Venom Mage start

[Sphara]

Venom Mage is pretty tough start. Just relying on Sting for the first levels is just awful if you don't happen to find anything damaging before Meph is somewhat castable.

Would it be game-breaking if VM could start at least with 1-2 potions of curing? Fighters got their might potion. Warpers have one blinking scroll. Venom Mage got nothing. Just that damn Sting that doesn't hit anything reliably, doesn't poison on every hit, doesn't do anything against resistant monsters. Second spell, Cure Poison, sure it's good if you are alive to cast it after an encounter with an adder.

Mod edit: moved to Advice.

[Sar]

Sting damages resistant monsters and now with monster rPois changes can probably poison them too.

That said, if you think of Sting as an infinite blowgun it really isn't a bad start.

[Sphara]

Sar, Sting is not an infinite blowgun. Blowgun poison is more severe and does not have miscast chances. Sting has both miscast and evasion/AC issues at the start.

You have zero weapon skills at the start as VM so running out of MP usually means trouble. Just to confirm, do you think giving VM just one bottle of Curing would be bad for the game balance?

[Tiktacy]

I mean, 1-2 potions of curing sounds perfectly fine to me. But I don't think VM's need a buff at all, they are a great starting class in my experience and sting is a very good starting spell.

[Sprucery]

Venom Mage is pretty tough start.

I don't understand. VM is a strong start in my opinion, everything not poison resistant dies to Sting eventually. What's resistant in early D? Undead, run away from them.

[dynast]

Idk what Curing would do for you, specially when you have cure poison on your book. If you are having trouble to get a VM off the ground try focusing on conjurations as soon as you start the game, if i am not mistaken they start with conj 1 and poison 3 and doing so will raise the spellpower of sting faster.

[duvessa]

VM is worse than all the other Mage backgrounds but it's still far above Mo, Sk, CK, Wn, etc

[Sar]

do you think giving VM just one bottle of Curing would be bad for the game balance

No, I think it would be kind of weird. If Sting really is that bad, shouldn't the obvious decision be buffing Sting, possibly buffing Sting on low spellpower if high spellpower Sting is fine enough?

[KoboldLord]

Dying to a jackal after chain-miscasting your entire mp bar is just part of the spellcaster experience. 10% miscast isn't atypical for species not specifically suited to a book background, but that problem fixes itself pretty quickly for most of them. It could reasonably be argued that this should not be part of the experience for every book background, but the problem is not specific to venom mages.

Assuming you're not chain-miscasting it, Sting should fairly reliably murder everything on D1-D3 with no major issue. If something resists it, that usually just means you need to use it more.

[Sphara]

Ok, this was just a suggestion. Tavern has spoken. Let Venom Mage continue to be crappy (outside felid/spriggan) start with a robe and a bread ration.

If I wanted to streak I'd pick Wanderer any time over Venom Mage.

[Sphara]

Venom Mage is pretty tough start.

I don't understand. VM is a strong start in my opinion, everything not poison resistant dies to Sting eventually. What's resistant in early D? Undead, run away from them.

Of course Sting is fucking strong spell, when it hits. You start with no weapon and completely reliable on Sting. Oh and that 'just run away thing'... Yes it works, professor! It just does not make this start as easy as you seem to claim it to be.

[zxc23]

Dying to a jackal after chain-miscasting your entire mp bar is just part of the spellcaster experience.

Just fix this. Is there any good reason for starting spellcasters to be so bad?

[Sprucery]

It just does not make this start as easy as you seem to claim it to be.

Well, it's just my personal experience. All my VM victories (VpVM, CeVM, FoVM, MuVM) came at the first try.

[Rast]

Dying to a jackal after chain-miscasting your entire mp bar is just part of the spellcaster experience.

Just fix this. Is there any good reason for starting spellcasters to be so bad?

FR: failed spellcasting shouldn't cost mana. You'd still lose the turn, of course.

If that seems too generous, try this: failed spellcasting only costs half the normal mana, rounded randomly.

[Reptisaurus]

Is Sting worse than any of the other first level spells? And there's a good chance you'll have meph cloud up and running before you even leave level one.
And I've never tried this, but Toxic radiance with a gargoyle/Ghoul/Mummy seems pretty nuts.

[ydeve]

I'd rather have Sting than magic dart. Sure, magic dart never misses, but you can still fire off 6 of them and do 1-2 damage each.

[MainiacJoe]

If the OP is suggesting a starting potion for caster backgrounds to mitigate the problem of running out of MP with no other recourse, wouldn't a potion of magic be a better fit than a potion of curing? And yes, that's too strong imo, but at least it is a solution that fits the problem.

[ydeve]

A potion of brilliance would help with miscast problems against a dangerous monster of choice. It also would boost spell power.

[prozacelf]

Is Sting worse than any of the other first level spells? And there's a good chance you'll have meph cloud up and running before you even leave level one.
And I've never tried this, but Toxic radiance with a gargoyle/Ghoul/Mummy seems pretty nuts.

Honestly, OTR isn't much more ridiculous on the poison immune races than it already is on everyone else. There's a reason you get Cure Poison in the same book. You just wind up having to spend a turn or two and 2-4 mp to clear up your poison while everyone else is dying.

[MainiacJoe]

I just noticed that VM is a suggested background for Fe, and also that Fe is a suggested race for VM. What's so special about Fe that makes VM good for them?

