Necro bugs 2x

McDougle

Necro form leeches 100% effective without spirit speak. 
Expected result as all other magic leech should scale based on support skill 

Bug 2 
Necro forms casting spells while in special form 
Expected result
As in horrific beast no other spells should function..

loop

Depending on the requirements when the spells were implemented, these may not be bugs perse but design oversights.

I always found it curious that Vampire Form's life leech doesn't scale with Spirit Speak. With the dominance of sampires, which would experience a nerf if all variants now needed Spirit Speak, the ship has sailed a bit on changes to this area, however.

McDougle

loop said:

Depending on the requirements when the spells were implemented, these may not be bugs perse but design oversights.

I always found it curious that Vampire Form's life leech doesn't scale with Spirit Speak. With the dominance of sampires, which would experience a nerf if all variants now needed Spirit Speak, the ship has sailed a bit on changes to this area, however.

I disagree just because it's popular doesn't mean it's not broken... players can adapt 

Yoshi

“You’re talking about vampiric embrace?

for what it’s worth I have always agreed, but like loop said, may be as intended for whatever reason

(you can cast other spells in horrific beast form if you’re ‘pure’ necro)

Consistency is nice”

McDougle

Yoshi said:

“You’re talking about vampiric embrace?

for what it’s worth I have always agreed, but like loop said, may be as intended for whatever reason

Consistency is nice”

All forms should work the same regardless of school of magic..as you said consistency...

Yoshi

"so you don't think people should be able to cast in stone or reaper form?

not sure what the benefit of being in reaper form would be.."

McDougle

Yoshi said:

"so you don't think people should be able to cast in stone or reaper form?

not sure what the benefit of being in reaper form would be.."

I'm a mystic bard i live in stone form but i think it needs to be consistent... right now the solution is dog archers bad on all ninja forms can't do anything i can see no weapon special in animal form or a timer on special in animal form but make it so you can't even use ninja magic come on  the fact that if it's not an issue in pvp we allow it even if it is inconsistent and obviously OP is simply poor design work...

loop

McDougle said:

loop said:

Depending on the requirements when the spells were implemented, these may not be bugs perse but design oversights.

I always found it curious that Vampire Form's life leech doesn't scale with Spirit Speak. With the dominance of sampires, which would experience a nerf if all variants now needed Spirit Speak, the ship has sailed a bit on changes to this area, however.

I disagree just because it's popular doesn't mean it's not broken... players can adapt 

Definitely a fair point. I suspect that back in the day when players had weaker gear, no Bushido/perfection (these spells predate Samurai Empire), etc., the flat 20% life leech was less impactful. If you look at the penalties that come with the form, they really don't amount to much in today's context.

It's probably annoying to design content around the sampire life leech gimmick, and certainly one approach is to nerf it, but it is a play style that requires a bit of skill and investment from the player. Another thought is that if players find the template fun enough to play at the exclusion of other templates, maybe there isn't something more fundamental to be said about the gameplay loop of certain content, the balances of other templates, etc.


Edit:

Another inconsistency here is that Vampire Form can be used while mounted. I'm not aware of any other form that allows this.

gay

Spirit Speak isn't a requirement for the life drain with Vampiric Embrace because it's a flat 20% of your damage. Adding on the skill requirement of 99+ to maintain the form, the inability to cast any spells that utilize garlic and necessity to overcap fire resistance. At one point you could even kill people by casting garlic based spells on them.

Wraith form mana leech is affected by Spirit Speak however because it is a form that can be entered with a scroll and maintained with as little as 20 skill points or human JoaT racial.

Horrific beast is at best a laughable form that should probably be completely revamped and has served maybe two niche areas in this game throughout the entire existence of Necromancy:

1. Noob bait
2. IDOC barrels for like a week.
   

What would be fun however is the re-implementation of Vampiric Embrace functioning with spells again. Vamp form evasion wither grinders lets gooooooo.

McDougle

Hehehe long ago i role played a necro pally stuck in beast form of course before it was nerfed you could cast pally spells how i terrorized the solen outside wind...

ForeverFun

Comments/issues?

• In Vamp form, you cannot leech life via spells/magery attacks, last I checked.  Seems like a strange limitation.
• In Lich form, you should be able to ride a mount.  Possibly an artwork limitation preventing this from being allowed?
• Adding spirit speak requirement to vamp form may not be as "nerfing" as you think.  Likely, it would be scaled from say 8%-20ish% based on SS skill, like wraith form.  I think you'd find warriors are fine if this was reduced to 8%, and would not suddenly pickup SS.
• In wraith form, should move at 1.5x (?) normal speed (not as fast as mounted speed, but faster than normal).

As noted, the total skill points invested needs to be considered.  An effective wraith form is going to probably have 100+ in SS, and 20+ in necro.   (100 spirit speak to get 20% mana leech) Vamp form 99+ in necro.  Looking at the points to invest, vamp is a bit OP compared to say wraith form.

Some of these forms would become useless if you couldn't cast spells.

McDougle

ForeverFun said:

Comments/issues?

• In Vamp form, you cannot leech life via spells/magery attacks, last I checked.  Seems like a strange limitation.
• In Lich form, you should be able to ride a mount.  Possibly an artwork limitation preventing this from being allowed?
• Adding spirit speak requirement to vamp form may not be as "nerfing" as you think.  Likely, it would be scaled from say 8%-20ish% based on SS skill, like wraith form.  I think you'd find warriors are fine if this was reduced to 8%, and would not suddenly pickup SS.
• In wraith form, should move at 1.5x (?) normal speed (not as fast as mounted speed, but faster than normal).

