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

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: I also worry about the artificial restriction on abilities in used each room for the higher level and special events.

Mass combat fights and epic runs are likely to burn through their allotment of "uses" and leave the wizard with a useless relic/legendary for the rest of the room. That sounds VERY bad.

I like the limitation of only allowing 4/6 powers choices but it seems that it would be much more scalable if the Mage and Arch Mage powers are restricted to 1/round as the MEC is so that it's not possible for the Wizard to run out of legendary necklace power in a larger combat.

I agree with you, limiting it to one use per round like it used to be seemed better than the current plan, where you can burn through all the uses in one round.

I think Arcanist was proposing that each power be usable an unlimited number of times per room, but restricting the powers to 1 per round.

He wasn't proposing to limit each power to 1/room and also further restricted to only 1 power usable on any given round. (Or, at least I don't think so.)

You are correct. Each item should be usable 1/round an unlimited number of times.

Allow multiple stacked uses to a limit of one time per round for each of your selected powers.

Justice wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Justice wrote: I wish the wizard legendary path never included the MEC.

This decision has fundamentally changed wizards going forward.

Thematically I’m not in favor of the whole blood mage sorcerer /warlock feel of having to trade / channel life force into damage as a core tennant.

I’m going to trust Jeff and in his direction. I’m going to hold my judgement for game balance.

My wife and daughter love playing wizards but I for one, won’t be letting my young daughter play down this path.


My condolences wizards.

It might be nice for future years to add other class necklace relic/legendary for each class so they can cater to different playstyles. No idea if that would happen but that could be nice for classes like Ranger, Fighter, Druid and Wizard who have multiple counter playstyles that could each support more than 1 Legendary option

I'd suggest some multi-class necklaces before doing another set of class-specific necklaces again.

After all of this, Jeff might never want to do another set of Class Legendaries again.

I think there is more to that than should be discussed in this thread. I hope there is never class legendaries that the public helps design. Far too much influence comes from players outside the class in question. I see less infighting in classes like paladin / fighters /& wizards but more others that want to impose what they want to see on that class.

Agreed.

Wizards DID have a fair amount of interior conflict in some rounds but the negative attacks from outside of the class were FAR worse than anything internal.

Sorry I missed all the fun you guys had this weekend. And of course Jeff finally posted his updates to the wizard tokens and abilities before I got back. Anyway, my first thought is, this is a lot to digest. But, I'm really appreciative of all the creativity Jeff put into this. Overall, I think he did a really good job. At first blush, this looks like it could be a lot of fun. It also seems like playing a higher level wizard just got a lot more complicated. Lots to think about. It's not just "point me toward the monster and I'll hack at it." I say that in a good way. Wizards should require more thought.

More to come, but basically feels like MEC is nerfed. I know some people think it was long overdue. That's ok, people can think what they want. MEC was (and sort of is) a powerful effect, but the cost just went up 2.5 times for no additional damage. Maybe when it was first released it was too much, but monster hp keeps going up and up each year. The damage inflicted by every class in the game keeps going up and up. But MEC remained static, so as a percent of damage a wizard can do, it's been going steadily down. And here it is still tied to base damage, so in effect the downward trend will continue.

I totally agree that something needed to be done given all the hp tokens available. The 10hp cost was also going down as a percent of wizard hp. It wasn't that long ago I posted a build for a wizard with 140 hp and with next year's tokens that number goes even higher. Of course, you can only get there if you reduce spell damage to 9. And as long as you keep creating new focus items, people are going to want to sacrifice hp for more damage. To me, that's the wizard tradeoff, spell damage versus hp. Which do you want, because you can't have both. What is the right balance? And each year we get new spell damage tokens and new hp tokens and the decisions just get more difficult.

Ok, the above are some random initial thoughts. I really am not ranting. I'm ok with the new version of MEC, it just feels like how we got here was the result of some misplaced crusade. I'm totally convinced everyone has the best of intentions, but right now I'd rather just see MEC retired. As far as all the mage/archmage abilities. I'm really stoked and excited to see what they can do. I think they will be a lot of fun.

jedibcg Banjo 513 Lover wrote:

Justice wrote: I think there is more to that than should be discussed in this thread. I hope there is never class legendaries that the public helps design. Far too much influence comes from players outside the class in question. I see less infighting in classes like paladin / fighters /& wizards but more others that want to impose what they want to see on that class.

