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| Author | new alt-wiz class |
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Out of desperation for seeing how little wiz are loved by our twinnies, I have been thinking of a way to make it up, and perhaps regain the good graces of them gods.
The general idea is to counter what makes them dislike us so much: our all-power.
"zapping around and that's all you do, no matter what", they say. Fine, so let's make the class troop-dependant like all others.
This alternate version would have a strong relationship between the wizard and his troops.
His body is frail, yes, but his knowledge of arcane was completed with that of raw matter, and years of study in the mystical arts made the wizard understand what underlies the law of nature, what binds, what create chaos and order.
He understood that as all vessels, his body is limited, but where one can't stand the power, several will have no issue in taming greater forces.
So he creates a network of creatures, binding himself in the middle of it; they are vessels, empty shells, or lesser creatures; all they have in common, is that they can contain, transport, and unleash the power that he commands, taking off the strain of it from the wizard.
He no longer needs to accumulate it all in himself, nor he needs to carry the burden of spells to battle. They will for him, and he'll command all magics through them.
Yet, although this setup opens the way to greatest powers, it also have a drawback: without his minions, the wizard will be very weak.
He now needs them to learn the art of fight, for from now on, they must survive.
This new alt-class has access to ALL magic school spells.
BUT, the wizard can only select 7 spells, during the setup process, and bind them to the stacks (one stack, one spell). Bound spells are invisible to all players, so only the wizard know what stack has what spell.
During combat, the wizard can only cast a spell if the stack is still alive.
Exit the magic-related talents: the amounts of troops in the stack will define the spell level: up to 33%, it will be cast at basic level, up to 66 at advanced level, and up to 100% at expert level.
Mass spells are bound with their individual version, but can only be activated when the stack's health is above 50%.
The alt-class unique ability would allow the wizard to choose his troops among all wiz and alt-wiz tiers.
1st level would unlock gremlin engineers, 2nd wreckers, 3rd ench. gargoyles, 4th grotesques and so on.
For the sake of habit, I'd leave the special neutral-creature-spell-damage-multiplicator, for now.
The wizard's talent wheel:
Central talent : "resorb". when a stack dies, a given amount of mana is added to the lord's mana pool.
the rest of the wheel: defense, attack, sorcery, luck, leadership and erudition.
Yep, that means no more DoF for this alt-class.
Creatures (amount similar to those of normal wiz, NOT BW):
Keep in mind that this class creatures ought to be resilient something that can't just be killed in 2 shots from the opposite part of the map; and yet customizable (customization is the key word for this alt).
For instance, lodestone golems that can't be boosted no matter what where the biggest failure for BW.
1st tier: Dunno about gremlins. Waiting to see what the devs could suggest.
2nd tier: we recently saw dark and twilight (or something like that) gargoyles. One of those would fit the job perfectly.
3rd tier: diamond golems. Probably limited to a smaller amount than other golems, but with the option to increase if switched to another alt-tier 3.
4rth tier: I really hated how battlemagi became useless. No more fireball, no chastise, little mana, and no more Intellectual vigour. They can shoot (so could the lorekeeper) and that's all. Even basic magi are better.
So for this one I'd see some casting unit, that would have access to dispersion, magic punch and one other spell in the lvl 3 (or 4) range. Personally I'd love a "summon elemental" spell (remember the elemental does not inherit the stats from the lord). | (oh, and more than 10 mana for the mages!!!)
5th tier: some sort of "wild genies". They can't cast random spells, instead they can use "teleport" 3 times in a battle, with the usual HP conditions for this spell. But on the other side, they are incorporeal, immune to elements, and fast.
6th tier: sphinx mummies. What else? :)
7th tier: immortals. These creatures have a high attack and 200 hp.
Besiege, immune to mind control, fullmetal, large shield, shield allies, magic mirror 50%.
well, that's the general idea. Thoughts? :) | stacks have spells? does that mean every stack is a spell caster? what spells will the hero have? None at all?
Also don't understand if a stack will have any offense capabilities, you did say leadership and luck talents. But what is the purpose of them if you are using your troops for something else all the time. | 3# I think (From what I've read and understood) he means that before battle, you can choose ANY 7 Spells from all Magic Schools.
