Okay, having played an evil conjurer recently I have decided they are somewhat lacking. While they do get distinct advantages over good conjurers, I don't think they number high enough to call the class truly balanced when you play as an Evil one.

I have discounted neutral conjurers, since they lie half-way between and can somewhat live the best of both worlds.

Evil conjurers are meant to be the major 'pk' orientated conjurers. While goodie conjurers can gather excellent gear, explore very well and utilise allies effectively... the evil conjurer gains a powerful, maledicting devil, a well-powered demon to do damage as well as extra abilities and 'supposedly' stronger nightgaunts. However -

There is no doubt that classes powers fluctuate between rank 1 and 51, so lets assume these arguments are for a hero conjurer.

The Evil conjurer can use demons and devils to maledict AND damage, throw on an elemental and you have a powerful offensive. However, they cannot heal, and have poor defenses. I can almost guarantee a hero evil conjurer will have weak defenses because there are two times when their defenses are used - in PK or gathering gear from mobs. Evil conjurers don't last long in PK and usually have to let their demon tank. Devils give them added resistance but again, they rely on a quicker kill. On mobs, they lack an ability to gear themselves effectively. They have to kill weaker mobs and use tricks to get servitors tanking on stronger ones. Ontop of this, find it hard to practice the divination spells and are at greater risk when using them. Without an archon they require a strong ally to kill anything that might attack them when using these divination spells. Niether demons or devils damage them at all effectively. Angels however can do a lot of damage, though an archon is obviously the better for such situations.

The evil conjurer now lacks good gear to tank, cannot tank long enough to have the demons/devils be effective in hero combat, can rarely gather barrier wands (almost always done alone, and has no true ability to kill high-level mobs with any ease), has poor defenses to boot and can only gaunt and maledict better than the goodie conjurer. Even the maledictions are hard to land as well as harder to stack, due to the inability to take blows. This means the conjurer is almost completely reliant upon an ally to help in any pk-related activity at some point. In my view, its not only a great weakness but too great to be offset by the power of demons and devils while lacking some greater divination ability.

I implore you, find a way to strengthen the defense of the Evil conjurer. Be it damage reduction, a defense or a greater ability to force conjurations into tanking (sacrificing them for kill 1 mob for gear sounds fair) I truly believe its needed to make the class more rounded. Assides from that, I would be up for reducing the risks of death using the high level divination spells. I'm sure there are arguements but if you experiment with a hero evil conjurer, I think you'll discover the playing style requires not only great patience and numerous patient allies, but more effort than any other class I can imagine to use effectively. The risks of death are near double that of the good conjurer at hero in or out of PK, they have serious trouble out-damaging most classes and sealing kills on any old person with teleport. Ideas?


Yhorian

I tried, as long as its been thought over I'm happy. Thanks for the feedback.

Yhorian

By no means am I an expect on conjurers. However, here's a few very simple things I've noticed.

Good/Neutral Conjurers - Easy to survive with. Easy to explore with. Easy to defend with. Not easy to destroy with.

Evil Conjurers - Sometimes hard to survive with. And explore with. Or defend with. However, in the right situation, and right strategy, they are by far... by far... the deadliest of the conjurers. In fact, from what I've seen, it's not even close.

So, pick your poison.

Now I wish I rolled up a deathly good conjurer to counter all these arguements.

Anyhow, from what you say you've seen, sounds great, just wish I'd seen it. A log of it would be nice.

Yhorian.

Not that I necessarily agree with the original poster, but I'm not I agree with you that good-aligned conjurers are "hard to destroy with". Part of the lack of deathfulness may be that the most capable players (as a group) tend towards evil. Also, with archons as an option, many people are tempted to go with the "safe" instead of the "deathful".

I have only played one conjurer, but I can still tell what the weakness was with the evil conjurers. It was the fact that when using a devil you never knew what in the hell it would do. I would like to be able to decide if my devil would do damage spells or maldicitive spells. I hated waiting around that extra round and instead of an acid blast I'd get a weaken.

Ilivarra tended to kick my ass. Then again, she used wands, had scion powers, and her demons would auto-attack me.

I agree on the gearing thing. Guess you have to get it via PK. As for wands, I've always assumed evil conjurers used ones that didn't require a mob kill.

Alright, so we have a class that is dependant on allies to get gear, some harder-to-get preps and then needs to find and kill mages to regear. Regearing off a mage likely strikes him right off you ally list fast. If its an enemy mage, its only going to work once. Then it won't likely work on his friends anymore. Cabals like the fortress are likely going to wise up fast. Uncaballed mages that wander alone are perfect! Now how many of those will you find+gaunt successfully?

Nightgaunt is very good at picking up mages that are wandering solo, so shouldn't that be a big plus?

