So, spellweaving has been nerfed again.

[hawkeye_pike]

I have no idea whether the nerf was intentional.

Needing one more person to get an appropriate level of focus, is a pain in every spellweaver's back.

I could accept the Word of Death being made useless in PvP. They could have reduced the massive damage a bit, but hey, they killed the whole spell instead. Figures.

I could live with the lvl 1 focus with yourself being removed (I didn't even know this was possible). It even seems unlogic to make a focus with yourself; if they'd allow a focus with yourself, the dev's could just have made Spellweaving more powerful.

But needing 3 people for a level 2 focus? Now I am actually thinking about dropping spellweaving again. I mostly used the skill for PvM, because Gift of Life comes in handy. Spwellweaving wasn't very powerful. Most of its spells are rather useless, and the rest has extremely long casting time, high mana cost or extremely short duration. It was hard enough anyway to find someone for a focus, as spellweaving always was an unpopular skill. I assume, more people will give up on this skill now.

Seems to me that the only remaining powerful profiles are Samurais, Archers, certain Necromancer templates and, of course, tamers.

 

[legendsguy]

isn't that the truth though.. you're either a 'sampire' or a tamer. and if you aren't you wish you were. (not happy at all)

 

[Hunters Moon]

The last patch seems to be a "Nerf Patch". Lumberjacking seems to have taken a hit (lack of higher-end wood spawning) and now Spellweaving gets busted?? Whats next? Magery losses the ability to use fc/fcr jewlery? Or maybe necromancy takes another hit.

 

[Snakeman]

I thought it was odd the other day doing WOD on the stranger and only doing 3 to 10 points of damage (once redlined). Then a friend came on & we did a circle, on the next one I did 300 damage on Ea WOD to him (same health, redlined). Yes, it would be nice to know if know, alone is this skill now useless as hell or what? Was this an intended or just another one of the screwup back lashs from fixing something else (again)!

 

[agpga]

i had 4 on a circle yesterday and only got a level 2 focus so something is bugged

 

[Vex]

We were able to get a Focus 4 with 5 humans on a circle last night. It is also hard in fel to get everyone actually IN the circle!

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

This feels like a bug to me.

If it weren't for the apparent removal of the Level 6 Focus entirely, I would say it feels like an intended change....An unnecessary one, but at least it'd seem like something they meant to do.

I'm not a Spellweaver. But I just don't see the point of this change.

Aren't there any Spellweavers on Origin? Didn't someone notice this and tell them?

-Galen's player

 

[Sneaky]

I have no idea whether the nerf was intentional.

Yes it was, its in the patch notes.

Needing one more person to get an appropriate level of focus, is a pain in every spellweaver's back.

You don't need any level of focus for SW to work, and if you want it to be more effective then go find some other spellweavers and do a circle, SW focus was never intended to be gained by a single weaver, the change in the publish is a bug fix.

I could accept the Word of Death being made useless in PvP. They could have reduced the massive damage a bit, but hey, they killed the whole spell instead. Figures.

Yeh, thats why you can do like, i dunno upwards of 500+ dmg with WoD with high SDI, tell me another spell, or anything a player can attack with that can do that much dmg in 1 hit. They hardly killed the whole spell, they nerfed it completely in PvP yes, but that was much needed as you have mentioned.

I could live with the lvl 1 focus with yourself being removed (I didn't even know this was possible). It even seems unlogic to make a focus with yourself; if they'd allow a focus with yourself, the dev's could just have made Spellweaving more powerful.

Yep, this is the bit that was changed/fixed, because weavers were never meant to have a focus by them self's.

Seems to me that the only remaining powerful profiles are Samurais, Archers, certain Necromancer templates and, of course, tamers.

LOL, you cannot be serious. A good (tactics/scribe) mage player is better than all those templates in PvP, for PvM? Well I reckon dexers of any type are the kings of PvM and have been for quite some time. Magery will always be the number one skill though (unless is is nerfed severely or another, more UBER skill is made), just because the the amount of things you can do with it and the fact it requires the most skill and timing to play successfully.

 

[G.v.P]

Sneaky pretty much nailed everything I was thinking to reply with, but I'll say it again, for the damage WOD does, I think this change is fair.

People signing in on 5 of their accounts, multi-clienting, that's crap. At first glance, I would say EA made it somehow so people on the same IP do not count when making a circle, but then, from posts here, it seems like you need an extra person now, so I'm not sure. I'm hoping it is a nerf on people who just run multiple accounts for full effect, but I guess we will see.

 

[Yalp]

We had 4 peeps in the circle yesterday after the change, all within 20 skill points of each other. Only got 3 focus. This was intended? How so? They only thing that was supposed to change is that you couldn't get a level 1 by yourself.

Let me tell ya how it's used in my circle of friends.. Let's take Grizzle for example.

