Magic Blocking Enemies

[jellyman]

Down to level 45 or so and having difficulty with magic blocking creatures. In particular most enemies that have mutliple life points seem to block my magic attacks most of the time. I've been boosting my intelligence (227) and I'm not sure if its helping any.

Which factors affect these monster's chance of blocking magic? Is it intelligence? Level? spell power?

[Gando]

Spell Peircing..check out the Elemental Lord for details.

[Variaz]

For magic blockers, it's intelligence + wisdom(the sum, not average) for most magic attacks, except songs, which uses Charisma.

It's basically a test between your intelligence + wisdom vs the monster's level + mind stat. My advice would be to try using a spell that hits multiple times rather than one big spell. Like a chain or a multi effect bolt spell. It's better against monsters with extra lives too.

The Elemental Lord's ability doesn't bypass counters. Although right now, nothing pierces counters for magic attacks, so this might be something I will add to that ability in a future release, because both melee and ranged have counter bypassing abilities, so magic should have one too.

Also note that sphere monsters have the guaranteed magic block counter at a rate of 75%, meaning they have 75% chances of blocking your spells regardless of your stats. For them, you might want to try summoning monsters. Even if you don't have charisma or leadership, their hp is very low, so a strong monster should be capable of handling them.

[jellyman]

So perhaps I should dump my low armour big spell archmage for my high armour five hit channeler (every ability point in channeling, every character stat point in Wisdom after getting early Bee sting) who puts out almost as much damage per bolt.

On the topic of magic returning, that is one of the most frustrating aspects for me of playing a caster (most of my chars). A one point radius 1 element ball with 100 elemental skill will cover most rooms with the radius bonus, and if there is any magic returning monster in the room I can't use any ball spells for fear of insta self kill, unless I get around to building a 100% resist character (came close recently and then decided I wanted a ring of speed more than the last ring of resist 25%). And to use such a spell I have to carefully check every monster in the room for elites (my colour site is substandard, and for many monster colours I can easily miss a boss or elite monster if I don't check manually for status).

Perhaps the circle spell mode (or whatever the one that is centered on caster is called) could ignore returners, to give it an advantage over ball spell mode.

[Gando]

I've always felt the returners make the game extremely difficult in places. It is all about tactics of course but as Jelly points out there are places/occasions/situations where tactical planning won't help and you just get creamed by something you know you'd never do if you were actually the person instead of playing a character who moves by keypress. That is the general problem with RPGs that simulate nasty combat. If you make physical mistakes you get no forgiveness, even if it is because of missing information you wouldn't lack if you had actual eyes on the situation. Some of that can be fixed with UI improvements but really it is just a limitation of computers.

I do feel that if Returners disappeared forever from Portralis I'd not miss them. Or if they were in some way made a little more managable. One of the hardest things to deal with is off screen monsters. Like you are "walking" down a hallway and you turn a corner and run into a mirror ball. do you a) flee? (Not a bad choice if possible) b) Wave at it and make funny faces and generally act like a clown with your reflection until it moves off in boredom/randomness. c) Run at it fulltilt with whatever weaponry you have equipped knowing it will return your damage 10 fold? Most people I think would not knowingly pick c) but that is the default setting in Portralis. A limitation of the genre for sure, but still upsetting. Even if you have telepathy going you won't necessarily see all summoned monsters when they first appear until you move. It is quite possible to run into a mirror ball while moving if you are spotted by a hidden Gnome Summoner guy.

Anyway I am in sympathy. It is a weakness in the game to be sure though I am equally certain some will find the flaw to actually be a blessing since it makes the game all that much more (if randomly) difficult.

[Variaz]

I guess returners do make the game more difficult for casters, and pretty much makes immunities a must when using ball spells. It does take away some races's potential for spellcasting, such as humans or elves. Melee returning can be taken care of using a special attack(which you get with most weapon skills), but magic doesn't have much ways around it.

I suppose I could remove the returners from elites and bosses. The tradeoff would be that immunes would become more common(because the game would have more chances to 'roll' them), but I don't think they are as bad as returners. That would also remove the "double returners" bosses that can be extremely tricky to deal with.

That would leave the question of what to do with Mirror Balls. They are, after all, the low level spheres, and without them, playing a Sphere monster is not possible. The Mirror Ball itself, as a Monster character, offers a gameplay that is unlike any other monsters, being the only playable monster that reflects both physical and magical attacks naturally.

The options would be:
1. Make the Mirror Ball a generic sphere similar to the others, but weaker. Probably change it's name too.
2. Give it a different ability that triggers when you hit it, but not direct damages. (like, you blink away when you hit it or something like that)
3. Restrict their appearence, like making them Ice monsters or something(that way, they would remain playable as Monsters).

We could, of course, just leave them the way they are, and maybe do like Gando suggested, to make them a different color than the alchemy ingredients of that level, so we can recognise them more easily.

[zekk]

You could always get a high magic defence skill. You can dodge the reflected attacks, and the non-magic monsters don't have a great mind stat, which makes it easy to dodge.

Although, there is the change that it will hit you, so you kind of have to save scum your attacks with it....
So, it really doesn't work all that well after all.