I think it'd be nice if conjie playability got looked at. I think it's important to note that there's been one very successful evil conjie played at hero (Kanaev), and he had to exploit a bug to get around a class drawback.


Maybe some of the drawbacks could be examined? I think the drawbacks are collectively frustrating all of the player-base, and making this very cool class un-played.

I agree to some extent that some basic stuff needs to get looked at. As one of the classes I do actually love because of their enormous amount of tactical choices there are some semi-stupid things that just seem frustrating.

Let me first say that death to servitors is the very least of my complaint. Once you get the hang of that much, you just learn to accept it. My major complaint is probably in the vein of archons and devils though... there is nothing that really screams failure as being a Hero conjurer going into conjuring a devil (or archon) and suddenly calling upon the weakest in the pack. I feel like there should be a certain point in either level or in amount of extra mana where you no longer will get an abashi devil or a luminous archon.

That is probably my biggest complaint cause you virtually are handicapped for 40+ hours until you can try again... now I know the veil makes a difference, but how about we make it so that it affects their level and hp as opposed to "which" servitor you get?

Also, a closing idea since the class has no inherent DR, perhaps after you get your circles to a certain level, you can unlock the ability/spell to create a personal glyph that reduces damage from extra-planar beings? Seems conjie-esque, yeah?

Thanks for reading, please consider!!! Please please please please... I hate abashi devils and luminous archons... they make me cry :(

EXB

Ps. When are neutral conjurers gonna get greater elementals to call upon that do nifty invoker stuff? ^_^

Invokers = shields.
Necromancers = armor of living bone & wraithform.
Shifters = DR in form.
Anti-Paladins = protection, more hps(Yeah, I understand the stipulations), possible giant resist, and haste? =)

Conjurers: Nothing.

First, I suggested a FORM of damage reduction that is at least related to DR. Because at this point, if they haven't impliminted something across the board there is a reason. Which could be a number of the following...

A) Archons who cast Sanctuary AND Protection if you meet the pre-req.
B) Devils who cast Aura AND Barrier

Now, I imagine you are complaining in regards to angels/demons but they offer such great burst damage that you would have to take a hit there in order to balance it. This is mostly due to the fact that you can get barrier/aura/shield on your own at a certain point.

If there was an inherant DR it probably would have to be made non compatible with other protections so that it didn't add on to the whole devil/archon thing, and then in which case, what is the point?

Don't get me wrong.. I wish it was possible too.. just doesn't seem likely. (maybe armor should just offer a % DR...)

>Conjurers: Nothing.

Resist positive, resist negative.

That's only some damage types? So is wraithform.

Hell, if you're going to call the DR that some forms have inherent DR for all shifters, you can call the spells from archons and devils inherent DR for all conjurers, too.

>
>>Conjurers: Nothing.
>
>Resist positive, resist negative.
>
>That's only some damage types? So is wraithform.
>
>Hell, if you're going to call the DR that some forms have
>inherent DR for all shifters, you can call the spells from
>archons and devils inherent DR for all conjurers, too.


Resist positive & negative are nice, but two forms of resist physical are better.

Devils cast aura and barrier, but wands do the same thing (longer and on demand). It's not nearly as nice as shifters who have a class specific form of DR.

In all fairness I guess AP protection is not a good example of a class DR, because everyone can get it with ease.

DR may not be the reason this class is not being played. Could be something else?

Only necro and vokers get DR that is not easily reproduced. As you mentioned with AP's protection, shifters stone skin is easy to get too.

-----Abernyte

My problem is just the "black box" nature of conjuring w/ regard to mana input.

I've only played good conjurers before, but it always seemed like if you put "too much" mana into a conjuration that it actually had a detrimental effect.

If that was actually true (which it may not be) then it's really, really annoying, since there's no any reliable way to figure out the "sweet spot".

On the other hand, that design would be pretty stupid, and the staff aren't especially stupid. So maybe it's the case that "more mana is always better". Or at the very least "more mana never hurts".

Nep said this was the case (more mana is more better or at least not worse), but I couldn't find it for searching. I think this is a case of selective memory personally as when you throw 1200 mana at a conjure (and the associated sleeping) you tend not to forget when you get a black abashi devil.

You can more reliably get lower tier conjurations with their respective 'sweet spots' than higher tier ones with the kind of mana Twist inhales at breakfast. I would aim for a blazing archon if I just really needed a decent healer, than aim for a transplendant and have that 15% chance of a luminous. I appeared to succeed a lot more.

This is correct.

Essentially, there is a chance that your extra mana buys you a tougher servitor, and there is a chance it buys you a longer-staying servitor. As far as I know, adding extra mana never modifies this chance.

How is it possible to spend a minimum of 1000 mana into a devil or archon and still wind up with an abashi/luminous?

