The Death of Squishies on CoA
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So I foresaw this coming when the announcement for minimum lvl 6 came. The death of the "Squishy" build.
I do find it annoying but amusing at the same time. Was so close to lvl 10 2 K away. Now I am 1 K up from 7.
Friday Night. Instant death from a chain lighting trap no one could see standing there for 3 minutes. Jumped two people to me that shook it off. Hit the Squishy at full health and seeing the avatar of Jergal. Saturday night. Ran invisible through the Hullack to get Acorns to brew. A lone Half orc Bandit swung 12 feet away once and saw the loading screen again. Sunday Morning went fishing. Saw nothing around me. Instantly I was paralyzed and being eaten by a Large Geletinous Cube. Hi Fugue my old friend.
The Death of the Squishy build on CoA and the sad part is I have 12 Con too.
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12 CON won't save you when you only have a d6. You should either bring someone who can fight with you, use summons (not currently viable since the duration sucks), or be using more wards like stoneskin.
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I really don't understand why shitty summons don't have longer life. I wouldn't mind having a whole tier of "lousy" summons that do nothing but act as distraction and protection for the caster, but they last a very long time. This would actually allow wizards to travel solo without being invis 24/7
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@crystalrl
Lost my Stoneskin Spell with the first death actually. -
I mean this really comes down to the fact that the open world is supposed to be dangerous, and if you're traveling alone it's high risk - I'm pretty sure this is intended, as the goal here is to find other people to adventure with you.
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Well the second death there was only 3 people on at the time. First Death was with a group on a quest and stayed back. just the trap jumped.
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That's what chain lightning traps do. They're very dangerous and one of the most feared things on CoA for a reason. Stay further back. Put up elemental protection and a constitution buff on yourself at all times during questing. These are things that can minimalize and out right prevent something like that occuring. Just being a caster and standing in the back isn't always enough to 'be safe' on a quest.
As for the 'only 3 people on', well that's unfortunate, but it still boils down to adventuring by yourself vses having a group. Back in the day, people use to farm solo all sorts of things, and it wasn't good for the server. You should try to get one of those 3 people to help you, and if you can't, you just need to understand there is a very large risk in traveling alone.
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Casters are meant to die more easily than other classes, it's part of what makes them casters.
They aren't particularly designed for Solo play, they are support characters. If anything Minimum level 6 is a blessing since no matter how much you die you will always have access to third circle and therefore always have at least a minimum level of usefulness as a support character.
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Low HP classes die more if alone.
How is that a problem?
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I really don't see a problem with this. It used to be worse when HP was rolled. If anything, it's far safer of a server now. Almost too safe.
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Toughness, elemental protection wand, and endurance, extended or empowered will give even a mage alot of staying power in a crunch situation.
Also use imp invis over stoneskin.The DR of stoneskin is seductive, but imp invis effectively gives 25%-50% more hp, makes your heals 25%-50% more effective, and increases the effective hp gained from endurance/toughness by 25%-50%. If you absolutely need stoneskin buy a 5-10 charge wand of it, and use it in an emergency. 250 gold per charge is cheaper then the cost to raise you at higher levels, and worth every gp if it keeps your blood pressure low from dying.
Sorcs really need to augment their spell selection with wands, and "cast from gp" what they cant cast from their blood given powers.
Also invest in tumble, something imp invis benefits as well, as it makes getting out of close combat even easier. Invest into a heal wand, and insta fire it, and move away if something even looks at you.
Feymancer also gets barkskin, so use that, and a shield/mage armor wand, and dex buff from Raznor to buff up your ac. Assuming 10 base dex, and min rolls from bulls, then with +1 ac from tumble, +1 ac from dodge ac/tumble boots and the above mentioned ac buffs you can hit 10 base + 1 min roll dex buff + 1 tumble +1 dodge ac +2 (1 dodge 1 armor) from mage armor, +1 ac dodge feat gloves, +4 from barkskin and +4 from shield. That gives you a total ac of 24. Not enough for first attack of most higher level creatures but offering solid protection from their second or third if you find yourself attacked. And if you have more then 10 ac at start, and roll higher from raznor buffs that gives you 2-4 more ac easily.
