TOPIC: Last Second Changes Made - Sorry! FINAL Contact Sheets

Guedoji wrote:

Iross wrote: Firstly, thank you Jeff for all your hard work.

I see that the Amulet of Flawsight has been downpowered again since the last version. I really do think it needs to be improved, I'm honestly not sure that Rogue builds would want to equip it when there are existing R necklaces which increase STR or damage.

At the moment, the Amulet offers, once per game, a possibility of adding the usual 15 Sneak Attack damage to an attack that you would normally be able to add anyway. That's only if you use the ability before seeing if the attack hits, and only if a monster is encountered which is immune to Sneak Attack. It does also affect Critical Hits, but given that you have to use the Amulet before sliding, and then slide a natural 20 on that exact turn, it's so unlikely that it's not really a factor in assessing the Amulet's usefulness (other posts have estimated that in general maybe 5% of attacks are a natural 20, but that's without having to do it on the same turn you use a 1/game ability).

So a conditional once per game 15 damage, which still uses up your class ability to activate. Compare that to Amulet of Vigor, granting a permanent +1 to hit and +1 to damage on all attacks, along with +3HP. If an adventure involves 12-15 rounds of combat, the Amulet seems far more useful and is a generic item equippable by all classes.

Consider also Amulet of Shock. A static +2 damage on all attacks, again equippable by all classes. So +24-30 damage during an adventure.

And then consider the other class-specific R necklaces in this set, which have abilities including a static +4 damage on all (2h) attacks, expanded crit range, a static +2/+3 damage on all attacks, and non damage-based class abilities.

It seems to me that the Rogue necklace is weaker than both the generic necklaces equippable by all classes and the other class-specific necklaces in this set. Thematically it meets the aim of having class-defining necklaces, but it just doesn't seem useful enough for a Rogue to want to use it.

Bumping this one more time for visablilty, as this is an significant issue for new Rogue players and would be nice to ensure proper balance. Adding +1 or 2 to hit or +2 damage would be completely reasonable for the Rogue necklace, more so now that this was limited to once per game.

I did dislike seeing the Amulet powered down. I would prefer to see 1/game removed.

Or maybe tack on something for the rogue box? 1/game retry failed attempt (second Masterwork tools)? 1/game only need to solve half of the box (Ektdar’s)? 1/game get both the clue and treasure (libram)? 1/game break the box open on failure and take 10 damage (persuasion)?

Nice work Jeff, love how you constitly taking our feedback to make changes to improve this great expereince.

Thank you Jeff. The final Wizard MEC, Relic, and Legendary look ok to me. I'm curious to learn what all the Mage Powers will be.

Like to add my thanks to Jeff for all his hard work an patience.

And while its a little late now, I did have a thought that might have been interesting to pursue. What if MEC was capped by the amount of bonus spell damage available to a wizard? In other words, you can channel your life energy for 1 hp to double a hp of spell bonus damage, but you can only double as much bonus damage as you started with. So if your bonus damage is 35, you can use up to 35 hp to boost the damage to 70.

Why do I find this interesting? First, MEC damage has always been treated as pool damage, which was confusing when it was based off spell base damage. I know that is now changed, but turning pool damage into more pool damage has a type of synergy. The biggest reason I find this interesting is that it promotes the glass canon aspect of being a wizard. You want that 35 damage boost? The only way to get that is to equip all of the focus items, which basically take slots where you could have pumped hp. The more spell damage you have, the less hp you have. A wizard who wants 35+ spell damage is not going have more then 50-60 hp, which places them in peril every time they use MEC to its max. If you feel you need more hp, it will come at the expense of spell damage. So being a more hardy wizard is still a choice, but you won't hit those really big damage spells, although you would then have more hp to channel other mage/arch mage abilities. I also thought it was interesting, because making adjustments can be done through new tokens that either boost hp or spell damage. Nothing is tied to the character card which doesn't get updated for several years. Anyway, it was just a thought, and like I said, a little late.

