Saveless WoF Blind

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I've just been reading along with this thread because I am admittedly not as experienced in arelith pvp as some of you and wanted to see what was said. What I have concluded after reading is that while a cleric casting it seems fine, and it seems fine in a one vs one battle, a smart group of players with at least 40 lore could rotate using wof scrolls against another group and no matter how many potions of remove blindness the other group had they wouldn't be able to keep up. Maybe I am missing why this would be impossible to pull off, so I am open to some push back from that analysis, but it seems pretty legit to me.


I also wanted to add a slight push back on the notion that everyone who is new needs to shut the hell up and listen to the old timers who think they are good at this game. There are three parts to being good at nwn pvp, knowledge of how the game works, knowledge of the meta created by server specific changes, and the ability to not panic when your initial game plan doesn't work. The middle one is where the long time arelith players in theory have an advantage over other long time players who came from other servers, and it's a big enough advantage where you should probably listen to them when they speak up. But if you are a good player yourself even if you are new to arelith, you should also be looking for holes in the group think that inevitably comes from playing the game the same way over and over again.

It's also hard to take some of the old "Git Gud" crowd seriously when half of them flipped their lid and quit the server because a major change presented a shift in the meta instead of proving how good they are by adjusting to the new reality before taking a dump on it. In any game with a meta, the meta eventually shifts. Sometimes that's players actions that do it, sometimes its a change from the developers. How you adjust to those shifts is what separate's the "great" players from the "good" ones. To those of you who have adjusted and still thrive, I tip my hat in respect and will listen to your opinion about the game quite closely. To those of you still longing for arelith circa a year ago, while you may still have something to teach me its going to be a lot harder to take you seriously when you say "git gud".

[Scurvy Cur]

I've just been reading along with this thread because I am admittedly not as experienced in arelith pvp as some of you and wanted to see what was said. What I have concluded after reading is that while a cleric casting it seems fine, and it seems fine in a one vs one battle, a smart group of players with at least 40 lore could rotate using wof scrolls against another group and no matter how many potions of remove blindness the other group had they wouldn't be able to keep up. Maybe I am missing why this would be impossible to pull off, so I am open to some push back from that analysis, but it seems pretty legit to me.

First, while it's not impossible to rotate scrolls precisely, it's difficult to do, and unless the group is all in on a discord call, you're going to run a very high risk of foulups/bad flexibility. Someone in the rotation is inevitably going to goof on the timing, forget it's their turn, or simply have something more important to do with their time.

Second, from a purely mechanical perspective, scrolls have a long animation and eat up an entire round when you use them. Potions, by contrast, take 3 seconds to activate and can be used twice per round (for reference, wands and other item activations will usually fire in 3 seconds, but will consume the entire round).

Third, the WoF scroll pile on the side of the aggressors isn't infinite any more than the potion supply. So it's always going to matter at least to some extent who has how many of each scrolls and potions. As a further consideration, the scrolls will be more expensive than the potions. There are probably cheaper ways to trade gold for victory than a complicated mass-WoF exercise.

Fourth and probably most important, WoF scrolls have a soft counter item in the headband of protection (an item that was more or less added specifically to address universal items with a debilitating, saveless effect, such as WoF scrolls). They've fallen sort of out of fashion because you honestly don't see a ton of WoF scroll spam post lore update, but I still get one on every character that isn't getting SR from some other source, and it's always got a hotbar spot.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I've just been reading along with this thread because I am admittedly not as experienced in arelith pvp as some of you and wanted to see what was said. What I have concluded after reading is that while a cleric casting it seems fine, and it seems fine in a one vs one battle, a smart group of players with at least 40 lore could rotate using wof scrolls against another group and no matter how many potions of remove blindness the other group had they wouldn't be able to keep up. Maybe I am missing why this would be impossible to pull off, so I am open to some push back from that analysis, but it seems pretty legit to me.

First, while it's not impossible to rotate scrolls precisely, it's difficult to do, and unless the group is all in on a discord call, you're going to run a very high risk of foulups/bad flexibility. Someone in the rotation is inevitably going to goof on the timing, forget it's their turn, or simply have something more important to do with their time.

Second, from a purely mechanical perspective, scrolls have a long animation and eat up an entire round when you use them. Potions, by contrast, take 3 seconds to activate and can be used twice per round (for reference, wands and other item activations will usually fire in 3 seconds, but will consume the entire round).

Third, the WoF scroll pile on the side of the aggressors isn't infinite any more than the potion supply. So it's always going to matter at least to some extent who has how many of each scrolls and potions. As a further consideration, the scrolls will be more expensive than the potions. There are probably cheaper ways to trade gold for victory than a complicated mass-WoF exercise.

Fourth and probably most important, WoF scrolls have a soft counter item in the headband of protection (an item that was more or less added specifically to address universal items with a debilitating, saveless effect, such as WoF scrolls). They've fallen sort of out of fashion because you honestly don't see a ton of WoF scroll spam post lore update, but I still get one on every character that isn't getting SR from some other source, and it's always got a hotbar spot.

The fourth is definitely the most important. I understand the mechanics part, but two people can time the scrolls to fire off as much as the potions with a bit of practice, counting to three isn't that hard lol. Still, that duo needs someone to fight while this is going on to be effective, and spreading out during the pre pvp convo always works.

[Arigard]

players with at least 40 lore

You would need 50 lore to spam WoF scrolls, which is actually quite a considerable investment in terms of gearing. Most classes would need to either dump a lot of lore on their gear, or reserve 3 item slots for Witch-hunters cloak and two enchanted lore rings/take epic skill focus lore. This leaves other weaknesses most of the time, so sure you can do it, but as a primary tactic it just makes more sense to play a cleric/healer/favored soul and do it that way. WoF on items is mainly used as a way to get rid of certain summons like Druid Elemental swarm and mummies.

