All the folks that have been playing from the start have love playing there mages because of what you can do with 64 spells that where useful back in the day. When uo started to bring out expansions it created more things to make the game playing, well except for the MAGE SPELLS. Today most if not all mages only use maybe 15 spells of the 64 spells, i find that kinda cheating the mages out of the rest of spells. For example ... i think they should mage Cunning Spell (2nd circle) get more int. but cant be stacked with strength, agility or bless. Maybe... just maybe its time to re-create the mage book. Now that would be awesome!!!!
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OOC:
o Tryest thou the magery mastery ability "Death Ray." That's a hunk of high damage love right there.
o Wear a new loot suit, up to +5 int per piece. ...and a new loot ring and bracelet, up to +10 int per. ...and a tangle or Blackthorn Crest equivalent, +10.
I'd prefer that the Ninja spellbook get some love. Far too many of the ninja abilities in the book also require hiding AND stealth, or require player dexterity rather than character dexterity.
...but the skill most in need of love is Taste ID. It is currently bugged and not working. I taste IDed a yellow potion as "a yellow potion." A second attempt yielded "you already know what that is, a yellow potion."
o Tryest thou the magery mastery ability "Death Ray." That's a hunk of high damage love right there.
o Wear a new loot suit, up to +5 int per piece. ...and a new loot ring and bracelet, up to +10 int per. ...and a tangle or Blackthorn Crest equivalent, +10.
I'd prefer that the Ninja spellbook get some love. Far too many of the ninja abilities in the book also require hiding AND stealth, or require player dexterity rather than character dexterity.
...but the skill most in need of love is Taste ID. It is currently bugged and not working. I taste IDed a yellow potion as "a yellow potion." A second attempt yielded "you already know what that is, a yellow potion."
Mages need useable cold and physical damage spells quivalent to ebolts (Harm/Mind blast is beyond worthless, and blade spirits are pointless). 8th circle summons needs serious beefing up as they're pretty much wastes of mana, even when utilizing a L3 primer.
Death Ray sucks. Can't get much benefit out of it in pvm unless you're a tamer mage with a Greater, or in a group. Same with pvp - at best, you'll get one tick of it against a dexer, and maybe two. But I wouldn't recommend using it unless you were a parry mage, or if the person hadn't seen it before. I've used it for some quick damage, but after the first hit, the target moves out of range.
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Yes, the Magery masteries have been a bit of a flop. They need to be revised entirely.
Some more spells in the vein of cold, physical and poison damage would be nice, as would revamped summons. You could replace some of the lesser used spells like "arch protection".
Some more spells in the vein of cold, physical and poison damage would be nice, as would revamped summons. You could replace some of the lesser used spells like "arch protection".
On the pvp side of things i think mages need no help. their versatility still reigns supreme. However, on the pvm side of things i can easily understand your frustration. 64 spells and I only see less than half of them ever being used.
I was kinda thinking this the other day, there are a lot of spells in the book that could actually do something without making mages too OP.
Mana drain is currently pointless, could be boosted to work against players with resisting spells.
Arch protection doesn't do anything.
Mass curse should probably drop resists on players too.
Weaken, clumsy, and feeblemind should probably drop stats to below that of curse.
Same with agility, cunning and str should probably give a bonus over bless.
Firefield should be spread the same as conflag.
Reveal should reveal
nothing too major
The death ray mastery.... I still haven't found a use for it yet, in pvp or pvm, on any template, in any form. I'm not sure why they put it in.
Mana drain is currently pointless, could be boosted to work against players with resisting spells.
Arch protection doesn't do anything.
Mass curse should probably drop resists on players too.
Weaken, clumsy, and feeblemind should probably drop stats to below that of curse.
Same with agility, cunning and str should probably give a bonus over bless.
Firefield should be spread the same as conflag.
Reveal should reveal
nothing too major
The death ray mastery.... I still haven't found a use for it yet, in pvp or pvm, on any template, in any form. I'm not sure why they put it in.
I don't think someone could actually suggest these things with a straight face.
