Pure Melee VS Pure Mage

[xelemental]

Since the relase of Beastmaster class, hybrids are being turned down.....like Bloody Death Mind wrote....OBSOLETE!!!

Beast Lore allows both Melee and Magic sheningans focus on the monsters weakness, when they find something with high defense modifiers of their own kind of art*stares at croaker playing with sneak*.

With a few calculations, and assumations mages abuse Divine Magic, and so melee their multi-hit amrors(and maybe 10th Day of Frostval),results give that altough Melee Warriors are kicked out by mages in damage apparance,they have their full MP for one boost of healing spell or something of that kind.

While Mages can do a crapload more damage in the first 8 turns,after that, Melee warriors gain an edge to kill monsters with enough MASSIVE hp to resist mages power.Or otherwise: when mages run out of MP(yea, this will happen) when killing an army of monsters, warriors tend to take control of that, with more consinent mass-killing.

Also, when Mage miss with their spell,they've lost more than just a turn and HP.They've lost part of their offense, too.

I calculated quickly that both pure Melee and pure Mage of my level should kill Death, unless he/she blocks all the time(don't remember defenses).However, I got killed when I met him a few hundreds life points past, with his 2500 points of HP.

Also, sometimes, Melee players will put more out aganist certain enemey with no MP cost than Mages of same level.Power Katana gives them a good boost, too, with good level.So does Unlucky blade(if I heard right about it).That's a little flaw....

My question is to you, to community: Do you belive that hybrids had been turned useless or they have something good left to them, and what is better, a Pure Melee or Pure Mage?

[Berethor]

You have to remember that Mages can fight without spells as well. All that they have to do is equip a Magic weapon, a Uber armor such as Reign Plate, and they can get similar damage output to Warriors in that category as well.

So Pure Mages are stronger than Pure Warriors, yes.

[xelemental]

But Warriors got better weapons(counting non-rares only, altough I belive for most high-level players they have quite nice collection of the best ones)
Fire Melee: Fyre Force Ultimate Magic: Reignbringer
Water Melee: Bad-Axe Magic: Ultimate Maelstaff
Wind Melee: Fenris Gasher Magic: Magical Cheese Wedge(90% special)
Ice Melee: Sword of the Frost King Magic: Liquispecter(50% special)
Earth Melee: Chopalot Magic: Witchblade
Energy Melee: Undead Axe of the Storms Magic: Ultimate Maelstaff
Light Melee: Undead Axe of the sun Magic: Crystal Seed
Darkness Melee: Dark Wartexx Magic: Staff of Thorns
still, by average damage
Melee wins: 4 Magic wins: 4
However, 3 of the magic wins was due Magical Cheese wedge, Liquispecter and Staff of Thorns.We all know how good Magical Cheese wedge with uber armors is, and those two staffs doesn't hestitate you to attack,too.In fact, you can do more damage with them without special.

[[MF]]

Mages, when in their rawest form, should have 8 weapons, each without a special, and Wizard robes and a defensive armor such as nmp.
Then if they can't blast the enemy in 2 turns with DM, they can switch to defense and use spells/weaps from there.
IE. FeatherBling.He beat Phlox with the defense option.
PHLOX.
Mages: 1

However, providing Warriors have a higher defense, the tables turn. Kal-Al vs Lord Shalinder was destined to win.
Warriors: 1

[xelemental]

*Checks database*

hmm.....another aka Sarah the Nerfkitten?

okay, STNK hit alot more and had alot less life, probably.

this one.......looks like a sort of reaper

But well.Lord Shalinder had 80 vs melee.But what stops someone like Featherbling putting on same defense that he had, and casting spells/using magic weaps to win.

of course, magic weapons doesn't work so well with multi-hit armors, usually, due high special rate.

[Drago Goldenwing]

xelemental said:

Since the relase of Beastmaster class, hybrids are being turned down.....like Bloody Death Mind wrote....OBSOLETE!!!

Beast Lore allows both Melee and Magic sheningans focus on the monsters weakness, when they find something with high defense modifiers of their own kind of art*stares at croaker playing with sneak*.

