Veritas94

OMG, another WoWer, :thumbsup: . Shatter combos FTW. I haven't really thought of frequency of mages as that much of a problem. Maybe reducing the number of people that magic can hit? I'm fine with single target damage though, hehe.

Okays, I sent ya a PM.

Yeah, WoW's a ton of fun. If you're ever interested, send me a PM and I can set you up on a private server dedicated to PvP. It's free, so you don't have to worry about wasting money. I don't play WoW on the official servers, but private servers are basically the same thing (By private, I mean servers that are run independently, but still have thousand of players on them, =P). But yeah, something needs to be done about F2P. Maybe wave spells would be a potential start. And allowing snare in F2P, that'd also help.

Here is a WoW PvP video of an Undead mage. Runescape really fostered my love of mages and when I started playing WoW, I became obsessed with them (WoW differs from Runescape in that it's very reflexes and awareness based, rather then reliant on levels, like Runescape is. They're both really cool, though). I'm not sure how much you'll take away from this video if you watch it, but this guy plays on an extremely high level: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/stream.ph ... 55&stream= Anyway, I feel like we've made some progress on the P2P front. I feel that there will be a need to address F2P magic because higher level spells are lacking. If you have any thoughts, post them here pl0x :D.

Hmmm, I see what what you're saying. Yeah, I suppose that's true. You know, I've always wondered why ancients freezes your opponent in place rather than slowing his movement a whole lot. In other games I've played, slowing melee is a lot more fun, frustrates the hell out of them because you're just out of reach, and makes game play a whole lot more dynamic because the mage is constantly on the move, and so is melee. Meh, I guess runescape will never be quite like WoW =P. Edit: Mages in wow can frost nova (freeze) melee though, so I guess it is kinda similar.

Okay, fair enough. I'm fine with 20 seconds, as long as I don't have to pay a !@$%load per cast. It really detracts from the fun of magic at times. See Compfreak, I'm probably not as rich as you are in the game, so every time I use a spell, I squirm a little bit, because I know that this is coming directly out of my Runescape bank account. Whenever, I use melee or ranged, I'm more tolerant because I know I can pick up a majority of my arrows/sell my weapons back to the grand exchange. Also, I'd be okay with eliminating miasmic effects from ranged entirely; I'm perfectly okay with rangers kicking my butt, it's just melee I get frustrated with at times. One last thing. This idea may run a little contrary to the points I was making before about letting mages hybrid more, but do you think it would be unreasonable to ask that miasmic spell effects only persist if you continue casting spells at your opponent? This would make the miasmic spell cater a little more to magic users rather than giving meleers/rangers a reason to abuse it and continue to use range/melee. I don't know, it's just a thought.

Naturally, I read the first part of your post first, and I was angry that you continued mentioning weakening magic spells that are already sub-par when compared to melee damage. I disagree with lowering the max hit of ice barrage, but since blood barrage heals, it suppose it could be reasonable to reduce that; I wouldn't care all that much. However, when I read the second part of your post, I began to get an idea. Melee and ranged are less expensive than magic; after all, Zuriel's staff and the runes are temporary, so in things like PvP and PvE (Player vs. environment/creatures) you end up paying a lot more in the long run, whereas you can sell your weapons back for what you paid in the grand exchange. Could we make the staff of Zuriel last longer, and somehow make the spells a little cheaper? Perhaps I wouldn't be so reserved about using the staff if it didn't disintegrate within the hour, and this would in turn give me more of an edge over melee. Compfreak, would you be in favor of eliminating combos (Getting rid of spells delays, that is) and in turn giving magic specials? How about integrating miasmic barrage into the normal spellbook, as well? P.S. I'm also in favor of making melee stronger against ranged. I'm not in favor of it becoming stronger against magic, though.

That's because it doesn't need any improvement. If you know how to use it, it can compete with every other class. Once you get members back, try out everything we've told you. Not once, but spend hours on it. You'll see. I've staked with magic and pked with magic for many a year. In fact, I was probably one of the first people to know about the combos, too. As I said, I'll update my post once I get concrete numbers and videos which weigh more than anything I say here ever will. Thanks for your contributions, though, Warrior.

