Gunners and Mana

[sekira]

Ok, if you are thinking of playing a gunner, it is a good idea to be a mana caster. There are a couple reasons for this.

1. The single biggest reason is the Magic Bullets Ability. Bullets are half a pound each, so it is difficult to carry a huge pile of them, and they always disapear when you use them, unlike arrows and bolts that only disapear 25% of the time, or 0% of the time if you find a returning arrow or bolt. There is no such thing as a returning bullet, though, once you shoot one, it is gone forever. Magic bullets ability lets you conjure bullets out of thin air, so you don't have to carry too many of them, only enough to save you in a pinch if you run out of mana for magic bullets. Now, magic bullets are pricey, mana wise, they cost 30 mana each to conjure. That and they do less damage, only 3d3 for pistol bullets and 3d5 for rifle rounds, (they can not be removed from your ammo slot, but can be sharpened there with the sharpen shots feat). Now, there is a bug right now where the magic bullets don't just totally disapear when the conjuration timer runs out, instead only 1 of them disapear, and the rest become permanent. Try not to abuse this too much, because I'm sure it will be fixed in the next release or soon after that (well... at least I think V is planning to fix that... I guess I should let him decide that for himself). One of the upsides of magic bulets is they do missile type damage, so they are difficult for monsters to completely be immune to them.

2. Conjuring a weapon can be a great tactic, especially with some of the more powerful Gunner abilities. You can conjure a twin cannon dragon rifle, which already does fire damage in a radius, and then do an even bigger radius with the gunner's rifle impact ability. You can also (this is my favorite) conjure a strong pistol, or even better a pistol with a big magazine to use High Velocity Fanning with. Why use your Copper Revolver with High velocity fanning (6 shots with x3 multiplier and +20 to_d) when you can cast a 2 duration 12-Shots Karingen Special for 140 mana and use High Velocity Fanning and get 12 shots at x8 multiplier and +80 to_d! Remember that High Velocity Fanning lets you fire all the shots that a pistol has loaded (provided your ammo slot has equal or more shots in it) in a single action! Keep in mind that conjured pistols are created fully loaded ;D That and you can aim seperately for each shot! Talk about clearing a room. You can use your copper revolver for most things, and conjure the 12-Shot Karingen for big tough monsters, especially if they have minions with them.

[Gando]

Im just going to say this because it strikes me as not right. Mages should not be able to summon guns or gun parts or ammo...nor should gunners be able to use magic for reloads. Imho it is a feature that needs changing. But if it isnt changed of course this is a viable strategy for a uber powerful mage with guns.

[sekira]

That and you can aim seperately for each shot!

Ok, so I was wrong about this. High Velocity Fanning only lets you choose a direction to shoot once, and all the bullets go there. I was mixing the ability up with how ranged weapons with plusses to number of shots work, such as the Gnomish Repeating Rifle. It is true for those weaons when firing normally, they do get to aim seperately for each shot. So you might consider doing the strategy with the gnomish repeating rifle. only 4 shots are needed, and it costs 132 mana for 2 duration conjuration. The downside is getting rounds (used with rifles) is much more problematic than using bullets (used with pistols) until you have magic bullets that is, then you can get a rusty rifle, conjure your rounds with the magic bullets ability, conjure the gnomish rifle, and empty the weapon on some poor unsuspecting guys in a room, or one poor unsuspecting boss.

[Variaz]

I have nothing against the summoning of guns, nor any other items for that matter. I'm not sure I understand your point of view, Gando... If one can conjure a bow and arrows, why couldn't one conjure a gun and bullets?

[Gando]

Apr 19, 2008 9:15:54 GMT -5 Variaz said:

I have nothing against the summoning of guns, nor any other items for that matter. I'm not sure I understand your point of view, Gando... If one can conjure a bow and arrows, why couldn't one conjure a gun and bullets?

I guess my point of view is that mages + guns = overpowered. Where as bows dont strike as quite as dangerous.

[Variaz]

It's not that overpowered. Sekira's strategy seemed a bit too strong at first, but then, I considered this:

- You have to summon your pistol before every battles, taking an extra move. Not good when you need to act right away. And if you don't kill the foe this turn, you're left rather helpless. And of course, once the conjuration wears off, your hands are empty, and you have to re-equip your gun.
- Fanning takes a lot of ammos. Yes, Magic Bullets will work, but combining Magic Bullets and Conjuration will definitly requires you to raise your Intelligence and/or your Conjuration skill, or the School Focus: Conjuration ability, all of which could have been spent in Dex, Firearms or Gunner abilities, thus lowering your offensive power in the long run(because you will eventually find/craft those pistols you like to conjure).
- 132 mana may seems low, but does require some investment, as mentionned above. Especially if you wear armor pieces. And if you don't, well, it will leave you will lower AC, and therefore more vulnerable to ranged attackers.

So in the end, it's not as overpowered as it seems. It's no better than a melee/mage hybrid who conjures a high quality Halberd to deal massive damages. And right now, Bows seems more fair, but once the Mystic Archer will be implemented, they too will have powerful ways of combining spellcasting with shooting. (although it will be wisdom-based)

[sekira]

I've been thinking about it, and I am convinced that the key to the gunner's weakness is ammo.

of all the ranged weapons, firearms are the ones that have absolutely no way to reuse any ammo they fire. Once you shoot, that bullet or round is gone forever. Period.

Not to mention bullets and rounds are quite heavy and expensive.

So a gunner is forced to...
A) rely on secondary attack to kill weaker stuff, only using their gun for sticky situations or tough bosses
B) Invest quite a bit into intelligence or other mana boosting abilities and then rely on magic bullets ability quite a bit, meaning they have to use that dreaded extra action BEFORE they do anything in combat. Ick.
C) Have tons of strength (meaning less dex) to carry around stacks and stacks of ammo.