With a few calculations, and assumations mages abuse Divine Magic, and so melee their multi-hit amrors(and maybe 10th Day of Frostval),results give that altough Melee Warriors are kicked out by mages in damage apparance,they have their full MP for one boost of healing spell or something of that kind.

While Mages can do a crapload more damage in the first 8 turns,after that, Melee warriors gain an edge to kill monsters with enough MASSIVE hp to resist mages power.Or otherwise: when mages run out of MP(yea, this will happen) when killing an army of monsters, warriors tend to take control of that, with more consinent mass-killing.

Also, when Mage miss with their spell,they've lost more than just a turn and HP.They've lost part of their offense, too.

I calculated quickly that both pure Melee and pure Mage of my level should kill Death, unless he/she blocks all the time(don't remember defenses).However, I got killed when I met him a few hundreds life points past, with his 2500 points of HP.

Also, sometimes, Melee players will put more out aganist certain enemey with no MP cost than Mages of same level.Power Katana gives them a good boost, too, with good level.So does Unlucky blade(if I heard right about it).That's a little flaw....

My question is to you, to community: Do you belive that hybrids had been turned useless or they have something good left to them, and what is better, a Pure Melee or Pure Mage?

I can't think of a single situation where the staff has put us up against an army of monsters and didn't give the option to rest every few battles specifically so Mages don't run out of MP. Novelty monsters like Night of 1000 Ninjas don't count.

Also, most warriors well tell you that Heal Wounds is useless, and they generally stick to potions. The reasoning behind this is that Heal Wounds has an incredibly high MP cost, making it unreasonable for Warriors to cast often enough to have any chance of getting the quad heal effect. (I'm level 93, and can only cast it once with 0 Int. A pure Melee build will have at most 750 MP at level 130, meaning even 130s can only cast it twice.) Otherwise, Heal Wounds restores about as much HP as a potion.

Here's an excerpt from a post I wrote to post over at the official AQ forum, but decided not to since I don't really like the place that much.

Here's a better illustration of what I'm talking about. I'm going to list three builds. A Warrior, a Ranger, and a Mage. They will be exactly the same, except for what they choose to place their offensive capabilities in. For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume that both the Warrior and Ranger are capable of equipping 10-30 weapons with 10 BTH, and we'll assume that the Ranger's weapon takes Stat Bonuses. We'll assume that the Mage is casting Earth Fury.
According to AQStats.com's stat calculator, this would be the result:

Warrior: Str 200/Dex 200/End 200/Luk 50
Max HP: 2250
Max MP: 750
Melee BTH: +28
Magic BTH: +15
Ranged BTH: +28
Melee Damage: +25
Magic Damage: +0
Ranged Damage: +25
Chance to Block: 23%

So on a single attack, with no armor modifiers, the Warrior would deal out 10-55 a turn at 38 BTH.

Ranger: Str 200/Dex 200/End 200/Luk 50
Max HP: 2250
Max MP: 750
Melee BTH: +28
Magic BTH: +15
Ranged BTH: +28
Melee Damage: +25
Magic Damage: +0
Ranged Damage: +25
Chance to Block: 23%

So on a single attack, with no armor modifiers, the Ranger would deal out 10-55 a turn at 38 BTH.

Mage: Dex 200/Int 200/End 200/Luk 50
Max HP: 2250
Max MP: 2250
Melee BTH: +15
Magic BTH: +28
Ranged BTH: +28
Melee Damage: +0
Magic Damage: +25
Ranged Damage: +13
Chance to Block: 23%

So on a single usage of Earth Fury, the Mage would deal out 10-55, 10-55, 10-55, 10-55, 15-80, 15-80, at +58 BTH on the first four hits, and +48 BTH on the last two. With Divine Magic, a Wizard class ability that multiplies the base damage of each hit of a spell by 2.5, and with stat bonuses taken into account for each hit, these damages become 25-100, 25-100, 25-100, 25-100, 37-162, 37-162 (Rounded down,) with the same BTH as the previous list.

