[ Discussion ] Draconi, Why don't Talisman slayer effects affect spell damage ?

[Xel Naga]

Currently, no talismans exist that add spell damage increase which is fine. However, while we do benefit from things like totem of the void's 10% lower mana cost, we don't benefit from slayer properties such as bird slayers and undead slayer talismans.

I always wonder, why is it that the talisman slayers only benefit melee classes?

Slayers for melee consist of
Weapons
Talisman

Slayers for casters consist of
Spellbooks usually with 0 useful extra mods compared to a val runic crafted slayer weapon, unless it's a superslayer scrapper which is still pretty shoddy.

Will there be any plans to allow casters to benefit from slayer properties in talismans in upcoming publishes / expansions?

 

[aarons6]

yes the talis do need to work with spells.

 

[MalagAste]

I would agree that Talismans should work no matter what type of character uses them Melee, Archer or Mage. I can say they do work for archers.

I think it's only fair to work for mages.

 

[kinney42]

yes the talis do need to work with spells.

EXCELLENT!

 

[Ni-]

This is an interesting point...

 

[Viquire]

Sorry guys I'm gonna have to disagree. Spellcasters have a huge range of choices when it comes to damage application and through put, and they can choose to easily alter tactics if the current one doesn't seem to be working well.

A good dexxer ranged or mele will usually carry a couple of weaps to choose from if they are worth their salt, but that still doesn't allow them nearly the flexibility of a mage. We have spellbooks. What're we looking for here?

 

[kinney42]

Sorry guys I'm gonna have to disagree. Spellcasters have a huge range of choices when it comes to damage application and through put, and they can choose to easily alter tactics if the current one doesn't seem to be working well.

A good dexxer ranged or mele will usually carry a couple of weaps to choose from if they are worth their salt, but that still doesn't allow them nearly the flexibility of a mage. We have spellbooks. What're we looking for here?

If it works for 1 it should work across the board. Its only fair.
Dexers don't need flexability. They have Consecrate Weapon.

 

[Thiefy/Glorfiedel]

but a slayer talisman+slayer book would inflict to much damage, and think about "Arcane Empowerment" or "Evil Omen" in combination with 90-100% SDI mage(GM Scribe).

i do with a undeadslayerbook up to 175 damage with a flamestrike ... without necro or sw, and i carry only one slayer..

 

[Anon McDougle]

Bah give us bards some love you can have my slayer flute i cant do crap vs high end mobs(only talking skelly lich here forget about Crimson) with it anyway

maybe a new sonic blast skill/ablity

there have been many many post with great new things toss us some kinda bone

 

[Viquire]

Bah give us bards some love you can have my slayer flute i cant do crap vs high end mobs(only talking skelly lich here forget about Crimson) with it anyway

maybe a new sonic blast skill/ablity

there have been many many post with great new things toss us some kinda bone

Have you tried a weaver bard?

 

[Zodiac19]

Sorry guys I'm gonna have to disagree. Spellcasters have a huge range of choices when it comes to damage application and through put, and they can choose to easily alter tactics if the current one doesn't seem to be working well.

A good dexxer ranged or mele will usually carry a couple of weaps to choose from if they are worth their salt, but that still doesn't allow them nearly the flexibility of a mage. We have spellbooks. What're we looking for here?

Ok, mages have slayer spellbooks but mele characters have slayer properties on their weapons whats the differance?

 

[Cogniac]

Mages own in PvP, but have been shafted in PvM for quite some time now. Between repeated times where mages cannot summon during events due to guard zones (and even sometimes when the guard zone is gone but for some inexplicable, unknown reason you still can't summon) and their inability to rack up enough DI to compensate for this with direct damage, mages get the short end of the stick.

I remember spending an uncouth amount of money on one of the slayer talismans back in the day only to be incredibly pissed when I discovered that my mage couldn't even use the damn property.

Those properties need to apply to magery. End of story.

 

[Sarphus]

Currently, no talismans exist that add spell damage increase which is fine. However, while we do benefit from things like totem of the void's 10% lower mana cost, we don't benefit from slayer properties such as bird slayers and undead slayer talismans.

I always wonder, why is it that the talisman slayers only benefit melee classes?

Slayers for melee consist of
Weapons
Talisman

Slayers for casters consist of
Spellbooks usually with 0 useful extra mods compared to a val runic crafted slayer weapon, unless it's a superslayer scrapper which is still pretty shoddy.

Will there be any plans to allow casters to benefit from slayer properties in talismans in upcoming publishes / expansions?

I can think about this for about 3 seconds and realize that talisman slayers working on spells would be WAY overpowered.

There is no dmg cap on SDI, but there is a dmg cap on DI. I don't want to see a dmg cap on SDI, but if the devs let us use slayer talismans it could create a situation where we'd need a dmg cap on SDI too.

I believe SDI has diminishing returns, but even with diminishing returns it would be possible to use spellweaving + suit + talisman to effectively buff your SDI to 150 with double slayer. I suspect you would see flamestrikes of 400-500 dmg. Obviously that would be way overpowered.

For example, if I were to take my undead slayer scrappers in my SDI suit wearing the new talisman, I would be hitting lich lords for 450-500 dmg with arcane empowerment on.

I would be able to build a character that can blow up these new skeletal liches faster than 5 man parties, because I would be hitting skeletal lich for 350 on my flamestrikes.

 

[Sarphus]

Ok, mages have slayer spellbooks but mele characters have slayer properties on their weapons whats the differance?

The difference is that a dexer with double slayer is still capped at 300% DI.

A mage (under current design) would not be. I would prefer to keep SDI uncapped, so I would prefer that horribly unbalancing changes like what is suggested in this thread do not get implemented.

I assure you that if this suggestion was implemented it would be horribly broken and I would be able to exploit the hell out of it. I would definitely be able to 1 hit kill 2 lich lords with 1 spell. I would definitely be killing rotting corpses in 3 spells or less. I would definitley be killing skeletal liches faster than they were intended to be killed.

 

[BbqLou]

I thought I saw that one of the devs said at one point they would consider making spells work with talismans. Forget where I saw it though.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Sorry guys I'm gonna have to disagree. Spellcasters have a huge range of choices when it comes to damage application and through put, and they can choose to easily alter tactics if the current one doesn't seem to be working well.

A good dexxer ranged or mele will usually carry a couple of weaps to choose from if they are worth their salt, but that still doesn't allow them nearly the flexibility of a mage. We have spellbooks. What're we looking for here?

If it works for 1 it should work across the boad. Its only fair.
Dexers don't need flexability. They have Consecrate Weapon.

1) Who says all dexxers have Chivalry? That is your idea of flexability?


