Please Allow PM Wizards to Mitigate Their Stat Damage

[taurean430]

Hello Dev Team,

So here's another weird request. I'd appreciate your read and consideration of my concerns if you will. So, here goes nothing... again.



The Problem:


Turning in Marks of the Keeper to Dannato (accessible from speaking to Verisgante in Undead Form) gives a chance at getting Harm Scrolls. They can also drop as a rare scroll from chests. My assertion is the supply does not equal the demand. My PM Wizard, on his 10th (and possibly final) life, turned in Marks of the Keeper stolen from my crafter and got 4 total. I turned in 102 Marks of the Keeper once again to get these. His starting con was 18, which was a choice made exclusively due to this mechanic to reduce the frequency of stat damage. And I am still affected by it often. The mechanism to obtain them requires extended farming or multiple TR runs.

I've intentionally done something I'd never do this life to ensure the ability to make use of them. I dumped Str and put those points into CON/Chr. At level 16 he has 34 UMD without gear swapping. He will be well over 40 by heroic cap and comfortably in the no fail zone. Except, there are practically no scrolls anywhere.

As it stands now, a Divine can purchase an ample supply of heal/restoration/cure/etc scrolls by going to a vendor. Yet an arcane PM cannot purchase Harm Scrolls. WF arcanes can purchase reconstruction scrolls from a vendor as well. There is a definite imbalance at play in terms of the Necro Wizard compared to other Classes/PrC's.

Necro Wizards are primarily dc casters. Stat damage can be situationally crippling if not completely negating the benefits of multiple tr's worth of work. Not having viable choices save dropping form, standing around quaffing Lesser Restore pots/Restoration Scroll/Heal Scroll, and losing significant spell points each time in a reciprocating cycle is pretty darn inconvenient.



Possible Solutions:

1. Allow Necromancers to be affected by restoration effects.

Stopping to drink multiple pots, or building a character to utilize scrolls reliably is deserving in my view of being able to cover their own stat damage. Losing hundreds of sp at a time due to the rate of being affected is unreasonable.


2. Revisit the Circle of Hatred.

This rare item should be allowed to be used by a PM on themselves. It has limited charges and is not overpowered in any way as it its exclusive as well.



3. Make Harm Scrolls available to be purchased

If I can log onto any of my other toons and purchase restoratives, I feel my PM Wizard should be able to as well.


That said, I thank you for the time taken to read my suggestion.

[Charononus]

SIGNED
(forum imitation of John hancock)

[Keylon]

/signed

I just don't get why we necromancers have to deal with stat damage to begin with. Ego Whip from Dreaming Dark I understand but poisons and diseases I don't. How can you poison something that's not alive or give a disease to something that's not alive.

So here's an additional idea give PMs their immunities to poison and disease back.

And why are PM's immune to restores in the first place, restoration is not positive energy its just a buff more or less, were not immune to GH why are we immune to this buff.

Oh and another point, how are Harm scrolls going to be OP, they are level 6 scrolls unless u really put a ton of points into UMD chances are they will have about a 60% activation rate at best. And don't say its a free heal, nothing is free: a fleshy Sorc constantly getting hit and spamming heal scrolls is likely to spend 2k plat on those scrolls, every quest, sounds like a little now but it piles up over time. Not to mention you can't quicken scrolls.

[taurean430]

Thank you for the responses thusfar. I especially appreciate the constructive nature of them.

My hope is that this thread will reach dev eyes so they can gain an appreciation of the problems created by the changes made to poison/disease immunity. And with luck they may understand that by doing so in the way they have, they have left the Pale Master PrC without reliable mitigation for these effects.

[Jorge_2070]

/signed

I was in an Abbot the other day and clicked my eardweller. I forgot about this situation and got the disease and didn't take care of it, then got nailed by the stat damage and died because i had no way to cure it. I tried dropping out of form, but was killed before i could drink a pot. I was so p***d i couldn't see straight for a minute. lol The Shroud, in parts 4 and 5 is another really bad place for this, as well. Harry dishes out disease, poison, and stat damage like it's going outta style and he wants to use up the last of his stock!

I can see PMs aren't truly undead, but count as undead for some things, but not others. However, if they are considered living or undead for a certain area, it should apply to all aspects of that area.

