Originally posted by Zathabar:

Originally posted by jonnin:

I tried this, by making a new guy and providing the new toys.
Its not well balanced; all the bosses fell easily, never died, low risk until at least the mountains. I even limited myself a lot (eg only frost staff and raw mushroom food until mountains) and it was still OP. ...

Thank you for this Jonnnin. I was wondering how OP having say a single staff early on (Say found in a crypt in the black Forest as an uber rare drop) In my scenario Eityr food would also be hyper rare and there would be no means to repair said staff till you got to Mistlands.
How did your test do that? You said you took only the lowest Eityr food which was fair enough, thought more than I was thinking personally, but did you replace staves when they broke or did you actually have a repair station as well?

Magic needs to be retconed into the game at some point far earlier (as I say Black forest or Swamp levels I suggest) But how to do so without making it utterly OP is the question.

If its too powerful as is do we need a "Weak staff of Fire or Frost" with reduced stats to be introduced you think? Or reduce the base ones stats, but sharply up them when we can increase quality on the staves? IE make current T1 = T3 and have T1 &2 Lower so they can be used in BF and Mountain levels perhaps? (This assumes eventually we can get T4 or 5)

Thoughts?

I gave myself the repair station, of course.
So basically I had a 25 (quickly falls down) eitr and the frost staff (5/shot) so I had 5 shots then had to regen. I did that through the swamp.
After bonemass I gave myself the fire staff and the the real food, but only 1 eitr food at a time, so now I had 85 eitr and could use the fire staff for 2 shots before regen.
that took out the mountains easily, and the plains as well. The fire staff is too strong for even the plains, but the frost staff won't work on moder.
regardless, it was stronger than I expected. I thought that by limiting the # of shots by having reduced eitr food and no armor it would be on par, but it was not.
Here is the thing: its a ranged combat style. The only close quarters you have in a run like my attempt are the crypts in the black forest. Every other fight can be kited to death with the frost staff: all other instances until mistlands are optional. You can do the same thing with wood arrows and a crude bow, if you have enough patiences, but the frost staff hits much harder than that, of course.

so the issue is a mix of ranged combat style being nearly immortal (outside of ML mines) + high damage and worse, the fire staff's aoe. Whether you want to be snarky about taking high level stuff to lower areas, this is just the effect of kiting, not the gear.
the fact that the staves also hit hard and are powerful gear adds to it, but not that much. If you were at-risk from the enemy, I don't think the frost staff and 25 eitr is OP for the forest or swamp; its not notably better than fire arrows in a fine bow.

apart from the core tests I also tested the skeletons and they are way, way OP until the mountains. The mountains and plains mess those guys up without the shield staff buff.