I feel like there is something weird and mystifying here and I'd give my left testicle (only really need one right? And that's debatable) to know the secrets and/or "ins and outs" of that coding block.

That's kinda why I wish that say you have the RNG kick into play (assuming the above scenario is explained by this in the first place) that it would just bump down to the next possible devil/archon.. or again, at least anything above the lowest archon/devil.

I guess.. is there any way to confirm if your player level affects the type conjured? Does your percent in conjure devil and/or conjure archon play a role in success?

>How is it possible to spend a minimum of 1000 mana into a
>devil or archon and still wind up with an abashi/luminous?

In that case, you bought an abishai/luminous that's going to stick around for a long time. (see above post)

Could it at least default to the next devil/archon up instead of that lowest one? (Even if its just reserved for level 51 that is something to look forward to)

Get an energy shield and watch how armor use sends your defenses sky rocketting to a pretty good level. Shield block is not to be knocked.

Can't say you've been missed.

Surprise!

Out of curiousity, what drastic reductions to their power would you suggest to make a change like that fair?

I'll leave the idea's and implementation to you. Do you disagree that they're underplayed?

We've got lots of character options.

I'd rather preserve evil conjurers as something that is very cool and potentially very tough. If you even out its dizzying highs and crushing lows, it's a lot less interesting.

I'm not saying my conjie (Kehade) would have been a beast at hero, but servitors killing me was 90% of the time me doing something insanely stupid (fleeing repeatedly like 10+ times with a devil, or forgetting to make a circle, or attacking one of my servitors on accident). Every time this comes up it makes me wonder if people think warriors are unplayable because they keep sticking themselves with the pointy ends of their swords... Conjies really aren't that hard to play, and the knowledge of what *not* to do is out there for the taking without ever having to even roll up a conjie.

Tac

Not being able to flee is a set-back I personally feel is absurd. I mean come on, they're the one mage-class besides anti-paladins who don't get inherent damage reduction. I could argue that they are the weakest mage class when it comes to survivability.

If evil conjies are fine, show me the examples?

>If evil conjies are fine, show me the examples?

Scrimbul just played Katula who went 18-14 in 156 hours. By his own admission it was the first time he'd played the class. He's clearly no newbie, but then again he's not god's gift to PK either. (Neither am I.) I'm not sure if he ever had barrier. If so, he didn't seem to use it that often.

He died to servitors 5 times:

Feb 26, 2009|Lv 27|Azreth Wood|a winged angel by wrath
Mar 1, 2009 |Lv 27|The Plains of Arendyl|an air elemental by blast
Mar 7, 2009 |Lv 40|Coven of Dralkar Wood|a water elemental by onslaught of water
Mar 15, 2009|Lv 48|Outside Hamsah Mu'tazz|a water elemental by drowning
Mar 15, 2009|Lv 48|The Tahril Mountains|a croaking challegha demon by suction

It's notable that one of those was to an angel (why was he conjuring an angel?) and three were to elementals. Elementals generally aren't viewed as one of the "down sides" to playing an evil conjurer.

"A very successful evil conjie played at hero".

18 pkills, 9 deaths and 5 suicides is not what I call very successful. I'm looking for more convincing examples. Bonus points if their names don't start with a "K". =)

He had a better than 50% PK record. Substantially better if you throw out the suicides. Extrapolate that kill frequence over 500 hours and you're looking at about 65 kills, on a guy who had never played the class before.

>He had a better than 50% PK record. Substantially better if
>you throw out the suicides. Extrapolate that kill frequence
>over 500 hours and you're looking at about 65 kills, on a guy
>who had never played the class before.

Why are you extrapolating data on a sub-51 character? That's not an example.

When you clearly have the answers you want in your head.

You're not listening, you're preaching. And we don't care to listen to your religious ####.

Conjurers have harsh drawbacks, but they are damn powerful on anyone competant. This is why Scion conjurers are on my most feared list, right after 'power-up ap' and 'lich'. They top everything else.

If you don't want to listen to everyone else, don't try a public call then ignore the feedback. Try a personal email to the imms.

Calm down. The question was about hero conjurers. I think I've reminded everyone of that enough by now.

This argument is as stupid as 'dirt kick is overpowered' which you're legendary for.

A level 48 evil conjurer is for all intents and purposes a level 51 hero conjurer.

SINCE YOU'RE TOO UTTERLY INCOMPETENT TO HAVE HAD A HERO BEFORE LET ME BREAK IT DOWN FOR YOU: HERO PK STARTS AT 47. PERIOD. ALL CHARACTERS CAN HARM ALL HEROES AND ALL HEROES CAN HARM ALL LEVEL 47'S.

This change was instituted because level 47-50 chars who were essentially hero level characters were dodging the high XP penalty classes ala storm giant paladins, when there was no game balance reason whatsoever they shouldn't be fighting.