I think I 100% disagree with this....but not certain. It seems to suggest that players can only every play one class or buy tokens for one class. If I am wrong in that let me apologize now. If not then again I think is 100% wrong to say that only certain players have a say in a particular token design. Even if I never played the class (not one I don't) and wouldn't buy a particular token, I may play with someone that does. If a token has the potential to affect my play (NOT saying the MEC does just talking in generality) then I should have every right to have a say in the token design. Again if that is not what you were saying I apologize, I read it as being very elitist and it probably was not.

You have every right to disagree, if you would like to take this to a different thread or pm I would be more than happy to. I don’t want to off-road this topic.

No I’m not suggesting elietism. I’m not suggesting a “get-off-my-lawn” mentality. It’s great to have other eyes on a design that are in line with the design objectives and start with the criteria and consideration for the class in mind.

I wonder however what these kinds of discussions have on health of the community as a whole based on the weighted cost of the benefit. I have seen (though possibly biased or limited) a degradation of the class specific legendaries over the last few years.

I will comment in class specific threads from time to time that I may not main but I try to lift up and support those who play the class. I support fun and interesting design I don’t try to tear down or limit opportunity based on where my perception of what I feel they should do, be in a perceived pecking order, or based on what my class does.

Yes there should be cross talk and open debate. Should people look out for game breaking mechanics? YES. It’s concerning however to see (especially in the class specific legendaries) designs be detoured or disrupted outside of the class communities intent or desire.

It’s an awesome opportunity that Jeff gives the community to provide feedback. People are passionate about their class. I get it. The fact that I am seeing many that refuse to participate in these discussions due to the conflict within that makes me question viability of healthy discussion.


I can see Jeff finally putting away the bottle of TUMS after dealing with all the stress and conflict.

Jeff Martin wrote: I have received a lot of "feedback" about the last version of the MEC. Frankly, I was surprised by the amount of "passion" (<=nicest term I could think of) for changing the way the token works. To cut to the chase, I have spent the money to make a new plate made so that this "final version" of the MEC will be in print. I did not leave the MEC unchanged, but with the big expanse in "max hp" booster items since 2014 (and especially this year) the 10 hp cost is not enough for game balance. We will not be changing the Wizard cards because the old power remains in effect.

See the PDF for the final (I am serious this time!) version of the MEC. You will also see how the Relic and Legendary items will work.

truedungeon.com/files/MEC_Relic_Legendary.pdf

I assume this is as a free action since it cannot be a standard action as other magic items as the spell is likely cast during the standard action. This could also be “as part of casting the spell” so it is an instant action which seems overly powerful, even at 25 hp. Asking for my mage friend who is frantically attempting to figure out a build that has HP now, and is hoping wizards get extra stats from card design to con.

macxdmg wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: I have received a lot of "feedback" about the last version of the MEC. Frankly, I was surprised by the amount of "passion" (<=nicest term I could think of) for changing the way the token works. To cut to the chase, I have spent the money to make a new plate made so that this "final version" of the MEC will be in print. I did not leave the MEC unchanged, but with the big expanse in "max hp" booster items since 2014 (and especially this year) the 10 hp cost is not enough for game balance. We will not be changing the Wizard cards because the old power remains in effect.

See the PDF for the final (I am serious this time!) version of the MEC. You will also see how the Relic and Legendary items will work.

truedungeon.com/files/MEC_Relic_Legendary.pdf

I assume this is as a free action since it cannot be a standard action as other magic items as the spell is likely cast during the standard action. This could also be “as part of casting the spell” so it is an instant action which seems overly powerful, even at 25 hp. Asking for my mage friend who is frantically attempting to figure out a build that has HP now, and is hoping wizards get extra stats from card design to con.

MeC's activation doesn't require an action. It's a spell modifying effect, like a Ring of Focus - it's just one with a cost.

It it required a Free Action it would be impossible to use MeC and cast 2 spells a round, or use MeC and any of the Mage Powers on the same spell.

Mike Steele wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Justice wrote: I wish the wizard legendary path never included the MEC.

This decision has fundamentally changed wizards going forward.

