Stun and nightmare

[Jorquin]

These are going to be put under the microscope. Powerful spells are fun, however the recent spree of blitzkrieg attacks has highlighted that their current state is overpowered in the PK environment. Internal debate has also yielded a perspective of mages being fairly balanced for PVE, however the PK situation must change. This has already been agreed upon and is not subject to debate. The real question is what that change looks like. This thread is effectively an ideas canvas. We're open to suggestions both large and small.

One idea that has been touted is to create three different "power word" spells for the different robes and abolish PWS completely. The resulting spells could be something along the lines of:

"Power word shield" for White Robe - area spell absorbtion, damage reduction or immunity for a set number of rounds
"Power word locate" for Red Robes - lists the current room name of every player online - lengthy cooldown attached
"Power word cripple" for Black Robes - save vs spell or have increased damage taken, minus concentration and fumble chance applied


Another idea is just to rework save vs spell entirely to give players more opportunity to rank / itemize against "mage blitz" strategy.

Post your thoughts & comments below, we'd love to hear them.

[Kadaj]

I never really liked the idea of every mage having PWS available to them. I feel like you can't just go change it now, especially since A. Some mages have it and B. Some mages rolled specific robes in order to get it. I really like the idea of three different 'power word' spells.

Power word shield - I like the idea of area spell absorption or damage reduction, maybe a group haste similar to bolster that can only be casted once every 15 rounds?
Power word force - area force missile with all the perks of force missile - explode/bash ect
Power word cripple - This sounds like a lot of the spells black robes have now that no one uses Chaos, Devastation, Mass Hysteria.

White robes are the group buffer/defensive mages, they already have an area cleanse and can transfer spells to their group mates.  Perhaps a group wide haste with a cooldown, maybe something similar to acid mist but with fire or arcane damage and has a chance to resist being gusted away. Or the ability to disable disabling affects for a short time, immune to stun/group mindshield.

Red robes are the utility class, they locate the best, have a lot of things to do with mobility ect but they lack in the AoE department that Blacks and Whites have. I think something with an area force missile or area force bolt would be pretty cool if it ha the chance to explode from each one for more area damage or to bash the targets like FB/FM do.

Black robes are the offensive mages, they excel at dealing area damage and disruption on the battlefield. The black robes mages are tough to balance, they have great single target spells in pain, constrict heart, energy drain and rend. Perhaps their new spell could lower the resistances of targets or allow their spells to bypass resistances. Ever try to tent a group of NPP mobs? Or fight a pair of NPP mobs that aren't 'human' so you can't rend/pain them? it's awful. 

These are just off the top of my head, I think there is plenty of room to improve on these spells. I think adding PWS to every mage was perhaps a little over the top but with lack of coders, you did what you could with the resources you had.

I look forward to reading other suggestions.

[Episte]

I never really liked the idea of every mage having PWS available to them. I feel like you can't just go change it now, especially since A. Some mages have it and B. Some mages rolled specific robes in order to get it. I really like the idea of three different 'power word' spells.

Power word shield - I like the idea of area spell absorption or damage reduction, maybe a group haste similar to bolster that can only be casted once every 15 rounds?
Power word force - area force missile with all the perks of force missile - explode/bash ect
Power word cripple - This sounds like a lot of the spells black robes have now that no one uses Chaos, Devastation, Mass Hysteria.

okay here's 3 random power spell ideas.

Power word subversion - disbands group/following structure of those not grouped with caster + sublimates all those who fail save
Power word scatter - mass teleports mob/pvp opponent group around the same zone (for those who fail) - could be painful, or funny?
Power word splinter - makes failed targets ignore_healing_effects (heal/cure/cure blind/etc) for 6-12 rounds

[Toinu]

Remove it, with regret because it was a nice strong class addition. But mages have prismatic spray which is PK effective and also implies saving against. Prism is debilitating but not as deadly as PWS. If there is a PWS, it should be one of the beams of prism, which would focus the debate entirely around upping or nerfing prism.

[Ezio]

More opportunity to defend it would be great.