Ugh, I'm growing tired of this. Alright, I can see that I'm not making too much progress in convincing you guys that P2P magic needs some serious upgrades, but that's alright because I didn't expect it to happen right off. In order to finish this debate, I'll have to become a member again (I haven't been one in about (edit) 1 month), and do first hand recording and testing which will provide concrete, definitive evidence once and for all that P2P magic needs changes to its mechanics. I can't sit here all day countering your points, though; school work is a bit more important at the moment. Morningrise & Compfreak, please rest assured, my views still remain, and I will come back to finish this P2P magic discussion. Thus, I'm probably going to modify the original post to only discuss the issues with F2P magic at the current time. Unfortunately, today I don't have time to do this either, so I'll have to modify it sometime in the next few days. You've made this thread a success guys, thanks! W00t, 300+ posts of great discussion. Here's to many more hours of discussion on the *apparently* controversial topic. Regards, E.

I've been debating with you for two and half hours, thus far, and nothing about my views of how magic should be improved has changed, sorry to say. I will modify my post a bit to accommodate the complexities of the new arguments, but the underlying structure will remain the same. I might consider changing the title though, to "Things magic desperately needs." Morningrise, you've tried, and I appreciate your concerns. I'll be back to finish this off as soon as I can. I can't just sit here debating this with you all day; two and a half hours is enough.

Please, dont compare the speeds of the dragon claw special and the magic combo. There is no comparison. As for the re-usability of the magic combo, I dont think it matters much because youre relying on the element of surprise with special attacks, which you dont have here. The dragon claws are so powerful though, that you dont even need the element of surprise with them anymore. Watch some fights in PvP worlds and then come back and talk to me. By the way, Compfreak dedicated a thread to how overpowered they were. Just letting you know so you can take that into consideration. Then the meleer runs to the nearest bank, drinks his anti, and grabs some more food so he can own people with overpowered special attacks. You havent done anything except waste your runes and waste a little of his food. Wrong, you cannot disregard this argument. Pure refers to using magic and melee only. Stats do not refer to purity. We were contrasting this pure discussion to a hybriding discussion, remember? The difference is both melee and mager are choosing to stick to their respective attacks, and this makes it a pure magic and melee fight. By pure, I did not mean only trains magic or trains only melee. Perhaps we misunderstood each other. The dragon dagger only uses ¼ of the special bar, lol. That 1 fourth recharges very quickly. And the idea of poisoning a mage with a dagger is not silly, but thats just my point of view, =). No, the meleer would not be putting himself at a disadvantage in this case. Thats so subjective that I wont even touch it with a 10 foot pole. Cost is absolutely a valid reason. Im looking to improve magic for the vast majority of the runescape population, not just the rich elite. What the hell kind of mindset would that be? I didnt know banks and pking spots are for warrior and PJers only. Thats a ridiculous notion and one which I discard right off the bat. Pking with magic should be advantageous everywhere, just like melee and ranged pking are advantageous everywhere. Ive had plenty of good fights as ranged or melee near banks, and Ive also gotten plenty of good kills. Magic, not so. Ive provided plenty, thanks for asking. Im glad we agree on something, =)

Magic does 32 max. It is NOT 50. Get that right. The warrior won't have a hard time getting close to the mage if he's not a complete idiot (He can take off his armor, after all, and he gains passive resistance to magic from training his own magic level (ROFL?) and using protect magic prayers. If you mention that this is bad advice and you'd just come up and melee me with your whip, then you'd be the own talking about hybriding. Checkmate. Also, what's stopping the mage being poisoned as well? 15% lowering of attack also isn't all that much. Zuriel's staff last 1 hour, if you're lucky enough not be killed with it in combat, and it costs 1.6m. Good lucky spending 1.6m on an hours worth of combat, excluding the cost of all the spells. All in all, how is magic NOT absurdly overpowered again? I'm not quite sure what your reasoning is anymore. Mage maxes around 50 with two hits. Melee maxes near 99 with FOUR hits, or about 76 with one hit, and both weapons lack special effects, giving mage the upper hand in a pure class fight. In a pure mage vs. pure warrior fight, the mage will win assuming both players are of equal intelligence. If the warrior takes his armor off, he will still be hit consistently. Negative defense bonuses are bad, but neutral defense bonuses aren't much better. The warrior can use mage protect and piety, but the mage can use melee protect (if need be) and magic might, thus evening things out. The mage will still have a huge advantage. If we're talking about hybriding, it becomes more complex, which I've stated multiple times. You also mention passive magic resistance. If this is a pure class fight, the warrior does not have a high magic level. What's stopping the mage being poisoned is the warrior's inability to get close enough to inflict it. 15% less attack is a huge amount. There's a reason that players spend so much money on super sets. Zuriels staff should only be used long enough to hit with one miasmic spell. Even so, we don't even need to bring it into the picture, as doing so would prove magic to be anything BUT underpowered. And come on... "checkmate?" Please. First off, the 50 is TWO hits which land at the same time. You need to take TWO cast turns in order to complete the combo, so that in itself does not count as a 1 hit. Puh-lease. Anyone who doesn't have downs will see the combo coming from a mile away and eat through it. The max hit remains 32. Passive magic resist exists in almost everyone because almost everyone trains magic up to some level. The resistance is enough to be annoyingly effective in causing splashes. With a high level magic, you'll still splash on magic protect + no armor+ passive resistence fairly often. Isn't a max of +74 magic accuracy bonus just wonderful (*sarcasm*)? The mage can easily be poisoned from a special with a dragon dagger which costs 29K. All he needs to do is to splash once. Also, you're not taking into account that there is a grace period for melee between freezes in which they can easily reach you. I agree with you, however, that Zuriel's staff should not be brought into the picture, and for valid reasons I've stated before. Even if you were to have the upper hand in this fight, you wouldn't be able to stop me from teleporting away or running away since the most common places to fight are near banks. This is where the "practical special" part comes in and rains on your parade of mage overpoweredness. What have we here? It turns out Magic isn't doing so well on the hybrid front or the pure front. What a shame. It can be fixed though, it can be fixed.

