Invokers and you..

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flib
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Invokers and you..

Postby flib » Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:28 am

Ok.. I posted these thought's in Pril's tiamat post.. but I thought it would be better to make a seperate post just to make sure my ideas got heard.. Invokers.. ok.. this is mainly dealing with one issue.. that issue being that invokers don't go to tiamat anymore. so as having said that here's what I think. Change MR and add PR I made this post before but noone really said anything.. there needs to be a physical resistance for mobs like dragons and stuff.. Invokers should be the best damage dealing class vs. any opponent in the game.. The reason for this is their frail nature and the fact that without a meatshield they go down really quick.. there needs to be some change in either the way dragons work or the way spells work or the way some melee classes work to accomidate the invoker. The fact that what is supposed to be the highest damage dealing class in the game doesn't get to go to the best zone in the game really sucks. I love this class and think it's getting dealt a great disservice because of this one aspect.. thanks.. any thoughts or comments always welcome :)
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Postby Dalar » Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:16 am

Fixed in 2.0. Seriously. Archery fixed.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.
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Postby Thilindel » Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:49 am

Or add some passive skill that as an invoker gains levels, his spell is (self only) pierce magic or magic reduce in nature as a bonus.

Rogues or Rangers aren't too great against wraithform mobs. Clerics aren't good against other clerics (solo) etc. Each mob vs. player tends to have a weak aspect. Hrm, Lich is relatively weak against golem, non-undead wraithform, or elementalists are weak against plants -again relatively- etc. I do like the aspect that not any one class can be 'solid' vs. all types of mobs. I really can't think of a class that all in one.

And by no means am I saying classes are equal! :) I do hate playing invoker. My invoker dies more than any other of my classes in zones. Patrols tend to walk in as I area and I am whisked quite briskly to the 'Welcome to Toril' screen.

I completely agree that invokers are missing 'something' but what? They can't drag spells. They can't tank for shit. Ah well...what to do!
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Postby flib » Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:56 am

if yer talking only solo invo's are weak against all.. as liches have pets.. rangers/rogues have armor/sneak type ability's as an invo.. unless u have crap tons of healing potions soloing anything is literally a joke. as to the idea that being that soloing as an invo is completely a joke they shouldnt have weaknesses when it comes to dealing damage if they have some type of protector aka tank. that's what Invokers are for crying out loud heh the ultimate damage class that can't solo for crap. the idea of spells that negated mr is an interesting one and am not sure why it's not imped here..
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Postby Corth » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:28 am

Get rid of that one trick pony class already... seriously.

Shev can't admit his mistakes. When he implements a bad idea it stays in forever. Sorry, breaking classes up into super specialties is exactly the opposite direction that should have been taken. Its a dumb class for dumb people. The only class more boring to play (albeit difficult) has to be enchanter, another bastardization of the original sorceror class.
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Postby flib » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:23 am

ya, i'm not dumb. but thanks for implying that, w/e the fact is they are in the game and they need help. Your input is always welcome even if it's completely out of context and mildly scathing.
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Postby Thilindel » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:31 pm

I was surprised to see the origin of some of the spells, given enervate as it is now was from lich and given to chanter, for example. Seemed so weird. Especially lich having shadow bolt (negative) and now it's illusionist spell. Scribing taking two seconds for 10th circle was so great.

Anyhoo, so much for derailing! I wasn't trying outright to say solo'g vs. invoker for here. Only people who have a big peepee and a big claim that they solo'd their way to lvl 45 as an invoker - *gag* Invokers are definitely outdated. Alleged 'kings of spell damage' can't even drag spells nor cast them into the next room. When I put those type ideas up before, of course, only the Anti-Change Force Five type players reply. When you don't adapt, you don't meet the needs of the changing around you. *shrug*
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Postby Llaaldara » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:40 pm

Invokers had their day. We were once the most powerful class in the game, damage wise. It was out of hand. Groups would take nothing but invokers and just roll over zones with all the massive AoE dmg. You had one rogue for a whole group, if that. Now it's the reverse because of MR. Our strong AoE got drilled, but it was necessary. Khanjari rogues now rule the scene because they are sustained and less prone to dying the second a pat comes in while their attacks are going off. Warriors have an easier time rescuing them. Clerics can heal them easily.

Invokers are NOT a solo class, and they should not be changed to become one. I didn't solo mine up as an evil, or as a goodie, and I don't think that should be changed now. Changing invokers up to do the most dmg in AoE again, isn't going to solve the problem. It will only flip flop things back the way they were.


The main solution to all this, is not in code, it is in area design.

