Request for Information in regards to Magery Skill and Mage Weapons.

[EnigmaMaitreya]

Ok,

My current Magery skill is 100.0

I have the Swords of Prosperity (Mage Weapon -0).

If I raise my Magery to 110, will I see a significant increase in blocking attacks? OR will it be a fairly insignificant incremental increase.

 

[Connor_Graham]

I'd like to add to your question if you don't mind.

If you have a -20 Skill Mage weapon, and have jewels/spellbook that gives you +20 skill above what your natural skill is, will it compensate for the -20 from the mage weapon?

 

[ColterDC]

If you have a -20 Skill Mage weapon, and have jewels/spellbook that gives you +20 skill above what your natural skill is, will it compensate for the -20 from the mage weapon?

The jewelry will compensate for the drop in your magery skill, but a magery spellbook would not since you can only hold a weapon or a spellbook, not both.

All that matters is what your magery skill shows after all the pluses and minuses are totaled.

 

[ColterDC]

If I raise my Magery to 110, will I see a significant increase in blocking attacks? OR will it be a fairly insignificant incremental increase.

You'll see the exact same increase as you would if you went from 100 macing to 110 macing.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

I'd like to add to your question if you don't mind.

If you have a -20 Skill Mage weapon, and have jewels/spellbook that gives you +20 skill above what your natural skill is, will it compensate for the -20 from the mage weapon?

From what I have seen I think the answer is as follows.

You have the -20 and you have magery 120 (This is what I have on TC1).

You equip the -20 item, your magery goes to 100.

You Equip any Jewelry that adds 20 and your back to 120.

My memory of how it was originaly explained is it looks at your aggregate (but not to exceed cap) in Magery as your Weapon Skill.

I am kind of guessing that a perk for going 105/10/15/20 for the Melee's was significant increases for each increment of the skill. IF that is true then I assume there will be a noticeably (aka significant) increase in my ability to block any attacks.

 

[Connor_Graham]

but a magery spellbook would not since you can only hold a weapon or a spellbook, not both.

Doh...

I really need to get more sleep....

 

[Basara]

Your chance of being hit will go do down by 4% (50% vs. 46%) if your opponent has 100 combat skill, when comparing 100 magery with mage weapon, to 110. This is before counting things like DCI into the mix. If you have max DCI, the change is from 35% to 31% (or 1 less hit per 10 attacks). Anything that reduces your chance to be hit is good, especially if there are other bonuses and no real down side.

It will be worth it not only from the defensive angle, but also from your increased chance to cast your 8th circle spells.

 

[ColterDC]

but a magery spellbook would not since you can only hold a weapon or a spellbook, not both.

Doh...

I really need to get more sleep....

You're forgiven. I was also trying to think of any other items that give + magery skill.

The only other thing I could think of was that talisman with +5 magery.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

Your chance of being hit will go do down by 4% (50% vs. 46%) if your opponent has 100 combat skill, when comparing 100 magery with mage weapon, to 110. This is before counting things like DCI into the mix. If you have max DCI, the change is from 35% to 31% (or 1 less hit per 10 attacks). Anything that reduces your chance to be hit is good, especially if there are other bonuses and no real down side.

It will be worth it not only from the defensive angle, but also from your increased chance to cast your 8th circle spells.

Thanks bud, the vs the other Skill was what I had forgotten. Considering that is most like a Greater Dragon with Wrestling of what 145ish I dont think I win that battle but as you say, it will be an improvement and any chance at mitigagting that GD attack is a good thing. So I will take that road.

On a side not, if you have the time, when the heck did they nerf magery ---- as follows.

When I left, if you were a GM Mage you had excellent chances of casting that 8th level spell.

Last night after dieing to a GD that was more twitchy than me, it took my GM Magery character on the other account 25 casts of Resurrection to not get a Fiz. I accept my memory may be fuzzy but I am fairly certain that before I left Fizing more than a couple times at GM (The entire point of being a GM ... well and some enhancments) was being able to reliably cast those 8TH level spells.

it appears that as some form of punishment to Mage Skills, they spread the Ability to Reliably cast the spells based on a 120 Magery Skill Spread vs the original 100 Magery Skill Spread.

