Brainstorming ideas on the RoK Wizard Epic

Illuminator · 07-06-2007, 02:12 AM

Following Archonix's recommendation, this is our sticky thread pertaining to the upcoming Wizard epic weapon in RoK. I encourage you all to brainstorm out loud, listing your ideas (no matter how numerous), challenging one another, describing past mistakes to be avoided, past successes to be duplicated, and building off of each others' ideas as frequently or infrequently as you feel the need. If you non-wizard players have serious ideas to contribute as well, you are more than welcome to share them here.

I only ask that you attempt to minimize personal attacks and flames as best as possible. This is not to imply that the Wizard forum is suddenly an enforced carebear village; you are still more than welcome to start other threads to flame what needs to be flamed. But this thread has a particularly pressing need to remain relevant to the topic. This applies to myself as well.

It's 2 AM right now and bedtime soon, so I will not begin presenting my thoughts until later posts.

Slippery · 07-06-2007, 04:31 AM

Since it has to be a weapon (gay gay gay), I'm a little undecided what I'd want to see on it. Even with the AA changes gone I prefer a one hander but it gives me as the player more choices, where as with a 2-hander I lose a gear slot that I might want to use for something else (however if it is a 2-hander it better be really fucking uber :p).

I'm kinda of out of unique ideas, but I have a few things that would be nice, and I think it should be some combination of the following ideas, all of which should be constant effects and not procs.

A reuse speed bonus like on the Ring of Four Winds, prefrably one that stacks although I forsee them not stacking. Taking like 10% here.

An ability that decreases the power cost of all our spells, either a set number like decreases power requirement of all spells cast by 50, or something like 15% less power required.

A small chance at double casting a spell free of power cost. Something like a 2% chance for the spell to go off twice when you cast it.

A pretty fast reuse really fast casting clicky effect that could be somewhat like ranged auto attack for us. Something like a 1 second cast, 10 second recast clicky spell that could be cast like an imbued wand that does decent damage. What would be even better is if it acted like a bow with no ammo requirement and just fired on its own if we had auto-attack on with the same basic restrictions of a bow. Have to be at range, long delay, but not a whole lot of damage. Enough damage that we would notice it but not so much as to be game breaking.

If there had to be a proc, I'd want it to be something like the Dark Orb/Plasma Wand/Vine-wrapped boots, but better.

The following are things I don't want to see.

+Spell damage. It is gay, and it got really overused this expansion. The fact that it caps has me really disappointed and makes me want to see a whole lot less of it. The fact that with just the staff of light and the two +spell damage adornments 4 of my spells already stop seeing damage increase from further spell damage is really disappointing to me, especialy with how many items out there have 50 or 100 spell damage on them, even our soulfire with 75. I'm really not a fan of how it was implemented with the cap and as such I don't want it to take up something that could be unique and cool on our epic weapon.

A damage proc. Yes, that is right, I don't want a damage proc on it. I want cool shit like I posted above, I want 100% tangible benefits, not benefits reliant on the RNG. I love the staff of light, and it is uber as hell, but the damage output of the proc on it continually disappoints me compared to my other proc gear. The casting speed on it is what makes it for me. If you can't implement the other ideas I posted about and you can't get any other creative ideas, I'd like to see the damage proc at 3.0 times a minute with a damage and debuff on it.

That is all I have at the moment.

Fomka · 07-06-2007, 07:15 AM

Quote:

A small chance at double casting a spell free of power cost. Something like a 2% chance for the spell to go off twice when you cast it.

thats great idea imo, why cant we have a double cast?

Renaven · 07-06-2007, 07:38 AM

It's really late so I'm not going to go too in-depth with anything at this time.

(NOTE: Everything I post is going to assume that it's a 1h. Also, please don't take every number I post literally... I'm very tired at the time of writing this.)

I think it's be really cool if our RoK epic is the only weapon in-game that has a ranged auto attack feature (imagine turning auto attack on and having your staff shoot out weak fireballs -- no ammo cost. Unless you want to try using an earlier suggestion I had, which was put "charges" into the game that go into our ammo slot, and would be used for the auto attack and it would have a finite amount of charges. You could stretch your imagination if you wanted to and let us pick what type of magic we want to make the charge -- IE poison. So if we buy the poison charge, our auto attacks will be in poison damage). That alone would make it sought after. It should do slightly more damage than our current auto attacks, and it should also have a higher chance to hit than our current auto attacks, being that it's going to be shooting some sort of weak spell at the enemy, versus using a melee weapon that we're not very proficient at all to begin with.

I think it'd be cool to have two options for the ranged auto attack. One is "Rapid Fire" where it would do maybe 200-300 damage every ~3 seconds. Or we could set it to "Charge" mode where it would charge up over the course of 10 seconds, and blast your enemy for maybe 1500ish (numbers can be tweaked -- I made the damage done via charging higher than just a straight % increase because of the procs we lose from not hitting as often). I'd assume it'd be more logical to let spell crits handle whether it crits or not, because it technically is like shooting a hostile spell. I also think I'd want hostile spell procs to affect the item, similar to how melee procs affect our current auto attack now. It won't be overpowered because we'll be spending most of our time casting. You can also modify the delay until it becomes balanced.

Anyway, that was only the tip of the iceberg regarding what this item should have.

I won't delve into stats as the Devs are fairly good with those. Just remember: if you make it 2h, the stats had better be better than any 1h + symbol combo in the game, and the procs have to be beefed up to be better than the procs of most 1h + symbols in the game.

Please try to find another thing to put on the item than +spell damage. I don't like it and I don't like the caps for it. I can live with spell crits though.