Make a weaker version mana vamp work against a target with resist, when the higher level spell doesn't, and for good reason.
Mass curse dropping resists would instantly ruin group PvP with the current apple timers. Unless you'd prefer everyone to play 4/6'ers to combat this.
Level 1 spells should have more of an effect than higher circle spells.
One field should have a drastically larger area of effect than every other field spell, specfically on the one spell field that has an item with a similar equivalent.
Reveal should make detect hidden worthless, instead of only being able to counteract the mage spell invisiblity, invis potions, and game-forced invisibility (moongates).
Dear sir, do you currently know how these spells work and what they do?
mana drain is not a weaker version of mana vamp. It works in a different way.
mass curse is a 6th level spell, so would take longer to cast and cost more mana than normal curse.
fire field currently doesn't do any damage, that is why nobody uses it, ever. Even if it stretched to the area of a conflag, people would still never use it, ever, as it does no damage.
Reveal is currently only used by blues who wish to grief people without flagging, any real pvper doesn't use this spell to reveal people as it doesn't reveal, instead you'd throw a conflag or do something that deals damage to reveal.
None of these changes would make any mage more powerful.
mana drain is not a weaker version of mana vamp. It works in a different way.
mass curse is a 6th level spell, so would take longer to cast and cost more mana than normal curse.
fire field currently doesn't do any damage, that is why nobody uses it, ever. Even if it stretched to the area of a conflag, people would still never use it, ever, as it does no damage.
Reveal is currently only used by blues who wish to grief people without flagging, any real pvper doesn't use this spell to reveal people as it doesn't reveal, instead you'd throw a conflag or do something that deals damage to reveal.
None of these changes would make any mage more powerful.
I have seen 2-3 good pvp mages run through fields of archers. 3 skilled mages working together cant be beaten in pvp.. so adaptable, so versitile and few other templates can drop people that fast.
Maybe pvm they need some love but then if you build a super mage ( Necro, mytic,magery Spell weav focus, SS, eval.) you can pretty much do anything in pvm too.
Templates are only limited by the imagination of those that play them.
Mana drain drains the mana without giving it to the caster. Mana vamp takes the mana from the target and gives it to the caster (assuming the target doesn't have adequate resist). Why would a weaker version of a spell have an effect that that a much higher level spell doesn't have?
6th level is not even close to qualifying mass curse to also drop resists. This is absolutely absurd that you're even suggesting this. Mass curse with a resist debuff as well would require a cast time longer than essence of wind.
In what situation would PvP'ers ever use fire fields, even if it dealt damage, over paralyze and poison fields? I can't think of any.
How is revealing someone griefing them? Go one screen further and you won't be followed and revealed, if it's that much of an issue for you.
I'm not sure you're even reading what you're writing.
So you're saying these game-changing buffs to a number of mage spells, doesn't make magery any more powerful? If that's the case, why make the changes at all?
Your Detect Hidden skill applies to the Reveal spell. So with GM Detect Hidden, the Reveal spell does reveal Stealthers sometimes (although it's below 50% success chance against Stealthers that have more than GM Stealth).
Death Ray does Energy Damage, and doesn't receive benefit from SDI or Slayer Spellbooks, the last i checked. The lack of SDI/Slayer functionality is one big reason why Death Ray sucks, even in PvM.
Correct. That said, I do use it for champ spawns, but that's about the only time I will - even with a Slayer spellbook, I don't do as much damage to the boss with Explosion/Flamestrike/EBolt, so I go for Death Ray. During a recent Despise, my Death Ray hits were doing 91 damage. My Flamestrikes (with corpse skin active on Barracoon) would have done about 1/3 of that. It's essentially an Armor Ignore for mages...a much crappier version, unfortunately.
Again you've missed out a crucial part, do some further research, and you'll discover that the effects of mana drain are temporary. So even if it worked against people with resisting spells, it would still not be OP.
Not all for Mages, but balancing other things on both sides pvp & pvm.
