While weak before, with only 1d6/ level damage, I think most of us can agree that it is pretty obscenely powerful now, with 2d6/ level. No need to crunch numbers here, but most of us hopefully realize that this spell is almost sure to drop 95% of the server's population in 1 round, when hasted.
My suggestion; make it as Firebrand, which remains to be a very useful spell, though not grossly overpowered. The elemental theme perk might make it pretty useful there, too, especially vs. PvE, and not the next death-spell in PVP.
I think it is better with the changes. Afterall it is a 5th circle spell and considering that is likely the highest a PC will ever achieve they need some nice powerful spells. Also there are many ways to protect against this spell.
Just because you can protect from something does not mean incredible power is justified.
Nor should the spell be much more powerful than the other fifth circle spells. 2d6 per level is crazy. <_<
Not to mention that builds w/o evasion would take the same amount of damage as a fireball or scintilliating sphere of the same level, even WITH making every single saving throw.
I'm not sure Coldburn realises how this works. The IG description is wrong, and it does NOT hit a single target for 2d6/level. Bioware screwed up.
The damage is in packets of 2d6 damage. It works like Missile storm in that a L9 caster will fire off 9 missiles, each doing 2d6 dmg, with its own reflex save and ele resistance check, split evenly between all hostile creatures in the area. Emp Lightning Bolt or sphere kicks its ass for all but precision sniping of 1 PC. I'd rather do 9d6 * 1.5 on everything in Bolt range than 18d6/no. of targets.
If you're worried about an elecric mage that much, wear the Fickler helm off trogs or get hold of a 5/- resist item off Corals from a seller. Average damage is 7 per ball. 5 resist makes it a pathetic two a ball. Insulation will always prevent the maximum it can too. This spell is still The Suck on anything but a single totally unprotected foe. Even then I'd prefer missilestorm as only mage PCs can have Shield up all the time.
I'd love to see it work like firebrand, to make it more powerful than now, not less. Especially considering the setting has a lot of fire resistant foes and no alternative spell like it.
This is a spell available from items, summons, and even a familiar. You don't need to be a high level wizard to get it. Call Lightning is 1d10/level damage, but reliant on a situation (rain) that the player cannot dictate. Ball Lightning is not reliant on any such condition. The ability to do a minimum of 18d6 damage (twice in a round with haste) is a major problem for a low-magic server. There are many other ways to fix this spell without making it an elementally-dependent death spell for a single target.
I would agree with the suggestion that the Ball Lightning changes be changed to something besides 2d6/level damage. An alternate form of Firebrand would be just fine, considering that it will remain a very different spell due to its elemental type and its relevant perk affect.
An alternate version of firebrand is boring. Much like scintillating sphere and fireball.
Having this spell in a specific niche is interesting by being dangerous so long as there arent that many foes around.
Is 2d6 too much? Maybe. We'll see about tweaking it.
Well i just got into a mage fight where it took three ball lightnings for me to go down. I was alone as well so it all hit me. I think its a simple matter of spreading the pain.
It's strong, but due to the multiple ( nine ) independent saves and small bursts of damage, it really is still less effective than an empowered lightning bolt on a single target if you average it out. People are quite simply going to make some of those saves and the damage range is rather spread out.
You're looking at 18-108 damage. The average of that being only slightly higher than empowered sphere or bolt yet with multiple saves to further reduce it. If someone has 5/- resistance, which is very common from low levels to high levels, it pretty much destroys the spell's damage.
As one with Nature said, we just had a fight and he is a low HP wizard that was very difficult to take down since he naturally made a lot of the saves!
Considering half the server has evasion and reflex saves. Plus eleresist is easy to keep up 24/7 if you choose. It's not acutally that obscenely powerful. hasted missle storms can easily drop someone and they have -no- save and you cant walk around perma shielded.
For a lvl 5 spell its actually a worthwhile choice now.
Just saw one person I presumed was pretty tough and hard to beat go down after a single casting of this spell. Not sure of the mechanics, but with the wind focus of casting, does this spell give the bolt for EACH ball of lightning?
It does. When Kaida casted ball lighting in a small room, she killed half the PCs and left very wounded the tohers, so it can be very powerfull with the perk.
I personally faced this in PvP and it wasn't that bad. I think it's just fine as it is.
Pish.
There's 5/- items, but unless you walk around that, 40/- elemental protection or insane reflex PLUS evasion, you will drop at 1 or max 2 [hasted] casts, even if you make most the saves [against a DC26 for Evokers] you will at least go to Badly Injured/near dead when you are around the same level in a lot of situations.
It can't be so that people have to equip for 5/- to stand a slight chance at living through this out of the loop damage if you ask me.
I don't find the spell rediculously overpowered; but I do feel that it's the strongest spell by long shot, which requires absolutely no "skill", orientation or fashion to guarantee a PvP kill.
No disrespect to you VP! You keep rockin' on. ;)
Perhaps we could look into 1d8 damage?
Quote from: DollarPhil;188928I'm not sure Coldburn realises how this works.
I know exactly how it works, but thank you for your concern.
