Why does the Silver Mage use fire?

[Yoyobuae]

I agree with the above post. Faerie fire is arcane, for an unknown reason, and seeing that humans cannot understand it, its pointless arguing.
Also, I think silver magi should keep their "fire" damage, but the term "fire" should be changed to "heat". Fireballs, lightning, blah blah blah are all a form of HEAT, not FIRE . I hope you get my point.

To join the knitpicking:
Lightning a form of heat? The main cause for lightning is the electrical energy stored in the clouds/ground (clouds become negatively charged, the ground positively). The discharge of this energy is achieved thru lightning. The effects of lightning (light, sound and, yes, heat) itself are powered by the massive eletrical current running along the path of the lightning.

As said above fire is mainly a chemical reaction. Some side effects of such chemical reaction are light and heat.

If we're talking about damage type, what is important? The effects. The external look (ie: light/shape) not important. The cause, not important. The effect caused on the target, important. Note that "heat" is not an effect caused on the target.

So, IMO, "burning" would more accurately describe the current "fire" damage types. Just like "piercing" describe the effects of a spear/arrow/etc, "impact" the effects of a mace/punch/kick/etc. "blade" is a bit off, maybe "cutting" would be more appropiate. "cold" is more or less ok, as it makes the target "cold". Dunno about "arcane", as it is hard to discribe what it does.

[Skrim]

The Dark Adept line uses arcane attacks too. I guess that is !(adherence to the path of light and good ideals), so it is covered too?

Yeah, but note that the Dark Adept line's Arcane attacks are the weakest and puniest of all. Also note the name. "Shadow Wave". It's basically a reversal of the Lightbeams used by White Magi, an ability gained through adherence to the path of darkness. It could come in handy just in case one of your Undead minions turns on you, in which case the Shadow Waves would effectively undo the enchantments that created the Undead in the first place.

But the Adept line's main attack remains it's Cold Chill Wave. It is not a primary Arcane caster.

[The_great_new_thing]

@Blarumyrran
"Fire is cooler." Ahem ?


@Exasperation(???)
I know that, dude. Here, light a candle and put your fingertip on the flame. Why would it pain? Because of the heat. Now, if you were a drake with fire in your veins, you wouldn't be so hurt, would you? Mages don't exactly trap someone in a fireproof cage in a room filled with dry sticks on fire, and wait for the gases to take their toll, or anything else you old people say. If you were thrown in fire, would you die because of your dear "chemical reactions" or because you got fried? It was just a suggestion, thanks for triggering my anger, I hadn't thought about each and every 'fire' attack before posting. Happy now??

@Yoyobuae
Again, I am talking about resistances. What is a mage's resistance to heat, a drake's resistance to heat, an elf's resistance to heat, not the effect. Burning? Hmm, maybe.

[Yoyobuae]

@The_great_new_thing
Ok, you win. Heat is the perfect word for it.

[Aethaeryn]

@Blarumyrran
"Fire is cooler." Ahem ?


@Exasperation(???)
I know that, dude. Here, light a candle and put your fingertip on the flame. Why would it pain? Because of the heat. Now, if you were a drake with fire in your veins, you wouldn't be so hurt, would you? Mages don't exactly trap someone in a fireproof cage in a room filled with dry sticks on fire, and wait for the gases to take their toll, or anything else you old people say. If you were thrown in fire, would you die because of your dear "chemical reactions" or because you got fried? It was just a suggestion, thanks for triggering my anger, I hadn't thought about each and every 'fire' attack before posting. Happy now??

@Yoyobuae
Again, I am talking about resistances. What is a mage's resistance to heat, a drake's resistance to heat, an elf's resistance to heat, not the effect. Burning? Hmm, maybe.

I guess the two reasons they won't change it is preferences and tradition. The only reason they changed holy was to make it more useful. Fire has plenty of love. Cold, right now, is the weak damage type.

[mabeenot]

I guess the two reasons they won't change it is preferences and tradition. The only reason they changed holy was to make it more useful. Fire has plenty of love. Cold, right now, is the weak damage type.

My nominees to replace cold would be frost, ice, and chill. However, if it continues to be a magical attack used solely by the adept, ghost, and saurian augur lines, I would suggest a name like maleficium which would make it sound more like an evil variety of arcane.

[Skrim]

"Maleficium" sounds really... strange. How about a simple "freeze" and "burn" if you really want to change the names of Cold and Fire damage?

[Zarel]

My nominees to replace cold would be frost, ice, and chill. However, if it continues to be a magical attack used solely by the adept, ghost, and saurian augur lines, I would suggest a name like maleficium which would make it sound more like an evil variety of arcane.

"Maleficium" sounds more like "Shadow Wave" than "Chill Wave", for precisely that reason. Plus, it's way too obscure of a word. Compare to how common of a word "cold" is. We want words people have heard of, tyvm.

[SkeleRanger]

If you were thrown in fire, would you die because of your dear "chemical reactions" or because you got fried?

There's actually a very thin line between the two. Being "fried" is chemical reaction(using heat), converting what was once biological tissue into carbon.

On the Dark Adepts. Arcane does not mean light or holy(I think that was already discussed), so I see nothing odd about the Dark Adepts conjuring Arcane damage on the other end of the spectrum. Ooh, magical light...ooh, magical darkness...ooh, magical fairie sparkly power...

[thespaceinvader]

Cold, right now, is the weak damage type.

Jet and I have some interesting plans for cold damage. But they are only very nascent at present, so don't get too excited.

[Yoyobuae]

Geez, what's the problem with cold? To drake players is the damage type from hell.

[thespaceinvader]

The problem is that there are currently only 2 mainline recruitable units which use it. It simply isn't seen very often. Noone's saying it's not useful...

[Yoyobuae]

The problem is that there are currently only 2 mainline recruitable units which use it. It simply isn't seen very often. Noone's saying it's not useful...

And would rather keep it that way, thank you very much. hehe

Meh, actually I don't mind. Can't win them all. If any other faction gains cold damage, it would just happen more often. Losing is part of the game.

***EDIT***
I'm not saying anything about balance. Just that for me it feels like things become 2x harder playing drakes against drakes/undead. One wrong move and boom, game over.

[pauxlo]

The problem is that there are currently only 2 mainline recruitable units which use it. It simply isn't seen very often. Noone's saying it's not useful...

3 units. Ghosts, Adepts, Augurs.

[Skrim]

The problem is that there are currently only 2 mainline recruitable units which use it. It simply isn't seen very often. Noone's saying it's not useful...

3 units. Ghosts, Adepts, Augurs.

Aye. The Ghost's ranged attack is also to be noted, it's quite a nuisance for anyone who tries to attack them with Drake Burners.

Also it's interesting to note that Cold is the only damage type that exists solely in ranged attacks; there are no mainline melee cold attacks.

Cold, right now, is the weak damage type.

Jet and I have some interesting plans for cold damage. But they are only very nascent at present, so don't get too excited.

What are the said plans exactly, though?

If any other mainline recruitable unit gets Cold, I would suggest decreasing the magnitude of the Drakes' Cold vulnerability from 50% to 40(or 30) to balance it out. Presently, the entire Drake faction is unanimously weak to Cold.