Maddening Mage is just Unfun, not Challenging

[rigid ridge]

Okay, yes it is "challenging" but not in the normal way difficulty is presented. It literally makes the game rng dependent because it can just randomly throw you around, which is incredibly dangerous as clipping into Greg can just get you one shot. Same is true when messing up positioning for Orphion, the Colossus, etc.

It's one of the few gambits that are universally avoided across all classes, all archetypes, all playstyles, etc. When everyone has such an aversion to a gambit it's a sign that it's fundamentally designed wrong

Random ideas on how to keep the general concept but not make it so punishing with no way to work around it:

• Make it so that there's a percent chance for a spell to fail, not miscast (still problematic for Watched ig but can still be played against since you know there's a chance you have to tp twice)
• There's a chance for spells to cost extra
• Chance for damage spells to do no damage

[final oracle]

wasn't it changed a good few months ago to be based on the amount of spells you cast
Every 10th spell miscasts as a different one

[rigid ridge]

Yes technically but it's incredibly hard to keep track of when spellspamming
Also it's been slightly buggy recently, I haven't been able to pin down how but it miscasts a lot more on some classes than others, prob bc of how it keeps track of what counts as a spell

[paper creek]

most gambits dont serve as a challenge, but rather a strong incentive to switch builds

[rigid ridge]

^^ yeah I agree, I believe someone made another post about this too. I just found that mmage was an especially egregious one

[twin agate]

Common hmelee W ahh gambit

[paper creek]

my focus tho

[spare spindle]

^^^

[hidden scarab]

mfw bleeding warrior

[twin agate]

The % hp one is unavoidable

Unless u play 5 hp…

[cursive ocean]

im pretty sure its bugged to count alot of non spells as spells making it even more unusable currently

[exotic sigil]

I wouldn't mind if it was you casted 10 spells but the counter resets after Xs

cause this gambit currently is a nuance for melee builds since they often or not still need to cast spells

[vivid karma]

tbh it's hard to make a gambit that affect all builds equally

glutton by beloved

[exotic sigil]

that's not what gambits are aimed to do, its suppose to make the player have more build variety when doing raids

[white quest]

noooo dont remove my 2m dps smokestack gambit

[warped dove]

i think one way to fix mmage without completely erasing the concept

is to do like they did with chaos explosion and make it not do anything to movement spells

[valid hawk]

my proposal for a gambit alternative:
-Deficient Mage Gambit: when mana bar is less than 50%, spells deal 50% less dmg
-Exhausted Mage Gambit: When consuming 200% of max mana (applied with -mr/ms), spells deal 80% less dmg for 3 seconds

similar gambit however one is more about mantaining the mana bar above 200% and the other one is about using your spells wise and not do just spell spam at every enemy

another one that i don't like as much but still works,

Maddening mage gambit when mana bar is above 70%, spells deal 50% (not available when deficient mage is on pool)

[white turtle]

fallen has suffered enough leave it alone 🥀

[mystic juniper]

if they did this it would be literally completely harmless lmao

[spare spindle]

No 💔

[valid hawk]

then exhausted mage is the solution, because affects all archetypes

[mystic juniper]

may as well remove it atp which btw i am completely for, this shit is so ass it literally just means you dont get the 4th gambit cause no way in hell am i taking it

[spare spindle]

Epich

[white turtle]

ngl i have no idea what the second one does

like 200% of your sustain?

[warped dove]

yeah fair enougj

[valid hawk]

if you have 100 max mana, using 200 will apply that effect

once you reach that mana used

[spare spindle]

Talking bout the first one

[mystic juniper]

so basically outworn again lmao

[restive vine]

yes

is it really that hard to count to ten guys

[valid hawk]

nope, in outworn spells cost more

[white turtle]

then i don't think it does anything to 90% of builds

might not even effect arca

[valid hawk]

it acts once you reach that

[white turtle]

ohhh

i misread

then the concept just sucks

[mystic juniper]

i meant to say forseen but its legit just giving certain playstyles an absurd damage penalty, this does not affect how you play at all it just arbitrarily decides some builds will either not be played or go 2 gambit, which is already a wild design issue the current gambits have, if were replacing stuff i would want it to be with something actually better

[valid hawk]

maddening mage already punish mage, the mana % of the second one could be adjusted

[valid hawk]

what is your idea to replace maddening mage?

[mystic juniper]

the design just fundementally hyper punishes some classes and doesnt touch others it has alr failed its not an issue of numbers tweaks

[valid hawk]

which archetypes are going to be punished and which ones aren't?

like examples

[white turtle]

literally any class that uses spells is gonna get punished for existing (aka 90% of builds)

[valid hawk]

spells are strongs

[white turtle]

yeah which is why 90% of builds use them

[valid hawk]

and not all spells related classes are going to be as strongly punished as others

[storm lodge]

did you report that?

[valid hawk]

for example Water builds aren't going to be as affected as E or Thunder related builds, which are the strongest in terms of meta

[rigid ridge]

It's well-known

[white turtle]

water is gonna get punished more actually

[valid hawk]

the oposite

[mystic juniper]

deficient: any heavy spell, fallen, aco, any other build that has high costs or doesnt fully sustain

exhausted: arcanist acrobat shade bolt, any build with a mana printer or high spell cps or cost

[thorny bolt]

didnt one of the recent patches claim to fix the bugs with it
anyways the gambit is just cheeks and probly not getting removed so just play around the other 3/sentence urself to epoch

[valid hawk]

water ---> less spell cost ----> slower accumulation of gambit

[white turtle]

you get better mana sustain on water -> you use more mana -> you proc the gambit more often

[valid hawk]

water related builds uses less mana, and has higher max mana

[white turtle]

both are generally false

[mystic juniper]

are you being serious? do you know how much mana most water builds burn through per second? youre going to have like literally 100% uptime on damage reduction on any water build

[white turtle]

items with max mana usually aren't used since max mana doesn't do anything most of the time

[valid hawk]

well it't time to be useful as an id

[white turtle]

it's still not gonna be useful whatsoever

the gambit is just not gonna be used by any spell build

and will be a free gambit for melee builds

[valid hawk]

which builds are meta rn, like for a big difference?

