Earth Wands

Should Earth casters get wands?

  • No.

  • Yes, but only healing/chaos.

  • Yes, but only generic damage type/chaos.

  • Yes, other will post comment to explain.


Results are only viewable after voting.
Yes, but its not up to us. Its up to our owners.

Yes, however the owners need to know what the player base feels is beneficial for the game. Making decisions in a vacuum is rarely beneficial.
 
To do 3s, you need 105 scholar build. That is a 4 column (doing nothing else but spells). You have 33 packets. You can now heal for 198 body for a weekend. That is, again, if all packets hit with all the other problems associated with throwing packets in combat (person does not hear/feel the packet etc.)

In comparison, for 60 build a Potion Maker with a Workshop in a weekend can create 400 points of healing (I crunched the numbers 400 is the max no matter what combo you use). These can be handed out and do not have the chance of missing or popping a Shield/reflect.

For the Potion Maker, those 60 build are only going towards making those 400 points of healing potions. Nothing else can be done with it. This method of healing also requires coin to cover the production costs, demonstrating a potential economic hurdle if costs grow excessive and revenue is unavailable. The cited 4 column Earth Scholar, at 105 build, would have 35 total charges, at 3 healing per charge. I have included the 0.9 packet Wand rules below for reference. 35 x 3 = 105. I am unsure where the 198 body number was generated from. Would you mind clarifying your result please? I would like to verify that we are working off of the same math for these examples. Further, that 105 Scholar build, if spent entirely on spells, represents 900 additional points of healing, not including Storm spells, Potency, or any High Magic (we're assuming none). ((1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9) x 4) x 5. This would give the Scholar 1,005 healing, a bit more than an 11% increase. I do not believe that Scholar build was calculated when the healing options were compared to Potion making.

Edit update: Potion, wand and healing math calculations over two Logistics periods (weekend) result in: Potions - 400, Wand - 210, Scholar Build - 1,800.

Wand Charges are now generated at a rate of 1 per 3 build invested in Celestial Scholarly skills (which includes Read Magic, Create Scroll, Celestial spells, and Celestial Formal Magic), rounding down. Wand Damage starts at 1 and adds +1 per 50 full build invested in Celestial Scholarly skills.
 
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Yes - Other.

Earth Casters should get an ability that functions LIKE Wands, but is separate from Wands.

I believe that Healer's Resolve should actually become a passive ability that's granted by the amount of Earth Spell Build you have, is touch-cast only, and is Earth/Chaos. The High Magic ability would create a pool of 25 pts per purchase that would function exactly like this, only you could use chunks of your pool instead of your Resolve charges.

I actually believe, adamantly, that it should -not- be throwable offense, because let C Casters have their offense throwables. E Casters should have a strong and specialized ability, and geared in a single purpose, support. It shouldn't be niche offensive like anti-undead, because Wand charges are always useful; Earth charges should also be always useful. Therefore, incorporating Healers Resolve would give us an existing mechanic and prevent the need to invent a new one, while simultaneously being its own thing and not just duplicating Wands.
 
Yes, however the owners need to know what the player base feels is beneficial for the game. Making decisions in a vacuum is rarely beneficial.

Oh I completely agree.

As an owner, I want to know the general feedback on this as of today :) I know it has been talked about in the past already, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to know the current opinions/feedback.

And thank you Emily for being very proactive.
 
@Draven - I am not opposed that idea, The reason I just did wands is because their are wand only rituals that should apply to both schools. So I went simple. What the object is does not really matter but it should be something enchantable with the same rits that wands can use.
 
@Draven - I am not opposed that idea, The reason I just did wands is because their are wand only rituals that should apply to both schools. So I went simple. What the object is does not really matter but it should be something enchantable with the same rits that wands can use.

We could require HR to have a Focus on the character's person (like a pseudo magic item) in order to function. It would use tags like Wands, and could be enchanted like a Wand, though is different IG, but mechanically similar.
 
Yes - Other

In the interest of the standardization of rules in the efforts of ease of learning, changing Wands to be inclusive of Scholar skill purchase would be my proposal.

Healer's Resolve becomes usable through the Earth <Placeholder for Wand>, with carriers of Chaos, Damage (I realize 0.9 got rid of that for reasons of under-utilization), and Healing. Maintaining it as an Earth High Magic ability keeps its use where it belongs (IE: Earth), rather than making it "Burst Pool" as well -- But keep the same charge/damage as Burst Pool (Again: Equity of Schools).
 
I've played an earth caster, both a pure scholar and a Templar, since I started. I voted no.

I'm of the opinion that celestial should get their wands and rigid memorization. But earth should get drop for healing as a base feature, not as a feature of a paragon path. Earth shoul be, in my opinion, just more flexible than celestial.

Unpopular opinion in this thread, I know. No need to tell me why you think I'm wrong. Just putting it out there.
 
I've played an earth caster, both a pure scholar and a Templar, since I started. I voted no.

