Great Mage suggestion

Post by **thespaceinvader** » December 28th, 2007, 6:17 pm

Agreed there - it always mystified me that the lowliest of dark magicians gets 2 different magical attack types, and the greatest mages in wesnoth get only one.

Aethaeryn (User Page) · Post by **Aethaeryn** » December 28th, 2007, 6:34 pm

I've been thinking the same thing, perhaps allow him to do arcane or something. I've always pointed out that a Dark Adept is more useful than a Great Mage in magic because if a Great Mage comes across a drake alone it's dead and for the same price (assuming you directly bought and didn't recall) you could get several DAs to kill the drake. Meanwhile, DAs don't really have a magical weakness since generally a unit is weak to either cold or arcane.

Great Mages having a secondary, weaker arcane damage would allow them to not kill some units and White Mages and Elvish Sorceresses do arcane so it's hardly an uncommon light magic.

Kens_Mom · Post by **Kens_Mom** » December 28th, 2007, 8:09 pm

Aethaeryn wrote:I've always pointed out that a Dark Adept is more useful than a Great Mage in magic because if a Great Mage comes across a drake alone it's dead and for the same price (assuming you directly bought and didn't recall) you could get several DAs to kill the drake.

That example is a bit extreme, since the drakes resist both the ranged and melee attacks of the Great Mage while extremely weak to the DA's cold damage.

Aethaeryn wrote:Great Mages having a secondary, weaker arcane damage would allow them to not kill some units and White Mages and Elvish Sorceresses do arcane so it's hardly an uncommon light magic.

This would be a bit redundant, since the only situation where fire is resisted and arcane isn't is against the drakes, in which case you're probably better off advancing your Mages into White Mages.

Post by **CIB** » December 28th, 2007, 8:29 pm

Actually, I'm sort of used to Great Mages having only the two attacks that mages start off with. It makes them the "unspecialized and strong" form of mages. I wouldn't want the Great Mage have more attacks than their advancefroms. Adding a simple weapon special would be great, though. Giving them magical melee would solve all problems, IMO.

Changeling · Post by **Changeling** » December 29th, 2007, 11:55 am

peet wrote:I actually pretty much never level to the Arch Mage/ Great Mage anymore. The Silver Mage's teleport is too useful, and the problem with the Great Mage is that he pretty much kills everything. It may seem strange that I'm complaining, but I prefer to let my high level units support my lower level units to allow them to level up. I want the lower level units to make the final kills. That is pretty difficult with a Great Mage, since the Great mage seems to kill everyone, wasting those XP on a unit that cannot level any more. As a result I always go to the Silver Mage line.

If the Great Mage had a second spell option that did less damage I'd actually be more likely to try to get them.

I think Peet has a good point. Maybe the Great Mage should have a different attack (I am in favor of lightning) that leaves only 1 HP, so that other units can get the XP.

Post by **CIB** » December 29th, 2007, 1:50 pm

Changeling wrote: I think Peet has a good point. Maybe the Great Mage should have a different attack (I am in favor of lightning) that leaves only 1 HP, so that other units can get the XP.

You know, you call that "torture" and it's nothing that fits with a Great Mage. lol.

Changeling · Post by **Changeling** » December 30th, 2007, 3:24 am

CIB wrote:
Changeling wrote: I think Peet has a good point. Maybe the Great Mage should have a different attack (I am in favor of lightning) that leaves only 1 HP, so that other units can get the XP.
You know, you call that "torture" and it's nothing that fits with a Great Mage. lol.

Ah, but old men are sadistic.

Kens_Mom · Post by **Kens_Mom** » December 30th, 2007, 10:57 am

How about a weaker attack with slow? That should help low level units get kills. Though I'm not quite sure how to make sense of it. Maybe a very, very weak cold/arcane attack?

Personally though, I'm perfectly fine with the Great Mage having only a single ranged attack.

Raemon · Post by **Raemon** » December 30th, 2007, 11:04 am

How about a better movetype or more moves? We can always set the AMLA to 200-300 XP or something. It's annoying sometimes how slow the Great Mage is.

Post by **irrevenant** » December 30th, 2007, 11:43 am

Raemon wrote:How about a better movetype or more moves? We can always set the AMLA to 200-300 XP or something. It's annoying sometimes how slow the Great Mage is.

Which brings us around again to Levitation. There's a couple of versions of this floating about[1]. I like the idea of reducing all movement costs by 1 to a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 2.

[1] pun unintended.

Isen · Post by **Isen** » December 30th, 2007, 12:05 pm

I think the current set-up works best flavour-wise. Comparing a Great Mage to a Sylph is misleading given the lifespan of the two involved. The latter had centuries to perfect their art, the former decades. It is only fitting that the elves had time to master gimmicks such as flight while humans had to rely on the essentials: brute force.

Clonkinator · Post by **Clonkinator** » December 30th, 2007, 12:27 pm

I vote for either making the great mage's melee attack magical or for giving it an additional cold attack that does about the same damage, but has less strikes.

Grand Marshal Aditya · December 31st, 2007, 2:39 am

Let's compromise:

melee (8-2) slows Magical

Post by **Velensk** » December 31st, 2007, 1:18 pm

I vote not giving great mages a slowing magical attack, they are hard enough to kill without them slowing down your melle attackers.

Post by **thespaceinvader** » December 31st, 2007, 2:58 pm

I'd vote for a low-damage slowing ranged attack rather than a slowing melee. Then they can only slow one melee fighter per turn...