Zones simply do not have enough trash/adds/spawns mobs. The kind that spawn before a battle, and during it, to bring need for AoE. If anyone here has played WoW, they know about the 'add's factor. There you need AoE nukers to drill down the spawns with low hps that hit incredibly hard. Therein lies the solution. Zones simply need more trash/spawns without MR running around en masse that are best handled by AoE.

Then you'd see a return of the invoker in groups. If in Tia each pat had 10-30 spawns with it that showed up during the course of the battle, which 2-3 invokers could beat down each wave quickly enough as they appear, you'd see a desire to have them in groups.

Even populating hostile zones with random patrols of low level, hard hitting, and no MR mobs and you'd see a return to the desire to have AoE classes. The harder they hit, the more AoE you'd want in your group to kill them faster, and as a result take less dmg upon your party.

Furthermore, I'd also like to see a drop in the amount of MR of mobs towards single target damage spells. I did not say remove it, I said 'reduce' it. Doing so would free up area writers to be more diverse in their handling of adds. They could have a few strong ones, or they could have many with less hps, and variations ini between. This would change dynamics within the groups. From 1 voker, 2 voker, 3 voker groups.


In Summary:
-Leave Invokers as a non-solo class
-Introduce more adds/spawns into zones for necessary AoE dmg in groups.
-Reduce MR of single target damage spells.
-Let Invokers return to their roll as best 'burst' dmg dps class in the game.
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Postby Thilindel » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:52 pm

Some things in the game truly don't make sense. Like how Waterdeep salesmen are !backstab. Yet you can assassinate crazy high mobs. I just don't get it. But for soloability, invokers never could do it. They're screwed in mobs usually start fights with that bash crap. Awhile back, Shar or some guy had said the rate at which mobs start fights with bash was 'reduced.' Now it's usually certain anyway. So, no. Invokers will _never_ solo things at this rate.

I wouldn't call quaffing stone pots, heal pots, etc as soloing in the first place. That's time consuming, useful utility consuming, and so forth. When a khanjari just stupidly procs over and over, that's ridicul..er, solo'g
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Postby Pril » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:05 pm

Thilindel wrote:Some things in the game truly don't make sense. Like how Waterdeep salesmen are !backstab. Yet you can assassinate crazy high mobs. I just don't get it. But for soloability, invokers never could do it. They're screwed in mobs usually start fights with that bash crap. Awhile back, Shar or some guy had said the rate at which mobs start fights with bash was 'reduced.' Now it's usually certain anyway. So, no. Invokers will _never_ solo things at this rate.

I wouldn't call quaffing stone pots, heal pots, etc as soloing in the first place. That's time consuming, useful utility consuming, and so forth. When a khanjari just stupidly procs over and over, that's ridicul..er, solo'g


There are certain mobs vokers are great at soloing it's just a matter of timing and other stuff. Invokers can be play'd as mind numbingly as spamming inferno in a zone or as creatively as you want. It's all a toss up and i don't think that quaffing potions for stone means you're not "soloing".
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Postby Sarell » Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:04 am

I'm not so sure a volley of force missiles is less worthwhile than a volley of arrows? Especially if the illusionist fluxes, which you seem to have forgot exists. Have to ask a god to leak that one for us. There hasn't been a tiamat group with 10 invokers in it yet, but I bet it would do okay. You know what would PWN, a group with 10 psis! At the time when invokers were going to tiamat we were only getting tiamat groups of 25, which effectively meant missing 5 damage characters so it's hard to compare with the current runs. I think 5 more of anything would have got the times well under the 8 hours we got on a good run.

One of the main reasons we started taking rogues over rangers or vokers to tiamat was because the rogues available were better players who would actually bother to go on the damage runs. Then many of those players made rangers to do a bit more damage.

Invokers do really good area damage. And they don't depend on gear to deal damage so they can actually have better AC and HP than a lot of rogues / rangers for survivability on runs.

Talking about invokers and soloing seems a bit futile. While Oteb did some pretty funky stuff solo they just aren't designed to solo stuff really. I can think of better ways to do it than healing potions however.

On one hand I agree with Corth that it would be the most ultra boring single faceted class in the game to play. On the other you could just spend your whole time in groups talking shit so that could be fun!
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Postby torkur » Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:00 am

Having done tiamat this incarnation as an invoker I will never do so again. It sucks compared to being a rogue. Invokers are wonderful for all the demons and patrols in the first part and would probably speed things up if people swapped out a ranger or two for them in that section.

