Could you consider moving mage defenses to a lower level? Most of them don't get much for defense anyway, and I don't think moving it a few ranks lower would hurt any balance. Muters don't get their only defense skill until 19 which seems a little excessive. Anyway, I just wanted to request someone look at it and see if you agree.

I would just like to see parry or shield block get moved to a lower level....

Even if mages got parry and shield block at 11 I don't think
it would really prevent them from getting whomped on by melee
classes.

I knew it would have little to no affect on pk. It might make mages a hair less miserable when they can't find a group to rank though.

I'd weigh in on this.

The only characters I ever played to above thirty were a series of
Villagers. Then, after Mac con-died, I rolled up an Orderly Good
Conjie because of the need to gather some hero-level area knowledge,
which I am very lacking in.

I learned, rather quickly, to be mildly annoyed by the scores of
enemies at low ranks including my beloved Barbarians. In fact, many
sessions included trying to find a group, then running from enemies
until we all decided to try again another day.

I got my conjie to level 49 before the purge, and the fact is that
walking around with a Transplendant Archon, hooded Elemental and a
Cherub that could tank pretty well it was a very different story.

In my opinion "balance" needs to be considered from a distance. It
should be a broad term. Mages should be fodder pre-hero. It's the
price you pay for the powers that come later. Pre archon/shields/
decent form/etc... the only PK alias in your arsenal should be for
'quaff return' or 'c word.' There are exceptions, of course (I once
did some surprising (for me) PKing with an invoker pre-20.)

I'd also like to point out that my sleek knowledge with my conjie
was that I knew of two spots I had learned during my years in the
village. The only help I ever got with this character was very, very
vague ("why not try <insert area>?") Yet I still managed to find my amber and sienna.

For me, suggesting sleek spots to another mage was a game milestone
for me. Another thin layer of noobishness rubbed away.

>
>In my opinion "balance" needs to be considered from a
>distance. It
>should be a broad term. Mages should be fodder pre-hero. It's
>the
>price you pay for the powers that come later.

I disagree with this as a balance concept anyway. I don't think mages should be too weak early and too powerful late. It may make sense from a realism/thematic standpoint but it's lame gameplay wise.

I would also point out that a mage without damage reduction is still a total speedbump for a warrior at hero. You played one of two kinds of mages that can really tank well (the other being some shifters). Play yourself a necro, muter, invoker or non-conjurer without solid dr and then tell me that being terrible early on is really warranted.

It also makes me some combination of jealous and disgusted when people talk about ABS like it's easy to get. I know about 10-15 containers that look very much too me like sleek spots (empty containers near mages). In two of those places I have found a shield wand. Other than that you have to kill the mud's 24985 obnoxiously difficult mage mobs. Which takes dozens and dozens of hours and is altogether a horribly painful experience. But really I should just quit playing anything without class-based sanc. Or maybe I should quit altogether since I'm obviously stupid to know how to find all this easy abs that's hiding in plain sight and too bitter to be objective as a result.

Anyhow, what mages are paying for with their time is not having to be gear-whores and not having to be skill practice whores. And for some utility/survival skills (identify, word, etc).

Likely, even, that my ABS experience was atypical, a blatant
example of beginner's luck.

That said, I understand that the strengths of the OG conjie make
things really, really easy, but that's why I chose it. I understand
what you're saying about the difficulties of being an invoker, for
example, at level 30 but, in my opinion, it's totally warranted.

What I would offer is that the way Detect Artifact works is flawed.
I think that, independent of the veil or any other factor, it should
either be on or off, like Detect Hidden. If you see strands, there's
a wand. If you don't, there's not. Finding the hidden container or
killing the tough mob should be up to you, but the fact that I could
have DA up and walk past a wand and not know it seems silly.

nt

NT

I wish people would quit thinking of the sleeks system as something that they have to figure out in it's entirety by themselves.

There are definitely a few sleek locations most people don't know about yet, but I think "in general" if you get detect artifact and you spend some time looking, ask your allies, stalk your enemies, etc., you should be able to locate your sleeks no problem. You might get unlucky and end up with one of the spots that most people don't know, but at least now you can ask for another.

