Revan try cool down a little and then rewrite your post in a way useful for the devs, then they may read it. You came of very aggressive and negative.
It's on TC for testing. It do not mean it's already balanced and will hit the shards as it is now.
My post my come off as "aggressive and negative," but what is displays in passion, it does not lack in substance. I mean I did the math to show that frenzied whirlwind is still going to be just as useful. And despite the negative tone that my comments have, they still none the less make sense. If you want to have a reasonable argument about this, I'm more than glad to. But first allow me to explain my displeasure... The problem, is the fact that non-mages (especially archers) are so powerful these days. They have so much mana, hit so fast, and do so much damage. They can literally spam specials on people that are dismounted, and combine effects like disarm splinters. Stuff that mages don't have. Now of course, some of you might say that is an outrageous claim. But in order for you to understand, you have to look at the big picture. The grand scheme of things. And that requires a big history lesson. Ready for a big history lesson?
Age of Shadows: At one point in this game Mages were overpowered. Around Age of Shadows there was 4/6 casting, and they nerfed dexxers by putting caps on everything, including swing speed and by making repetitive use of specials cost more mana.
Post Age of Shadows: Eventually they nerfed mages too and brought the game to a much more balanced state. Dexxers could miss a hit, but mages could also be disrupted. Dexxers could do damage on the run, but mages could cross heal and sync dump. I would say at that point it was pretty balanced, after the post aos-artifact nerf era, although mages might still have had more potential with the right skills, being their interactivity with the environment, cross heals, and versatility. However, since then, this game has done nothing but systematically nerfed mages again and again, while constantly buffing dexxers and archers.
Early Stygian Abyss (pre-mysticism nerfs): Imbuing came out, and mages and dexxers were both able to make suits like never before. Dexxers probably got the better end of the stick with imbuing, being they could stack so many different mods that when combined with other mods have a multiplication effect in terms of effectiveness. If you stack too much of one mod, there is a sort of diminished returns effect. Not that the mods yield less amount, but for example you can only increase your swing speed so much, or your weapon damage so much. But when you can combine those mods you not only swing faster and do more damage, but you do more damage at a faster speed. It's a multiplication affect, not an additive one. Mage mods were more or less committed to providing mages with more mana, no need for reagents, and even though that stuff helps mages in long term fights, it doesn't exactly help them in the short term. It didn't give them more damage output, or the ability to stack unique specials like dexxers/ranged chars have,. 15 SDI before imbuing was real effective when everyone had 100 hp, but once everyone got 25 HPI, and tons of HPR, as well as started using pots, it really became less effective. The reason being is that field fights are all about quick sync dumps, not long sustained fights. Ultima Online is fast paced mounted fights, not slow dismounted warkraft fights, where each ability does maybe 5-10% of your opponents life. The ability to do burst damage and special abilities is much more useful than being able to fight long sustained fights (at least in the open field). Now granted, after imbuing, you could probably still kill most people in the field with 15 sdi, but most people weren't smart enough to know that if you ran/chugged/and appled there really wasn't anything a mage could do to you. But whether you believe imbuing helped mages or dexxers more, it's a good argument to have. It wasn't COMPLETELY Lop sided. So at this point, 15 sdi alone wasn't dominating, but it was at least reliable, in the sense that it's less rng based than playing a dexxer. However, they made mysticism way too overpowered at the time, and mystics in particular were quite powerful with their array of new spells.