The Drawback of this is that each of them has a bond with a Stack, so if the Stack dies, he wont be able to cast the Spell.
But no, the Monsters are not Casters of that Spell, the Hero is.
Personally I'd love a "summon elemental" spell (remember the elemental does not inherit the stats from the lord).
???
Yes, it does.
Or maybe you meant "Make the Tier 4 Summon Elementals that DO NOT Inherit Stats of the Lord", unlike the normal Spell does.
Regarding the Idea, I think priorities before this are:
1) Finish the Alts of Dwarves and Tribals.
2) Rework/Balance Units and Talents of the "Oldest" Classes (Classics), such as Zombies, and Talent Wheels.
But meh... Why not. | To make the standard wizard more competitive is a very simple solution actually.
Improve the recruitment conversion between gargules to gremilies/golems. Increase the overall amount of mages/lorekeepers.
That's it.
With these, they'll have a more offensive units at disposal, which means they'll be abled to deliver more damage with their army and faster. At same time they'll lose the old tactic of "I am getting out of here" since the amount of gargules would be decreased anyways. | and i thought nobody cared :)
in the right order:
#3
Ipsen got it right.
The lord still cast the spells, but only as long as the stacks that he bound them to are alive.
Think of necro's "spirit link" as a working mechanism.
4#
I may be mistaking, there, as I only played elementals very seldom, and because I was maximizing the stack, of course had horrible stats. So of course my elementals seemed to stay at base stats, hence I thought "fine, so they don't even get my atk/def" (which doesn't matter, as either you get lots of weak ones, or very few stronghish ones.. it's either SP or ATK..).
Well, it could be easily arranged by having the elementals inherit some stats from the creature that summons them (with some sort of divider/multiplier as it already happens on other spells, like wasp swarm "push back" ability).
5#
That would make a little more damage and not faster at all. And if you look closely, it's pretty much what was done by adding BW.
Gremlins are mashed-paper, they die thirteen to the dozen whenever a breeze blows (engineers are slightly better, but not that much, no matter how many you recruit), and the damage is ridiculously low.
Golems are pretty much unplayable, with all opponent units having 8+speed, and them only 4 and low ini. Takes 3 rounds just to reach the front side of the map and deliver ONE hit (if ever they reach it). Pretty much the same for modern golems, although they are the only unit with an useful battle skill (unlimited retaliation). But that only helps in endbattles where there are several low-numbered stacks against them.
And magi/lorekeepers can't be protected, they'll kill their own allies in order to shoot.
Mini arts only help a little, a few days ago I compared a normal wiz with mini arts and a BW, both at min AP : guess what, they sum up quite close. Only difference, BW would make more damage due to the SP setup and fortune genies.
And remember classic wizard is the only class that has no luck skill available to boost the damage output.
Truth is, wizard troops are there only to allow the wizard to stay on the battlefield and zap stuff. Can't just increase them, need to change their mechanics and give them useful battle skills. | Gargules have an extremely low damage output, they cannot engage in melee combat because of that. This non damage is compensated with very high speed and health for their tier level. So by decreasing the total amount of gargules avaliable and improving the trading off into units that were more offensive like, you'll get a lot extra damage, because that is coming from something that never existed to start with.
Gremilies are papper? HP + Def mini arts makes them extremely tanky being pratically not viable to be killed at range, only at melee.
While not having fury is a huge draw back on their total damage output, if their numbers increase considerably they'll do damage by numbers. Look at skeletons they can deal damage, and they do not count with mini arts that boots attack power. The major different between gremilies and other tier 1 units would be while the others archers can deal a lot damage, the gremilies could survive a lot pressure. Also besides their own vitality, they also have some extra 'hidden health,' which is the repair for golems.
First off, the golems could reach the other side in two turns with speed mini arts. And second off, this isn't a unit designed to be offensive, instead this is a unit designed to block a path and keep retaliating or assist on an offensive near their starting location and at same time blocking the passage of the units that came to destroy your units. They're meant to block, be attacked, be repaired. That's their goal, but unlike gargules that cannot deal any damage, golems can deal quite a lot in comparison.
