Another post about wizards

[NanoDano]

This post isnt to complain about wizards as a whole but I want to highlight a few of the things they can do, why its not great, and try to get some ideas of what could be done to make them better. Firstly, I agree wizards should be difficult to fight alone or even with a partner, however certain spell loadouts can make wizard very painful and tedious to fight against for all parties, even the wizard. For example, polymorph plus clowns revenge, both of these spells can be used in conjunction with magic missile to seriously hamper or remove the ability for the victim to fight back against the wizard and, in my opinion, suck the fun out of a large portion of their round.

Clowns revenge cluwnes the target, rendering them unable to speak, makes them suffer random stuns, and makes them free for anyone to kill without consequence. All of these effects suck to have, however even if the wizard decides to let you live, you have to hope no one decides to kill you while searching for the chaplain(if there is one) and maybe if he isnt new or just apathetic, have him cure you. Then you have to pray the wizard doesnt do it all over again. This takes you out of the round for a long time, and doesnt even guarantee you'll be able to come back.

Polymorph might be even worse than clowns revenge, while you can still talk, you loose all of your items and suffer a serious decrease to your health, damage, and stamina, not to mention the inability to make use of most items. And if the wizard so chooses, he can kill you with extreme ease. The process of fixing polymorph can be an even more tedious and annoying process, waiting around in medbay, begging doctors to turn you human, and hoping they arent apathetic or ignorant of how to change you back.

Combining these two abilities allows a wizard to transform someone around every 60 seconds, then, with the addition of teleport allows them to immediately retreat to safety right after, even if they are stunned. Conveniently they are even provided a headset and a telephone to talk trash while waiting for their abilities to come off cooldown. This turns wizard from one of the most fun antagonists to fight, to the most annoying by far, to the point to where people would rather cryo/suicide upon being transformed or even when finding out its a wizard round.

What can be done wizard to make them less of a pain to fight? Well ideas are encouraged but some I have are as follows:

• Make classes for wizards to choose from instead of giving them a spellbook. They could be given the option of choosing from multiple different schools of magic(chaos, elemental, conjuration etc), complete with their own colored robes and hats to give people an idea of what spells the wizard might throw at them. But leave general spells(shield/soulguard) to be chosen freely.
  
• Reduce wizards health and/or stamina, this would make defensive spells be picked more or allow wizards to forgo them in favor of a glass cannon playstyle. Maybe even give them frail constitution. Im not too sure about this one because it might just reinforce the playstyle I mentioned above.
  

[Lord_earthfire]

Reading this, it is funny how someone could suggest "remove clowns revenge and polymorph on classic and give them smite (instant gib on touch range) instead" and it would probably solve most of the concerns mentioned here.

On a productive side, why just not put their teleport and so e of the most defensive spells on a small cooldown once they used some if their bigger spells?

[444explorer]

Yeah, the point of the whole smite idea is just unironically true. Sometimes I'd rather be round removed than any alternative.

Not sure about how making Wizards weaker stat wise would do. Classes feels like they take away that 'build YOUR loadout' thing wizards have. They are one of the few antagonists to be able to do this, the others being Traitor and maybe Spief and CCU Nukie if you stretch it. Defensive spells are already picked a lot though, right? Or at least I've heard stories of spellshield being a common pick so making them weaker would either do nothing or just make these picks more common than they might already be. I think short cooldowns on using other spells is a neat idea but like I typically say personally I'd want to see any of these testmerged. Even if I feel some of them might not work out well.

I do agree that Wizards could use some tweaks, though. Unsure what as of now but when I see them in game next I'm sure I'll be reminded of what I personally feel is lacking. Probably the fact that while Wizards shouldn't be fought solo, they can be rather hard to escape solo at times.

[KikiMofo]

Yeah the wizard has powerful spells. Yeah the wizard can remove you from the round if you try to take them on solo. That's just how it is. Don't try to fight the wizard alone.
Wizards aren't tanks so they need to use a spell and then get away quickly. Teleport is there for that reason.

[Kotlol]

Pro tip: There are other antagonists on the stations more equipped to deal with Wizards. Ask them to deal with em.

Another pro-tip: Don't fight a wizard as security.

Pro-tip numero tros: Don't fight a wizard alone even as security.

[444explorer]

I don't really think encouraging crew to work with Antags to kill Wizards and encouraging Security to just don't bother with them is a good idea.

[Lord_earthfire]

I don't really think encouraging crew to work with Antags to kill Wizards and encouraging Security to just don't bother with them is a good idea.

I think the best comparison for wizard is blob or flock. They are a force of nature and are everybody's problem.

[444explorer]

I don't really think encouraging crew to work with Antags to kill Wizards and encouraging Security to just don't bother with them is a good idea.

I think the best comparison for wizard is blob or flock. They are a force of nature and are everybody's problem.

Sure, they can also make for a good distraction and indirectly work well for you, though. Security grabbed armoury flamethrowers and are now fighting the blob? Why not raid the other gear in the armoury while they are away from it? Etc.

[Kotlol]

The point of most antagonists is that they have their own goals in mind.
Only gangs and conspirators HAVE TO work together. Gangs vs other gangs.. and conspirators against the crew in secret (and since most antags work alone it's why they are the least popular ones)
Yes, also Nukies... I didn't forget them. But they are can still work indivually and be dangerous. Gangs and Conspirators need some stealth.

But every other one is doing their own thing. In fact some antagonists are encouraged to fight eachother as they get in eachothers way regardless.
A vampire and changeling both want to kill for their own reasons, they COULD work together, but both want as much resources from dead players thus are enemies most of the time.

Now imagine the polymorphing/clown's revenge wizard doing their thing and you are a changeling, he is effectively taking out your food and making them unable to be consumed.. (Well cluwnes can be consumed but everyone will notice em)
At this point you have the tools to knock the wizard out for good so security isn't on high alert constantly.

Remember Stealth Antagonists do not like rampaging antagonists cause they put security on high alert looking for them, thus the stealthers might get caught.
Stealth antagonists like antagonists who cause chaos in 1 point so Security ain't looking across the station to do their antagging.
Rampagers run around and go everywhere.

[mralexs]

Maybe make it so certain spells are mutually exclusive or have a shared cool down?

[Kotlol]

Maybe make it so certain spells are mutually exclusive or have a shared cool down?

This alone will stop certain combos to be outright removed and less annoying without nerfing them invidually!

[mralexs]

Just had a legit unfun wizard round where we couldn't touch the wizard because they were spamming phase shift, teleport, and spell shield. Activating one of those should trigger a cooldown on the others. Its not fun to play against