TOPIC: READ THIS! Change to MEC and Details on Relic & Legendary

Michael wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: I'll analyze Wizard damage output with the Legendary, vs. Medallion of Mystic Mouth.

10 combat rounds over 3 rooms, with 3 rounds in the first two rooms and 4 in the 4th.

I assume:

1. Top end-ish wizard with +30 spell bonus and Medallion of Mystic Mouth, Crown of Expertise, Charm of Spell Swapping, and MeC.

2. The Wizard spell swaps into the highest available non-damage spell.

3. The Wizard uses MeC on their three best spells. One could certainly use MeC more but it would require coordination from multiple players, and/or massive use of consumables - and here I'm analyzing the Wizards contribution.

With Medallion of Mystic Mouth:

2x Lightning Storm with 20 base damage, doubled with MeC : 2*(20+20+30) = 140
1x Magic Missile with 8 base+3 skill check, doubled with MeC : (8+3+8+3+30) = 52
6x Magic Missile with 8 base+3 skill check : 6*(8+3+30) = 246
1x Burning Hands with base 6+3 skill check : 1*(6+3+30) = 39
10 uses of a wand, 8 points for wand + 2 for Human Wizard + 2 for Ioun Stone Flourite Cube : 10*(8+2+2) = 120

Total damage assuming all skill checks pass: 594, at a cost of 75 hp and 3 rare wands.

With the new Legendary:

With the new legendary, the Wizard can casts a Quickened, Conserved Lightning Storm in each room.

3x Quickened, Conserved Lightning Storm, doubled with MeC: 3*(20+20+30) = 210
Now for our remaining 10 standard actions:
2x Lightning Storm with 20 base damage: 2*(20+30) = 100
7x Magic Missile with 8 base+3 skill check : 7*(8+3+30) = 287
1 Burning Hands with base 6+3 skill check : 1*(6+3+30) = 39

Total damage assuming all skill checks pass: 636 at a cost of 105 HP

So this adds ~40 damage over the course of the dungeon at a cost of 30 additional HP but saves you 3 rare wands over MMM, allowing Wizards to deal ~63 points of damage a round on average over 10 rounds. It also gives you lots of flexibility with Absorb, Assure, etc. and for sliding Wizards Pierce.

One could add Ring of Spell Storing to both builds to add another 50 point Lightning Storm, at the cost of 2 damage on each spell. In the MMM build that also costs you 12 damage for the round you use it because you would have been able to use a wand instead.

By comparison, under VTD rules, similarly geared Monks have:

35 melee damage + 10 weapon damage per puck, 70% hit chance, 20% crit chance = 2*45*(.7+2*.2) = 99 points of damage round, with a 36% chance of stunning the monster each round until it's dead or stunned.

How do the numbers change for more/fewer turns? Is the average per turn the same at 12 or 6 turns of combat as the 10 given here?

Is a sharpened Scorching ray a contender at all (with MEC to substitute in for some lightning storms, or maybe without MEC to replace some magic missiles)? In Virtual I think fully boosted it would average 3/10 * (2*(36+30)) + 6/10 *(36+30) = ~68, (assuming the wizard can get to +3 to hit, so hit the 15 on anything but a 1, MEC adding to base damage is really nice here for the crit). This looks comparable to the lightning storm, with a much higher variance (which may or may not be preferable), and uses a lower level spell slot. Also, for skilled sliders I suspect the damage could go up in non-Virtual.

Without MEC I think the average would be .3*2*48+.6*48 = 86.4, so better to use than to swap down to a magic missile.

I believe most times, a wizard would be better tossing that extra damage to a good slider with Boost vs sliding themselves, especially if the slider is one that has multipliers on their crits greater than 2x.

That's not a complaint, for the record.

Jeff321 wrote: I assume there will be an exchange for those of us who have the old MEC?

Yes, sorry! I can answer more questions once VTD is over.

NightGod wrote:

Michael wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: I'll analyze Wizard damage output with the Legendary, vs. Medallion of Mystic Mouth.

