BLADE SPIRITS : Why casting them is so slow, when they are quite weaker as other Summons ?

popps

Does anyone know what the point is, to have a Magery Summon spell such as Blade Spirits, which often new characters find themselves having to cast since they lack the skill to cast other higher Circle Summons, taking much longer to be cast, as compared to more powerfull Summons ?

Pawain

They are for mages that have low skill.

McDougle

If i recall they were much stronger hence the long casting time they were nerfed and the time never reduced 

popps

Pawain said:

They are for mages that have low skill.

Indeed they are yet, how much sense does it make, for a WEAK character to stand still for such a long time before they can actually cast Blade Spirits which is also a weaker Summon as compared to other Summons taking more skill to be cast which are much faster to be cast ?

My point being, that, for a WEAK character, and for a weak Summon, its casting should be quite instantaneous, me thinks.... instead, it is much slower then other Summons which are more powerfull.... go figure.....

Arnold7

Always wondered about that myself.  Never use this spell because of the time it takes to cast.  Thanks for confirming it takes as long to cast as I thought when I had to use it early on in my development.

popps

Arnold7 said:

Always wondered about that myself.  Never use this spell because of the time it takes to cast.  Thanks for confirming it takes as long to cast as I thought when I had to use it early on in my development.

What really I cannot understand, is that, since this is a low Circle spell which a weak character would be casting for lack of skill to be able to cast more powerfull summons, since it takes so long to cast Blade Spirits, this causes that a WEAK character stands still in the middle of spawn because, as we know, a character cannot move while casting a spell until that spell motion ends..., if the new character is using Protection, the casting motion would not be interrupted by the attacking MoBs and, thus, the weak character would keep taking damage unable to do anything during the spell motion which is quite long....

I mean, for a weak and new character, at least to me, it does not make much sense....

McDougle

popps said:

Arnold7 said:

Always wondered about that myself.  Never use this spell because of the time it takes to cast.  Thanks for confirming it takes as long to cast as I thought when I had to use it early on in my development.

What really I cannot understand, is that, since this is a low Circle spell which a weak character would be casting for lack of skill to be able to cast more powerfull summons, since it takes so long to cast Blade Spirits, this causes that a WEAK character stands still in the middle of spawn because, as we know, a character cannot move while casting a spell until that spell motion ends..., if the new character is using Protection, the casting motion would not be interrupted by the attacking MoBs and, thus, the weak character would keep taking damage unable to do anything during the spell motion which is quite long....

I mean, for a weak and new character, at least to me, it does not make much sense....

I've explained why it works the way it does which part of the explication did you not understand? There is no need to restate your opinion as you have made it very clear simple point out what you didn't understand in my explanation 

Lord_Frodo

@Mariah ; Question asked and Answered
IBTL

keven2002

Might as well lump Summon Creature in there as well. Takes longer to cast and they are weaker than a demon.

Maybe we should make all spells the same strength regardless of skill? 

IBTL

Arnold7

No, I think the point is this one takes a ridiculous length of time to cast.  Always wondered why it took so long to cast when I could cast all higher level and more complex spells so much faster,   Thanks McDougle for the explanation.

Norry

Blade spirits have their uses still, precast in an area, 2, no fail with gm magery. Their swing speed used to be insanely fast... i remember 1-2 hits a second in early days training parry. The casting time should be halved now, or increase their swing speed back up.

Larisa

Or like I just did, the Black Gate quest to get those silly virtue stones...on a new character with 96 magery casting blade spirit over and over and OVER to kill an Unbound EV....took awhile but thank you blade spirits! Hate the casting time though but yes, that spell is still used quite often.

Maybe if they read this thread they can figure out a way to shorten the casting time?  *Adds to their evergrowing wishlist*

PlayerSkillFTW

Blade Spirits used to be much more powerful, in numerous ways. They were capable of inflicting Greater Poison on hit (pre-AoS), they attacked much faster (prior to the 1.25s swing speed cap, which was introduced due to Macers swinging insanely fast with the Berserker's Maul after AoS launched), they required only 1 Control Slot (when they introduced Control Slots), and there is no limit to how many Blade Spirits could be in a 5x5 radius (they introduced a limit of only 3 EVs allowed in a 5x5 radius, shortly after AoS if i remember correctly, because groups of Mages were effortlessly killing the Bone Daemon with armies of EVs).

The modern BS is an absolute joke, especially for 2 Control Slots and such a slow cast speed. Here's a BS cast at max skill (they don't scale with skill though).

Now here's an EV cast at max skill (they don't scale with skill either).

I made a thread awhile back with ideas on how to improve the summons in the game.

https://forum.uo.com/discussion/9606/suggestion-summon-form-revamp#latest

Ben

popps said:

Does anyone know what the point is, to have a Magery Summon spell such as Blade Spirits, which often new characters find themselves having to cast since they lack the skill to cast other higher Circle Summons, taking much longer to be cast, as compared to more powerfull Summons ?

Because they are beautiful and menacing all at the same time.