That said, they SUCK in the dragon part. Not because of damage, but because they have to be standing and survive to do any. They get knocked down a ton, have no evasion or defensive skills to speak of, and generally don't have time to get off a spell and live for the short, fast runs you need to do. People also try to do dragons in smaller groups so healing can keep up and that negates aoe without going into cast time and high abort probabilities.

Invokers are the best aoe in the game. Tiamat doesn't need much aoe. That's just how it is designed. Talk to a leader and I bet you can still do tiamat (hell, we never hit over 28 today, 2 empty spots) but you'll not be "required" and should make an alt if you want to farm tia regularly.
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Postby Malia » Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:35 pm

Shrug there are diffrent ways to play classes... and corth may not find Enchanter fun or think of it as a bastardized class, i personaly think its one of my favorite classes. Superb tanking ability, Solid damage, Blinds, Rays, all the stuff you need to solo. Also has great group ability, great zone ability.... all around one of the most needed classes no mater what you do, solo, small group, big zones. Also one of the most fun classes to play because there is never down time. Chanting isnt for everyone... its a tough class but its a great class if played right. Voker is just ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ i didnt enjoy it at all but if played right has some sweet solo ability too but most vokers arent -150 ac with 117 agil with stoneskin wands. Shrug... Being able to dish out that kinda solo damage while tanking is fun. Explore the class to the fullest before hating on it =)
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Postby Malia » Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:36 pm

Shrug there are diffrent ways to play classes... and corth may not find Enchanter fun or think of it as a bastardized class, i personaly think its one of my favorite classes. Superb tanking ability, Solid damage, Blinds, Rays, all the stuff you need to solo. Also has great group ability, great zone ability.... all around one of the most needed classes no mater what you do, solo, small group, big zones. Also one of the most fun classes to play because there is never down time. Chanting isnt for everyone... its a tough class but its a great class if played right. Voker is just ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ i didnt enjoy it at all but if played right has some sweet solo ability too but most vokers arent -150 ac with 117 agil with stoneskin wands. Shrug... Being able to dish out that kinda solo damage while tanking is fun. Explore the class to the fullest before hating on it =)
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Postby teflor the ranger » Tue Mar 18, 2008 4:43 am

I might suggest that more non-dragon mobs be added to the Tiamat zone. This might allow for greater non-dragon damage needs.
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Postby Sarell » Tue Mar 18, 2008 11:37 am

Agree with Torkur that getting knocked around can suck, hence my psi suggestion! Anyhow, I can tell you that a druid can out-damage a full healing dragon, so I'm sure an invoker or a pack of them can easily.
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Postby Llaaldara » Tue Mar 18, 2008 5:11 pm

Sarell wrote:Agree with Torkur that getting knocked around can suck, hence my psi suggestion! Anyhow, I can tell you that a druid can out-damage a full healing dragon, so I'm sure an invoker or a pack of them can easily.


I guess it is a shame that more mobs don't disarm players more. That being the equivalent to knockdown to rogues.. well sorta.
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Postby Emarin » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:01 am

Sarell wrote:Agree with Torkur that getting knocked around can suck, hence my psi suggestion! Anyhow, I can tell you that a druid can out-damage a full healing dragon, so I'm sure an invoker or a pack of them can easily.


Just wait til they implement all the changes to creeping doom that was suggested in the ideas section! =) yay!

As for vokers, let's just get sandstorm back and make everyone happy. Cause then we'll start complaining about how vokers are now overpowered.

As for vs. tiamat, it's not that vokers can't be used to do that zone, it's just that the strategy that was devised makes it so that invokers just aren't as useful as a ranger or rogue. That's all there is to it. If you can come up with a great strategy that involves vokers, then perhaps they'd be used in tiamat more. Having gone to tiamat a few times, i can say tho, it's nice to walk in and instantly pew pew a dragon with arrows, as opposed to waiting 3 secs for force missiles to fire off, in which you may be dead before you even finish casting.

What I'd rather see is something done about feedback so you could take more vokers. It'd be nice to be able to cast 2 different same circle area spells, especially like in izans when you start that first fight with literally millions (and millions!!!) of little troopers. But yea, it'll all be addressed in 2.0 no?
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Postby Ambar » Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:01 am

It isnt that invokers have been nerfed or rangers have changed at all .. Archery code has been like this for YEARS .. It just took this long for us to figure it out and to use it to its best bugginess .. Ask anyone who has done Scorx over the last few months .. its a ranger fest now as well ..

Until 2.0 comes in I dont see any huge rewrite to rangers for something that hasnt changed in forever .. just the opinion of a non ranger (mine is only 43 or so and has been for years) and non invoker type person.
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