Hello all wizards and KI admins alike, Seth MoonShade here.
I've been inspired to talk about the damage to self spells so common within the death school. Spells like empower, bad juju, and dark pact are brilliant.. except.. not so much. Or, at least, they would be if they were worth casting.
As it stands, every single damage to self spell that death has, deals death specific damage. This is obviously problematic for a couple of reasons that I will get into now.
Damage to self spells are almost not used in any Death wizard deck, (seriously, ask people in a poll if they heavily use these spells) mainly because they just aren't worth it.
For example, with the spell dark pact, the damage done to the caster can be dwarfed with something like a death shield, which is fine- except for the fact that it takes a round to cast the shield then a round to cast the blade if you want to save yourself from 80% of the damage, which may even be boosted by your clothing.
So far, the drawbacks of dark pact alone are,
It takes two rounds to acquire the +30% boost if you want to dodge 80% of the damage.
The damage done to self is boosted by the caster's clothing.
It can only be cast before any other blades unless you want it to eat up your other blades.
Seems like a steep price to pay for a mere 30% damage boost when you can achieve a 40% boost from a death blade alone.
Enough complaints about dark pact, here's how to fix it (and almost every other damage to self spell).
Just make every damage to self spell do moon, sun or star damage as opposed to death damage and (for dark pact specifically) lock the damage to self at 300 while bringing the pip cost to 0.
With the suggested version, it gives 30% for 300 health, every single time unless shielded by tower or legion and more importantly, it won't take death blades and can be cast at any point in combat.
Now, empower is better, but not by much.
The main problem with empower is that it costs one pip. You are dealing 300 damage to yourself, using up a pip (or in most higher level cases, a power pip) and giving yourself 3 pips..
Read that again very slowly.
Well, hopefully you can see what is wrong with it. The problem lies within the usage of the pip. If the spell were worth 0 pips, it would be perfectly okay to trade 300 health for 3 pips because you're actually getting 3 pips. But because you actually use a pip, you only gain 2 pips in real profit, which means you're actually taking 300 damage for 2 pips.
A buck fifty a pip.. even though rank 2 spells never exceed 285 damage unless enchanted, ouch.
The solution here is to just reduce the empower pip cost to 0.
Now, Bad Juju.. You could say this one has had a bad rap. This one, should've been left alone. At least, that's my opinion after the 25% PVP only change, because 25% is truthfully a bit much.
Here's an idea for what Bad Juju could be, that will deter spammers in PVP without causing a loss in four uses.
Forget about the PVP/PVE differentiation.
Bring the pip cost up to 4.
Set the damage to self for 600, a flat rate.
Set the damage to be moon, sun or star, not death.
This way, it can't be cast so easily/ so often, it does more damage, weakening the appeal to spammers and can't be easily shielded against. A tower shield will bring the damage down to 300, which almost always forces a wasted shielding round in the arena to achieve spamming, which of course, cuts spamming in half in and of itself.
If KI did this, the spell would have the same 2 round problemthat dark pact shouldn't have, to be able to nerf it.
Bad Juju was overpowered in PVP before the nerf, now it is underpowered. A couple of small tweaks is all it would've taken to fix the problem, but I feel KI has exaggerated in trying to solve the issue.
I've seen it mentioned somewhere by a KI admin that they truly prefer to leave spells as they are, that they do not like setting special rules for spells within the arena that differ from outside the PVP arena. This was the reasoning of that particular KI admin when asked why Wild Bolt wasn't just nerfed in PVP only, some years back. I wish this approach was taken with Bad Juju, because now the card even looks silly.
Sacrifice is the only card with real gain.. 450 health for 3 pips, that's not bad, for a Death spell.
I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and I thank you for taking the time to do so. Please feel free to drop a reply with your thoughts. KI admins, I hope to hear from you guys on this along with my other posts in Halston's Laboratory.
I'll keep the fixes/improvement ideas coming. I do also hope you're listening.
Hello all wizards and KI admins alike, Seth MoonShade here.
I've been inspired to talk about the damage to self spells so common within the death school. Spells like empower, bad juju, and dark pact are brilliant.. except.. not so much. Or, at least, they would be if they were worth casting.
As it stands, every single damage to self spell that death has, deals death specific damage. This is obviously problematic for a couple of reasons that I will get into now.
Damage to self spells are almost not used in any Death wizard deck, (seriously, ask people in a poll if they heavily use these spells) mainly because they just aren't worth it.
For example, with the spell dark pact, the damage done to the caster can be dwarfed with something like a death shield, which is fine- except for the fact that it takes a round to cast the shield then a round to cast the blade if you want to save yourself from 80% of the damage, which may even be boosted by your clothing.
