Drow Wizards

[The Flying Rodent]

So I'm in the process of exploring the Underdark with my level 33 Shouty Half-Dragon and I came across the Deep Wastes. Not long after entering I was beset upon by a Drow Warrior and a Drow Wizard. The Warrior was not too hard to tackle, but the Wizard was something else.

After summoning a Mummy Lord with 75AB [nice to know summons got buffed ...] and throwing a few annoying spells at me, he then proceeded to pickpocket me, successfully, mid fight. Rather comical, but super annoying. The Mummy Lord was dealt with, but I then discovered that the gods had also granted the sleight-of-hand Wizard with a buttload of toolset-infused Natural AC.

Which meant that: 61 effective attack bonus against a skinny wizard [50 buffed, 55 curse, 61 taunt], and I could only manage to hit him on 20 rolls. About 15-20 minutes later [thankfully the gods didn't grant him regeneration gear to combine with his ridiculous boosted AC], I managed to topple him, and retrieve the 2 pages of inventory goods that he had stolen under my nose during the epic airswing contest.

Suggestion: Maybe tone down the Toolset AC on the Drow Wizards. It's currently a bit excessive.

[driller]

The monsters in the UD are dynamically adjusted. I don't recall the AC being allowed to go that high. I will look at it.

[The Flying Rodent]

Thanks mate!

I suppose one thing to consider: The Drow Wizards cast Epic Mage Armour, which can add up to +20 to their AC depending on their gear allotment to begin with.

Perhaps this is why it is so high? Maybe this wasn’t taken into consideration? ( so if they have say 60 AC, that could be up to 80 AC that they have with EMA?)

[driller]

I will look. Thanks.

Thanks mate!

I suppose one thing to consider: The Drow Wizards cast Epic Mage Armour, which can add up to +20 to their AC depending on their gear allotment to begin with.

Perhaps this is why it is so high? Maybe this wasn’t taken into consideration? ( so if they have say 60 AC, that could be up to 80 AC that they have with EMA?)

[The Flying Rodent]

Related to this:

It seems that Umgah Mages fall into a similar camp: next to impossible to hit due to Toolset AC. They thankfully have less HP than Drow Wizards do, and I suppose they aren’t dynamic spawns either...

[Cornflower]

Related to this:

It seems that Umgah Mages fall into a similar camp: next to impossible to hit due to Toolset AC. They thankfully have less HP than Drow Wizards do, and I suppose they aren’t dynamic spawns either...

I've just given up on the mages. Even with my uber-build I can barely touch them. I guess there's someone out there who can kill one single-handedly, but I just ignore them.

[Mask-inc]

Yep, like Corn said, if you cannot beat it, run away.

The umgahs area is a level 40 area, the mage always been a nasty piece of work.

Since many peoples end up there just to level up or die, i would even go as far as saying it need an umgah priest somewhere down there, so it can buff the other umgahs, some self buff for him, a few implosions and blade barriers for good mesure, now that would be some nice chalenge.


Mask

[The Flying Rodent]

Related to this:

It seems that Umgah Mages fall into a similar camp: next to impossible to hit due to Toolset AC. They thankfully have less HP than Drow Wizards do, and I suppose they aren’t dynamic spawns either...

I've just given up on the mages. Even with my uber-build I can barely touch them. I guess there's someone out there who can kill one single-handedly, but I just ignore them.

There are builds that can kill the Umgah Mages pretty easily single handedly : They use spells, because their AC is at such a toolset-boosted level that there seems to be next to no point bothering with physical weapons against them.

My Bard/Fighter/RDD took about 10 minutes and a buttload of healing equipment to bring down one located in a temple, and this was even whilst using Darkness to try and lower their AC by making them flat-footed [which didn't do anything, and thus is how I know that the Drow and Umgah mages have Natural AC given to them artificially via the Toolset instead]. Later on the same day, I watched a spellcaster dispatch one in about 10 seconds.

Which is a bit of a worrying trend. If there’s a significant proportion of high level enemies in BSK that have AC’s well outside of a typical melee character's AB range, then this basically puts things like Clerics and Wizards streets ahead of everyone else. And without spoiling too much, it’s not like they need more things going for them on this server.

Yep, like Corn said, if you cannot beat it, run away.

The umgahs area is a level 40 area, the mage always been a nasty piece of work.