[mystic juniper]

wdym

[valid hawk]

are melee builds as powerfull as spell ones?

[white turtle]

they can be yes

[valid hawk]

can be or are?

[white turtle]

what are you trying to ask

like if there are melee builds that are good?

[valid hawk]

not that are good, that are comparable to the best spell ones?

[white turtle]

pretty sure tierstack epoch is still really damn good

[valid hawk]

but is comparable to best spell archer build?

[rigid ridge]

I personally get 300k but that's below like 80% of spell archetypes

[white turtle]

what does divzer hit usually

[white quest]

have you seen the trickster maddening mage tech?

[valid hawk]

the arcanist

[vivid karma]

Okay girls, let's count to 10.

[valid hawk]

1

43

[vivid karma]

Shit.

[valid hawk]

but going back to my point, is better to have a gambit that punish hard or strong usage of spells with dmg penalties (that can be nerfed or buffed) than having something that messes up your whole playstyle

[white turtle]

the former literally does mess up your whole playstyle

[valid hawk]

like spell spam/heavy spell has been the strongest since 2.0

[white turtle]

arguably more than maddening mage

[valid hawk]

why does it messes up a playstyle?

[white turtle]

your dps gets cut to one fifth for casting spells

[valid hawk]

having less dmg doesn't ruin any kind of playstyle, it may ruin the timers or how quick you kill the boss, but it doesn't messes with your whole playstyle

[white turtle]

messing with is not the same as ruining

also dealing 1/5 of your dps for playing the game arguably does ruin a playstyle

[valid hawk]

especially when the strongest builds deal almost 1M dps, having it cut to 5th part of that dps is 200k dps which is not even olinus dmg

you can kill the boss with 1M dps and 100k dps

[white turtle]

this doesn't JUST effect the strongest builds

[valid hawk]

is the same boss, is the same playstyle

[valid hawk]

ok tell me a weak build that is affected in the playstyle

only 1 if you want

[white turtle]

how about i tell you weak archetypes that will be effected instead

[valid hawk]

sure

[restive vine]

yeah lmao it's hilarious, i think we should keep it in

[white turtle]

bmonk, bolt, sharp, acro, rift

hell this would effect every archetype since they all use spell

[cunning parrot]

man

[cunning parrot]

Not even that much worse than divza for 3% of the effort and 2x the qol and ehp

[spare spindle]

Most people play spell spam

Its hard to count also its just really annoying

[valid hawk]

is rift used as a pure or hybrid archetype rn?

[white turtle]

rift isn't used

but pretty sure it's pure spell

[restive vine]

this would suuuck

[spare spindle]

Realistically the gambit would work if you could only cast a spell a seocnd or sum but like this game aint built like tjat

[white turtle]

or maybe spellsteal

[white turtle]

timelock isn't real i'm sorry

you're screwing yourself and your team over if you use it

[valid hawk]

why?

[white turtle]

you eat the winded you spent so long building up

[cunning parrot]

because max winded is like

Idk 3x or sumn dmg and takes 10secs to build

[valid hawk]

but is viable right?

[white turtle]

no

[cunning parrot]

Timelock gives u the 30 winded buff for 3 seconds and then removes all of it lol

[white turtle]

it's probably the only node in the game that's actively throwing to use

[spare spindle]

Rift is accessory nodes for lb and arca

[white turtle]

no winded means you take more damage since devitalise doesn't happen, and you and any of your mage teammates deal far less damage

[cunning parrot]

Genuinely the worst node in the game now that crep ray can be canceled

[valid hawk]

no, you take the normal dmg that enemies would deal to you

[white turtle]

yeah which is more than if you had winded

[valid hawk]

why is it?

[spare spindle]

Winded

[valid hawk]

but why not using rift alone?

like pure rift

[white turtle]

arcanist is just kinda better

[valid hawk]

why is arcanist better?

[white turtle]

more damage more mana

[spare spindle]

Bro is a philosopher

[cunning parrot]

Wait are u a new player @valid hawk

[valid hawk]

so you agree, that riftcanist is a spell related playstyle stronger than pure riftwalker, riftwalker is not affected (or at least not by a lot) by that kind of gambit replacement while the strongest is affected?

[white turtle]

what

no lmao you still get mana on rift

[cunning parrot]

What is the point you're trying to make I don't get it @valid hawk

[valid hawk]

my point is that riftwalker is not being affected by that thing

[white turtle]

this has gotta be ragebait

[valid hawk]

acrobat has nice dps which can reach high ammounts, even if the dps is reduced to a 20%, is not inviable with the gambit

[white turtle]

acro dps reaches like 200k

[cunning parrot]

Riftwalker is affected just the same as arcanist because ideally you're casting at 10 cps on both

[white quest]

unusable tbh!!

[cunning parrot]

Yes and no one that uses pure riftwalker consciously uses that ability

[valid hawk]

so is not affecting pure riftwalker!

[white turtle]

wait true just timelock smh

timelock spam is meta!!

[cunning parrot]

The downside that usually comes with maddening mage is your movement spell being cast and you're displaced because of it

[valid hawk]

im not talking about maddening but rather this btw

[cunning parrot]

Arcanist and Riftwalker have the same movement spell

[valid hawk]

.