2) Since when are damage/spell damage interchangeable? You have 1 or the other. That is fair and how it has always been. Damage has certain caps that sdi doesnt. This has been working very well for quite some time. Mages have more then enough ways to deal pvm damage.

3) Whats fair? All melee warriors(not archers)are getting their arse kicked standing right next to their target. Most times the mage is 5 tiles away yawning while his ev's do the damage with no possibility of damage being taken to the mage. Thats your idea of fair? Laughs!

 

[kinney42]

1) Who says all dexxers have Chivalry? That is your idea of flexability?

Just because you don't choose to take a skill that is all but required for a fighter to play the high end stuff doesn't mean other templates should suffer.

3) Whats fair? All melee warriors(not archers)are getting their arse kicked standing right next to their target. Most times the mage is 5 tiles away yawning while his ev's do the damage with no possibility of damage being taken to the mage. Thats your idea of fair? Laughs!

A fighter has an unlimited supply of "damage".....just keep swinging....that CANNOT BE STOPPED until the fighter dies. Mage runs out of mana or thier spells can be interrupted. That is why mages do more damage.....thier ability to do damage is limited when compaired to a fighter.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

1) Who says all dexxers have Chivalry? That is your idea of flexability?

Just because you don't choose to take a skill that is all but required for a fighter to play the high end stuff doesn't mean other templates should suffer.

3) Whats fair? All melee warriors(not archers)are getting their arse kicked standing right next to their target. Most times the mage is 5 tiles away yawning while his ev's do the damage with no possibility of damage being taken to the mage. Thats your idea of fair? Laughs!

A fighter has an unlimited supply of "damage".....just keep swinging....that CANNOT BE STOPPED until the fighter dies. Mage runs out of mana or thier spells can be interrupted. That is why mages do more damage.....thier ability to do damage is limited when compaired to a fighter.

Other templates are suffering? Mages are suffering in pvm because they dont have a tally to stack with their books? Lmao.

And btw, as stated earlier most mages are simply casting ev's and standing by basically idle. There is absolutely no mana concern. Add to that necro form for ridiculous amounts of extra mana/regen and you just dont have a point sorry

Spells can be interrrupted and weapons can whiff. Your interrupt point?

 

[Xel Naga]

SDI is already capped for PvP so it wouldn't be a big issue there, it now comes down to PVM


For PvM I don't know if Using a weapon/spellbook slayer and a talisman of the same slayer type will give you 4x the damage. If it does, then it's not a problem for melee since they're capped at 300%. What using a weapon and talisman does is free up tons of skill points that you would have used for bushido, honoring a target, needing DI on gear. That's a free 120 skill points at the very least while still being able to deck out a full suit in HCI/DCI resists, regen, and stat increases.

For Melee this is the current damage increase from gear you can get.
Weapon 50%
ring 25
bracelet 25
gloves 25
helmet 25
Talisman 20

Thus giving you the ability to have a pool of 170% damage increase solely from items to mix and match from.

In addition to which, you can get DI from skills as well. Bushido perfection 100%, Enemy of one 100%, Slayer weapon 100%, Slayer Talisman 100%

Giving melee/archers a total pool of 570% damage increase points of where they can choose to pull the 300% from. They can easily get better resists, regen on gear by choosing to use certain skills such as chivalry/bushido or simply get more skill points by capping out at 300% with items and having an extra 240 skill points to allocate somewhere else.

While for casters, there is currently no hardcap on SDI. However, for items this is what you can get.
Bracelet 12
ring 20
arms 10
legs 10
book 25
neck 5
head 12
That's a total of 94% SDI from items.

To achieve this we have to use:
a bracelet with 12SDI which no one does, since every caster will be using an orny
a Kasa of the rajin though most mages will use HOM for the regen and int bonus
spell woven britches in which all humans can't use and elves don't due to the lack of regen or resists
Midnight bracers which no mage uses simply due to the lack of resists, regen, mods, and the fact that vamp form no longer is viable with mages thus making the necro points useless other than wraith forming with a hybrid template
Pendant of the magi
a Crystalline ring which forces a caster to use a scrappers and vesper chaos shield in order to reach the 2/6 casting cap or 4/6 for spellweavers

So in a normal situation, a mage will only have 35% spell damage increase from items unless they have luckily found a superslayer scrappers for undead/demon/whatever which will put them at 60% SDI. Compare this to the average suit of a melee class with 170% and one can easily see we will not be hitting the equivalent damage cap ever.

More comparison stats:
An archer can fire arrows from ranged at 1 swing per second. Each shot will do anywhere from 100-200 damage per hit based on how well they built the suit simply by auto firing. This will cost just the initial mana to cast enemy of one if they even used chiv to reach the cap instead of just items. Thus giving an archer or melee class an effective DPS average of 150. (damage per second for those who didn't play wow or other mmos that use this term) This DPS is also sustainable throughout any duration of a fight with no downtime.

A mage however, takes 3 seconds to cast a flame strike. At the current available gear setup a mage will be able to do 100-200 damage per flamestrike to an average target not inclusive of corpse skin or discord.
This gives us an average of 33-66DPS with an average of say 50 DPS. This is only one third the DPS output of an archer in PvM.

However, there are even more variables to consider which put the casters at a huge disadvantage. Casters require to not be hit within the 3 seconds casting in order to cast and are immobile and frozen in place during the cast sequence, melee characters are able to move around freely, kite, as well as perform hit and run tactics. Caster's DPS is also not sustained DPS and quite opposite considered burst DPS. We have a high initial damage output but that is only available with mana. In order to sustain even the 50DPS we would have one must be casting flamestrikes nonstop for the duration of the entire fight which will usually last several minutes. The average caster will have lets say 130-150 mana. Each Flamestrike will consume 25 mana with 40% lower mana cost equipment. So, at 6 flamestrikes cast, our DPS is expended. Now the mage will require ample Mana regeneration 2-4 gear in every single equipement slot which is not possible if they are using the full spell damage suit. This also will require a 120 Meditation and 120 Focus skills in their build due to the nerf to the way mana regen experiences diminishing returns. So even at this much regen one would only be able to cast at most 10 flame strikes in a row with passive regen before running out of mana and having to resort to fireballs every few seconds which actively lowers their dps to 40% of what flamestrikes were doing. Now a mage has a sustained dps given the cast time of fireballs to 30.

With skills included, we would need to waste 100 skill points solely on a mule skill to have 10% SDI extra which would in essence boost our DPS to 55 burst dps and 30 sustained dps.

