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QCF Design Community • View topic - Snake? Snaaaaaake!
Page 3 of 5

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:36 pm
by dislekcia

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:36 pm
by booooooze
Yet another person here unable to play. Someday...

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 7:28 am
by Dischorran

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 8:22 am
by Kuranes

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:21 pm
by Sidestepper
I'm having a hard time finding niches for the Mage Fist to fill.

Let's take a completely generic Guard character with no powerups or items other than the Mage Fist and a 12 point mana pool. For use of discussion, let's say he's 5th level and is facing an equal level monster from which he can soak two hits safely.

With the Mage Fist, he can cast two fireballs, inflicting 40x2=80 damage total, leaving his health and mana resources completely tapped. (I'm ignoring burn damage here).

Without the Mage Fist, he can strike twice, inflicting 25x2=40 damage, plus he can cast two fireballs, adding in another 20X2=40, for a grand total of 80 damage.

So that's a tie, except that you lose the flexibility normally offered by Fireball and you had to use your locker slot to do it. Worse, if you have made any improvements to your attack strength or number of fireballs, either through class abilities, powerups, boons, or items, then the Mage Fist actually reduces your overall damage.

What about resistances? Let's take our 5th level Guard and grant him 50% resistances. How does that work?
With Mage Fist:
2 Fireballs for 40x2= 80 damage
2 Attacks for 25x2 = 50 damage
130 damage total

Without Mage Fist:
2 Fireballs for 20x2= 40 damage
4 Attacks for 25x4= 100 damage
140 damage total

So resistances also hurt the Mage Fist. That makes sense, since anything that improves your melee efficiency is going work counter to the Mage Fist. So is there any way to use this thing at all?

Well, as others have pointed out, you can combo it with slow effects to front load an extra fireball's worth of damage. To pull this off, you need three components (Mage Fist + Fireball + WEYTWUT/Earthmother). It's okay, and stacks with other free hit effects like first strike, dodge, and death protection, but I'm not sure that I'm sold on it.

What about low damage characters? Can they make more general use of it? Let's send in a 5th level Monk against the same nameless monster that we've been throwing our Guard at.
With Mage Fist
2 Fireballs for 40x2 = 80 damage
2 Attacks for 15x2 = 30 damage
110 damage total

Without Mage Fist
2 Fireballs for 20x2 = 40 damage
4 Attacks for 15x4 = 60 damage
100 total damage

We get a marginal improvement as long as we don't do anything that improves our attack strength or resistances. Color me unimpressed.

What about Wizards?
With Mage Fist
2 Fireballs for 40x2 = 80 damage
80 damage total

Without Mage Fist
2 Fireballs for 20x2 = 40 damage
2 Attacks for 18x2 = 36 damage
76 damage total

Bleh.

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:59 pm
by The Avatar
Hmm... What about an elf monk with Mage fist?

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 2:10 pm
by Nurator
with any monk, using +18% resistances is way better as the mage fist... i am a bit disappointed too.

Maybe if you remove the mana consumption (i mean, you will get dmg all the time, why do you need both ressources), it would be of some worth.

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 2:25 pm
by Sidestepper

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 4:06 pm
by Nurator
Hmm what about Vicious Halls of Steel? It is now the only Vicious Dungeon without a reward :( Why is that?

Re: Snake? Snaaaaaake!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 6:08 pm
by The Avatar
It is a vicious version of a hard dungeon. I think it should be taken out...


It seems "Mage Fist" isn't very good at all. I think we should buff it and the Avatar's Symbol. Both of the other Vicious rewards are good, so why not this one?