[white turtle]

we're talking about the second one in this message

[cunning parrot]

I don't see what you're arguing against besides assigning shades of gray to what archetype / class is affected more

[valid hawk]

yes it does affect playstyles, but it affects meta playstyles mostly (spell related) which are the strongest since 2.0, and the best spell meta playstyles who are player have more than 400k dps, having this even all the time for Thunder or Earth builds is not even making them unviable but rather adds value to other non-meta or weak playstyles

[cunning parrot]

gotchu

[valid hawk]

so my point is that the second one is not even a bad thing, it doesn't ruin you experience on the raid (in most cases you can even do raids fine olinus dps) but rather enhances the chance of using alternatives to current meta

having less dps by a penalty doesn't ruin your spell cycling, your movement or doesn't make the enemies stronger

while maddening mage does ruin your experience by ruining the whole fight with enemies, especially with spell spam builds against enemies like tna or tcc

[torn fox]

Acolyte suffers

Even +Sorcery mID is a downside for Shaman

[topaz pivot]

Maddening mage is the worst its just annoying and not in a good way like the other gambits. Count to 10 sure yes yes while im casting at 10 cps in a challenge room where im doing smth there aint a way

[glass copper]

I love gambling this gambit is so fun I love gambling!

[white quest]

so true this gambit brightens up my day

[rigid ridge]

Why take it in such bad faith lmao. When you're casting at max cps in some archetypes it's next to impossible to keep track of. And yes when you have sorcery on (which from my testing makes it pure chance lmao bc sorcery counts as "spell casts" for some reason) it literally becomes a gamble

[valid hawk]

sorcery doesn't consume mana for that one

since sorcery is not a recast but a free spell cast

[rigid ridge]

Also even if you don't play sorcery and are on a low cps class, counting to ten still doesn't help? Just because you know when it miscasts doesn't mean you'll be able to reposition, because

• You have no idea if the miscast is a tp spell
• Even if you try to always "adjust" yourself for the possibility of the miscast being a tp spell it's sometimes still impossible. For example on warrior if I move one charge's worth of distaince in case it miscasts into charge I literally just can't reach the boss. Same is true for other medium range classes like shade
• Fundamentally doesn't work with a good chunk of classes that can't reposition. Try playing it on acro

And this is best case scenario where your casts aren't literally being gambled

[torn fox]

Yes thats a bad thing

[valid hawk]

https://tenor.com/view/kakegurui-kaede-yumeko-gif-22636233

[valid hawk]

btw i wasn't talking about maddening mage on that one

[torn fox]

Yeah I mean Sorcery in general is bad for Shaman

[valid hawk]

. (second one)

[lethal radish]

I'ma be real: my only issue of maddening is that the audio que is not noticable at all

With how loud combat can be , the audio for maddening warning is just... Felt non existent

Probably make it louder , or add a visual que to make it more fair

So you have better warning on what is to come

[warped dove]

+1

[sage rapids]

honestly gambits in general need to be reworked so that they dont end up just making people switch builds
i dont think it would be particularly hard to do it (or come up with ideas for it) but the gambits that would come from doing this would be relatively boring

gambits more in line with like myopic and farsighted

[torn fox]

I find myself switching builds to avoid even these

[sage rapids]

sure those gambits are uncomfortable on specific classes but i think theyre playable on everything except like farsighted + shade unless im missing something

[torn fox]

glutton and shattered mortal are playable

[sage rapids]

ya i was about to say, there are a few existing gambits that are universal challenges or debuffs

myopic, farsighted, glutton, smortal, cursed alc, eroded, that's like a third of existing gambits and they kill almost no playstyles all combined

could argue for hemo

[lethal radish]

Other than the very quiet audio que , I think maddening is , imo , the most fair and interesting gambit. It always felt like it is my fault when I don't play around it or when I did a mistake with maddening. It never felt infuriating.

[mystic juniper]

cursed and hemo massively impact builds with low sustain or that play with their hp, rage, aco and fallen come to mind immediately, fallen with 3 pot feels genuinely unplayable rn

[spare spindle]

Unironically the most infuriating gambit

Imo it doesnt fit in a game where spam is prevalent for most builds

[sage rapids]

Bleeding warrior be pissing me off the most

[lethal radish]

I mean if yk how to play about it , you can basically have a "random spell for lower cost"

(usually casting movement spells for miscast activation)

[mystic juniper]

oh sorry i confused hemo and bleeding, bleeding fucking sucks and hemo hard counters tank builds

[spare spindle]

Well its not easy when your spamming a shit ton of spells a second

Its definitely doable on low cps

[lethal radish]

Btw the audio que procs.on 3 , 2 and 1 spell before miscast , and miscast activated

Quite alot of ample time if u ask me

[spare spindle]

You can barely hear it when you got 20 other sources of audio

[lethal radish]

Fair... But again like I said I wish they made that louder

[paper creek]

even on slower builds, some ability comboes require multiple casts, so are you supposed to just cast a bunch before hand

[lethal radish]

Or maybe even a "message indicator" that flashes on your screen?

[spare spindle]

^

[paper creek]

taking control away from the player is just bad design period

wynn did this a lot with push/pull and stuff like multihit

being able to make yourself suffer less from it doesn't make it fair or controllable

like its fine to impose a tol (rune), like having a spell not cast or cost a bunch of mana, because at that point it is still up to you to choose that trade and your other casts are not interrupted; meanwhile having to adjust or stop your cycle to do a cast you have no control over just feels bad

[torn fox]

ruins acolyte

[mystic juniper]

i disagree that its intrinsically bad design alot of games use taking control away as an alternative punishment to damage or death, which allows for enemies or players to have a more diverse and interesting tool kit with more nuance and synergy. the issue is situation and counterplay.

MMs issues are that it can happen at any point in encounters that are clearly not designed around players randomly jumping into danger (raid bosses have attacks that can oneshot or near oneshot you) and that playing around it is so tedious and intensive that people would rather either take it and accept they will sometimes die or just ignore it alltogether.