Dave wrote: Like to add my thanks to Jeff for all his hard work an patience.

And while its a little late now, I did have a thought that might have been interesting to pursue. What if MEC was capped by the amount of bonus spell damage available to a wizard? In other words, you can channel your life energy for 1 hp to double a hp of spell bonus damage, but you can only double as much bonus damage as you started with. So if your bonus damage is 35, you can use up to 35 hp to boost the damage to 70.

Why do I find this interesting? First, MEC damage has always been treated as pool damage, which was confusing when it was based off spell base damage. I know that is now changed, but turning pool damage into more pool damage has a type of synergy. The biggest reason I find this interesting is that it promotes the glass canon aspect of being a wizard. You want that 35 damage boost? The only way to get that is to equip all of the focus items, which basically take slots where you could have pumped hp. The more spell damage you have, the less hp you have. A wizard who wants 35+ spell damage is not going have more then 50-60 hp, which places them in peril every time they use MEC to its max. If you feel you need more hp, it will come at the expense of spell damage. So being a more hardy wizard is still a choice, but you won't hit those really big damage spells, although you would then have more hp to channel other mage/arch mage abilities. I also thought it was interesting, because making adjustments can be done through new tokens that either boost hp or spell damage. Nothing is tied to the character card which doesn't get updated for several years. Anyway, it was just a thought, and like I said, a little late.

I see that as an alternative to limit the boost but I believe you can get the ho higher than that.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

OrionW wrote:
...snip...

Until we see that actual Wizard cards and the more detailed rules for the Legendary I am hesitant to comment, but with that said I have a question:

Should we be comparing a 1/game fighter combo that may or may not crit with a Wizard who can reset to full power with either an item (Gem of Last Hope) or a Cleric ability and do it again?

The analysis that two Wizards can do 500 damage in one round to two monsters (assuming the existence of a 40 point non-slide AoE spell) relied on:
1. Both Wizards exhausting a 1/game Ring of Spell Storing.
2. Both Wizard exhausting a 1/game cast of the theoretical 40 point non-slide AoE spell.

So both combos are 1/game.

The Fighter combo, after this, loses very little, they can keep doing this all day long and go down to 70% hit 20% crit on the HF (except for the new rooms where they can reslide 1/room for better values), and 70% hit, 10% crit, 10% triple crit on the DF.

The Wizards, on the other hand are now at 1 HP, don't have a way to cast 2 spells in a round, and need a to either start getting Restore Spell or Crown of Expertise to do a less effective burst with only 1 spell cast a second time. They also need to be burning ~$30 consumables that require a standard action to apply, or they need now full coordination from cleric and or druid classes as well to recharge their HP.

The Wizard Combos are definitely not once per game, like the Fighter example that you give, because the Wizards can do double spell casting and full MEC (assuming healing between rooms) at the start of every combat room via Cabal Bonus plus double spells for a second round in the Boss room via Ring of Spell Storing. Damage in the first round would range from 668 using best spells to 405 using only 0 level spells with Cabal Bonus. In Infernal Redoubt, the Wizards would be able to kill all monsters before the Final Room in the first round, and the two Final Room Boss monsters in 2 rounds (with plenty of damage left over). The Wizards don't even need healing after the first round in the final room to kill the two Boss monsters, they can do it without any additional 2nd round MEC damage. No healing within rooms is required for the Wizards to kill every monster in earlier rooms in one round and the Boss monsters in two rounds.

The Wizard 40 point area attack spell (given Jeff's statement that spell damages are doubling) isn't once per game like the Fighter ability. The Wizard can also cast it via Ring of Spell Storing and Crown of Expertise, getting three castings per game. I'm not counting Cleric Restore Spell on this or Cleric Restore Power for the Fighter, to make it an even comparison.

