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Post by grrraaaa on Mar 12, 2008 14:32:16 GMT -5
I was considering a hardcore enchanter who used alchemical branding (and brand casting) for magical damage. Can an alchemist's brands do as much damage as, say, a mage or priest's elemental spells?
- Gra
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Post by Variaz on Mar 12, 2008 14:53:16 GMT -5
It has to be tested. With enough points and Spellcraft skill, it could be very good. Guess you'll have to try it out.
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Post by sekira on Mar 12, 2008 15:15:07 GMT -5
Well, looking at the function Potion_Power() in Elements.lua...
it looks like the potion itself has a brand damage associated with it. I'm not sure if all potions of a particular type have the same brand damage or if each potion as it is generated get a brand damage assigned to it based on depth and such.
since I have no idea what range that brand damage is (it could be between 20 and 50 times depth (like weapon brands), it could be closer to 1/10th of that or even closer to 1/100th of that... I simply don't know) then I really couldn't speculate exactly what you can expect in branding stuff to brandcast from.
I'm not even 100% certain that the above function gives the same potion power that the Alchemy skill description is talking about under Alchemical Branding by potion power...
just going by brands I've seen on objects I find, the highest one by level 17, depth 15 was 1028 I think... if you have 10 brandcasting, and 30 spellcraft by then... you would do 1028 x 3 (brandcasting multiplier) x 4 (spellcraft multiplier) = 12,336 damage with 0 mana and 100% success rate.
I suspect you will be able to create better brands than that though.
If someone who knows more about the new Alchemy skill and using it to brand weapons and gloves could chime in and fill inthe gaps please?
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Post by sekira on Apr 2, 2008 10:54:21 GMT -5
Ok, having played an alchemist now, I can tell you some of the finer points of brands, alchemy, essence transfer, and brandcasting. First of all, in the levels of the beta, I think everyone knows that alchemy components for explosive potions are not the most common things you find, nor are explosive potions themselves. If you want a very reliable source of potions for your brands you are going to have to invest in essence transfer, I would say a minimum of 3 pts, but 5 to 10 is more realistic, but more is viable and means more damage. The way that essence transfer lets you have a reliable source of potions to brand with is that when you transfer a brand, the destination can be either an enchanted crafted weapon or gloves, or it can be a potion... or STACK of potions. So you can turn one weak explosive potion into a lot of stronger explosive potions, and use alechmical branding, alchemical resistance, or just toss them (BOOM! ;D). One thing to keep in mind is that some potions have the MODERATE_POWER flag set. Those are the potions that seem to have a very low potion power, such as the restore potions, and heroism and strength... etc. You really don't want to transfer a damaging essence into one of those potions, because the MODERATE_POWER flag will still be set, and you will end up with a miserably low brand damage. Just transfer essences to water potions, they are cheap and plentiful at the general store. If you are planning to brandcast, then you will want about as many skill pts in spellcraft as you have in alchemy, and those two should be your highest skills. If you are instead planning on just being a potion grenadier, then alchemy should be about twice what spellcraft is. I'm assuming that spellcraft boosts thrown potion damage... I think I read that somewhere, but the scripts and edit files are a bit cryptic on that point. AFAICT, both brandcasting and throwing potions are returned by magic returners. This makes kobolds a good choice as they get a boost to poison damage, poison is probably the most commonly found explosive potion, and they start with 75% poison resist, and with alchemy and essence transfer you can easily get the remaining 25% through alchemical resistance. Gnomes are crazy big with both +25% spellcraft and +50% alchemy though, so you could attempt to get enough alchemical resistance to get 100% with one element, if you do, then gnomes are the ultimate brandcasters and grenadiers. Don't count out Zulgors though. Because of their element conversion to chaos, and immunity to the same, they don't have to worry about what kind of brand they have, or about alchemical resistance or about magic returning. Also, if they are going the grenadier route, they have lots of str to carry hoards of potions without being slowed down (a stack of 99 potions weighs 39.6 lbs). EDIT: I just wanted to say that essence transfer is a must for both grenadiers and brandcasters, but if you are going mostly brandcaster, then you don't need quite as much of it. With a high enough alchemy, 5 essence transfer is all you will ever need, because your brands are limited by your alchemy, so more essence transfer is wasted, you still get the max brand for your alchemy. Grenadiers are a different matter, because their potions thrown damage is not limited by alchemy like brands are. 15 or even 20 essence transfer by level 25 would not be a waste for a grenadier.
