TOPIC: Wizard MEC, Relic and Legendary

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

David Zych wrote: These two MEC ideas:

Jeff (OP): May cast 1st-2nd level spell as a free action but no another offensive action for combat

Arcanist (post #52): 10 HP - Duplicate a spell just cast as a free action

both seem to play in the same space, incurring a penalty and using FA to produce an extra damage spell with full bonuses.

The important differences seem to be:
* eligible spell levels: 1-2 vs any
* consumes checkbox: yes vs no
* frequency: 1/combat vs 1/round (since it uses your FA)
* penalty: chance of thumb-twiddling vs 10 damage to self

Jeff knows which aspects are most important to him.

Which are most important to UR+ Wizards who own a MEC? (for the UR level, as a replacement/nerf)

(Edit: for contrast, current MEC on these same metrics is level:any, checkbox:no, 1/round, and penalty:10hp, but it does NOT include bonuses, and it also doesn't use up your FA)

The Mad Evoker's Charm as suggested in the first post is unusable. No Wizard would EVER purchase or equip that design.

At least my suggestion keeps it usable. The suggested design tells me I don't use the Mad Evoker's Charm unless I KNOW the enemy dies this round. It has no risk/reward in it's design

FWIW I totally agree with you, I like your suggestion, and I'm feeling really bad for wizards right now. Since I don't fully understand which aspect of MEC is motivating Jeff to change it, I thought it might be helpful to establish specifically which aspects of it are most loved, and maybe we could end up with a new MEC that's slightly different but similarly appealing. Hope springs eternal?

In particular, applying the spell damage bonus is an improvement over legacy MEC. If the thumb-twiddling part were fixed, what other aspect(s) might or might not feel like a fair trade for including the bonus?

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Jeff - Would you be willing to consider NOT breaking the Mad Evoker's Charm this year. Delaying the Wizard Legendary token until 2022 and bringing back the Spellbook as designed in the part 2 version (allows all rarity of scrolls and they can be swapped out for level 1 spell slots)

truedungeon.com/files/UltraRare21c.jpg

I think that would be acceptable to at least some of the Wizards this year.

Maybe even move that Ring of Expertise to the Charm Slot so it's possible for a Relic+ level Wizard to use it? It's currently weaker than too many other options in the Ring slot for it to be used.

We had dropped the Spellbook idea originally because it, the familiar, and the Relic/Legendary was too much to design. This seems like a good compromise since we're having such a hard time with the Relic/Legendary - it seems like this would be an easier discussion. Especially to finish over in the next few days.

I understand the MEC is problematic, but I think be able to cast from hitpoints is very popular.

I like the Retributive strike aspect, but I don't know if having a 25% chance of just dying is super fun in my mind.

If we want to emphasize the glass cannon aspect, what if it was something that gave a massive boost to every spell you cast for a room, then you just die at the end from all the arcane energy you called up.

I've been excited about the last two iterations of the legendary and this one doesn't really seem to have the same draw to me.

This does make the skill check very important, but also puts an insane amount of pressure on the skill check being successful. If more spells had a skill check, especially the 3rd level spells, I could see it being more exciting.

But as this is, it doesn't seem to add anything to our big exciting spells.

David Zych wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

David Zych wrote: These two MEC ideas:

Jeff (OP): May cast 1st-2nd level spell as a free action but no another offensive action for combat

Arcanist (post #52): 10 HP - Duplicate a spell just cast as a free action

both seem to play in the same space, incurring a penalty and using FA to produce an extra damage spell with full bonuses.

The important differences seem to be:
* eligible spell levels: 1-2 vs any
* consumes checkbox: yes vs no
* frequency: 1/combat vs 1/round (since it uses your FA)
* penalty: chance of thumb-twiddling vs 10 damage to self

Jeff knows which aspects are most important to him.

Which are most important to UR+ Wizards who own a MEC? (for the UR level, as a replacement/nerf)

(Edit: for contrast, current MEC on these same metrics is level:any, checkbox:no, 1/round, and penalty:10hp, but it does NOT include bonuses, and it also doesn't use up your FA)

The Mad Evoker's Charm as suggested in the first post is unusable. No Wizard would EVER purchase or equip that design.