Now it's true a caster would be able to cast arcane empowerment which gives us another small boost to burst dps but takes 1/5 our mana pool in doing so and also only lasts a short duration making it unusable for sustaining dps. One would also be able to cast wraith form to receive some mana return, however this makes us immobile and easily die to mobs that we draw aggro on. Dexers and archers on the other hand are able to be fully mobile at mounted run speeds while still sustaining 2-3x the DPS of casters.

So, in conclusion. Even IF by chance a slayer talisman and spellbook's slayer effect stacked in using double undead slayer. Which I don't believe it does, it would still only make the burst DPS of a mage 100, and the sustained dps at around 60-70 depending on lag and reaction time. Even WITH the ability to stack it we're still at a loss of the 10% LMC from using a totem of the void solely for the ability to use a melee trinket with undead slayer and yet are still only half the DPS of an archer or melee class.

I believe with the current way the statistics are and the gear available to the players for spell damage increase, this would not affect PVM in an unbalanced way but instead, simply allow a mage to use other weapon choices instead of fully relying on a spell book or a collection of various slayer books. It would for one, allow a mage to use a -0mage weapon for added defense while still being able to kill undead mobs.

Draconi or Jeremy, I hope these facts will be useful in helping to determine if the talismans should be reconsidered in affecting slayer properties towards spells. Hopefully this also puts to rest some beliefs people may have that it will make it overpowered for casters in pvm.

 

[Xel Naga]

Other templates are suffering? Mages are suffering in pvm because they dont have a tally to stack with their books? Lmao.

And btw, as stated earlier most mages are simply casting ev's and standing by basically idle. There is absolutely no mana concern. Add to that necro form for ridiculous amounts of extra mana/regen and you just dont have a point sorry

Spells can be interrrupted and weapons can whiff. Your interrupt point?

The mages you see are generally bad mages if all they do is cast two EVs and call it a day. It may be why you see them complaining about not getting any loot. EVs do 14-15 damage towards skeletal liches and die in 1-2 hits and also get easily dispelled. They are also subject to the whiffs you experience as a dexer however they don't have any HCI nor 120 wrestling to add to their hit rates. Please refer to the comparison I made above for some number crunching if you wanted more information regarding our burst and sustained dps compared to melee/archers.

 

[Fox (Europa)]

Draconi, Why don't Talisman slayer effects affect spell damage ?

Seems fair... as long as my archer can also hold a leet spellbook at the same time as a bow.

Fox

 

[WarUltima]

Other templates are suffering? Mages are suffering in pvm because they dont have a tally to stack with their books? Lmao.

And btw, as stated earlier most mages are simply casting ev's and standing by basically idle. There is absolutely no mana concern. Add to that necro form for ridiculous amounts of extra mana/regen and you just dont have a point sorry

Spells can be interrrupted and weapons can whiff. Your interrupt point?

Mages suffering in pvm because their damage is limited which is mentioned before. Please get on a necromage and go wither lady mel to death and tell me the crazy mana regen a mage has. Hell any single target mob (basically ALL bosses) mage will run out of mana before their bar drops below 80%.

So you cried about "not all dexer has chiv" now all mages are suppose to have necro + ss (240 points) or SW (120points) or both(360 points) while my sampire is pumping out 300di max damage with just 60 chiv? Well looks like the mage template you are suggesting takes anywhere around 400% to 600% MORE skill points than a dexer with 60chiv. Oh yea I forgot lets throw in scribe (100 points) making it almost 800% extra skill points.

Your ranged argument does not stand because archer is one of the highest (and unlimited) damage output to any boss in game (and sorry an archer is a dexer). Spell damage is also not flexible. While fire and energy spell is sufficient again low fire/energy resist mobs. Mind blast is not affected by SDI nor slayer book and if you are telling a mage to stand next to "insert any boss here" and harm to do cold damage you shouldnt be posting on the board. And what about poison? I can poison a target with zero poison resist and my poison will tick for a whole five(5) points of damage. Dexer can simply switch weapon and gets different damage distribution or spend sixty(60) skill points and can turn all there unlimited swings/shots to "automatically" target mobs lowest resistance.

Oh yea weapon misses. In PvM I would take 75% chance to hit dexer that outputs 986 trillion(or you can call it infinite amount) of damage over a mage that can puts out hmm 9000 damage and go out of mana and then the mage would be dealing zero(0) damage after 2 minutes or 3. That 9000 something damage is assuming the mage is willing to spend 600% more spell points find 5 people with GM to legendary spellweaving and uses a slayer book and while HOPING that mob has weak fire/energy resist just to met what a dexer can do with 60 chiv and some slayer ITEMS(not even skill points needed).

People complained about dexers and tamers able to solo bosses. Wheres that necromage soloing all peerless? Oh yea they are EVERYWHERE because mage in pvm is just fine(go kid urself). Even if DEV let mages use slayer talisman mages will still be the weakest link in pvm. Unless of course the mage can have perfect suit that gives max sdi and spending 600% extra skill points and use that one and only template and when they are about to go out hunting they call up 4 friends IRL to get on so they can create a focus crystal...

While mages take way more player skill to do good in pvp than any dexers, mages ARE shafted in pvm completely. If you still cant figure out the truth you probably have never pvper nor pvmed with a mage. (not talking about spawns but yea take your necro sw scribe mage and go solo some lady mel please.)

 

[WarUltima]

Seems fair... as long as my archer can also hold a leet spellbook at the same time as a bow.

Fox

Are you being funny? Your archer can already hold a slayer bow with some crazy mob while using slayer talisman... And My mage can hold a slayer book with max of 20sdi and ???

You know I will make it simple for ya. Dexer is to Mage. Slayer weapon is to slayer spell book and Slayer talisman is to ?????????.

 

[Xel Naga]

Are you being funny? Your archer can already hold a slayer bow with some crazy mob while using slayer talisman... And My mage can hold a slayer book with max of 20sdi and ???

You know I will make it simple for ya. Dexer is to Mage. Slayer weapon is to slayer spell book and Slayer talisman is to ?????????.

A Slayer talisman is to the purpose of my thread.

I gave a very detailed comparison of everything so hopefully everyone can keep the discussions civil and not let it become personal with it eventually leading to everyone calling each other trammies and what not causing the thread to be locked.

I'd like some serious thought input in this and not just the attitude of "Please nerf every talent build except mine" type of behavior which is quite prevalent on u.hall.

Everyone should look at the numbers I posted and then think of a logical response whether it be in agreement or if not, hopefully they will post some facts to convince us otherwise that a talisman with slayer for spells would indeed be game breaking in some way instead of just saying it will because he said so.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Other templates are suffering? Mages are suffering in pvm because they dont have a tally to stack with their books? Lmao.