Mage/Lorekeepers doesn't need to be in front to be effective, since magic puch and fireballs can deal some damage on its own merits. The formule could also be slighly enhanced in favor of bigger stacks though. If they're put in front, it's a gamble of risk and reward not a must do, sure they will be abled to potentially deal more damage, but they'll get exposed as the drawback. All in all, they can do a decent job while they have mana, after they're out, you can simply move your units at front (if they're still alive) or move them aside, either way this unit shouldn't last much longer anyways. | | And by the way, the normal wiz will never ever be as offensive the BW. This is their charm and the entirely reason to choose them to play with. Each faction offers a different playstyle, that's pretty fair, as long it's viable. | for Angel of Death:
Holy wizards at my level are absolutely hellish to deal with. They have a lot of survivability and don't need more damage. I will admit though, chaos wizards seem underwhelming at least to me. But, as for playing in might build, if the fix to some weakness they probably have were to reduce their tankiness and let them deal more damage then that's pretty the forte of battlewiz already. | for Angel of Death:
I can have up to 100 gremmies with 1.5 average damage as classic, or 200 as BW with 2.5 avg dmg (fury); see how total HP is the same but dmg more than 3 fold (3.33).
Necro can have 440 skels (fl 11), about 4.5 times the damage and twice the health.
Fury barby can have 300+ goblins, with fury and vitality (5 HP and 2.5 avg dmg) for more than 5 folds the damage and still more HP (1500 VS 1200).
TL;DR:
Engineers have neither the damage nor resilience (yes, paper gremlins...) and mini arts won't make up for several times more HP or damage, this is more in the range of 30/40% difference and I took into account the HP one in my calculations.
For repairing, this is a joke because it amounts to 400 HP for a full stack and one-time ability (about 10 golems with HP mini art). In comparison a full stack hits for about 1K damage in full AP. In practice ennemy kills gremlins first (shooter) and golems last so you never get to use the ability anyway. | Truth is: BWs are the new Elves.
Part of their Damage comes from Luck (And the other half from Armor Burn), and they are as squishy as Elves (Imo).
Holy wizards at my level are absolutely hellish to deal with
Yes, the problem is that most of the players are very Narrow-Minded, and they cant think outside the "BW with DoF" Build.
I have seen many many Might/Holy Wizzards win GBs with glory and awesomeness. :P
People should try new things. Idk... BW with Ring of Frost Build, maybe. | Everybody got a point, but yet, my point would be to have a "magic" class that can be effective AND do something else than *zap* *zap* *zap*.
That is, use other magic and be self-supporting.
The suggestion above is for a class that can build pretty much any sort of magic build, without being overpowered (hence the limit to 7 spells and the bond to the troops), and actually use magic, not might (albeit, magic to customize their troop's might) to (try and) win the game.
I mean, I see the wizard as somebody that wins by magic. Of course might builds are possible, but they defy the point of a wizard, don't they?
And the fact that the most useful spells would be bound to resilient troops (like golems, why not), would "oblige" the opponent to kill those first, and allow skills like gremlins "repair" to be actually of some use. Beside, thanks to the racial ability, repairing only a few diamond golems (with an offensive spell on them, for instance) may prove actually useful, surely better than the
bunch of modern golems I had to cope with thus far. | Holy wizards at my level are absolutely hellish to deal with. They have a lot of survivability and don't need more damage. I will admit though, chaos wizards seem underwhelming at least to me. But, as for playing in might build, if the fix to some weakness they probably have were to reduce their tankiness and let them deal more damage then that's pretty the forte of battlewiz already.
Fair point. Overall speaking my biggest concern would to not turn the melee build overpowered with these changes.
Surely there is fixes for that, but it would restrict and/or turn some current playstyle unviable anymore.
So yeah, that's a big problem.
(5 HP and 2.5 avg dmg) for more than 5 folds the damage and still more HP (1500 VS 1200).
Well, to get vitality you'll need to dump 16 talents points, which is quite a lot, also let's be honest with vit that is very focused on gobs, surely boars and tyrants could benefit a little, but tier 4 owards won't.
You forgot about their repair, which gives an extra 4 health per unit, so it's an total of 1600 in a 100 stack.
