Patch 17 (Realm of Arkon) (13 page)

I also knew that the game was designed to preserve balance among players. This meant that if you took two players roughly equal in level, gear and talent allocation, the two characters would be pretty similar in terms of power. I was hardly an expert in theorycraft, but I had a rough idea just the same.

I put two characters up on the screen—warrior and mage, both level 101, and gave both similar equipment of rare items. The mage got a cloth set with a pair of rings and a level 100 amulet: +50 to constitution and +50 to intellect. Accordingly, the warrior was given plate, +50 to constitution and +50 to strength. Ignoring the 20 base stats given at creation, let's suppose that for every three points the warrior put one in strength and another in constitution, and the mage in constitution and intellect. Then there were the class bonuses: +1 to spirit and +1 to intellect for the mage, +1 to constitution and +1 to strength for the warrior. For the warrior, let's pick talents focused on two-handed weapons, and let's make the mage specialize in water magic. The warrior's best attack at level 100 was Heroic Strike; for the mage, it was Ice Spear. The warrior got a level 100 two-handed sword of unusual quality, and the mage—the staff equivalent.

Taking into account that, no matter the level, raid buffs and various potions added a maximum of 20% to physical damage absorption and 5% to magic resistance (with all resistances capped at 95%), and that only a moron wouldn't already have at least 75% magic resistance by level 100 through basic talents, I ended up with the following.

Warrior.

900 strength added 9% to armor (100 strength = 1%); 180% to base physical damage (5 strength = 1%).

900 constitution, translating to 9000 hit points.

80% water resistance, meaning the warrior would sustain 20 damage for every 100 damage dealt. (I wanted to focus on water resistance because that was the mage's specialization.)

Physical damage absorption at 64%, equating to 36 damage for every 100 incoming damage.

Damage output—~1000 per second.

Mage.

900 intellect added 180% to spell power (5 intellect = 1%).

800 constitution, translating to 8000 hit points.

Physical damage absorption at 28%, equating to 72 damage for every 100 incoming damage.

Water magic damage output—~2200 per second.

Accounting for all the defenses, the mage could sustain 11,111 physical damage before dying; the warrior could survive up to 45,000 cold damage. In other words, the mage would need twenty three seconds to kill the warrior, while the latter would only need twelve to kill the former. Granted, this was a very rough approximation based on the assumptions that both had energy to spare, comparable skill levels and pain tolerance, the mage had infinite mana, and so on. The two combatants ended up being fairly equal. The mage would attempt to keep the warrior at a distance with crowd control spells while the warrior would try his damnedest to get to the squishy caster.

But here's the kicker! By dressing the mage in heavy armor, using the same stats as with cloth-based defenses, it wouldn't take 11,111 damage to kill him, but exactly twice as much! Whereas before he sustained 72% of incoming physical damage, with a 64% physical damage absorption he would only sustain 36%!

I fell back in my chair and massaged my temples. The price of erring would be too high. Though balance in games was important to adhere to, casters almost always enjoyed a slight advantage over melee classes, which in turn enjoyed an advantage over ranged dps, and ranged dps over casters. But with this latest patch the balance had been badly broken with the introduction of a maximum pain threshold, since many people weren't willing to tolerate pain. In this regard, tanks got the shortest end of the stick. But I digress...

For the following three hours, I was using the calculator to estimate the various combinations of a mage in plate going up against the remaining classes. My calculations showed that such a mage would have an advantage over all melee fighters and non-magical ranged dps. As for other casters, the odds were fairly even.

   And then it hit me! Why was I looking at my mage as the standard hit-you-from-a-far-with-elemental-magic type? After all, I had a small melee combat bar at my disposal! The developers always insisted that all players were totally free in the way they developed their character, using a broad range of active and passive skills.

Any warrior could pick up a bow and start firinh arrows, just as any hunter could start swinging a sword at their enemies, and all classes had a small spell bar as well. Except a bow-wielding warrior sacrificed a great deal of damage output and wasted many a talent in doing so, and who would want to willingly cripple their character? In my case, however...

So, what was available to me through level 100? Not much: four melee attacks, four attacks with a bow or a throwing weapon, enchanting of my personal weapon with elemental magic, and... and nothing. Ranged attacks were useless for my purposes, but melee... Each attack inflicted pretty great damage, comparable to a warrior wielding a two-handed sword. The enchantment would boost damage further, though that would bind the weapon to me, which wasn't a big deal.

Trembling with anticipation, I pulled up the calculator and put in the initial data with warrior and mage, then applied one of the four attacks, Ice Blade, with a one-handed sword at level 100 (alas, mages couldn't use two-handed weapons, aside from staves), enchanted it and... was utterly disappointed.

Warrior.

900 strength; 9% to armor (100 strength = 1%); +180% to base physical damage (5 strength = 1%).

900 constitution, translating to 9000 hit points.

80% water resistance, meaning the warrior would sustain 20 damage for every 100 damage dealt. 

Physical damage absorption at 64%, equating to 36 damage for every 100 incoming damage.

Damage output—~1000 per second.

Mage in heavy armor.

900 intellect; +180% to spell power (5 intellect = 1%).

800 constitution, translating to 8000 hit points.

Physical damage absorption at 64%, equating to 36 damage for every 100 incoming damage.

