Archmages: What happened to Drain Magic?

[Dastion]

This newsletter was quite the disappointment. First we have the Sorcerer with such vague information we aren't even positive which archetype it goes under, and then we get the Archmage class description and it sounds just like an elfy version of the Shaman.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/armiesofWAR/HighElves/Careers/Archmage.php

There is no mention of Drain Magic at all, it doesn't say they Drain Magical power from enemies to power their own spells, it effectively says they cast a spell and cast it so efficiently that they reserve some of the magic and can use it to cast their Big Heals.

Rather disappointing, I was looking forward to playing the Drain Magic version that stole AP from enemies. As was mentioned in this article,

http://joshdrescher.com/images/beckett/Oct-Nov-07/page04.jpg

But there is no mention of it in the least, even though it was the main mechanic behind the Archmage.. I find it rather silly that they ignore it. Maybe the Drains will be in the game and are just another way to build up a 'reserve" of this energy and the methods describedi n the career overview are just how you will gain points from NPCs that do not have AP.

[Foofmonger]

This newsletter was quite the disappointment. First we have the Sorcerer with such vague information we aren't even positive which archetype it goes under, and then we get the Archmage class description and it sounds just like an elfy version of the Shaman.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/armiesofWAR/HighElves/Careers/Archmage.php

There is no mention of Drain Magic at all, it doesn't say they Drain Magical power from enemies to power their own spells, it effectively says they cast a spell and cast it so efficiently that they reserve some of the magic and can use it to cast their Big Heals.

Rather disappointing, I was looking forward to playing the Drain Magic version that stole AP from enemies. As was mentioned in this article,

http://joshdrescher.com/images/beckett/Oct-Nov-07/page04.jpg

But there is no mention of it in the least, even though it was the main mechanic behind the Archmage.. I find it rather silly that they ignore it. Maybe the Drains will be in the game and are just another way to build up a 'reserve" of this energy and the methods describedi n the career overview are just how you will gain points from NPCs that do not have AP.

"An Archmage does not waste the power he draws upon; instead they efficiently weave the winds of magic into destructive spells conserving a small amount of arcane energy with each spell they cast. The Archmage can then draw upon this reserve of power to weave the most difficult spells of High Magic capable of leaving even the most terribly wounded warrior hale and hardy with nary a scar to show for it. "

They imply at the very beginning that he is drawing power from somewhere, which is kinda mentioning it.

So it seems like to me:

-They must draw power from something.
-He then converts that power into damaging spells
-Damage spells when cast, add to another "reserve of power" of pool
- "Reserve of power" pool fuels powerful healing spells.

Looks pretty cool to me.

[BowieHero]

it may not just be heals

i'm assuming there'll be primer spells which increase your magical reserve and then finisher spells which blow that reserve, so you can start healing and then nuke or nuke and then heal, although it didn't seem like you could nuke and then cast bigger nukes, or heal and then cast bigger heals...

seems kinda lame if you only nuke then heal always

[Foofmonger]

it may not just be heals

i'm assuming there'll be primer spells which increase your magical reserve and then finisher spells which blow that reserve, so you can start healing and then nuke or nuke and then heal, although it didn't seem like you could nuke and then cast bigger nukes, or heal and then cast bigger heals...

seems kinda lame if you only nuke then heal always

Well, it wouldn't be linear.

Remember, pools act as reserves, not as a one time spell thing.

So you can nuke nuke nuke and build up your reserve pool. Then heal, and it goes down a little bit. Then you wait, and heal again, and it goes down a little more. Then you nuke nuke, and it goes up a bit. Then you heal, and it goes down etc...

It just seems like the nukes expand the pool, and the heals drain it, not that you have to use them in some linear sequence.

Also, it seems to cast the nukes in the first place, you need to drain the magic force from the target, so in the example above, you would have to drain to get the magic to nuke.

Maybe instead of a "casting" animation where all his spells just start glowing from his hands he literally draws the magic out of other people as his animation. So lets say you click a nuke, and instead of just sitting there and shooting a fireball, you drain all this weird looking stuff straight out of your target, reshape it into a fireball, and send it flying back at them.

Or it may be a certain ability system that you may need to use to be able to nuke (say you hit a drain ability, then it allows you to reshape that force into a nuke).

[BowieHero]

unless they tag each spell as either a reserve filler or a reserve drainer

reserve filler could be "Asuryan's Wrath"

deals x damage to target + y over z seconds. For every second that this spell affects the target, the caster gains 1 reserve power point. (This should be a drain IMO, and the archmage should gain reserve power while draining the mechanical resources of the target, but the newsletter did not mention drains which is what this thread is about).