Tamers take in a pet or two to keep him in one spot. Archers use almost 1000 bolts per. Mages cast fire and poison fields on him. Mages also cast healing on the pets. Weavers don't have any spells which can match the damage of the archers/tamers.. so they usually cast gift of renewal on the pets and throw heals at em. Since they AREN'T getting any damage points which will allow them looting rights, they save their fire for when Griz redlines. Griz has more than 10k life points, weavers get a couple of 300+ WoD's in... if you think that is an overpowered spell you need your head examed.

It's important to note for the non-weavers out there, the Word of Death spell does greater damage when the mobs hit points are lower. You can't stand there and cast WoD the whole time and get 300+ damage hits. As a mage I CAN stand there and cast fireballs or lightening or mind blast the entire time and get more than 3000 hit points off him. Weavers get their 1-2000 points in the last few minutes.

 

[Sneaky]

We had 4 peeps in the circle yesterday after the change, all within 20 skill points of each other. Only got 3 focus. This was intended? How so? They only thing that was supposed to change is that you couldn't get a level 1 by yourself.

Let me tell ya how it's used in my circle of friends.. Let's take Grizzle for example.

Tamers take in a pet or two to keep him in one spot. Archers use almost 1000 bolts per. Mages cast fire and poison fields on him. Mages also cast healing on the pets. Weavers don't have any spells which can match the damage of the archers/tamers.. so they usually cast gift of renewal on the pets and throw heals at em. Since they AREN'T getting any damage points which will allow them looting rights, they save their fire for when Griz redlines. Griz has more than 10k life points, weavers get a couple of 300+ WoD's in... if you think that is an overpowered spell you need your head examed.

It's important to note for the non-weavers out there, the Word of Death spell does greater damage when the mobs hit points are lower. You can't stand there and cast WoD the whole time and get 300+ damage hits. As a mage I CAN stand there and cast fireballs or lightening or mind blast the entire time and get more than 3000 hit points off him. Weavers get their 1-2000 points in the last few minutes.

Yeh see, it would be a problem if SW used 720 skill points, but since it only uses 120 you have plenty of room for other stuff on your template. Most weavers are mages as well, so whats your point here? You can't compete damage wise with an archer (or any template) who has invested 720 skill points in their temp vs a weaver with only 120 skill? Waaaaa. News for ya, a mage cannot sit there and do 3000+ dmg to a grizzel either with only 120 skill invested in it (you need eval, unless your going to mind blast it to death, in which cast your gona want a lot of med). Oh and don't forget that SW requires no regs/lrc... I also never said WoD was overpowered, I said "They hardly killed the whole spell."

 

[Yalp]

I think you are mudding the waters on the sw discussion by discussing the investment of other skill points. that argument could be used both ways..

(ie. there are no modifiers for spellweaving llike mage has.. eval, med, sw REQUIRES other peeps to play the skill to it's full strength)

Fact. The game is not dominated by spellweavers.
Fact. Peeps must gather other weavers in order to utilize the skill effectively.
Fact. No other skill REQUIRES the use of others to utilize the skill effectively.
Fact. Weaving is a secondary skill, much like bushido.

This nerf is unnecessary and arbitrary-imo.

LORD Yalp of Zento, CTDM

 

[packrat]

Yeh see, it would be a problem if SW used 720 skill points, but since it only uses 120 you have plenty of room for other stuff on your template. Most weavers are mages as well, so whats your point here?

Magery only requires a few skill points and a LRC suit or regs. You dont need eval to use magery. I have a bunch of char with only magery and no eval. So don't say you need 240 skill points to have magery. Then you are going to say, magery is useless without eval. Well spellweaving is useless without focus. And not all spellweavers are mages. A lot of warriors use it. And Warriors do not have a lot of skill points to waste on meditation because of the mana drain it takes.

 

[Lord Kotan]

/sign

Thanks for typing for me

 

[Sneaky]

Magery only requires a few skill points and a LRC suit or regs. You dont need eval to use magery.

No you don't need eval to use mage, but he was talking about doing a grizzel with a weaver vs other templates.

I have a bunch of char with only magery and no eval. So don't say you need 240 skill points to have magery.

To use magery offensively you need eval. I was replying to this...

You can't stand there and cast WoD the whole time and get 300+ damage hits. As a mage I CAN stand there and cast fireballs or lightening or mind blast the entire time and get more than 3000 hit points off him. Weavers get their 1-2000 points in the last few minutes.

Then you are going to say, magery is useless without eval.

Nope I'm not. Just saying you need eval to cast offensive spells effectively.

Well spellweaving is useless without focus.

No it's not. I have SW on my wrestle mage, I never get focus, EVER, but yet I use SW all the time. Sure, its better with high focus but you can still do that, yes? So whats the fuss about?