First of all, they'll know you've just died and are looking to nightgaunt. You have to spend time summoning, searching and testing. This is assuming there is an eligable mage in your range. Its hardly as reliable as getting the gear yourself. Also, you'll need to re-stock your preps. All of this plays into the -time- factor. It takes far too long to set up a good conjurer only to have them fall because they lacked that extra reward I believe they should have for preparing well for so long. I seriously believe just some inherent damage reduction or way to enhance their defenses would be brilliant.

Another point is you assume a great amount of knowledge for barrier wands and preps. I had enough knowledge to gather haste, slow (hasted myself, slowed them), aura, shield, protection and even did find a barrier source that didn't require killing. However, I couldn't get it to repop effectively and it didn't last long. Also, these are the wands that are likely hoarded easily by the other mages. I've only ever found a few of these barrier wands let alone ones that are found by walking about. Even after ages of trading info in-game I've come to realise that there is only a small group that knows a fair amount of locations. Making barrier -necessary- (which it almost is here) is insane. Hence, the rarety of well-played evil conjurers I guess. If thats the way the class is designed, so be it, but I'd like to see some improvements for those who haven't spent years searching for barrier preps.

Yhorian

Try considering things that a demon user can do that a similarly prepped good conjurer (remember, preps are easier to get with goodies) and a high-level angel. Not only does rescue mean they'll take blows for you more often but their damage output is AMAZING. There are even maledictions coming from them as well as a rare disarm or bash. Not as much as demons, but again the good conjurer has no clear disadvantage over the evil.

Yhorian

>Alright, so we have a class that is dependant on allies to
>get gear, some harder-to-get preps and then needs to find and
>kill mages to regear. Regearing off a mage likely strikes him
>right off you ally list fast. If its an enemy mage, its only
>going to work once. Then it won't likely work on his friends
>anymore. Cabals like the fortress are likely going to wise up
>fast. Uncaballed mages that wander alone are perfect! Now how
>many of those will you find+gaunt successfully?

Who said anything about nightgaunts? You could do that, but I was thinking more along the lines of finding someone the old fashioned way, running them down, and whooping them.

You don't have to limit yourself to mages, either. That's a good way to score a lot of good gear at a time, but sometimes you just have to be patient and put together a good set of gear one piece at a time.

Being able to use them without the reduced risk of dying should something find you would greatly help in finding that 'lone, exploring well-geared warrior that is just injured enough for you to jump without teleporting'. At present, there is no realistic way for an evil conjurer to fight off a phsycic vampire without allies. More than likely, at least 2 allies.

I can accept them being weak at gearing, its an interesting weakness. My argument is that there are too many.

Yhorian

PS - I might also add that even putting together a -basic- set is painful. Let alone that awesome 'ilivarra' set you dream of. And you do need that basic set to take on anyone you might be unsure of. For all you know, you've just walked upon a hasted, well-geared axe-spec and that single pincer is about to put you back to square one.

>PS - I might also add that even putting together a -basic- set
>is painful. Let alone that awesome 'ilivarra' set you dream
>of. And you do need that basic set to take on anyone you might
>be unsure of. For all you know, you've just walked upon a
>hasted, well-geared axe-spec and that single pincer is about
>to put you back to square one.

I can think of a basic hp set that wouldn't be impossible for a naked evil conjie to get. Protection and stoneskin are relatively easy to gather. Maybe shield and aura, depending on the availability of your sources. Throw on that dam redux w/ a fat demon and you can probably score some kills. Or, alternately, get some slightly more useful gear off mobs.

Could also be choosy about who you fight until you feel more confident about your hp/preps situation.

Your still looking at some serious weaknesses that outnumber the plusses.

One thing that gets me is the availability of these divination spells and just how hard it is to even get a few uses from them as an evil conjurer. Archons are almost required for them in solo-use.

I can easily accept this low hp, hard to prep situation as they're supposedly excellent in Offense. Demons at least are unmatched at slaying non-warrior classes with little thought. However, taking that view you can see they start to fail with the utility spells and defenses in general. Good conjurers can not only gear well, practice their defenses easily, use wands more effectively in combat, gather twice as many preps/wands as an evil conjurer and use their divination spells some-what efficiently... but even have a perfectly acceptable offensive option (angels), leaving them short in very few areas compared to an Evil conjurer.

I just wish they had 'something'. Maybe a devil boost (be able to give them rough orders, like elementals), maybe some added defense (mana shielding? Channel it into dam-redux while sacrificing one servitor?) or even those divination spells would be one less weakness.

Infact, if you could get circles to work against Phsycic vampires and lost souls, that'd be a plus. Then allow them to be dispelled or have them wander off after a time (leaving the conjurer quaking in fear inside his circle in the mean-time). Its costly, still comes at a great risk and requires time and preperation to execute smoothly. The more I think about it, the more it solves some serious problems while adding RP and funness ratings.

Yhorian

I don't think Nepenthe was even talking about using those. I think he was talking about finding people like every other class does, and then whooping on them.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Alright, so we have a class that is dependant on allies to
>get gear, some harder-to-get preps and then needs to find and
>kill mages to regear.