Casting Focus - caps at 0% (PVP) 100% (PVM)
Allow spell-books to be imbued, crafted, reforged, and spawn with a version of Life Leech & Mana Leech that works with spells. (PVM)
Mass Curse should lower resists the same way Curse does. (PVP)
Make Dispel also Purge beneficial buffs when targeting non-dispel-able targets.
*Hit-Dispel on weapons should work the same way. (PVP)
No change necessary to Mass Dispel.
Poisoning - Replace the Poison Immunity with an increased effectiveness to Orange Petals. call it EP (Enhanced Petals)! +0-100% (equal to your poisoning skill)
at 100.0 poisoning, an Orange Petal would work against all forms of poison, and the duration increased by 100%.
it could also work with Trinsic Petals +10 strength...
Parry chance - currently it's 80+ dex + 120 parry (+120 bushido if applicable) = maximum parry chance.
It should be (IMO) Parry skill + Weapon skill = maximum Effectiveness (weapon skills - Swords, Macing, Fencing, & Throwing / Bushido*)
Say 15% of your total skill points between a Weapon skill/Bushido + parry (up to a maximum of 240.0 skill) = 36% with both a shield OR a two-handed weapon. 1-handed weapon = 18% chance to parry if no shield is equipped.
a player with Wrestling & 120 Parry would have 18% chance to parry, but would be able to chug potions.
*Bushido - Should not Lower your parry chance if you use a shield. Currently - if Bushido > Parry, you are 100% unable to parry with a shield.
Balanced Melee Weapons - should NOT remove parry chance, it should reduce it by 50% with the ability to chug potions it would be balanced with wrestling.
Adding balanced to a 2-handed melee weapons pretty much defeats the purpose. (PVM)
I'm highly in favor of removing as much RNG from pvp as possible, without breaking anything.
This post has become more than give mages improvements and more about over-all balancing, because mages do have a lot of utility which often times people call it "overpowered", but most of that is actually the players skill at knowing when to use things. It's not overpowered in the same way archery is.
The game still has a lot of potential, we shall see if it can be turned around.
Casting Focus - caps at 0% (PVP) 100% (PVM)
Allow spell-books to be imbued, crafted, reforged, and spawn with a version of Life Leech & Mana Leech that works with spells. (PVM)
Mass Curse should lower resists the same way Curse does. (PVP)
Make Dispel also Purge beneficial buffs when targeting non-dispel-able targets.
*Hit-Dispel on weapons should work the same way. (PVP)
No change necessary to Mass Dispel.
Poisoning - Replace the Poison Immunity with an increased effectiveness to Orange Petals. call it EP (Enhanced Petals)! +0-100% (equal to your poisoning skill)
at 100.0 poisoning, an Orange Petal would work against all forms of poison, and the duration increased by 100%.
it could also work with Trinsic Petals +10 strength...
Parry chance - currently it's 80+ dex + 120 parry (+120 bushido if applicable) = maximum parry chance.
It should be (IMO) Parry skill + Weapon skill = maximum Effectiveness (weapon skills - Swords, Macing, Fencing, & Throwing / Bushido*)
Say 15% of your total skill points between a Weapon skill/Bushido + parry (up to a maximum of 240.0 skill) = 36% with both a shield OR a two-handed weapon. 1-handed weapon = 18% chance to parry if no shield is equipped.
a player with Wrestling & 120 Parry would have 18% chance to parry, but would be able to chug potions.
*Bushido - Should not Lower your parry chance if you use a shield. Currently - if Bushido > Parry, you are 100% unable to parry with a shield.
Balanced Melee Weapons - should NOT remove parry chance, it should reduce it by 50% with the ability to chug potions it would be balanced with wrestling.
Adding balanced to a 2-handed melee weapons pretty much defeats the purpose. (PVM)
I'm highly in favor of removing as much RNG from pvp as possible, without breaking anything.
This post has become more than give mages improvements and more about over-all balancing, because mages do have a lot of utility which often times people call it "overpowered", but most of that is actually the players skill at knowing when to use things. It's not overpowered in the same way archery is.
The game still has a lot of potential, we shall see if it can be turned around.