Later Stygian Abyss (post mysticism nerfs/pre-reforging/pre-dci nerfs/pre-ninja nerfs): But of course, mysticism was nerfed not once, but many many times, not to the point of nullification, but at least to a much more balanced state. At this point in UO, I would say it was pretty balanced. Mages didn't do a ton of damage, but at least their damage was reliable, and a well timed sync dump could kill most people, and the added benefits of cross heals and fields is always super awesome to have. But I would say that Dexxers/Throwers were generally better 1v1 templates, simply because against a mage all you have to do is run soon enough to survive. A dexxer or a thrower could actually kill you on the run, and if they got lucky with the rng, and hit you every single time, you were pretty outmatched unless you were way better than your opponent. Where as if you were on a mage, if you got lucky with rng and your opponent missed you a bunch of times, they could still just run and avoid your dump. I'm speaking as if both players are equal in skill of course. Now of course, dexxers/throwers all complained about parry mages, and yes if you played a parry mage you probably had somewhat of an advantage over a dexxer/thrower. But that was their war cry as to why mages were overpowered, because they couldn't kill a single template that was specifically made to beat a dexxer/thrower 1v1, a template with significant trade offs might I add. Also, I'd like to point out that was before reforging, so fitting 40 sdi and med on a wrestle parry mage was nearly impossible. And if YOU ever complained that dexxers/throwers were overpowered, their response was always, "well, you can just make a parry mage and it would be OP." Even though that argument was also ********, because wrestle parry mages did **** for damage, and all anyone had to do to survive one was simply run. I always thought it was a little ridiculous to committing 2 entire skills (wrestling AND parry) just to be able to survive against HALF of UO, but when I actually made a wrestle parry mage, I was astonished at how nice it was to play one, because I could actually survive UO's most *overpowered* templates. I wouldn't have played it if I didn't think dexxers/ranged chars were overpowered. I should also point out, that I'm definitely one of the best mages when it comes to fighting dexxers/ranged chars straight up, because I'm good at juking, and timing my spells between their damage, as well as deceiving them into thinking they are safe and then stacking tons of damage on them. But if you wanted to 1v1 a dexxer/thrower on a template you actually enjoyed, like a mystic mage, or a necro mage, you needed 70 dci just to compete. Which made sense, because normally a dexxer with 120 skills would hit a mage with 120 skills at a 50% rate. When they did hit, they disrupted the mage, but when they missed the mage got a spell off. Sure, the mage can juke and cast between the damage and get spells off, but he can't damage on the run like a dexxer could. It was pretty even imo. Although if anything, dexxers had the advantage, simply because it was only one mod that they had to put on their weapon (which they most often had the space for) and mages in response needed to stack a ton of extra dci to cancel it. But that too is another argument to make, and not particularly one that I am interested in. Oh also, the creation of the "focus mage." Yes, it was nice to see pure mages again, and something other than a mystic or a necro mage, but it didn't exactly "buff mages." The focus mage templates were well balanced by requiring that they have limitations to their other skills, as well as having to commit another 15 sdi on the suit to get the extra spell damage. But the focus mage is not without it's trade-offs, and it was far from "over-powered." It was just a little more spell damage to compete with the already massive damage that non-mages had, and in the process you had to make sacrifices, which was fair.
DCI Nerfs: Then, for some stupid reason, everyone decided that overcapped dci, which did nothing but nullify the HLD bonus that all dexxers/ranged chars had to hitting mages, was overpowered. Why? Because for some reason, the dev's decided that mages should not have a way to overcome the sharp competitive edge that HLD gave dexxers/ranged chars over mages. Stacking a bunch of DCI, which took up a ton of mod space and sacrifices, was apparently too powerful, and that HLD should be allowed to hit every time; EVEN THOUGH Mages don't use the HLA mod, because not only can they usually not fit it on their weapons, but even if they did, it would rarely go off because mages don't have HCI. So somehow we decided that HLD should be powerful as hell, but HLA should be utterly useless; and when the players naturally come up with a way to counter HLD, the dev's say it's too powerful. But ok, so they thought overcapped DCI was too overpowered. I could live with that. Then they decided that dismounts, weren't powerful enough. Even though at this point, the game was pretty balanced in terms of sync dumps and dismounts. UO used to be all about the sync dump, even though dismounts were still used. But as the game progressed, non-mages got more mana, shot faster, did more damage, and were playing more competitively. Dismounts started becoming a much more useful way for groups to get kills, especially if you had a group that didn't quite have the group tactics and chemistry to sync dump, it was much easier targeting a person on foot. Dismounts even then, were really effective and would put even the best players in a difficult situation. But competitive players such as myself realized that ninjitsu was a good skill to combat what was probably the single most powerful maneuver in the game (the dismount). So powerful in fact that we committed an entire 100-120 skill points just to combat it. I thought this was really fair, because dismounts were still really powerful, and super effective if you could sync dump a person on foot, but not particularly overpowered where it was still possible to get away. When someone was on foot, 10 seconds was more than enough time for any decent group to sync dump a person, and EVEN if they did get an animal form off, they couldn't do anything but run and chug, in which case you could just follow them and wait for them to unform, to then resume killing them.
