Melee area of effect "spell"

[Blau]

With a rending wand, mages can become completely surrounded with mobs. Cast 5 or 6 ring spells and they're all dead. The melee can't do this. He has to kill each one independantly. Melees really need an area of effect attack - perhaps a 360 degree "sweep" or something like that. This would also help with PvP situations where you're completely surrounded but you'd like to return fire with a lower-power, but high "volume" attack.

[Virindi Clown]

I fail to see why mages were given so many multiple target attacks. That's really unfair that no one else got anything.

I agree 100% with atleast the ability to perform an attack that hits multiple monsters around you.

[sylphia]

The rings werent really a problem until rends came out. The goofy double-pump cast on them, added to lower damage-per-hit than 7s AND the fact you had to be surrounded by multiple mobs (which means getting the snot kicked out of you by them) was pretty well balancing. Without vulns, even though rings have the POTENTIAL to hit more than once, they really didnt do alot of damage per mob, compared to a vuln and lvl 7 war attack. In most cases it was easier (and faster AND safer) to pick off mobs one at a time with the mage. With a built in lvl 5-6 vuln though, the damage output is jacked WAY up.

The melee still has the inherent advantage of being able to ignore most melee-based criter attacks, though. With rending wpns, they can kill mobs alot faster than they used to, and they dont have to juggle their HP like a mage does. Now all that being said:

Mages do still have an inherant advantage in this field. Remember though that if you start looking at giving melees area attacks, you are going to have to give them to archers as well (perhaps grenade-style arrows), or you are going to get massive outcries. I wouldnt mind seeing these improvements on my melees and archers, but I also understand that area-damaging attacks are traditionally more in the realm of magic, not swords and bows.

[Mage_of_Dereth]

if we are talking about pvp when are u fully surrounded???

If you see the spell words get out of the way...

It is much more effective in group fights to just have friends pick off melees for you in my opinion. I havent seen a ring used in a fight unless it was a joke for a while

[Virindi Clown]

It's not really a PvP issue, and I can't figure out any reasonable way to give it to archers. So what, you let them shoot multiple arrows? That would not bode well in PvP if they could just spew arrows everywhere.

There's no good solution. The rings double charge because they have two scarabs, and you usually have to cast two to kill even olthoi nobles surrounding you.

In that time a melee can do some big damage with an element rend weapon, and an archer would probably kill even faster than the mage.

War costs more, so really, that's OK if they have the ability to hit multiple monsters at once.

And as it was said, melees don't have a problem taking on large amounts of monsters, and archers can have just as good of melee defense.

A mage is stuck getting hit, hoping they can heal fast enough and that their stamina to mana and mana con will work out.

That doesn't mean we should abandone the idea entirely, though =)

[sylphia]

I know WHY they double pump VC; I was one of the ones that figured out the original forumlas :-P But its still one of the limitations on the spell iiself.

As for how to give archers the attack, like I said--grenade-type attacks. In other words, arrows that explode on impact, whether with the environement or an actual target. On impact, the arrow generates a similar effect to a ring, with "to hit" based on the firing accuracy and skill, etc of the user. This is to prevent rapid-fire volleys of arrows on low accuracy just for the area-effect, which would be utterly devastating.

The concept is simple enough, though I dont know if the same is true about coding implementation.

Of course it allows a bit of exploit, in that you get to damage multiple mobs with one distance shot, but archers are SUPPOSED to be distance fighters-somethign that is decidely lacking in their current form: whack a mob, it runs in and you hit the environment on all successive shots until it gets to you (sigh).

[Virindi Clown]

Ah, I understand the "grenade" thing now Sylphia. I didn't quite catch on before.

I always thought there should be something along those lines, particulary for throwing weapons. Why can't you chuck elemental bombs at stuff?

When I first started the game in '99 I thought a blast was a spell that made an explosion when you hit your target, much like a ring comes out of your character. Technically, that would work.

It could function EXACTLY the same as a ring, but the effect for it could just be replaced with a more appropriate "explosion" type graphic.

Hehe, it would be funny to shoot an arrow at some monster running at you and kill yourself with the explosion =)

[sylphia]

Originally posted by Virindi Clown
Hehe, it would be funny to shoot an arrow at some monster running at you and kill yourself with the explosion =)

That would SUCK lol.

We did have a problem something like that, back when misfired arrows were plunking ppl in the back of their own heads; for PKs it was deadly, for non PKs it was causing lock up issues. Grenade-style arows would have to be a step up from deadlies, I think. They have ALOT of damage potential in them, esp combined with rending wpns. And unlike rings, you dont have to be in the middle of the mobs and getting pounded to get the ring effect on the first 1-2 shots.

Personally i think that blasts, volleys, and walls are all but useless. Some folks complain about the multi-target capability of mage spells, but really only rings work well; you have to find just the right kind of situation to really get any benefit out of the other spells. I cant remember the last time I used one to any real effect in combat; they are more a party-favor to me than an actual combat spell. Any time I could use one of those, I use a ring instead for better effect :)