So far, the drawbacks of dark pact alone are,
It takes two rounds to acquire the +30% boost if you want to dodge 80% of the damage.
The damage done to self is boosted by the caster's clothing.
It can only be cast before any other blades unless you want it to eat up your other blades.
Seems like a steep price to pay for a mere 30% damage boost when you can achieve a 40% boost from a death blade alone.
Enough complaints about dark pact, here's how to fix it (and almost every other damage to self spell).
Just make every damage to self spell do moon, sun or star damage as opposed to death damage and (for dark pact specifically) lock the damage to self at 300 while bringing the pip cost to 0.
With the suggested version, it gives 30% for 300 health, every single time unless shielded by tower or legion and more importantly, it won't take death blades and can be cast at any point in combat.
Now, empower is better, but not by much.
The main problem with empower is that it costs one pip. You are dealing 300 damage to yourself, using up a pip (or in most higher level cases, a power pip) and giving yourself 3 pips..
Read that again very slowly.
Well, hopefully you can see what is wrong with it. The problem lies within the usage of the pip. If the spell were worth 0 pips, it would be perfectly okay to trade 300 health for 3 pips because you're actually getting 3 pips. But because you actually use a pip, you only gain 2 pips in real profit, which means you're actually taking 300 damage for 2 pips.
A buck fifty a pip.. even though rank 2 spells never exceed 285 damage unless enchanted, ouch.
The solution here is to just reduce the empower pip cost to 0.
Now, Bad Juju.. You could say this one has had a bad rap. This one, should've been left alone. At least, that's my opinion after the 25% PVP only change, because 25% is truthfully a bit much.
Here's an idea for what Bad Juju could be, that will deter spammers in PVP without causing a loss in four uses.
Forget about the PVP/PVE differentiation.
Bring the pip cost up to 4.
Set the damage to self for 600, a flat rate.
Set the damage to be moon, sun or star, not death.
This way, it can't be cast so easily/ so often, it does more damage, weakening the appeal to spammers and can't be easily shielded against. A tower shield will bring the damage down to 300, which almost always forces a wasted shielding round in the arena to achieve spamming, which of course, cuts spamming in half in and of itself.
If KI did this, the spell would have the same 2 round problemthat dark pact shouldn't have, to be able to nerf it.
Bad Juju was overpowered in PVP before the nerf, now it is underpowered. A couple of small tweaks is all it would've taken to fix the problem, but I feel KI has exaggerated in trying to solve the issue.
I've seen it mentioned somewhere by a KI admin that they truly prefer to leave spells as they are, that they do not like setting special rules for spells within the arena that differ from outside the PVP arena. This was the reasoning of that particular KI admin when asked why Wild Bolt wasn't just nerfed in PVP only, some years back. I wish this approach was taken with Bad Juju, because now the card even looks silly.
Sacrifice is the only card with real gain.. 450 health for 3 pips, that's not bad, for a Death spell.
I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and I thank you for taking the time to do so. Please feel free to drop a reply with your thoughts. KI admins, I hope to hear from you guys on this along with my other posts in Halston's Laboratory.
I'll keep the fixes/improvement ideas coming. I do also hope you're listening.
- Seth MoonShade
Ok so I have to correct you on a few misconceptions with how death works as a school. Death is about taking risks for power and damage and survivability.
So let me get this straight: you want all of deaths ridiculously overpowered spells to not consume deathblades or deal damage to self? Effectively being able to cast a 1 pip 3 pip with no repercussions or being able to casually yeet off a 90% weakness with 3 pips and effectively making the user either have to wait and cast cleanse charm/remove the weakness or hit and do absolutely no damage.
If im wrong then im reading this as: You want the damage to be another school so to avoid using deathblades so you can hit faster being more effective as a whole in content. Which is fine and dandy but again you forget for the most part all 3 of the spells you are complaining about are low pip costs. You get spells that effectively up your game for less costs than almost any other school. In pvp the more pips you have the faster you can hit and the faster you can kill your opponent or control them. Having no downside to a spell that gives you an extra turn is ridiculous. All spells of that nature do and it makes no sense to buff it. I also might wanna remind you that storm beetle exists and does the same effective thing as dark pact but is restricted to tc or pet spells as a result. While you get 10% more damage from a deathblade you cant stack 2 of the same and having extra blades is uber important for any content whatsoever. Bad Juju needed the nerf, being able to completely wreck someones day with a 3 pip spell is ridiculous for no cost whatsoever. The risk reward setup was intended so as a last ditch effort not a constant saving grace. Its why Guardian Spirit for Lifes got completely taken out of pvp and loremaster got nerfed to oblivion.
