Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

The Fire and Frost Brand are popular not just because they are cheap, but also because they fill a niche - they provide offensive crowd control while at the same time being able to deal at least decently with tougher targets.

I think that niche needs filling, but if you do not, you are going about it the wrong way. If the well-roundedness is the problem, you should remove the Fire Brand entirely; there are earth weapons that perform the AP damage and the Demon Whip that manages crowd control through area fire. And the Frost Brand could then be replaced by an item similar to the Demon Whip but utilizing cold damage.

Lowering the base damage of especially the Fire Brand will eliminate its use as all-round weapon for commanders with strength in the 10-15 range, while commanders with 20+ strength will still be able to use it as a decent all-round weapon. In short the change would just tip the balance even further in the direction of SCs.


As for making the Shadow Brand armour negating, I do not think it a good idea. There are not that many non-ranged AN weapons and the ones that do exist do not have anywhere near the stats of the Shadow Brand. If you want to keep the stats anywhere near as is - and here base damage is at best a secondary concern - I have to ask why the introduction of such a powerful weapon is warranted, and if you want to bring the stats in line with what already exists, I have to ask why you intend to double up on what is already in the game.

Whatever the answer, it still boils down to making death more powerful. And I do not see that as promoting balance.


When it comes to two-handed weapons, I find the assessment of the 'general' situation rather flawed. Most 2h weapons are ranged, boosters or speciality weapons in some other fashion (Lightning Rod, Staff of Corrosion etc). Even among the rest, there is a lot of special niche-filling going on.

Two weapons have been mentioned specifically, namely the Flambeau and the Wraith Sword.

Now, it escapes me why the Flambeau should need a boost. It is already a very, very good weapon against undead and demons. With its AP and tripple damage even a bog standard strength 10 commander does huge damage to a preferred target (69 AP), no matter how much armour is crammed onto it. It is not the best choice when not fighting demons or undead, but that would seem a good thing if variety is what you are after.

The Wraith Sword on the other hand fills a quite different niche. It is not a weapon that you drool over, but instead a weapon filling the crap-I'm-out-of-earth-and-nature-gems niche for some heavy death nations. It is not a weapon you will forge a lot of in a game, but at times you forge a couple. A construction-heavy Fomoria with a low nature and earth gem-flow may be a candidate. You are churning out one 25 strength King and several 20+ strength commanders each turn, and at least the Kings have a decent shot at getting a water pick, so you are not lacking commanders that can handle the sword.

It is certainly not ideal and it is expensive, but that is the price you pay for being a death nation. Death does not have as many weapon options as other paths.


There are some 2h weapons I have a hard time finding a use for - the Halberd of might springs to mind - but I think a lot of the others just suffer from lack of context in these discussions.

Take the two construction 0 2-handers Sword of Sharpness and Thorn Staff for example. When you have lots of mages, a steady gem-flow and construction 6 researched, these will rarely be optimal choices, but in the beginning of the game, they are sometimes well worth it. They are cheap and provide offensive punch and very good defence respectively. A 1-hander and a shield will not only cost more in both gems and mage-time, but also bring some problems. Earth shields increase encumbrance, which may be a problem, and the high defence of the staff is much better than a shield when you are up against a big brute that hits hard (Agarthan Ancient Lord with a 2h Sword of Sharpness maybe).

Weapons need to be evaluated in a context.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

The Frost Brand is not a good anti-SC weapon; 16 damage plus a strength of 13 means that a Sidhe Lord could do some damage to an SC but he's not likely to win. A Fire Brand obviously improves his damage potential but I still don't consider that SC killing gear. SC killing gear has a damage multiplier against the intended target (undead, construct, etc) or perhaps AN damage. And as far as I know, all the real anti-SC weapons are not very good for chaff.

Sure, you can kill SCs with glamour thugs but you can also lose them very easily. 15 HP doesn't give much of a margin for error.

Really, I'm trying to figure out what problem these suggestions are intended to address. It's not like low HP units with brands (or glamour nations for that matter, since the nerf to glamour) are dominating the game and imperiling SCs. To each their own; that's the nice thing about mods. But personally I'd prefer not to see these changes in CBM. Heck, I'd like to see a boost to Eriu, not kill it off completely. :)

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Disagree with Amorphous re: Wraithsword. I would never forge one. Ever. Shadow Brand or Dusk dagger are both vastly preferable, and cost fewer gems to boot. Sure, they both require 2 paths, but you must have gems *somewhere*. And generally you're going to be using your d gems for other things, so chances are its d you're short on and something else you have in excess quantity. Heck, if it must be d gems, I'd take a bane blade over a wraith sword since its 1/5 the price!

