Assessment of Life Magic

[Torock]

Warning; long thread

I have recently attempted to make a "Life Mage" - I didn't really give him a fair run, stopping at only level 12. However, he isn't much fun to play so I have decided to make an evaluation of the Life Magic skill from what I have learned.

Making Life Magic your most used school of magic is difficult, as there are only two offensive spells: Life Blade and one of the three Summons (Insect, Animal, Monster)

I decided to make a summoner. Summon monster appears to be the most effective. I think I was able to summon a Fire Drake somewhere around 7-8 Life Magic. I continued training Life Magic to level 12. However, I feel it would have been most effective to leave Life Magic alone until a more powerful summon (like a ghast) was available. At 12 I could summon a Green Dragon and Brown Dragon - they were both less effective than a drake.

Life Magic has a fairly limited array of spells - with such limitations on offensive power, one would assume the defensive capabilities would be great. This is not the case. Healing spells are obviously more potent when using Life Magic. I calculated Life Magic to add 1 HP/level to the average healing of minor heal. However, even when ignoring the fact that Life Magic has zero effect on healing after level 20, the sustaining power of the healing spells is distressingly weak when compared to mana shield. Especially considering that mana shield is preemptive and protective - where healing must be used in reaction to damage.

I decided I wouldn't let my powerful heals go to waste - I trained 6 Zoology. I used it to monitor the health of my summons and used minor heals to keep them alive. Overall, this was a waste of skill points. Yes, I could usually keep my summons alive for a bit more time with healing, however, it proved impractical and rarely mattered.


In the end, I found playing a "Life Mage" to be unrewarding. Powerful summons were about the only reward while other schools of magic offer powerful summons and an array of useful spells. Life magic simply has heals that become outdated towards the higher levels anyway. The only somewhat redeeming quality is that your buffs last a very long time.

Currently, I only see Life Magic useful as a sub-skill to aid in buffing. And, to be a unique, albeit gimped, summoner.


How to fix it?

Yes, I think Life Magic needs fixing. Healing has been almost completely disassociated with Life Magic with the healing nerf. People aren't going to build a character focused on heals when 20 levels worth of points are worth nothing at level 21. What do you do with your Life Magic then? Untrain and trade it in for Incantation?

I propose a three-part solution:

One: Add "(Level of Life Magic - 8)" to the formula for the max level of heals. This makes no changes to the effects of the healing nerf other than allowing people with varying levels of Life Magic to maintain the ability to use their heals.

Two: "Overhealing" - Allow healing spells to increase the target's life over maximum by an amount. The maximum amount of overhealing would be something like: the maximum amount of healing your heal is capable of.

So, for example, if you have 100 HP and can heal for a max of 45 with Major Heal - then your maximum HP when overhealed is 145. If you can heal for 15 with minor heal - then the spell would have no effect until you drop below 115 HP.

This would keep the overall encouragement of graduating to higher level heals while allowing heals to be somewhat closer to the sustaining power of mana shield.

Three: Overhealing would be overkill if spamming was still an issue - I personally think incantation is the root of the heal spamming problem and its effects should be capped for certain spells. Part three would adress being able to endlessly spam heals in some way. Once addressed, parts one and two would be balanced.

[randorxeous]

so basically what you're saying is make a loophole to go around the "healing nerf"? I am pretty sure that R won't agree with that...

[Torock]

Originally Posted by randorxeous

so basically what you're saying is make a loophole to go around the "healing nerf"? I am pretty sure that R won't agree with that...

No, it's a patch to the unintentional disassociation of the Life Magic skill with healing spells. If it was not obvious, I don't expect my suggestions to be followed out - they are there as an untested idea. My hope was to convince the higher-ups that Life Magic is worth revisiting.

Making use of "healing" shouldn't just mean making a stone giant caveman and stacking incantation.

[Salkand]

I stopped reading half way because I can clarify the entire issue for you.

Not every element is designed for be offensive or defensive. Life magic is for healing and causing ones resist to last longer. Neither is Earth or Spirit magic meant for offense.

Each element offers something different, life isn't offensive.

The offensive spells are in order from weakest to greatest. Air, Water, Fire, Death (That does not mean they are the best to train with).

Life is a support element that every mage uses, it's not meant to stand by itself.

[Unknown]

i do not like the idea... its all i can say (also i think you need to play more the game, life skill is really really usefull as it is now)

[Torock]

Originally Posted by Salkand

I stopped reading half way because I can clarify the entire issue for you.

Not every element is designed for be offensive or defensive. Life magic is for healing and causing ones resist to last longer. Neither is Earth or Spirit magic meant for offense.

Each element offers something different, life isn't offensive.

The offensive spells are in order from weakest to greatest. Air, Water, Fire, Death (That does not mean they are the best to train with).

Life is a support element that every mage uses, it's not meant to stand by itself.