Since many peoples end up there just to level up or die, i would even go as far as saying it need an umgah priest somewhere down there, so it can buff the other umgahs, some self buff for him, a few implosions and blade barriers for good mesure, now that would be some nice chalenge.


Mask

I wouldn’t mind something like an Umgah priest to shake things up ... so long as, like with the Mages, they aren’t given such ridiculous toolset AC that the player is presented with the choice of ‘ play a spellcaster or run away’.

As it is, my brief experience playing on BSK has given me about 10 or so future build ideas that I think would work going forward ... and they’re almost all cleric or wizard based, even the melee ones.

[Mask-inc]

If you go for a str or dex melee build, the mage is kind of easy to kill.
No need to be a caster, it's just that some builds do better again certain monsters types which is quite natural.

Another 2 cents


Mask

[The Flying Rodent]

If you go for a str or dex melee build, the mage is kind of easy to kill.
No need to be a caster, it's just that some builds do better again certain monsters types which is quite natural.

Another 2 cents


Mask

I suppose that I haven’t tried with something like a fully geared Weapon Master or High strength RDD. They might get different results to a mid-Strength Bard-Heavy Melee Build that has to enhance their own socketed weapon with spells.

Perhaps I’ll do some more testing before I resign myself to making my proposed army of gish builds lol.

[Douglas Thurman]

If you go for a str or dex melee build, the mage is kind of easy to kill.
No need to be a caster, it's just that some builds do better again certain monsters types which is quite natural.

Another 2 cents


Mask

If you stealth, most mages will be caught flat-footed, but as it was mentioned before if the AC is artificially enhanced, then it's a crap-shoot. On the other hand, if you play a sorcerer, just counter-spell. They can't get tougher if they can't cast spells. The epic spells you can't counter, but everything else is fair game. Mord's Dis is a good spell to keep handy against lvl 40 enemies who've gotten off a buff or two.

[Mask-inc]

Umgah mage got true sight, so the stealth part again it, forget that.
PvP is something very different from PvM, normally, you'll use way different strategies in PvP than you would in PvM.



Mask

[The Flying Rodent]

If you go for a str or dex melee build, the mage is kind of easy to kill.
No need to be a caster, it's just that some builds do better again certain monsters types which is quite natural.

Another 2 cents


Mask

If you stealth, most mages will be caught flat-footed, but as it was mentioned before if the AC is artificially enhanced, then it's a crap-shoot. On the other hand, if you play a sorcerer, just counter-spell. They can't get tougher if they can't cast spells. The epic spells you can't counter, but everything else is fair game. Mord's Dis is a good spell to keep handy against lvl 40 enemies who've gotten off a buff or two.

If you play a Sorcerer , you can Time Stop and Flame Arrow spam. Amongst other things. Counterspelling too.

But that isn’t really relevant to my point, which was that I was afraid that there’d be potentially lots of other AC-jacked enemies, such that to deal with them REQUIRED me to use a Spell Caster.

After a little more exploration in game (in particular learning about some of the high tier items), I’ve somewhat reversed that position .

[Cornflower]

If you go for a str or dex melee build, the mage is kind of easy to kill.
No need to be a caster, it's just that some builds do better again certain monsters types which is quite natural.

Another 2 cents


Mask

If you stealth, most mages will be caught flat-footed, but as it was mentioned before if the AC is artificially enhanced, then it's a crap-shoot. On the other hand, if you play a sorcerer, just counter-spell. They can't get tougher if they can't cast spells. The epic spells you can't counter, but everything else is fair game. Mord's Dis is a good spell to keep handy against lvl 40 enemies who've gotten off a buff or two.

If you play a Sorcerer , you can Time Stop and Flame Arrow spam. Amongst other things. Counterspelling too.

But that isn’t really relevant to my point, which was that I was afraid that there’d be potentially lots of other AC-jacked enemies, such that to deal with them REQUIRED me to use a Spell Caster.

After a little more exploration in game (in particular learning about some of the high tier items), I’ve somewhat reversed that position .

Acutally, when I tried a sorc a while back, I was more concerned that all monsters had uber-saves, so the only way to kill anything was to go with Spell penetration feats which still didn't help. So I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

[Kane0]

It's really only a problem when creatures have multiple parts of the rock-paper-scissors covered, like high AC/HP and high SR/DR and high Saves. Well the non-boss ones anyways.