Shattered Kingdoms

I've kinda stayed out of this thread since, truth be told, I don't know all that much about mechanics and in pvp, well I'm not very good. I've had a few successes, but I think that's probably from the warlock buffs more so than my actual skill.

One thing that I noticed is that, in a recent log, I come up against an overly prepared elf merc. Seeing the log from their end, and well, me having no buffs of my own save armor from the sacred suit my character wears, I was a bit surprised at the damage they cranked out vs the damage they absorbed from a GM warlock.

Chain lightning was lucky to do 7% Magma was completely resisted due to RE and they practically four to five rounded my elemental since it didn't have sanc, protection or any defensive buffs. I'm not saying this is wrong, as I wasn't as prepared as they were. They deserved to win that skirmish. What I do think though, is it was absolutely impossible for me to do any damage whatsoever. The thing is, you can boost melee damage. Giant strength, haste, frenzy all boost melee damage. Spell damage however, can't be buffed this way, yet it can be mitigated so much more (racial resistances + spells + armor enchants) that it's a bit surprising.

I do think it's a bit crazy at just how little some people take from spells cast from a GM caster. I think that some buffs shouldn't be used together. For example shield and frenzy. These two can completely negate each other, yet you still gain the melee benefits from each. Giant strength and haste, this one is debatable, but the two allow warriors to pump up their melee damage almost exponentially (more damage PLUS more attacks). This is just my newbish two cents though. Some buffs synergize too well with each other and when one is strong enough to cover another's weakness, there's a bit of an issue in my opinion.

In that log, the elf merc had resist elements, is an elf and had plenty of MP on her armor. In other words, barring sanctuary/shield, you were going against one of the character builds specifically aimed at lowering spell damage, and in general if someone has RE and is well enchanted then the worst spells you can cast are probably magma and chain lightning. Faerie fire + Lightning bolt is likely to do the most damage in that case.

However, you have realized one very important point. There is no way to increase your cast spell damage, compared to how you can increase melee damage output through haste/GS/frenzy/enchants. On the other hand, your spells also do the same damage even if you are naked. As a result, casters are stronger against uprepared opponents than prepared opponents, which is a paradigm that I don't see changing anytime soon unless items which boost magical damage are put into the game (I sure hope not). Part of the benefit of being able to do all your damage from relative safety in the back ranks comes with the drawback of having a "cap" on your damage output, as it were, and I find that fitting.

Overly prepared, lol.

You play a mercenary. According to this thread, without another PC to cast spells on you, your buff list should look like.

~~~Tolene, Queen of Taslamar~~~~~
Affected by : Rallying Cry - Morale Bonus to blah
Affected by : Rallying Cry - Morale Bonus to blah
Affected by : Rallying Cry - Morale Bonus to blah
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have fun.

o Affect: 'impaired' - penalty to reflex o
o Affect: 'airy water' o
o Affect: 'frenzy' - penalty to magical protection o
o Affect: 'frenzy' - morale bonus to weapon damage o
o Affect: 'frenzy' - morale bonus to probability to hit o
o Affect: 'prayer' - morale bonus to reflex o
o Affect: 'prayer' - morale bonus to willpower o
o Affect: 'prayer' - morale bonus to fortitude o
o Affect: 'resist elements' o
o Affect: 'shield' - deflection bonus to magical protection o
o Affect: 'fly' - penalty to probability to hit o
o Affect: 'armor' - deflection bonus to probability to dodge o

That was without gstr / haste. If those were included, the melee damage would have been even worse. Even with frenzy, a GM chain lightning was doing 7% after both hits. Yes I forgot to use faerie fire to reduce the MP, I'm still learning, but still, a GM chain lightning only doing 7% is a bit nuts. I'm not saying it should absolutely devastate but once you include vials and such, impossible to fight is an understatement. Shield and frenzy completely cancelled each other out. There was the melee damage increase, but without the pit falls. Some buffs, in my opinion shouldn't stack.

I'm not saying I should have won that fight, far from it. I completely deserved to get my butt handed to me by a prepared opponent, but some of the preparations should probably be scaled back a bit. Seeing people run around with the above + sanctuary, haste, G. Strength, lighten load and other such is insane.

As far as RE is concerned, there SHOULD be scripted things that contain RE. Magma simply has the potential of being too powerful if some form of RE doesn't exist as I've one shot said Human sorcs with magma and decimated a few Centaurs with it. Instead of straight up removing scripted equipment, I think the buffs that stack should be limited rather than just removing everything.

That's the main benefit of joining a tribunal as things stand: Tolene has (in defensive situations) almost constant access to sanctuary and frenzy, and constant access to armor, fly, prayer and shield. Most of these are defensive spells, however, and also can all be obtained by non-trib members with more preparation. As for GS/haste, that's not a spell that you can keep up 24/7 or you'll end up fatigued into the ground and unable to carry your own weapon and you'll be fodder for any fort-based spells.

Tribunal characters are meant to be ready to take on an attack at a moment's notice, and to that end they are given trib NPCs to hold spells on them constantly or semi-constantly. The downside is that they don't get any cabal skills at all: Tolene is still outshined by a mercenary in the Hammer with access to those same buffs, for example. At the moment, mechanics-wise, joining a tribunal is choosing to forsake high-end potential for the utility and accessibility of trib NPCs. You don't get any of the flashy toys, but it gets the job done most of the time. Overall I think it's balanced.

Your main argument seems to be that a fully prepped melee character should not be able to mitigate as much spell damage from certain spells as they do: I understand your point of view, I just don't agree. Spells like chain lightning and fireball do an intense amount of damage to unprepped characters for being ranged room-affect spells. If they did massive damage even to characters that are dressed to the nines, then warlocks would be too powerful in my opinion. Warlocks have other options for damaging spelled up elves with RE than chain lightning and magma.

This. Do you know how much it sucks to be in a tribunal?

Yeah, Tribunal vs Cabal, it is pretty balanced with the benefits each get.

Although I wouldn't say it sucks to be in a Tribunal, I find it quite fun!