I'm of the opinion that celestial should get their wands and rigid memorization. But earth should get drop for healing as a base feature, not as a feature of a paragon path. Earth shoul be, in my opinion, just more flexible than celestial.

Unpopular opinion in this thread, I know. No need to tell me why you think I'm wrong. Just putting it out there.

So, I understand why you want that versatility, and it's not necessarily a bad idea. My concern with implementing that kind of ability is that it would discourage Earth scholars from playing offensively, for the same reason that Earth scholars are discouraged in the current system from using Death spells.

Who wants to be that guy who gets told "Don't throw Confines, man! We might need that Healing!" "Uggggh, why did you Purify that? He could have just waited ten minutes...coulda healed me instead...."

That culture already exists, and I worry that giving Scholars the ability to drop for healing would only exacerbate it.
 
The fact that, at this moment via the poll available to players and owners alike, there's literally two people who have said "No, nothing is needed" and more than five times that number have said "Yes, something is needed" speaks volumes.

Correct. As I have stated before, THERE IS SOMETHING the owners are working on. There are a few owners that are holding up the vote. So go ask your Owner if they have voted on the "Earth Not Wands I Swear" vote that has been held up for over a month. If they would have voted, there would have been something in this packet.

For sake of transparency: There are 13 Chapters eligible to vote. We need 10 of them to make a quorum (so that we have a majority of owners voting). 75% need to say yes to a rules vote. Currently there are 8 Yes, 1 Abstain. We need one more of the 3 to vote in any capacity to have that item go through.

@Tevas I used the builder spreadsheet. It showed 33 packets at 3. So 99 per day, 198 on a weekend. That was to compare to the Potion making based on a weekend of production.
 
Yes - Other.

Earth Casters should get an ability that functions LIKE Wands, but is separate from Wands.

I believe that Healer's Resolve should actually become a passive ability that's granted by the amount of Earth Spell Build you have, is touch-cast only, and is Earth/Chaos. The High Magic ability would create a pool of 25 pts per purchase that would function exactly like this, only you could use chunks of your pool instead of your Resolve charges.

I'd like to echo this exactly.

I think that earth casters should gain a healer's resolve pool, similar to a wand pool, that would increase available healing by the amount they have spent on earth scholar abilities. The only problem would be how powerful going formals would be if healer's resolve were left in normally, allowing double dipping into the same pool and a ridiculous amount of healing.
 
I've played an earth caster, both a pure scholar and a Templar, since I started. I voted no.

I'm of the opinion that celestial should get their wands and rigid memorization. But earth should get drop for healing as a base feature, not as a feature of a paragon path. Earth shoul be, in my opinion, just more flexible than celestial.

Unpopular opinion in this thread, I know. No need to tell me why you think I'm wrong. Just putting it out there.

I actually agree with you, but I would take it a step further - I don't think EITHER version of Scholar should get Wands.

They've done so many other changes for the good of the game, and I think Wand removal should be added to that list.

One of the big 'drawbacks' with Celestial has been that their damage is static and with Body Bloat, those spells became, over time, significantly less effective, and they needed wands to supplement their damage output, since that is their thing.

Well, Body Bloat is supposed to be going away with the Melee constant damage nerf. Given that, Celestial damage is going to be effective again. If there is the thought that C damage is going to continue to not matter, or won't matter after a period of time, then the melee changes absolutely need to be revisited for reasons that should be obvious.

Given that, I feel they no longer need the additional damage that Wands afford them. As Cory (an Owner) pointed out earlier in the thread, Wands don't really help lowbies - from his perspective - simply adding a few additional +1 damage packets, and they really only help out higher level characters. I feel that higher level characters have enough spells at that point for it to not really matter.

So I feel most, if not ALL, of the reasons why Celestials needed wands is going away with 2.0.

With all that said, I REALLY don't think Earth needs a Wand if Celestial has Wands removed.

My fear is that with all of the feedback given so far, in particular about melee and Wands and a few other things, is that there will be a massive over compensation to fix the problem. Sometimes the right answer is NOT to ADD more to the game, sometimes it is better to REMOVE. I feel this is especially important since there seems to be a push toward reducing overall power in most areas.

The game doesn't need more damage. The Owners obviously agree with the Melee nerf. I feel Celestial needs to lose Wands as well. It's another damage source that doesn't need to be there.

So, Sarah, I'm right there with you in some respects, even if it is a generally unpopular opinion. Though I'm pretty sure I just voiced what is going to be a REALLY unpopular opinion. I don't think that Earth needs wands. I don't think Celestial needs wands any more. I DO think that if Celestial keeps its wands, that Earth needs something to offset that glaring inequality; hopefully the owners get off their back-sides and vote on the proposal that Cory mentioned.
 
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For what it's worth, I'm one of those owners who hasn't voted on the earth "wand" proposal - full transparency.