The class that find it easiest would be int based, like Wizards/PMs and even then, as has been mentioned the caster level is low on the scrolls so items with SR like the headband (to a lesser extent), or races/classes with SR (Drow/Svirf/Monk) could sit there and laugh at you. Not even mentioning spell resistence the spell, which can be cast on an entire party and nets you enough to laugh at almost any scroll, except things like breaches and mordenkainens, the second of which is an absurd investment to get access to.

[Anomandaris]

I genuinely wonder how much of this discussion is an exercise in hypothetical reasoning vs. direct experience getting stomped due to WoF. It’s easy to look at it in a vacuum and jump in and say, oh wow that’s un counterable, focus on the math, discuss multi-person strategies for spamming it ceaselessly etc. But in reality it rarely works like that.

Personally the one time I’ve been killed due to WoF was when I had no clue about remove blindness/deafness pots years ago. My response to that was “wow that sucked, I’m never being caught without these pots. Also in group settings I’m spacing out from others to not get all caught in one casting.” And well, it has been just fine dealing with since then.

How often are ppl actually “suffering” under this vs. just theorizing it’s potential to be brutal? Is there someone in this thread who has been continuously crushed in PvP due to WoF but has otherwise had a balanced experience? It just seems a little hyperbolic is all.

Disclaimer- I don’t have a PC that can use WoF in any manner.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

You would need 50 lore to spam WoF scrolls, which is actually quite a considerable investment in terms of gearing.

Your right, its 50. I -think- that's the number most people target though.

[Arigard]

Your right, its 50. I -think- that's the number most people target though.

Yeah, but keep in mind it's not a bullet proof strategy. You're almost guaranteed to come up against a race/class in a group that has a counter to it. Whether that's spell resistance naturally, or through Druid/Cleric levels that can buff the party, or simply equipment that gives some SR to stop it. Or simply chars like shadow-dancers who can just hips if they get caught by it and wait out the 9 seconds.

There are plenty of tactics to counter it, it just takes some on your feet thinking, which is how a lot of people end up suffering in PvP and then thinking something is too OP. I've seen people straight up get flat footed by it, stand still for 5-10 seconds obviously panicking and then die. I've also seen people move the second it hits them, change their location on the battlefield and deal with it to wait it out, or remove it and in those situations at most it's been an inconvenience for a few seconds.

The issue with NWN Arelith PvP is it's heavily based on experience and situational play. Anyone can kill anyone with the right tactics and the dice rolling in their favor with a strong solid build and if you focus too much on "This is my tactic every time" eventually you'll be found out by players who understand every spell, every ability and know what to do in almost every situation. It's the players that don't necessarily have the relevant experience that get usually get frustrated by one dimensional tactics like spamming word of faith because they die to it and don't necessarily know it's counters, or have built something that has closed off access to said counters.

Acid sheath is another good example. You'd be surprised how many people just mindlessly wail themselves to death on damage shields, when they are easily dispel-able by any spell breach wand/scroll. Yet people do not take the lore, or have the items to counter it a lot of the time.

I've spoken to plenty of people in the Arelith community who don't fully understand nuances about the mechanics like being flatfooted, flanked, how spell resistance/dispelling & critical rolls work and the most likely meta they will come up against in the world, or come in thinking this is base NWN mechanics. That's not a slight on them in any way, as has been brought up the majority of the community play the game for fun and don't necessarily spend hours reading through every skill/ability and come to a really good understanding of mechanics because there's such a lot to know and learn. But at some point if you want to have a chance at surviving you do have to make an effort to learn the mechanics and the heavily edited rules in Arelith.

"I have this spell/class/ability so I win" - Can be true in some cases, but on the whole winning is down to situational awareness and understanding by the player. If your tactic is just to run in, even with 50-60 ab and smack everyone and nothing else, you will eventually lose to someone that can out-think you or has planned ahead, just like if your tactic is to solely sit there spamming WoF and nothing else.

[Anomandaris]

You would need 50 lore to spam WoF scrolls, which is actually quite a considerable investment in terms of gearing.

Your right, its 50. I -think- that's the number most people target though.

Also I'd argue this is absolutely not the case. Lots and lots go for 15 UMD for wands and 25 or 35 lore for lesser mind blank, true seeing, shadow shield, mass haste, Greater spell breach, spell mantle etc. Getting to 50 is a very high investment for a marginal return. That's how the lore scaling was designed. Getting to 35 over 25 for lvl 7 spells, sure, but to get to 50 is a lot harder. For my Rogue PC I'd rather beat your Dragon to death (or other summon) than build for 50 lore. It would prohibit doing so many other thing my build absolutely requires to function.

[Arigard]

You would need 50 lore to spam WoF scrolls, which is actually quite a considerable investment in terms of gearing.

Your right, its 50. I -think- that's the number most people target though.

Also I'd argue this is absolutely not the case. Lots and lots go for 15 UMD for wands and 25 or 35 lore for lesser mind blank, true seeing, shadow shield, mass haste, Greater spell breach, spell mantle etc. Getting to 50 is a very high investment for a marginal return. That's how the lore scaling was designed. Getting to 35 over 25 for lvl 7 spells, sure, but to get to 50 is a lot harder. For my Rogue PC I'd rather beat your Dragon to death (or other summon) than build for 50 lore. It would prohibit doing so many other thing my build absolutely requires to function.

Also even if you built for 50 lore a Dragon has spell resistance, so there's no guarantee your scroll WoF would do anything to it, unless you found a way to lower it's SR using breaches/MD. A WoF (Lvl 13 I believe) scroll is not the same as a WoF being cast from a cleric with 27 caster levels.