And not all spellweavers are mages. A lot of warriors use it. And Warriors do not have a lot of skill points to waste on meditation because of the mana drain it takes.

Never said they were. Thats what is good about SW though, it only takes 120 skill points, this means you have another 600 points to invest in whatever skills you like. Someone in this thread said it very well when they said SW was a secondary skill like Bushido.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

It was intended according to the patch notes, but why they felt the need to do it at all currently escapes me.

 

[Smakkatron Jones]

What a crap idea it is to remove the focus 1 from solo weavers. Bad enough it's so hard to find weavers within 20 skill pts to focus with in the first place (see spellweaving profession forum). So what ever gave anyone the idea that this needed to end? Weavers have been yeowling for years to trash the 20pt skill limit due to the difficulties (read: huge wastes of time looking for others to focus with) of getting a focus.

Now we can't even focus ourselves. Ever tried to cast ethreal voyage at lev zero focus? You can barely make it accross your own screen, funny stuff. And the proponents of this nerf have never tried to cast a WoD at any large critter with a zero focus. Red line isn't good enough. You gotta wait till the monster is *well BELOW red line* to even attempt a WoD. Any blue left on that Lady Mel health bar? Zero focus? You can't land a WoD, 50 mana wasted. Gee fun. This is just a bad idea all around.

 

[Connor_Graham]

I thought it was odd the other day doing WOD on the stranger and only doing 3 to 10 points of damage (once redlined). Then a friend came on & we did a circle, on the next one I did 300 damage on Ea WOD to him (same health, redlined). Yes, it would be nice to know if know, alone is this skill now useless as hell or what? Was this an intended or just another one of the screwup back lashs from fixing something else (again)!

I was doing around 490 damage to Melissa over the weekend with no focus, just lots of SDI. My guess is that you hit WoD just a bit too soon.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I was doing around 490 damage to Melissa over the weekend with no focus, just lots of SDI. My guess is that you hit WoD just a bit too soon.

I actually doubt that WoD works with no focus. I am quite experienced with WoD timing. I never had problems timing the spell. However, since the last patch, I can wait until the monster is down to 5% health and still do only 15 points damage (unless EA has secretly changed something on the weekend). I tested it thoroughly and came to the conclusion that WoD is now useless unless you have at least a lvl 1 focus (which requires 2 Spellweavers now).

 

[Snakeman]

was doing around 490 damage to Melissa over the weekend with no focus, just lots of SDI. My guess is that you hit WoD just a bit too soon.

Did WOD 4 times, all once it had been Redlined for a few sec's (have done enought Peers Etc so I know) Last WOD was just a split second before it died, saw the 4 damage tick come off so I know it wasn't too soon. Possibly the 1 one might of been a ted early since he had just gone to redline, but the rest were all the the normal WOD 300+ damage time frame you would normally get from the spell.

 

[Connor_Graham]

I actually doubt that WoD works with no focus.

Doubt all you want, but I had anywhere from 360ish to as much as 510 tick off (usual range was around 480-490) when I cast WoD on Melissa. This was with no focus at all, just a bunch of SDI. Hell, this particular character has never actually HAD a focus, ever.

 

[Yalp]

We've now had the whole weekend to play with the focus nerf and of course the pooch has been screwed! Pardon my sarcasm.. what a big friggin surprise!

As already stated.. you can't get a focus by yourself. You get a level 1 with 2 weavers! You get a 2 with 3 weavers! You get a 3 with 4 weavers! You get a 4 with 5 weavers! You get a ....... 4 with 7 weavers!

There is no way now to get a level 5.. even with more than 6 weavers in the circle!

As stated before.. the trouble it takes to find enough weavers, ensure they are all within 20 skill points of each other, only to find you can't get the focus you should. I can totally understand people saying weaving has become a skill not worth the points. Please tell me another skill which requires the same hoops!

LORD Yalp of Zento, CTDM

 

[Ivan - MT]

Aye.....we had 7 weavers online at 2 different time and only reached a level 4 focus....that's utter BS imo. I assume that you would now have to go down into Prism to reach a level 5? This nerf is uncalled for and should be adjusted. For those people who have trouble finding other weavers to focus with are the real ones getting the shaft. My opinion on this change....

 

[Ailish]

I am just as unhappy about this as the rest of you, but you CAN get a level 5 focus ... you just have to take 5 people down the the Prism to do it. Now this is about the only way I have ever done a focus, so its nothing new for me, but for those of you who don't utilize the Prism ... now is a good time to try. You can get thru the rooms with Attunement, Ethreal Voyage, and Gift of Renewal.