That's not really what I said. Evil conjurers are not the easiest class to gear with, but they're not totally impotent. Necros and transmuters also have a semi-tough time gearing. Also, I never said mages were the only useful classes to kill. Warriors, thieves, assassins, bards all frequently have gear that would be useful to a mage.

>Regearing off a mage likely strikes him
>right off you ally list fast. If its an enemy mage, its only
>going to work once. Then it won't likely work on his friends
>anymore.

I don't understand. Only gaunt enemies. If you're Empire then gaunt Scion. If you're Scion then gaunt Empire and Tribs. Either one should feel free to gaunt evil Outlanders. Why is it only going to work once on an enemy? Not everyone is cautious enough to protect themselves against gaunts every single night, much less the entire enemy cabal. If you're worried about your previous targets taking precautions then spread the love around and gaunt someone new.

Another option would be to role-play yourself into a leadership position in one of the evil cabals then manipulate your subordinates to help you get what you need.

>Cabals like the fortress are likely going to wise up
>fast. Uncaballed mages that wander alone are perfect! Now how
>many of those will you find+gaunt successfully?

I never argued that gaunts have a high rate of return on investment. They're time-conusming and often fail to come back.

>First of all, they'll know you've just died and are looking to
>nightgaunt.

That's not what I'd necessarily assume. Could have been a mob death. If he did die to a PK, he'll likely have to spend some time gathering basic gear before he comes after me. I would actually feel less likely to be gaunted by an evil conjurer if I knew he'd just died. Pretty much I expect a gaunt to come every night.

>I seriously believe just some inherent damage reduction
>or way to enhance their defenses would be brilliant.

Maybe, but they'd have to give up something in return. Probably some offense.

>Another point is you assume a great amount of knowledge for
>barrier wands and preps.

I don't think an evil conjurer has to have never-ending fountain of barrier in order to be "adequate". Sure it helps, but that's true for any mage. You don't see lots of transmuters kicking ass without barrier. Evil conjies are a finesse class. One that, in the absence of insane damage reduction, must rely on getting servitors to tank. If you don't like that then nobody's forcing you to play evil conjurers. Of course your argument could be that the class is -so- broken that it can never really compete, even in the hands of a skilled player. I'm not sure I can agree with that.

An evil conjie with a devil is going to get barrier, most will know of at least an aura and shield source as well. So now you have abs. Let's also add onto that stone skin (easy to get), and protection (easy to get). You now have massive damage reduction, a very nasty maledicting mob, and hopefully a powerful elemental. There was a scion conjie that would solo raid the fortress against multiple defenders all the time, and BREEZE through. So I think you just haven't found the strengths of the evil align conjie yet.

First, you seem to assume you have some semblance of good hp. Scion is the only cabal I remember with good evil conjurers, mainly because they get nightwalkers (another lot of extra damage/tanking) and despoil (when you DO get items from someones corpse, the best go straight to giving you great HP). You seem to assume that getting a devil automatically gives you barrier, in reality its quite hard to get the devil to pass it out. That means, ontop of summoning time (long) you have to fight LOW LEVEL good mobs for it to try and give you barrier. It will give aura out in no time flat but never gives shield. Now I'm not disputing that Aura and Shield are easy to get without killing big mobs but most of the Barrier sources I know require you to break into dangerous places or kill big things. Even if its just to get it to repop.

This also brings up another problem, devils and demons need pleasing. If your victim teleports you then have to run after them to track them down. In that time, your devil/demon is going to get real unhappy. I've had times when I've conjured one fresh only to have it sit by the fight and watch while a shaman out-damages me during those 6 rounds with only the elemental fighting. It was ridiculous. The only way I could ensure it helped was to go kill several goodie mobs right after summoning. I also fought constantly with protection, aura and shield (though not stoneskin), it helped surprisingly little. Most other mage classes have inherent damage resistance of some type to boost it (stoneskin, haste to boost defense, wraithform, shields, desensitize) but with a conjurer you quickly realise that you need MORE just to make it equal. Shield block just doesn't quite cut it, as practicing it is so difficult.

Yhorian

Thats pretty much not true at all. Some things to bear in mind :

Devils do not always hand out barrier. In fact, they rarely hand out barrier. To get them to barrier generally you have to fight a lot of little goodie mobs until they eventually hit you with it, then you have 8 hours to go pk someone.

Devils cast randomly. Sometimes they land something great first shot, sometimes they do virtually nothing for 15 rounds because they're casting famish and other #### that doesn't help you at all.

Elementals tend to only hit with their area attacks against decent tanks at hero.

Evil conjurers are very strong when they barrier themselves and are intelligent, I think a nice tweak would be to either make devils less random (give them some sort of intelligence to what and when they cast stuff) or maybe ease up on their lack of desire to barrier.

I'd say what you're experiencing is 'enemy tunnel vision'. You see someone's strengths but none of their weaknesses and watch them steamroll through people and assume its the class and not the fact that Illivarra's player could get 2 kills per hour with a herald healer :-P.