At least my suggestion keeps it usable. The suggested design tells me I don't use the Mad Evoker's Charm unless I KNOW the enemy dies this round. It has no risk/reward in it's design

FWIW I totally agree with you, I like your suggestion, and I'm feeling really bad for wizards right now. Since I don't fully understand which aspect of MEC is motivating Jeff to change it, I thought it might be helpful to establish specifically which aspects of it are most loved, and maybe we could end up with a new MEC that's slightly different but similarly appealing. Hope springs eternal?

In particular, applying the spell damage bonus is an improvement over legacy MEC. If the thumb-twiddling part were fixed, what other aspect(s) might or might not feel like a fair trade for including the bonus?

If scaling is the issue with the MEC my suggested change would be

take 10 Eldritch damage as an instant action to add +20 Eldritch damage to the next spell you cast (1/round)

Keeps the token and it's effect. Doesn't cause problems with spell redesign.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

NightGod wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Picc wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Picc wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

edwin wrote: I prefer to table it as long as it takes instead of having a token issued and hashed out after the fact.

Otherwise people are going to complain they did not know ahead of time and now they are stuck with this token.

Nothing is getting issued until Preorders start or tokens arrive, depending on your perspective.

If we’re still debating this then we will truly be turning Jeff into a mad evoker.

This proposal is just to give us some breathing room to avoid having to figure this out before the printing schedule for 2021 tokens.

I believe from what Jeff said the deadline for tokens to print is like Monday?

That to me says we should bite the bullet and push the wizard out a year. Do a full review from the ground up. If we are like 4 days out and talking a full redesign of both the wizard legendary, and the wizards most iconic item, that just last year was declared perfectly fair by TPTB. We will be rushing and will miss something.

Leaving Wizards to be the only class without a class legendary and leaving Wizards with 2 possible wanted UR tokens this year, neither of which are usable in the UR build. And giving the other spellcasting class the ability to ramp another 200 damage over a dungeon via FA spells.

If you want Wizards to leave the game in droves that's the way to do it.

Is it better then recalling the MC & rushing the legendary (honest quest)?

Why not just rush the legendary. It's not like the Staff of Focus wasn't eclipsed by the Baton of Focus and never allowed to gain the polymorph damage required to at least be equal to the damage focused part of the token.

It's not like the change to the Mad Evoker's Charm doesn't invalidate a large part of the Starhide/Sunhide robe design. giving +Int that no longer serves any purpose.

It's not like the Mad Evoker's Charm hasn't been a large part of the class identity for years.

*sigh*

At the start of this design I was so happy. We were getting the spellbook, we were getting extra spells for grind and epic. We were getting the start of the ability to choose our own spells.

Literally every change the Wizards have seen since day 1 has weakened our item or completely changed it. While the Fighter and the Cleric are getting buffs to make their token exactly what they want. It feels shitty. It feels really shitty.

Agreed. It feels like I've spent the past week arguing why the wizard relic is balanced compared to other class rather than the class all having the chance to have a deep discussion on what builds on our strengths.

I think nearly every iteration of the Wizard design thread has had more comments from non wizard players attacking the token design than it has had Wizards actually being able to have an internal discussion.

Sad but true. It’s frustrating when others have the need to tell you your fun is wrong.

Advocate not eviscerate.

I’d like to keep the relic and legendary this year.

Not using a token for an entire season is a downside.

Next year we get familiars and spellbooks - let’s break it into manageable pieces so we can design those knowing what Wizard transmute does.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: If scaling is the issue with the MEC my suggested change would be

take 10 Eldritch damage as an instant action to add +20 Eldritch damage to the next spell you cast (1/round)

Keeps the token and it's effect. Doesn't cause problems with spell redesign.

This seems fine. I'd still be happier with a scaling hp loss if it avoids future max hp limitations in the future. But this seems fine to me as is. Gets rid of the doubling problem while still providing a significant increase in spell damage.

Cassie wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: If scaling is the issue with the MEC my suggested change would be

take 10 Eldritch damage as an instant action to add +20 Eldritch damage to the next spell you cast (1/round)

Keeps the token and it's effect. Doesn't cause problems with spell redesign.

This seems fine. I'd still be happier with a scaling hp loss if it avoids future max hp limitations in the future. But this seems fine to me as is. Gets rid of the doubling problem while still providing a significant increase in spell damage.