Now, my pancake about the whole thing. My SW is my tamer. I have no Eval so that I can have SW. Maybe alot of people do not know, but the spell Arcane Empowerment + G'Heal can save the life of a pet about to go down. With a focus 6 it will do ~75 pts of healing. With no focus it heals ~45 points (still a bonus). This is a big thing when you are in a situation like Grizzle or Shimmer where you may not be able to stand close and vet the pet. In case you want to say that it overpowered ... check out how much mana AE takes, and how long the cast is.

 

[Jeremy]

We're investigating this now - it does appear that the only way to get a level 5 is by casting in a circle that gives a bonus (Prism,) but it's unclear whether or not this was intended. I'll let you know.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

We're investigating this now - it does appear that the only way to get a level 5 is by casting in a circle that gives a bonus (Prism,) but it's unclear whether or not this was intended. I'll let you know.

Welcome back, J.

-Galen's player

 

[Hildebrand]

I agree, it's very difficult fo find someone within the 20pt range.
It takes forever to cast WoD even with 4fc, meanwhile others are getting the kill before my dang spell goes off.
SDI does not apply to this skill.
No SW +skill items.

Takes forever to get to GM on this skill, then we are rewarded how? What... 120 Spellweave? How much gp?? I bought the scroll on my mage months ago to, and now my dreams are crushed! It's an iffy skill on top of it already. I shoulda stuck to something else.

Human Warriors with zero skill that dabble in this skill now get their fun factor pulled. I liked the occational nature's fury and halidril spell. Forgetabout it now.... mana ain't worth it!!!!

This SW will belong on the forensics tab soon.

 

[galefan2004]

Yeh see, it would be a problem if SW used 720 skill points, but since it only uses 120 you have plenty of room for other stuff on your template. Most weavers are mages as well, so whats your point here? You can't compete damage wise with an archer (or any template) who has invested 720 skill points in their temp vs a weaver with only 120 skill? Waaaaa. News for ya, a mage cannot sit there and do 3000+ dmg to a grizzel either with only 120 skill invested in it (you need eval, unless your going to mind blast it to death, in which cast your gona want a lot of med). Oh and don't forget that SW requires no regs/lrc... I also never said WoD was overpowered, I said "They hardly killed the whole spell."

The point was that weaving is pointless if they nerfed focuses. The majority of people don't play with 5 other people in this game. That means for anyone that has less than 2 friends (level 2 focus requires 2 people now) then there is no real reason to actually take spellweaving. The only thing worthwhile about SW is WoD. It has been nerfed now for those that don't have plenty of in game friends (I'd say alot of people) that all have spellweaving.

That was the comment the OP was making...that hes probably going to drop SW now because of the focus change. I kind of agree with him. I mean, is eval or spellweaving better after the change? If you are on a tamer/mage you pretty much have to chose...the easy choice used to be SW, but now there might be a point for mage/tamers to get eval again and drop SW.

 

[galefan2004]

I think you are mudding the waters on the sw discussion by discussing the investment of other skill points. that argument could be used both ways..

(ie. there are no modifiers for spellweaving llike mage has.. eval, med, sw REQUIRES other peeps to play the skill to it's full strength)

Fact. The game is not dominated by spellweavers.
Fact. Peeps must gather other weavers in order to utilize the skill effectively.
Fact. No other skill REQUIRES the use of others to utilize the skill effectively.
Fact. Weaving is a secondary skill, much like bushido.

This nerf is unnecessary and arbitrary-imo.

LORD Yalp of Zento, CTDM

I couldn't agree more. I would like to see them nerf the damage on WoD (200 pre-SDI at 35% seems fine) and then drop the stupidity of the focus system all together. They could turn arcane circle into a low damage/low mana damage spell.

 

[galefan2004]

To use magery offensively you need eval. I was replying to this...

WRONG. You are limited on the damage your offensive spells do and what offensive spells you can use. However, mind blast doesn't require eval to do full damage (although eval does increase the damage done by it) and I believe that earthquake doesn't require eval either (guaging from eqs on grizzle for over 100 damage with 0 eval).

No it's not. I have SW on my wrestle mage, I never get focus, EVER, but yet I use SW all the time. Sure, its better with high focus but you can still do that, yes? So whats the fuss about?

The difference is that SW has a bass ackwards modifier system called focus. If bushido required such a system as well (you can claim honor is such a system but you can work honor solo), I highly doubt other people would use it. In a game like UO, which basically a single player game in a MMO enviroment (if you try to argue this then go play WoW which is an actual group game for a while to see what exactly you can accomplish there without groups), it is absolutely rediculous to rate the power of the skill on rather you know 5 other friends with that skill or not. It takes 6 people with spellweaving to get a level 5 focus now...a party holds 10 people...you honestly think it is ok that over 1/2 the party should be forced to have SW in order for it to be fully useful?


