Archmage is boring

waterd103 · Post by **waterd103** » December 5th, 2007, 9:12 am

I find a little boring the fact that Archmage doesn't do anything special excepto for a fire magical attac. The same than a lot of other mages.
since it's an archmage i would expect him to do something special. (i thought about an after burn skill for example. It would work like posion the unit burned will suffer damage after the attack. The diference with posiion would be that it's fire damage and that it will wear off after a couple of turns)
I think i've read about this somewhere else, but i couldn't find it with the search feature.

Post by **Viliam** » December 5th, 2007, 10:20 am

Even the mighty Delfador is unable to learn more than one magic spell; which is also just a fire attack, although visually impressive one.

Outside of Wesnoth, for example Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings also was not an impressive spellcaster, when judged by diversity of spells he really used. The only really versatile mage ever was Harry Potter -- those kids nowadays disrespect ancient magic traditions.

waterd103 · Post by **waterd103** » December 5th, 2007, 9:25 pm

In fact most Magic based units don't learn much, for example sorceress.
On the other side, Dark adepts, gain an ability everytime they go up a level.
I think units that gains abilities when level up are more interesting than those that only increment hp and life.
It would be nice if some level ups are revised to add abilites.

Post by **Neoskel** » December 5th, 2007, 10:55 pm

Viliam wrote:Even the mighty Delfador is unable to learn more than one magic spell; which is also just a fire attack, although visually impressive one.

Outside of Wesnoth, for example Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings also was not an impressive spellcaster, when judged by diversity of spells he really used. The only really versatile mage ever was Harry Potter -- those kids nowadays disrespect ancient magic traditions.

Magic in LoTR works different. There aren't 'spells' which only do one thing or another, they're manipulations of natural stuff. Like if you knew how to control magical fire you wouldn't just shoot fireballs, you could make walls of flame, light a campfire, etc. And make some awesome fireworks

.

Weeksy · Post by **Weeksy** » December 6th, 2007, 8:08 am

Wesnoth is NOT:

Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Pinball
Real Life
Battletoads
going to change just because you think it would be cool

and so much more....

Post by **Viliam** » December 6th, 2007, 9:23 am

However, I think it would be nice to have some "Smart Mage" which would be able to cast many different spells, including fire attacks, cold attacks, slowing, poisoning, and would also have an ability to heal. Not very strong attacks, but he would be able to find every opponent's weakness. Yes, I realize that this kind of unit will not be done in the mainline. Just would be cool, IMHO.

Post by **zookeeper** » December 6th, 2007, 11:59 am

Yes, if someone comes up with a nice ability that makes the unit more interesting to play while remaining balanced, simple, and all that, then sure, it might get added.

However, the fact that such abilities have often been proposed yet never been good enough to actually be included should serve more as a deterrent for making specific proposals unless you've really thought about them long and hard, rather than an incentive.

Try searching the ideas forum with the keywords "mage" and "ability" and you should find plenty of past suggestions which didn't make it.

Post by **Doc Paterson** » December 6th, 2007, 2:22 pm

Weeksy wrote:Wesnoth is NOT:

Battletoads

and so much more....

I don't know, that would be pretty awesome to see a troll smack a mage with an inflated-to-watermelon-size fist.

Post by **Blarumyrran** » December 6th, 2007, 2:31 pm

btw as its yet another mage thread i have to mention yet again that "Great Mage" is a really sucky name. "Golden Mage" would be much cooler.