Differently from the barb which realys entirely on their army to deal damage, the wiz hero would absolutely murder these goblins or another unit which requires more atention (and that's the entire difference and the whole point why they grems cannot get fury or be isanenly buffed up). On top of that grems have an amazing initiative, which would cut some numbers before the enemy could shot (remember any damage they do, will be a damage that you never had before, since gargs doesn't contribute to the dmg dealing at all.), and when they get shooted, will just scratch at best. While the wizzy hero unleash mayhem. The goal is to get survivability with some offense and not go nuts on offense.
(about 10 golems with HP mini art)
Why would you want to take hp mini art? It's counter productive on repair and you really could use a 3rd mini art.
You'll need defense for survivability and attack for survival (more kills = less damage damage afterwards) plus make the enemies hitter pay dearlier. The last art could be to cover his major weakness (speed) or to try to make them act a little bit more often (init) although this last one kinda sucks for them.
HP mini arts is only a viable choice, when you do not plan recruit grems. | for Angel of Death:
HP and DEF is what you want to make best use of infinite retal.
Well, to get vitality you'll need to dump 16 talents points, which is quite a lot, also let's be honest with vit that is very focused on gobs, surely boars and tyrants could benefit a little, but tier 4 owards won't.
That's what the average fury use in PvP though. That's like necro using vitality, it's not very strong for other stacks but if you have T1 then you have vitality. Up to orcs its stronger than base defense talent anyway so not exactly a waste.
You forgot about their repair, which gives an extra 4 health per unit, so it's an total of 1600 in a 100 stack.
Come on. If you max both, and max genies, then you can't have any lores. At that point you have no shooters besides gremlins that die first turn. That solves repair. Also against sentient ennemies golems don't get hurt until gremmies are dead, only the AI does it the other way round. Nobody use a combination of golems and gremlins because it doesn't work.
Differently from the barb which realys entirely on their army to deal damage, the wiz hero would absolutely murder these goblins or another unit which requires more atention (and that's the entire difference and the whole point why they grems cannot get fury or be isanenly buffed up). On top of that grems have an amazing initiative, which would cut some numbers before the enemy could shot (remember any damage they do, will be a damage that you never had before, since gargs doesn't contribute to the dmg dealing at all.), and when they get shooted, will just scratch at best. While the wizzy hero unleash mayhem. The goal is to get survivability with some offense and not go nuts on offense.
Please check my CG level. I don't use grems because I could never got it to work and I never found someone that did. I tried using them, killed 4 GMB before they shoot and then they got killed. Instead of theorising, show me how it's done because in my log is shown how it doesn't work. Initiative is only good if you can kill something with that. You only tried to counter the goblin point anyway, but I showed that every other T1 shooter is stronger literraly a dozen times. | | Uh guys.. let's not make this a discussion on wizard nerfs/buffs instead of discussing OP's idea. | HP and DEF is what you want to make best use of infinite retal.
Sigh.
Increasing their health with their limited recruitment and overall high health pool won't change much. If and only if you're not planning to use grems, then hp mini art would be viable, infact would be a pretty good choice, but with them? Nope, it simply isn't worthy.
Attack mini arts will enhance their first strike/assistance and retalation damage, which tranlates into more kills.
That's what the average fury use in PvP though. That's like necro using vitality, it's not very strong for other stacks but if you have T1 then you have vitality. Up to orcs its stronger than base defense talent anyway so not exactly a waste.
Necro has more units that benefits from vitality. (Up to tier 4, and more tier 1 units), also for individual empowerment they do not have other options, plus it's a very resilient castle which has a good synergy with defense talent tree. Since defense talent will become a must have into some builds, the basic defense cannot be considered as something going into different direction in order to unlock a specific talent, as such vitality is for fury barb.
Come on. If you max both, and max genies, then you can't have any lores.
That's why I said to improve the trade between gargules into golems and grems (more golems and gremilies per gargule!) AND increase the recruitment count from mage/lores for free. (or at very least improve the formule of spells on bigger stacks size)
ennemies golems don't get hurt until gremmies
Well, without speed mini art, surely you'll make the life of your enemy a hell lot of easier to ignore them. Anyways a well positioned golem WILL engange in combat, and WILL receive repair, either by being in the way or by being the first unit to strike and get the retation, then he'll be repaired.
my CG level
That's the whole point, to get it more viable to higher levels!