Never said they were. Thats what is good about SW though, it only takes 120 skill points, this means you have another 600 points to invest in whatever skills you like. Someone in this thread said it very well when they said SW was a secondary skill like Bushido.[/QUOTE]

 

[galefan2004]

I was doing around 490 damage to Melissa over the weekend with no focus, just lots of SDI. My guess is that you hit WoD just a bit too soon.

If you wait till she is at the percentage needed for a level 0 focus then you might be able to get in 2-3 WoDs before the thing is dead. If you have full SDI (like I do) then thats 1500 damage. The skill really isn't worth it for 1500 damage. It just makes crowded templates more likely to get other skills instead of SW. I mean hell, I could probably work necromancy and spirit speak into my template now and dump SW.

105 Taming (110)
110 Lore (115)
100 Vet
110 Magery
105 Med (115)

Now do I get Eval and SW or do I get SS and Necro? I could easily go with 90 Necro and gm spirit speak and still cast pretty decent necro spells. Seriously, I think that would be the way to go now that that SW seems rather pointless.

 

[galefan2004]

Doubt all you want, but I had anywhere from 360ish to as much as 510 tick off (usual range was around 480-490) when I cast WoD on Melissa. This was with no focus at all, just a bunch of SDI. Hell, this particular character has never actually HAD a focus, ever.

Having a focus or not has NOTHING to do with the DAMAGE of WoD. It only has to do with when you can cast it for full potency. If you are only getting 2-3 off thats 1000-1500 damage. If you are running necro spells the whole time you are probably hitting an extra 2500-3500 damage on top of all other damages that you are doing. SW only starts to top that when you get a full focus, so the choice is, do you want to look for other people for a focus or do you want to use a skill that doesn't require others to make it effective?

 

[galefan2004]

We're investigating this now - it does appear that the only way to get a level 5 is by casting in a circle that gives a bonus (Prism,) but it's unclear whether or not this was intended. I'll let you know.

If it was intended and never even mentioned in the patch notes that would be yet another reason to lose faith in the development team. Do the players of UO need yet another reason to lose faith? While it might seem acceptable to developers that you should have to pay 10k each time you want a full level focus, I don't think most SWs will be very excited about it. That would make a level 5 focus cast 50k. Thats one hell of a gold sink.

 

[Thrand Graywolf]

it's unclear whether or not this was intended

Uh...maybe I expect too much from people...but why would that part be unclear?

 

[galefan2004]

Uh...maybe I expect too much from people...but why would that part be unclear?

Its the EA development team? Apparently, they can't figure out what they mean to do when they do something. Wait till it becomes unclear if they meant to do this whole event arc or not. Pure politics for the win.

 

[Ill Saint]

Fantastic. It only took, what, nearly 10 separate threads on this topic since the patch notes for a higher-up to even pop in and say something?

But I'd still love to know why this change was even made in the first place (hint: FoF??). It's very disheartening.

 

[Thrand Graywolf]

But I'd still love to know why this change was even made in the first place (hint: FoF??). It's very disheartening.

They are, again, wasting time on things that don't matter. It's not like a lvl 1 focus makes a spellweaver some sort of unbalanced super killer.

I can't wait for the patch that lets tamers have paragon balrons for pets.

 

[galefan2004]

Fantastic. It only took, what, nearly 10 separate threads on this topic since the patch notes for a higher-up to even pop in and say something?

But I'd still love to know why this change was even made in the first place (hint: FoF??). It's very disheartening.

I'm starting to believe the rumors that Mythic is trying to run UO into the ground so they only have 2 games to worry about when WAR launches. I mean, I love this game, but the developers try very hard to find ways to make me stop loving this game as time goes on.

I already went back to playing WoW, but I really don't desire to leave UO, so I'm simply going to hope that I'm wrong and ride it out, but it is kind of disheartening when we can't even get a straight answer out of a developer and we are now getting very unecessary nerfs. The funny thing is, I don't remember anyone complaining about SW since the PVP fix.

 

[galefan2004]

They are, again, wasting time on things that don't matter. It's not like a lvl 1 focus makes a spellweaver some sort of unbalanced super killer.

I can't wait for the patch that lets tamers have paragon balrons for pets.

Nah...not balrons...I'll settle for a paragon GD as a pet though (maybe they should let mages summon balrons now though). I figure if you can actually tame a greater dragon paragon (make it so that they can see through honor and etheral voyage like named monsters) then you deserve to have one.

 

[Joyous2K]

I have no idea whether the nerf was intentional.

Needing one more person to get an appropriate level of focus, is a pain in every spellweaver's back.

I could accept the Word of Death being made useless in PvP. They could have reduced the massive damage a bit, but hey, they killed the whole spell instead. Figures.

I could live with the lvl 1 focus with yourself being removed (I didn't even know this was possible). It even seems unlogic to make a focus with yourself; if they'd allow a focus with yourself, the dev's could just have made Spellweaving more powerful.