You should have a solid tumble score at 7-8 too. If you invest into it, its with the +4 tumble + 1 ac dodge boots 9+dex modifier which in your case is going to put you somewhere between 10-13 which is enough to avoid attack of opportunities alot of the time, especially with improved invisibility.
All this is not even taking into consideration the amazing tanking potential stag beetle form from polymorph offers with the ac and concealment buffs you have available.
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@meatmarket said in The Death of Squishies on CoA:
I mean this really comes down to the fact that the open world is supposed to be dangerous, and if you're traveling alone it's high risk - I'm pretty sure this is intended, as the goal here is to find other people to adventure with you.
And so I proved my point. 3 pm my time.
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Hardly proving a point when the server is slow and everyone is playing EE Zargon.
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If we tailored the server to lone wolf wanderering when player population is down, this server will be horribly unbalanced when we go to EE.
The spawns are alittle crazy now and then, but that has always been the way of things and 9/10 times is lag induced, or @HellzYeah just wandered through and spawned a ton of beholders.
I think both level 6 starting and the general spawn set up is fine for now. Obviously things need tweaking, but that kind of work SHOULDNT be done until we’re back to 55/55 on EE land. Why tailor a server twice? It would just hinder the experience of those we wish to attract when we go live.
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Don’t get me wrong, I am not actually complaining, just wanting to put forth the side that is struggling the most with this level increase. I don’t want anything changed really.
Also three days four deaths. Latest due to in the middle of a back spawn. A really really bad luck weekend and Monday. Hello equivalent to level 1 again.
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So this is part of the important distinction, you are not the equivalent to level 1. You're level 6. Leaving the city isn't a problem. Wounded Cougars don't kill you in one hit. level 6 allows for the players like me who arent mechanically savvy to actually travel the realm outside Arabel. I'm sure we'll have other issues once everyone is level 20 but i'm level 6, however, the benefit to actually be able to RP on an RP server is much greater than the alternative.. which is sitting in the spire and twiddling my thumbs.
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as far as summons go, only evil necromancers and evil divine casters have the advantage with summons, but that is the terrible price they have to pay, because many of their summons are death sentences on sight when they are caught or even seen doing thus (mind you i am confused about the shadow summon, it normally brings stuff that would make a necromancer squeal with glee, but does not have the duration, i would like to see something summoned that would be something non evil people could actually use, considering the limited duration )
i have always thought that the summons that non evil ones could last a bit longer, but that is only a wish coming from me, i have also used the double your spell duration feat, but that still does not last that long compared to the veritable armies i have witnessed others having in tow
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How is this due to the level increase?
Its always been like this.
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@zargen-of-zandor said in The Death of Squishies on CoA:
Don’t get me wrong, I am not actually complaining,
Really? Sounds like it to me..
@mr-moloch said in The Death of Squishies on CoA:
How is this due to the level increase?
Its always been like this.QFT
@spiffymeister said in The Death of Squishies on CoA:
Low HP classes die more if alone.
How is that a problem?This. If your "proof" of no one else being around is valid, then DONT GO TO DANGEROUS PLACES ALONE! Problem solved.
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If you have balancing ideas or ways to improve the enjoyment for different playing styles, please feel free to post your ideas in the suggestion forum. It is very hard to keep the fine balance between fun, boring and death and in the end we all need to bring out minds together to solve it.
Still, sometimes a theory may come up in regards how to solve it and it is not correct due to lack of information. I would strongly suggest to consider to check facts and ideas before getting dead set on them, for example level does not matter in the wilderness. All triggers in the wilderness are pre-set up, but sometimes there is a slight unbalance and it needs to be tweaked to get better.
- An area that spawn too strong monsters and should probably be a little lower level? Make a bug report, detailing the area, server version and what monster spawned. Preferably after a few repeats unless it was OBVIOUSLY wrong, like 5 half orc bandits ;)
- Many wilderness areas where there are the same creature, and few with another? Bring a suggestion to balance out the monsters variety!
- Suggest some non-mechanical stuff to be added IG, maybe you have a simple puzzle scripted the DMs could use? (hint, hint cough, cough, nudge, nudge)
- Do you wish to go to an dangerous area, but don't believe you are strong enough to go alone? Make a poster recruiting people on the forums, ask on discord for help or send a letter to your IG friends that you are DYING to go to here cause it would be fun! Bit like arranging a picnic, but with risk of death