I'm just wondering if this is actually doing anything. As a chaotic good elf with max charisma and a thin veil, and student of virtue, it's still easier for me to get big elementals than big angels, even when I put 1129 extra mana into conjure angel. When I sink that much into an elemental, I usually get a razor-sharp elemental, if not hooded. And yet, for angels, I'm getting mostly winged and sometimes a terrible.

The angel formula has some very odd quirks. Putting too much effort into it, actually seems to be detrimental toward your goal of gaining the dreaded Archangel. I have no idea how the code actually works, but finding a 'sweet spot' is the way to go. After a certain point, excessess of mana don't help. Although your winged angel will last a heck of a long time (just rebind it when the bind wears off).

The best I can advise, is wait until you reach Hero (making all number based activites from then on more consistant) and then begin experimenting with location (guilds/cabals are NOT places to conjure - let me make that VERY clear), mana, circles and binds. Find a good balance between time and power. You don't need a gajillion mana for some aspects of conjuring - see what works for you. Then develop for your own personal use - trying to use anyone elses tips is a guaranteed way to fail. Although having a starting point doesn't hurt.

I think that conjurers as a class are due for a make-over in general. There have been a lot of awesome tweaks over the years, but aspects of them just need a quick overhaul. The conjure code might well be one of them. But don't hold your breath, thieves and shamans are in far more need of help right now (imho).

Yhorian

Edit: I actually made a script that allowed me to log all my conjurations. I'll post it if I ever tidy it up into something more comprehensible - but the essence of it was this. Alias for conjure, notes mana amount as variable which is added to a file along with alias used, prompted for location of conjure and some additional time info is added in after. I then have an alias to manually add the quality of the conjure The log then gives me this:

Archon 1100 mana 15:23:03 01/24/08 Redhorns Transplendant

The log shows, amongst other trends, that there is no guaranteed way to get the conjure you want - just ways to increase likelyhood. Good luck.

I have no idea what the formula is, but if it *isn't* something straightforward where more mana always helps, even if insignificantly so, then that's dumb.

Nobody should have to conduct a statistical experiment in order to figure out how to best use a class.

That said, I think last time I had a conjurer I normally put like 2-300 mana into elementals and got "better than perfect match", and maybe 600-700 into archons/angels. I'd never put any extra into my circles, or into my bindings.

>I have no idea what the formula is, but if it *isn't*
>something straightforward where more mana always helps, even
>if insignificantly so, then that's dumb.
>
>Nobody should have to conduct a statistical experiment in
>order to figure out how to best use a class.

I think it's pretty simple, but, that's me. Depending on what you want more mana may not help you, but it won't generally hurt you either (see below for the exception).

There are two possibilities for what can happen to your extra mana. The amount of mana doesn't, IIRC, affect this:

1) Your extra mana buys a stronger servitor. Here, it potentially can work against you in that you might get a servitor that's so strong that you struggle, perhaps fatally, to get it bound before it breaks your circle and kills you. I wouldn't say I see this a lot but I have seen conjurers murdered by servitors that wouldn't have pushed them with a lesser mana pump.

2) Your extra mana buys a longer stay.

If you put in a million mana and get something that cons as perfect match, you got #2.

I've been hearing from more than 3 different VERY successful conji players over the last 6 years that you have to find the sweet spot of mana to have the highest chance to get the higher conjurs.


They way they explained it to me, and the way I've believe them because they were all successful...

is you find a range perhaps 100-200 mana wide that will give you the highest chance to get a tranny. Any more than that, and your chances drop.


but, you are saying, this is not the case.

Let's say you have a half decent chance to get a tranny putting 800 mana into it.

You are saying that at no point above 800 mana, all else being equal, does the chance to get a tranny go down?


If so, this is huge to me. As I said it goes against everything every successful conji has told me since Conji's version 2.0*

*(version 1.0 was when they first came out, and a number of imms rolled them up because they knew nightgaunt and other things were op...and getting nightgaunted into no-flee-no-word-no-teleport areas was a deathsentance and even rbw's couldn't out melee nightgaunts. Version 2.0 was after that first big re-balancing)

>You are saying that at no point above 800 mana, all else being
>equal, does the chance to get a tranny go down?

Indeed I am saying that.

>*(version 1.0 was when they first came out, and a number of
>imms rolled them up because they knew nightgaunt and other
>things were op...and getting nightgaunted into
>no-flee-no-word-no-teleport areas was a deathsentance and even
>rbw's couldn't out melee nightgaunts.

Heh. I'd say it was more like, we 'knew' all the supposedly overpowered things were impossible because we had agreed on their design. The code knew differently. :P

Chalk it up to part of the process of figuring it all out and getting it fixed.

>Indeed I am saying that.

Well ####. Maybe it's time to open the folder sitting on my desktop full of about 12 different conji roles that I have been putting off because of the daunting task I thought finding the "sweet spot" everyone was telling me I had to find would be.


>The code knew differently. :P


Speaking from experience. Code can be a righteous knowitall bitch sometimes.

Really, in general, if you think something in the CF system is ridiculously complicated, probably the prevailing wisdom on it is wrong.

That's not to say that there aren't CF systems that are complicated by virtue of the interaction of a lot of fairly simple things, like whether or not a bash lands or not -- okay, let's look at your skill, your strength, your size, your opponent's strength, your opponent's size, let's look at if you have Greeting, let's look at if they have each of the spells that would interfere with a bash, etc. Lots of factors, but they're pretty much all either 'you have it or you don't' or 'more is better' -- you're not going to find skills where 23 strength is optimum for bashing and 24 or 25 strength on an otherwise-same character is worse.

So then what IS the benefit of Student of Virtue? If its RNG that determines whether your extra mana goes into extending the stay or bringing a bigger servitor, what does Student of Virtue do? And even though I don't have it yet, the same question applies to Sword of the Heavens and Shield of the Heavens.

And this is just a guess, with just random numbers thrown in to illustrate.



Let's say normally, at 800 mana, you have a chance to get a transplendant, or, a chance for it to stay 4 extra hours.

with the edge, at 800 mana, you ahve a chance to get a transplendant, or a chance for it to stay 7 extra hours.