It's a nice increase definitely currently the +damage is 6/11/18/20 so it's a small bump at L2, a moderate bump at L0/L1 and stays the same at L3.

I'm assuming the issue with MEC is scaling with skill check boosts and with higher damage spells on the player card. If that's the case, this avoids that and still lets MEC users have the MEC boosts without the gap widening too much

Cassie wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: If scaling is the issue with the MEC my suggested change would be

take 10 Eldritch damage as an instant action to add +20 Eldritch damage to the next spell you cast (1/round)

Keeps the token and it's effect. Doesn't cause problems with spell redesign.

This seems fine. I'd still be happier with a scaling hp loss if it avoids future max hp limitations in the future. But this seems fine to me as is. Gets rid of the doubling problem while still providing a significant increase in spell damage.

This also gives room for the Relic/Legendary from the last round to interact with MEC without getting into stacking doubling discussions.

I've heard worse ideas.

David Zych wrote: FWIW I totally agree with you, I like your suggestion, and I'm feeling really bad for wizards right now. Since I don't fully understand which aspect of MEC is motivating Jeff to change it, I thought it might be helpful to establish specifically which aspects of it are most loved, and maybe we could end up with a new MEC that's slightly different but similarly appealing. Hope springs eternal?

In particular, applying the spell damage bonus is an improvement over legacy MEC. If the thumb-twiddling part were fixed, what other aspect(s) might or might not feel like a fair trade for including the bonus?

I've always liked the damage to self aspect of MEC - part of my Wizard build has been to boost my HP because I have to burn it to use MEC. It sounds like my base damage for spells is going to go up two-foldish - so keeping MEC as is seems like it would completely break that. What if MEC just became a "spell" that you could cast, it doesn't end up on your card, and it is solely based off of how much HP you spend - it's an outpouring of internal energy to do damage. 1HP = 3 damage. Could even just say its 1/room? It's not a spell/scroll so couldn't be duplicated by any of the re-cast as free action items, etc... You don't get damage buffs from any items - its purely HP for arcane damage. Could leverage INT for the damage modifier? More INT means bigger MEC buff.

Matthew Hayward wrote: I’d like to keep the relic and legendary this year.

Not using a token for an entire season is a downside.

Next year we get familiars and spellbooks - let’s break it into manageable pieces so we can design those knowing what Wizard transmute does.

Alternatively if we delay the legendary and the Wizard card redesign DOES happen we don't risk the Legendary negatively affecting the card redesign.

I think if Jeff would be OK with modifying the MEC to a static value (pay 10 - add 20 to a spell) we wouldn't be losing the token for the year.

If we got the UR spellbook as it was printed and delayed the Legendary path we'd at least have one nice cool thing this year. A class redesign to look forward to and a longer time to build a better Legendary design.

a LOT of that admittedly depends on Jeff's willingness

Aeroneus Martellus wrote:

David Zych wrote: FWIW I totally agree with you, I like your suggestion, and I'm feeling really bad for wizards right now. Since I don't fully understand which aspect of MEC is motivating Jeff to change it, I thought it might be helpful to establish specifically which aspects of it are most loved, and maybe we could end up with a new MEC that's slightly different but similarly appealing. Hope springs eternal?

In particular, applying the spell damage bonus is an improvement over legacy MEC. If the thumb-twiddling part were fixed, what other aspect(s) might or might not feel like a fair trade for including the bonus?

I've always liked the damage to self aspect of MEC - part of my Wizard build has been to boost my HP because I have to burn it to use MEC. It sounds like my base damage for spells is going to go up two-foldish - so keeping MEC as is seems like it would completely break that. What if MEC just became a "spell" that you could cast, it doesn't end up on your card, and it is solely based off of how much HP you spend - it's an outpouring of internal energy to do damage. 1HP = 3 damage. Could even just say its 1/room? It's not a spell/scroll so couldn't be duplicated by any of the re-cast as free action items, etc... You don't get damage buffs from any items - its purely HP for arcane damage. Could leverage INT for the damage modifier? More INT means bigger MEC buff.

Leaving it as a charm with an instant action doesn't affect our free action economy. Changing the wording to simply be 10HP = +20 on next spell as an instant action keeps the flavor of the token without stacking scaling issues.