2h weapons need to be better than 1h weapons to make up for the fact that you can't use a shield, even if that shield is the one you came with as stock gear. Wraithsword is just useless.

Now, I accept that the 2h sword of sharpness has a place. Its also better than the 1h sword of sharpness, as it should be. But wraith sword is expensive, late in research, and inferior to a large number of other weapons. For its cost it should be the best weapon for some task. Its not.

Other weapons that could use improvement:
-Implementor Axe
-Enchanted Pike (not sufficiently better than Enchanted Spear or Enchanted Sword, consider 12 damage)
-Sword of Swiftness (consider 16 base damage to even plausibly compete with frostbrand)

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

If you have a Fomorian King with Water, then you *definitively* do not want to craft a Wraith Sword for him. You want a FrostBran for him, and even with zero water gems, you'll get ahead by first alchemising the death-gems to water-gems... Why would you want to lose the shield on Fomorian King so that you could be wielding an inferior weapon?

That already tells just how bad the Wraith Sword is. Never seen one used by a player under Dom3 (but there are other things I never see which others think are common, so that doesn't prove anything :) ).

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Neither of those provide you with reinvigoration, so they are not suitable replacements for a Wraith Sword.

If all you are after is damage, a Wraith Sword is not what you need, but there are other situations.

If you want lifedrain you have to choose between Wraith Sword, Blood Thorn or Standard of the Damned, but that last one is in form of an item spell.

I do not really see it. It seems more of a speciality weapon to me. The help to pillaging is huge, and the fear does not hurt. It is not the best for fighting, but then, that does not seem for what it is primarily intended.

The Enchanted Pike has always seemed a weapon intended to be utilized as a repel-weapon. As such, it seems to me that boosting attack or defence would be a better choice.

I find this one occasionally useful, but if you really need to boost it, why not increase its attack instead? Reasonably you want this weapon for lots of attacks - probably in order to overcome high defence.


Again, this does not solve the reinvigoration issue.

If all you are looking for is high damage numbers, it does not make any sense to even attempt to fix the Wraith Sword. Just remove it along with any other weapons with special abilities that do not directly detract from the hp of your opponents.

If you need reinvigoration and you insist on wielding a Frost Brand, fine, but you have to get the reinvigoration from somewhere else, because the sword is certainly not solving the issue. So where do you get it, the gems for it and the needed slots?

As long as that is not done, the statement that the brand or any other weapon is superior in comparison to the Wraith Sword is not really worth anything.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Reinvigoration: there are plenty of non-weapon ways to get this, none of whom require you to make attacks to get the reinvigoration. And if the option is a crappy weapon and reinvigoration or a good weapon and reinvigoration from elsewhere, especially when a good weapon + an item of reinvigoration is << the cost of a wraithsword, well, i'll take the two item solution every time.

Lifedrain: When has any thug or SC design required lifedrain to be useful, especially since its so trivial to counter? Seriously, cast Soul Vortex already if you want it that badly...

The only thug I can think of that cares about a weapon like this is the Skratti, who will take the Blood Thorn every time because blood slaves are cheap and expendable (and it takes fewer slaves than the wraithsword does d, and is 1h to boot!)

At 10d the wraithsword would still be overpriced for what it does.

You've still failed to show a reason anyone would actually build one of the things, especially when the alternatives are all better by any metric, including the exact features that might tempt one to make a wraith sword to begin with. When you stack on this that what a wraith sword does is not especially useful for thugs or SCs as they are typically geared, and the wraith sword saddles its relatively unimportant good features with an otherwise bad weapon at a ridiculous gem price, its pretty clear no one would ever bother to use it.

Boots of the Messenger. 5n. A Fomorian druid forges it for 3n with a hammer (your pretender has E to make the hammer). Frost brand + boots of the messenger = 3w + 3n with hammers << 18d for a wraithsword, and vastly better at any function.

Alternately: FK casts Soul Vortex...

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I have to repeat here,that u cant really compare partial life draining to reinvigoration/regeneration items.
Also,isnt the item spell full life drain?

-There are certain opponents where life drain doesnt work
-U have to hit first and then do damage for life drain to work

Coupled with the fact,that the stats of the Wraith Sword are pretty bad,this generally makes it far inferior as a choice for solving solely Reinvig/Regen issues vs the other items doing that.
Also,since its 2 handed you are missing out the 2nd hand slot for getting e.g. another misc slot(ring of regen).

Generally i want to make many 2h melee items and some 1h melee items a better choice by improving the stats and by slightly nerfing the fire/frost brand.
Its not my intention to just do a "simple" nerf here, even though they surely do offer too much for the price.