And let me tell you, playing hero range in a game utterly dominated for the last 8 months by goodies and ragers is NOT a ####ing picnic. Add in the fact that I was only ranking with Empire and not PKing with them, and that many times at 40+ the only way I could get my rank on AT ALL was to rank at 3 OR 4 IN THE GOD DAMN MORNING and that they tried at least a couple times to get easy PK's on me and you pretty much have a formula where it's impossible for you to hero and get tesseract, but you're sure as hell capable of standing toe to toe with a lich in optimal circumstances.

There, I said it. Had I chosen to attack Satebos straight up with a happy mors-gravis or morosa demon and a/b/s there's a good chance I could have killed him toe to toe, and an equal chance he would have killed me toe to toe. Attacking Ahtieli would have been suicidal because he is constantly moving in a group, and if he wasn't but had one of my demons tracking him he would have called the cavalry a/b/s or no. I was chaotic so devils were sub-par for me but I frequently used them for the a/b/s while walking around casually so I could survive being attacked.

48 = 51 for conjurers. Period. This isn't a non-chieftan versus chieftan or 1 legacy warrior or any of that crap. 47 is hero PK and many classes are as powerful and balanced as they are going to get by that point.

Tesseract does not help a conjurer PK except in very niche situations because it acts as a version of gate. And if you try to use tesseract to jump in front of a PK I will laugh at you when they either walk away or rip you apart in the tesseract lag.

Let me break it down for you further before you pull another stupid argument out your ass: 3 servitor levels is not going to make a bit of difference against other heroes. At hero, razor may as well be hooded, and I was conjuring hooded elementals and demons regularly. Most of these demons and many of the devils would have toasted just about every other hero in straight up melee but the most well-geared ones.

Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

And now, for something completely different.

adsf

>And let me tell you, playing hero range in a game utterly
>dominated for the last 8 months by goodies and ragers is NOT a

Log on during Empire hours. This whole "good dominates hero range" is really a situational thing.

He hit level 46 at 109 hours, and deleted at 156 hours.

At or above level 46 his PK record was 11-8.

If I used only his 46+ record to extrapolate, at he played 500 hours, he'd end up with 98 kills.

I have played some decent evil conjurers. They are very strong when you play them cautiously and utilize their hunting abilities.

I would suggest lowering the chances of evil servitors turning on you. Or maybe have a devil maladict the hell out of you before returning to hell. It would leave you with a deterant when you take risks, but not an outright kill. Not much you can do when at 40% health and your ice devil starts smoking out the ***DEMOLISHES***. Dispel is tough on those bastards (to be successful)

My evil conjurers got the kills and if I had time to play them out could have easily racked up 100 plus kills with a few deaths thrown in.

I'll try to think of some names. I know Atengsul was one.

At the time I was trying to get a 2 or 3 round kill on Khrayst who was a level 23 duergar AP.

I conjured an angel with about 100 mana and tried to bind it twice with 500 mana. Didn't work.

It ####ed up my circle at that point and owned my ass.

I didn't touch angels after that.

However there are ways to conjure and bind a powerful angel as an evil conjurer, and very niche reasons to do so. Exploiting wrath was one of them, but thinking about it further I should have just used a happy morosa demon to lag him.

>At the time I was trying to get a 2 or 3 round kill on
>Khrayst who was a level 23 duergar AP.
>
>I conjured an angel with about 100 mana and tried to bind it
>twice with 500 mana. Didn't work.
>
>It ####ed up my circle at that point and owned my ass.
>
>I didn't touch angels after that.
>
>However there are ways to conjure and bind a powerful angel as
>an evil conjurer, and very niche reasons to do so. Exploiting
>wrath was one of them, but thinking about it further I should
>have just used a happy morosa demon to lag him.

Or simply conjure the angel in the same room as him, without a binding or anything.

derrrr

I had barrier as a limited wand source. I could not find my sleek black or my sleek sienna rod, I only found my sleek amber.

I do however know a few shield wand locations after playing that character, some with various restrictions and others that aren't generally feasible for even a melee class that can tank to obtain or certain shifters, but weren't too bad for a conjurer.

I also knew a few shield and aura talismans and a haste talisman.

However because I was replacing approximately 80% of my wand knowledge with devils and limited sources, I didn't have many or all of them on me at any time. If you'll notice, I did kill four ragers. Two of them were berserkers, and only one of the kills involved barrier. (one involved a nightgaunt and I think 2 involved the poor bastard tangling with my morosa demon, the last kill was rot)

Still, being able to replace wand knowledge at all and patch up not knowing a/b/s with limited sources and a devil is a pretty strong argument for most folks to give it a run.

It still blew total ass that I didn't have them on hand. Trying to go up against Woldrun or Borkahd was utterly out of the question, and many many paladins were going to be far outside of my reach without those wands, particularly because I could not for the life of me get my hp far beyond 700.

