Mage Shields

[Amorpho]

Ok, parry here is a dead loss. It's useless in both PVP and PVM for a number of reasons.
However, if Shields were to be meditable (at least leather ones) and would not be dropped with the use of spells, they would be extremely useful for mages in both PVP and PVM. But maybe these would overpower mage-builds? What if they were special crafts or rare drops?

 

[leer0ybrown]

Just give shields some magic resist potential and parry will be right as rain.

 

[Amorpho]

That could be a way of balancing things out. Defending both from physical and magic attack. That would benefit all types of characthers. However, the problem is that weapon based characters would have an edge. Whereas you can swing your weapon at a mage as much as you want, a mage can only fire as many spells as his mana allows... If you reduce the effectiveness of his spells, you basically make it impossible for him to kill you with one single mana-bar.

 

[Don Key]

parry potions

 

[halygon]

Oh they would be extremely useful is right. I'm fact, they would flat out be OP -- which is why we do not have roach mages on this shard.

 

[leer0ybrown]

That could be a way of balancing things out. Defending both from physical and magic attack. That would benefit all types of characthers. However, the problem is that weapon based characters would have an edge. Whereas you can swing your weapon at a mage as much as you want, a mage can only fire as many spells as his mana allows... If you reduce the effectiveness of his spells, you basically make it impossible for him to kill you with one single mana-bar.

I was thinking mostly in PVM terms. If shields reduced magic damage, they'd probably be used a lot more. You could also buff parry by having it apply a parry chance to your weapons. Maybe some 2h templates would pick up parry if it resulted in better survivability.

 

[Amorpho]

That could be a way of balancing things out. Defending both from physical and magic attack. That would benefit all types of characthers. However, the problem is that weapon based characters would have an edge. Whereas you can swing your weapon at a mage as much as you want, a mage can only fire as many spells as his mana allows... If you reduce the effectiveness of his spells, you basically make it impossible for him to kill you with one single mana-bar.

The only way around this problem would be introducing LMC (Lower Mana Cost) items like in AOS, something which I know players on this shard would simply hate... But at least it would "spice" things up a bit in PVP and resurrect a skill (Parry) that, in my opinion, should not be so irrelevant in a fantasy game.

 

[thestand]

On another shard a successful parry would stun the attacker. Had a "cool down" timer for players and no cool down for monsters.

 

[Amorpho]

I think that would make it even more OP. I think players should have to chose between parrying with a shield OR stunning with a bare hand.

 

[leer0ybrown]

I think that would make it even more OP. I think players should have to chose between parrying with a shield OR stunning with a bare hand.

How would a short stun make parry op? 2h fencing weapons can paralyze you, maces wreck your armor (pretty sure they have another special ability), and lumberjacks do concussive blows which takes away some mana. I'm failing to see how trading another 100 pts from a build for a short stun on a cooldown would make it op? Think about it. That would mean in order for a dexxer to do full damage and have parry, he would have to drop magery, hiding, resist, alchemy, inscribe, or poisoning. That's one hell of a trade off. If they dropped tactics or anatomy, they'd just be gimping damage. Lest we forget the other 100 pts that lumberjacks already sacrifice for the increased damage. I'm just really curious to see what your reasoning is.

Now that I think about it, to fix parrying AND shields with this armor non sense, they could make parry apply a bonus chance to block attacks based on skill level. Then, instead of shields giving a certain armor amount (which reduces the amount of damage done by every blow), they should simply have a bonus effect on parry chance. So say maybe a 5% chance to parry a blow completely at GM parry, with maybe a 20% additional chance with a heater shield, that decreases based on the size of the shield. In other words, a GM parry with a heater shield has a 25% chance to block an attack. The parry bonus from the skill itself should apply to all 2h weapons. So with just a 2h weapon and no shield, you have a 5% chance at GM to parry a blow.

 

[Capt Cid]

Parry needs a buff. It would be nice with the release of the third account to see some new builds around here. I remember the good ol parry warrior days....

 

[Don Key]

Make them block purples?