[paper creek]

name a game situation where control is forcibly taken away from you and it feels good

[mystic juniper]

punishment states arent supposed to feel good

[torn fox]

mario party

[mystic juniper]

if you get hit with greg charge and get oneshot are you supposed to enjoy it?

[paper creek]

getting hit doesnt remove control

[mystic juniper]

dieing instantly is a form of control removal and cc is used in games like this as an alternative to instant death

[paper creek]

what would you rather: play every greg with 1 hp or your spells cast randomly?

having control over a situation, no matter how bad, is intrincically fun because you can get better at it

[mystic juniper]

if you would like read what i said at all you would know im not arguing about mm being fine at all

mm is a horrid instance of control removal im just saying its not an intrinsic evil

[paper creek]

im just looking for an example where in a game something happens that goes against my input and its fun for me

inputs are meant to be responsive

[torn fox]

this is exactly why i hate mario party ngl

[sage rapids]

I don’t find tank builds to be very real at all, I’d probably say glue guardian is not something that should stay around to begin with + hemo still hurts noticeably on lower ehp classes because some raids have many hits/sec so it could be a nice higher-difficulty gambit if all gambits were universal difficulty modifiers

[paper creek]

like imagine a gambit that pointed your camera in a random direction every 10 seconds

that is wild, right? and that is right next door to maddening mage

my build casts 1 spell every 2 seconds and i find it horrible

[mystic juniper]

cc in alot of games allows for crazy shit to exist, in a game like league you couldnt have characters that dash around all the time if there was no way to hold them still, in overwatch tanks wouldnt be able to be as durable as they are if there wasnt a way to stop them from retreating, CC as a game design tool is incredibly important as it can be used to justify other strong a fun elements in games, MM doesnt do that at all to reiterate i just think youre overstepping alot saying its an innately bad thing to have in your game

[paper creek]

overwatch! i knew you would mention overwatch!

https://youtu.be/KxF4TuSN_A0

[sage rapids]

Not even the best clip

[paper creek]

send it

i dont consider being stunned the same as taking control away

because you not being able to do anything and your character intentionally going against your inputs are very different

especially in a game that is supposed to put you in the shoes of the character you play

[storm lodge]

what is it?

[mystic juniper]

your character doing random fuckass inputs is stupid yeah theres no design justification for it cause it doesnt allow for other stuff to be made better

[sage rapids]

I can’t find it it’s so over

[mystic juniper]

also lowk a clip of xqc botwalking into enemy team 1v5 and getting deservedly hyper punished doesnt really make me unconfident in saying cc is good for the game, imagine a world where cc doesnt exist and that level of dumbassery is allowed cause he queued a tank

[sage rapids]

Maddening applies to clones so that you miscast every 2 spells I think

[storm lodge]

o
do the clones recast your miscast?

[paper creek]

rivals handles it cleaner in my opinion, instead of hard cc you either can walk in if your team structure is intact, or your healers get pressured so you cant

tho they did give emma 3 second cc for whatever reason

[sage rapids]

Maybe? But the most impactful part is that half of your spells are miscasted

[storm lodge]

🔥

[mystic juniper]

doesnt rivals have an insane issue with tanks being unkillable lmfao

[sage rapids]

“We should keep it in lmao” is wack af though, they don’t give a shit that most gambits are just build dependent

[paper creek]

not at all, but if your team only shoots tanks yeah nothing will die

unless you use a bunch of ults

game is all about taking angles

[mystic juniper]

ok gg i looked up tank gameplay and the first thing i see is a dumbass tank player trying to dive 1v5 and getting perma ccd it looks like they alr figured ito ut

dude i dont know fuckall about this game but it looks like it has more cc than overwatch

this is like league level not playing the game wtf LOL

[paper creek]

it has 3 cc ults and 5 cc abilities

hard cc that is

[mystic juniper]

theres no shot i just randomly accidentally cherry picked the only clip on yt of a guy on tank getting perma ccd by the only 2 characters with cc on their basic abilities LMFAO

if so my bad

[paper creek]

winter soldier got a roadhog hook i bet he was in it

but he also is 250 hp after he hooks you

[mystic juniper]

https://youtube.com/shorts/HLH8_EEQVVk?si=WQUwJ-erA9tB3J5v

[paper creek]

those are like ministuns to interrupt ults lol

going in 1v5 isnt the play

[mystic juniper]

i would hope not

but like idk even small stuns do their job, if they didnt exsit he would get away with that, if he could get away with that tanks would need to be nerfed to be less tanky, if tanks are less tanky frontline matters less, if frontline matters less the game just turns into val lmao

conclusion being cc is important for keeping character power in check in alot of instances

[paper creek]

to paint a picture, you could prob afk on tank for 5 seconds on the front line and not die; those instances of cc are much more disruptive in 1v1 and ult cancel situations, and them all being thrown at a tank without care is usually a poor use of them

[valid hawk]

kassadin and leblanc:

[paper creek]

i suppose rivals does have more cc, it just feels much more fair. they are either short, hard to land, or have almost no impact if used mid fight, like the sleep that can be cancelled by allies or freeze which is removed on taking damage

[mystic juniper]

ok i have seen the ults like literally every single one is a teamwipe if you land it, that for sure could not be the case if you couldnt cancel it

[paper creek]

tank ults usually buy a lot of space, support ults deny a lot of space, and dps ults create a lot of pressure and make it much harder to outheal the damage

[mystic juniper]

i really dont know the game that well but cc is definitely in like a necessary evil category where it sucks to happen to you but is overall better to exist alot of the time than not, if the game minimizes the negative experience for players while still keeping the utility for game balance that cc offers that just sounds like complete peak design icl

[paper creek]

if the enemy team uses 2 ults and you use none you will lose yes

[paper creek]

cc is fine yeah

good even

[mystic juniper]

is cc not taking control away from the player though?