As it stands i would say,that nerfing the fire brand to say 6AP base damage and nerfing the frost brand to say 12 base damage, without improving the others,would still make them the top choice as an all around weapon, by far,and as such wouldnt change much except for some raider nations like you said,Eriu for example.
Thats a bad idea and therefore just 1 piece of the puzzle.
If you leave them as they are and just improve the other weapons u would have to make several 2h weapons actually very overpowered so that they are able to replace the brands in many situations.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Mardagg:
I don't think nerfing frost/fire brands is a positive change for the reasons listed by others. They already have to deal with Protection 30+ SCs, and aren't especially efficient at it as is. Most weapons do have uses, however niche, there's just a few that are never going to see play as is. I picked out the only three I can't see any reason to ever use, and possibly the halberd of might could use a boost (but i'm not sure to what).

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

yeah,i am having a hard time to find ideas for the halberd of might,too.

The fire brand is pretty good vs high protection SC`s.
The frost brand is worse,but its cheaper.
They are both 1handed weapons and shields are pretty good in SC vs SC battles,too.

I am arguing,that equipping every SC and every thug with a fire brand is a no brainer,bc u can do quite some damage vs every type of opponent,be it chaff,thug or SC.
And you then even get to equip a shield in addition.
Again,the problem is that just improving some 2handed weapons,like the Wraith Sword,wouldnt change much unless u make them overpowered.The Brands have to be nerfed on the base damage if you want to make 2h weapons more balanced imo.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Also,nerfing the base damage of the brands would open options for some other 1h weapons as well,i.e. all weapons with good to very good base damage but without AoE damage could fill a niche spot in the future.

And just to clarify:

Nerfing the base damage will not affect the AoE damage.Those are not influenced by each other.
The Brands will still be very powerful therefore.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

The task for which it was primarily intended isn't worth the investment and can't be made so. In order for people to make use of it, it therefore needs to be improved in other areas.

Has anyone ever used the imp axe to pillage? Apart from to test it?

See above. It isn't possible to make repel worth the investment without breaking the item in terms of att and dmg. Also def has nothing to do with repel. If it had att 99 dmg 99 len 6 the repel would be better than awe 0 (anyone passing a non modified morale check will take 1 damage and ignore it, anyone else will take 1 damage and that particular attack they made will be stopped). Still worse than awe 1 though. If it had att 4 and dmg 15 (reasonable stats) then the repel would be much, much worse than awe 0. The actual attacking and doing damage with the weapon is always going to outweigh the repel side of it by miles, simply because of the way repel works.

A one handed weapon and a reinvig item take the same number of slots as the wraithsword (2) and are cheaper and better.

Throwing out anything that doesn't do /exactly/ what the wraithsword does while being cheaper and claiming that means the wraithsword has a use does not make sense. Nothing else does exactly what the imp axe does - does that mean it would be fine at 25 death gems and 6 research too?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

A common Eriu/Van thug with a fire brand does around 30 AP damage. Rarely will you see a SC with the protection over 30, so that is 15 hp of damage, which gives your thug a decent chance of killing a SC. Set your thug to attack rear and he'll get a few free hits while the SC kills your chaff. You will either manage to kill the SC if he doesn't regenerate much or retreat once enough chaff is killed.

That's a situation when you don't specifically plan for fighting a SC. If you plan for him, you can equip 3 thugs with scourges for 9 fire gems and script them to flight, attack large. If you can add in a water mage for quickening (it doesn't even require gems now, another thing that should be nerfed back), let me see what SC is going to stand up to 12 hits dealing so much damage per turn. How cheap a counter is that to a SC that costs dozens of gems. I am assuming an undead/demon SC as those are most common, use moon blade for magic beings, etc.

It's really a simple task outfitting a couple thugs to kill a SC. The harder part will be actually engaging him in combat (returning, stealthy SCs). I think people are used to gem-gen games and don't realize how sparse gems can be without them. A recruitable-everywhere teleportable stealthy thug is a huge thing.

Fire brand + vine shield is a no-brainer for any type of opposition. Is that a good thing?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I cannot say that I have used the axe, but then I am not that good at pillaging. However that may be, if the ability is worthless as you say, why even keep the axe in the game?


Apologies, I did not mean to say that defence directly helps with repelling, but the defence helps when your opponents make their morale save. Also it lessens the defence difference with a shield.

Your bog standard shield has parry 4, defence -1 and encumbrance 1, increasing your total defence and parry value with 3. As a sort of standard measure I would say that increasing the defence of a 2-hander with 2 in comparison with a 1-handed variant makes them about equal. You get 1 less total defence and parry value, but since it is pure defence, the top is slightly better and you do get less encumbrance. Making the Enchanted Pike e.g. 3/4 in attack/defence would certainly make it an option over the Enchanted Spear and depending on how you value weapon length it should be in the match with the Enchanted Sword.