The Wizard is also not limited to just one round of double-spell casting from the Ring of Spell Storing, they can also double-spell cast once per room via the Cabal Set (3-4 additional double-castings per game).
==============================================
Detailed Analysis:
The two round estimate based on the 110 HP level, and the Cleric healing after round one. Removing the Cleric healing after round one reduces the two round total from 1116 to 960, which is still enough to kill both Boss Monsters

Cast Lightning Storm (Elf Wizard Fireball) for 40 points, add 35 bonus spell damage, channel MEC for 109 points, for 184 damage.
Cast via Ring of Spell Storing Lightning Storm (Elf Wizard Fireball) for 40 points and 35 bonus spell damage for 75 points of damage.
Combining those two, each Wizard can do 259 points of damage in the first turn. With both Wizards, you're looking at 518 points of damage in just the first round of combat, and that doesn't require the Wizard Class Relic or Legendary, just the MEC. 160 points of that would be damage to all monsters while 358 damage is pool damage. Adding in the 160 damage to the second monster gets it to 668 damage in round one.

First round after Wizards cast, Cleric casts Full heal from Relic on one Wizard plus Cure Serious Wounds as instant action on the other Wizard (24 +25 healing bonus). One Wizards are back to 109 HP, the other to 50 HP.

Second Round: Wizard casts Lightning Storm via Crown of Expertise for 184 damage (40 plus 35 bonus damage plus 109 MEC damage) and Ray of Shock FA via Cabal Set Bonus for 71 damage (36 plus 35 bonus damage) for 255 damage total.
Elf Wizard casts Ray of Shock for 121 damage (36 plus 35 bonus damage plus 50 MEC damage) plus Fireball via Cabal Set Bonus & Crown of Expertise for 75 damage (40 plus 35 bonus damage) for a total of 196 damage.
Adding in no bonus damage for a 2nd monster because it's already dead, the Wizards do an additional 451 damage in round 2. That is a total of 1119 damage in the two rounds, only 160 of which is due to damage to a second monster. If it were a room with just a single monster, the total damage would still be 959 in two rounds.

Further, even without any healing after the first round (which would subtract the 159 MEC 2nd Round damage), the two Wizards could kill both Boss Monsters with 960 damage (it only takes 900 on Nightmare to kill both)
===============================================
To further address the one shot wonder comment, even in a room with only casting 0 Level lesser spells, the first round using Cabal (since Ring of Spell Storing was saved for the major combat) could look like this:

Wizard casts Fire Dart for 156 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage plus 109 MEC damage) and Fire Dart FA via Cabal Set Bonus for 47 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage) for 203 damage total.
Elf Wizard casts Shocking Grasp for 156 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage plus 109 MEC damage) plus Shocking Grasp FA via Cabal Set Bonus for 47 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage) for a total of 203 damage.
The Wizards combined do 403 damage, which is twice as much as needed to kill the Room 2 Snake Fiend on Nightmare Mode, and enough to kill the Fire Fiend in Room 5.

Summary: The Wizards could do between 405 in the 4th best room and 668 in the best room in the first round of every combat room in the Dungeon, partly because of the doubling of spell damage but primarily from being able to use MEC on every single spell. In Infernal Redoubt, the Wizards without any damage from any other party members would be able to kill the Room 2 and 5 monsters in one round and the two Final Boss Monsters in two rounds. This does assuming healing in-between rooms, but between the Cleric, Druid and Paladin there is easily enough group healing to do that even without using consumables.

Ok, serious question here.

How does discussing hypothetical damage outputs on classes where powers aren't defined and class cards are about to be re-done actually help anything?

Why does damage output of one class vs. another matter at all? If you want to be the best damage dealer there is, play Monk (or soon, Wizard). It is a team game. If I'm playing Paladin, I know that my guarding the wizards often means we don't get attacked, leaving them to channel HP into spells.

If we kill the monster in 1 or 2 rounds, we all participated. Are there bragging rights in some parties that we just don't have in mine? That seems kind of annoying honestly.

If someone is overgeared for their difficulty level and doesn't tone it down, that would take a LOT of the fun out of it for me.

