Magic Items under CBM

[Jarkko]

Amorphus, if you had the choice of crafting a Hero Blade, a Frostbrand+Vineshield or a Wraithsword, would you honestly even consider Wraithword? Lifedrain *is* good, no question about that, but IMO Wraithsword simply sucks donkey-poo compared with the other options available.

[Illuminated One]

Especially as the Standard of the Damned has the same cost.

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Quitti

Any sizeable death income tends to veer towards tartarians, not somewhat useless 2h weapons that cost a ton. I could see this argument if you used athame (ie. Blood Thorn) as your example, as blood is cheap and easy to get to those nations with access to actually forge the aforementioned item in general, and it allows you to actually wield either another 1h weapon or a shield alongside it. I don't know if this problem is due tartarians being so easy to get or being so cheap. Either way, I wouldn't certainly lose out two tartarians (gemwise, counting without hammer which would bring it down to around 1½ tarts) to a 2h weapon that can be surpassed in many ways by several 1h weapons at con4 or less.

So, because death has powerful summons available it should also have powerful magic items?

I do not agree and moreover, your comparison is rather suspect for several reasons.
Wraith Swords are available at construction 6, Tartarian Gate requires conjuration 9. There are a lot of research points in between. This is not even considering the availability of a sufficiently accomplished death mage.

The powerful Tartarians are also not quite as cheap as that. Sure, summoning one is a mere 12 death gems, but what you get is only a commander in 20% of the cases. If you were just spending death gems you would need an average of 60 gems to get a commander. Using 15 nature gems you can bring that down to 12 death gems.
That said, when you fulfil all the prerequisites, you will indeed seldom choose a Wraith Sword over a Tartarian. However, the same goes for a lot of things when you have everything researched.

Originally Posted by Jarkko

Amorphus, if you had the choice of crafting a Hero Blade, a Frostbrand+Vineshield or a Wraithsword, would you honestly even consider Wraithword? Lifedrain *is* good, no question about that, but IMO Wraithsword simply sucks donkey-poo compared with the other options available.

It depends. Which is sort of my point.
Even if we assume that I have all the paths necessary to craft all the options, necessity and gem availability might make the first two choices much less efficient than a Wraith Sword.

Consider for a moment a situation where you have a big beefy guy who needs some form of regeneration and reinvigoration. Neither the Hero's Blade nor the Frostbrand+Vineshield provides that, which means that you must fork over about 20 nature gems to attain it. Furthermore, as you are big and beefy, the Hero's Blade while good is nothing special and your opponents might not be very impressed with cold damage. Some of them may be naturally immune against cold, others through magic. And you may need your nature gems for other things like diversification or GoRing.

Maybe you want to set up a Tartarian factory. If you want to GoR your Tartarians you need as many nature as death gems, so if you have a larger death than nature income, you have more death than nature gems to spend.

It is a mistake to only think of situations where everything is researched and all gems are in equal demand. I can of course only speak for myself, but it is not uncommon for me to get into mid and late game with huge difference in gem income even in the paths I have covered in full. It has certainly happened to me that I had more than double the income in my most numerous gem kind than in the two following together. And that without any gem generating global up.

[Tollund]

You'd be better off in almost any real situation to just forge a standard of the damned over a wraith sword.

[Sir_Dr_D]

There is no reason that every item needs to be equally usefull. If some items are more used then others that is fine. If a particual item on average is only used once per multi-player game, and that use is a valid tactical option at that time, the item will have served its role. We just want to make sure there isn't items that are never usefull.


I am not all that familiar with the wraith sword, but would it not be a good counter against thugs and SC's in certain situations?

[Psycho]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

I do not agree and moreover, your comparison is rather suspect for several reasons.
Wraith Swords are available at construction 6, Tartarian Gate requires conjuration 9. There are a lot of research points in between. This is not even considering the availability of a sufficiently accomplished death mage.

The powerful Tartarians are also not quite as cheap as that. Sure, summoning one is a mere 12 death gems, but what you get is only a commander in 20% of the cases. If you were just spending death gems you would need an average of 60 gems to get a commander. Using 15 nature gems you can bring that down to 12 death gems.
That said, when you fulfil all the prerequisites, you will indeed seldom choose a Wraith Sword over a Tartarian. However, the same goes for a lot of things when you have everything researched.