It'll probably be

deals x damage to target. you gain 5 reserve power points. yawn.

reserve drainer spells could be like "Healing Winds"

Heals target for x amount over y seconds. For every tick of healing the reserves of the archmage will be drained one point.

if x was say 100, it would be an extraordinarily weak single heal. Unless you had built up a reserve of primer spells, where then it would be able to fully heal a critically wounded ironbreaker maybe.

and of course if the target dies then the spell is cancelled and the archmage doesn't waste any more healing on the target.

then by constantly nuking the archmage keeps his reserves up and all his hots, but the more hots you have the more nuking you have to do to maintain those hots, and you may want reserves for other spells, or you may put out so many hots that you can't possibly keep up... or yadda yadda this is all nonsense because i'm just speculating.

from what they said it doesn't sound like they're doing drains - but they may not have been entirely forthcoming. wait until you get into beta to find out.

at the moment it sounds like combo points for spells, which is booooring.

[ChosenOne]

Honestly guys it seems every class has its pseudo opposite in this game. If the archmage was able to drain AP from enemies that would put it on a level of which has no opposite on the destruction side. In my opinion that would be one hell of an imba power. Draining Ap's would basically turn characters worthless. It sounded nice at the time but it definately sounded overpowering.

Quite possible this is what mythic wanted but they realized they had to make it appear like a draining mechanism without actually ruining the gameplay of others. So they came up with this. Yeah it appears similiar to shamans but so what?

Should knights and chosen that theirs appear similiar? Or perhaps bright mages and sorcs? Or all the other classes? Its a pretty smart way of balancing. None of the classes are identical but they are similiar. You will hardly ever see them in equal numbers so its not boringly balanced but it is balanced in a way that neither side has an overpowered class.

[BowieHero]

balance sure does make things boring.

[Dastion]

I guess we won't know until we see some info, hopefully they give us some. I remember after the last Career Overview they followed it up with a beta update with a little more indepth info. Considering that they never even mention Drain Magic hopefully they will enlighten us a little next week.

Foofmonger has an interesting view of the concept. I was thinking of it more like they cast a spell and manage to "reserve" some of their spent energies in such a way as to power their support spells. The idea of your spells drawing magic directly from the enemy and then turning it against them is quite interesting. Though I think this is unlikely, every magic user draws upon energy to cast spells.. they draw upon their own. I assumed when it said that line that that was what they were talking about.

I too thought that taking away an enemy's AP would be a bit powerful, but it's what tehy said and they made such a big deal about "Drain Magic" being what they used as the basis for the Archmage I was just shocked to not see a single mention of it. Plus, at least the careers are different in how their mechanics work exactly. Runepriests do buffs, Zealots do debuffs, ect. Archmage sounds just like Shaman. Nuke to build up your special mechanic and if you build up enough your next heal is free.

[Foofmonger]

Honestly guys it seems every class has its pseudo opposite in this game. If the archmage was able to drain AP from enemies that would put it on a level of which has no opposite on the destruction side. In my opinion that would be one hell of an imba power. Draining Ap's would basically turn characters worthless. It sounded nice at the time but it definately sounded overpowering.


Who ever said that they would drain ap specfically? I don't remember that personally.

All I heard remembering is that they drain magic from their opponents. Whether this is an actual ability (such as something to build up your reserves of magic) or the animation "style" in which the archmage casts (by literally having a draining animation), or both, is still up in the air.

In my first post in this thread I pretty much stated how Mythics description outlines they will work.

-They Drain something from someone (magic?)
-This enables destructive spells that build up a secondary pool
-Healing spells require points from the secondary pool.


Pretty much anything further then that is speculation at this point.

[Foofmonger]

Foofmonger has an interesting view of the concept. I was thinking of it more like they cast a spell and manage to "reserve" some of their spent energies in such a way as to power their support spells. The idea of your spells drawing magic directly from the enemy and then turning it against them is quite interesting. Though I think this is unlikely, every magic user draws upon energy to cast spells.. they draw upon their own. I assumed when it said that line that that was what they were talking about.



See, I understand it in the same way.

They cast a destructive spell, this adds points to a second pool.
Healing/support spells require this second pool.

Now, the idea of the "drawing part", seems to be before destructive spells. Whether it is an actual ability you need to use, or the animation style of the class is up in the air. However, I still think they retain some kind of drain aspect, even if it just for looks.

Also, its different Waaaagh in a fundamental way I think.

From what we know of Waaaagh, it literally powers up your spells. A healing spell can still be cased with little Waaaagh, but to a much lesser effect. The way they make the archmage sound is that he requires those secondary pool points to literally cast spells, and they take up points to cast (so every heal would thus diminish the pool).

So you could go for a nuke/heal/nuke/heal type approach or you could go for a nuke/nuke/nuke/nuke heal/heal/heal/heal type approach.