Thematically I’m not in favor of the whole blood mage sorcerer /warlock feel of having to trade / channel life force into damage as a core tennant.

I’m going to trust Jeff and in his direction. I’m going to hold my judgement for game balance.

My wife and daughter love playing wizards but I for one, won’t be letting my young daughter play down this path.


My condolences wizards.

It might be nice for future years to add other class necklace relic/legendary for each class so they can cater to different playstyles. No idea if that would happen but that could be nice for classes like Ranger, Fighter, Druid and Wizard who have multiple counter playstyles that could each support more than 1 Legendary option

I'd suggest some multi-class necklaces before doing another set of class-specific necklaces again.

After all of this, Jeff might never want to do another set of Class Legendaries again.

One offs when he has good ideas should be fine.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: I also worry about the artificial restriction on abilities in used each room for the higher level and special events.

Mass combat fights and epic runs are likely to burn through their allotment of "uses" and leave the wizard with a useless relic/legendary for the rest of the room. That sounds VERY bad.

I like the limitation of only allowing 4/6 powers choices but it seems that it would be much more scalable if the Mage and Arch Mage powers are restricted to 1/round as the MEC is so that it's not possible for the Wizard to run out of legendary necklace power in a larger combat.

I agree with you, limiting it to one use per round like it used to be seemed better than the current plan, where you can burn through all the uses in one round.

I think Arcanist was proposing that each power be usable an unlimited number of times per room, but restricting the powers to 1 per round.

He wasn't proposing to limit each power to 1/room and also further restricted to only 1 power usable on any given round. (Or, at least I don't think so.)

You are correct. Each item should be usable 1/round an unlimited number of times.

Allow multiple stacked uses to a limit of one time per round for each of your selected powers.

I guess we're not in agreement after all.

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 Wizard transmutes removes a steady 12 points of damage (10 for Elf Wizard) a round from Medallion of Mystic Mouth, in exchange for a 1/room Conserved, Quickened spell as a Free Action, and a swiss army knife of utility abilities.

I'm not seeing the cannon part.

Edit: Slight changes made since initial post because I forgot you could use MeC only 1/round

I've done a bunch of back of the envelope calculations over a 3 room, 10 round dungeon, 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 every round including on a 12 point slide spell, with this legendary conserve/quicken/pierce I can get a wizard to around:
104 points of damage a round on average over 10 rounds, at a cost of 330 HP over 10 rounds.

This Wizard is left with 4 level 0 spells to cast on their card at the end of round 10. Doing this would require the coordination of minimally 2 classes and/or things like burning multiple Gem of Last Hope or Fallen Star Mushrooms to keep up with the enormous HP costs.

A similarly geared Monk under VTD rules will deal:
~100 points of damage a round over 10 rounds

Without consumables or support from the party, at no HP cost, with better saves, AC, HP, and an 36% chance of stunning the monster every round until it's been stunned once or is dead. They can continue to do this indefinitely. With a few consumables it's easy to bump the Monk up over the ~104 average damage of the Wizard.

I don't get it.

I agree, cannons only in part, and where is the glass part of someone stacking 140 HP in order to use this token?

As a side note, if the previous version of MEC is still getting the stickers printed, it would be neat if a few were made and auctioned off as collector's items, even if they have "void" stamped on them or something.

How does MEC interact with Crazed Evoker's Amulet if the CEA damage would kill you?

Dave wrote: More to come, but basically feels like MEC is nerfed. I know some people think it was long overdue. That's ok, people can think what they want. MEC was (and sort of is) a powerful effect, but the cost just went up 2.5 times for no additional damage. Maybe when it was first released it was too much, but monster hp keeps going up and up each year. The damage inflicted by every class in the game keeps going up and up. But MEC remained static, so as a percent of damage a wizard can do, it's been going steadily down. And here it is still tied to base damage, so in effect the downward trend will continue.

This is good analysis.

I wouldn't equip this MeC as a UR charm.

Its best case scenario is 20 damage for 25 HP, its worst case scenario is 3 damage for 25 HP (well, actually its worst case scenario is 0 damage for 25 hp because the spell ends up not damaging the creature).

I hope this is still in print as a PyP when the character card redesign is done, in case it becomes more desirable in light of those changes.