It's not meant to stand by itself because it can't. Before the healing nerf, I would wager that it was quite possible to create an effective Life Mage. You say life magic is for healing, if you had finished the thread you would realize Life Magic has zero effect on healing unless you plan on killing youeself to stay at level 20 (and never HoF).

Again, my suggestions are completely untested. I don't expect them to be implemented.

Sure, a Fire/Death Mage uses a couple Life Rings and thinks Life Magic is a grand skill. One of the finer aspects of Wyvern is the flexibility in creating classes. If you make the same cookie-cutter class that has been proven 20+ times then you are truly missing out.

You see, Salkand, you say in your post that Life Magic isn't offensive, however, it isn't defensive either. It isn't even supportive. If we were to all be satisfied with your logic, it could be removed from the elements and called "resistance" - makes your resists last long.

Look at it this way - there is good reason to train each school of magic to at least 20. The offensive schools, as you mentioned, along with:
Spirit - Mana Shield, Resist Magic, Enchanting, Charging.
Earth - Half of your earth magic level is added to strength. I wager you can summon diamond or jade golems (I got to iron).
Life - Ghasts (Get Death Magic instead)

In spite of all this, I think I realize why skills like Life Magic have been neglected along with polearms and hurling. Because players like you are completely fine with Life Magic being barely a school of magic. It doesn't effect the countless Fire-Death/Frost mages, it doesn't effect full heal giants. And no one cares.

[Tensu of the moon]

dose raising your life skill increase the resist, bless, and regen offered by it's spells, or just it's duriation?

if the awnser is "just it's duration" then the obvious and only nessicary fix to life would be making increase the effects too.

I, personally, think that putting a cap on major healing is a mistake, but there's probbobly a reason for it.

causing healing to raise your max HP is a bad idea. I would like to think I don't need to explain why, but I doubt that's the case.

the first reason would be that it's hard to implement. the game is, I assume, coded so that nothing can have more HP than it's max. there are things that increase it by a set percentage like shapeshifting and the pally guild, but I get the feeling that implementing a way to raise your max HP indefinatly would be hard to implement, and I would personally rather have wizards make new spells and maybe implement combat tehniques for melee fighters than focus on that.

the second is that if spamming healing was a problem, this would only make it worse. the only flaw to spamming a healing spell is that the leftover healing translates to wasted SP. you'd be making the only problem with spamming heals obsolete.

what I think would be cool is two new spells: indignation in life and evil ray in death. indignation would deal more damage the higher your alignment and the lower your target's alignment, and evil ray would be vise-versa. indignation would have no effect on a good-aligned target and evil ray vise-versa.

this would keep you and I from whining about life magic and simtainiously keep Salkland from whining about death magic, as well as giving more purpose to alignment

unfortunatly I have no idea hoe hard this would be to implement, but since there are already spells that do damage only to certain targets, (see life blade) I think it might be a possiblity.

[Godhand]

I personally think incantation is the root of the heal spamming problem and its effects should be capped for certain spells.

This is so true. The way the art skills work is a big problem, reducing spell costs by 90% is very unbalanced. Reducing the amount to skills people can put into the arts would balance a lot of things.

[Unknown]

You see, Salkand, you say in your post that Life Magic isn't offensive, however, it isn't defensive either. It isn't even supportive. If we were to all be satisfied with your logic, it could be removed from the elements and called "resistance" - makes your resists last long.

Life skill.. it is defensive, it can be offensive, and it is supportive.

Im not sure about the healing nerf to be the best idea...
I think make a timing for healing before you can cast the spell agane, for example 10sec/lore lvl, could be better, that way you take off the posibility of spam healing. what i like about this idea is that healing fountains are usefull agane, but they will take some time in work depending on your lore (this helps alot mages over pure melee characters, but mages dont need to heal as much a meleer does, so i think its balanced) and the art system it working fine the way it is now, i dont think its incarnation fault the spam healing bug.

Torock i repet, i think you need to play a little more the game... life skills i think is fine as it is right now...

[Salkand]

again I had to stop reading after a few sentences, No offense but it takes you a lot of words to say something simply.

Rhialto intends to make a group healing spell, by all reports. That makes healing effective.

[Torock]

Originally Posted by Unknown

Life skill.. it is defensive, it can be offensive, and it is supportive.

Im not sure about the healing nerf to be the best idea...
I think make a timing for healing before you can cast the spell agane, for example 10sec/lore lvl, could be better, that way you take off the posibility of spam healing. what i like about this idea is that healing fountains are usefull agane, but they will take some time in work depending on your lore (this helps alot mages over pure melee characters, but mages dont need to heal as much a meleer does, so i think its balanced) and the art system it working fine the way it is now, i dont think its incarnation fault the spam healing bug.

Torock i repet, i think you need to play a little more the game... life skills i think is fine as it is right now...