[Vikingkingq]

Honestly guys it seems every class has its pseudo opposite in this game. If the archmage was able to drain AP from enemies that would put it on a level of which has no opposite on the destruction side. In my opinion that would be one hell of an imba power. Draining Ap's would basically turn characters worthless. It sounded nice at the time but it definately sounded overpowering.

Quite possible this is what mythic wanted but they realized they had to make it appear like a draining mechanism without actually ruining the gameplay of others. So they came up with this. Yeah it appears similiar to shamans but so what?

Should knights and chosen that theirs appear similiar? Or perhaps bright mages and sorcs? Or all the other classes? Its a pretty smart way of balancing. None of the classes are identical but they are similiar. You will hardly ever see them in equal numbers so its not boringly balanced but it is balanced in a way that neither side has an overpowered class.

Who's to say that the 4th DE career won't do something exactly the same, or similar (maybe a health-drain instead of AP-drain)?

And for the record, I hope they keep the Drain Magic/AP mechanic, or something like what Foofmonger suggested. As it stands, the Archmage seems too similar to the Shaman.

[Farside]

From what we know of Waaaagh, it literally powers up your spells. A healing spell can still be cased with little Waaaagh, but to a much lesser effect. The way they make the archmage sound is that he requires those secondary pool points to literally cast spells, and they take up points to cast (so every heal would thus diminish the pool).


I belive the more Waaagh! you have, the cheaper the healing spell is. That is how I see Mythic separating the 2 classes: The Shaman's heals cost less AP as he uses more Waaagh!, the Archmage's heals become stronger as he uses his reserve.

[Foofmonger]

I belive the more Waaagh! you have, the cheaper the healing spell is. That is how I see Mythic separating the 2 classes: The Shaman's heals cost less AP as he uses more Waaagh!, the Archmage's heals become stronger as he uses his reserve.

Hmm, I always thought it was that it literally made them heal for more and such, but I could see it being cheaper as well.

And I thought the Archmages heals would just spend his reserve, and always be powerful. Why would an archmage be casting rinky-dinky spells?

[Dracohouston]

The gimmick they say is in now seems more like the overheat in some FPS game's weapons. You rapid fire for too long and you'll overheat, having to stop for a while. I could see the arch mage having rather rapid heal and nuke abilities, but if you use too much of either without letting off pressure, you'll kind of 'overheat'. So you have to keep doing damage while you heal to keep the brisk pace going. Same seems to be happening to the sorc, whether it's only timing that keeps the sorc from pulling a muscle or letting off pressure with other abilities remains to be seen.

[Foofmonger]

The gimmick they say is in now seems more like the overheat in some FPS game's weapons. You rapid fire for too long and you'll overheat, having to stop for a while. I could see the arch mage having rather rapid heal and nuke abilities, but if you use too much of either without letting off pressure, you'll kind of 'overheat'. So you have to keep doing damage while you heal to keep the brisk pace going. Same seems to be happening to the sorc, whether it's only timing that keeps the sorc from pulling a muscle or letting off pressure with other abilities remains to be seen.

"Kinda".

From what the description stats, you cannot heal well without first building up the pool to use your abilities. So you kind of need to nuke, no matter what.

If you try to sit back and heal/heal/heal, your archmage may not be even to cast any spells. You may be able to sit back and nuke/nuke/nuke, and most probably will gain a ton of healing reserve for doing so.

It seems to me that primarily you will be using the Archmage to nuke a lot of the time. This is effective when your teammates aren't taking damage, it fills up your healing pool, and you will do good damage. The archmages who nuke alot will have plenty of points to heal people in dire circumstances.

Seems very offensive based to me.

[ChosenOne]

Who ever said that they would drain ap specfically? I don't remember that personally.

All I heard remembering is that they drain magic from their opponents. Whether this is an actual ability (such as something to build up your reserves of magic) or the animation "style" in which the archmage casts (by literally having a draining animation), or both, is still up in the air.

In my first post in this thread I pretty much stated how Mythics description outlines they will work.

-They Drain something from someone (magic?)
-This enables destructive spells that build up a secondary pool
-Healing spells require points from the secondary pool.


Pretty much anything further then that is speculation at this point.

Well you seem pretty much correct. Except I am not sure about the drain magic thing. Seems in their latest description they drain out magic from their spells AFTER they cast them. Meaning somehow they have achieved such skill that they get a return on their power. They get the same affect with less cost due to their skill.

Seems that is the drain now, not a direct drain from an enemy.

Otherwise you are spot on, destructive magics build up their pool while healing uses up the pool of saved magic.

Here is the proof.


