Alchemy and Animate Dead

[Fallen]

There are many limitations to the spell of Animate Dead which keeps it from being used by the majority of the profession. While I understand that some of these limitations are intended, they are by no means balanced. There are glaring problems with the spell that only auction quality items and unacceptable amounts of Training points can begin to address. I believe the solution to the majority of these problems comes through a combination of the sorcerer lore review, and alchemy releases for the sorcerer profession. This post will concentrate on what I believe alchemy should provide for Animate Dead.

1. Regenerative dust - The purpose of this alchemic item should be fairly straight forward. The dust will heal all wounds on the animate and refill their mana so they wont continue to blow their nerves..atleast for a while.

INGREDIENTS - Ground Crimson crystals 2x, Skeletal Ice Troll blood (or other undead troll blood), Troll tooth 2x, N'anayad crystal 2x, powdered witchwood 1x. Chanting of 730

LOGIC - Animates that become damaged are essentially useless to the caster. You've just wasted your crystals, mana, and the gem used to animate it not to mention all your time invested in the first place. It is in no way unbalancing to gain this power, and the ingredients reflect the ease in which this dust should be able to be produced.
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2. Strengthening potion - This potion will increase the level of an animate by 1 unless the animate is already at the maximum of its normal BCS level range.

INGREDIENTS - Ground crimson crystals 3x, distilled troll king blood 2x (made by distilling 3 doses of normal troll king blood), Crystal core 1x, N'anayad crystals 2x, Crimson essence mote 1x, powdered witchwood 2x. Channeling 9 Spirit, chanting of 730

LOGIC - This potion should likely only be able to be used once per animate. However, the difficulty in which the potion is made could be made difficult enough to sufficiently balance this ability.
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3. Statis Dust - Freezes the animate into complete inactivity, halting the duration of the spell. One hour duration per use of dust. Any command given to the animate causes the statis effect to be removed.

INGREDIENTS - Ground Crimson Crystal 2x, Distilled troll king blood 1x, Ground N'anayad Crystals 3x, Blue essence mote 3x. Refraction of moonlight, Chanting of the spell 730

LOGIC - The duration of this spell is its biggest obstacle, and also its biggest balancing factor. Basically, it is meant to be a limited use spell. The addition of this dust would not change that. It would simply allow the dedicated sorcerer to front load the time in making the dust/purchasing the dust from others, and/or mastering alchemy.
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4. Concentrated Crystals - Allows the sorcerer to animate the same creature more than once. These will only prepare an animate to be re-animated. The sorcerer will still require another gem and casting of the spell 730.

INGREDIENTS - Ground Crimson Crystal 5x, Distilled Troll King blood 1x, Ground N'anayad crystals 3x, Crystal core 3x, Crimson essence 2x, powdered witchwood 2x. Refraction of moonlight, Channeling 5 spirit, Chanting of 730

LOGIC - Fairly straightforward. The work of obtaining another animate is offset by the difficulty of obtaining the crystals. I see nothing unbalanced with letting a sorcerer animate the same husk as many times as he chooses.
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As you have likely gathered, my knowledge of alchemy and its finer details is limited at best. If anyone has any suggestions for ingredients, or if I have suggested something that is impossible feel free to point it out.

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"I hate to say it, but Evarin's right."
= - GM Oscuro - =
Cleric/Empath Team

[Danical]

Cool stuff.

But does it help sorcs previously not using this spell to use it with more frequency?

[Numbers]

They're good ideas, and I mean that.

But they're addressing problems that really shouldn't even exist. And it just adds a further time sink into the spell, which isn't even necessary to hunt in the first place.

[fallenSaint]

You apply for staff yet Fallen? You've got plenty of good ideas, but unfortunately I doubt Simu gives a stink about lowly subscribers opinions.

[Danical]

ADs count as "contributors" for the new loot system.

LULZ, THAT'LL HAPPEN!

[Fallen]

They're good ideas, and I mean that.

But they're addressing problems that really shouldn't even exist. And it just adds a further time sink into the spell, which isn't even necessary to hunt in the first place.

