TOPIC: FINAL 2021 Transmuted Token Images!

Mike Steele wrote: Partly because I have no idea what a BIS Wizard build looks like, and I don't know if 35 is the appropriate modifier, and I'm not sure how many bonus spells are being granted from various tokens & token set abilities. There are several people that have BIS Wizard builds done, and can just apply these tokens to it.

What parameters do you believe lead to a fair comparison? There are so many variations between a Druid and Wizard that comparing them directly is complicated. I already have numbers for Wizard but before I share I'd like to know how you would like to compare these:

• How many rounds of combat? How many rooms?
• Druid with maxed out spell damage or one of the other variations?
• Wizard with MEC, Cabal, both or neither?
• If MEC, how many uses of it?

Matthew Hayward wrote: I'm going to take one more stab at an idea for the Wizard Medallion - and if happens to be received with universal acclimation by Wizards perhaps TBTP would consider it seriously.

Let me take you back, way, way back to August 21st, when horse and buggy was the common mode of transportation and this was the Wizard transmute:



At that time, Wizards did not coalesce around this token largely because they could not agree about how the Familiar aspect should be.

Since then, the Spellbook UR concept has been removed. (Returning to a design process near you in 2022?)

Dream with me - what if we:

a. Start with the Relic/Legendary above.
b. Remove UR Jinn's Spellbook, and replace it with plain old UR MeC as printed in 2021.
c. Drop the familiar aspect from the Legendary.

That's it!

Relic: MeC + 1 extra spell at each level castable as a free action.
Legendary: MeC + 2 extra spells at each level castable as a free action.

If TPTB are concerned that these extra spells are going to get bogged down with a bunch of confusing interactions, have them come from the token itself like Ring of Spell Storing - "May cast 1 (relic) or 2 (legendary) spells of each level for free as a free action." That would eliminate cheese like trying to mix this in with Ring of Power for a free action cast of a level 1 spell each room or having Restore Spell or Crown of Expertise being used to generate more free action spells.

This has something for everyone, I think:

Doesn't have awkward power differences for Elf Wizard and Wizard.
Plenty 'o free actions for former MMM users.
An extra charm slot for Charm Necklace users who used to use MeC.
Might shake up builds for Cabal Set users.
MeC still has flavor and dramatic downside of 10 HP per use.
MeC like effects not getting expanded or improved, which may be endorsed by Dr. Uid


For Wizards, I invite you to consider - would you rather have what's described here, or what's currently in the first post? Because we're running out of runway to coalesce around something - and this one has the advantage of being very similar to something that was on the table in the past.


I'm more or less OK with the one currently in Jeff's post #1 of this thread.

But I would much rather have what I described in this post.

What say you?

I still believe this version gives the most flexibility so if consensus points to this being the preferred design I support it.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Could we please limit the comments on the Wizard token design to Wizard players so that we can hopefully find a consensus of accepted design without devolving into a spellcaster class fight again. At least for this iteration as we don't even know if there's a consensus among the Wizards on if they like a specific design. And we are absolutely in the 11th hour of design right now.

How do you define "Wizard player" here?
If I play 30 times a year, 5 as wizard or elf, am I a wizard player?

What if I play 3 times a year, exclusively as Wizard or elf?

Excluding anyone seems ridiculous to me.

I don't love the HP cap, but I like the challenge it presents with (assuming here) stacking the relic/legendary with MEC (which would triple I assume?)

I think Matthew's version is probably more powerful overall, and would trust someone's analysis if they chose to do it, as I am on my phone and can't at the moment.

I don't like that many "Wizard players" don't seem to like it as is. Feels too much like Dr. Uid and Paladin to me, and where know where that leads us.

I love the clean look of the skull, but would like the image reduced in size, to kind of more closely approximate the rod. Not necessarily that small, but slightly smaller.

Why did the name of the Wizard legendary change? I liked the other one, it reminded me of Slytherin.