Magic does 32 max. It is NOT 50. Get that right. The warrior won't have a hard time getting close to the mage if he's not a complete idiot (He can take off his armor, after all, and he gains passive resistance to magic from training his own magic level (ROFL?) and using protect magic prayers. If you mention that this is bad advice and you'd just come up and melee me with your whip, then you'd be the one talking about hybriding. Checkmate. Also, what's stopping the mage being poisoned as well? 15% lowering of attack also isn't all that much. Zuriel's staff last 1 hour, if you're lucky enough not be killed with it in combat, and it costs 1.6m. Good luck spending 1.6m on 1 hour worth of combat, excluding the cost of all the spells. All in all, how is magic NOT absurdly underpowered again? I'm not quite sure what your reasoning is anymore. OOPS. I'd like to edit that last sentence. rofl.

I think what you don't realize is you're trying to justify magic's weak hit and its susceptibility to melee damage when melee does find a way to get up close to the mage (Very easy for them to do) by saying, "Oh, well magic can freeze and hit 30s." You're looking at it from an itemization perspective, while I'm looking at it from a game mechanics perspective. It's either, "you need to make it more difficult for magic users to be hit with melee attacks" or "you need need to make mages hit harder so that the time the meleer actually spends frozen is meaningful." The mage+x hybrid isn't going to beat anything wearing ranged armor because it fails in keeping the opponents frozen for meaningful durations, and in those durations themselves the damage you do with magic is pitiful. Hence, my reasoning for increases in magic damage that occurs at the same rate as melee damage, and a toning down of the miasmic spells so that they don't effect ranged (Why the hell would Jagex WANT to give magic an advantage over ranged?) Yes, I have a problem with ranged armor being able to be worn by whoever the hell so pleases and thwarting mages' attempts outright.

By the way, I do plan to continue revising my original post as my argument expands. You don't have to tell me to do it; I've already stated I would in my original post.

The combat triangle works until you start bending it and hybriding, in which case magic loses out BIG TIME. If you thought this thread was about magers beating idiot meleers who wear rune, then you've been missing the point the whole time. This entire thread has been about the subject of hybrids. And you and compfreak have been arguing with me about them for quite some time. If you want me to specify armor so you can get a better idea, here you go: Mager: Meleer:

So you're now arguing that a certain hybrid cannot beat another hybrid, which is NOT what your original post argued. As a PURE, STAND ALONE class, mage can beat melee, and cannot beat range. When we delve into the discussion of HYBRIDS, the situation becomes complex, as there are hundreds of different combinations of armor and weapons. So which is it? What are you arguing at this point? Are you still arguing that mage is underpowered as a stand alone class? How so? Are you arguing that Player 2 cannot beat Player 1 in your own example? If so, then you are absolutely right, and you have shown that in YOUR situation where one player is using a disadvantageous combination of armor and weapons, he will lose the fight. My argument: A hybrid using magic+X will lose to a hybrid using ranged+melee. In the real world, no meleer is just going to let you stand there, ancienting him. They're either going to run, in which case you don't have enough K0ing power to stop him and you don't get any kill whatsoever, or he's going to put on some ranged armor and kick your !@#. That's the way most of my confrontations with meleers go. Give magic a special and let us wear armor which is much stronger against melee. Ahrims is inadequate against whips, godswords, dragons claws, (INSERT OBLIGATORY OVERPOWERED MELEE WEAPON HERE, LOL).

