Sethai

Join Date 12/2005

+23

Wizard Staffs

Was quite excited by this new addition to unit design, but have found them rather underwhelming thusfar. The damage seems always usually to be lower than archers, and while I appreciate they shouldn’t necessarily be “better” than bows, they need to have some advantage I think. The initiative penalty also has the problem of, strangely, making them unsuitable for spell casting champions because it slows down their spell casting.

I think maybe they’d benefit from a different job description: as a medium range shotgun / greek fire equivalent. IMHO Ditch the initiative penalty and significantly boost the damage, but counter this with a range limitation of 3 or 4. This would fix the champion initiative issue and give them useful firepower without overpowering them too much, but require clever positioning and give them a weakness in the form of mobile cavalry.

Oh yeah: a lot of the time the spell visual seems to come from the side of the screen rather than the caster. Might want to look into that.

What does everyone else think?

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errm , just to let you know, they had their damage nerfed because they were too effective. Element based damage ignore armour so their is no defending from it without resistance.

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they was effective before beta 3, but now they not that effective anymore.

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Quoting Humility,

reply 2

they was effective before beta 3, but now they not that effective anymore.

They were effective before beta 3, but now they are not that effective

Sry but your english seems a little rough

On the topic of staffs, they do seem undepowered if you consider their costs. Especially fire staffs because every other artifact/item protects from fire dmg.

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I would leave them as is but add a little something for each staff. Like a mana bonus or some damage bonus to spells the Champion cast if he equips the staff. That way in order to benifit from the ability you take the initiative penalty.

All sorts of things can be done to this.

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Considering that fire, frost, and lightning damage go right through armor, I don't see how they can be considered weak.

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they gave little damage, you better off get weapon to get more damage even enemies had weak armor, but though high armor, it's still no good since most enemie had lot of hitpoint and unable to kill them before they kill you if using staff.

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If they converted all your dmg to fire/cold dmg, that would make them more interesting and useful for champions. It would allow traits to buff them better.

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I know it's irresistable damage, but it's still pretty puny damage against troops, as opposed to jundane weapons. Are we alright with that?

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Considering it is an early tier weapon, it is doing alot of damage. My guess is that you are not adding amulets and rings to increase its attacks. Just using the stock staff will do about the same as using the stock shortbow. It is perfect for where it is in the tech tree. There is also a late game upgrade that makes it the best choice for ranged units.

The only thing we might really ask for are some hero only versions with less of an Init penalty and more attack.

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I would say they are "OK" they are just very specialized and only "really work" when you have the whole set of weapons available, since they are some of the weapons you "Should" pull forth to kill heavily armored knights, while this could be different, atleast they have the current function

For heroes: I think mage heroes should have some weapons assigned to them, giving them some spell mastery and meaby some boost to rydefence.
Say if you lower the base "Spell Mastery" by 10, and 1 per level, wearing a staff could grant an additional 10 spell mastery and 1 per level. and also allow you to do a ranged attack.
Meaby make some high level staffs deal more spell damage with the element they deal themselves (Fire damage from spells is increased by +5, or +20%)
Then again, meaby I am too locked into the idea that mages need to use staffs

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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