10 combat rounds over 3 rooms, with 3 rounds in the first two rooms and 4 in the 4th.

I assume:

1. Top end-ish wizard with +30 spell bonus and Medallion of Mystic Mouth, Crown of Expertise, Charm of Spell Swapping, and MeC.

2. The Wizard spell swaps into the highest available non-damage spell.

3. The Wizard uses MeC on their three best spells. One could certainly use MeC more but it would require coordination from multiple players, and/or massive use of consumables - and here I'm analyzing the Wizards contribution.

With Medallion of Mystic Mouth:

2x Lightning Storm with 20 base damage, doubled with MeC : 2*(20+20+30) = 140
1x Magic Missile with 8 base+3 skill check, doubled with MeC : (8+3+8+3+30) = 52
6x Magic Missile with 8 base+3 skill check : 6*(8+3+30) = 246
1x Burning Hands with base 6+3 skill check : 1*(6+3+30) = 39
10 uses of a wand, 8 points for wand + 2 for Human Wizard + 2 for Ioun Stone Flourite Cube : 10*(8+2+2) = 120

Total damage assuming all skill checks pass: 594, at a cost of 75 hp and 3 rare wands.

With the new Legendary:

With the new legendary, the Wizard can casts a Quickened, Conserved Lightning Storm in each room.

3x Quickened, Conserved Lightning Storm, doubled with MeC: 3*(20+20+30) = 210
Now for our remaining 10 standard actions:
2x Lightning Storm with 20 base damage: 2*(20+30) = 100
7x Magic Missile with 8 base+3 skill check : 7*(8+3+30) = 287
1 Burning Hands with base 6+3 skill check : 1*(6+3+30) = 39

Total damage assuming all skill checks pass: 636 at a cost of 105 HP

So this adds ~40 damage over the course of the dungeon at a cost of 30 additional HP but saves you 3 rare wands over MMM, allowing Wizards to deal ~63 points of damage a round on average over 10 rounds. It also gives you lots of flexibility with Absorb, Assure, etc. and for sliding Wizards Pierce.

One could add Ring of Spell Storing to both builds to add another 50 point Lightning Storm, at the cost of 2 damage on each spell. In the MMM build that also costs you 12 damage for the round you use it because you would have been able to use a wand instead.

By comparison, under VTD rules, similarly geared Monks have:

35 melee damage + 10 weapon damage per puck, 70% hit chance, 20% crit chance = 2*45*(.7+2*.2) = 99 points of damage round, with a 36% chance of stunning the monster each round until it's dead or stunned.

How do the numbers change for more/fewer turns? Is the average per turn the same at 12 or 6 turns of combat as the 10 given here?

Is a sharpened Scorching ray a contender at all (with MEC to substitute in for some lightning storms, or maybe without MEC to replace some magic missiles)? In Virtual I think fully boosted it would average 3/10 * (2*(36+30)) + 6/10 *(36+30) = ~68, (assuming the wizard can get to +3 to hit, so hit the 15 on anything but a 1, MEC adding to base damage is really nice here for the crit). This looks comparable to the lightning storm, with a much higher variance (which may or may not be preferable), and uses a lower level spell slot. Also, for skilled sliders I suspect the damage could go up in non-Virtual.

Without MEC I think the average would be .3*2*48+.6*48 = 86.4, so better to use than to swap down to a magic missile.

I believe most times, a wizard would be better tossing that extra damage to a good slider with Boost vs sliding themselves, especially if the slider is one that has multipliers on their crits greater than 2x.

That's not a complaint, for the record.

That is a good point, had not even occurred to me. I think the limit of not duplicating powers is going to add some interesting levels to this. I can see wanting to use a conserve, a boost, a quicken, and a sharpen spread over a couple of turns just for damage and still have uses for the utility powers. I imagine I would generally pair the MEC with either the sharpen or the boost to try and get the most out of the extra damage. (Though if I cannot make it to the legendary it will always be the sharpen.)