That's not true for the simple reason that you will be saving death gems throughout the game, so that you have enough available once you reach conj 9.

[Valerius]

Following up on one of Amorphous' points, the proposed gem cost changes to the various brands have the net effect of helping SCs and harming thugs. A few more gems investment in an SC is not a big deal but thugs need to be equipped cheaply. I also don't think frost/fire brands need to have their damage nerfed. Though they are commonly seen weapons they aren't unbalancing. And again, SCs will benefit nicely since thugs will pose less of a threat to them while their own generally high strength will enable them to still do plenty of damage if they use these weapons. Of course, I doubt they'd choose a frost/fire brand since they'd have an AOE and AN (!) weapon available in the form of the boosted shadow brand. Everyone has their own opinion of balance but I prefer not to do anything to make SCs stronger and I think that's what these changes amount to.

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Tollund

You'd be better off in almost any real situation to just forge a standard of the damned over a wraith sword.

In most cases you are probably correct, but I can certainly think of exceptions.

You are not really doing that much damage with the standard and the defence rating is very bad. For strong commanders the sword may be a better choice. You do not get as much life leech, but you will kill your opponents much faster and they will damage you less. Also, four-armed units can combine an attack with the sword with other weapons, while the standard cannot be used in such a fashion.

Originally Posted by Psycho

That's not true for the simple reason that you will be saving death gems throughout the game, so that you have enough available once you reach conj 9.

Aside from the thing about gem-flow, this presupposes that you are at liberty to wait for effective thugs and SCs. A Tartarian a couple of years in the future really does not help when you need something now.

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

It is a mistake to only think of situations where everything is researched and all gems are in equal demand.

Of course! And I think that's a common mistake which CBM authors often do.
As for Brands, etc., it was a main CBM trend for some time to make AoE items cheaper/easier to research. This also includes Boots of Behemoth at 0 Construction currently, and Evening Star at 2 Construction (don't remember current version, but it was some time ago - I used it with devastating results).
Wraith Sword is quite useful - though it's possible that Standart of the Damned is better. But on the other hand, the latter reduces bearer's combat abilities, so he can be swarmed and needs bodyguards...

[Mardagg]

Very nice discussion,keep it on guys.
I got several new/slightly altered ideas in my mind,but i will wait a bit befor posting them.

Just a few thoughts so far:

-Fire/frost brand should only nerfed for damage value,not making it more expensive.They should still be a very good choice after the nerf...say you make the fire brand from 12 damage,to 6 or 8.
Its still armor piercing,its still only 5/5 E/F gems,its still only cons 4 ,its still got ok att/def being 1-handed and its still got the main thing:Area of effect damage.
I think many people here are underestimating the Power of (a) armor piercing attack,which effectively doubles the damage vs every mid to high level opponent and (b) being 1 handed and cheap,you easiliy put on a shield for much better def/prot and more special effects/resistances.
Any 2 handed weapon therefore has to overcome the combined strength of a 1handed weapon and a shield or two 1handed weapons to be a viable choice.

-My idea for the shadow brand is to make it much better but much more expensive.AN damage is an idea,but for this to be balanced i would reduce the base damage.
I just think its thematic.I look at that sword and think it should bypass armor.Also its meant to be Cons 6 that could be a seen as a hindsight from the devs imo.

-Wraith sword and Regen/reinvig aspect is slightly flawed,since u need to hit first and you actually need to deal some damage at least for max partial life drain.
Now,if you look at the combat mechanics,a wraith sword with that pretty low At/def values has a tough time actually hitting a Shield+Sword kitted SC,not to mention its pretty hard to inflict damage with the abysmal low 9 normal damage vs say 24-30 Prot guys with shield...
I agree it should not be made that powerful again like it was in Dom2 ...but....at the moment we got it at least 2 times less effective for 2.5 times more the price compared to dom2.In addition,there are much better weapon choices in general that compete with it in DOM 3 and CBM did make some other weapons even more effective.

-really balancing the spell paths is very,very tough.
But e.g. its basically pretty easy to say nerf the frost brand just a bit,but then make the sword of swiftness slightly better if the majority is worried about Water magic after the slight nerf.No big problem there.

Basically i want to improve diversity,make more choices viable besides the like 90% standard kits of brand+shield.

-i agree with the fever fetish regarding more micro,therefore i no longer support making it non unique again.