This would not be a balance issue in a different style of game, but in AdventureQuest, this Mage has the same HP, Defenses, and Resistances as a Warrior. Probably better than most Warriors, as to try and keep up with this level of damage most Warriors use multi-hit armors with low defenses, while Mages use the highest possible Defenses they can since they have no need to multiply their attack damage. The exception are those who capitalize on the Divine Magic ability in the Wizard class. The Wizard classes Defenses and Resistances are low, yes. But when Divine Magic and the Wizard Class were first released, I don't believe that it was considered that it would make Mages capable of spending 255 out of 2250 MP to deal 174-724 damage.
Even granted that the Warrior or Ranger is using Reign Plate, that leaves them attacking for 47-210 at 38 BTH a turn. That still leaves the Divine Magic user doing over three times the maximum damage that the Warrior and Ranger builds are capable of.

This means that Mage builds are capable of taking just as much damage as Warrior and Ranger builds, but deal out roughly two thousand five hundred times the damage they do. I want you to read that number again. A Mage using Divine Magic deals out roughly two thousand five hundred times the damage that Warriors and Rangers are capable of without armor modifiers to their damage.

[xelemental]

I'm pretty sure that instead of 200 DEX that gives you 20% more blocking ability and higher BTH, 200 END would be better to last long.

When typical low to middle-end player with 1000 hp uses heal wounds, he gets 100+0.1*1000 HP heal.potion may heal almost three times less for that charather.


To: D!SEASED
Maye you're right, but please....tell me good magic weapons of each element without special.Magic, after all.

To: Drago Goldenwing
Do you really expect those mages and warriors with 130 level still battleing?100 is more reasonable.
I've done those calculations itself, but the thing is that warriors actually overrule mages at weapons.

When Mages run out of MP, more realistically like, something around 1800 points, and swifts to NMP, he/she is weaker in that point than warrior.However, he/she has more HP, a somewhat important source...

But so far, most of people will be convienced to use magic.What keeps yourself, Drago, from doing that and staying with Warrior build?

EDIT: check'd out that Crystal Seed has 100% special, also nice disadvantage for mages.

[Drago Goldenwing]

Yes, I do expect them to still be battling. You cannot fault the logic in showing the end result of reaching max levels to illustrate my point. People play to reach max level. Every level of the game, they are putting their builds together in order to reach the stats I gave above. Saying that it's wrong to use final stats at level 130 for the purpose of this discussion is like saying that one shouldn't discuss the quality of coffee that a coffee machine can make when someone asks if it's worth the money.

Warriors don't overrule mages at weapons. In fact about half the elements have strong Magic weapons and no strong Melee weapons.

Fire has the Reignbringer. Easily surpasses even the best Melee fire weapon, especially with the set effect making the special more powerful. Mages benefit from the Reign set. Warriors don't.
Water is one of the few elements given to Melee users, however the Abyssal Staff, a Z-Token item, is on par with the best Melee equipment, and even has an uber-spell for the special.
Wind has the Arcane Ancestor Axe, another Z-Token item that is on par with the Fenris Gasher, the best melee Wind weapon.
Ice has the Nightmare Mace, which when combined with the set effect means that NO ONE, not even Mages, are 'weak' when they equip these items. Mages benefit from the NMS, warriors don't.
Energy is one of those rare elements given mostly to Melee.
Light has no powerful non-rare melee weapons. What it does have are the Galaxy Wand and the Celestia.
Dark has the DiSoN, still an incredibly powerful weapon.

Your assertions that Warriors have Mages beaten as far as weapons go is not in any way correct. If anything the staff has endeavored to keep the two on equal footing for weapons, something that has, ironically, unbalanced the game even further.

When mages run out of MP and switch to NMP, they equip NMP, NMS, and NMM. And become the attacking equivalent of even the best pure melee build.

I stay with my Warrior build because the staff's blatant catering to mage builds, and resultant unbalancing of the game, keeps me from in good conscience becoming a Mage. As a Warrior I stand out from the 99% of the game that chooses to play as spellslinging clones of each other.

[Berethor]

Actually, more like 97%. There are some of those people that have really messed up stats, like myself, that keep changing their minds about their builds.

I originally had a Mage build, then was working on Warrior, and since Beastmaster came out, I am thinking of switching to a Beastmaster build.

I need guidance. Lawl.