And btw, as stated earlier most mages are simply casting ev's and standing by basically idle. There is absolutely no mana concern. Add to that necro form for ridiculous amounts of extra mana/regen and you just dont have a point sorry

Spells can be interrrupted and weapons can whiff. Your interrupt point?

Mages suffering in pvm because their damage is limited which is mentioned before. Please get on a necromage and go wither lady mel to death and tell me the crazy mana regen a mage has. Hell any single target mob (basically ALL bosses) mage will run out of mana before their bar drops below 80%.

So you cried about "not all dexer has chiv" now all mages are suppose to have necro + ss (240 points) or SW (120points) or both(360 points) while my sampire is pumping out 300di max damage with just 60 chiv? Well looks like the mage template you are suggesting takes anywhere around 400% to 600% MORE skill points than a dexer with 60chiv. Oh yea I forgot lets throw in scribe (100 points) making it almost 800% extra skill points.

Your ranged argument does not stand because archer is one of the highest (and unlimited) damage output to any boss in game (and sorry an archer is a dexer). Spell damage is also not flexible. While fire and energy spell is sufficient again low fire/energy resist mobs. Mind blast is not affected by SDI nor slayer book and if you are telling a mage to stand next to "insert any boss here" and harm to do cold damage you shouldnt be posting on the board. And what about poison? I can poison a target with zero poison resist and my poison will tick for a whole five(5) points of damage. Dexer can simply switch weapon and gets different damage distribution or spend sixty(60) skill points and can turn all there unlimited swings/shots to "automatically" target mobs lowest resistance.

Oh yea weapon misses. In PvM I would take 75% chance to hit dexer that outputs 986 trillion(or you can call it infinite amount) of damage over a mage that can puts out hmm 9000 damage and go out of mana and then the mage would be dealing zero(0) damage after 2 minutes or 3. That 9000 something damage is assuming the mage is willing to spend 600% more spell points find 5 people with GM to legendary spellweaving and uses a slayer book and while HOPING that mob has weak fire/energy resist just to met what a dexer can do with 60 chiv and some slayer ITEMS(not even skill points needed).

People complained about dexers and tamers able to solo bosses. Wheres that necromage soloing all peerless? Oh yea they are EVERYWHERE because mage in pvm is just fine(go kid urself). Even if DEV let mages use slayer talisman mages will still be the weakest link in pvm. Unless of course the mage can have perfect suit that gives max sdi and spending 600% extra skill points and use that one and only template and when they are about to go out hunting they call up 4 friends IRL to get on so they can create a focus crystal...

While mages take way more player skill to do good in pvp than any dexers, mages ARE shafted in pvm completely. If you still cant figure out the truth you probably have never pvper nor pvmed with a mage. (not talking about spawns but yea take your necro sw scribe mage and go solo some lady mel please.)

Huhza??

What are you talking about?

1) I clearly left Archers out because they are overpowered. If you read my reply you will notice where i said - "melee warrior(not archer)"
That being said though what are you trying to say concerning Lady Mel? You are correct in saying that a necro-mage cannot solo her. But I have a newsflash for you: Neither can an Archer. So what is your convoluted point?

2) Anyone that feels the need to inject "mages take way more player skill to do good in pvp than any dexers" just plain has misguided template predjudices and is not worth listening to any longer IMO.

3) Do you honestly believe that EVERY template in the game should be equally effective against EVERY other monster/player? Because that is what can be inferred from the nonsense you have been spouting.
Of course right now archers and tamers are way more effective in pvm then mages. Get over it. Mages can still pvm quite effectively. Just not as well as archers/tamers. Mages have other huge advantages(pvp/group/spawn,etc...)
For how many years could an average necromage with good gear solo Coon? Talk about overpowered. Gimme a break.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

SDI is already capped for PvP so it wouldn't be a big issue there, it now comes down to PVM


For PvM I don't know if Using a weapon/spellbook slayer and a talisman of the same slayer type will give you 4x the damage. If it does, then it's not a problem for melee since they're capped at 300%. What using a weapon and talisman does is free up tons of skill points that you would have used for bushido, honoring a target, needing DI on gear. That's a free 120 skill points at the very least while still being able to deck out a full suit in HCI/DCI resists, regen, and stat increases.

For Melee this is the current damage increase from gear you can get.
Weapon 50%
ring 25
bracelet 25
gloves 25
helmet 25
Talisman 20

Thus giving you the ability to have a pool of 170% damage increase solely from items to mix and match from.

In addition to which, you can get DI from skills as well. Bushido perfection 100%, Enemy of one 100%, Slayer weapon 100%, Slayer Talisman 100%

Giving melee/archers a total pool of 570% damage increase points of where they can choose to pull the 300% from. They can easily get better resists, regen on gear by choosing to use certain skills such as chivalry/bushido or simply get more skill points by capping out at 300% with items and having an extra 240 skill points to allocate somewhere else.

While for casters, there is currently no hardcap on SDI. However, for items this is what you can get.
Bracelet 12
ring 20
arms 10
legs 10
book 25
neck 5
head 12
That's a total of 94% SDI from items.

To achieve this we have to use:
a bracelet with 12SDI which no one does, since every caster will be using an orny
a Kasa of the rajin though most mages will use HOM for the regen and int bonus
spell woven britches in which all humans can't use and elves don't due to the lack of regen or resists
Midnight bracers which no mage uses simply due to the lack of resists, regen, mods, and the fact that vamp form no longer is viable with mages thus making the necro points useless other than wraith forming with a hybrid template
Pendant of the magi
a Crystalline ring which forces a caster to use a scrappers and vesper chaos shield in order to reach the 2/6 casting cap or 4/6 for spellweavers

So in a normal situation, a mage will only have 35% spell damage increase from items unless they have luckily found a superslayer scrappers for undead/demon/whatever which will put them at 60% SDI. Compare this to the average suit of a melee class with 170% and one can easily see we will not be hitting the equivalent damage cap ever.

More comparison stats:
An archer can fire arrows from ranged at 1 swing per second. Each shot will do anywhere from 100-200 damage per hit based on how well they built the suit simply by auto firing. This will cost just the initial mana to cast enemy of one if they even used chiv to reach the cap instead of just items. Thus giving an archer or melee class an effective DPS average of 150. (damage per second for those who didn't play wow or other mmos that use this term) This DPS is also sustainable throughout any duration of a fight with no downtime.

A mage however, takes 3 seconds to cast a flame strike. At the current available gear setup a mage will be able to do 100-200 damage per flamestrike to an average target not inclusive of corpse skin or discord.
This gives us an average of 33-66DPS with an average of say 50 DPS. This is only one third the DPS output of an archer in PvM.