While I certainly agree with your assessment of awe as better than repel, I do not think it relevant in this case. None of the items we are comparing have it after all.

Also, repel is certainly not worthless. It is not something that lets you wade into mêlée at leisure, but it does help your defence.


Look, I keep having to repeat this over and over again: It is not cheaper if you do not have the relevant gems. No matter how many times cheapness is invoked, it still remains untrue in various cases of gem income distribution. A reinvigoration item for 5 nature gems costs you 20 death gems, if that are all the gems you have. A 1-hander is then at least another 5 gems.

I have never required exactly the same as lifedrain, I just require its rough equivalent. Let us examine the aforementioned Fomorian King with a water pick:

We do not have any earth and nature gems to spend on him (and no blood mages in sight either). Not because we do not have any such income, but because it is not good enough to provide for all the Kings and thuggish commanders we produce from our castles and want to be sent to the front in a thuggish capacity. We will be able to provide a lot of the Kings with earth or nature items, but not all of them. So let us put that huge income of death gems to use. 20 of them we convert to nature and a pair of Boots of the Messenger, which nets us reinvigoration 4. Let us further assume that we can scrape together 5 water gems for a Frost Brand for a total cost of 20 death and 5 water gems. So 4 attack and 2 defence from the brand and -1 defence and +4 parry for a total of 4/5 attack/defence. Encumbrance is 5 which translates to 8 for casting purposes. Net fatigue gain is 1 per turn. Casting Quicken self is not a good idea, as that would render the fatigue gain 6 per turn. The 28 fatigue you get from casting it is not easily reinvigorated either.

The other version is just putting down 25 death gems for a Wraith Sword. Attack and defence is 2/3 and encumbrance 4, 6 for casting purposes. Whenever he hits (for 34 damage, which is less than 41, but quite enough to hurt a lot of things), he is reinvigorated for 10. One hit every other turn is enough to get a better reinvigoration rate than the frost version and he is gaining fatigue slower. Now, the wraith version benefits greatly from casting Quicken Self. He would gain fatigue at a rate of 8 per turn, so as long as he manages to do a total of 4 damage over his 2 attacks in a turn, he is set. Quickening also means an improvement of attack/defence of 3/3, bringing the total up to 5/6, which is better than the other, and no shield hits to worry about. Direct damage is now 2x34 instead of 41, which means that for protection values of 27 and under it is as good as or better than with the Frost Brand.

Of course, this does not mean that the Wraith Sword is always a better choice even under the given gem-constraints. The frost version will still be generally better at clearing chaff non-resistant to cold and targets with protection values a bit higher than 27. Fielding troops and thugs with cold resistance against nations utilizing Frost Brands, Rime Hauberks and Breath of Winter should not be unusual though. And there are plenty of nations that do not have the capability of fielding legions of 30+ protection units.

Again, it is a question of gem-scarcity and solving a problem that actually exists. Getting reinvigoration is just not particularly cheap when you lack the needed supply of nature or earth gems or the paths and research for the right spells. And at least in my experience, thugs and SCs that accrue fatigue to quickly tend to die.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

A Fomoria without Earth bless would be quite interesting. I wouldn't care to try that though.

There is absolutely zero chance I would craft a wraith sword over a frostbrand as Fomoria. The brand gives the King total frost immunity, which opens up a lot of other possibilities too :)

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

And that is exactly the problem.

You are painting a best case scenario containing 1 out of 3 producable Fomorian cap only SC`s with several given gem-constraints where the Wraith Sword should be an instant no-brainer under better balanced conditions.
And it still is not!

Even with your example of a rare situation there is still a lot left,that can be done different:

-Earth blessing,pretty advisable with that nation anyways,gives further reinvig which do change quite a lot with your math
-Instead of using the W random Giants,you could use the D randoms and cast soul vortex,equipping these guys with other equipment in addition,making them superior.
-You could give the W guys boots of quickness,a W1 path isnt ideal for casting water buffs in battle anyways.
-The rainbow armor is pretty nice for the giants in general instead of boots of the messenger,if available,can be alchemized,too.
-Girdle of might is cheaper to alchemize and might leave gems for 1 more item,while just offering 1 less reinvig.
-etc.

I understand what you are talking about gem sparsity and such, but why not still making the Wraith sword better?
Do you really think those fomorian giants would be overpowered with like double the base damage for the wraith sword or with making it like 10-15 death gems?
As you said,with that inherent strength, you get the max partial life drain,if you hit,anyways already most of the time.
Different from fomorioa though like 95% of the other nations would benefit quite some time from such an improvement ...and for those nations the wraith sword is just never,ever an option atm,even under the most special conditions!