EDIT: Please ignore this analysis. I read the token as only doubling skill check bonus which is vastly different from the actual value. I'll post a different analysis later.
According to my numbers the proposed iteration of the Wizard legendary is about 11% less damage than the previous version, takes full damage from MEC, has an HP cap, requires an extra charm slot since MEC is not incorporated, and removes the ability for Wizards to crit on slide spells. The damage reduction primarily comes from the loss of expanded, boosted critical hits and the lower skill test modifier which gets less boost from MEC.

During the previous round Jeff mentioned attempting to get Wizards so they can keep up on epic difficulty. In my opinion this iteration decreased things enough that it forces Wizards to use MEC every turn to stay competitive, but even with that they will be slightly behind the top end curve. If anyone would like me to post numbers to support this I'm happy to do so.

Cleric Legendary:

Can the Legendary pickup cast Restore Power as a FA. With the Ring of Quick Blessing as it is, I don't see mixing it in a cleric build at higher power levels, but the Restore Power FA would be a nice (not critical) thing to have available with the legendary.

James Bennett wrote: During the previous round Jeff mentioned attempting to get Wizards so they can keep up on epic difficulty. In my opinion this iteration decreased things enough that it forces Wizards to use MEC every turn to stay competitive, but even with that they will be slightly behind the top end curve. If anyone would like me to post numbers to support this I'm happy to do so.

What is the goal / what does top end curve mean? To have wizard be around 4th or 5th highest damage dealer, or to pass Barbarian, Monk, and Ranger?

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Could we please limit the comments on the Wizard token design to Wizard players so that we can hopefully find a consensus of accepted design without devolving into a spellcaster class fight again. At least for this iteration as we don't even know if there's a consensus among the Wizards on if they like a specific design. And we are absolutely in the 11th hour of design right now.

How do you define "Wizard player" here?
If I play 30 times a year, 5 as wizard or elf, am I a wizard player?

What if I play 3 times a year, exclusively as Wizard or elf?

Excluding anyone seems ridiculous to me.

I don't love the HP cap, but I like the challenge it presents with (assuming here) stacking the relic/legendary with MEC (which would triple I assume?)

I think Matthew's version is probably more powerful overall, and would trust someone's analysis if they chose to do it, as I am on my phone and can't at the moment.

I don't like that many "Wizard players" don't seem to like it as is. Feels too much like Dr. Uid and Paladin to me, and where know where that leads us.

I love the clean look of the skull, but would like the image reduced in size, to kind of more closely approximate the rod. Not necessarily that small, but slightly smaller.

Why did the name of the Wizard legendary change? I liked the other one, it reminded me of Slytherin.

The way I read the new legendary name it aptly describes the discussions surrounding the token development.

Thank you Jeff for all of your hard work.

I think the fighter path is awesome, I also think the cleric path turned out really great.

I don't know about the wizard path to make an informed comment but what I do know is that I have quite a few friends that main wizard and my heart goes out to you guys.

I've tried to read as much as I could to better understand the arguments and all I know is there are some very strong personalities who have some valid points.

One important thing to note is that this is the year of the Cleric, Fighters and Wizards. Druids need to let the Wizards have their design space.

This doesn't mean I hate druids and I feel there has been some hostility between players in the threads.

We need to let the wizards do there thing and let the druids do their thing. You can't please everyone but if we buckle down and work together, we can please the people the tokens are intended for.

Endgame wrote:

James Bennett wrote: During the previous round Jeff mentioned attempting to get Wizards so they can keep up on epic difficulty. In my opinion this iteration decreased things enough that it forces Wizards to use MEC every turn to stay competitive, but even with that they will be slightly behind the top end curve. If anyone would like me to post numbers to support this I'm happy to do so.

What is the goal / what does top end curve mean? To have wizard be around 4th or 5th highest damage dealer, or to pass Barbarian, Monk, and Ranger?

This is my opinion and I recognize others will vary. Under my analysis a Wizard can keep up with the average damage of Barbarians, Monks and Rangers when critical hits are factored in with VTD rules. More than one critical hit is enough for the Wizard to start to fall behind at this time. Whether that happens enough to matter I am unsure. I am not expressing a desire one way or another to see a change. I leave it up to Jeff to determine if he thinks things are balanced.