However, there are even more variables to consider which put the casters at a huge disadvantage. Casters require to not be hit within the 3 seconds casting in order to cast and are immobile and frozen in place during the cast sequence, melee characters are able to move around freely, kite, as well as perform hit and run tactics. Caster's DPS is also not sustained DPS and quite opposite considered burst DPS. We have a high initial damage output but that is only available with mana. In order to sustain even the 50DPS we would have one must be casting flamestrikes nonstop for the duration of the entire fight which will usually last several minutes. The average caster will have lets say 130-150 mana. Each Flamestrike will consume 25 mana with 40% lower mana cost equipment. So, at 6 flamestrikes cast, our DPS is expended. Now the mage will require ample Mana regeneration 2-4 gear in every single equipement slot which is not possible if they are using the full spell damage suit. This also will require a 120 Meditation and 120 Focus skills in their build due to the nerf to the way mana regen experiences diminishing returns. So even at this much regen one would only be able to cast at most 10 flame strikes in a row with passive regen before running out of mana and having to resort to fireballs every few seconds which actively lowers their dps to 40% of what flamestrikes were doing. Now a mage has a sustained dps given the cast time of fireballs to 30.

With skills included, we would need to waste 100 skill points solely on a mule skill to have 10% SDI extra which would in essence boost our DPS to 55 burst dps and 30 sustained dps.

Now it's true a caster would be able to cast arcane empowerment which gives us another small boost to burst dps but takes 1/5 our mana pool in doing so and also only lasts a short duration making it unusable for sustaining dps. One would also be able to cast wraith form to receive some mana return, however this makes us immobile and easily die to mobs that we draw aggro on. Dexers and archers on the other hand are able to be fully mobile at mounted run speeds while still sustaining 2-3x the DPS of casters.

So, in conclusion. Even IF by chance a slayer talisman and spellbook's slayer effect stacked in using double undead slayer. Which I don't believe it does, it would still only make the burst DPS of a mage 100, and the sustained dps at around 60-70 depending on lag and reaction time. Even WITH the ability to stack it we're still at a loss of the 10% LMC from using a totem of the void solely for the ability to use a melee trinket with undead slayer and yet are still only half the DPS of an archer or melee class.

I believe with the current way the statistics are and the gear available to the players for spell damage increase, this would not affect PVM in an unbalanced way but instead, simply allow a mage to use other weapon choices instead of fully relying on a spell book or a collection of various slayer books. It would for one, allow a mage to use a -0mage weapon for added defense while still being able to kill undead mobs.

Draconi or Jeremy, I hope these facts will be useful in helping to determine if the talismans should be reconsidered in affecting slayer properties towards spells. Hopefully this also puts to rest some beliefs people may have that it will make it overpowered for casters in pvm.

_________________________________________

"An archer can fire arrows from ranged at 1 swing per second. Each shot will do anywhere from 100-200 damage per hit"

Please PM me the exact specifics on what template/bow you are using that is swinging at "1 swing per second" AND doing 100-200 per hit!!!

It is mechanically impossible

Good job though trying to skew facts to try and make an invalid point.

Peace

 

[Xel Naga]

_________________________________________

"An archer can fire arrows from ranged at 1 swing per second. Each shot will do anywhere from 100-200 damage per hit"

Please PM me the exact specifics on what template/bow you are using that is swinging at "1 swing per second" AND doing 100-200 per hit!!!

It is mechanically impossible

Good job though trying to skew facts to try and make an invalid point.

Peace

Me? Sure.

An undead slayer composite bow with 40ssi,13hci and 50di, honor, enemy of one, and a template of:

120 anat
120 tact
120 arch
95 chiv
120 bush
100 necro
45 ss

Using gear:
Bow 50% DI
Bow 40% SSI
bow 13% hci
Assassin set 20% SSI
Talisman 20% DI
Ring 25 DI 15 hci 13dci 6 dex
brace 8% DI 15hci 7 dci 8 dex 5str
Jackals
Spirit of totem

Total DI from gear 103%
Total SSI from gear 60%
Total HcI 58%
total DCI 20%

That puts me at a 1 second swing speed doing 150-200 damage per shot with 45% HCI so I usually never miss in PvM. I also always put up divine fury for the extra 10% SSI and dmg boost. And when I have the mana to spare, I toss in an AI every now and then to top it off. Also never really lose perfection due to the HCI.

Feel free to verify it on test or with the calculators on stratics, the links are below for you.

http://uo.stratics.com/content/arms-armor/damage.php
http://uo.stratics.com/content/arms-armor/arms.php

Now as I stated before, is there anyone who actually has some intellectual feedback on this subject or should I only expect you to continue ranting on about mages are fine lrn2play as your argument on the topic. Because with what you've given me as evidence towards your stance on mages being fine and not overpowered (which is none) I'm inclined to still believe my original point and push for slayer talismans affecting spells. Keep in mind this still won't even 4x the spell damage and still less than half of an archer or sampire's output without the passive life leech and poison immunity.

Did you want to show me some proof or simply quote my entire thread to waste a page of space again without any useful rebuttal to boot? As I stated before, this is not a flame of nerf this build nerf that build, it's requesting a feature for PvM that won't have any affect on PvP which is what u.hall tends to get in arguments about due to balance issues.

I await your response. And no, as you seem to feel, this is NOT a nerf archers thread, I could care less about their power. It's not as if I can't log in mine and use it. What I care about is getting a talisman slayer working for spell damage as the original post stated to open more options in gear selection.

snap:

 

[Farsight]

Now we know what a fully maxxed out archer can do. On the same note, a fully maxxed out mage with 92 SDI (afaik, that's the max. It may be higher, but the damage calculator on stratics is capped at 61), FC2, FCR 6 hits the Dark Father with fireballs for up to 90 damage per second while the flame strikes hit for up to 200 damage every 2 seconds.

The Ornate Axe hits for 145-162 damage per 1.25 sec. against the dark father with the suit described above.

The crossbow should hit for a maximum of 179 damage.

But that's with fully maxxed out suits. I know a lot of people in game, and of those people, maybe one has a fully maxxed out suit based on DPS. So lets look at the same opponent (Dark Father is a good one since every DF is the same) yet our players use lesser quality gear. Lets say for fun they decide to take GM gear to meet the Dark Father. Yes, it will never happen (As much as I'd like to try it ), but for this experiment, it does.

Our mage with 0 SDI, no slayer book, and the same template as before:
Fireball: 30 DPS
Flamestrike: 32 DPS

Our warrior with a hatchet, 40% DI (GM arms lore) does 53 DPS

Our archer with a repeating crossbow and 40% DI does about 40 DPS.