At CL 5 - 7 this set up is insanely good (and yet, nobody uses it.), however when more units keeps being introduced and the might factions start to building a bigger advantage on melee contest and at same time the wizzy army start losing more and more their damage output, part because of the gargules drain alot of potential dps from the army... The result is very well known. While it could work at higher levels, playing as BW would be so much easier and more effective at the point of not making sense to stick with the standard wiz anymore.
One possible solution for this problem is what I've suggested, better trade between gargules into golems/grems. More mages/lores or improve their formule.
Another possible solution would be enhancing the repair and increasing the number of mage/lores or improving the formule for them.
HOWEVER this could lead to a overpowered result for might wizzy users.
So in order to counter that, it would be necessary some tweaks... I though perhaps adjusting the mini arts in someway that it will favors chaos/nature wizards over the might ones (SP/KN will play a role into the mini arts calculation bonuses), but at same time the might users must still be a viable option. Something more or less that utilizes a base number, fsl and sp/kn into the formule.
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Uh guys.. let's not make this a discussion on wizard nerfs/buffs instead of discussing OP's idea.
With the risk of being a bummer... If the admins doesn't take simplier and easier ideas to implement, something that would require a whole new level of balancing and mechanics to work from CL 5 till 21+... It just doesn't seems that is going to happen at all.
However, I think a new version of the wizard with different creatures and playstyle could be pretty fun. IMO I think having access to all spells at mass for holy/darkness plus chaos and nature, it would be just OP.
If something more simplier such as the wizard being the lord of the elementals, with new creatures and such, could | | be potentially fun. (kinda like the TDE with some twists.) | Although i think we all agree all classes are good at some level more than others, that's not the point: problem to solve is to make magic users more "loved", meaning stop putting might over magic with the excuse that "magic users only zap with hero".
I want a magic user to be able to play magic and obtain the same results as a might one, even if that means take more risks.
Beside the fact that to get wiz units to compete might-wise with other factions they ought to be doubled in numbers (which is totally illogic), this does not solve the problem: MAGIC, not MIGHT.
Now to answer the only comment toward the suggestion :
having access to all spells at mass for holy/darkness plus chaos and nature, it would be just OP.
Agreed. But that's the reason why caster can only choose 7 spells, can only do it at the beginning of the battle, and can only cast them as long as the stacks are alive. And the fact that a spell goes down from expert to basic with the stack reduction, evens out.
It requires strategy. MAGIC strategy.
The problem of magic zappers is that when you get to endgame with one stack each, they can still wipe your army leftovers because they have full magic.
With this build, that would be no more. At the beginning of the fight, all players would have full power, and at the end, they would all inflict reduced damage (and maybe the wiz won't have any offensive spells at all, if you killed the right stacks). | Agreed. But that's the reason why caster can only choose 7 spells
7 Spells cannot be under rated.
You could go as a full support with holy spells like stoneskin, chatise, haste and at same time get darkness as weakness, confusion, delay.
The only faction that could do that without the assistance from his units would be the white knight, and that would cost him above 70 talent points.
You could also get a different setting, such as summoning elemental (phoenix with MG 5), then switch to dest magics and cast firewall when the enemy attempt to kill someone at the corner.
Or perhaps you could even mix all from the above, like casting weakness on the enemy, stoneskin on yourself, summoning an elemental (or phoenix), spamming chaos spells and then cast a fire wall if needed.
Heck, you could even cast blinding to render the most important units from the enemy useless or puppet master when MG 5 is introduced, same for world of light, amargeddon, vampiric aura, ressurection... These spells were broken.
Even if you're allowed to cast these spells only once, it would still be OP.
However, if you fight a long battle being abled to cast a spell once only, soon you'll become a useless magic wize person, however ironically would be OP on the might side, because this build settings would allow to steamroll with the very best spells at ZERO talent cost, leaving you free to take offense, defense and leadership? You even want to add some extra free attribute points with the 'resorb.'
