You know how basically everybody on the station can build cool junk with enough dedication. Why not give that to the wizard as well.
Wizard could start off with a book of potions, and a cauldron they can summon to an area, or hide off in a distant zlevel.
The cauldron would use items found around the station, like space fungus, tail of rat, vomit from a drunk crewmen, feather of owl, etc. Wizard could then stir the items, make a potion, and drink it as a buffing potion or throw it at someone as a weapon. Cool wizards could also give these potions away in exchange for favors.
Psychotic wizards could also take their potions and turn them into golems. Potion of Hysteria, or potion of blindness, etc.
I guess the starting post already suggested that, but I think wizard having to "scrounge up" items from around the station in their cauldron could force them to plan ahead.
Also some kind of short lived camoflauge potion that makes the wizard look like an ordinary greyshirt for a short time, might give wizard more options for stealing unique potion ingredients.
In its current state, I don't think Wizard should be its own Game Mode, and only show up in Mixed. Unlike other "solo" modes (Nuke, Blob) where the round ends when the antagonist(s) are defeated, Wizard doesn't really have a time limit or fixed goal that the crew can work together to solve and end the round. Often rounds drag on as wizards just hide until their kill spell is off cooldown, pop out and then slink back into the darkness.
Adding something like Corruption back in, where the crew can do something and win and the wizard can do something and win, and I think it would be fine as its own seperate mode.
If corruption came back it would give the chaplain a bit more to do with his round than fart on a certain black book. Unfortunately I think corruption used to cause an horrendous amount of lag.
I am wondering if it might be worth it limiting wizard's mobility. Maybe remove the teleport spell and have it just limited to the scroll? I dunno, if you force the wizard to stay on the station more it drives them even more into fireball rampage mode, just to take some of the pressure off themselves. On the other hand there's the blink in-cluwne fireball grasp - blink out wizard, which I admit is my most common playstyle - it's pretty taxing to play otherwise.
Vunterslaush Wrote:If corruption came back it would give the chaplain a bit more to do with his round than fart on a certain black book. Unfortunately I think corruption used to cause an horrendous amount of lag.
Corruption caused an insane amount of lag because someone decided that it was a good idea to have an animated overlay go on top of every independent area. Maybe bring it back in a way that leaved a much simpler maker? This is sort of like I was talking about with the pylons earlier, with dropping pylons in an area to mark them as corrupt.
Turn wizards into Jedis imo. But seriously can we talk about what kind of new spells we would give this revamped Wizard? I was thinking a form of TK for a spell and changing forcewall a bit so instead of it getting placed where you are facing, give the player the power to place it where they want.
Anyways I have to agree with some people here. I like wizards who just fuck around with the crew by using the small spells to annoy the crew and always get away. They tend to be a perfect mix of deadly and defense and are fun to chase around for 45 mins to an hour.
Not really a fan of pylons, I don't get why people are so into them. I guess they want to see the corruption mechanic back in some way, but it feels too much like the other obvious antag modes. Nuke and blob are more or less dependent on the same general idea of 'protect these points or you lose', but nuke teams have heavy armor and teamwork on their side and the blob is naturally bulky, so those two are fairly suited to playing defensively. It feels rather odd to tie the wizard, an antagonist based around high mobility, around the same kind of defensive play as those two modes.
I would be entirely fine with pylons if they were invincible but otherwise functionless objects the wizard could place to annoy people, though.
Sundance, you and I were speaking on this in dead chat recently but our conversation was cut short by my resurrection. There was talk of a flamethrower-like spell, which really peaked my interest.
Anyway, here's my two cents:
CLUWNING
Perhaps a temporary effect? All the wizard has to really do is walk around casting the cluwne spell at the first hint he/she's being overpowered or outnumbered and presto! They're off the hook and can walk away unscathed. But what if the cluwne effect only lasts five minutes or so? Now they have to come back and actually kill those cluwned or risk being outnumbered once again.
FIREBALL
Fireball is too OP as is: plain and simple. There's no real way to counter it. What if a casting time came into effect? You can still move around but there's a slight delay while you conjure it. Gives people a little time to move away if they're in close proximity but a clever wizard can still prime the spell as he/she's rounding a corner or opening a door and BAM! Blast the poor fool standing there sorting through their backpack. I would give the same casting time suggestion for magic missile.
FLAMETHROWER
Self explanatory. You blast fire from your staff stronger than the flamethrower with welding fuel and maybe equal to it without the staff in hand. Could be interesting to have combo spells as well: freeze someone in an ice block, then blast them with flamethrower until they're a puddle of goop.