Dismount Survival Nerfs: But what happened then? Noobs like Goldberg (Boadi's dad.) complained because his gargoyle thrower (an overpowered template at the time) apparently wasn't powerful enough, because the only thing he knew how to do was dismount (like the guy in the commercial that says, "I pick things up and I put them down") and it wasn't working for him 100% of the time. So he (and others like him) complained and complained in a most illiterate, inarticulate fashion, that they couldn't kill people with 2 buttons (even though they still could have, if they had the skill to sync dump, or pursue the person and keep them from remounting). And like others, rather then articulating clear and coherent points, he provided no substance at all, and did little more than complain and restate the "problem," and then insulted people and called them stupid for not agreeing with him, and for some reason, people listened to him. Then you had people claiming that it violated the rights of Roleplayers, because somehow having ninjitsu on a mage violates the notion of what it should mean to be a ninja in a roleplayers mind (although curiously, why can't there be mage ninjas?)... Their argument was not only does it somehow defy what THEY perceive a ninja *should be* but that the ninjitsu skill was never intended to be made for mages... BUT THAT'S FKING RIDICULOUS! Because UO is FULL of different skills that any player can work up at will! Mixing and matching skills to fit your needs is what is so great about this game, that you have the creative freedom to find practical solutions to the impediments you face. WHO CARES IF SOMEONE WANTS TO PLAY A NINJA MAGE? WHO CARES IF THAT'S NOT WHAT THE SKILL WAS ORIGINALLY *INTENDED FOR*. PEOPLE NOW PLAY ARCHER MAGES. WAS ARCHERY ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO BE MADE FOR MAGES? DOES IT REALLY MATTER IF IT WAS? Anyhow, as emotionally charged as that sounds, I'm really just using all caps to highlight and express the ridiculousness of those arguments lol. But anyhow, all the noobs complained that dismounts weren't powerful enough, because of course, that's the only way they could kill good people without much skill, and the dev's gave them special attention, because of course, they complained the most, and the dev's are "in tune" with the thoughts and concerns of their players; even if their players are raging idiots that would rather complain than find a solution to a more than solvable problem. And thus, the dismount became BY FAR the most powerful ability in the game; to the point where all you need to do is dismount someone and weaken spam them, and there's NOTHING THEY CAN DO. Now of course, critics will say, "well there's invis jewelery." Or "there's always pets." But of course invis jewelery only still even exists in the game because of dupers, and pets are poisoned and killed easily. But you don't even need a weaken spammer. Other substitutes will do the trick, and generally more damage. You can frenzy whirlwind a person, you can bleed a person, disarm splinter a person, and that's all on top of the other stuff that they would otherwise stack on you (death strike/nervestrike/paralyze/mortal/lethal poison/etc). In other words, the stuff that good groups used to stack on a dismounted person really quickly to kill them, before it was even as simple as weaken spamming. THEN came reforging.
Reforging: Reforging really did fk everything up. It did EVERYTHING for dexxers/archers and little if anything for mages. It made the easiest class to play, by far, the most powerful (The Archer); and it absolutely took a sh*t on mages. First off, Mage dueling. Dueling was a slowly dying tradition already (as were several aspects of the game), and the introduction of casting focus to craftable pieces really put the final nail in the coffin. Mage dueling was a fun and unique way of playing Ultima, and it was truly a motivator for a particular community of ultima players that enjoyed to do it. When Stygian Abyss came out, dueling with casting focus was really lame, but the most anyone ever really got was like 10%. It was lame, and most people agreed to duel without it, but even if they did most people didn't consider it a huge deal. But when reforging came out, everyone got suits with max hpr, casting focus, eaters, and 40 sdi; just for dueling! These suits caused a major problem for, and eventually killed dueling for multiple reasons. First off, the more rng based something is, the more the odd's favor the least skilled competitor. Sure, the better competitor will still have the advantage, but not if he doesn't have a good suit! Second off, it not only favors the weaker competitor because the competition is more luck based overall, but it actually hurts the more skilled combatant by particularly adding rng to the most skillful aspect of that competition (disrupting). I can actually lock someone in a poison lock, and keep them from getting a cure because I've developed a series of poison locks, that enable me to damage my opponent while keeping them from getting a cure, and hence a heal. I can disrupt a person 30 times without them getting a single heal, and if you add a 1/5 chance that any given one of those disrupts might fail and result in my opponent curing themself, then chances are they are going to get a CF cure and heal very soon into that cycle; hence you are completely obliterating my strategy and my skills. Not only that, but there's a palliating effect, because not only does a disrupt keep your opponent from getting a spell off, but in keeping them from getting a spell off you are keeping them from THEN disrupting YOU. If they can get a spell off because of a casting focus, they can then disrupt you, which then keeps you from getting a spell off and then disrupting them. It's sort of an Echo effect. Thirdly, you make the competition too strong defensively. If I were to duel myself in a full CF, HPR, eater suit, I suspect neither of me would ever win, despite my complex offensive schemes. And because the suits regen so much over time, it creates a competition that favors someone who does nothing but plays defensively until their opponent is half life, and then tries to rely on some RNG to get some big damage spells off. Fourthly, smaller spells like weaken are severely diminished; because the object of the game is disrupt your opponent while stacking damage, and if any given disrupt is likely to not end in a disrupt, it severely diminishes the effectiveness of those small spells that require precise timing. Where as a Flame Strike that is blundered in at a bad time, can actually be gotten off due to a casting focus, and win that person the match. Also, small spells don't do the damage per second to compensate for the immense hpr and eaters. And that's all aside from the fact that people can get auto cures despite having 0 poisoning skill, which adds even more RNG to dueling and diminishes the effectiveness of complex strategies like poison cycling. Sorry for going on about dueling so much, but you really alienated an entire sub-community and culture of UO. But hey, enough about dueling.
