TOPIC: Wizard MEC, Relic and Legendary

Adeya wrote: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't change the MEC!!!

I don't even care about this new Relic and Legendary any more. But please don't ruin my favorite token in the game.

PLEASE LEAVE THE MEC AS IS. PLEASE.

I feel your pain. For the past two years it felt like this day was going to come. Part of the reason I was on a mission to get maximum use of it the past two years killing myself in the dungeon well over 50 times.

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)

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

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 the damage to self could be easily changed to scale better as well. something like 50% current health with a minimum value (5? 10?) would allow unlimited scaling of hp without a max. while still causing MEC use to tank your HP.

Jeff Martin wrote: MEC = May cast 1st-2nd level spell as a free action but no another offensive action for combat

Relic = May cast spell as a free action (1/room) & Skill Check adds +12 pts (not +6) to spell

Legendary = As Relic & SC adds +18 pts (not +6) to spell & Retributive Strike

Retributive Strike = may break any Rare Wand to cause a massive out-powering of magical energy. All monsters in the room take 100 pts of Force damage. The Wizard takes this same damage unless she rolls an 6-20 on a d20.

more time to think about this.
MEC - On second thought, its not as bad as I thought. I would probably use the Cabal set in round 1 to cast two spells and follow up in round 2 with another two spells using this ability. If the monster is still alive I would probably look at the party and tell them they are slacking and to clean up the mess.

Relic - I'm still ok with this as is.

Legendary - just find a way for me not to have to burn a consumable and I'd be ok with this.
Questions on Retributive Strike
1. I assume this is a standard action. Can I take a free action first and cast a spell using Ring of Spell Storing and then follow up with this ability?
2. Is it a power the cleric can restore?

Yes answers to either of the above make it seem better.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: 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.

I know, and I empathize. I was really excited for how cool the spell book familiar version was and I don't even play a wizard.

P.S. I'm not super excited about the cleric one anymore either but I've given up.

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.

In my mind the Wizard role has always been about versatility. You have a intelligent magic-user who goes adventuring with tons of different spells at the ready to face a variety of different situations.

He or she has low hit points and stays in the back (this means not sliding to me in TD). But I don't see the Wizard as a 'one and done' character. Maybe in the last room, with a massive final spell, but not in every room. That's just going to be incredibly boring to play.

So I was so excited to see a spell book finally coming to us this year (versatility!) but now, not only is that gone, also so much of what I love about the class is being stripped away. (Please don't ruin the MEC!)

I may have to hang up my beloved Wizard robes and look for a new class because of this. I hear that the Druid school is a popular option...

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Manimal wrote: How about letting the wizard be even more of a gambler "mad" with Retributive Strike. It can be used at one of three levels, normal, mad, and insane. Caster must declare which level is being used before the roll.

Normal - Roll 20 100 damage to all creatures in room, roll 16-19 75 damage to all creatures in room, roll 11-15 50 damage to all creatures in room, 6-10 25 damage to all creatures in room, 2-5 no effect, 1 wizard takes 25 damage

Mad - Roll 20 150 damage to all creatures in room, roll 16-19 100 damage to all creatures in room, roll 11-15 75 damage to all creatures in room, 6-10 50 damage to all creatures in room, 2-5 wizard takes 25 damage, 1 wizard takes 50 damage

Insane - Roll 20 200 damage to all creatures in room, roll 16-19 150 damage to all creatures in room, roll 11-15 100 damage to all creatures in room, 6-10 wizard takes 25 damage, 2-5 wizard takes 50 damage, 1 wizard takes 100 damage, all members of party other than wizard take 25 damage.

The exact damage numbers could be adjusted. Just proposing this as an fun concept and for the wizard who wants to dial it to "11" and potentially earn the wrath of the party.

I would want our 1/game ability to have the damage capability of some of the other existing 1/game abilities. Like the ability to trigger an auto crit on a 3x crit weapon that comes in 275+ damage.

I'd also prefer it not consume a wand and prefer it not have the ability to be so weak it's worse that casting a normal spell based on random chance.

If you're referring to Fury, it does not trigger the death flail.

Not sure which other 3x crit weapons you might be thinking of, Barbarians cant use Assassin's crossbow.

Also, the desire to have "wizard players" comment more while others don't is really, really off putting, particularly when you dont define what "wizard player" means.

I honestly wish everyone had taken Matthew Hayward's suggestion in version 2. Stop asking for more and be happy with the token you had.

I'm really hoping Jeff changes his mind again about the MEC. Taking 10 to do 8 to 20, 1/round, is not overpowered.

When we discussed LoDS and CoShadowskin, it was deter.ined the MEC was fine.

I absolutely always use my MEC, and sincerely hope it doesn't change.

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.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

OrionW wrote: Jeff would prefer to fix the over all power level problem with the card based on the first post. Trust that the wizard cards are going to be significantly different.

With this in mind make the items fun and be sure to make the final item feel like a truly legendary item. Worry less about the damage and focus on fun mechanics. Don't worry so much about the total damage calculations just try to stay close to what a UR, Relic, and Legendary should be.

This seems like very sound advice from a Druid!

For the record I do play Elf Wizard as well, but only when someone else is playing the Druid.

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.

I would be fine with this.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: 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.

Honestly, the ring seems fine to me. Its a more versatile version of the ring of spell storing that can only be used for 0/1st level spells. It seems too powerful for a charm slot.