PYLONS
This sounds like a cool idea (I'm into it at least). To prevent it being too similar to nuke rounds, dismantling/destroying them could require something byond just smashing it with a fire extinguisher. Maybe something requiring two crew members at least. The more people involved, the faster it destroys the pylon. It would help force the crew to do something they already do so well: work together. What they actually do to destroy it, I'm at a loss. Maybe touching the pylon gives a prompt and you go from there...
I support having a cauldron and building strength over time. Maybe something like the blob, vamp, and changeling where you get more spells/abilities as you kill and maim more people. That being said, however, I wouldn't mind seeing other objectives. I can safely say that every time I've tried to be the friendly wizard, it's always ended up with me being jumped by people who don't care that I'm not attacking anyone. Perhaps the AI and borgs could start with normal laws and it would be up to the crew to change them?
Overall, being a wiz is fun and if nothing changes I'd still enjoy the heck out of those rare rounds when I'm crewmember Harry Potter, wearing the apprentice gear and chasing the wizards saying, "please teach me your ways!" Only to be blasted to bits and tossed into space.
Sorry for the wall of text. (Side note: I'm excited to see eye removal added to the game)
Well seen as I got the ball rolling, i'll share my ideas a little fuller.
Essentially, I'd prefer to see wizard with a multitude of effective but situational spells over the current wizard that has 3 extremely effective spells but nothing else notable.
To balance this out, potions would allow give the wizard an edge that the current wizard doesn't have.
The wizard should also either start with teleport, or perhaps have access to another teleport scroll in his den.
SPELLS GRUMBLINGS: Fireball:
Split fireball into two spells, essentially separating the explosive and fire. Pyromancy allows the wizard to shoot a flamethrower like spell, similar to the genetics firebreath but the fire is much hotter. Magic Mines would be the explosive, allows the wiz to place booby traps that only he can see nor can be set off by him walking on them. The explosion is equivalent to a mouse-trap pipebomb or perhaps a bit stronger seen as that's been nerfed.
Clowns revenge:
Most people will agree that being cluwned is a death sentence. Unless your the captain/hos chances are you wont get your revenge, and you will die in the next 4-5 minutes. It's meant to be a curse, not an offensive spell. I feel like the cluwne spell should be more slower, like the clown disease. When inflicted, it will stun the player and will get a flavor text so that it's obvious the curse has been applied. I'm also fairly iffy about cluwnes being non human, I feel like that just screams "valid kill" when infact you probably should only kill a cluwne if he's the noisy type.
Nudists Curse
Most people actually use cluwnes revenge to strip a player of his belongings. A more balanced spell way of doing this would have a spell that literally blasts the clothing off a player. It's a grief spell, and it's a random number of clothing items, so you're not guaranteed to knock off the jumpsuit, but that aint too bad, as you could knock off their shoes slowing them down, or backpack, or precious hat.
Rathen's secret:
Remember when this used to be purely a butt spell? When they added limb removal it became a rather effective way of absolutely messing up a player. Remove the limb removal, keep the stun and smoke, but instead have it when their butt is removed it automatically becomes a buttbomb. No more butts, ever. A true curse.
Perhaps it also should have a chance to make player vomit and/or piss themselves. Truly a gross spell.
Shocking grasp:
This one's rather annoying. An assault spell yes, but it's too effective for it's own good. Literally, magic missile, shocking grasp, gone. No cloning material, nothing.
Instead, it should burn the fuck out a player, leaving them as a "unknown", and sending them into crit. If the player is already in crit, a second shocking grasp will work as normal, completely obliterating them.
Empower:
Buff: Empower should give the caster a larger damage resistance.
Bull's charge
Before bull's charge was introduced, wiz had a shockwave spell. It worked exactly like wraiths shockwave spell. I feel like bull's charge should be buffed, the wizard powers up for 1 second while standing, then dashes forward in 4 tiles, tearing down walls, crew, you name it. The catch is the power up, wizard is clearly vulnerable during this phase.
Staff of cthulhu
I'm not sure if buffing the damage of clthulu was a good idea, as it inflicts brain damage as well as normal damage. The summon however was greatly needed. One thing i'd like to see is hitting objects with the staff casts anima on it, that recharges after a while. This has been suggested before, and would be rather cool.
Utility: Norse Staff
Essentially thors hammer. This one is for dealing damage. Hitting players with it will send them across the room. It has a chance of knocking off limbs. It can be effectively thrown, as it works like the boomerang. As with the cthulhu it has a summon spell.
ALL OVER SPELLS
In my opinion are actually balanced. Nothing else needs to be changed.
Pylons: I think it's more about the meme than the mechanic. Wizards are very hit-and-run in nature; forcing them to guard a position is bad.