C is probably the least feasible, unless you are a zulgor, and even then, tough to pull off because of the gold cost. a gold cost that isn't being replenished as fast because your inventory can't be full of loot as much, since it is full of bullets instead. B is feasible but dangerous, thinking back to a certain spearmaiden that relied on another ability that required activation before every combat. If you rely on the B tactic, you are going to die, a lot. A is probably the safest, most doable tactic, but then you don't get to have all that fun of shooting everything you see! You take away the joy of the gunner.

All 3 tactics require you to invest in something that takes away from your ability to do damage with firearms.

With bows and crossbows, consider that if you carry around a decent stack of arrows or bolts, using them only makes them disapear 25% of the time. So after you have a chance to pick up your ammo, the stack is not 1 lower for every shot you took during the battle, it is on average 1 lower for every 4 shots you took during the battle.

That doesn't even take into account returning arrows or returning bolts. Those never break and you don't have to pick them up, they never leave your ammo slot.

What is little known is that they also don't deplete your ammos loaded in the weapon, so they turn a crossbow into working like a bow (except no multi-arrows, no arc shooting, and with the new changes to rapid shot, crossbows won't have the extra shots that bows have, see the multi-arrows thread in the Forge forum)

And the greatest ability that bows and crossbows can benefit from... the shooting returning shots feat. Now every ammo is treated as returning. This means you can always shoot the most powerful ammo you have found so far. When you find a steel arrow... sharpen it and wear it, and every arrow is now a sharpened steel arrow.

So now I'm thinking archers and crossbow users aren't weaker than gunners, they are just different, less damage per shot, but they can maintain their firing for longer, with less interruptions for loading or conjuring magic bullets. That is assuming they have got a returning ammo, or 70 skill in shooting, of course.

Also, don't discount gunners either, if you have 40 shooting skill, you can dual wield 2 pistols, and fire each of them twice per turn... that is 4 bullets per turn! and wearing 2 of them gives you twice the ammo capacity before reloading.

[Variaz]

Ammos are indeed the biggest problem of Gunners, and no returning shots doesn't make things any easier for them. Also, consider another thing: Blue/Green ammos. It's great that the RNG has been nice enough to give you a green stack of ammos with extreme bonus, but not when you're going to lose it to some random fruit bats or something. Bows and Crossbows don't have this problem.

This makes Gunners great boss killers, but not as good for handling regular mobs. A pure Gunner is more difficult to play than a pure Archer. A good thing Firearms combines well with melee.

[Gando]

I think this subject has already been covered under multiclassing if Im not mistaken. Since the game is designed to encourage multiclassing and using weird combinations of abilities etc I do not agree that the gunner's ammo difficulty is that great a handicap...without it they would be entirely too broken. In addition because of the way the game is set up if you really wanted to you could make returning bullets too, or indestructable ones at anyrate. Also Bow/Crossbow users have the same difficulty but slightly less debilitating because they MAY be able to recover their ammo...There have been plenty of games where Im sure the average archer has fled for their lives never to see thier missing ammo again. (Teleport and then hit the < anyone?) I know that the limited times I played archers this occured often enough. So Im not buying that as a playing field- leveling weakness. I agree that they arent infinitely overpowered because of it There are dozens of ways to over come it.

I still feel magic + guns some what breaks the game but it does not really matter because the way traditional bands work Portralis is fitting right into the whole balance isnt that important niche of the genre. I wouldnt bother trying to fix anything atm...until some of the new features are tested. Lets just get on with the update so we can check out the nifty new things.

[kipar]

When I played a gunner ammo was a problem, but not very big.
1 stack of bullets is enough for dungeon raid (you will be filled with magic items before you'll be out of ammo) - so the main problem is to return to surface at least sometimes and sell loot. Bullets cost also isn't problem if you sell magic items instead of dying each time in dungeon (I mostly die, not return).
Against slow and melee monsters you can use magic bullets (60 mana is enough for most cases) against more dangerous - carried bullets + high vel. fanning.
Immolating shots are somewhat overpowered because they really kill the need to have secondary damage source (against most monsters you can just summon worm, immolate it and then look how your enemies are burned out). So i'm not sure that ammo restrictions changes much in terms of balance right now (though they add nice feeling of power and exclusiveness of your weapon, and it's fine).

[Variaz]

Immolating Shot has now been nerfed a bit though. First of all, damages are now 25% of the original damages as opposed to 50%, and the radius increases more slowly. Also, fields now have 50% chance of disappearing when an enemy crosses them.

[kipar]

50% chance?... Yes, that will really nerf them They'll almost never do damage more than three times so they are useful only against physical-immunes.
Why not just use duration instead of that unstability? Or at least decrease disappearing chance to 10 - 15%

[Gando]

Duration makes sense to me. 2-4 rounds per tile affected, Each determined randomly? I fear to venture further into this without being much of a damage fields player so if it doesn't make sense please ignore.

[Variaz]

I don't like duration. It makes fields more difficult to use, and not very practical. The idea of fields was that you place them, then lure enemies in them. If we enable duration, this will make this strategy very difficult to use.

Besides, I don't think it's that bad. Even if the field disappears when the enemy walks on it, it still causes damages. So with Immolating Shot at ability level 1, the enemies will take 25% extra damages at least three times as they escape your fields. That's still a lot, considering the ability doesn't cost any mana or anything whatsoever.

[kipar]

Sorry I was wrong - somehow I imagine that _Full_ field disappear with 50% chance, not each tile separately. So they are still useful and all ok.