[Valenore]

Easiest solution is to say the PWS spell is so powerful that it also effects the caster (real kick in the nuts would be make it auto-land on caster).  Now the stunners become sacrificial lambs unless you have a lot of coordination to instantly remove the effect from them.  Similar variations on that idea could be caster has to make a save versus it effecting everyone in room (own group), excessive casting lag, hp/health drop like haste, cool down timer, etc associated with stun.   

[btown]

Easiest solution is to say the PWS spell is so powerful that it also effects the caster (real kick in the nuts would be make it auto-land on caster).  Now the stunners become sacrificial lambs unless you have a lot of coordination to instantly remove the effect from them.  Similar variations on that idea could be caster has to make a save versus it effecting everyone in room (own group), excessive casting lag, hp/health drop like haste, cool down timer, etc associated with stun.

I like this idea! lol

[Jorquin]

The problem there is the different ways player & mobile casting interact. Mobiles would be required to be exempt from this rule, and there's no appetite to implement differing functionality for spells based on whether they're cast by players or mobiles. This is based off advice from wise old coders, who are probably worth listening to.

Otherwise it would be a solid solution, but based off the advice of not having conditional effects (i.e. player cast or mobile cast), it wouldn't be fit for purpose.

[btown]

What if PWS drops everybody for 1 round to recover,  and the ones who dont save stay down

[btown]

I am not pushing for that just an idea to go with the others

[fulloflife]

I think this is somewhat of a math problem on how often we want the spell to land (given the average group size, and the number of mages that would be coming to the fight) and maybe even how many rounds we want it to land for. Together, you are just deciding over the total expected rounds of incapacitation per spell casting in an average pvp fight.

So my advice is to:

1) Increase the baseline probability of the spell to fail (obviously if it lands 1% of the time, no one will use it, and 10% might be too high because that's stunning 1 person on average per round for a group of 8 per mage.).

2a) Have more spell save choices in eq\ranks\spells\skills but keeping in mind your objective in 1.

2b) Tighten the control for spell save mods eq\ranks\spells\skills again keeping in mind your objective in 1.

I would prefer to trying this experiment first versus just getting rid of the spell or switching to a different spell altogether.

[Jorake]

Only reds get stun now right? Or is it all robes?

I really like the power word versions.

I also think that maybe the spell itself should just be limited. There are 3 nobashes, 3 dragon orbs, etc. Why not make it so you have to have an item to have access to the spell

I feel like if you change saves to make up for the stun then why not just scale stun back anyhow?

I liked it when there was just nightmare. If you wanted to stun someone you had to be a black robe. That felt pretty balanced really. Whites got prism, reds got blastwave. Everyone had their own area.

[jrrestad]

A good start would be making veil of ice duration last longer and for more than one spell..  That absorbs stun right?

[lurker]

I also think that maybe the spell itself should just be limited. There are 3 nobashes, 3 dragon orbs, etc. Why not make it so you have to have an item to have access to the spell

I made a suggestion along these lines a long time ago. It could be built into the spell component system.

If you cast PW:Stun without the component, you get the nerfed version. Might work a bit on lower level players, but not super effective at high level pk, easy to save against.

If you cast PW:Stun with the component, two things happen. One, the spell is cast at it's full strength as it exists now. Two, the spell component is created in your inventory at some % chance. Elite level item, make it 97%, almost permanent but there is a small chance that the component is expended completely when casting. Easier to pop ghetto stun variant component: 50% chance to poof on cast, so you can only really use it when you are really desperate.

The component can be as rare and as limited as desired, limit 3 for the elite version perhaps. Even the ghetto variant needs to be somewhat hard to get or limited, because a mage with several copies of it could still cast a lot of stuns. Make it norent and decay after 24 tics so it can't be stockpiled too much maybe. Whatever.

The same concept can be used for other spells.

[gulca]

Everytime you save against a spell, you gain bonus save against the same spell.

40℅ gain on each consecutive saves. The immunity starts to wear out after 1d4 rounds from the last save at -20% per round.

So 5 mage casting the same spell in a couple of rounds will find it really inefficient.

Or another idea
Cast "power word stun" melee/caster/no argument

If you choose target, you get higher chance of landing on the chosen class type. The non chosen type is not affected.
With no argument, chance to land is reduced by 50℅ but lands on every one.