Quote from: Drakill Tannan;188970It does. When Kaida casted ball lighting in a small room, she killed half the PCs and left very wounded the tohers, so it can be very powerfull with the perk.
No, it does not. The perk triggers once per target. If four people are hit by ball lightning, four of the perk effects will go off (same effect as a scint sphere or lightning bolt hitting each target), but not 9 of them.
The spell you're talking about is scintillating sphere. Ball lightning is a bunch of tiny lightning balls that function and move in a similar way to magic missle.
Ball lightning will always be a joke of a spell. Even with the 2d6 damage a storm domain cleric with one of the 5/- elec resist items can negate most of the damage. I don't have too many thoughts on how to make it more on par with the spells of it's level but making it work as firebrand would probably be the best way to have it until something else is thought of.
I'd propose the spell simply be changed to 1d10 instead of 2d6. Minor enough nerf, serves the purpose just fine.
IMO change the spell alltoghether. Make it just like chain lighting with a limit in the amount of affected targets equal to the caster's level.
Quote from: Drakill Tannan;189069IMO change the spell alltoghether. Make it just like chain lighting with a limit in the amount of affected targets equal to the caster's level.
That is exactly what chain lightning does.
Then just change it for a lower DC copy of chain lightning
I think Ball Lightning works fine and is massively counterable as lolmagics said. People seem to just be overreacting in response to the recent success with the spell, and if it really that powerful, they should succeed with it themselves.
I seriously don't understand why people keep saying drop it.
Its a lvl -5- spell. Other spells in this circle include instadeath clouds, mass damaging firebrands, Bigbys. Ball lightning is now as good as it should be. it's supposed to be a scary offensive spell.
If you are arguing that the perk is making it overpowered. Well thats kind of silly, as personally i think that the fire one is just as nasty on large groups.
5/- eletrical dr will half the damage you take, and tbh there aren't that many wizards capable of casting it.
It used to be utter shit, now its worthy of its circle. Besides i'm fairly certain that empowered scintillating sphere would be just as nasty with the perk.
Quote from: Udenbur;188983There's 5/- items, but unless you walk around that, 40/- elemental protection or insane reflex PLUS evasion, you will drop at 1 or max 2 [hasted] casts
40/-ele resist is overkill, as this spell can never do more than 12 damage at any one point, despite the total damage being potentially high. As has been pointed out, the spell has a sort of "machine-gun" effect. It creates missiles that each hit the target one after the other. Each will do 2d6 damage, and each hit counts against insulation and other DR. This means that Resist Elements will always give immunity from the first 2-3 balls, and reduce the damage by a almost the full 30 points it can absorb before collapsing. I'd argue, at a stretch, that it could be useful for deliberately overloading insulations in order to follow up with an Emp Lightning or other big hitter, while also doing damage. Or if each missile counts as an individual L5 spell, then much like Flame Arrow, this spell is brilliant as a counter to Spell Mantles and worth it for a high level mageduel.
Normal Sphere would be way more so, DC. If you can hit more than 9 targets, you get more bonus bolts. Plus you're doing the full damage to everything in range. On the other hand, Ball Lightning would be a safe way to do... er... 2d6 or 1d6 damage to a lot of stuff. Which is not that useful considering the HP of anything a L9 wizard or L10 Sorc is going to be flinging spells at. And yeah. 9d6 damage plus a 1d6/round combust effect with the DC of a L5 spell? That is much more nasty, as would be a 9d6*1.5 Acid Breath that also carries an AC debuff. Throwing that out on Corals for example. However, BL is still better than Cone of Cold. That spell only gets useful at about L13, empowered. Otherwise Lightning Bolt does identical damage and a similar job for an Evoker at 2 spellslots lower.
There was a suggestion a while back to make it work like Gedlee's Electric Loop. If you fail the Reflex save on a Ball, it's a Will save vs a 1 round stun. I think that would be a good addition, possibly with the damage lowered slightly to 1d10 to pre-empt complaints. What you'd have is a choice of two modes of effect. Good damage and a very effective short stun on 1-2 targets, as the repeat saves would still give more chances to dodge the damage but also more chances to be hit by the stun. On the other hand against multiple foes it would, uniquely, be an area of effect stun that would not affect allies, making it good to help a surrounded PC for example.
I think people are overreacting, like with Evard's, in part because of the situational strength of the spell. That is, for solo ganks alone, against an unsuspecting person, who does not have a 5/- resist item.
Let's assume though that if you're not a high reflex build with evasion you have at least resist elements up at all times. Don't have it up? Then you deserve to be downed in one round by a wizard.
In my experience a wizard using this spell at least will open up with some sort of dispel before firing it off, even if not, you'll still have time to react because with some sort of resistance to the elements up you'll most likely survive the first cast.
The damage of any subsequent spells can then be halved by a simple summon 1 item.
The only 'danger' I foresee is someone abusing the hostile rules for PvP. Which is always a possibility but most of our players who have played high level mages are pretty good about not doing that. Namely, they could hostile a single person. Kill them with a barrage then hostile the entire server with a single key press when the person is around them. That way even if there were bystanders around them they could avoid the halving effect of having multiple targets in the area.