The real bummer about the sleeks system is when you do find your barrier spot and come to understand that you'll never, ever be able to solo the mob, and if you can it'll cost you more barrier then you'll get in return. That's where friends come in.

It's not unintentional that some amber/black rods are pick-up or on easier mobs and some are on mobs that are just a down right bitch. It's not designed to provide every mage full ABS all the time, even after you FIND the wands. You might get unlucky and get a spot that really sucks for your class, your forms, your build, etc.

The bottom line is that if you try and aren't afraid to ask for help, you SHOULD find your wands, even if it means using edge points.

>The bottom line is that if you try and aren't afraid to ask
>for help, you SHOULD find your wands, even if it means using
>edge points.

This is probably just my own bugaboo, but this only sort of works for me. As a player, I can't imagine making other people waste big chunks of time searching for wands with me. It just seems incredibly selfish. There's always a million better things those people have to do, how can I possibly justify making them do boring crap for me? And generally, I do ask for tips and help and stuff, but I always feel like a bit of a jerk and a whiner when I do.

Also, RP-wise it's difficult. With goodies, why would I expose my allies to danger and take them away from important battles for frivolous shiny-whoring? As an evil, generally I have no reason to think the others will want to help me. I also don't want to look weak, especially if I'm in a position to force them to help me.

There are all kinds of ways to get people to help.

Pay them, with items, other knowledge, gold, or favours.

Also, plenty of people just help their allies because they want stronger allies, or enjoy hanging with them (even if evil).

In many cases, there's a good chance people will want to go to wand sources even if they have their wands, so that they can see mage X and discuss it with their guildmaster.

Randomness that warriors/paladins/thieves/rangers don't have to deal with.

If I come up with a character idea before I implement it, I'm going to general get a good idea of how the character will turn out.

With melee classes, that doesn't change (maybe slightly, like if I'm Fire Sword trapping and someone else has Armaggeddon). With mage classes, holy ####, that can change a ton. First, I have to find sleek rods (btw, you don't have to, you can rock limiteds/uniques, but during a time like now when limits and hoarding is kinda ####ed up, let me tell you, ugh) which sometimes can take IN EXCESS OF 200 HRS. Now, assuming I find these rods, I may eat several mob deaths getting them. Thrakazhaar notwithstanding, how many fire giants die trying to get something that is nearly essential to their class?

But the biggest problem. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM. Is the complete and utter randomness of how hard they are to get. I mean, basically, you immortals are saying with the Sleek System, 'One out of every five mage characters is ####ed'. BUT, BUT, the dicytomy(sp?) of that is 'One out of every five mage characters will be a powerhouse for reasons other than player skill'. Which is crazy to me.

Would I consider a mage I played now stronger than Mjraljrin? #### yeah, that character sucked, First Tribunal, didn't know how to use my forms, didn't have good gear, etc etc etc. However, I had/found my sleeks in 40 or so hrs, and I could get them all SOLO in under 5 minutes. I could roll a mage now, with tons more experience, tons more knowledge, and still have a chance to do WORSE.

That's jive, son.

Any Immstaff who reads this post, or sees anyone agreeing with you, just thinks you're being a whiny bitch. To them, it doesn't seem broken. To the players who are experiencing what you are all the time, it seems broken.

But then, Imms also have snoop and object stats and locations that players will never have access to.

Orderly Good Conjurers are superior to just about everything in the game for tanking.

As for finding sleek wands, it is hit or miss. I have a list with what I believe to be 60+ barrier locations. Some are, some aren't. I also have a list of about 80+ locations on where I could look for amber/sienna. Again, some are legitimate, some aren't. By the time I hit hero, and play hero for a bit, all of these locations will have been checked.

I don't always find them. I have even taken attunement edges and still not found anything.

Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don't. And when you don't, it feels like a total waste of time. Especially when other people are saying it is "so easy!!!" Too much gamble in playing a mage.

>I have a list
>with what I believe to be 60+ barrier locations.

There aren't anywhere near that many for sleek black, FWIW. To some degree I think having a list of what might be or once were locations is counterproductive.