 

[Basara]

Yeah, I think you have a chance to fizzle an 8th level spell at any level under 120.

The formula is something like 2.5% chance per 1 point of skill for magery, with 8th level spells becoming available at 80 skill. However, there is some bit of odd ****ery that effects ONLY the 8th level, that makes the chance from 50% to 75% chance of success take 14 points from 100 to 114, then the last 25% coming over the last 6%.

My 120 mage can't beat a GD.

 

[Ailish]

The answer to WHEN they nerfed magery is Publish 16 and the advent of skill scrolls. They said that you would be able to compete with GM and that 120 would not be necessary, just a bonus, and then they turned around and re-scaled the magery skills to need 120 to not fizzle constantly. It isnt too bad at 115, but still a bit of an annoyance. (they also nerfed provoke in the same way, at that time).

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

To both, thanks.

Sounds like some one at that time was having a Bad Hair Day to have decided to rescale Fizzing. Tsk Tsk. *Shakes head*

 

[Sir_Bolo]

The chance to fizzle 8th circle spells at GM Magery has always been 50% since the release of UO.

Contrary to popular belief, the chance to cast Magery spells was not nerfed with the release of Publish 16. In fact, it was not changed at all - the formulas are still the same.

Before Publish 16 it was impossible to get 100% success chance on 8th and even 7th circle spells at any skill level... This ability was introduced with Publish 16 by raising the skill cap to 120.

People who think they could cast 8th circle spells with 100% success chance at GM before Publish 16 are just remembering incorrectly...

P.S. About your 25 fizzles in a row - at most, this is a hint that UO's Random Number Generator is still affected by long streaks. Try casting 1000 8th circle spells at GM on Test Center and I'm almost sure you'll find out that the number of success is very close to 500 which is the expected number...

 

[Satanatra]

Sir Bolo speaks the truth!

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

The chance to fizzle 8th circle spells at GM Magery has always been 50% since the release of UO.

Contrary to popular belief, the chance to cast Magery spells was not nerfed with the release of Publish 16. In fact, it was not changed at all - the formulas are still the same.

Before Publish 16 it was impossible to get 100% success chance on 8th and even 7th circle spells at any skill level... This ability was introduced with Publish 16 by raising the skill cap to 120.

People who think they could cast 8th circle spells with 100% success chance at GM before Publish 16 are just remembering incorrectly...

P.S. About your 25 fizzles in a row - at most, this is a hint that UO's Random Number Generator is still affected by long streaks. Try casting 1000 8th circle spells at GM on Test Center and I'm almost sure you'll find out that the number of success is very close to 500 which is the expected number...

Hum, Ok you have your view. I was there and there was NO way this was NOT nerf'd

BUT

Lets take your assertion at face value (and it is wrong)

50% chance indicates as a norm that every other cast will succeed. This would require the pRNG to fail 12 consecutive times. One would assume this works in both directions. NO one has succeded at casting 25 level 8 spells successfully. Playing in Mels room with the Parqagons and her, there is rezing going on there. Multi Fizz's is the NORM not the exception. Multi Success are the Exceptions NOT the norm.

You require the support of inhumanly (as in no one is going to do them) long sequences to support your assertion.

Feel free to make that assertion. There is NO doubt they rescaled the fizz rate. NONE.

 

[Sir_Bolo]

Whatever...

I just performed a limited test with 150 Earthquake castings at GM Magery on Test Center and got the following results:

74 successes
76 failures

That's perfectly consistent with a hypothesis of 50% success chance.
Now admittedly 150 castings is a very limited sample: statistical fluctuations are large enough that the "true" success chance might be anywhere between ~38% and 62%.
However, I'm pretty confident that extending the statistics won't change the result. If you are still convinced of the contrary, I might try to find the time to conduct a more extensive statistical test - 1000 castings are enough to exclude any values outside the range 45%-55%.

BTW - during the test, I got streaks of up to 8 successes and 10 failures in a row. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how unlikely that is (my statistics is a bit rusty), but I certainly wouldn't say that "Multi Fizz's is the NORM not the exception. Multi Success are the Exceptions NOT the norm". The two kinds of streaks have happened more or less in the same amount in my test...