As noted, the total skill points invested needs to be considered.  An effective wraith form is going to probably have 100+ in SS, and 20+ in necro.   (100 spirit speak to get 20% mana leech) Vamp form 99+ in necro.  Looking at the points to invest, vamp is a bit OP compared to say wraith form.

Some of these forms would become useless if you couldn't cast spells.

You mean like ninja...

gay

ForeverFun said:

Comments/issues?

• In Vamp form, you cannot leech life via spells/magery attacks, last I checked.  Seems like a strange limitation.
• In Lich form, you should be able to ride a mount.  Possibly an artwork limitation preventing this from being allowed?
• Adding spirit speak requirement to vamp form may not be as "nerfing" as you think.  Likely, it would be scaled from say 8%-20ish% based on SS skill, like wraith form.  I think you'd find warriors are fine if this was reduced to 8%, and would not suddenly pickup SS.
• In wraith form, should move at 1.5x (?) normal speed (not as fast as mounted speed, but faster than normal).

As noted, the total skill points invested needs to be considered.  An effective wraith form is going to probably have 100+ in SS, and 20+ in necro.   (100 spirit speak to get 20% mana leech) Vamp form 99+ in necro.  Looking at the points to invest, vamp is a bit OP compared to say wraith form.

Some of these forms would become useless if you couldn't cast spells.

1. Vamp form lost it's ability to benefit from spells due to the vamp form necro era of pvp. It was really powerful in grinders 15v100

2. By this logic any physically altering humanoid form should be able to ride a mount, Polymorph Orc/Lizardman/Gargoyle/Troll/Ogre/Ettin etc. It's not the case because these monsters would be fairly clumsy on a mount, and as a lich you don't want to be jostled too hard and have a limb fall off. Take it slow.

3. Wraith already benefits from not requiring a stamina check in felucca, making it capable of passing through mobiles. Fun fact: You cannot walk through a wraith without incurring a stamina check, but one can walk through you.

ForeverFun

gay said:

ForeverFun said:

Comments/issues?

• In Vamp form, you cannot leech life via spells/magery attacks, last I checked.  Seems like a strange limitation.
• In Lich form, you should be able to ride a mount.  Possibly an artwork limitation preventing this from being allowed?
• Adding spirit speak requirement to vamp form may not be as "nerfing" as you think.  Likely, it would be scaled from say 8%-20ish% based on SS skill, like wraith form.  I think you'd find warriors are fine if this was reduced to 8%, and would not suddenly pickup SS.
• In wraith form, should move at 1.5x (?) normal speed (not as fast as mounted speed, but faster than normal).

As noted, the total skill points invested needs to be considered.  An effective wraith form is going to probably have 100+ in SS, and 20+ in necro.   (100 spirit speak to get 20% mana leech) Vamp form 99+ in necro.  Looking at the points to invest, vamp is a bit OP compared to say wraith form.

Some of these forms would become useless if you couldn't cast spells.

1. Vamp form lost it's ability to benefit from spells due to the vamp form necro era of pvp. It was really powerful in grinders 15v100

2. By this logic any physically altering humanoid form should be able to ride a mount, Polymorph Orc/Lizardman/Gargoyle/Troll/Ogre/Ettin etc. It's not the case because these monsters would be fairly clumsy on a mount, and as a lich you don't want to be jostled too hard and have a limb fall off. Take it slow.

3. Wraith already benefits from not requiring a stamina check in felucca, making it capable of passing through mobiles. Fun fact: You cannot walk through a wraith without incurring a stamina check, but one can walk through you.

1. That sounds like fun, and not OP -- mana is a limiting factor.  That aside, I'd think archery/throwing would be problematic if this was such a problem, last I checked that worked with vamp form.
2. Liches riding mounts is fairly common in RPG lore, afaik.....2b) I didn't bring up polymorph, but a key difference exists there -- only your appearance is changed, not your weight or abilities.  And who's to say a typical 700 STR Cu, can't handle what appears to be an orc?  My guess for polymorph and lich form riding mounts stem from same limitation - lack of artwork/animation.
3. Lack of symmetry with comment in bold could well be a bug.

PlayerSkillFTW

My Sampire has GM SS, so he can cast Curse Weapon and Corpse Skin. With Vamp Form+Curse Weapon, he has 70% Hit Life Drain, 3.5x more self healing than the usual Sampire. Can get hit for 120 damage from Chief Paroxy (which would send most Sampires screaming), then laugh it off as i regain my entire 150 Healthbar with a single 300+ total damage Double Strike (Corpse Skin+Onslaught with a 100% Fire Double Axe is nasty).

You used to be able to bug Curse Weapon to work with spells, and that was absolutely ridiculous for awhile. Could solo Champ spawns as a Necro/Mage just spamming Wither.

gay said:

Horrific beast is at best a laughable form that should probably be completely revamped and has served maybe two niche areas in this game throughout the entire existence of Necromancy:

1. Noob bait
2. IDOC barrels for like a week.
   

Horrific Beast was actually fairly hard to deal with when AoS first launched. I knew a Necro/Macer who ran around in Horrific Beast Form and wore Bracelet of Health (+10 HPR) and Berserker's Maul (back before swing speed was capped at 1.25 secs), and he would bola people off of their mounts and demolish them in seconds. Entire gank squads would fail to kill him due to his HP Regen.

For a little while on TC during Mastery Testing, Horrific Beast Form+Wrest Mastery 3 was dealing some ridiculous damage, out damaging weapon templates.