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

While I have not played Fomoria completely without earth bless, I have done so with an E4 bless and that worked out ok. 2 extra reinvigoration from a bless does not really change much about the above concerning Quicken Self, though.

There are lots of ways to reach cold immunity with Fomorian Kings. Both Breath of Winter and cold resistance are easily castable for the Kings with water picks. And Rime Hauberks sometimes make sense.


I do not agree that it should be an instant no-brainer.
Death is powerful enough as is.

A smallish does not.
And I hope you are not suggesting that high earth bless should be mandatory.

Death gems only, remember.
And, well, you might not have alteration 6 researched and have some other research target in sight for the moment.

Again the addition of more non-death gems.

Yes lots of things could be different, they also could not.

It is death that I do not think warrants the boost.
Sure, if it were any other path, we might discuss going down to 15 gems, but since it is not, I do not.
I also would not mind a minor buff to it (say +1 to attack and maybe +3 to damage), but nothing in line with what has been presented as of yet.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Because it's a fear causing weapon with an interesting description? You're saying it's fine because it has a specific thing it helps with a lot. I'm saying that thing is basically worthless and no-one uses it for that. In cases like this it makes sense to improve the weapon so it's usable for other reasons, with the pillage as a tiny niche bonus.


Yes, but that has nothing to do with repel, that's the point. Repel isn't /worthless/, it's just so totally overshadowed by everything else that it's not worth trying to boost. If you increased the stats that actually had anything to do with repel, the improvement would be like 95% damage dealt, 5% repel. So why try to tailor the boost to do anything related to repelling? Why pretend that the added att and dmg is there to make the repel better?

Sure. And 1 extra hp helps your survivability and isn't worthless. Who cares? It's too slight a difference to be meaningful and definitely not the feature around which you'd balance an item.

You keep talking about this situation where you have lots of death and apparently no gems of other sorts. If you're that focused on death why the hell would you be using it on a wraithsword when your thugs are going to be enc 0 undead? Why pay a premium to try and get reinvig when you can just sidestep it? You're comparing wraithsword to alchemising gems wholescale into a different type (something truly inefficient) and it's still barely coming out ahead in cost, even with apparently the ideal SC chassis to carry it.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I've made an implementor axe, for the fear (only once the whole time I've played dom, but still.) I don't think I've ever made a pike though.

Wraith swords are junk. The stuff they work well on in any over-convoluted example is the same stuff you're going to wade through with pretty much any gear kit. They are also a problem because your fatigue is all front-loaded if you cast buffs before combat, whereas with reinvig items you don't have to wait for melee to bleed off the extra fatigue. Your theoretical life drain potential in rounds 7-50 of a combat doesn't matter if you die to crits on round 6.

Swords of swiftness are awesome weapons, I don't understand how they even came up in this conversation.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I'd like to know what games Amorphous is playing where he has excess death gems and no other type. I've *never* had that problem!

Edit: Micah, when would you ever use a damage 8 weapon, even if it does have 2 attacks? 1 damage +16 attack is almost certainly better than 2 damage +8 attacks in almost any circumstance, even before counting the AoE cold damage.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Thats much more complicated.
Essentially,every built Wraith sword means less Tartarians to field.
Seriously,you have so many uses for death gems,that making the wraith sword better only makes the decision more difficult what to do with them.
Keep in mind also,that lowering the cost means lowering the casting requirements.E.g. D2 mages are better to come by for every nation.
Death alyways will be a very strong path,no matter how you alter the items,thats just how it is in DOM3.
I would be much more hesitant to add a new and very good fire item on the other hand since that would have a much bigger impact on the overall balance already known in this game.

Say u take only E4 bless,just +2 reinvig ,makes your example already slightly in favor of the frost brand +boots of messenger build imo.Although i still cant figure out,what shield u did take,when you are mentioning parry.
And thats not even the best build following your (not advisable)alchemize strategy imo: instead of alchemizing the gems for the boots you could alchemize for the cheap girdle,leaving you more gems left,not less(!), or you could alchemize for the rainbow armor,adding MR in addition to reinvig,which is also nice to have for the giants.


Sure,Soul vortex might not yet be researched.
Isnt it just better then to wait for soul vortex to be researched or to make it an early research goal before mass producing SC`s with expensive weapons that become obsolete?