No, with a weapon that powerful, you can easily beat other rangers and magers, given that you use ranged armor, not magic with it. You already supposed to beat rangers, and the mages you're fighting are (1) probably not using Zuriel's staff (2) if they are, you still have a good chance to beat them using Huta's outfit. If my dark bow special doesn't knock them out, I can retreat safely to my bank corner and hit you insanely hard with it again in another two minutes. Haven't you noticed the 1 iteming strategies that PJers employ? It's because ranged and melee weapons have gotten so powerful that with a little bit of luck, you can take anyone out before they have a chance to blink. Fair? No. Besides, if your dark bow special doesn't knock them out, chances are, you're going to be carrying something like a magic shortbow, rune knives, or a crossbow, all viable options within the ranged sphere. Those viable options don't exist with magic: Ancients caps at 30 damage which is dished out slowly. You can use a whip to hit rapid 40s, dharok's to hit !@#$load of damage, and hit quick consistent damage with ranged via knives or crossbows. By promoting the use of miasmic spells, you're not addressing the key issues magic has as a whole, alright? . The combat triangle isn't balanced at the moment because magic not only lacks finishing power (In the pure melee vs. Mage combat; I've already addressed why combos are impractical for finishers), but it has a very hard time beating meleers who wear ranged armor. As I said, for the sake of comparison, the mage can wear whatever the hell kind of melee weapon he wants in order to hybrid, but he'll have a very hard time beating a meleer with Huta's basic outfit. You've chosen to ignore the things I've said past the part of the post you quoted. But at the moment, it is a crutch. Let's work toward fixing that, so things don't stay the way they are. Change, change, change :-) (Hehe, Barack has the right idea :-) )

One last thing. You're ignoring part of my post which directly shows that miasmic is not so much a skill which caters toward magic, but a skill that is better used in conjunction with MORE POWERFUL ranged and melee attacks. I repeat, Magic needs to stand alone, and in order to do this we need to add specials and updates to its armor, freezing time, and the magnitude of its hits in order to be on bar with a meleer who happens to be wearing ranged armor (The mage can hybriding be wearing by wearing a whip to hit through the ranged armor, but he'll still lose anyway. Did you see the defense bonuses on Huta's outfit. Huta's outfit has nearly TWICE the amount of magic defense (Compfreak's magic outfit only has +74 magic attack, lol) and has insane slash defense bonuses, as well.) You can beat any mage with it (I'm discounting miasmic because using them would mean that you would need to use melee next if you want to obtain their full benefit. Miasmic does not cater to magic, and forces us to ignore the fundamental issues with magic.) Magic is not simply a crutch for Melee and Ranged to lean on. It needs to be just as powerful. At the moment, it's far LESS powerful

Oh, and by the way, there is NOTHING ridiculous about meleers wearing ranged armor (See Huta's outfit). By all standards, I've won this because you can't seem to find a way for a hybriding mage to beat that particular hybriding melee/ranger.

#1. If you're up in his face with a whip, and he's wearing Huta's ranged armor, you won't be forcing him to do anything. The hybrid using mage and melee will not beat the hybrid using melee and ranged. You're gimping yourself by using magic, essentially. #2. I don't think you understood what Huta said about Miasmic barrage. Discounting the fact that it's expensive and you would be hard pressed to take it with you into a PvP world, using Miasmic barrage and then using either Ranged or Melee would be far better than using Miasmic barrage and then magic. Magic is slow, and hits for a hell of a lot less. Miasmic barrage encourages hybridization rather than giving mages a skill which they can use to stand alone. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? #3. If you're fighting pure warriors, then you haven't really experienced real PvP. People will do anything they can to stay alive, and that includes bringing ranged armor. It's probably true, though, that a mage with miasmic barrage might beat a warrior with dragonhide. But as has been said, miasmic barrage would be far better combined with melee or ranged than with magic. You'd beat them to the ground twice as hard, since you're combining the slows with the specials of melee and ranged, respectively. #3. Pure mage and Pure range? Weren't we just talking about ultra-super-ninja hybrids, in which case everyone and their mother will be miasmic barraging you every minute or so? I thought you guys were advocating the point that you never see "pure classes" in "real" Runescape PvP worlds. Even if that matchup did occur, I would NOT be in favor of the mage winning. That would be overpowered. Mages need to be beaten by rangers; this is the way things work. If I had to make a change to miasmic barrage, I'd make sure it didn't effect ranged, and I'm still a little puzzled as to why it does. Interestingly enough, we now seem to be arguing PvP situations rather than the strength of the magic skill in comparison to range and melee. In this post, you've acknowledged that armor is considered class specific, and you've acknowledged the difference between hybrid vs. pure and hybrid vs. hybrid. Bravo! I have nothing left to argue, as I'm not very interested in arguing ridiculous circumstances. So that's it? You agree that mage is on par with range and melee? I've agreed it needs to be buffed massively in order to stand alone with ranged and melee. Thanks for trying, though.