Also this kind of setup would bring 2 insanely problems.
1 if the spells power are based on your SP, then people will stick with a darkness/holy build full might path.
If the spells aren't based on your SP and instead on the stack number, then you'll be free to put all the points into the might path.
It's restrictive and it would incentive people for being might and spoling the best magics.
Yeah, I dig you want a different route than chaos, something more tactical approach on the battlefield, that could be the key of the winning or losing.
That's kinda what each magic school stands for, in a different way...
However, if you wanted a alt with the talent access to holy. darkness, nature, chaos and then something else... That would require invest talent points and attribute points to get specific combinations, then that would be a lot easier to balance. | I'll prove you that this suggestion is balanced.
Always keep in mind that a class strenght comes from a combination of things: SkillP put in attributes and talent points.
Might builds use once skillP (generally for atk) and once talents (to boost).
Magic build needs 3: he pays a double tribute in SkillP (both in spell point and knowledge) AND he still needs the talents.
My suggestion tends to bring that back to 2 as it is for all other classeS.
You could go as a full support with holy spells like stoneskin, chatise, haste and at same time get darkness as weakness, confusion, delay.
The only faction that could do that without the assistance from his units would be the white knight, and that would cost him above 70 talent points.
Yes.
That makes 6 spells, assuming all are cast as mass version, 3 full rounds for the caster (less if he has sorcery, and guess what, that alone can be up to 30 TP, already). Say he cast chastise first. Then opponent hit 1 to 3 of his stacks. He loses at least 50% of those spells already - what if none of the 3 was chastise?
Second round, let's cast delay on opponent (that spread his troops on the field in the meanwhile), say 3 stacks are touched.
Another one stack is reduced to half - no more mass spell for that either.
See how it goes? You don't have any 7 spells all along the battle. Only at the beginning, you can choose one, then, very soon, you'll lose the ability to cast most of them.
Now, to make comparisons:
classic wiz: has access to all magic schools (darkness up to lvl 3 thanks to genies), but since his troops are crap, he can either be a support unit (and get killed ASAP) in group battles, or stand alone as a chaos. Also he can't control darkness spells, so it's up to the blind girl if the spell will be useful or not. This makes already a class with all acces, but as we all know, its all but balanced. It's the only class that needs double skill points (SP and KN) to make his talents work (when might get a talent, its output benefits from it right away).
You could also get a different setting, such as summoning elemental (phoenix with MG 5), then switch to dest magics and cast firewall when the enemy attempt to kill someone at the corner.
Let's not talk about lvl 5 guild, since it's not introduced, yet. we don't know how, when and if it will be.
But assume summon elemental, fire wall, and chaos magic.
I summon elementals. Either i have crap stats (because i summon a bunch of them) or i get less than half a dozen due to low SP. Skill points are the same for all, and if you have tried playing elementals (I HAVE) you must know that the problem is not the 16 TP that it cost to unlock them.
It's that you can't get a viable stack to work with.
So i have my 24 elementals (assuming 15 SP) and i had to summon them at fist, or else can't boost them. opponent turn comes, he kills half of my firewall stack.
Should have done 160 damage, will do 144, now. And already 33 mana gone (how much do i have? say i put 10 skill points in that, and took intellect - 150).
Before the next round, let's assume opponent only killed stacks with unwanted chaos spells (ice ring, clod, magic Arrow). Because some will be definitely dead, by the 3rd round. But i still have an untouched lightnin. So let's get rid of their shooters.
Yay, 34 wardens off, 180 to go..*doh!*
Maybe my dominion of tempest will slow them down. Oh wait, i don't have dominions.
I'm down to 4 stacks, 3 and 1/2 spells, one of which I can't reuse (because if you re-summon elementals, the stack is replaced) and it's his round. imagine the rest.
And remember those 25 points in SP and mana? Guess what, that means i have that much less ATK and DEF.
Comparison:
TDE, with 4 knowledge, summons a huge bunch of spiders or harpies. And can boost (thanks to the T5) and debuff. with little to NO SP and the central talent ONLY!
Guess where his skill points go? In ATK...
Heck, you could even cast bl |
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