete.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the protection staff is grossly unbalanced currently and shouldnt be used. itll balance itself out with the last 2 biomes hopefully since its power is maxed in terms of hp shield by now while enemies will hit harder and harder.
[...]
make 1 mistake with the bubble and you just die

It does not matter at all how hard an enemy hits. If you have a bubble on yourself, it will always block 100% of the damage of the next hit (even if you are naked) leaving no poison or fire dot either, even with a level 1 staff at skill level 0. Gaining levels makes the bubble survive more than 1 hit though, but even without that it will always negate 1 mistake completely. The power definitely is not maxed for most players, since the shield scales up very strongly with skill level, so you will have a much bigger shield in the last 2 biomes. I frankly threw away my HP food for an Eitr food on my knives user just to use the staff to erase my mistakes that otherwise kill me (and to parry 2 star seekers), which does sound unblanced of course. Maybe they will add more multi hit enemies that can't be staggered on parry.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the other 2 tools arent worth it imo. froststaff is worse dps than mistwalker combos.

The frost staff is good for slow support from range or to kill seekers soldiers. You can get behind them and keep that button down until your Eitir is empty. Slowed they will be able to turn slower than you can walk around them while attacking with that staff. Otherwise it has less dps than the fire staff though. The skeleton staff is extremely powerful if you go into a tank parry role and otherwise still useful to have enemies target them instead of you. Gjalls love them. It is also frankly passive "free" dps that keeps runing while you do something else and there is no reason to not take free dps if you have Eitr to spare.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the eitr regen isnt even +100% despite what it says.

How much is it instead? I need ~27s to fill my bar with the set and no other buffs and ~54 seconds without any buff at all (~18s with Etir set and rested). Seems to be a 100% bonus and 50% with the rested buff, which is up to a 50% dps increase (minus reg-locking cast time, so closer to 40%) on longer encounters. That absolutely does not sound like a noob trap but one of the strongest set boni so far. Can use another helmet though without much difference or breaking any set bonus. Another upside

the mistwalker can kill soldiers the same way as the frost staff but faster. bait stomp attack (they always open with it and they cannot turn while doing it) then wail away at thier backside. death soldier before it can turn around. much faster than any of the staffs can kill it. no contest there.

the bubble is OP. we already established that. maybe some of the chadded mages in ashlands can just dispel the shield. that would be a cool feature to balance this staff finally. the firestaff is gonna be auto nerfed by ashlands anyway since everything there probaly resists fire or is immune to it anyway. if there is new blood magic tools at all is unknown. for elemental magic there is 1 new staff confirmed (lighting)

the regen isnt a dps increase. as you dont regen while fireing fireballs. you have to wait. and well. aside bosses and the big bois (golem/lox/gjall/soldier) nothing survives 2-3 fireballs to begin with so yeah. noob trap. its fully unneeded if you use the firestaff correctly. there is never a reason to SPAMcast it. so the base regen is more than enough with rested. its always 50% bonus as you ALWAYS should be rested. you dont play without rested otherwise you arent effective by default to begin with.

it isnt even a SETBONUS. its a regular bonus. its not worth it compared to the tankyness you lose. of course that doesnt matter if you rely 100% on the bubble to live.

the skeletons arent partical at all. they are too slow to keep up with the player running at higher skill levels and they are also not worth summoning for everyday combat. and bosses just kill them too fast. are they free dps? yes. are they pratical tough? not really.

i am glad you need eitr to even use magic tbh. the devs atleast are aware of how unbalanced the magic tools are currently and will probaly take that into account for ashlands.

[jonnin]

this gear is a stepping stone so you can level up your staff usage. Once you are good at magic, you can wear your normal armor and still cast plenty and maintain a shield etc. It serves its purpose well enough, but its not endgame tool, same as your crude bow is just a stepping stone for a few min until you can make a better one.

[Tomiro]

"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star." Also Pythagoras didn't eat beans. Ergo your argument is invalid.

[Admiral Chowderpants]

I have a question.

Why was magic introduced to the game but not made available till Mistlands?

Wouldn't it be fun (and make more sense) if you could start honing the dark arts from the very beginning?

[Mharr]

Originally posted by Sleepy:

Staff of Protection basically makes all armor obsolete.

I shall defer to sage Rincewind here. So ... magic armour. Perfectly normal magic armour. It had never been very popular in Ankh-Morpork. Of course, it was light. You could make it as thin as cloth. But it tended to lose its magic without warning. Many an ancient lord's last words had been, 'You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh.'