But needing 3 people for a level 2 focus? Now I am actually thinking about dropping spellweaving again. I mostly used the skill for PvM, because Gift of Life comes in handy. Spwellweaving wasn't very powerful. Most of its spells are rather useless, and the rest has extremely long casting time, high mana cost or extremely short duration. It was hard enough anyway to find someone for a focus, as spellweaving always was an unpopular skill. I assume, more people will give up on this skill now.

Seems to me that the only remaining powerful profiles are Samurais, Archers, certain Necromancer templates and, of course, tamers.

Does this nerf have something to do with a long term bug that the devs found on their own. I feel their was FOF in January or something that said something like "We found a bug in spellweaving where xxx spell is doing 1.4 times the damage it is supposed to. We will be fixing that some day. *Runs off to watch spellweavers use xxx spell before we nerf it*"

Does anyone remember that? Could this be related to that?

Also, this nerf stinks and the skill is for total elfkins. Yeah, you know what I mean. Bigtime elves. Got me? Elton John loving elves. How's that?

As if finding one person with the love for Elton John isn't hard enough, it has to be within +/- of your Elton John skill. That is a royal pain. Now you need an extra John to complete the sausage party to get to where it only used to take two Johns in the first place.

Here is a quick riddle you can use at your next elf RP party:
What was Mondain's Legacy?
Forcing Elton John's together to say "Myrshalee."

(We all know what Elton John represents and that is why I use him, but as an singer/songwriter/artist, he is awesome I guess.)

 

[Sneaky Que]

WRONG. You are limited on the damage your offensive spells do and what offensive spells you can use. However, mind blast doesn't require eval to do full damage (although eval does increase the damage done by it) and I believe that earthquake doesn't require eval either (guaging from eqs on grizzle for over 100 damage with 0 eval).

First, no, your not limited on "what offensive spells you can use," you can use all of them, they just wont do jack. Second, if you read the whole thread you would see I mentioned the idea of mind blasting something to death re: no eval, I said...

News for ya, a mage cannot sit there and do 3000+ dmg to a grizzel either with only 120 skill invested in it (you need eval, unless your going to mind blast it to death, in which cast your gona want a lot of med).

The difference is that SW has a bass ackwards modifier system called focus. If bushido required such a system as well (you can claim honor is such a system but you can work honor solo), I highly doubt other people would use it. In a game like UO, which basically a single player game in a MMO enviroment

No, I don't thing honor is like SW focus at all actually...

A single player game in an MMO environment you say? Is that not what most MMOs are? Thats where the RPG bit comes in see MMO + RPG = MMORPG = UO

(if you try to argue this then go play WoW which is an actual group game for a while to see what exactly you can accomplish there without groups)

Unfortunatly I have had the displeasure of playing WoW already and yes you are required to group as you say, but I would argue that UO has much better community engagement than WoW. WoW's community is also dubious to say the least, if you have seen the Barrens chat you will know what I mean. WoW is also a theme park MMO, UO is a sandbox.

, it is absolutely rediculous to rate the power of the skill on rather you know 5 other friends with that skill or not. It takes 6 people with spellweaving to get a level 5 focus now...a party holds 10 people...you honestly think it is ok that over 1/2 the party should be forced to have SW in order for it to be fully useful?

If you can't use SW without focus then drop it and pick a skill you can use. I have been using SW successfully without focus for some time now as have many others.

 

[galefan2004]

Does this nerf have something to do with a long term bug that the devs found on their own. I feel their was FOF in January or something that said something like "We found a bug in spellweaving where xxx spell is doing 1.4 times the damage it is supposed to. We will be fixing that some day. *Runs off to watch spellweavers use xxx spell before we nerf it*"

Does anyone remember that? Could this be related to that?

Also, this nerf stinks and the skill is for total elfkins. Yeah, you know what I mean. Bigtime elves. Got me? Elton John loving elves. How's that?

As if finding one person with the love for Elton John isn't hard enough, it has to be within +/- of your Elton John skill. That is a royal pain. Now you need an extra John to complete the sausage party to get to where it only used to take two Johns in the first place.

Here is a quick riddle you can use at your next elf RP party:
What was Mondain's Legacy?
Forcing Elton John's together to say "Myrshalee."

(We all know what Elton John represents and that is why I use him, but as an singer/songwriter/artist, he is awesome I guess.)

Please enlighten us on what Elton John means because I read this as a huge insult to a group of people that make up at least 10% of the population, so I really don't see how those comments don't violate the ROC.

 

[Sneaky Que]

The point was that weaving is pointless if they nerfed focuses.

Well, that point is void because it is false. SW is not pointless without focus, in fact I find it extremely useful, heal over time, self rez, damage absorb, ARMY OF PIXIE!!!, trust me these are great in PvP (especially) and PvM alike, no focus required.