Now we know the high end of things and the low end of things, we can assume that the "real world" averages of all these factors lay somewhere in the middle, and we find that:

Magery sucks for DPS. Of course, my mage usually has 2 earth elementals hitting the monsters at the same time. But if we bring that into the equation then you must consider this:
120 Magery, 120 EI, 120 meditation, 120 taming, 120 lore, 120 vet
The pets are a rune beetle and a bake kitsune (no matter which fantasy world you live on, you can't survive a dark father attack with a pack unless you're a LOT better than I am).
The rune beetle hits the DF for 40 DPS, the bake hits for 30 DPS, if you're really really good, you can hit the DF for 60 DPS with a decent slayer book and SDI on your suit for a grand total of 130 DPS, not counting the spells of the pets (which aren't reliable enough to put into an equation). That's STILL less than the dexxers, but you do it all in relative safety and have a lot more hit points to work with than the archer. And the minimum tamer gets about 100 DPS, since the rune beetles and the bake kitsune doesn't change.

Now all of the above are very rough measurements that don't take a lot of factors into account (like weapon skill levels, % of misses, minimum damage levels, stopping to heal, etc), but are just to give a general idea of what the situation looks like. And given all of the above factors, I can't see why talismans shouldn't work with magery.

 

[Xel Naga]

Now we know what a fully maxxed out archer can do. On the same note, a fully maxxed out mage with 92 SDI (afaik, that's the max. It may be higher, but the damage calculator on stratics is capped at 61), FC2, FCR 6 hits the Dark Father with fireballs for up to 90 damage per second while the flame strikes hit for up to 200 damage every 2 seconds.

That was a large issue I had was in order to reach the SDI item cap for mages, sacrifices need to be made that "gimp" the character beyond belief. As I outlined in the initial posts,

Bracelet 12
ring 20
arms 10
legs 10
book 25
neck 5
head 12
That's a total of 94% SDI from items.

To achieve this we have to use:
a bracelet with 12SDI which no one does, since every caster will be using an orny
a Kasa of the rajin though most mages will use HOM for the regen and int bonus
spell woven britches in which all humans can't use and elves don't due to the lack of regen or resists
Midnight bracers which no mage uses simply due to the lack of resists, regen, mods, and the fact that vamp form no longer is viable with mages thus making the necro points useless other than wraith forming with a hybrid template
Pendant of the magi
a Crystalline ring which forces a caster to use a scrappers and vesper chaos shield in order to reach the 2/6 casting cap or 4/6 for spellweavers

Basically in order to reach the caster SDI item cap it isn't viable unless you plan to have under 40 resists, no mana regen, survivability, or sustainable damage. Sure you will have 92 SDI, but that will only last for 3 flamestrikes until you're dry out of mana for the next 5 minutes, if you're even alive that long with a suit like that. It also requires you to be an elf, which means humans have 10% less sdi than that as their cap.

The point would be exactly that, in the end-game maxed out suits and all dexers gear, skills, and equipment availability is setup in a way that they have to make no sacrifices in order to achieve their damage cap. They get their top dmg, swing speed, resists, stats and regen on armor all without breaking a sweat. Where as, if a caster were to wish to reach their damage soft cap then they will have to sacrifice way more than what is acceptable in terms of end-game pvm.

The 92% SDI or whatever the softcap on SDI will be in the future should be attainable just as efficiently as a dexxer. Quite simply put, there isn't enough itemization for casters in this area to compete with sustained dps in pvm. Since there is already a 15% SDI cap for items in PvP I see no reason why they wouldn't simply allow casters to choose from a wider variety of SDI equipment with viable stats,resists, and usefulness instead of picking bits and pieces out of a scrap pile and dying in one hit from any boss.

I'd love to roll around in a full SDI suit and build but unfortunately, the only thing that it would be viable in killing with are arctic ogre lords since they're slow and would die in 1 Flamestrike in the proper build.

Talismans simply are required for casters as much as dexers need them. Casters shouldn't simply be forced to equip melee talismans and just choose the one that helps the most. There should simply be caster oriented talismans either with SDI, MR, LRC or whatever or quite simply slayers to allow us to free up a spellbook slot and use something else such as weapons or scrappers with stat/skill mods without losing a slayer property.

 

[Eslake]

but a slayer talisman+slayer book would inflict to much damage, and think about "Arcane Empowerment" or "Evil Omen" in combination with 90-100% SDI mage(GM Scribe).

i do with a undeadslayerbook up to 175 damage with a flamestrike ... without necro or sw, and i carry only one slayer..

Yeah, imagine the terror of having mages able to do 3x the damage as their mana pool before they had to meditate.

That would make them almost register on the radar compared to archers able to cart around thousands of arrows and LAC quivers and shoot for 100+ / shot against these creatures and never need a med break.

 

[Connor_Graham]

That puts me at a 1 second swing speed

Swing speed is capped at 1.25. It's literally impossible to have a 1 second swing speed in UO.

 

[Splup]

Mages own in PvP

Well... The don't. If you don't believe go check faction points. On every shard 7-9 of top10 factioneers are dexers.

 

[Wraith One]

I've actually tested this issue in the past on the test center with sdi and a slayer book. When you have the proper suit and a slayer on the scrappers you can have already 97% sdi with 100 lrc given that you have a 20 lrc bracelet we 12 sdi on it. You would have to lower your fcr to 4 but get to keep the fc2 if you wear the chaos shield from the vesper collection. With the the proper suit without having to corpse skin, or curse an ogre lord I would pull off fs's around the range of 230+ damage after corpse skin usually higher. Now, think of doubling that slayer.

 

[Xel Naga]

I've actually tested this issue in the past on the test center with sdi and a slayer book. When you have the proper suit and a slayer on the scrappers you can have already 97% sdi with 100 lrc given that you have a 20 lrc bracelet we 12 sdi on it. You would have to lower your fcr to 4 but get to keep the fc2 if you wear the chaos shield from the vesper collection. With the the proper suit without having to corpse skin, or curse an ogre lord I would pull off fs's around the range of 230+ damage after corpse skin usually higher. Now, think of doubling that slayer.

Yea but how bad are your resists and how low is your mana regeneration is the point. Are you full 70s with 18 mana regen and +30 mana with 40LMC at 2/6 ?