But I totally agree with Drago. The staff is trying to even out the weapons between the 2 main builds and in turn is upsetting the balance by releasing uber spells as well. If they want to balance the game, they have a few options IMO:

1. Nerf Mage weapons signifigantly.
2. Buff Warrior weapons signifigantly.
2. Nerf Uber Spells signifigantly.

There aren't many ways to get around this issue. I hope that the KoO gets the issue through their head and decides do do something about the lack of balance.

Though I would rather see the KoO nerf the Necromancer Class first.

[Drago Goldenwing]

Actually 1 wouldn't matter without 3 happening. They can nerf all Magic weapons to 1-1, it wouldn't help the situation much because the uber spells would still be swinging for stupidly high damage every turn.

No, the only way they're going to balance this is to nerf the darn Uber spells. At the least they could make them stop taking stat bonuses, that'd go a LONG WAY towards evening them out.

Edit: Oh! Also, xelemental, you're forgetting the Mage class's Mana Morph ability that lets them turn a Mana Potion into a FIXED 20% MP recovery. Which, at 200 Int/2250 MP, is 450 MP recovered.
You'll note Warriors can't do this with their HP. As I said, this is a definite downside to being a melee build. Warriors cannot effectively recover their HP, meaning once our HP goes down, it's staying there, whereas Mage builds have multiple options for MP recovery.

[Huang Di]

This is me, being annoyed at Drago for not tring to post his extremly well known opinion on the offical AQ forums, where something might acually be done about it.

[Berethor]

Agreed.

Drago, it's worth a shot to post your evidence, no matter how much you hate that place. You never know what might happen.
Just take the risk. It's worth it. Just try to imagine an AQ where Mages aren't severely overpowered and Warriors were on par with them in terms of damage. If you can get through to the staff and/or the KoO, that imagination might become a reality.

It's doubtful, but worth a shot. If you want, I could post it in the AQ forums and say that it's all by a guy named Drago Goldenwing in the UAQ forums, but I think that you should post it.

[Drago Goldenwing]

My point is you can't GET through to the KoO/Staff. I've seen people try, it doesn't work.

Besides, I'm still not 100% sure on the numbers given in the spell damage with Divine Magic, as I don't know if it applies stat bonuses before or after it multiplies the spell's damage. I think I had a moment of brain death there and those numbers for the Divine Magiced spell are figured by multiplying damage with stat bonuses by 2.5, and I'm fairly sure that DM multiplies BEFORE stat bonuses are figured in.

So I have NO clue why I multiplied AFTER adding the stat bonuses. >_>

[xelemental]

drago said:

Actually 1 wouldn't matter without 3 happening. They can nerf all Magic weapons to 1-1, it wouldn't help the situation much because the uber spells would still be swinging for stupidly high damage every turn.

No, the only way they're going to balance this is to nerf the darn Uber spells. At the least they could make them stop taking stat bonuses, that'd go a LONG WAY towards evening them out.

Edit: Oh! Also, xelemental, you're forgetting the Mage class's Mana Morph ability that lets them turn a Mana Potion into a FIXED 20% MP recovery. Which, at 200 Int/2250 MP, is 450 MP recovered.
You'll note Warriors can't do this with their HP. As I said, this is a definite downside to being a melee build. Warriors cannot effectively recover their HP, meaning once our HP goes down, it's staying there, whereas Mage builds have multiple options for MP recovery.

I've done that, and then......Low Hp, you known.It's all good and fine, until you run out of MP potions.Then there's HP....and next thing you see that you're dead.

But yeah, usually it does work, however.
Also, I really wonder, why something like this wasn't given to warriors, only crappy skipping a turn for 5% life.Usually, with these armors, that doesn't work.IF warriors had some kind of cheap melee attacks, that would give them back 5% life, it would work.
But currently, I must quite agree that mages are a little too powerful compared to warriors....Now I may untrain my DEX

[Drago Goldenwing]

A Mage running out of MP Potions is a sign of poor planning, not of weakness in strategy. No Mage should ever be out of them, specifically because of and for Mana Morph.

And if your mage takes hits less effectively than a Warrior build, then give it some Endurance. It's not like Mage builds can't get the exact same HP amounts as Warriors, which, technically, is the main reason they're so unbalanced and is essentially the focal point of any discussion about balance.