Quote from: OldPortOutcast;189115The only 'danger' I foresee is someone abusing the hostile rules for PvP. Which is always a possibility but most of our players who have played high level mages are pretty good about not doing that. Namely, they could hostile a single person. Kill them with a barrage then hostile the entire server with a single key press when the person is around them.
That's not abuse, it's the only way for that spell and Missile Storm to be PVP useful. Hostile is an OOC mechanic for exactly this sort of thing, i.e. choosing who your wizard is actually willing to allow his next deadly spell to hit, where the spell gives him that option. Using Firebrand as the example, you don't want to hostile all as your Brands will burn people your mage has no intent of doing harm to. So long as they whack Hostile all after unleashing their barrage, it's not abuse. Hostile is especially problematic in cases where for example you want to fire this sort of auto-target spell at a criminal, but a Stygian NPC is set hostile in order to chase him. There is no IC reason to will your attack to hit the Stygian, but it will go for him anyway and unless you got a DM to pause *really fast* before firing, a lot of people now want your head on a stick.
QuoteLet's assume though that if you're not a high reflex build with evasion you have at least resist elements up at all times. Don't have it up? Then you deserve to be downed in one round by a wizard.
That's fair.
The 1d10 suggestion is also good; it will be as powerful [or arguably, less] as empowered lightning bolt but it goes through Lesser Globes and it becomes a fairly big upgrade to those that don't use Empower Spell.
I am sure if someone abused hostile mode like that in a major PvP then people are going to probably notice, maybe, a bit. How did such an argument never appear for something missile storm?
I am rather sure you are not allowed to do that Egon. When initiating PvP everyone must be hostile at all times who is not definitively your ally.
But I'll let the DMs weigh in on that.
I've got away with it in the past with Firebrand specifically. Yes it's fair that you're responsible for not OOCly causing a delay in retribution due to people having to find you to hostile in the player list or use the tool, but equally you don't want to create more enemies than you need by blowing up innocent bystanders, when using a spell that's designed not to blow up innocent bystanders. If you can't use hostiling to ensure that your Ball Lightning/Missilestorm/Hammer of the Gods goes where you want it, then means you're down to using Icestorms to ensure full damage to your target, and splattering people you don't mean to over the walls with IC consequences.
Besides, when you hostile someone you appear hostile to them until *they* turn it off. So I'd suggest that something like this would be fair on all concerned:[LIST=1]
- "/c hostile all" Everyone can now hit you back immediately and their own Missilestorms/Hammer of the Gods will work on you.
- "/c unhostile all" Nobody looks hostile to you, you still appear as hostile to other players
- "/c hostile victim of assassination" Your target and not other people you're not aiming the spell at will be the one hit.
- *missilestorm spam* Target and not others are hit with the spell rather than 7 people each hit for 1d6 magic.
- "/c hostile all" You can now attack who you like as you hostiled them.
Well, if you're actually fighting three people and you set two of them to neutral so that you can kill one of them with the spell, I imagine that's illegal. Unhostiling bystanders is a bit different.
If a spell can harm allies but not enemies, it means that the mage PC has the capability of deciding what it hits and what it doesn't hit ICly. Therefore, i'd say that should be legal.
Thread derailed.
Quote from: Mort;188930We'll see about tweaking it.
This is satisfying, for now.
I feel this is just a bunch of people who can't make use of the spell against it, and people who can, for it. Most of the statements made were rather constructive and resourceful, yes, but... as far as my own opinion goes, I think it should be kept as it is.
I think it's allright as is for wizard use - however, because the spell was formerly weak, many items with charges of it are available, and some summons can cast it as well. You wouldn't see summons or items that can cast Firebrand at the same level.
It is now too strong to be castable by items and summons and those should be changed, because they have now become the new pvp must-have.
I came to post the same thing, pretty much exactly. I've actually used it now, and I can say it's pretty powerful, but not overpowered. It -is- overpowered as an item, of which you can find many that randomly drop. Maybe as a DM loot item it would be good, though. I dunno. Now, I'm kinda conflicted.
Can you say where it drops?
Blasting Helm. Drops from heroes and random areas.
I believe Coral Cove has some Ball Lightning items as well? I'm not certain, but I believe I've seen them.
It's more the summon IV from that one charge item, which drops on coral cove. It's probably something like air theme or something? I'd say it's now a bit too powerful lvl IV summon. The item looks like an energy ball, can't remember it's actual name.
Kozah's Ring. It summons an Energy Elemental. It casts Ball Lightning but the caster level is low.
There is an amulet in coral cove that casts it as well.
I think you mean the Call Lightning amulet that's endloot. The Ball Lightning device is a rod that also has Electric Jolt 1/day
No, it also drops an amulet that gives 2 charges of ball lightning. Unless it has been changed very recently.
^ It's still out there. Then there's also the Blasting Helm of course, with its 5 charges. Those dropped at low[er] level quests, so I'm not sure if they have been taken out.