i guess thats not what u meant when u said it to begin with but i assumed it encompassed that

[paper creek]

being stunned, lacking information (blind, deaf), or being overwhelmed don't take away your control, they are a part of the situation you are dealing with; meanwhile misinterpreted inputs is not you dealing with a situation in the game, but rather the game systems themselves, taking you out of the fantasy

[mystic juniper]

yeah ok thats totally fair i think we just spent like an hour arguing over something we completely agree about LMFAO personally dont think it was that big a loss though i enjoyed hearing abt how rivals worked and talking about game design

[paper creek]

nah i just wanted to talk about rivals

[mystic juniper]

based tbh

[sage rapids]

Do we have to entertain even more gambits that force build changes or force melee

[mystic juniper]

you should make a thread about the consequence of current gambit design vs the intended effect smord and i are both too lazy to and have other stuff we wanna talk about 😭

[sage rapids]

I could’ve sworn I already did but maybe it was a draft idk

#1307112733577187393 message November damn 😭

More of a suggestion for a bandaid fix though

I think I’d make diff points now, there’s still a need for gambits to fundamentally change

[fast granite]

play panic zealot maddening mage

[sterile tundra]

its as loud as possible we dont have much control over sound in this game honestly

[lethal radish]

I see... Would maybe a visual indicator work or will it just defeat maddening mage's purpose?

Since the audio is very difficult to hear when there's so much going on in the fight

[sterile tundra]

no idea what visual indicator would even work

chat messages are bad, bossbars already populate the screen a lot and isnt worth it for a gambit

a title is way too imposing

[sterile tundra]

that is kind of the point of gambits literally

[white quest]

when are you making an anti lightbender gambit

all of them target spell spam builds or builds than can’t regen health istg

[swift comet]

I don't even find maddening mage that bad tbh

Like sure sometimes it causes you to get flung around, but if anything I'd say just make it impossible for the random spell to be your movement spell

[plain cedar]

heal cap, melee takes mana, spell cost increased one all fuck over a lot of lightbender builds

[white quest]

i can take all of those with little issue tbh

[restive vine]

what would be a good lightbender gambit in your view

[plain cedar]

heal cap isnt THAT bad but it def targets healer builds

otherwise ig u must be playing int (lament?) on slower attack speed which is like one of the only builds that dodges them

[plain cedar]

all spell effects disappear after 1 second >:)

[minor hatch]

5 mana melee isn't that bad if you have ms

[plain cedar]

ruins sustain on optimal builds

[sterile tundra]

we did add a gambit that stops healing over a threshold

[plain cedar]

i think they want one that makes it completely unplayable, not just nerfed a lot

for example instead of capped heals no heals, or if you cast heal spell you explode

[sage rapids]

Why is this good for the game?

[topaz pivot]

because then youll have to engage in diffrent playstyles you might like :DD

[sage rapids]

Too much money I fear (in theory at least) + it’s not like I need more than my regular build and a tierstack or lb build

Do you just keep adding gambits to restrict more classes everyday from earning reasonable loot?

[thorny bolt]

unfortunately maddening mages entire thing is making u movement spell

[white quest]

well spell spam builds getting gambits like the spell cost minimum one is pretty much equivalent to this so yes

the spesific example used is very silly but something that is 100% going to ruin my run as a healer if i take it

@restive vine

like i’m either skipping this gambit or swapping builds

like let’s say every time you get healed you get hit by -100 mana regen for 8 seconds

this sounds like massive numbers but i can promise you the spell cost gambit is pretty much the same and im willing to show the math behind that if you want

thinking about this now though i realize maybe it’s healthier for the game if no one has gambits that are untakable instead of everyone

lmao i’m a bit silly

i think my favorite example of a gambit is shattered mortal

because that gambit does nothing if you don’t mess up but if you do -15% is hard cooking you

it keeps you on your edge fr

[white quest]

i take heal cap on like monster and it’s geniunly so joever

and that build has no int… if anything i feel that gambit more outside of lightbender because i actually get an inconsistent flow of healing… especially on cataclysm with very low max hp that gambit is kinda annoying

[minor hatch]

does healing cap affect monster lb that much

[white quest]

joever as in it doesn’t fucking do shit

free gambit

[fiery hamlet]

that is really unfortunate ngl

[white quest]

oh if it’s supposed to force build changes than you can implement the heal makes you explode gambit

love it would be hilarious

[fiery hamlet]

gambits should be challenges that are accessible to more classes instead of random shit that just completely turns builds off

that is just horrible game design, staight up

really unfortunate to see that that was actually the goal of gambits instead of a side effect

[white quest]

we are so getting heal makes you explode 🤯

best gambit ever

[fiery hamlet]

YEAH!!

ill prob make a post about how gambits are designed to shut down builds, cuz that is just garbage

[white quest]

go for it

please mention the spell cost min gambit it shuts down my build ):

[fiery hamlet]

ill mention all of them

[lethal radish]

i got a stupid idea

maybe change the combat lvl number to a "maddening countdown timer"

it woudnt be too cluttered or obstructive

[topaz pivot]

I mean yea i dont need to be reminded im lvl 106 might as well use that space for something usefull

[white quest]

wouldn’t having a counter defeat the point

it’s supposed to be funny and random and make you explode

[lethal radish]

its not even random when it already gave audio ques

[white quest]

eh no one listens to that

[lethal radish]

but the issue imo is the audio que being... too soft , and terminated mentions being unable to change it

so adding a simple counter might be the best solution

[white quest]

i think they should embrace it and just make it random entirely and removing any cue

just make it a 10% chance

[lethal radish]

it WAS random on release but...

it just is either infuriating to play , or just 1 shots the boss...

it is really THAT messy

[white quest]

it wouldn’t be any more broken than it currently is

[lethal radish]

release is 15% btw...