Back to field fighting. Reforging made non-mages suit's 10 times better, where as mages got very little. do you know what I had on my templates? max hpr, 16+ mr, 65-70 DCI. Do you know what I have on my mage suits now? max hpr, 16+ mr, 45 dci, and on top of what I used to have: some casting focus, damage eater, and 50 EP. Casting focus might help with a single spell in a crucial situation, but it usually just buys you a little time in what is already a bad situation. Damage eater doesn't really help when you're getting sync dumped and usually just allows you to recover quickly from a sync dump you would've survived anyway. 50 EP can be really useful on a non-mystic, and can especially help you in a bind when you're lethal poisoned, but again it is something done in response to something else that is really powerful. What did non mages get? Well for example, let's look at disarm archers. My disarm archer got 55 LMC (more than making up for the nerf to moving shot, as well as making all my other specials cost a hell of a lot less mana) and then 100+ mana. On my archer I can essentially spam at least 5-6 specials in a row, and I generally don't even need to do that much. I mean, isn't it a little silly, that my disarm archer has about as much mana as my wrestle parry mage? I mean, my wrestle parry mage has low mana, considering I need to lower intelligence and strength significantly to provide the dexterity necessary to parry non-mage blows. The ironic part is, I can only get about 2 explosion flame strikes (4 spells) before my mana runs out, where as on my disarm archer I can spam AI several more times than that in a row. I made my wrestle parry mage, specifically for sync dumps, which all people need to do to survive is run, and he STILL does less damage per second than my Archer. And my archer can actually mortal, para, and do damage on the run. Now you can say, oh well you don't miss spells like weapon hits. No, but you can get disrupted. And when you're out of mana, you're done. There are no regular shots that still do tons of damage like on an archer. I also got a reforged comp bow that has 50 ssi. Combine that with the SSI on my suit, as well as all the extra stamina courtesy of reforged armor, and I can shoot a bow at max speed. Which btw, not only does more damage per second, but also disrupts mages more. Oh and I have 550 property weight on my bow, which means more room for hit effects. If I could do damage on the run before, I ESPECIALLY can now, that I can spam moving shots over and over again, at 1.25 seconds while still doing tons of damage. It's no wonder it does more than my 40 sdi wrestle parry mage, made specifically to fight it. You want to talk about what was "meant" for the game? well dexxers/archers were never meant to be able to spam specials over and over again. Non-mages always had a bit of an advantage when it came to 1v1's because they can heal WHILE they damage; where as mages have to choose one, and must often sacrifice offense for the sake of staying alive. But now the heals are EVEN FASTER, and when you combine healing with the IMMENSE offensive power that they do, the idea of a mage even staying on screen with a half decent non-mage is a bit outrageous. I mean, the base damage on a bow does more than enough along with the hit effects, and when you shoot it with all those effects at max speed, stacking multiple specials is really just poking a dead guy with a stick. And even if he runs, it's super easy to moving shot someone to death. Then, combine ALL OF THAT with the fact that you can get splinter weapons? Which means plenty of damage + disrupts while slowing your opponent AND stacking another special on with the SAME SWING. Mages have not gotten ANYTHING NEARLY as good as splinter weapons. Disarm Splinters are EASILY one of the most overpowered abilities to ever be in UO. If you disarm splinter someone on foot? Say goodnight, because no matter HOW good they are, they do not stand a chance. A dexxer can run, chug and bandage, but aside from chugging a mage needs to stop to heal, and if they do stop, you can just AI and do even more damage, while STILL disrupting the heal. Archers used to be more support roles. Quick dismounts, and vital mortals, para's, AI's and moving shots made for great teamplay. But now? Archers are all you need. You don't need to sync dump anymore. As a matter of fact, most people are smart enough not to get sync dumped anymore. As a mage, the only thing I'm REALLY good for is cross healing and laying fields/summons, and doing a little damage here or there. Even then, if my teammate gets put on foot, and gets stacked with a million specials at once, a disarm, a mortal, a lethal poison, my heals are basically useless. Even all the noobs realize this by now. ALL everyone does is dismount. And once you're on foot, they know all they have to do is disarm and LP/mortal and if splinter goes off on either of those, you just got turned into a ghost.
