Mage OP

[Ancient Yeek]

Hi haven't played in a while but am playing a Mage at the moment. Please don't change dimension door too much I think it's a really fun spell. It's so satisfying when you finally reach level 35 and now YES! I can teleport anywhere. I always look forward to reaching lv35 for that reason.

Banishment is probably OP but not because it belongs to the mage more because it's in the game at all. Honestly if you start a level and sit at the beginning and banish every single letter on the keyboard you might as well get a You're Winner Trophy and call it a day. Why would you want to play like that though lol.

I don't really think you need to change the mage it's really fun the way it is. If you have to nerf it I would do so lightly. Things I would think of is having some random curse effects have a % of happening when you Dimension Door. Maybe a Black Reaver might follow you through the door (not able to attack you same turn). You still have option to tp away or tp other so it's not a huge problem. Or Dimension door teleports all monsters around you and yourself to the new location.

So much of what the mage has can be abused I think really it's broken beyond fixing but I don't really feel that's a problem you can always play a different class. Say you take away dimension door and banish you still have that wonderful explosion and mana bolt combo so that no monsters can ever reach you. Mana Channel is fabulously powerful. I agree with what someone else said about their being too much mana restoring items. Currently have saved up 20 pots at the moment more because I never drink them and want them for Morgoth.

I think Mage class has so many abusable things about it that if you tried to fix it there wouldn't be much mage class left. That's kind of the fun of playing it though and I really enjoy the way it is at the moment. Another option for Banishment could be just keep it the same but have it TP enemies away instead. I agree with what someone else said about with Warriors having it easy with 6 blows around. You don't try to fix that one because that ones much harder to start fixing than nerfing mage. Hey teacher leave our Mage alone lol.

Anyway that's my thoughts on it. If you nerf it too much it will become like the old mage and just be a meh. I'll have to go back to 6 blows a round again ):

[Selkie]

"Banishment is probably OP but not because it belongs to the mage more because it's in the game at all. Honestly if you start a level and sit at the beginning and banish every single letter on the keyboard you might as well get a You're Winner Trophy and call it a day. Why would you want to play like that though lol."

Well you obviously can't banish uniques, but I do get your point. Quite often I'll banish Z's just because they spoil the game sometimes but imagine the effort of banishing everything on the keyboard! There are lots of ways to abuse Angband and at the end of the day it's a game designed to provide enjoyment. What you're suggesting sounds like a stressful day at the office, not a fun, relaxing pastime.

[emulord]

Banishment ?s are balanced because they're limited. Repeatable banish is the degenerate thing, and probably should have a % chance of TP other a unit, with higher chances based on the monsters level compared to your own.

Changing it to be 100% Teleother would make it so you'd prefer to Destruct in a case where you'd want to use it, but a % chance still reduces the danger of a level, but not as much, and makes spamming it for each annoying letter worse.

[Pete Mack]

I do carry banishment staffs, but they don't feel unbalanced. I use them in vaults, on time hounds, greater Balrog crowds, etc.

The scrolls i save for the bosses.

[Monkey Face]

I play mages a fair amount (all but one of my wins are with a mage) in large part because I like 0% failure rate. If you want to tweak things, how about making it so more spells come with the short period of being stunned. Don't do that for any of the direct attack spells but do it for some of the other spells like dimension door and the banishment spells (where even if you mass banish, uniques remain and you'll still have to worry about them while stunned for a turn or two).

[Sky]

guys, realistically, there is no way to nerf MBan.

back 30 years ago, when people were playing on horribad 800x600 monitors in 45hz flicker and ASCII, MBan would even occasionaly kill a few high-enough mages through the damage-per-mob-removed mechanic.

But today .. in the world of high pixel count monitors, of game forums and game guides, there's just no nerfing MBan.

Just remove it and replace it with Banish Evil. (the priest spell, which teleports away but does not remove from the level)
Even then it would still clear vaults like nobody's business.
(because really, aside from a few case-specific scenarios, there's nothing MBan does that you can't do yourself with TO, just slower - i clear that big-ass empty no-walls vault with a troll + 2 rods of TO)




i still think that my initial suggestion is currently the most valid, as these spells are un-nerfable, the only solution is to limit the max number of spells a mage knows. Heckin'doodle heck, even D&D has this mechanic.

[mrfy]

Originally Posted by Sky

guys, realistically, there is no way to nerf MBan.

I agree, and we shouldn't try.

Just remove it and replace it with Banish Evil. (the priest spell, which teleports away but does not remove from the level)
Even then it would still clear vaults like nobody's business.
(because really, aside from a few case-specific scenarios, there's nothing MBan does that you can't do yourself with TO, just slower - i clear that big-ass empty no-walls vault with a troll + 2 rods of TO)

Mages don't care about evil. Banish Evil should be a priest spell, and mages should get Banish and Mass Banishment.

i still think that my initial suggestion is currently the most valid, as these spells are un-nerfable, the only solution is to limit the max number of spells a mage knows. Heckin'doodle heck, even D&D has this mechanic.

No, no, no. Lots of spells and mechanisms can be abused. Personally, I choose to limit my use of Banishment, Mass Banishment, along with Destruction scrolls & staves, unless my character is in truly dire straits.

I still disagree that mages are OP, especially when faced with all of the uniques and other high level monsters we find in 4.2.2.

[ewert]

Originally Posted by mrfy

I still disagree that mages are OP, especially when faced with all of the uniques and other high level monsters we find in 4.2.2.

I think I already mentioned in this thread, but dmg/round of warriors/rangers is just so much more than mages that I don't see a problem.

Mages are OP janitors. I rather kill mobs.

[Saru]

It's always felt strange the way the concept of contested spells in Angband worked to me, and the banishment situation sort of feels flawed in a similar way. Monsters being deleted without a chance, now that is and always will be a tool that's troublesome to balance around. Tangentially things like sleep confusion and holding suffer from the related issue of being too weak to be useful... Heck, even player saving throw is sort of silly. Being a percentage with no consideration for whether it is Morgoth himself or a novice mage makes no sense.

Some sort of comprehensive and consistent system for these contested spells would need to be devised which is quite the challenge admittedly without an enormous amount of work so this is all probably just idle speculation anyway...

Coming back to banishment and such though, if a sensible saving system were to be made it would be a natural fit for those spells while maintaining both their purpose and powerful nature, while actually having downsides as well. Not really a new idea even either, variants have taken their own spin at this sort of implementation.

Probably none of this is that useful but who knows, maybe. Cheers and thanks for the game.

[archolewa]

The problem with saving throw for Bamishment is that it massively nerfs those rare, precious scrolls, and does nothing to weaken the spell (since mages can just spam it until everyone is banished anyway).

So you end up weakening everyone *except* mages, and making endgame mages even more tedious.