We should uhhhh... talk about Rathen's secret

[vampirate]

Earlier today I had a round with a newbie wizard.  I had him take Rathen's secret and some defensive spells. Was gonna show him the ropes... ended up fully delimbing most of medbay, but the worst part of it is when we wanted to be chill, we couldn't really cause one or two people would rush us and we'd let it rip again.

I propose the following.  Arse Nath should have a physical missile  that has to hit a player to take effect.   Hitting through walls from across the room was a bit much.   Maybe lower the cooldown to compensate.

[Brixx79]

It's the best crowd control spell wizards have. I'd like to see other options that are consistently good to use when surrounded by crew. If there were better options to use vs large numbers, we might see rathian less or have people more open to toning it down.

Yes, magic missile and a few others "work" against crowds. But Rathian is a single click that auto hits everyone in a radius, knocks them down, generates smoke, and the whole limb removal thing.

[kyle2143]

I don't really understand the issue here. If it's that rathen's secret is too strong, I disagree. It was weakened a short while ago after having remained unchanged for many years and I think it's in a good spot in terms of wizard powers.

If your issue is that you picked rathens secret and then used it when trying to run "friendly wizard", then I really don't know what to tell you because the abilities are sorta designed to be flashy, big, and powerful.

[Sundance]

What is a short while ago Kyle? And what was changed? Nothing on the changelog.

If it was the stun, well.. the stun was like 1 second long, so I'm not sure how that was nerfed. 

The key issue with the stun is that it seemed to work independent to the stamina system, so everyone in the radius would drop their handheld. This, combined with the smoke meant that any ranged combat against a rathen's wizard was nigh impossible. 

If it was the delimbing, well.. it was clarified in the last thread that the issue is less so the delimbing nature aspect of it that makes it OP, but the fact you can't fight back due to the stun/disarm/smoke effect.

Anyway, I'd be interested to see what was changed.

EDIT: Balance change #1192:
Rathen's Secret will only delimb if you have no arse, June 24th

I'm going to go out on a limb here (H E H) and say that this balance change, while a good change nonetheless, does not go far enough

[Carbadox]

The delimbing aspect is completely unneccasary. The ability to immediately stun a unlimited number of people, without aiming, in an area of effect, while causing a massive amount of smoke and dealing brute damage on first applications and moderate brute when already ass-less is ridiculously good as it is. The effort required reapply a limb is absolutely not proportional to the effort it takes to take it off.

[TDHooligan]

i've seen a few wizards abuse rathen's delimbing simply by walking somewhere, using rathens' secret and poofing away repeatedly, once you've got no arms you're essentially dead and if you're missing a leg and have no ranged weaponry you're harmless to damage/escape the wizard

[Dickles]

IMO wizards are supposed to have op spells. Rathens is strong but I think it's fine. The only issue to me is when multiple wizards use it at once; that wasn't so bad on lower pop but right now I've seen up to five wizards at once, and it can be too much if they coordinate. Wizards are really strong when they work together due to their aoe and inability to hurt each other (mostly), but I don't think that's a problem limited to Rathens.

You can counter the delimbing with a stapler and a bed, both of which can be gotten from a general fabricator and steel sheets. It's not great if you just want to do your job and the wizard keeps comming back to fuck with you, but it's honestly better than other things he can do.

To me the main strong point of the spell is the guaranteed stun, which lets the magic missile catch up to you and the wizard do whatever else they'd like to do to you, but I think that's fine

[TheRealFlapJackson]

Just remove the delimbing and it should be good.

[zjdtmkhzt]

Why don't we make it consistent with the way that the admin butt explosion wave works?
As in, if you are resting you will not be hit by it. This gives people a viable option to not get hit by it while also not making it a projectile (which would be worse against crowds).
In addition, resting people are still unlikely to murder you right then and there, so it remains a good defensive tool while giving crewmembers more agency against having their body parts blown off.