@ Micah
I am also curious about the Sword of Swiftness?
Its 10 gems,9 damage,1/4 Att/Def,2 attacks.
You probably mean the def reducing ability for every attack after the first for quickened thugs wielding it?
That might be enough to be on par with the frost brand..after nerfing it to 12-14 damage.Its still more expensive though than the AoE and Cold resistance offering brand.
Currently i would lean towards improving the SoS by just a tiny bit further.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Swords of swiftness are great because they both add def and counter def. With reasonable strength they turn thugs into confetti while keeping you alive. Even better when you dual wield them and crazier still if you're quickened - it adds up to such a huge def disparity with the opponent that they'd need really, really nice attack to get through and must have high prot to avoid being diced.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

U can also dual wield the brands:)
But i see,having 8 attacks vs 4 attacks there is quite a difference indeed.
You surely got already quite some niche uses for SoS therefore.
So its certainly not a must to change it.
Maybe 1 more damage and/or 1 more defense(thematically) for the price?

Dual wielding omits shield ...having just read through the combat mechanics again,those shield hits seem to be pretty strong and nice to have,though.And shields add defense,too.

Btw,did i understand it right,that flails/morningstars not only add 2 att vs shield,but also ignore them completely when damage is dealt,thus no shield hits possible?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I did not intend to say that it was fine, merely that I did not really understand what you found wrong with it. My understanding now is that you want the fear but could not care less about the pillaging. Is that correct?

I am of the opinion that if something is really worthless, then it should not be present in the stats of an item - the story around it may be a different thing. And if you remove the pillage bonus from the axe, I do not really see it as the same axe anymore. Conceivably I could be convinced otherwise.


I was thinking more in the line of theme preserving.

As you may have noticed I proposed an increase in defence, not in damage. And I see a repel weapon as rather defensive. I mentioned attack earlier as well, because each increase of 2 there, would make another repel attack likely (morale save remains the same). Thus in keeping with the theme while making the weapon noticeably better.


I do not think it is so worthless that it lacks any meaning. It is of rather small use, sure, but certainly not negligible. If you are swamped in opponents, I can see it, but against single or few it can matter. Consequently it should be a factor in balancing.


I do not know that it is the ideal chassis, it was just the first thing that sprang to my mind. There are other strong commanders in the game that do not have 0 encumbrance. And if you have access to them, summoning undead thugs may just not be very efficient. If you have so many thugs that you have trouble decking them out, summoning more that are not any better than the ones you already have is not going to help much.

However that may be, if an item functions in a niche - though small - I do not think it needs any big boost. I like a few seldom used niche items in the game.

It is also not really a question of you not having any other gems than death gems, it is a question of not having enough other gems to cover all your needs. That happens to me a lot in my games at least.

Sure, I can think of what I would like to forge for my commanders, but if I do not have enough of the right gems, I have to make do with items that would be suboptimal given another gem distribution. And sometimes paying a bit more for an effect now nets you a better position than waiting and hoping for the future to line up nicely in keeping with your vision of reasonable gem income and expenditure.




No, not if you are constrained more by nature than by death. We have been over this.

I remain unconvinced by the argument that since death is powerful, we might as well make it more powerful.


No, 2 reinvig does not really change it as far as quicken goes. And the shield is the one the Fomorian King comes equiped with.

Sorry, I was under the impression that the boots cost 5 gems, that is certainly what I used in calculating how many death gems it represented. If not, exchange them for a 5 gem reinvigoration item. Of course, you will then get less invigoration out of it.


Not necessarily, no. If you are getting the thugs anyway, say by way of recruiting them from your capital, paying more for their equipment now may be more beneficial.



Looking at the thread this far, I do not really see any point to discuss further about the Wraith Sword as things mostly seem to go round and round (my own arguments included). I remain unconvinced, but I am not so stubborn as to not recognize that I seem to be the only one not thinking the sword needs a major overhaul. And I do not wish to take over the thread with a lost cause. I will happily give answers about my views on the Wraith Sword if someone directs a question to me explicitly, but otherwise I will keep my views to myself.

Hope that is agreeable to everyone.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

yes,you are right.I was somehow under the impression the boots are 10N.Sorry for this.

I hope you will still take part in the discussion about the brands since the opinions seem to differ much more there.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Sombre hit it for me.

To elaborate: I don't see how you can compare 7 damage to ANOTHER FULL ATTACK and come out on the side of 7 damage as being universally better. The CR on the brand is often useless since undead are already 100% CR, and the AoE doesn't beat a second swing in many cases in terms of chaff control. Additionally, the SoSwiftness is the best (non-unique) defensive 1-hander you can get.