I get completely frustrated hearing complaints like this when death is literally one of the most busted schools in existence being able to support, tank, and deal damage with next to no repercussions. The nerf is fine and I dont need to hear complaints about a school that literally doesn't need any fixes unlike its brother life.
Ok so I have to correct you on a few misconceptions with how death works as a school. Death is about taking risks for power and damage and survivability.
So let me get this straight: you want all of deaths ridiculously overpowered spells to not consume deathblades or deal damage to self? Effectively being able to cast a 1 pip 3 pip with no repercussions or being able to casually yeet off a 90% weakness with 3 pips and effectively making the user either have to wait and cast cleanse charm/remove the weakness or hit and do absolutely no damage.
If im wrong then im reading this as: You want the damage to be another school so to avoid using deathblades so you can hit faster being more effective as a whole in content. Which is fine and dandy but again you forget for the most part all 3 of the spells you are complaining about are low pip costs. You get spells that effectively up your game for less costs than almost any other school. In pvp the more pips you have the faster you can hit and the faster you can kill your opponent or control them. Having no downside to a spell that gives you an extra turn is ridiculous. All spells of that nature do and it makes no sense to buff it. I also might wanna remind you that storm beetle exists and does the same effective thing as dark pact but is restricted to tc or pet spells as a result. While you get 10% more damage from a deathblade you cant stack 2 of the same and having extra blades is uber important for any content whatsoever. Bad Juju needed the nerf, being able to completely wreck someones day with a 3 pip spell is ridiculous for no cost whatsoever. The risk reward setup was intended so as a last ditch effort not a constant saving grace. Its why Guardian Spirit for Lifes got completely taken out of pvp and loremaster got nerfed to oblivion.
I get completely frustrated hearing complaints like this when death is literally one of the most busted schools in existence being able to support, tank, and deal damage with next to no repercussions. The nerf is fine and I dont need to hear complaints about a school that literally doesn't need any fixes unlike its brother life.
A big part of my point is the emphasis on changing the damage from death to sun, star or moon in order to make the damage on the caster almost unavoidable for each spell across the board. In the case of empower, you notice the original reasoning being that spell is, you take 100 damage per pip that you gain, which is fine up until you realize it's actually 150 per pip because you only ever make a profit of 2 pips.
you're losing more health than your pips are worth, assuming each pip is worth 100 damage, which, they are. If you look at all school spells, (the traditional ones at least) the damage doesn't exceed the pip cost by much or at all with the exception of Storm.
So, why would you exceed the damage in relation to the pip cost specifically for a spell like empower?
Picture this -
You start a duel as a magus - visionary Death, you empower immediately (with my version of empower) and you've gained 3 pips while losing 300 health or more to moon damage. You can cast a wraith or scarecrow now, because you've gained 3 pips instead of 2. Suddenly, a move like empower made sense, because now you can get your health back while hitting a round quicker for higher rank spells, not spells that you could've cast from the start without using empower to begin with.
Picture the same scenario with the current version of empower. You empower, you gain 2 pips, you can cast a pirate at most on your next turn. You won't be getting that health back, because vampire gives you less health than what you took in damage and you most likely could have cast that from the start without doing empower at all.
Do you see the problem now? Empower, as it is, is practically useless. Also.. what do you mean extra turn? With the way empower is now, you're basically wasting a turn to even cast it!
Dark Pact- I don't even know why you have a problem with Dark Pact. You can get +40% from a regular deathbladebut you have a problem with someone getting +30% while taking an obligatory 300 moon damage hit? I don't understand your reasoning for refuting the Dark Pact improvement at all.
Lastly, Bad Juju needs some work done to it, no matter where you look. I just gave one of many moderate nerfing ideas and I recognize it is the weakest suggestion my original post. However, I also believe it to be more balanced than a spell that kills the caster in four uses or less.
For PVE, I agree with you. PvP, the wizard should not use Dark Pact because it does damage to the wizard. Dark pact should be a flat 300 damage to self and not take gear into the calculation. I think that the power pip should be refundable if the player has completed the Mirage quest.
Bad juju should be available in the Bazaar. I mention this because of the Storm Titan fight.
I feel like bad juju and all those other are fine. It's your fault for casting when you have blades on. But I do want to see this happen to sacrifice. it can take more damage or something but it shouldn't take up death blades or gear damage. If I used it anywhere in the storyline past Zafaria-ish I would probably do more damage then healing.
My 130 level death wizard, has kept track of the PvE damage of Dark Pact and Bad Juju to self. It is higher than 300 with my gear and no other blades up. Generally you cast Dark Pact or enhanced dark pact then your other death and spirit blades. I am saying that the gear bonuses should not negatively impact the caster.