I guess people (this is not aimed at any one person) just like the debate?

Anyhow /rant

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Ok, serious question here.

How does discussing hypothetical damage outputs on classes where powers aren't defined and class cards are about to be re-done actually help anything?

Why does damage output of one class vs. another matter at all? If you want to be the best damage dealer there is, play Monk (or soon, Wizard). It is a team game. If I'm playing Paladin, I know that my guarding the wizards often means we don't get attacked, leaving them to channel HP into spells.

If we kill the monster in 1 or 2 rounds, we all participated. Are there bragging rights in some parties that we just don't have in mine? That seems kind of annoying honestly.

If someone is overgeared for their difficulty level and doesn't tone it down, that would take a LOT of the fun out of it for me.

I guess people (this is not aimed at any one person) just like the debate?

Anyhow /rant

MEC powers do seem defined, they are written on the token. Jeff has already told us that he is going to double the damage of Wizard spells on the Spell card. The entire purpose of this analysis is to show the potential Wizard damage that would result from having the MEC as written and the proposed spell damage doubling. Now seems the appropriate time to do that analysis, in case Jeff thinks any course corrections are required. It's certainly easier to do a course correction now when spell cards are being redesigned and Mage Powers are being developed than afterwards.

I did this latest analysis because the earlier one just focused on the final combat room, while this one shows that the Wizards have the potential to do double spell castings and full MEC at the start of every combat room, which is enough in every combat room to kill the monsters without damage from any other party members in 1-2 rounds.

You say that "If we kill the monster in 1 or 2 rounds, we all participated". That was kind of the purpose of this analysis, that even on Nightmare mode the other damage dealing classes wouldn't need to participate, the Wizards could kill the monsters on their own. I think it would suck a lot of the fun out of the game if every combat room was essentially ended by the Wizards casting enough damage spells to kill the monsters single-handedly in one or two rounds.

Mike Steele wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

OrionW wrote:
...snip...

Until we see that actual Wizard cards and the more detailed rules for the Legendary I am hesitant to comment, but with that said I have a question:

Should we be comparing a 1/game fighter combo that may or may not crit with a Wizard who can reset to full power with either an item (Gem of Last Hope) or a Cleric ability and do it again?

The analysis that two Wizards can do 500 damage in one round to two monsters (assuming the existence of a 40 point non-slide AoE spell) relied on:
1. Both Wizards exhausting a 1/game Ring of Spell Storing.
2. Both Wizard exhausting a 1/game cast of the theoretical 40 point non-slide AoE spell.

So both combos are 1/game.

The Fighter combo, after this, loses very little, they can keep doing this all day long and go down to 70% hit 20% crit on the HF (except for the new rooms where they can reslide 1/room for better values), and 70% hit, 10% crit, 10% triple crit on the DF.

The Wizards, on the other hand are now at 1 HP, don't have a way to cast 2 spells in a round, and need a to either start getting Restore Spell or Crown of Expertise to do a less effective burst with only 1 spell cast a second time. They also need to be burning ~$30 consumables that require a standard action to apply, or they need now full coordination from cleric and or druid classes as well to recharge their HP.

The Wizard Combos are definitely not once per game, like the Fighter example that you give, because the Wizards can do double spell casting and full MEC (assuming healing between rooms) at the start of every combat room via Cabal Bonus plus double spells for a second round in the Boss room via Ring of Spell Storing. Damage in the first round would range from 668 using best spells to 405 using only 0 level spells with Cabal Bonus. In Infernal Redoubt, the Wizards would be able to kill all monsters before the Final Room in the first round, and the two Final Room Boss monsters in 2 rounds (with plenty of damage left over). The Wizards don't even need healing after the first round in the final room to kill the two Boss monsters, they can do it without any additional 2nd round MEC damage. No healing within rooms is required for the Wizards to kill every monster in earlier rooms in one round and the Boss monsters in two rounds.