[white quest]

ah so slightly more broken

[lethal radish]

did i mention it can 1 shot bosses on certain builds?

[thorny bolt]

it was still bugged on trickster at least until 2 patches ago idk if it still is

[white quest]

its still bugged on trickster

[topaz pivot]

[white quest]

you do a ton of dps because you get stacking smoke bombs

[lethal radish]

anyways replacing combat lvl number with maddening mage counter. it isnt in chat , it doesnt populate the screen and it isnt a "huge ass title moment"

i mean we do have the combat number being replaced before for a short while. like say during start of sprint and swimming.
yeah stupid idea i guess...

[sterile tundra]

this

[sterile tundra]

I kinda just disagree, they are challenging for a build and you're making the judgment that this "turns it off"

if you think its too challenging for that build then you can use another one

[fiery hamlet]

it depends on the build but the fact that they do it at all isnt great imo

[sterile tundra]

or you can not take the gambit and use the same build

[fiery hamlet]

i'd agree if more were available. even with 4 soem builds just arent able to do 3 gambit on some days

[sterile tundra]

what do you propose as challenging that won't be seen by anyone as "just turns my build off"

[fiery hamlet]

i'm in the wroks of a really big feedback post on how i view the current state of gambits

[sterile tundra]

because it will always be the case that a certain build is screwed over more than others by a particular gambit

I am ngl it has encouraged me to use more than 1 singular class (my favourite) to raid than before 2.1

like oh the close ranged gambit is there well i will use my archer because im always > 6 blocks away

or oh theres the potion gambit i will use my mage because I can heal myself without potions easily then

[fiery hamlet]

i do have somethign to say about that but im goign to save it for my post

because while it does give a lot of incentive to use other classes, it feels more forced than encouraged

[sterile tundra]

I think people so often use some differentiation between "forced" and "encouraged" that just doesn't exist. People will always view things as forced that are like blatantly optional and that will never change

you don't have to choose any gambits at all you can continue to raid and still get aspects and rewards from doing so without taking a single one

you certainly dont have to choose all gambits every single time if you believe one just isnt fun for you, or you dont have a build for one or you simply dont want to then thats fine

its the same with any other part of the game. X ability is "forced" but it comes with a major caveat of "if you want to play optimally". It do be your own choice to decide to min-max this thing which then forces you to use X ability

[fiery hamlet]

while this is the case, raiding without gambits, if your goal is to get aspects, is extremely inefficient

the +6 aspects you get from choosing 3 gambits is so much

there is a very noticeable difference in efficiency from having them or not

and so people are VERY encouraged to raid with 3 gambits as frequently as possible

lightbender wouldnt be as popular as it was/still is if gambits werent as impactful in their bonuses as they are

and so when newer players are trying to grind, and they only have access to 1 class and not much money to get different items or builds, they feel stuck out of raids until better gambits randomly come up because gambits can come up that just shut off a new player's only build they have access to

[sterile tundra]

Not many newer players grind solely raids, especially for aspects because they are experiencing the game for the first time (if they have 1 class)

Being slower because you're newer to the game than everybody else means that you're completely stuck? What? Why would you stop raiding entirely because you can't equip all 3 gambits, its still a net positive to do whatever you can do

I just dont get this argument, if you dont like a gambit then dont take it and get a few less rewards because you're playing the game easier than if you had the gambit

[ruby ocean]

Why are you forced to potentially play a different class you find less fun than your main to get the rewards you should always get?

[sterile tundra]

gambits are very impactful yes but the effects of them is often exponentially difficult aswell

[fiery hamlet]

The first point is just hypothetical, nobody knows what a given new player is going to do when they start endgame

i say that players feel stuck out of raids because i have seen newer players be disappointed from the gambit rotation because they just wanted to raid efficiently and not waste so much more time getting teh aspects they want.

you can just not use a gambit, but people dont want the thing theyre specifically trying to make more efficient be less efficient solely out of RNG factors that are out of their control

[sterile tundra]

This is the exact sentiment i was talking about, lets break this down:
So you're forced to play a different class to "get the rewards you should always get"

Gambit rewards are extra rewards for taking on a difficult challenge of some sort. They are not rewards that you should always get in any sense of the phrase

You are not "forced" to play a different class to get these rewards, the challenges are just more difficult for some play styles than other ones so if you want to take advantage of the extra rewards you may have to change your playstyle to do that. It rewards having played the game more to have more playstyle options

[fiery hamlet]

and while they can just wait for another rotation of gambits, people aren't going to be able to raid every day, let alone on the specific days where their gambits are usable and good

[mystic juniper]

i dont want to overwhelm you while youre speaking with two other people but im ngl this just never happens, i can see it being the case occasionally with like a fallen being offered maddening anemic bleeding and hemo and now having an insanely difficult time but the issue is that the more difficult to one archetype gambits get the less they matter to something else and therefore the more free they are if you just pick something else, like on that proposed gambit day swithcing to riftwalker or arcanist would have the game basically completely unaltered from 0 gambit, making gambit rewards being compounding feel much more arbitrary than directly linked to difficulty.