Damage output—~580 per second.

The damage per second was nearly half that of a warrior at only 580...

With a disappointed sigh, I got up from the desk and rolled my stiffened neck.

Too bad,
I thought to myself.
It would have been awesome—with a high physical damage output and maximum maneuverability, I would wipe the floor with anyone who came at me.
Still, the benefit of wearing plate was more than anyone could realistically dream of. Besides, being too dependent on gear could be a major pitfall in Arkon.

I walked up to the window and opened it, letting in the morning freshness. A rooster crowed somewhere nearby. I had spent about five hours over calculations. Well, no sense in dragging my feet now—it was time to allocate the points.

I sat back down at the desk, looked at the monitor and froze. What an IDIOT I was!!! Why the hell did I need intellect if I was going to melee?! I hastily rearranged the stats and ended up with the following.

Mage in heavy armor.

800 strength, +8% to armor (100 strength = 1%); +160% to base physical damage (5 strength = 1%).

800 constitution, translating to 8000 hit points.

Physical damage absorption at 64%, equating to 36 damage for every 100 incoming damage.

Damage output—~1508 per second. EUREKA!

I jumped from the chair and began pacing around the room, trying to keep calm. Mages didn't use melee attacks because that would require boosting strength, and no matter how strong, mages made for lousy melee fighters. It wasn't hard to run the numbers for the typical mage with 28% damage absorption and ~1500 melee dps against a warrior with ~70% percent physical damage absorption and 1000 dps. And that was assuming the same amount of hit points, whereas any decently built warrior would always have more health. But that was for a typical mage, and my case was anything but typical.

"Shut up, you," I barked at the invisible yet still noisy roosters, and shut the window.

So what if my strength would always be below a pure warrior? That class bonus wasn't going anywhere, but it hardly mattered. Mages never took these talents since a near 50% damage absorption and melee combat were useless to them, but I was no mage! Or rather, I was, but not quite a proper one. And I would much rather deal 1500 physical damage per second in melee combat covered by a shield and heavy armor than 2000 elemental damage from a distance wearing rags.

My damage would be ONE AND A HALF times greater than that of an equal-level warrior with a two-hander! Wearing cloth, the same warrior would tear me apart in seconds, but I would be wearing plate! Incredible!

And what about this? I replaced the one-handed sword with a staff and enchanted it. No, this was worse! Staves may be two-handed, but their physical damage was inferior since most were caster-oriented with bonuses to spell power. Whereas a sword left me a free left hand in which to equip a shield that imparted extra stats, armor and a greater chance to reduce incoming damage.

Settled, then! I had 58 talent points available. Let's start with enchanting.

You've acquired the skill:
Personal Weapon Enchanting with Elemental Fire I.

The element of fire penetrates the material of your weapon, adding 2% to its base physical damage.

Attention! Your weapon will bind to you if enchanted with this spell, and neither other players nor NPCs will be able to use it.

I threw four more points into the skill and ended up with:

You've acquired the skill:
Personal Weapon Enchanting with Elemental Fire II.

The element of fire penetrates the material of your weapon, adding 10% to its base physical damage.

Attention! Your weapon will bind to you if enchanted with this spell, and neither other players nor NPCs will be able to use it.

I repeated the same operation with the other elements, yielding the same results, with only the text being different. Now that all four enchantments were maxed out, I unlocked the ability to put five points into enchanting with all the elements.

You've acquired the skill:
Personal Weapon Enchanting with the Power of the Elements I.

The magic of the four Great Elements envelops your weapon, adding 42% to its base physical damage.

Attention! Your weapon will bind to you if enchanted with this spell, and neither other players nor NPCs will be able to use it.

I maxed out the skill.

You've acquired the skill:
Personal Weapon Enchanting with the Power of the Elements II.

The magic of the four Great Elements envelops your weapon, adding 50% to its base physical damage.

Attention! Your weapon will bind to you if enchanted with this spell, and neither other players nor NPCs will be able to use it.

A 50% boost to physical damage at the expense of 25 talent points with 33 remaining. I made some mental calculations—everything seemed to work out. And now...

You've learned the spell:
Stoneskin.

Casting time: 1 second.

Mana cost: 30 points.

Duration: 2 hours.

Your skin is hardened with the power of earth, reducing incoming physical damage by 1%.

Same as with the enchanting, I raised Stoneskin to level 5, then did the same for Ice Shield, Fire Shield and Lightning Shield, thus unlocking Shield of the Elements, which may not have imparted additional physical damage absorption but added 5% to elemental resistances for every level of the skill. Naturally, I maxed out the skill as well.

You've acquired the skill:
Shield of the Elements V.

Casting time: 1 second.

Mana cost: 300 points.

Duration: 2 hours.

The magic of the Great Elements protects you, absorbing part of the incoming physical and elemental damage. You acquire the ability to ignore 20% physical damage, 25% fire damage, 25% water damage, 25% air damage and 25% earth damage.

With eight talent points left, I moved on to attacks.

Gust of Wind I.

Energy: 10 points.

Instant.

Cooldown: 2 seconds.

Minimum level: 10.

Melee range required; melee weapon.

An instant attack that deals 100% damage on top of the weapon's base damage.

Slows the target's movement by 5% for 5 seconds.

1% chance to stun the target for 1 second.