#1. If you're up in his face with a whip, and he's wearing Huta's ranged armor, you won't be forcing him to do anything. The hybrid using mage and melee will not beat the hybrid using melee and ranged. You're gimping yourself by using magic, essentially. #2. I don't think you understood what Huta said about Miasmic barrage. Discounting the fact that it's expensive and you would be hard pressed to take it with you into a PvP world, using Miasmic barrage and then using either Ranged or Melee would be far better than using Miasmic barrage and then magic. Magic is slow, and hits for a hell of a lot less. Miasmic barrage encourages hybridization rather than giving mages a skill which they can use to stand alone. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? #3. If you're fighting pure warriors, then you haven't really experienced real PvP. People will do anything they can to stay alive, and that includes bringing ranged armor. It's probably true, though, that a mage with miasmic barrage might beat a warrior with dragonhide. But as has been said, miasmic barrage would be far better combined with melee or ranged than with magic. You'd beat them to the ground twice as hard, since you're combining the slows with the specials of melee and ranged, respectively. #4. Pure mage and Pure range? Weren't we just talking about ultra-super-ninja hybrids, in which case everyone and their mother will be miasmic barraging you every minute or so? I thought you guys were advocating the point that you never see "pure classes" in "real" Runescape PvP worlds. Even if that matchup did occur, I would NOT be in favor of the mage winning. That would be overpowered. Mages need to be beaten by rangers; this is the way things work. If I had to make a change to miasmic barrage, I'd make sure it didn't affect ranged, and I'm still a little puzzled as to why it does. EDIT: 2 # 3s, hehe

I'll be logging off for now. I hope we have more interesting discussions tomorrow.

Lets consider your supposed blitz/barrage combo for a moment. You (mage) and a meleer are fighting. Naturally, hell be praying (And so will you), and every 10 seconds hell be able to reach you. When he gets to low health, youre going to try to pull off a blitz/barrage combo. Chances are, when youre far away, casting at him, hes going to be eating like a maniac. This is normally the way it works when you try to farcast someone in PvP. There will be far less instances for you to try to finish him then you might first assume. The advantage of melee and ranged specials is that they have the element of surprise. Once you back up and farcast, they start eating. Also, Id like to quote Huta in order to address the fundamental issue with incorporating miasmatic spells in your calculations (He is a respected tip-iter, no?): Thread link: viewtopic.php?f=66&t=773288&hilit=magic+combos&start=20 The "5 times" part clarified things - I see what you're trying to say. What I don't understand is how that has anything to do with allowing meleers to wear d'hide without suffering penalties to their magic bonuses. Can you explain exactly why you think they shouldn't suffer those penalties? Also, look at all the types of armor readily available to melee players and then look at all the types of armor available to mages. Why the disparity? When was the last time magic got a decent armor update? Ill quote Huta again, Compfreak, if you want to make this a session of theorizing about possible hybrids. Lastly, earlier in the debate, Compfreak, you and I were arguing about the nature of ranged vs. magic combat, and you kept making up ways magic had the upper hand over ranged. Then I came across another thread ( viewtopic.php?f=66&t=768165&hilit=magic+combos&start=60 ), where you directly and confidently assert ranged has the upper hand over mage. This leads me to believe that youre not really arguing with me for the sake of improving anything about the tip it communitys view of game mechanics, but rather you just want to prove me wrong, no matter what the subject is. I quote you on the following: Regards, E.

I have to go again. I'll check back here as soon as possible to address any further lingering concerns you may have about the validity of improving magic in its current state.