Maybe a very short cast time for the spell, to give people the chance to actually cower if it still proves too strong after that.

[Sundance]

IMO wizards are supposed to have op spells.

I think your definition of OP is a little skewed. OP is not a good thing. Spells should be strong. A good spell that's strong but not OP is Fireball. It can be dodged and it can backfire. In the days of lore before it was changed it used to AUTOAIM. That's OP. It was a common thread topic until the aim function was eventually introduced.

Wizard also doesn't have all strong spells, it's such a mix between downright underpowered and OP/broken spells. Underpowered and underutilized is Ice Burst, Bullsrush, Shocking Touch and Animate Dead. OP/broken is Empower, Rathen's Secret and oddly Prismatic Spray. The latter is broken because its original idea was meant to be a funky wizard shotgun spell with its conical shot. Instead, wizards stun and pointblank players into a deep crit, rendering Shocking Touch pointless.

The end result is an unbalanced antagonist which has enabled a meta and has become increasingly frustrating to fight, to the point where you either give up, or you chemical bomb them with fluorosulfuric acid, which is no fun for anyone. 

You're also completely wrong about "a few wizards" using Rathen's secret. A single capable wizard can and will depopulate the entire station with the correct set up.

I'm sorry to be such a debbie downer, because there's honestly much to enjoy about wizard. It just really needs more TLC sooner rather than later, with a closer inspection at each spell and how they play off each other.

[KikiMofo]

First off, Fuck friendly wizards.
Second off, Even if some wizards are able to depopulate a server with the correct setup thats the same with all antags. There will always be robust people who know all the ins and outs of certain antag shit. That's just how some people are. Don't punish everyone for the select few that are robust.

[Sundance]

First off, Fuck friendly wizards.
Second off, Even if some wizards are able to depopulate a server with the correct setup thats the same with all antags. There will always be robust people who know all the ins and outs of certain antag shit. That's just how some people are. Don't punish everyone for the select few that are robust.

Agreed on the first point, at least.

Second point - no? That's a whole lotta words for the "git gud" argument, which is at best obfuscating the core issue with balance. This is absolutely nothing to do with robustness; that's the point. 

Bounce it back you: Id like to see more spells chosen over the current meta and as a result I'd like some power taken off these core spells and other spells buffed so we have more diverse wizard load out. Does this not seem like a sound idea?

"wEll THatS TheIR SeT uP" is not a good argument because each spell is worth exactly the same. Fireball is worth one point. So is the "situational" (i.e useless) Bulls Rush. 
We could go the traitor route and make some spells worth more than one point, but that would be boring. 

I don't think it's fair that a wizard can steamroll a crew because he chose a particular set up. I also don't think it's fair that a wizard would get absolutely trashed because he decided to be different and pick something else. This is the absolute definition of unbalance.

[Mouse]

Remove the smoke. That way, if a wizard gets on the shuttle and uses Rathen's Secret, people can actually attack said wizard instead of not being able to do a damn thing because no one can see shit while the wizard just spams AoE and autohit spells.

[KikiMofo]

Sundance it sounds more like you want a full overhaul of the wizard spells. I mean I'd be down for that but I still stick with the fact that people are always going to run certain spells into the ground because they know it works. I'm not saying git gud, I'm saying the people that ARE ALREADY GUD will continue to BE GUD no matter if you change rathens.

[Frank_Stein]

Why don't we make it consistent with the way that the admin butt explosion wave works?
As in, if you are resting you will not be hit by it. This gives people a viable option to not get hit by it while also not making it a projectile (which would be worse against crowds).
In addition, resting people are still unlikely to murder you right then and there, so it remains a good defensive tool while giving crewmembers more agency against having their body parts blown off.

Maybe a very short cast time for the spell, to give people the chance to actually cower if it still proves too strong after that.

I like this solution. A little bit of telegraphing before they fire off, like Brown Note.

Because even if your target ducks, that's still time to

1. Fire another spell
2  Get the hell outta there