James Bennett wrote:

Endgame wrote:

James Bennett wrote: During the previous round Jeff mentioned attempting to get Wizards so they can keep up on epic difficulty. In my opinion this iteration decreased things enough that it forces Wizards to use MEC every turn to stay competitive, but even with that they will be slightly behind the top end curve. If anyone would like me to post numbers to support this I'm happy to do so.

What is the goal / what does top end curve mean? To have wizard be around 4th or 5th highest damage dealer, or to pass Barbarian, Monk, and Ranger?

This is my opinion and I recognize others will vary. Under my analysis a Wizard can keep up with the average damage of Barbarians, Monks and Rangers when critical hits are factored in with VTD rules. More than one critical hit is enough for the Wizard to start to fall behind at this time. Whether that happens enough to matter I am unsure. I am not expressing a desire one way or another to see a change. I leave it up to Jeff to determine if he thinks things are balanced.

Critical hits come much more easily in VTD than when sliding. In a sense they are two different games. I think much of the analysis and reaction to token design this year stems from the VTD experience.

Since I haven't seen anyone else calculate the damage from this latest Wizard Legendary as well as the Ring of Expertise, I thought I'd take a shot at it. Please correct me if I'm mistaken because I'm not super familiar with top end Wizard tokens, but here's my take on what the Wizard can do in the first seven rounds (three rooms) using this Legendary, and the 35 point bonus damage I've seen used in other analysis. It adds up to an average of 122.7 damage per round, or 859 total damage for the seven turns. That seems very overpowered to me, and it will just get worse with the next character card level increase.

Room 1:

Turn 1: 133 damage
Lightning Storm: 20+20+35=75
Magic Missile: 11+11+35=57

Turn 2: 128 Damage
Scorching Ray: 18+18+35=71
Magic Missile: 11+11+35=57

Turn 3 (Bracelets of the Cabal Room 1): 114 Damage
Magic Missile (Cats Grace CoSS): 11+11+35=57
Magic Missile (Ring of Expertise): 11+11+35=57

Room 2:

Turn 4: 128 Damage
Ray of Shock: 18+18+35=71
Magic Missile: 11+11+35=57

Turn 5 (Bracelets of the Cabal Room 2): 114 Damage
Magic Missile (Ring of Expertise): 11+11+35=57
Magic Missile 11+11+35=57

Turn 6: 124
Lightning Storm (Crown of Expertise): 20+20+35=75
Burning Hands: 7+7+35=49

Room 3:

Turn 7: (Bracelets of the Cabal Room 3): 118
Magic Missile (Ring of Expertise): 11+11+35=57
Acid Ray: 12+12+35 = 59

Harlax wrote:

James Bennett wrote:

Endgame wrote:

James Bennett wrote: During the previous round Jeff mentioned attempting to get Wizards so they can keep up on epic difficulty. In my opinion this iteration decreased things enough that it forces Wizards to use MEC every turn to stay competitive, but even with that they will be slightly behind the top end curve. If anyone would like me to post numbers to support this I'm happy to do so.

What is the goal / what does top end curve mean? To have wizard be around 4th or 5th highest damage dealer, or to pass Barbarian, Monk, and Ranger?

This is my opinion and I recognize others will vary. Under my analysis a Wizard can keep up with the average damage of Barbarians, Monks and Rangers when critical hits are factored in with VTD rules. More than one critical hit is enough for the Wizard to start to fall behind at this time. Whether that happens enough to matter I am unsure. I am not expressing a desire one way or another to see a change. I leave it up to Jeff to determine if he thinks things are balanced.

Critical hits come much more easily in VTD than when sliding. In a sense they are two different games. I think much of the analysis and reaction to token design this year stems from the VTD experience.

The thing is... VTD gives numbers that we can at least agree on. All we have outside VTD is anecdote.
Player 1: "well I think Monks and Rangers hit way less often than that"
Player 2: "but I see them slide double hits every freaking round".
The thing is, those two can both be right if they're in different runs and playing with different Monks and Rangers. If we want to get away from anecdote, we need more data.

Side note: I was working on a pet project that would actually collect that data as a side effect. I kinda put it on the back burner since March though.