The Wizard 40 point area attack spell (given Jeff's statement that spell damages are doubling) isn't once per game like the Fighter ability. The Wizard can also cast it via Ring of Spell Storing and Crown of Expertise, getting three castings per game. I'm not counting Cleric Restore Spell on this or Cleric Restore Power for the Fighter, to make it an even comparison.

The Wizard is also not limited to just one round of double-spell casting from the Ring of Spell Storing, they can also double-spell cast once per room via the Cabal Set (3-4 additional double-castings per game).
==============================================
Detailed Analysis:
The two round estimate based on the 110 HP level, and the Cleric healing after round one. Removing the Cleric healing after round one reduces the two round total from 1116 to 960, which is still enough to kill both Boss Monsters

Cast Lightning Storm (Elf Wizard Fireball) for 40 points, add 35 bonus spell damage, channel MEC for 109 points, for 184 damage.
Cast via Ring of Spell Storing Lightning Storm (Elf Wizard Fireball) for 40 points and 35 bonus spell damage for 75 points of damage.
Combining those two, each Wizard can do 259 points of damage in the first turn. With both Wizards, you're looking at 518 points of damage in just the first round of combat, and that doesn't require the Wizard Class Relic or Legendary, just the MEC. 160 points of that would be damage to all monsters while 358 damage is pool damage. Adding in the 160 damage to the second monster gets it to 668 damage in round one.

First round after Wizards cast, Cleric casts Full heal from Relic on one Wizard plus Cure Serious Wounds as instant action on the other Wizard (24 +25 healing bonus). One Wizards are back to 109 HP, the other to 50 HP.

Second Round: Wizard casts Lightning Storm via Crown of Expertise for 184 damage (40 plus 35 bonus damage plus 109 MEC damage) and Ray of Shock FA via Cabal Set Bonus for 71 damage (36 plus 35 bonus damage) for 255 damage total.
Elf Wizard casts Ray of Shock for 121 damage (36 plus 35 bonus damage plus 50 MEC damage) plus Fireball via Cabal Set Bonus & Crown of Expertise for 75 damage (40 plus 35 bonus damage) for a total of 196 damage.
Adding in no bonus damage for a 2nd monster because it's already dead, the Wizards do an additional 451 damage in round 2. That is a total of 1119 damage in the two rounds, only 160 of which is due to damage to a second monster. If it were a room with just a single monster, the total damage would still be 959 in two rounds.

Further, even without any healing after the first round (which would subtract the 159 MEC 2nd Round damage), the two Wizards could kill both Boss Monsters with 960 damage (it only takes 900 on Nightmare to kill both)
===============================================
To further address the one shot wonder comment, even in a room with only casting 0 Level lesser spells, the first round using Cabal (since Ring of Spell Storing was saved for the major combat) could look like this:

Wizard casts Fire Dart for 156 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage plus 109 MEC damage) and Fire Dart FA via Cabal Set Bonus for 47 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage) for 203 damage total.
Elf Wizard casts Shocking Grasp for 156 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage plus 109 MEC damage) plus Shocking Grasp FA via Cabal Set Bonus for 47 damage (12 plus 35 bonus damage) for a total of 203 damage.
The Wizards combined do 403 damage, which is twice as much as needed to kill the Room 2 Snake Fiend on Nightmare Mode, and enough to kill the Fire Fiend in Room 5.

Summary: The Wizards could do between 405 in the 4th best room and 668 in the best room in the first round of every combat room in the Dungeon, partly because of the doubling of spell damage but primarily from being able to use MEC on every single spell. In Infernal Redoubt, the Wizards without any damage from any other party members would be able to kill the Room 2 and 5 monsters in one round and the two Final Boss Monsters in two rounds. This does assuming healing in-between rooms, but between the Cleric, Druid and Paladin there is easily enough group healing to do that even without using consumables.

Please post a build with 110 HP and 35 spell bonus, that equips all the spell feee action items or spell restoring items your scenario requires.