The answer would be no, and that's precisely my point. In order to get that we have nothing for survivability, defense, or longevity. The fact that you can shoot out 5 flamestrikes for 230+ dmg is still a moot point considering that's 10 seconds worth of damage compared to melee classes after which you're resorted to lowering your spell circles or waiting to regen. Which in your case with the gear build would take way too long to refill enough to nuke fully twice on one target unless you were soloing. with 97% SDI you have zero resists, maybe 5 mana regen, and required to be an elf. Tell me, if dexers were REQUIRED to have 40 all resists, be an elf, and have no stat boosts to their gear in terms of stam, hp, hci, and dci you think they will be here asking for a change? I can guarantee it.

I feel like I'm repeating the same thing every reply. Please READ exactly what I typed in my two long winded posts. The data already answers all your questions regarding being able to hit the soft cap on SDI and why it's not viable. I already stated it twice, and now a third time. Please read through my posts if you're going to reply as well as the fact that it's not the point of doubling the damage output so much as opening up more gear choices. But people never like to read and just skip to the end. READ ALL PREVIOUS POSTS

I'd love to roll around in a full SDI suit and build but unfortunately, the only thing that it would be viable in killing with are arctic ogre lords since they're slow and would die in 1 Flamestrike in the proper build.

Talismans simply are required for casters as much as dexers need them. Casters shouldn't simply be forced to equip melee talismans and just choose the one that helps the most. There should simply be caster oriented talismans either with SDI, MR, LRC or whatever or quite simply slayers to allow us to free up a spellbook slot and use something else such as weapons or scrappers with stat/skill mods without losing a slayer property.

Also where is the 97% coming from?

Hat 12% - Kasa
pendant 5% - Pendant of magi
Sleeves 10% - midnight bracers or ornate armguards
Leggings (required elf) spell woven britches 10%
Ring 20% - crystalline
Bracelet 12% - any bracelet which means you don't have orny.
Book 25% (if you somehow got an undead slayer scrappers which would run for 100m) otherwise 10% with new book.

SO, with all this you will have room for Gloves and chest to recover all the LRC you miss out on using midnight bracers, no orny, kasa, britches.

You'll be working with a base of 30% LRC from your pendant, say you get gloves and chest with 20% LRC each, you'll be at 70% LRC.

Unless you plan to use an AOF which would fully leave your resists lacking that would put you at 90%.
kasa, midnight, britches, aof, vesper chaos
12 23 2 2 1 Total Physical: 40
17 3 15 4 0 Total Fire: 39
21 4 2 3 0 Total Cold: 30
17 2 16 3 0 Total Poison: 38
17 4 4 4 0 Total Energy: 29

Those are your resist numbers using AOF, pendant, midnight, britches, kasa which according to you would be a viable and commonly used mage suit and cause it to be overpowered even if slayer books and talisman stacked.

So even more so, my point is proven that it would be quite impossible to make this work without enabling yourself to die in one hit from anything.

So unless you plan to find gloves with LRC 20 and 20 of every resist which is impossible, you won't be living. Compare this to an easily attainable damage cap on dexers with all 70 suit max ssi, max lmc, and still room to spare for 20+ stam inc and let me know how this would put mages on the overpowered side.

I don't know about you, but myself, I have a suit's stats of

Lower Reagent Cost: 105%
Lower Mana Cost: 40%
Faster Casting: 3
Faster Cast Recovery: 5
Spell Damage Increase: 50%
Physical Resist: 67%
Fire Resist: 62%
Cold Resist: 59%
Poison Resist: 61%
Energy Resist: 64%
Dexterity Bonus: 5
Intelligence Bonus: 26
Hit Point Regeneration: 9
Mana Regeneration: 18
Hit Point Increase: 13
Mana Increase: 7
Self Repair: 1
Luck: 156
Reflect Physical Damage: 13%

And that suit is using HOM, Pendant, Orny, Crystalline, and various runic gloves,sleeves,chest,legs, and a totem of the void on talisman with the new undead book as my weapon, along with vesper chaos for shield to improve on casting.

With 173 mana as elf, 18 Mana regeneration, 120 Medi, 120 Focus, necro and 120 ss, with wrath form I'm still easily running out of mana on liches and do 128-138 damage FS with corpse skin up. Notice I have no DCI or HCI making this an unviable suit for pvp so I don't even want to hear about a pvp aspect. I also don't have 6FCR which gimps my damage output a little. I'd like you to explain exactly how I would be able to maintain casting with the suit you supposedly crafted on test with a bracelet that one might find in a year of searching and gloves that are impossible to craft.

Do post your actual data and screenshots of your gear from test if you wanted to dispute my statements since I'm sure there is room for error in my long posts.

The bracelet you suggest every mage have to cap on sdi would be a 20LRC 12SDI bracelet. That would leave us with requiring a scrappers with each slayer for every situation along with a vesper chaos shield which would give us a 2FC 3FCR casting. Unless you wanted everyone to find a 1/3 Bracelet with 20 LRC 12SDI and 8LMC I don't see how your point is viable.

 

[Splup]

I've actually tested this issue in the past on the test center with sdi and a slayer book. When you have the proper suit and a slayer on the scrappers you can have already 97% sdi with 100 lrc given that you have a 20 lrc bracelet we 12 sdi on it. You would have to lower your fcr to 4 but get to keep the fc2 if you wear the chaos shield from the vesper collection. With the the proper suit without having to corpse skin, or curse an ogre lord I would pull off fs's around the range of 230+ damage after corpse skin usually higher. Now, think of doubling that slayer.

I can make over 200HP hits with my archer too, where's the problem?

And my archers suit is capable for PvP and PvM, allround really nice. If you make mage suit with 90 SDI it's prolly pretty crappy on other areas, like DCI, MR, LMC, EP. My suit has all that and I do more then 200 damage...

And getting right slayer scrappers?... Bit harder then weapons lol.

 

[laurlo]

good idea

 

[Xel Naga]

Hopefully we can get a small "we're planning on adding this soon" from draconi

 

[Juicy Fruit]

Signed, Agree talis should work with magery aswell.

 

[aarons6]

who cares who does more dmg, i still think its unfair that mages dont get to benefit from talismen... be it the slayer ones or the killer ones..

 

[Diomedes Artega]

I have to say I don't really agree. IF you have a 120 mage with 120 eval and a slayer book, named spiders for example are dead in 3 hits at the most. I don't see a dexxer do that ever.

Additionally max damage cap in PvM is 300%. I mean how much damage do you really want to do? One hit Irk, one hit Sabrix? 5 hit Dark Father just for kicks and giggles?

I agree with Wraith One. Just need to put the proper game mechanics to work. Most people just want to use a "Scrappers". Get over it, get a regular slayer book for say Ogre or Respond if you are fighting ogre for example and...
3 hit kill or so. Reptile or dragon if fighting Dragon's...so on etc. If you don't have inscription to make your own, then go buy them.

I mean how easy do you want the game to be...