I know that of all the locations I could possibly look, half of them probably won't ever find me anything at all. However, all the locations are containers or mobs that are near equal terms to locations that I know can produce barrier. So I can't really dismiss any of them.

As for locations prior to the sleek wand changes, I didn't know that many.

Exluding area explore places, I just went through each area trying to recall containers and semi-powerful mages, and then added them to the list. An example of one that -wouldn't- make my list, would be the triton wizard. There should not ever be a sleek black rod on the triton wizard. There also shouldn't be sleek wands in area explore, but there are. And I think you guys made a mistake in doing that.

Any mob that cons perfect match at hero and can cast a spell could have a wand as far as I can tell. That's basically all mobs in thar-acacia, everything in the top floors of the high tower, and a zillion other toughass mobs sprinkled hither and yon. And killing transmuter or necromancer is all but impossible in a reasonable timeframe unless you have one of a few builds.

I know of a couple of wands in area explore that are easier to get at hero than plenty that are not in area explore. Taking explore areas as an example, I can quite happily run through Trothon, or move around the first circle of hell. I can't do the same in some other non-explore areas because of piles of aggro mobs.

Certainly Masigner's sleek black was somewhere I could see many people never looking if they hadn't been told that a sleek black can be found there.

How did you find it? DA? Luck? General idea of what to look for?

I've seen sleek locations that made perfect sense, and then some honestly I can say no one would have ever found if they used logic.

I've found them by misstepping with detect artifact up.

In most cases, people suggest places to look.

There are probably 20-25 sleek black spots that I know off the top of my head and have confirmed that pretty much all of them are valid.

Should I strike out on those though, it's nice to have a list of "maybes" which I've been building for a long time. Every time I find a container or a mob that seems likely, I write it down so that when I do go bust searching for my wands later, I don't have to hope I can remember all the possibilities. It's a last resort, but it helps.

I definitely think it's silly to say, "I know 100 sleek spots!" when a good percentage of your list is made up of unverified spots, but having good notes can't hurt, as long as you update them from time to time and don't mix your valid information with your theory.

I'm one of those people who has to write everything down though, from preps and directions to quests. Often times I learn things that I won't use for weeks or months, and I can't remember that crap for long without having a record.

Even though I know about 20ish, I can normally only remember about 5 when I need to. And then someone suggests something blindingly obvious (since I already knew it), which I'd totally forgotten to check.

I think what Daevryn is getting at though is that the time you spend checking your 75 potential sites with potentially multiple characters might have yielded better returns had you been picking random areas and moving through them methodically.

Obviously if you have only 1 potential spot, then it probably pays to check it before you start moving through areas. So at some point, there's probably a trade-off between checking potential spots and just exploring without a plan.

The problem with the exploring without a plan issue is that you have to explore half the mud (on average) to find just one location. And that assumes that it's in a location that you can actually reach. For all I know, there's a sleek black spot on a certain necro who pwks anyone who enters (except maybe a mummy or a lich -- not sure on that). I'm just assuming that there isn't, but if it was there, you could explore the entire mud (bar that one room) without being any the wiser (unless you are so confident you haven't missed any hidden places that you know it has to be in that room by default).

>I think what Daevryn is getting at though is that the time you
>spend checking your 75 potential sites with potentially
>multiple characters might have yielded better returns had you
>been picking random areas and moving through them
>methodically.

Pretty much, yeah. All the time I see people expending effort to check places that aren't spots anymore, or often never were, including some places I've never pick because even I think they would be unfair.

There's a fair number of areas that have multiple sleek locations, and most of those are mage-ier areas. Your chance to find one of your wands in one of those areas is pretty good.

And he STILL kills Zulgh's morts, which cracks me up for some reason.

I'm talking about one in his own room, that pwk's on entry. It's happened to me a few times when someone else has been leading my group. Insta-death for the whole group.

NT

Luckily never encountered that :)

will you get a detect artifact's fire echo before PWK ? :)

Because you never know where your black might be. Granted, I should probably have killed every non-greet-kill mob in the game first, but I always assume that the most interesting stuff is on the most dangerous mobs.