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Post by Variaz on Apr 2, 2008 12:19:14 GMT -5
I would recommend you get Piercing Spells if you're a Zulgor though. It's not like Quazar is afraid of chaos.
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Post by sekira on Apr 4, 2008 10:50:44 GMT -5
Ok, so I started a gnome brandcaster last night and at level 16, I gotta say... wow. Who would have thought that the little often ignored gnome could be so bada$$ I dual wield 2 daggers with 7000 ( ) damage light brands, and I use a boomerange with a 7000 damage light brand. my skills are 35 crafting (43 with bonus) and 40 alchemy (70 with bonus). even with a very modest 6 str and 18 dex (all from tweak points... my level stat gains have all gone to con. Almost 2500 hp at level 16 ;D) I have almost 450 to_h, and 13 attacks/6 attacks with those daggers. I also easily got 100% light resist on my eq from alchemic resistance, so who cares about magic returning? I'm in the fidac ruins right now, and all undead are vulnerable to light, so "a walk in the park" doesn't even begin to cover it. I have 7 spellcraft from my crafted eq and with brandcasting 1, my brandcast is 12,000 to 14,000 damage. Yes that is before vulnerability. Not to mention I carry around a dozen or so water potions that I essence transfered with light damage... 28400 potion power, and I think that is before spellcraft boosts it. If I'm right, then it will be almost 50k damage for those really mean bosses. Big V, does spellcraft boost explosive potion damage? Some other things that make me like alchemy every bit as much as crafting are the strength and heroism potions. those boring little +5 str potions that only last 10 duration for people with 0 alchemy, are 40!!! str and last 45 duration for someone with 70 alchemy! Heroism gives a 40% boost to_h and to_d for 45 rounds too (I believe, haven't actually tried that one)
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Post by Variaz on Apr 4, 2008 10:55:02 GMT -5
Yes, it does!
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Post by phlinn on Apr 4, 2008 11:09:20 GMT -5
So how precisely did you reliable acquire light brands? I was thinking of using the justice warrior's holy weapon ability for it. And your current build would be mega fun with a celestial +25% to all light damage...
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Post by sekira on Apr 4, 2008 11:36:30 GMT -5
I got lucky and my first time down in the Udor dungeon found 2 light branded weapons. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but you don't need that strong of an original brand in order to get the strongest potion that your essence transfer level allows. Like I started with a 77 damage light brand and it gave me 99 Water Potions (4550 Light, 2 radius) With 5 APs in essence transfer, that is my max of 50 base potion power (then adjusted by my alchemy skill of 25 - at the time, it is higher now - to 4550) After that you can use one of the essence transferred potions to keep getting more of the same essence. So really you just need to scum for that first one. I was lucky and got it before I could even use it so no need for me to scum for one. It just sat in my home until I got essence transfer.
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Post by phlinn on Apr 4, 2008 12:14:33 GMT -5
You can trasfer to a stack of potions? that seems like a bug.
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Post by Gando on Apr 4, 2008 13:51:54 GMT -5
Not just a bug but an exploit.
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Post by sekira on Apr 4, 2008 17:05:14 GMT -5
I disagree
If you could only essence transfer to a single target, then it would only work if that goes for absolutely any target.
that means only one potion, only one weapon, even only one ammo.
that would be massively overnerf! It would make playing any kind of alchemist, whatever they use for combat, impossible.