It is a neat new earth ability that requires some more discussion before I am comfortable voting on it. It's not a perfect rule yet, and I believe we should get it closer to that level before I am comfortable voting on it. I don't think it's ready to be voted on for playtesting as written, although I like the intent. I've gone ahead and made some discussion notes again on the owner's boards, so that should continue. But let's not cloud this thread up with that proposal.

However, while it's a neat proposal that would add to the game, it is *not* an earth wand. It enables earth casters to remove some effects through RP, but that is not the wand concept being discussed here so I don't want to shut this discussion down in reference to that vote.

As someone who has played a celestialist from level 2, without wands, we run out of things to do really quick. I would go fighter in a heartbeat if wands were removed because wands are the thing that make it so I don't have to "sit out" of the fights after a few.

And I have a 13 column. And even that runs out. It's going to be far worst for other celestial casters.

I would rather Earth Casters also have more to do with a wand. I imagine they have a similar struggle to "pre-wand" celestialists.

I would prefer fighters *also* don't get nerfed.

I would prefer that the body bloat be handled via plot team and their scaling/mechanics rather than cutting PC power. It's doable, and I've both seen it done and done it.
 
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Just to be clear, the "wand" (Does not sound a wand at all, so not sure why it was brought up except as a misdirect to derail this topic) proposal is just to add to the playtest and not the game right? It is not like we are a few votes from having it live in the game?
 
Just to be clear, the wand proposal is just to add to the playtest and not the game right? It is not like we are a few votes from having it live in the game?

This discussion, as I view it, is a way to get a pulse on what players want.

The item up for vote is more of a buff to the First Aid skill than anything else. I believe the intent of the vote is to vote it into the game, but tweak/remove through playtesting as needed.
 
As someone who has played a celestialist from level 2, without wands, we run out of things to do really quick. I would go fighter in a heartbeat if wands were removed (and may anyway) because wands are the thing that make it so I don't have to "sit out" of the fights after a few.

I feel that casters - not just Celestial - running out of things to do "really fast" is a symptom of chapter style and scaling, as well as a symptom of Constant Damage™ and Body Bloat. If Body Bloat is reduced, as it has been stated that it will be as a result of Constant Damage™ nerf, then the effectiveness of Celestial Casters and their damage - and Scholars in general - is utterly dependent on Plot and NPC scaling.

Celestial Casters have been made into the Scholar version of Constant Damage™ with the addition of Wands; while it was more of a necessary thing in the current style/rules, I do NOT think that it is necessary if the concepts of 2.0 are properly implemented.

Emily, I feel that it could be worthwhile to test IN THE NEW RULES what it is like for Celestial Casters without wands and see how they feel from BOTH sides (PC and Plot/scaling). Melee has been told that is what we need to do, and I think it would be absolutely good for the game if Wands were removed too. I mean, I feel that the melee change is a foregone conclusion that is happening no matter what, and I think that this should also be considered.

If nothing else, have a scaling increase (50 for first point, 55 for second point, 60 for third point, etc.) for the FREE damage they are getting.

That said, I agree that I don't think that Melee needs to be hosed the way it has been - I absolutely think that Magic Item and Ritual changes are all that is needed and everything else can be addressed through Plot Style and Scaling Style.

Now, if you want to discuss melee - which as you know I've been playing since Level 1 - I would be more than happy to do so. Also, I am currently planning on making the next Seattle play test.
 
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I feel that casters - not just Celestial - running out of things to do "really fast" is a symptom of chapter style and scaling, as well as a symptom of Constant Damage™ and Body Bloat. If Body Bloat is reduced, as it has been stated that it will be as a result of Constant Damage™ nerf, then the effectiveness of Celestial Casters and their damage - and Scholars in general - is utterly dependent on Plot and NPC scaling.

Celestial Casters have been made into the Scholar version of Constant Damage™ with the addition of Wands; while it was more of a necessary thing in the current style/rules, I do NOT think that it is necessary if the concepts of 2.0 are properly implemented.

Emily, I feel that it could be worthwhile to test IN THE NEW RULES what it is like for Celestial Casters without wands and see how they feel from BOTH sides (PC and Plot/scaling). Melee has been told that is what we need to do, and I think it would be absolutely good for the game if Wands were removed too. I mean, I feel that the melee change is a foregone conclusion that is happening no matter what, and I think that this should also be considered.

That said, I agree that I don't think that Melee needs to be hosed the way it has been - I absolutely think that Magic Item and Ritual changes are all that is needed and everything else can be addressed through Plot Style and Scaling Style.

Now, if you want to discuss melee - which as you know I've been playing since Level 1 - I would be more than happy to do so. Also, I am currently planning on making the next Seattle play test.

I'm down to have the discussion, but would you mind moving it to a new thread RE: celestial wands, so this one can focus on earth wands? :)
 
I'm down to have the discussion, but would you mind moving it to a new thread RE: celestial wands, so this one can focus on earth wands? :)

Sure. Sorry. >.>
 
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