Life Magic is only offensive and marginally supportive. Summon Monster and Life Blade are offensive. For all intents and purposes, Life Magic doesn't effect healing. Unless you plan on making a character to stay under level 20 (Under HoF, which is the point of the game) then healing can't be considered a legitimate component of Life Magic. (If it's not clear why - after level 20 you can only use heal which is a full heal no matter what.)

As far as supportive - getting 3-4 points from jewelery in order to make stuff last longer doesn't really quantify a school of magic for me.

Note: To Salkand - I apologize for the length of the thread, though I did note its length. If you do not wish to be a part of this thread, you do not have to. Until then, stop passing judgment on my thread which you repeatedly admit to not reading.

[Salkand]

I am giving you good feedback, and the length of your thread is nothing. What makes me stop reading it is; You can pretty much some up the point of your argument in the first few paragraphs. The rest you just ramble and draw everything out for unnecessary lengths of time.

Fact: Life magic is not meant to be offensive or Defensive.
Fact: Life magic causes ones resist to last longer
Rumor: Rhialto Is making a group healing spell which shall make life magic more important for healing multiple people.

Fact: Many wizards did not agree with the method used to correct spam healing. It is Rhialto's game and what he says is law.

Originally Posted by Torock

Note: To Salkand - I apologize for the length of the thread, though I did note its length. If you do not wish to be a part of this thread, you do not have to. Until then, stop passing judgment on my thread which you repeatedly admit to not reading.

You assume my response is any less effective because I didn't bother to read all of the fancy lettering your post contained. If you would rather I bypassed all the red tape.

I must now repeat myself for the third time. I hope you listen to it this time.


Life magic is not designed to be defensive Or offensive. It is a support element for resist at the moment.

[Tensu of the moon]

I know salkland can't read this but...

it has to support something, defense or offense. it supports defense, and it therefore defensive.

[Jessikha]

Originally Posted by Tensu of the moon

I know salkland can't read this but...

it has to support something, defense or offense. it supports defense, and it therefore defensive.

It does not have to support a specific; it is just a support element. Not defensive support, not offensive support, JUST support. It makes resists last longer, a defensive element, but it also makes life blade last longer, an offensive element. Thus, it is neither defensive or offensive support, it is simply a supportive school of magic.

Not having life doesn't make you any less powerful, having it just makes the game go quicker. Having to cast resists every minute would be annoying to most players, so they train life to make the game more of a convenience.

That is the purpose of the life element.

[Torock]

Originally Posted by Jessikha

...That is the purpose of the life element.

And my point being, forgive me if I was unclear, was that such a purpose isn't really fitting for an entire school of magic which was recently stripped of its main feature (healing). Does anyone agree? This thread seems to be veering further away from the topic.

[Crier]

I kinda agree, that life magic's main focus was healing, but still I won't untrain the 15 I have on my mage I find it useful, so I'm not worrying about it too much, 15 minute resists, a great remove curse, and a really good regeneration all depend on life magic.

Overall, while many people only worried about life magic in relation to healing it still has other benefits going for it so its not all that bad.

[Unknown]

look at crier post... think about it... play a little more the game and you will see life is a good skill, maybe you dont need to train 20 in life... never the less that doesnt make it a less important skill. example of skills that are important but you dont need to hit lvl 20 cap (you may hit it... but is not like you need to): Merchant, spirit traveling, healing, meditation, lore, blacksmith, strength, earth, spirit, and any weapon skill if you are an archer, etc...

I know little about the game i must say... have played for 5 years and is just now that im taking serius time to test skills and see how they work.
But i think life skills is ok. Also, i dont think some of the life spells are balanced right now (for example, healing spells)... but as salkand said, seems a new spell is coming, and I already make a suggestion in how i think the healing nerfering and spamhealing could be fixed.
So enjoy the game! and if you think the way your character is going isnt working for you, then try something new. (oh! and this is important... ignore salkand, he try to be rude, but wait till a wiz said anything and he become a cry baby)

[Salkand]

Originally Posted by unknown

ignore salkand, he try to be rude, but wait till a wiz said anything and he become a cry baby)

Since I am possible the only player on the forums who will argue with the wizards, I think that statement is wrong, Defamation of character, if you will.

The wizards are people, yes they know more about the game than most. But (and I am not trying to be rude, nor ever am trying to be so). They sometimes have a hard time grasping concepts that are new. Of course it could be because they know something we don't when we suggest ideas *shrugs*

Anyway, I am a blunt person. I don't put candy on everything just to make you feel better. Deal with it.

[Andron]

Originally Posted by Salkand

I put candy on everything just to make you feel better. Deal with it.

Soo....Salkand is that wierd man that hands out free candy and drives a blacked out van.

[Crier]

Originally Posted by Andron

Soo....Salkand is that wierd man that hands out free candy and drives a blacked out van.

I knew it!!