Mind Blast dmg accurate?

I don't remember mind blast being nearly as popular when I played from 98-02... I remember explosion, Ebolt, Hally mages being rampant, but in order for mind blast to work effectively it had to be part of a combo including weaken, etc.
How do I defend against that spell if I want to make a pure dexxer for pvp or avoiding getting hammered by a PK when hunting with my peace dexxer who has resist.
For only 14 mana it seems like a lot of damage and super fast cast cycle...

Has the accuracy of the spell been looked at?

Considering after a certain level of skills, Strength becomes meaningless for extra damage, you can drop some Str and a bit of Dex to bring up Int. If you run something like 90/90/45, you'll be better off. I've run as low as 80str or 70 dex on some characters as well.

I don't personally agree with the level of effectiveness MB has on players without stats balanced ONLY for that ONE spell (that seems excessive/poorly thought out).

It's era accurate right now

MB damage = (((Highest Stat - Lowest Stat)/2)<=40)

The caster's eval and target's resist are a factor in this too, but if those skills are equal then you should see that formula or half of it for resisted casts.

The era after this it was a direct cold damage spell and the era prior I'm not actually sure how it worked but I always heard it had something to do with an int check.

Snippet from an era-accurate shard of prior era:
"Mind Blast deals damage based on the INT value of the caster and target. The amount of damage dealt is dependent on the difference between the INT values of the two parties. Should the caster have less INT than the target, the caster will receive the damage. Mind Blast is not affected by Magic Reflection, as the person with the lowest INT value takes the damage regardless of who the caster/target is."

What the actual damage formula is, I can't rightly say. I do know that when I play in that era, every time I hear Mind Blast I freak out now because I don't need 'balanced stats' and when nothing drastic happens I breathe a sigh of relief.

That is how I remember it as well. The damage was minimal. I never saw it in PVP Or PK.
So if that formula holds true. The damage for mibd blast on a pure Dexter is going to be 37 for 14 mana at 1.75 second cast.
And Ebolt is gonna do 25 -42 damage for 20 mana at 2 second cast rate....
No wonder I never see Ebolts.

That math right? Can't be correct.... Back on the day everybody ran 100 100 25

That is correct, for this era. Memory is rough after more than a decade but the documentation of the game hasn't changed.

I believe it was put in to balance out some things, but poorly. Many things changed in this era, from mages wearing armor to bandage timers working on dexterity. I think the MB buff was a bit excessive.


However, it wouldn't be terribly imbalanced if we had era-accurate MB damage AND era-accurate LJ damage. Literally no one runs from an LJ here while the consistent memory of the masses were LJs being two-hit monsters that raped folks all over the place.


That never happens here but MB spam sure as shit does. lol

You're right, but you aren't encouraged to have 100/100/25 stats. The developers definitely made mindblast work this way to punish players that maxed out two stats.

In the prior eras your hit points was based on your strength in a 1 for 1 formula. 100 Str = 100 hp. 50 str = 50 hp.

However in this era, the developers wanted to encourage more hybrid stat and skill use. They knew that players needed high HP so they gave them a baseline 50 hit points and then additional hit points based on half their str.

100 str = 100 hp

90 str = 95 hp

80 str = 90 hp


And because of this, it's much more forgiving to balance your stats some.

Even more so with Combat Ability cap negating any potential desire to have high strength, outside of a few extra HP and carrying capacity. /rollseyes

Well that makes more sense. But I hate that one spell in the game forces a player to take points in an attribute they are never going to use....
And about the LJ.... I had one on Great Lakes and he was a beast!
So does anybody pvp with Dexxers it seems like they are at a huge disadvantage?

I'm pretty sure mindblast was adjusted a short time after the changes went in though, I can recall a huge outcry on the stratics forums and after some usual OSI shenanigans the spell was toned down in the obligatory patch to correct what many saw as giving mages too much too soon. The barbed leather armor issue was another issue that was allowed to stay though but there was talk about upping the time it took to regen mana, then of course more things were introduced with AOS and the armor issue faded into the background.

Yes, but they are all either too stubborn to do what's best or surrounded by mages and they are only an accessory anyway. No one has wild success on a solo dexxer unless they're PKing newbies or hunting orcs.

Well that needs to be fixed. Not everyone wants to play a Mage. Lowering my dex to balance my stats is far more detrimental than a Mage loses 10 mana.... He is gonna kill me on 60 point mana dump anyways unless I resist both mind blasts

Not to mention I have to actually catch up to him.

Dexxers were given quite a bit when the adjusted melee weapon damage patch came out see this video and it expresses the archer mages dismay at the time. http://www.wtfman.com/flash/commovie.htm of course then dexxers were gimped again because it's all about the mages in UO.

Then after awhile dexxers rallied and bitched to OSI about how mages were way too OP'd and the lumberjack bonus went live, people were actually two-shotting mages and even one-shot kills with a pre-loaded explosion (didn't even need eval intelligence because a lowball explosion was all that was needed) and purple potion.

Then LJing was toned down and the ridiculous wearing of armor and being able to meditate in barbed leather was instituted as well as other things etc., etc.

There never did seem to be any common sense employed in the patches that were introduced, it was all in an effort to grease the squeaky wheels and cater to whatever might bring more players in, that's how trammel was born

Yes I'm not saying that all changes need to be made. But the damage to mana ratio is ridiculous for that spell. The formula just needs to be adjusted. To make Dexxers viable.
Option a increase chances for resist to that spell.
Option b adjust formula to (highest - smallest - X) / 2

It's not like mages don't have other offensive options.

Dexxers drop just as easily to e bolts as they do mindblast, considering you're only going to hit against gm wrestling 50% of the time and your opponent will probably have RA on making it impossible for you to interrupt the dump or deal damage. All dexxer templates have to have magery to be viable for pvp, mostly for ghealing through dumps

That would be acceptable but forcing all Dexxers to drop strength or dex because of one spell seems unbalanced

I don't even look at it like that, I see it as you'll need that mana to cast ghealed anyway, and you can always pick up 20str/dex by chugging pots

For what it's worth, I almost NEVER have to GHeal in a 1v1 dump, on my dexxers. If I started at full health and got stun punched, the bandage is rolling, pot, mini mini all day. Les taught me that method a few years ago and I've been harder to kill ever since. It's what made Akasha so mad they had to bring in extra resources to continue the fight they were about to lose after they failed 5-6 dumps in exactly the same fashion.

Let's also remember that you can easily gheal in between mindblasts

Mini healing is effective, but not nearly as much as well timed gheals