That said, the dismount alone is generally not enough to kill someone good. It makes for easy sync dumps but even someone GOOD might be able to get away from that. But when you combine a dismount with all abilities that come so easily, and so fast, because non mages have such speed, so much mana, and so many abilities to stack, it's no wonder that everyone is crying about the dismount now a days. You should have all taken my advice and left ninja the way it was. Or at least nerf it once, and not twice. I mean the nerf to FC/FCR was in my opinion fair to balance it with dexxers. But making it disruptable all together? Well then you're just nerfing EVERYONE's ability to survive the dismount, because most people can fit ninja on their temp if they really needed to. So now, why did I just spend an entire essay explaining how non-mages are overpowered? Because the issue isn't the fact that people are being dismounted. People were always getting dismounted. The issue is that a dismount combined with non-mage abilities (disarm splinter, etc) is what makes survival so insanely hard these days. If you want to nerf the dismount, what you really need to do is nerf non-mages, and un-nerf animal form; because again, the dismount alone isn't enough to kill anyone good. It's stacking it with at least 2-3 other non-mage abilities that makes it nearly impossible to survive (along with the fact that animal form can be weaken spammed). The current proposals are not going to balance anything, I can assure you. The real problem stems from the fact that non-mages are overpowered and can absolutely OBLITERATE a non-mounted target, and animal form is disruptable, meaning all a mage has to do is weaken spam someone to keep them on foot. If instead you made a bunch of small nerfs to non-mages, like nerfing disarm + splinters making the person literally walk, on foot with a bleed effect that does damage and disrupts, and being disarmed leaving them vulnerable to all the following specials to come; nerfing the amount of mana it costs to use abilities so that they can't be spammed, making it super easy to stack a person with tons of damage and multiple abilities to eliminate any chance of cross heals; un-nerfing animal form so that even despite all these things being used against someone on foot, there's still a chance they can get an animal form off (which btw, still doesn't guarantee survival, even AFTER forming). By repeatedly catering to the noobs who cried that dismount ganks weren't easy enough, or that non-mage classes weren't powerful enough (although at the time, archers probably weren't tbh) you kind of brought this problem upon yourselves. I mean, just look at the big picture. You are constantly giving non-mages things to make them stronger, and then giving mages things to defend them self from the now superpowered non-mages. EP diminishes the over-powered-ness of poisoning, but still fails to make it completely useless. Overcapped DCI was a fair way to keep non-mages from hitting non-mages 60% of the time. Animal Form was a fair way to survive the dismount, the most powerful ability in the game and the number 1 way of killing people. Mages started playing wrestle parry mages (I know I have) just so that I know that I can't be disarm splintered. I committed an ENTIRE 240 skill points just to survive something the dev's gave dexxers that is CLEARLY overpowered. I mean, anyone can say that one class is more powerful than another. But if I am bias, it is a hell of a lot less than your average player. I am not a player like Goldberg, who plays one class, sucks at it, and demands that you change it so that I can be more successful. I play Mages, dexxers, AND archers! And all the time actually. Lately I play non-mages much more than my mages because I know mages are doodie in the open field. And btw I greatly enjoy them ALL. But in this case, isn't it obvious? LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE! EP, Overcapped DCI, Wrestle + Parry, Ninjitsu for Animal form + mirror images. *Everything mages do is a response to mitigate the effectiveness of something powerful that non-mages have,* and yet we just keep nerfing away at mages, while we keep on giving the non-mages more and more powerful tools at their disposal. And for what reason? Hindsight is always 20/20, but in this case, I told you so.
P.S. Yes, that did take 2 hours to type up. I am sorry for anyone who actually takes the time to read it lol.