[glass copper]

I cannot pay child support with current tol prices unless I take 3 gambits unfortunately

[vivid karma]

is this the raiders version of proffers complaining about dying in hunted

[mystic juniper]

yeah icl if the proposed solution to a piece of content is "do your best to avoid it" or "ignore it" i really question whether its well designed, like i get the point of gambits is to be challenging, not all challenge is desireable, but when the most experienced of players just cannot be asked dealing with gambits maybe theres a problem? surely those best at the game would be itching to have a harder time in content for the extra rewards yet there is no such drive cause the way gambits make the game "harder" is just not at all enjoyable

[sterile tundra]

I am 100% in agreement that we probably need more effects that alter gameplay for everyone equally to balance out the extremes that already exist, but effects like these are either easy for everyone or boring in general. We have a really diverse game where effects like these aren't exactly apparent

[mystic juniper]

this is super true lol smord and i tried coming up with gambits that are unbiased and its legitemately impossible lol

[vivid karma]

glutton my beloved

[sterile tundra]

you end up with an effect that is just enemies have more health

[mystic juniper]

yeah

[sterile tundra]

or just a lootrun curse type of thing

and they might be equal but they're also boring af.

maddening mage truly can suck to play with but its also funny af if you hear your friend in a call take it and they're losing their mind

[mystic juniper]

i think theres a middle ground where gambits are actually fun to play around though and dont just make the game feel worse in exchange for more rewards

[jaunty skiff]

+50% enemy attack speed gambit please

[mystic juniper]

graid orphion sounds fun w/ this icl

[fiery hamlet]

^

[sterile tundra]

attack speed doesn't effect modeled mobs

[fiery hamlet]

interesting

[mystic juniper]

that is so unfortunate

[sterile tundra]

things with really custom ai anyway

[glass copper]

Would it be possible to remove 2nd spell in the possibility or is that just part of the identity. I feel like casting an untimely 2nd spell is the most punishing usually

[jaunty skiff]

man

[sterile tundra]

cos like how can you make orphion attack faster when it has really complicated attacks

[mystic juniper]

im p sure the entire point of maddening is the movmeent spell misscasts

[glass copper]

I love escape spell

[fiery hamlet]

maddening is just in a spot where any change to it that doesnt make it harder will just make the gambit too free

i remember reading the description of the gambit, thinking "wow this sounds like ass", made a post about being wary about it, got told to play it first, and it was total ass

[sterile tundra]

what if we toned down all the difficult gambits across the board slightly and had basic scaling style effects for each gambit taken on top of them

[fiery hamlet]

that sounds great

[mystic juniper]

holy shit this sounds amazing

no idea if this is possible but could the 4th gambit slot be replaced with a free slot that just massively increases scaling (like 2-3x the effectiveness of the regular ones) or is that going too far

would mean that builds more susceptible to gambit punishment can consistantly have an out while still being meaningfully put at a disadvantage

[sterile tundra]

bro wants the scaling charm without mentionning the scaling charm

[fiery hamlet]

💀

[mystic juniper]

https://tenor.com/view/foiled-cat-funny-cat-meme-cute-gif-4770784610413068186

[torn fox]

question about this gambit, is it healing done to me or healing I provide that is capped

[white quest]

why do you care the other players are taking it anyway

oh it’s healing provided

if you get healed it’s capped

[torn fox]

But my heals will be normal to other players who don't have it?

[thorny bolt]

yes

[torn fox]

Cool

[paper creek]

My issue with gambits is that they fail to provide that challenge most of the time. A number of them are negligible, a number of them are annoying not challenging, and only a handful actually make the raid slightly more difficult. Issue with them favoring certain builds so much, besides making some builds unplayable, is that a lot of the time you put in gambits and the difficulty remains the same

[white quest]

they’ll take the free gambit though lol

[paper creek]

Gambits should never fail to provide a challenge no matter the build you play, nor should they ever block you from playing and enjoying a build

[torn fox]

Depends on what they're playing

[white quest]

i take it on cata and that’s definetly the worst one so yes they are taking it

[candid ember]

tbf just making it not affect the mobility spell could be good enough

[white quest]

whaaaat it would just be a free take

[candid ember]

well, there are certain builds that could get screwed if those rely on a specific spell cycle

[white quest]

no

i doubt there are

[candid ember]

even the miscast frequency could get raised

i know that it's making things like ritualist completely unplayable

[white quest]

true that’s unrelated to movement spells though

it should prolly be fixed

[candid ember]

just removing the thing that makes you randomly dash into the boss would make this gambit 10x less annoying

eventually maddening mage could punish you only if you cast spells too fast

like 3 spells in 2 seconds

[white quest]

3 spells in 2 seconds is slow as fuck

[sage rapids]

this idea doesnt work lol

[torn fox]

Hurts Acolyte the most

[sage rapids]

and the more you push so that this becomes reality the shittier the experience will be

[topaz pivot]

For me it just makes me not raid for the day ngl

[torn fox]

[sage rapids]

"u get aspects lol" is such a copout cause rewards are straight dogshit without gambits and youll get all the aspects you want within like 500-1k raids

[spare spindle]

Glutton

Switching builds doesnt do shit its purely just added difficulty

[thorny bolt]

glutton also does literally (figuratively) nothing

[torn fox]

Instead of switching builds you just switch raids to TNA

[spare spindle]

Wdym its 1 less buff

[torn fox]

Meh

[fiery hamlet]

glutton isnt very impactful but i like how it makes you think

in 1.20/2.0 era buffs, glutton would be very impactful

[torn fox]

You lost reward pulls!!

[spare spindle]

Well i mean i can get trolled skip first buff and not get sw in the last buff

[torn fox]

(I forgot I took it)

[sage rapids]

currently, ill have a loadout that i play for fun and then a loadout that eats gambits
this does not achieve what is intended (that people play more things)

the more gambits you add, the more playstyles people will have to be open to
yet theres only so many builds people will be open to maintaining, and more gambits (of the current designs) will further reduce the amount of classes that can run 3 gambits in any given day, until 0 classes can

no one wins

[spare spindle]

Anyways that typa gambit works well

Also base rewards are so shit its actually so unfriendly to new players

[spare spindle]

Yeah true

[topaz pivot]

Oh no not my reward pulls when i only care about aspects (glutton is free)

[spare spindle]

But i still think its good gambit design

Definitely more impactful for newer players

Gambits can hurt a class ig but not make it unplayable

Gambits rn just force build switches

[sage rapids]

0 and 1 gambit rewards are genuinely unacceptable theres no way around it

unless we should only run 1 of each raid per day for the raid reward pull bonuses XDDD

these are not optional modifiers in the way people think they are, theres a point where you might as well not play and do something else with ur time

[topaz pivot]

The rewards scaling based on the amount of gambits is kinda yucky. It should be 1 to 1

Thaughts

[sage rapids]

wouldnt be a bad bandaid fix but gambits need to be overhauled based on the same logic

[lethal radish]

i still wonder will changing the combat lvl number to a counter will it be a good idea...