The devs say that PMs are now not undead enough to be immune to getting a disease, poison, or stat damage. Fine. But it becomes illogical and drooling-in-your-soup dumb to then turn around and say that even though you aren't undead enough to be immune, you're too undead to have it cured. If there is enough lifeforce and body processes going on that you can be poisoned, diseased, or have some of those body processes interefered with (i.e. stat damage), then there is enough lifeforce and body processes going on to receive the cure.

I personally think (or at least hope) it was an oversight on the devs part, but like everything else around hear that doesn't work right, they just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.

Please devs., it's an extremely unfair, illogical, and un-fun situation and it's high time it got fixed. Yes PMs are prolly the most OP PrE in the game, but this is not the way to balance them. That would be like introducing lag into a quest, as a way to make it harder. It's lame and not fun.

[taurean430]

The eardweller is certainly worthy of mention here. You get a hit of stat damage after the 1 min buff is up. The one you get 5 mins later though hits hard.

No real way to deal with this devs past dropping form and throwing away sp.

[t0r012]

Becoming one of the undead has, and should have, it's drawbacks.
It isn't all glitter and staring at that dreamy guy from twilight.
------

No real way to deal with this devs past dropping form and throwing away sp

Take a look at the list of AM SLAs and pick one that doesn't make you throw away atleast 75max SP to get to something decent. ( gust of wind I'm looking at you on my force spec Evo AM )

[taurean430]

Becoming one of the undead has, and should have, it's drawbacks.
It isn't all glitter and staring at that dreamy guy from twilight.
------


Take a look at the list of AM SLAs and pick one that doesn't make you throw away atleast 75max SP to get to something decent. ( gust of wind I'm looking at you on my force spec Evo AM )

This is not a comparison. And put frankly it's wrong to introduce a mechanic that now bypasses a traditional immunity without providing access to mitigating the damage the mechanic causes.

My archmage chose not to spend 75 max SP on gust of wind. My archmage can use heal/restoration scrolls and pots without fail. My archmage is not locked out of these choices by way of their PrC. Nor is he immune to them.

Your argument lacks merit and has no place in this thread. But thanks for the bump anyway...

[Sidewaysgts86]

/signed

I just don't get why we necromancers have to deal with stat damage to begin with. Ego Whip from Dreaming Dark I understand but poisons and diseases I don't. How can you poison something that's not alive or give a disease to something that's not alive.

You cant do that to something that isnt alive- But necromancers dont fall into that category. They are not dead, nor are they "undead". Theyre very much alive- and have simply shrouded themselves with negative energy to obtain the traits of creatures that are dead/undead.

Oh and another point, how are Harm scrolls going to be OP, they are level 6 scrolls unless u really put a ton of points into UMD chances are they will have about a 60% activation rate at best. And don't say its a free heal, nothing is free: a fleshy Sorc constantly getting hit and spamming heal scrolls is likely to spend 2k plat on those scrolls, every quest, sounds like a little now but it piles up over time. Not to mention you can't quicken scrolls.

I feel its a bit "op" (if thats the right word) becuase youd be making a resource readily available that can dramatically increase the survival rate of a class that was never meant to have the type of survivale that they already have to begin with. But thats an entirely different matter all together.

For all the power they already have, i do strongly feel that pale masters should have a viable option to deal with stat damage. I dont think "Well they can do all this stuff, so the risk of stat damage is the cost" is a sound reason. That said I dont feel the option should be the same as everyone elses- Id prefer something different in a similar fashion. Id propose something like a spell thats the opposite of restore (Restore btw is to tbe best of my knowledge, a positive energy spell- which is why it doesnt work for pale masters from a lore perspective, can anyone verify this for me?), something like "Deteriorate" . Have it be a negative spell you can cast to give a debuff to enemies, or mimic restore on a pale master.

Just my 02 cents

[Charononus]

As a side note when turbine asked for suggestion for how to have pm's restore their stat damage, (during beta) I and several others suggested having negative energy burst function as a restore spell the same way positive energy burst does for clerics. Instead they decided on harm....... sigh

[Matuse]

I feel its a bit "op" (if thats the right word) becuase youd be making a resource readily available that can dramatically increase the survival rate of a class that was never meant to have the type of survivale that they already have to begin with.