It's not a weapon for weak, cheap raiders, it's a weapon for nice SCs that have enough strength to really administer beatdowns with each swing, even if they're just using a toothpick. At that point the 4 extra gems over a frost brand for the 2 points of defense and ability to really multi-attack your opponent's defense down starts to look like a great deal. Pair with chi shoes for yet more defense and you get 3 attacks for a full square-clear each action against the common size-2 chaff. (Including skelspam, which a frost brand sucks against.) Oh, and add weapons of sharpness from a support mage and the extra attack really leaves the slight bonus damage from the brand in the dust since it increases the damage-prot differential substantially.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Micah,good points.
I still would mainly niche use it dual wielding with ambidextrous thugs/Sc`s.
Dont forget that the frost brand got 4/2 att/def.So the first strike is more likely to hit than the first strike of the SoS.
That way,you might get more often the full 16 damage with the brand ,whereas the SoS profits a lot more from every subsequent attack,missing the first 9 damage here and there.
But,to exploit that, u gotta dual wielding it ,missing out the shields...it essentially becomes a 2h weapon for 10 W gems then.
Certainly not a underpowered one ,though,thats sure.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

You can't remove the pillage bonus from the axe.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Ok,since i will be away for 1-2 days soon,i will summarize what we got so far:


1-Handed Items

-nerfing the Fire and Frost Brand is undecided

-improving Sword of Swiftness is only of minor importance,if at all

-making the Shadow Brand stronger and more expensive seems declined

2-Handed Items

-improving Wraith Sword by quite a lot is accepted

-certain other 2h items need to be improved is accepted

Shields

-Vine shield being overpowered is undecided
(how does the strength check exactly work?)

Uniques

-making fever fetish non-unique is declined

- the need for a new easier available earth booster is accepted
(personally i like the idea of making the tome of gaiea non-unique and naming it e.g. bloodroot manual(like sombre said) very much)

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I would like to point the discussion now towards the Hell Sword a bit,i mentioned it already in the opening post.
Its certainly better than its "Death cousin" at the moment,but still underpowered imo.
And if you make the Wraith Sword stronger,u gotta make the Hell Sword stronger,it feels.
I do share some concerns here though,that have been brought up for the Wraith Sword.
Fire and Blood magic is only for some nations and Blood is easily massable.That way,the Hellsword could easily be made overpowered.

Current stats are:
15 Blood/10 Fire , 3/0 Att/def,9 damage
Partial Life drain,FR 50%,Berserk +3

Its the special effects that make it better than the WS,but the raw point values are slightly worse,simply too bad for a heavy 2 handed weapon,meant to be Construction 6.
I think one of the following ideas would be thematic:

1.Increasing attack to 6 or 7,maybe increasing damage in addition,to like 12-14
or
2.making it Armor piercing and maybe increasing attack to 4-5

What do you think?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

My thinking was more in the line of effectively removing the axe and creating a new weapon with fear and the same look, but no pillage bonus.

Is that not possible?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

It's not that the pillage bonus on the Axe is weak, so much as pillaging itself is just pretty much a waste of time.

The RNG does like handing out Implementor Axes; at least I've frequently gotten a few. Or maybe I just notice them because they mostly sit around in my lab.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Why not just increase the damage and stats on the axe so someone might think about actually making/using one? I mean, so it has a pillaging bonus... whatever. That's not worth anything, so it shouldn't effect our valuation of what it does and what it should do.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

No. It's also pointless, since you can just boost the imp axe and ignore the pillage bonus no-one cares about.

If you want to know what's actually possible rather than having to ask me or assume anything, I suggest looking in the mod manual. In fact no-one should be allowed to post in this thread unless they actually understand what can be done to weapons/items via mod commands.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Well, I'm glad it's been clarified who is allowed to post in this thread.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

He's got a point. There are plenty of people suggesting things that can't be done by modding. They are even suggesting that these things be done after posts which explicitly state that those things can't be done. I think it's been mentioned twice now that the pillage bonus on the implementor axe can't be modded out.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Your sarcasm has made me see the light. Let's all suggest things that can't be done and argue with each other about them at great length rather than spend the five minutes or so required to understand the limits of weapon and item modding. You know, by reading the doc readily available to every single person who has patched their game up to date. Expecting people to have done this before weighing in is nearly as unreasonable as expecting people to have used CBM or actually played dominions before posting here.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

A sarcastic response to sarcasm. How novel.

I could spend time arguing this but it's pointless. It's really very simple. You are not one to let an opportunity for snideness or obnoxiousness pass. It's what you do.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Wow you sure piled the irony on in that one. Let's get back to the thread though shall we?

What about underused magical spears having the #charge tag? This has already been modded in before and allows for some nice tricks with high AP thugs. Consider the spear of sharpness - currently never built over the sword of sharpness. But if it had charge,..?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Sombre. I just finished browsing the modding manual. I was just about to suggest the same thing you did. All spears should have the charge effect. I don't think it will make the items that more usefull, but at least they would be more interesting. [Edit - by spear of sharpness you probably mean stinger. And the answer is yes, if the spear had the charge ability I would consider taking it as a replacement for the single handed sword of sharpness on occasion.]