[topaz pivot]

Doesnt matter either way

[sterile tundra]

I'm ngl if every gambit was like glutton then we might as well add the extra aspects to the base rewards lol

That this is so incredibly free

[spare spindle]

Well yeah for people who actually grind but its not that easy for newer people ngl

[white quest]

agreed glutton is so free and boring the only challenge is remembering you have it and not sacrificing the rewards by accident

[spare spindle]

You could always change glutton to the last buff only

[white quest]

disagree if you can’t do the raid on 3 buffs you can’t do it on 2 buffs

[sterile tundra]

Especially in tna lol third buff gets skipped even without the gambit lmfao

[torn fox]

I wonder why

[white quest]

yes

[spare spindle]

Well thats cause tna third buffs are so shit

[sterile tundra]

Also the main reason glutton is free is that you lose rewards

[spare spindle]

Ignoring that i think yhe design of it is good imo

[white quest]

contrary to glutton if you could make more gambits like shattered mortal id be happy

[sterile tundra]

It's not very bad to lose some rewards

[spare spindle]

6 rewards is a good amount tbf

[white quest]

it’s free real estate

[sterile tundra]

Glutton should mean you have to actually skip one because most of the time you just take the hit because it literally doesn't matter

At the point where you're enabling lots of gambits you're trying to grind aspects so losing rewards means very little

[white quest]

i’d rather you change it to that i keep losing my reward pulls by accident 😭😭

i’m liquid emerald maxxing

[spare spindle]

Do you not lose an aspect?

[white quest]

nope 6 reward pulls

[spare spindle]

Then make it lose aspects simple fix

[white quest]

i hope you die

[spare spindle]

You said it was too easy

[torn fox]

Doesn't it net more aspect rewards if you take glutton and take 3rd buff anyway

[white quest]

i will not cry over losing rewards by accident but if i sac my aspect pull id definetly crash out

[mystic juniper]

i mean is it not more the idea of gambits that are unintrusive to gameplay but require more consideration in metagame that is being talked about here

i dont think talking about every gambit literally being glutton matters much

[spare spindle]

Thats ur fault init

[sterile tundra]

Glutton should just force you to skip a buff of your choice

[white quest]

please do it

[spare spindle]

Yeah

Thats how i thought about glutton in the first place anyways

If glutton functioned like that it fits my point

[white quest]

could even be 2 buffs tbh

[spare spindle]

Its added difficulty without forcing a build switch

[thorny bolt]

glutton could make it so every buff u take loses rewards and itd still be a brainless choice for the vast majority of builds

[spare spindle]

Third buff is pretty useful if not tna

[white quest]

third buff tcc is also not that saucy

[spare spindle]

Wdym sw 3 and elder 3 are gas

[white quest]

neither is it in notg

[spare spindle]

This kinda true

[white quest]

they are cool but not must have

[spare spindle]

They help alot tbf

[white quest]

also elder 2 is just a way better elder 3

[white quest]

tbh i’d argue boulder breaker 3 is the best one there

[spare spindle]

Lol

[white quest]

uhhhh not sureeeeee though… it’s just damage calculations and depends on the build

[fiery hamlet]

INTREPID 3

[white quest]

what is that

[spare spindle]

Anyways forget the gambit u get my point added difficulty without making u switch builds but not as free as glutton 👍👍👍

[fiery hamlet]

probably the single worst buff line in raid history

[white quest]

lol old hollowed used to be soo ass

[spare spindle]

Trueee

[fiery hamlet]

https://wynncraft.wiki.gg/wiki/The_Canyon_Colossus_(Raid) control f "intrepid"

this shit is so ass 💔

[spare spindle]

Wdym bro 75% hpr and altruism!!!

[fiery hamlet]

i didnt know we were trivializing the game

[white quest]

oh he’s right it’s all flavor

[fiery hamlet]

yeah the entire intrepid line is cosmetic

[spare spindle]

Tcc after i pull up with 3 intrepid buffs

[white quest]

tbf you could take all that on cata or nirv and still fucking kill it in 20 seconds

that boss is so cooked

[spare spindle]

Yk pfinder actually struggles with this raid

[white quest]

pfinder isn’t real if you just don’t think about it

[spare spindle]

Its actually insightful tbf

It shows the very cooked difficulty curve

[white quest]

trollage

[thorny bolt]

then allowing 0 buffs (and not letting u get a pretty useful one) might make it actually do something lol

[spare spindle]

Lowkey its not a bad idea

Maybe too hard for pfinder

[torn fox]

They should give altruism to an armour piece stg

Like an actually good one

[spare spindle]

Vulcan

[torn fox]

.

[spare spindle]

Its not bad

What they need to do is remove altruism from ignis and give it another mid

Useless ahh mid

[torn fox]

Certainly not good either

[spare spindle]

Fair

[torn fox]

Let me use Altrusim on Gaurd please

[spare spindle]

U can use vulcan guard

Its not like amazing buts its decent

Firebird guard goes brazy

[torn fox]

It just isn't really worth it imo

[final oracle]

I've always wondered if it'd be better to just fully lock the last buff if you took two before
the 6 pull penalty as-is doesn't much dissuade

[topaz pivot]

if it reduced aspect pulls it would dissuade

But yea why not just force it then you cant forget and its an actual restriction

[summer pier]

Is it even possible to reduce selectable boons as a gambit

make it 1 and see a shitshow go off