V Mage is too powerful in the endgame.

[Pete Mack]

With fast cast and Mana Storm, a CL 50 mage does nearly 700 damage per turn, including a 13% fail rate. This is more than any other class, except for a Ranger with Holy Might, or a warrior with an uber-weapon (like, say, Deathwreaker.)

Suggestion: tone down mana storm (in both mana cost and damage) so it maxes out at maybe 500 average damage per turn. That is still pretty high, but not ridiculously so. Mage shouldn't be doing that kind of damage, given how well he can control the battlefield.

I just killed morgoth using 2 !restore mana and 2 !healing. and a couple CCW for stunning. That is pretty ridiculous.

[Philip]

I still think Mages should never have gotten the fast casting spell. IMO Mages should have the ultimate utility, battlefield control, and devices, Priests should have ultimate healing, Necromancers should have ultimate spell damage output, and Druids should have, uh, I guess debuffs are their identity these days?
Giving Mages fast spells disincentivizes the use of devices, which is unfortunate.

[Pete Mack]

It certainly is way more powerful than the spell it replaced (haste self.) Haste self doubles speed if you start from 1x normal. Fast cast doubles speed no matter what.

[Ed_47569]

Not forgetting 0% fail on Mass Banishment makes big summoners and clearing loot from vaults absolutely trivial.

[Pete Mack]

There is no 0-fail on mass banishment--you need to use Dimension Door first, which is actually better, as it works against summoned uniques as well. (You might need to dig a safe space while preparing for the fight.)

[Nick]

There have been two post-4.2.0 changes which affect mages:

1. Damage boost from devices has been removed;
2. Tapping devices for mana now stuns briefly, and stunning kills fastcast.

Do you think this nerfs mages sufficiently?

[Philip]

I can't imagine it would change the problem with Mages as it is outlined in the original post?

The first change seems like a great way to discourage Mages from using devices at all (other than as mana batteries), but their current power seems to derive more from regular spellcasting. Personally I think mages should be encouraged to use devices, but that's a personal preference. If it will affect Mages, it will be in the early game, before you can reliably run fastcast, when groups of monsters can tax your mana very heavily. If the problem is that mages are too powerful in the endgame, removing their early game crutch doesn't seem correct.

The second change seems like it will make long fights a bit less straightforward, in that I imagine you will need to DDoor away before draining up to full and coming back. That said, the only situations this affects, by default, are those where
a) you need more than your mana pool to win a fight
b) you want to take that fight
c) you cannot spare !restore mana for the fight
I don't know how many of those there are, Pete Mack can probably give more information on that. Certainly there are none where it is "you need to take that fight", because a late-game Mage never needs to take any fight.

[Pete Mack]

Philip--
!rMana is pretty common, and for many uniques it isn't necessary in any case, because they have essentially infinite detection range. So if you teleport them away, you see them come back in a bit, when your mana is back up somewhat. I did this a few times, as I mentioned in another thread. It isn't much of a burden. And losing fast-cast to stunning isn't that much of a problem, since it is almost free to cast. If it cost 20+SP, it'd be different.

[Derakon]

It sounds like the bottom line here is "being able to throw out spells super quickly is OP." Which should not be surprising as we've known for years that rangers with extra shots are super-powered. To clamp down on this you'll either need to slow casting down, or make sure that mages can't sustain fast casting for long. Some possible ideas:

* Remove fast cast if the player moves for any reason.
* Spells cast under fast cast drain mana 2x (or 3x, etc. whatever feels right), and any form of mana recovery removes the buff.
* Fast cast drains X% (10%?) of your mana per turn while it is active.
* Fast casting temporarily reduces your INT (or, more mercifully, your max mana), with the amount of reduction increasing as long as fast cast is active and gradually recovering when it is not.
* The degree to which fast cast increases casting speed starts out small, increases with each turn spent casting a spell, and resets if you do any non-spellcasting action.

[Saru]

Mages

I've only barely picked angband back up after not playing it for a couple years, so maybe I'm not super qualified to make suggestions, but I love mages so here goes. (sorry if I ramble a bit.. )

Perhaps there could be a % chance fast cast would deactivate whenever the mage sustained damage, with the chance being higher for more damage? It seems like a flat out nerf to mage spell damage/turn would be both boring and invalidate the point of fast cast. Fast cast probably needs to cost more, and maybe you should take extra damage if you get hit while it's active? I feel like fast cast should be specifically decimating to enemies that have no ranged attack or ability to close distance quickly, since the mage can just shoot 'n scoot them with little fear anyway. Fast cast just makes these fights less tedious.

Just spouting out ideas, because I think mages are more fun in their current iteration than they've been in a while, and I don't want them to be stuck with boring linear playstyles. Feel free to ignore any of this though, I'm just a Noob . BTW thanks for the great game and all the work you put into it Nick. Keep it up!

[Pete Mack]

saru--it is only one spell that does such extreme damage per turn; the other spells aren't nearly so unbalanced. Punishing players who don't double down on higher resists seems a bad way to go. (Currently, ONLY Mana storm does more than 275 damage to a fully buffed player with all resists.)

[Saru]

I assume you're referring to the suggestion of increased player damage from fastcast? Now that I think about it that could be rather annoying; back to the drawing board I guess....

I was under the assumption people had more of a problem with fastcast rather than manastorm, sorry for misunderstanding!

[Zane314]

How about if, when Fastcast ends, the player is Muted for ~10 rounds and can't cast spells?

Then you get players less willing to abuse the power of Fastcast if it's in a long fight scenario, but it's still useful as a "oh crap I need short term power" move. And smart mages can supplement their muted turns with devices.

[Bogatyr]

How about if, when Fastcast ends, the player is Muted for ~10 rounds and can't cast spells?

Then you get players less willing to abuse the power of Fastcast if it's in a long fight scenario, but it's still useful as a "oh crap I need short term power" move. And smart mages can supplement their muted turns with devices.

Ugh, why would I as a mage ever want to do anything that will prevent me from casting spells?! I wouldn't, ever. I'd just not use it. I'd rather fights take longer than risking requiring an escape that I can't use when muted. I'd rather have the old haste self back, which is self-limiting in strength towards the end game as speed items are acquired.

Predictably, all the fun new things I've found with 4.2.0 with mages are being nerfed :/. Mages pay a heavy price of having to play very carefully/slowly and tip-toeing around in the early/middle game. There should be a benefit for that cost.

Mages are masters of magical power, the storing and usage of it. I think the 4.2.0 recharge/tap and magical device bonus should be kept as is for those. And for heavens sake don't nerf dimension door now that you've hooked me on it.

[Huqhox]

Perhaps there could be a % chance fast cast would deactivate whenever the mage sustained damage, with the chance being higher for more damage?

How about ending it if the caster takes any damage at all? That way when you hit a room full of nasties or a vault, you can fastcast to get a few battlefield control spells off and maybe a couple of attacking spells but that's it. It would still be useful but may not be overpowered since any reasonably tough opponent or situation is likely to be able to damage the caster reasonably quickly