---------------------

I have a question about what #type and #weapon, or #armor do for magic items. Would it allow us to say the bloodstone is a weapon or armor, and in addition to what it normally does, also have the ability of the armor/weapon?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Lets do a general comparison between 2-handed weapons and one handed weapons.

Single Handed Sword of Sharpness:
Damage - 8
Attack - 1
Defense - 2
Length - 2

Two handed sword of sharpness:
Damage - 12
Attack - 2
Defense - 3
Length - 3


[ EDIT - I am showing a couple other items for comparison ]
1 handed bane blade:
Damage - 6
Attack - 1
Defense - 2
Length - 2

2 handed bane blade:
Damage - 9
Attack - 2
Defense - 3
Length - 3
**********
Enchanted spear:
Damage - 7
Attack - 3
Defense - 2
Length - 4

Enchanted pike:
Damage - 9
Attack - 3
Defense - 1
Length - 6
******
Most of these diferences are not nearly enough.





Is the difference between these enough to ever warrent getting the two handed version of the single handed version and a shield? I would always get the single handed version. If the two handed is not powerfull enough, how much should it be raised by? This difference could be a guide for all two handed weapons. The two versions of the bane blade could also be compared.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

For the wraith sword I have the following suggestions:
- raise its basic stats the same amount that most two handed weapons should be raised.
- Give it either a secondary effect of area fear, or a secondary effect of weakness. Or does the current life draining ability already count as a secondary effect?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Yes any item can be defined as granting weapon and/or armour. The key thing to realise is that weapons/armour and items aren't the same thing at all - it's just that armour slot items generally grant armour with the same name and weapon slot weapons generally grant weapons with the same name. But there's no reason not to have, say, a sword and some armour with completely different names granted by a misc item.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I understand that. Would we be able to :
- select the blood stone.
- change its type to be armor
- attach some armor from the armor list to it.
- rename it to bloodstone armor, and give it a new sprite
- change the cost to make it more expensive

Then would it still grant the abilites of the original blood stone, (i.e earth + 1, and auto gen earth gems) as well as have the stats of the armor it was applied to?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

One could increase the defense values on those weapons so that they are closer to what you'd get with a shield. The shield still gives you the extra protection, secondary effects, and missile protection.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

You would change it to a body slot rather than changing it to be armour, but yeah, you can do that no problem.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Imo,i think its thematic to raise the damage output for most 2h weapons..
Its somewhat thematic to raise Attack values for some.
But raising defense,except by a low +1 or so, isnt thematic for most.
After all,it are heavy weapons damage-wise but more difficult to use.


Ideally,it should be that...
-1h weapon + shield should still be the top choice for defensive purposes
-2h weapons should be made a good choice in the future for raw offensive power and special tasks,like anti-sc,etc.

For that to work,2h weapons not only have to be a chance stat-wise vs 1h weapon+ shield,they also need to be somewhat balanced with dual wielding 1h weapons,like the Sword of Swiftness.

Also,it has to be considered that equipping 2 items means spending gems 2 times.
In the case of the Sword of Sw,this means that its more expensive most of the time(2*10 W gems).

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

we should discuss before,if we want the wraith sword cheaper than 25 D Gems.
Because,if it stays at that price, we would need a higher boost to its stats.

Personally,i would prefer to see it available at Death3,for 15 gems.

Keep in mind,that ,modwise, making it D2,D3 or D4, would resemble gem costs of 10,15 and 25 death gems.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I think you could justify added def on some two handed weapons. Two handed swords for instance are pretty good defensively because of the way they can be gripped and used to parry. But something like a pike shouldn't add to def because in dom3 def is the ability to dodge and evade (see falling frost, trample, earthquake) rather than hold the enemy back.

I think the wraithsword would be better at 15D at D3. At 25D it has to be very powerful before you'd consider forging it. Something that would allow you to deal large amounts of damage to enemy thugs, or make you significantly harder to hit/damage.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I like that.

The #flail tag and the #nostr tag could also see more use.
Imagine a 2h weapon(implemantator axe?) doing like 26 damage,but with #nostr ,so that strength isnt added.Might be useful for low str thugs.
Regarding #flail,that +2att vs shield could be nice little boost for some 2h weapons.
But thats not all,since shield hits are ignored with flails,at least thats what the manual says.
Thats a pretty powerful tool vs 1h weapon+shield builds.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Agreed with sombre on all counts. Most of the other two handed weapons are explicitly large and unwieldy, but most of the two handed swords could use a boost to defense. I don't know about some of those artifacts though, for example the stone sword already has 7!

Sounds kind of like the gate cleaver's younger and wimpier cousin.