The majority of people don't play with 5 other people in this game. That means for anyone that has less than 2 friends (level 2 focus requires 2 people now) then there is no real reason to actually take spellweaving. The only thing worthwhile about SW is WoD. It has been nerfed now for those that don't have plenty of in game friends (I'd say alot of people) that all have spellweaving.

See above, if you can't see how those abilities are useful then that beats me.

That was the comment the OP was making...that hes probably going to drop SW now because of the focus change. I kind of agree with him. I mean, is eval or spellweaving better after the change? If you are on a tamer/mage you pretty much have to chose...the easy choice used to be SW, but now there might be a point for mage/tamers to get eval again and drop SW.

Hmm yeh... eval a skill that does NOTHING other than increase the damage of spells (requiring magery) and tells me how much mana someone has VS heal over time, self rez, damage absorb, pixies, imps, buff spells, the highest dmg spell in the game, uhh temp self monster ignore effect, repond command... am I missing anything? *checks* Oh... Immolating Weapon, Attune Weapon, Thunderstorm, Natures Fury, Reaper, Wildfire, Essence of wind, Arcane Empowerment...

...yeh SW is useless alright. /SARCASM (in case you missed that)

I reckon its not the skill thats useless here...

 

[Joyous2K]

Please enlighten us on what Elton John means because I read this as a huge insult to a group of people that make up at least 10% of the population, so I really don't see how those comments don't violate the ROC.

You are right, that is mean and probably wrong. I will accept my punishment as necessary, but I won't delete though because Elton John means a lot to a lot of different people.

(I had a lot of funny stuff written [I need the WOD coming out of my mouth for all the bad boys I play against, and etc.], but when you are in a hole, you shouldn't dig deeper. The first part of my response is valid and you should look up all the FOFs of 2008 and late 2007 to figure it out)

 

[galefan2004]

First, no, your not limited on "what offensive spells you can use," you can use all of them, they just wont do jack. Second, if you read the whole thread you would see I mentioned the idea of mind blasting something to death re: no eval, I said...

I meant which ones you can use without eval as in which ones are actually worth using. You can cast any of them without eval, but its pointless to cast most of them, so that makes them (in my eyes) unusable.

A single player game in an MMO environment you say? Is that not what most MMOs are? Thats where the RPG bit comes in see MMO + RPG = MMORPG = UO

Play WoW for a week and see how WRONG you are. WoW is very limited in what you can do without a group. WoW is a group based game...UO is not.

Unfortunatly I have had the displeasure of playing WoW already and yes you are required to group as you say, but I would argue that UO has much better community engagement than WoW. WoW's community is also dubious to say the least, if you have seen the Barrens chat you will know what I mean. WoW is also a theme park MMO, UO is a sandbox.

Yes I can totally see how having to turn off Barrens chat once in awhile totally trumps having a game filled with cheaters and scripters in PvP that trash talk you before killing you, after killing you, and while killing you. I've met much more trash in UO than I ever have in WoW, and WoW has 10,000,000 players as compared to 100,000.

If you can't use SW without focus then drop it and pick a skill you can use. I have been using SW successfully without focus for some time now as have many others.

As have I, before the nerf, but then I had a friend pick up SW so we could get a level 2 focus. I don't think the spell needed nerfed. I have even said that I would probably just stone SW and pick up another skill in its place now. Thats not the issue. The issue is that nerfs to skills that aren't unbalanced to begin with are stupid to do when the game is already hemoraging players.

 

[galefan2004]

Well, that point is void because it is false. SW is not pointless without focus, in fact I find it extremely useful, heal over time, self rez, damage absorb, ARMY OF PIXIE!!!, trust me these are great in PvP (especially) and PvM alike, no focus required.

They are relatively POINTLESS in PvM. Hell, pixies in PvP are even poinltess if the person you are against has any skill. A simple mass dispell solves the problem. So does a hit dispell weapon. The heal over time without a focus isn't worth really using, the self rez is kind of pointless also because it locks you in place, and most times you really don't want to res in the place you just died, the damage absorb is decent but is limited in usefullness. I've used them all. Please don't talk to me like I don't know what I am talking about. All of them are SO limited that the ONLY reason to get SW for PVM is WOD. This nerf affects WOD more than anything else. From a PvP stand point its almost pointless to worry about...in PVM is it a HUGE change.

See above, if you can't see how those abilities are useful then that beats me.

In PvM they have limited to no usage. They definately aren't worth the 120 (110) skill points.