That is why I stated that these additions would come in conjunction with the sorcerer lore review. The lore review is what should primarily address the problems with the spell in terms of duration, and MAL.



You apply for staff yet Fallen? You've got plenty of good ideas, but unfortunately I doubt Simu gives a stink about lowly subscribers opinions.

Far, far too many Official message board warnings for that to happen. Emeradan and I don't get along. At all.

[Abyran'sa]

Fallen, I really like the idea of taking the first alchemy based spell and expanding the alchemy side of things for it. Out of your proposals, I like the regenerative dust the most, but they are all solid ideas.

For me, the tough problem becomes how/where to incorporate these ideas into the current alchemy system. How difficult should it be to make and or use these components? As much as I enjoy alchemy, I do not think that making this dust should be as difficult as making the sanctuary breaking shards (45th level trinket) but there should be some catch. I do like your recipes, but as is with their channeling/refracting/etc it looks like they will reward the serious Alchemist more than the serious Necromancer.

As to this regenerative dust, how would you feel about making the creation process available for everyone who knows 730, but then base the effectiveness of the dust on the MAL of the USER of the dust. This way, everyone who has a bit of necromancy training could benefit, and allow for those who invest heavily in the lore to greatly benefit.
For example, the dust could renew 75% of the mana and wounds for those with a MAL of X, and would be proportionally more or less effective for those with MALs that are greater or less than that number.

Anyhow, where and how would everyone like to see these ideas balance out? One of my long standing and often repeated goals with Sorcerery is to see numerous end-game paths. I want there to be a mechanical incentive to only study Necromancy, Demonology, or to meddle in both/none. Each path should have benefits and consequences. Back to the classic, you can be a jack of all trades or a master of one.

But, lets hear everyone's ideas!

Sereg's puppeteer

[radamanthys]

The idea of guild skills (alchemy/illusions) being required for usefulness of our high level spells isn't a great idea for me.

Force one to only be able to animate a creature you kill yourself, solo. Then up the MAL. Uphunting is hard enough as a Sorcerer. That'd keep the balance. Make the spell more dependent on Necro lore- that just makes sense. Instead of having usage of animates being for the high levelled (What low/low-mid range sorc can kill a troll king?) and the truly hardcore, they should be at least approachable to everyone at 30.

Having animates last at most one or two hunts max, what with the absurd amount of cash or time that takes to use effectively, is just inane. And how the game is so level dependant based on killing power, the negative MAL just hurts at lower levels.

Sacrifice could give you a soul-gem type thing, and that could be used instead of the crystals currently used. If they withered after an hour or so, that would be fine.

[Fallen]

I believe the Lore review in regards to Animate dead can and must fix the majority of this spell's problems. No, it wont turn it into a prep/cast 100% usable spell for every hunting attemp. It would, however, make its duration and level of animation something that normal sorcerers could stomach.

The first change would have to be to the MAL formula, going from {(N-20)/5}-10 to {(N-5)/5}-10, where N equals your necromancy ranks. This would allow people that have 50 ranks of necro lore to animate at nearly like level. With a MAL increase would also come an increased duration. That, coupled with the second update would be enough to pursuade even casual sorcerers to dabble in Necromancy.

2. Allow at 100 ranks of lore the ability to animate a creature multiple times. You would still need another batch of crystals, 30 mana and a gem, but you could use the same body repeatedly, saving the sorcerer time and hassle.

Any alchemy additions adding to duration, strength, or otherwise at that point would be just what they are SUPPOSED to be; Bonuses.

[fallenSaint]

Far, far too many Official message board warnings for that to happen. Emeradan and I don't get along. At all.

He's so damned fickle on what he wants to enforce on those boards.

[radamanthys]

I'd rather see crystal use be a bonus, with some sort of "I don't need to take time to gather salts anymore every week" change. WoW does it right with the Warlock soul gems (I mean, they're making us into DoTting warlocks anway...)

I don't have enough locker/pack space as it is. If the goal is to overburden us so we have to pay for more locker space, then that's lame.