Matthew Hayward wrote: I have to say, I simply don't understand what is going on here with regard to the design intent of making Wizards top damage glass cannons.

MeC gets a huge nerf, multiplying its activation cost to by 2.5. That's the glass part.

The new items kick a steady 12 points of damage a round from Medallion of Mystic Mouth, in exchange for a 1/room Quickened spell as a Free Action, and a few more castings of a higher level spell than a lower one via Conserve, and a swiss army knife of utility abilities.

I'm not seeing the cannon part.

I've done a bunch of back of the envelope calculations, and pulling out all the stops, using pierce and VTD spell slide rules, having the Cabal set, Crown of Expertise, Ring of Spell Storing, using MeC 17 times including on 6 point spells, and this legendary I can get a wizard to around 110 points of damage a round on average over 10 rounds. At a cost of 535 HP over 10 rounds. They are left with 4 level 0 spells on the card. Doing this would require the coordination of minimally 3 classes and/or things like burning multiple Gem of Last Hope or Fallen Star Mushrooms.

A similarly geared Monk will deal ~100 points of damage a round over 10 rounds at no HP cost, with better saves, AC, HP, and an 36% chance of stunning the monster every round until it's stunned or dead. They can continue to do this indefinitely.

I don't get it.

Well, obviously you missed the fact that people were mad that wizards might regularly out-DPS a utility class.

Silly of you to ignore, really.

Jeff Martin wrote:

Jeff321 wrote: I assume there will be an exchange for those of us who have the old MEC?

Yes, sorry! I can answer more questions once VTD is over.

Thank you!

Question:

When a Monk's FoB or a Melee ranger's 2 puck attack is Boosted, do both pucks get the full Boost bonus or is it somehow allocated in a pool among the pucks?

Question:

When does the rules change on Mad Evoker's Charm go into effect?

One huge concern I have with this is that, by leaving in the damage doubling, all we're going to hear during the character card redesign period is "every point of damage you add to wizard spells is actually two points of damage because of MEC".

I hope there's consideration for that forthcoming mess.

jedibcg Banjo 513 Lover wrote: Can some check the math on me for this? A new wizard in 2021 decides to spend $250 to get the MEC because it is the wizard token of 2021. Since they are new they are not level 5 because there isn't a way to get to 5th level in 2021 with just rares, uncommons, and commons. So using just rares, uncommons and commons. How high can you get their HP? I think it is exactly 27 if you have 2 rares from the set and 2 commons. I think it is 26 with 2 rares and 1 common. However the elf wizard must have those 2 rares and those 2 commons to get to 26.

I am not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing. I am just asking someone to check my math and tokens finding skills of the 2021 token set. I only see 4 tokens that affect HP at less than Ultra Rare level.
Belt of the Sweetwoods +1 Con (4hp), Ale Drinker's Bead +3hp, Medallion of Charmed Life +3hp (assuming only the MEC is worn in the charm slot and no other charms), and Ioun Stone Granite Ovoid +1hp. Again not saying this is good or bad just looking for a check that I didn't miss a token or that my math is wrong.

I see:
Commons: 1hp Ioun, 3hp Medallion.
Rares: 4hp Belt evens Con, 3hp Bead.
Could transmute Bead, assumedly, into a net +1hp as Belt already evened Con.

NightGod wrote: One huge concern I have with this is that, by leaving in the damage doubling, all we're going to hear during the character card redesign period is "every point of damage you add to wizard spells is actually two points of damage because of MEC".

I hope there's consideration for that forthcoming mess.

I have this same concern. I also hope the redesign for the cards takes into account any newbie wizards or those not wanting to run the MEC, as it can be a little bit of a tricky and intimidating token to use well when you are in that first couple years learning phase.

EDIT: I complete'y misread the update. I think I am OK with the change to the MEC here assuming the base spell damage goes up double as has been mentioned

Matthew Hayward wrote: MeC is still 1/round, right?

This is what it says I am assuming Arcanist meant 1/round not 1/room.