Please indicate if your analysis requires the use of bardsong and at what level.

Please indicate if this build has room for 3 treasure iouns and a treasure charm.

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Ok, serious question here.

How does discussing hypothetical damage outputs on classes where powers aren't defined and class cards are about to be re-done actually help anything?

Why does damage output of one class vs. another matter at all? If you want to be the best damage dealer there is, play Monk (or soon, Wizard). It is a team game. If I'm playing Paladin, I know that my guarding the wizards often means we don't get attacked, leaving them to channel HP into spells.

If we kill the monster in 1 or 2 rounds, we all participated. Are there bragging rights in some parties that we just don't have in mine? That seems kind of annoying honestly.

If someone is overgeared for their difficulty level and doesn't tone it down, that would take a LOT of the fun out of it for me.

I guess people (this is not aimed at any one person) just like the debate?

Anyhow /rant

I work on a performance and reliability team in IT. Ideally, we want to be involved before any line of code is written, and at the same time the high level designs are being decided on. This let’s us point out problems of scale and reliability in the early design phase and avoid problems all together. I don’t see this discussion as any different.

So, does it matter if wizards are just the destroyers of worlds that regularly and consistently deal more damage than what any other class can manage with crits?

Yes, it does. As I understand, monster design is already an issue for providing an appropriate challenge. Do you scale monster HP to account for 2 wizards slinging out 150+ damage / round each? You can’t get around it by increasing Ac or making the monster flying, so do you just bump HP by 1500? If so, what happens to a party that rolls through without a wizard? Does Druid Spell Damage get increased, or is the intention of druids to become healers to support wizards, because it makes no sense for druids to cast a under powered damage spell when they can just heal the wizards to deal more damage? Or maybe spell resistance needs to come back for wizard spells to keep them from dominating a run? “Hey guys, maybe wait to slide till we’ve cast our spells” could become a very real thing.

Endgame wrote:

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Ok, serious question here.

How does discussing hypothetical damage outputs on classes where powers aren't defined and class cards are about to be re-done actually help anything?

Why does damage output of one class vs. another matter at all? If you want to be the best damage dealer there is, play Monk (or soon, Wizard). It is a team game. If I'm playing Paladin, I know that my guarding the wizards often means we don't get attacked, leaving them to channel HP into spells.

If we kill the monster in 1 or 2 rounds, we all participated. Are there bragging rights in some parties that we just don't have in mine? That seems kind of annoying honestly.

If someone is overgeared for their difficulty level and doesn't tone it down, that would take a LOT of the fun out of it for me.

I guess people (this is not aimed at any one person) just like the debate?

Anyhow /rant

I work on a performance and reliability team in IT. Ideally, we want to be involved before any line of code is written, and at the same time the high level designs are being decided on. This let’s us point out problems of scale and reliability in the early design phase and avoid problems all together. I don’t see this discussion as any different.

So, does it matter if wizards are just the destroyers of worlds that regularly and consistently deal more damage than what any other class can manage with crits?

Yes, it does. As I understand, monster design is already an issue for providing an appropriate challenge. Do you scale monster HP to account for 2 wizards slinging out 150+ damage / round each? You can’t get around it by increasing Ac or making the monster flying, so do you just bump HP by 1500? If so, what happens to a party that rolls through without a wizard? Does Druid Spell Damage get increased, or is the intention of druids to become healers to support wizards, because it makes no sense for druids to cast a under powered damage spell when they can just heal the wizards to deal more damage? Or maybe spell resistance needs to come back for wizard spells to keep them from dominating a run? “Hey guys, maybe wait to slide till we’ve cast our spells” could become a very real thing.

Rangers and Monks can average 140+ damage per round each without crit so I have no idea why the Wizards doing the same damage, at the cost of lost HP would be an issue.

also it's worth remembering that Jeff said he wants Wizards to be top DPS. Why are you looking at ways to nerf Wizard damage when it's Jeff's design intent for them to outdamage Monks and Rangers?