I'll go ahead and try and list some effects that I think might be cool on the item. Instead of listing them all out individually and allowing you to pick and choose the ones you like, I thought I'd group some together into the full package regarding what I'd be able to live with for effects on our epic. Not even going to bother giving the effects names.

NOTE: all 4 procs listed below are separate procs. They don't all proc at once. Also, please make the 10 second buff an effect we can see from the Maintained window.

1a. 3% chance to have our next spell cast within the next 10 seconds cast twice in a row.
1b. 3% chance to have our next spell cast within the next 10 seconds cost no power.
1c. 3% chance to have our next spell cast within the next 10 seconds instacast. (this is different from 1a... with 1a, you can cast the same spell twice in a row without having to wait for the recast. With 1c., you can cast another spell right away -- but not the same spell.)
1d. 3% chance to have our next hostile spell incur 0 threat.
1e. Activatable insta-cast 10 second AE immunity. Reuse 10 minutes. People love clickies.

Those 5 effects listed above would all be put on the item. If you balance the % chance to proc enough, it won't become overpowered, but it will become unique and useful. Right now, with my numbers, it has a 12% chance to do one of the four things listed, with the 5th thing being controllable by the player.

I'll try to list a few more effects before I head to bed.

2a. 12% chance to remove recovery times on all spells (note that I said RECOVERY) for 15 seconds.
2b. When procs, causes all of caster's hostile spells for those 15 seconds to negate 500 threat points (deaggro)
2c. Activatable insta-cast 20 second buff which triples power usage in exchange for +30% more damage for every spell. Recast every 3 minutes. Mmmm clickies.

Please make the buff show up in the Maintained window.

3a. 12% chance to cast a 15-second buff which will cause all spells to use up 10% less power.
3b. When procs, +15% spell crits for those 15 seconds.
3c. An activatable insta-cast 4000 damage nuke usable every 5 minutes. People love clickies!

I may be able to think of better effects when it's not 4:40am and I'm actually awake.

stivan · 07-06-2007, 11:44 AM

In response to Renaven's post about ranged attack from our staff... i have been discussing this idea with guild mates for some time and would love to see it implemented.. my only question would be... would you make this a ranged attack or spell attack? and if it were a spell attack would "on hostile spell or spell attack" proc's work on these? Or if it were considered a range attack could range prco's be added to mage items? some things to consider.

on the epic staff... the ideas that i'm liking so far are the double cast, a new ability clicky (this is really cool because we won't be getting a new ice nova as far as the tiers are working right now)... i also like the idea of making your spells cost 0 power for the next so or so seconds...(althought off subject, i'd like to see them working towards making manaburn more viable for sorcrers in a end raid situation.)

that's all for now... if i think of anything else i'll post later on.

Illuminator · 07-06-2007, 12:05 PM

I do like the ranged staff attack. But I would go against the grain and request that such a weapon be a 2H. Instead of consumables, I would place 7 crystals throughout the epic quest line, and to do each of the damage types, you place that corresponding crystal into your ammo slot (restrict it from being placed inside a quiver). I would classify it as a ranged attack that does the related magic damage, just as protoferno is a melee attack that does heat damage.

I'm not the biggest fan of clickies, but one I have in mind, I'll nickname "Total Recall". Once every two or three minutes, all your hostile spell recasts get reset. It would be better as a clicky than a rare proc because then the player has control and can use it to his/her advantage.

And it absolutely has to look uber. A newcomer to the game needs to be able to look at it and shit his pants, and crave it at all costs. Just as I did back in the day when everyone but me seemed to have the Prismatic.

preynar · 07-06-2007, 12:05 PM

I would think unless they mark it as a melee attack adding a ranged auto attack would count as hostile spells. I know from playing my swash that all the offensive poisons react to spell modifiers and procs. Any class that swings a weap has a chance to double attack either through their AA's or someone else's. I really like the idea of double casting even if its at .6 chance per minute. Also I would really like to see 2handers as a viable option, everytime i think of a wand i fell like I'm a 2 dollar magician saying "abra kadabra" at some kids birthday.

LFG · 07-06-2007, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by preynar

I would think unless they mark it as a melee attack adding a ranged auto attack would count as hostile spells. I know from playing my swash that all the offensive poisons react to spell modifiers and procs. Any class that swings a weap has a chance to double attack either through their AA's or someone else's. I really like the idea of double casting even if its at .6 chance per minute. Also I would really like to see 2handers as a viable option, everytime i think of a wand i fell like I'm a 2 dollar magician saying "abra kadabra" at some kids birthday.

I think all top end 2 hand weapons should have two procs, since you can get a proc on each of the two items you can't equip when you use a 2 hander.

Maybe even 3 procs, or as Renaven suggests, 4. One is not sufficient. 2 handers should provide a material incentive for their use, rather than a disadvantage as the majority do now. I also think making people choose between stats and damage procs is a good thing.

Illuminator · 07-06-2007, 12:12 PM

In retrospect, I wish the Robe of Al'Kabor proc were done as a clicky so you could cast it every 38 seconds or so just like Chronosiphoning.

Also, I rather that multiple disparate proc effects were implemented as separate procs to stagger them a little better, there's nothing that sucks quite like waiting and waiting for one godlike proc to go off and then proc silence in between.

Udoaka · 07-06-2007, 12:47 PM

I want to see a staff that has ice around it and not fire [SoL and SoD both have fire. How lame]

Also I think A group ward proc of 5k or AE avoid or something that will protect the weak mages in the group would be cool