Guess I'll go through some current spells and give opinions because people love opinions:
Staff of Cthulu: I don't really have the numbers on this.
Blink/Warp: Meh. Can save your life. Can also get you killed. Is there a way to combine the two into one spell? Maybe target yourself to blink, and target another to warp?
Teleport: Good where it is. I only use teleport as a GTFO spell, so the scroll is good enough for me.
Knock: Only useful if you want to raid the armory when you don't have an HoS. Does it work like an emag on depowered/welded doors? If so then the utility might be there. I half-way think it should just act like an emag applied to all things within a radius. Cooldown would need adjusting though. That'd screw up it's function with borgs, but why would you get this spell for that function anyways?
Empower: OldTK+Hulk... why does this go so underused? Does the effect diminish each time you use it or something? I forget. I've enjoyed it, anyways.
Animate Dead: Same skeletons right? Good way to be spooky and impotent at the same time. Gibs the bodies, but this is less useful with cloning being so simple to take out. The long cooldown doesn't help things. Buff them and/or give them the lich ai or something.
Golems: Can be the mightiest of spells if you're a decent chemist... and by decent chemist I mean being able to throw together chems like fluorosulfuric acid, clf3, phlogiston, neurotoxin, LDM, and black powder. Heck, even radium/mercury/fluorine/bo jacks golems can be mean.
Forcewall: Good utility. Good cooldown.
Spell Shield: Is this still bugged? If not, it could technically make you practically invulnerable a third of the round. Not sure how it works against chem grenades or thrown glasses. Still, being able to tank tasers sounds amazing if you can manage the time.
Doppelganger: One of my favorites. With this, Shift, and your scroll for emergencies you can effectively become untouchable if you're intelligent and not unlucky.
Ice Burst: A good spell. Just kind of boring.
Blind: Very useful. Especially with the quick cooldown. Now you, too, can be JOHN CENA. (I take no responsibility for any wizard gimmick that pops up from that statement)
Bull's Charge: Very neat spell! Also quite useless. Needs something done to it. I get the feeling this is a neat idea from a coding perspective that just doesn't pan out well in game.
Rathen's Secret: It's fine. Maybe the delimbing is too much. Needs the stun and smoke, though. Collecting butts is great fun.
Cluwne's Revenge: Evil. It also lays all of their possessions in a neat little pile, which I think is generally overshadowed. Still, 2min cooldown. Cluwnes aren't even killed on sight anymore. I've even seen people ARM them. Considering a wizard could have just fireballed them to death I think people are getting a little too salty about this spell. Which, I think, was the point all along.
Pandemonium: Decent cooldown. Decent effects. Great spell for the cool wizman.
Fireball: Deadly. Fast cooldown for the effect. If you're afraid of chem and don't want lasers then this is your best choice of damage spells, really.
Shocking Grasp: Boring. Destroys useful items. Ashing people isn't really as useful as it was on, say, donut. Not sure how to 'fix' it. I think it will just hold it's niche.
Spells I'd like to see:
Chain Lightning: Or basically any Voltagen-like effect. Multiple targets. Medium damage, low stun or low damage, medium stun. Mitigated with gloves.
Animate Item: Self-explanatory.
Color Spray: "A vivid cone of clashing colors springs forth from your hand, causing creatures to become stunned, perhaps also blinded, and possibly knocking them unconscious." Basically a spray of colorful and glitter that can cause those effects or just give them an LSD trip. Another spell for the ballsy, rando-wiz.
Reduce Person: Shrink ray. Not sure how to balance it, but a station filled with tiny people sounds amazing. Especially if their screams are pitched.
I like powerful wizards. I really just wish they were more varied.
Got some ideas:
Pyromaniac:
Causes all light bulbs in the area to spawn lasers and all lights to spew fire. The wizard isn't immune to the fire and lasers.
Salesman:
Equips the entire crew with cheaply made sunglasses that can't be removed by the wearer. These glasses CAUSE eye damage when flashed instead of protecting from flashes. Gives the wizard a cool pair of good sunglasses. One use spell only.
OR (if that's too op):
Equips all crew members with the sunglasses within the Wizard's view. Can be used multiple times.
Jungle Fever:
Causes all monkeys and critters in the wizard's range to go bat-shit insane and attack everyone (including the wizard).
Mirror World:
Causes everyone around the wizard to have reversed controls and speak backwards for a short time. Hands would also be reversed (clicking/using your left hand would activate your right and vice versa).
Some of these are ideas some others and I came up with for a Guitar Wizard. There's a big list of spells for it that could be applied here. Ask me if you want to see the list.
Goonhub
Needs something done to it. I get the feeling this is a neat idea from a coding perspective that just doesn't pan out well in game.