So you would be in favor of removing restoration from working on clerics with the Radiant Servant PrE, and Warforged Wizards/Sorcerers regardless of their PrE?

Bearing in mind that much of this stat damage CANNOT be avoided. Dreaming dark goons will ego whip you without any regards to movement, AC, spell resistance...whatever. It can't be avoided, it can't be prevented, it's completely debilitating, and there's no reason for it to continue existing.

[Vordax]

Take a look at the list of AM SLAs and pick one that doesn't make you throw away atleast 75max SP to get to something decent. ( gust of wind I'm looking at you on my force spec Evo AM )

So how is that the same as having to spend 100 spell points every time you want to drink a lesser restore potion?

[AtomicMew]

Circle of hatred is usable by PMs on themselves. That's pretty much the entire point of the item.

Also, lesser restore pots do work on stat damage in PM form... or at least against symbol of weakness in abbot. Try it out

[taurean430]

Circle of hatred is usable by PMs on themselves. That's pretty much the entire point of the item.

Also, lesser restore pots do work on stat damage in PM form... or at least against symbol of weakness in abbot. Try it out

Don't have a Circle on Half, but I recall it not working when used on myself on my main a few months ago. But the lesser restore pots was a disappointment for me. I've attempted in wraith form this life to use it to counter Ray of Enfeeblement, stat damage from poison and disease to no avail. I see 'Immune' overhead each time. My experience has been the opposite of what I'd been informed of at the beginning of this life.

The question of whether the Circle works, only older versions work, or if it doesn't work has garnered a lot of differing responses from folks I've spoken with. But more specifically, I don't want to find myself farming Abbot to get one and find that it doesn't work.

Seems like there are two, possibly three different versions of the Circle of Hatred out there currently. I cannot confirm this however.

[AtomicMew]

Don't have a Circle on Half, but I recall it not working when used on myself on my main a few months ago. But the lesser restore pots was a disappointment for me. I've attempted in wraith form this life to use it to counter Ray of Enfeeblement, stat damage from poison and disease to no avail. I see 'Immune' overhead each time. My experience has been the opposite of what I'd been informed of at the beginning of this life.

The question of whether the Circle works, only older versions work, or if it doesn't work has garnered a lot of differing responses from folks I've spoken with. But more specifically, I don't want to find myself farming Abbot to get one and find that it doesn't work.

Seems like there are two, possibly three different versions of the Circle of Hatred out there currently. I cannot confirm this however.

Yes there are three versions - the old version, the new unupgraded version and the new upgraded version. I'm not sure which version I'm using,but it definitely does work.

Lesser restore pots also seem to work for me in PM form. The "immune" that pops up is due to the 1d4 heal that accompanies the restore, but it seems to get rid of my stat damage.

[SirValentine]

2. Revisit the Circle of Hatred.

This rare item should be allowed to be used by a PM on themselves. It has limited charges and is not overpowered in any way as it its exclusive as well.

Wait, you mean it can't be used on themselves?

I've been hording mine in my TR cache all these lives in anticipation of using it for self-healing when I do my PM life. For nothing? :-(

[taurean430]

There appear to be multiple versions of the item, SirValentine. I'm pretty confused about it overall but from what I can gather one of them works for sure as intended. That's the version of the item that was around before the devs introduced the upgrade mechanic.

I think the one I had that didn't work (only allowed me to use the harm clicky on enemy mobs or other undead players), was the non upgraded version that AtomicMew references in his posts. It may be that the upgraded one works, but I have no way to test that at present. So instead I am going to take a quick look again at lesser restore pots while in Wraith form sometime today.

[Chai]

Or just make lesser restore pots work in undead form. Theres no reason why a necro should be both vulnerable to stat damage and immune to restoration effects. They should either be immune to stat damage or restore should work.

[AtomicMew]

Or just make lesser restore pots work in undead form. Theres no reason why a necro should be both vulnerable to stat damage and immune to restoration effects. They should either be immune to stat damage or restore should work.

Lesser restore pots do work in undead form. Open your character screen and watch when you drink a pot. Try it out and ignore the "immune" message.

[taurean430]

It appears AtomicMew is correct on the lesser restore issue. Just jumped into Dq2 quickly and the lesser restore pots did work in removing ray of enfeeblement despite the 'immune' that appears overhead.