What about a compromise? Well, if you can essence transfer to more than one object, even if it is limited, then you will be able to transfer one of those to another group, and one of those to another, and one of those to another, etc, etc, etc. So it make such a compromise pointless.
I also take offense at being referred to as exploiting a bug. After all, I was the one who reported the bug with essence transferring a strength potion, and I haven't exploited that one.
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Post by Gando on Apr 4, 2008 20:09:23 GMT -5
Sekira said: that would be massively overnerf! It would make playing any kind of alchemist, whatever they use for combat, impossible. I guess we agree to disagree once more. Alchemists are powerful in their own right without the Enchanter class. And without the Essense Transfer ability. I think that being able to transfer a meager brand into insane branding is not just broken and a bug but using it is an exploit. HOWEVER this is rather a victimless crime since the only one you are cheating is yourself*. You seem smarter than that to me though. I do not think saying that this is an exploit indicates that I feel you exploited it. On the contrary I applaud you bringing it to light so we can kill it. But take offense if you like...thats your perogative of course. ==Edit== *This by the way is a general use of the word "you/yourself" not a personal use of it. I realized on rereading that that it might be misread.
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Post by sekira on Apr 4, 2008 22:21:22 GMT -5
Sekira said: that would be massively overnerf! It would make playing any kind of alchemist, whatever they use for combat, impossible. I guess we agree to disagree once more. Alchemists are powerful in their own right without the Enchanter class. And without the Essense Transfer ability. Uh, let me rephrase. Such a change would make playing any alchemist that uses alchemy for thier offense impossible to play. Sure alchemy can help with any build, but if you want to use it for your primary offense, essence transfer AS IT IS WRITTEN is imperitive. You actually used the word cheating this time. Unbelievable. I'd like you to explain to me how it is a bug and an exploit when that is exactly how V wrote it to work. I suppose V could have made a mistake, but this doesn't look like an oversight to me, it looks like it is working exactly like he intended it to work. But, just to be absolutely sure, lets ask him instead of just making blatant accusations of exploiting bugs, shall we? I mean, it is true, I could be wrong. Maybe he didn't intend it to work this way, but lets hear it from him... Variaz, does essence transfer work the way you intended, or not? I am smarter than that, because I didn't exploit anything. It is only an exploit if you believe something is a bug and you use it anyway. If you use a feature, but it didn't seem like a bug at the time, then it isn't exploitation, even if it turns out you were wrong later (though I highly doubt that is the case here, but I'd like to hear from V about that). Oh, and I didn't bring it to your attention so "we" could kill it. I was just sharing my excitement about another type of character build, that I believe adds more enjoyment and replayability to an already awesome game. Also lets not take things totally out of context. I'm only doing so well because I'm in an all undead dungeon and I got lucky and found a light brand at a low level. I could probably make a straight caster that was much more powerful than my alchemist at level 17 if I put my mind to it. I'm quite certain that my zulgor was more powerful at the same level. Don't nerf something that isn't overpowered man.
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Post by Variaz on Apr 4, 2008 23:40:36 GMT -5
The fact that Essence Transfer can be used on a pack of potion wasn't really something I thought about, but I can see that there's definitly an exploit here. Buying 99 potions of water, and then using Essence Transfer is a really easy way to get good potions. Perhaps too easy.
However, the fact that it works on a batch of potions does make the Batch Brew ability more interesting, and it's no worse than a scroll of Magic Item that also works on a stack of weapons. Perhaps what needs to be done is to still allow Essence Transfer to work on potions stacks, but perhaps put a limit to it's power based on the potion's base brand damages. Perhaps limit the power to the potion's base power or something like that. After all, the goal of Essence Transfer, as far as potions are concerned, was to allow you to create more types of potions, not necessarely to create potions more powerful than what the base skill can do. So capping the max damages at the potion's base power would seem fair. Sekira's strategy could still be used with potions of cure light wounds, but it would be weaker and more expensive, but more balanced I believe.
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