It takes a top of the line dexxer to outparse a marginal skilled mage on any difficult mob in my opinion...and I'll take away the respond slayers i.e. soul seeker so no argument there.

 

[Xel Naga]

I have to say I don't really agree. IF you have a 120 mage with 120 eval and a slayer book, named spiders for example are dead in 3 hits at the most. I don't see a dexxer do that ever.

Additionally max damage cap in PvM is 300%. I mean how much damage do you really want to do? One hit Irk, one hit Sabrix? 5 hit Dark Father just for kicks and giggles?

I agree with Wraith One. Just need to put the proper game mechanics to work. Most people just want to use a "Scrappers". Get over it, get a regular slayer book for say Ogre or Respond if you are fighting ogre for example and...
3 hit kill or so. Reptile or dragon if fighting Dragon's...so on etc. If you don't have inscription to make your own, then go buy them.

I mean how easy do you want the game to be...

It takes a top of the line dexxer to outparse a marginal skilled mage on any difficult mob in my opinion...and I'll take away the respond slayers i.e. soul seeker so no argument there.

I don't believe you comprehended the posts at all.

Did you read wraith one's comment? He was suggesting for us to USE scrappers, not to disregard it and use a normal non super slayer spellbook.

I've actually tested this issue in the past on the test center with sdi and a slayer book. When you have the proper suit and a slayer on the scrappers you can have already 97% sdi with 100 lrc given that you have a 20 lrc bracelet we 12 sdi on it. You would have to lower your fcr to 4 but get to keep the fc2 if you wear the chaos shield from the vesper collection. With the the proper suit without having to corpse skin, or curse an ogre lord I would pull off fs's around the range of 230+ damage after corpse skin usually higher. Now, think of doubling that slayer.

Also, you're in favor of melee classes and believe mages are too powerful as it is as you claim we have too much damage. Yet, for some reason you listed us as having a 300% damage cap on pvm. Were you even aware that the 300% cap is for melee characters and casters can't reach this? So by stating this is a too high of a cap, you're essentially asking for melee classes to be nerfed. Casters as I've stated about 4 times now and yet still people fail to read it, are capped at 94% item SDI with 10% from Scribe making us have 104% sdi at a 3second cast time. Dexers are at 1.25s swing with 150-200 dmg shots.

Also, you claim dexers can't solo and mages can solo stuff in 2-3 hits, I'm not sure how bad a dexer you play or how long you haven't been in the game. But, have you even read up on the past month worth of information on how overpowered Sampires are ? That would be a bushido vampire form dexer which can solo anything in the game, including all peerless bosses, doom bosses, and champ spawns without breaking a sweat. So if you want to really compare which is more overpowered which I never asked to do in the first place (again if you bothered to even read my posts you'd know this which you obviously didn't, nor did you research anything) it's clear dexers have more damage output and as proven, were nerfed in the last patch requiring them to actually retain the proper skill points to stay in any polymorphed state such as vampiric embrace.

Care to try again when you read the entire post?

 

[Diomedes Artega]

Yes you're right. I forgot to say SDI is 100% capped damage increase and I said to use slayer spellbooks.

Additionally the "nerf" did not stop the sampire templates.

You misread my post, reread it again.

Again what do you want? To solo monsters in 1 or 2 hits? That is what will happen with having slayer talisman's doing double damage. There is a post near the middle of this thread that discusses that.

Dexxer's don't do that kind of damage without using honor. And actually then you can reach hits of upwards to 300 damage or so...USING honor.

I recommend making a template with 120 magery and 120 eval and getting a spider slayer book or any other book and testing it out. The damage output is amazing with minimal effort.

Once again all I can say is same thing I did with the sampire posts when people were worried. Think outside of the box and start using different equipment. You make the assumption most people would use a hat of magi and other like named equipment.

With crafted equipment alone you can hit mana increase of 36, mana regen of 12 and other stats as needed. Artifact doesn't always = good.

Last but not least, one is making the assumption that only your research is correct and to somehow make a point that mages should = better.

We should just take away ALL slayers, all SDI increase, all DI, vampiric embrace, wraith form and anything beneficial to a player. Then the game would be fun.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

As a mage: with 120 eval, 120 Magery, and 100 inscription

with "only" SDI of 61 here is what your spellcasting looks like:

Spell Base Damage
Magic Arrow 3.1 - 4.1
Harm* 5.2 - 6.6
Fireball 6.0 - 7.2
Lightning 6.9 - 8.0
Mind Blast 2.0 - 6.0
Energy Bolt 12.0 - 13.4
Explosion 12.0 - 13.4
Flamestrike 15.5 - 16.8

Spell Your Damage, With SlayerBook, W/Slayer + Tali/Slayer
Magic Arrow 19 - 26, 38 - 48, 76 - 96
Harm 33 - 42, 66 - 84, 132 - 168
Fireball 38 - 46, 76 - 92, 152 - 184
Lightning 44 - 51, 88 - 102, 176 - 204
Mind Blast 56 - 60, 112 - 120, 224 - 240
Energy Bolt 77 - 86, 154 - 172, 308 - 344
Explosion 77 - 86, 154 - 172, 308 - 344
Flamestrike 99 - 108, 198 - 216, 396 - 432

My main view point was I never use a slayer talisman on a player. Usually need the LMC or another more important talisman. Many mobs a talisman won't work with. i.e. not all the bosses in Doom are slayer prone.

Some skewed assumptions to clear up:

1. Not all dexxers play sampire templates.
2. Not all dexxers or archers use slayer talismans.
3. Not all dexxers or archers hunt mobs that a slayer works well against or at all.
4. Other skillsets can deal just as much damage on a hit. i.e. spellweaving with just a zero focus and 105 spellweaving can hit a peerless for 400+ damage, even if it is at the end of the last 10% of the mobs life.

And some other things to get out of the way are:
1. Not everyone solos.
2. Most people work in a group instead of soloing.
3. EVERY major online game has a class that can solo efficiently.
4. Most mages can't solo difficult mobs due to running out of mana.
5. Sampire is a very specialized build with certain equipment AND skill needed, in order to run it well.
6. Most mages can't solo also difficult mobs due to not being able to take hits well.
7. Mages usually outclass melee in other games and typically but not always in Ultima Online due to 1. Invisible 2. Paralyze and other spells that can keep a monster away from you. 3. Melee have to be up against a monster in order to deal damage and hence they receive damage.

In conclusion, my stance is that it is pretty even. I will say however, there are more melee based DI items as have been mentioned and perhaps more of those types of items could be introduced to develop a greater breadth of spellcaster. I still don't believe a slayer talisman is needed however.