Most of my deaths were to Kasir because I was often not very careful about where I chose to rest. He would then promptly sneak up on me, and since I was not geared very well for saves either, abuse the silver malison along with his bindings to get around my A/B/S. Despite doing this, he almost died twice to demons, and survived countless nightgaunts by the skin of his teeth using tricks that I could not scry him for because I didn't sit down and perfect them.

I said I fled 10+ times. Imagine a pk scenario where that is a good idea, and I'll show you a thief that is flee/knifing a linkdead person to death.

Here is my conjie's PBF http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=31&topic_id=21306&mesg_id=21306&page=

If I recall correctly, I never was able to gather his barrier rod (I think I had a "bad" location or I never found it), so I used aura, shield, and stone skin for demon fighting and basically devil granted dam redux (hello inherent damrage reduction! barrier+shield) the rest of the time.

From my PBF:

#21310, "Kehade's Mob Deaths"
Apr 26, 2008|Lv 20|Khardrath's Planar Sanctum|a greater lead golem by crush
May 1, 2008 |Lv 32|Shrine of the Hungry|a vapor sprite by blast
May 12, 2008|Lv 35|Whistlewood Swamp|a thornslinger by sting
May 13, 2008|Lv 35|Mausoleum|a hungry ghoul by claw
May 20, 2008|Lv 39|Khardrath's Planar Sanctum|the portal guardian by gore
May 29, 2008|Lv 41|Pine Forest|a dire wolf by kick
Jun 11, 2008|Lv 41|Arial City|a blazing archon by searing light
Jun 11, 2008|Lv 41|Mines of Zakiim|a steel-eyed harmentia demon by slice
Jul 23, 2008|Lv 45|Ruins of Maethien|a shadowed Nightwalker by claw
Jul 23, 2008|Lv 45|Ruins of Maethien|a shadowed Nightwalker by claw


If you look, that is 3 deaths to pets (2 where I forgot a circle and 1 archone) and a bunch of bad teleports...


I was 50-4 at level 45, playing as Daevryn point out earlier to pk as I ranked. This character died because of the great server room explosion of '08 and I never got back in to it.

Evil conjies are hard because people are idiots, or they've never even tried. If they get "easier" then they will also lose all appeal (at least from me) because they will become considerably less powerful than they are now.

Much respect for that score. You did better than I could. Regardless, it looks to me like you were taking advantage of combo with no exp penalty to demolish people who were lower level than you. With high level servitors, this would be deadly!




Thu May 1 21:51:32 2008 by 'Eshval' at level 32 (42 hrs):
Doing well so far. Need to watch killing the folks down at the low-end of the range...beneath us.




I'm more concerned with the balance at hero than anything else.

It isn't like you are successful with other classes at hero, why should conjies be any different? You do hero characters... right?

Suffice to say, I disagree, and I actually have the experience to back up my statements.

You don't know what you are talking about, so I'm not going to continue to waste my time.

If you're going to resort to this type of banter, then you've lost the argument. You're being completely illogical, and missing the point. Respond to the post instead talking about your ego. Back to the OP:

If evil conjies are "fine" then why aren't there examples of heroes wracking up great bodycounts with decent kill/death ratios? Everyone can't be an "idiot" as you suggest?

>If you're going to resort to this type of banter, then you've
>lost the argument. You're being completely illogical, and
>missing the point. Respond to the post instead talking about
>your ego. Back to the OP:

Read Ginga's response re: answers already in your head.

>If evil conjies are "fine" then why aren't there examples of
>heroes wracking up great bodycounts with decent kill/death
>ratios? Everyone can't be an "idiot" as you suggest?

Some stats for you, from the battlefield. Since 2007 there have been 7 conjies who deleted at 35+ 6 at 40+ 7 at 45+ and 1 at 51, so to answer your question, probably because there just aren't any hero conjies.

Of those who purchased pbf's for their conjies (all 45+) the total records are 18-14, 50-3, 24-13, and 34-7 for a total of 126-37. So, in further answer to your question, evil conjie are out there with decent kill/death ratios, there just aren't that many of them.

Feel free to shut up now.

>Some stats for you, from the battlefield. Since 2007 there
>have been 7 conjies who deleted at 35+ 6 at 40+ 7 at 45+ and 1
>at 51, so to answer your question, probably because there just
>aren't any hero conjies.
>
>


I think everyone who came to this argument is going to come away with what they wanted.


>Of those who purchased pbf's for their conjies (all 45+) the total records are 18-14, 50-3, 24-13, and 34-7 for a total of 126-37. So, in further answer to your question,
>evil conjie are out there with decent kill/death ratios, there just aren't that many of them.


I'd include familiar deaths and servitor deaths to the pk loss count. Losing con makes people delete.