Playing as a Archmage
An Archmage is a powerful caster both offensively and defensively. However they must strive to keep a balance between the powers they manipulate. Weaving only powerful healing or destructive spells will leave the Archmage tired and unable to assist his allies in their darkest hour. However by carefully applying force in critical places the Archmage can reserve a wellspring of magical energy that allows him to aid his allies when a normal mage would be all but spent.

Fighting the Archmage
As with all magic users, the Archmage is not a capable close combatant. You’re best tactic one-on-one is to quickly close the distance and drop him with powerful close combat attacks. In a group situation, an Archmage is best countered by forcing him to use his powerful healing on wounded allies early on. Unable to build up a magical reserve from casting lesser destructive magics, the Archmage will find himself exhausted and his allies will be easily overcome with a strong final assault.
the Archmage can


Here we have it the destructive magic builds the pool and healing magic uses it. Will the Archmage be limited in his choice of healing spells with no magic pool build up at all? Or will it be like the shaman and just be weaker heals? If they cant then those heals better be damn powerful.

[Dastion]

The above is pretty much exactly the same way the Shaman works. Shaman works by making his spells cheaper, when I played him at a gaming convention I would build up the Waagh (little green dots) and it would use like 3-4 of them when I cast ah eal (i could have 5 max) if I had enough, the heal would cast for 0 AP.

It seems to be the same for the Archmage. You counter him by forcing him into a healer role, since you force him to spam heal his allies or himself he isn't able to build up a reserve of power in order to heal. Whereas he'd be more efficient if he had the time to mix up damage and healing.

There is nothing in it about hurting yourself... and nothing in it about draining magic, which is quite disappointing. And Foofmonger, if you'd like to see where they said Archmages would be able to tap into their enemy's AP then check out the second link I posted in my origional post, read the paragraph on Archmages.

Hopefully, the mechanic that says they can store some of their lingering magical energy from casting their destructive spells is just a way to build up a power reserve against enemys that don't have AP..as I'm not certain NPCs actually have them. It would suck to have a mechanic that is really only useful against Players. Ideally they will have non-damaging spells that drain enemy's, sort of like debuffs that are actually just the Archmage stripping power from his enemys and adding it to his reserves. We've already seen some abilities that reduce AP regain, so possibily something like that.

[Foofmonger]

The above is pretty much exactly the same way the Shaman works. Shaman works by making his spells cheaper, when I played him at a gaming convention I would build up the Waagh (little green dots) and it would use like 3-4 of them when I cast ah eal (i could have 5 max) if I had enough, the heal would cast for 0 AP.

It seems to be the same for the Archmage. You counter him by forcing him into a healer role, since you force him to spam heal his allies or himself he isn't able to build up a reserve of power in order to heal. Whereas he'd be more efficient if he had the time to mix up damage and healing.

There is nothing in it about hurting yourself... and nothing in it about draining magic, which is quite disappointing. And Foofmonger, if you'd like to see where they said Archmages would be able to tap into their enemy's AP then check out the second link I posted in my origional post, read the paragraph on Archmages.

Hopefully, the mechanic that says they can store some of their lingering magical energy from casting their destructive spells is just a way to build up a power reserve against enemys that don't have AP..as I'm not certain NPCs actually have them. It would suck to have a mechanic that is really only useful against Players. Ideally they will have non-damaging spells that drain enemy's, sort of like debuffs that are actually just the Archmage stripping power from his enemys and adding it to his reserves. We've already seen some abilities that reduce AP regain, so possibily something like that.

At they very beginning of the career page, it alludes that the Archmage is in fact, draining something from someone.

So I don't think the drain mechanic is essentially gone, but it may indeed work differently then stated in past articles.

[Dastion]

At they very beginning of the career page, it alludes that the Archmage is in fact, draining something from someone.

So I don't think the drain mechanic is essentially gone, but it may indeed work differently then stated in past articles.

Sorry bud, it never says that. I see where you're interpreting the line, "An Archmage does not waste the power he draws upon" as him drawing it from others, but in fact that really just seems to mean he's drawing on his own power. Every career draws upon power of some sort, be it drawing upon willpower, magic, ect. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having a drain on the enemy as part of the spellcast but that's really not what they are saying, they are just saying that of the power you draw upon to cast your spells, you manage to efficiently weave it as to store some of the residual power. It's like the Archmage is using a dollar off coupon for something, he still has to go get the item and take it to the register for the normal price (i.e. the normal cost of the spell) but in the end he ends up spending less than someone else would, so he saves what he didn't spend and uses it for healing.

Furthermore, it says, "by carefully applying force in critical places the Archmage can reserve a wellspring of magical energy that allows him to aid his allies when a normal mage would be all but spent." You see, applying force not tapping into his enemy's power or draining, tapping... "Drain" and "Tap" are the words used frequently before, and they aren't mentioned once in the overview. The fact is, they look just like Shaman but with some frilly wording as to how they do it.