Hmm yeh... eval a skill that does NOTHING other than increase the damage of spells (requiring magery) and tells me how much mana someone has VS heal over time, self rez, damage absorb, pixies, imps, buff spells, the highest dmg spell in the game, uhh temp self monster ignore effect, repond command... am I missing anything? *checks* Oh... Immolating Weapon, Attune Weapon, Thunderstorm, Natures Fury, Reaper, Wildfire, Essence of wind, Arcane Empowerment...

EVERY single one of those things has a major draw back to it. They are a tad useful at best. Without the focus, the HOT heals so little it is useless in PvM, the self rez is still usable but because it locks you in place and you are normally dead right undearneath a mob and rez naked about all it is good for in PvM is to spend another 6k, the damage absorb absorbs maybe one hit or one spell and sometimes that helps most of the time it doesn't matter, pixies and imps take control slots and are relatively weak for the slots they take. Immolating weapon is poinltess because it doesn't do enough damage for the mana it takes, attune weapon doesn't even exist anymore thats what attunement is, thunderstorm is weak in pvm, nature's fury takes control slots and don't last long enough to bother casting, reaper form has more draw backs than bennefits, wildfire dumps mana and last for no time at all and does less damage than fire fields, essence of wind is a HUGE mana dump and doesn't do the damage to make it worthwhile even with a focus, and arcane empowerment uses so much mana that you normally use it and med and without a focus it normally has worn off before you have your mana back. Please try again. Maybe you only PvP and maybe it works for you in PvP, but in PvM the ONLY reason to have it is WoD, and this was a nerf to WoD mostly.

...yeh SW is useless alright. /SARCASM (in case you missed that)

I reckon you are always right and I am always wrong, but you did nothing to comment on the actual usefullness (in Pvm) of any of those spells, and is probably because without WoD the entire skill is next to pointless in PVM. I could care less about PvP because I only PvP in games that take actual skill.

I reckon its not the skill thats useless here...

We agree on something. The useless thing was this nerf.

 

[Smakkatron Jones]

Well spellweaving is useless without focus.

"No it's not. I have SW on my wrestle mage, I never get focus, EVER, but yet I use SW all the time. Sure, its better with high focus but you can still do that, yes? So whats the fuss about?"


Trolling is not welcomed here. If as you claim to be true, that you 'never ever' use focus and think spellweaving is good, then obviously you are not qualified to post in this thread. Focus is what makes spellweaving work period. And if you don't even know enough about the skill to do a level one focus with yourself, then you don't know enough about the skill to post on this topic. Go away.

 

[Ailish]

Trolling is not welcomed here. If as you claim to be true, that you 'never ever' use focus and think spellweaving is good, then obviously you are not qualified to post in this thread. Focus is what makes spellweaving work period. And if you don't even know enough about the skill to do a level one focus with yourself, then you don't know enough about the skill to post on this topic. Go away.

My you are a rude one! I have never had difficulty getting a 6 - between my husband, myself, and the 5 or so other guildies that have SW'ers, we could always get a 6. But sometimes I feel lazy, or I already have those Dread Horn keys (that IS PvM, right??) and I just don't feel like going to the Prism, and in fact I dont feel like going to the nearest circle - which is probably a good walk from where I am - to get a 2 or 3 with my party members, much less a 1 with myself. So, we go it naked of focus.

And I'll be darned if I still dont use Gift of Life, Gift of Renewal, Attunement, Arcane Empowerment, and yes, WoD. And let me say to the person who said you use AE and then med ... um, wow, get some MR, LMC and some mana ... I can do AE and 3-4 WoD back to back before I have to med ...

Anyway, one way or another, you should still be able to get your money's worth in the Prism of Light, and level 6 should still be possible. Yes, level 5 works, as does level 0, but I should not have to pay 10k just to get a focus over 4.

 

[Sneaky Que]

I could care less about PvP because I only PvP in games that take actual skill.

I was going to reply to your whole post, but then I saw this, and thought "hang on!"

Please enlighten us to which games you are speaking of? Please make my day and say WoW, it will really make me lol

 

[Sneaky Que]

"No it's not. I have SW on my wrestle mage, I never get focus, EVER, but yet I use SW all the time. Sure, its better with high focus but you can still do that, yes? So whats the fuss about?"


Trolling is not welcomed here. If as you claim to be true, that you 'never ever' use focus and think spellweaving is good, then obviously you are not qualified to post in this thread. Focus is what makes spellweaving work period. And if you don't even know enough about the skill to do a level one focus with yourself, then you don't know enough about the skill to post on this topic. Go away.

Mmmm how is that a troll exactly? I was replying to the thread, staying on topic and making a point about the topic. YOUR post however WAS a troll. I suggest you "go away" and look up what troll means, look I will do it for you even, trolling definition. As for my qualifications on SW and my eligibility to post on the subject what makes you the judge of that? Hows this, if you don't know enough about the skill to utilize its abilities without focus, then you shouldn't be playing this game, period. Troll.