[Sar]

suggestions don't really always suggest you actual best races (otherwise Mu would have no recommended backgrounds and Hu would have most of them), but I guess sting + fast movespeed = good

[Reptisaurus]

I do think Venom Mages are really weak in the midgame, though. You can clear Lair with just the starting book with any other pure mage background but VMs are screwed if they bump into a black mamba and a spiny frog.

[Sar]

Venom Bolt does good damage to those, though mambas have insane EV.

[asdu]

Venom bolt does a third of its normal damage to monsters with rPois. Calling that "good damage" is perhaps a bit too generous.

[Sar]

Huh, I thought it was more. I remember it doing well vs. hydras. Maybe I'm misremembering.

[KoboldLord]

The brute force approach with Venom Bolt does work against black mambas and spiny frogs simply because they only have so many hit points, but it isn't an approach I would choose to use if I had a viable alternative. They'll generally run out of hp from scratch damage before you run out of mp as long as you aren't trying to deal with two at once. Hydra I just avoid on unlucky venom mages.

Probably by Lair you should have another viable alternative. Either you found a book on the floor, or you picked up a melee weapon. Wands and other consumables will keep you out of trouble while you're transitioning to your new build.

[ydeve]

Maybe you shouldn't think of VM as a pure mage background, but rather view it as a background with magic support like Wz.

[MainiacJoe]

Well at least VM still has Cure Poison, when I do die to spiny frogs and mambas it's not from direct damage. So beat them with a stick and then cure the poison they've loaded you with.

[Hurkyl]

\Probably by Lair you should have another viable alternative. Either you found a book on the floor, or you picked up a melee weapon. Wands and other consumables will keep you out of trouble while you're transitioning to your new build.

It's also worth remembering that you aren't required to into Lair immediately when you find its entrance.

[prozacelf]

Well at least VM still has Cure Poison, when I do die to spiny frogs and mambas it's not from direct damage. So beat them with a stick and then cure the poison they've loaded you with.

Really? They can both do at least 20 non-poison damage per hit and are considerably faster than almost every player. I'm not saying that "beat them up and then cure the poison" isn't a valid strategy, but it does kind of assume a minimum level of defenses and a decent weapon.

[MainiacJoe]

Well at least VM still has Cure Poison, when I do die to spiny frogs and mambas it's not from direct damage. So beat them with a stick and then cure the poison they've loaded you with.

Really? They can both do at least 20 non-poison damage per hit and are considerably faster than almost every player. I'm not saying that "beat them up and then cure the poison" isn't a valid strategy, but it does kind of assume a minimum level of defenses and a decent weapon.

Maybe I've learned to focus on defenses before I get to Lair. It's been a long time since I died to one of these two monsters.

[Reptisaurus]

Then I suspect you're not playing very many venom mages.

[MainiacJoe]

Ha, no not many.

[MainiacJoe]

It occurred to me last night that Kiku might be a good VM god, because undead are immune to poison. It also solves the "which second school" problem.

[Croases]

The annoying thing about dipping into Necromancy as a VM is that it makes you realize Poison Magic's "good early offense offset by late resistances" and "very effective against a subset of monsters, but falters against the rest" gimmicks are done much, much better by that school.

Corpse Rot, Vampiric Draining and Bolt of Draining are solid offensive spells that you have early access to because of Kiku, and them in tandem with Dispel Undead makes you effective against living and undead targets, with demons and constructs as more problematic enemies that should be tackled by other means (contrast with VMs, for whom the "enemies you have problems with" category includes half the game... including the early game, where PM is supposed to be effective). Fortunately, you also get access to corpse minions and incredible support spells in Death's Door and Revivification, so the experience you dumped into Necromancy doesn't "go to waste" once demons start to dominate the enemy spectrum.

Frankly I love the VM background but it's hard for me to say Poison Magic has any design space that is not occupied by Necromancy. Still, it's a good idea to go with Kiku!

[zxc23]

The only issue with VM is that sting is very weak on D:1 (like pretty much all level 1 spells except freeze, sandblast and pain). A potion of brilliance for all mage starts would go a long way towards solving that problem.

[Hurkyl]

The only issue with VM is that sting is very weak on D:1 (like pretty much all level 1 spells except freeze, sandblast and pain). A potion of brilliance for all mage starts would go a long way towards solving that problem.

Not really. The problem, I think, isn't one surprisingly tough fight that you prep with brilliance and power through. Instead, the problem is that you have to go through numerous fights that are manageable until you suddenly miscast twice in a row and no longer have the juice to kill anything, even if you do quaff brilliance.

[dowan]

I think the real issue was hit on head earlier in this thread. All mage starts have the potential of chain miscasting out of mana to a pack of jackals. Once you're off D1, this problem mostly goes away, because you'll probably find some kind of weapon on D1, you'll have more MP, and get enough XP to not miscast sting. Plus you can run back to D1.

Like necros, VMs have to plan around undead and rpois monsters to a degree. Like every background, getting a bit of melee skill is a good idea. I would agree that VMs are one of the weaker starts. Maybe starting them with a dagger and 1 short blade skill might help?

[Sprucery]

I would like to see a morgue file of a VM that died to an early undead or rpois monster. They tend to be easy to escape from.

[MainiacJoe]

I think the rPois monsters that are a concern upthread are mambas and hydras and spiny frogs in Lair. Which suggests that perhaps for VM going to Orc first might be a good idea, especially in <=0.17 when it's four levels long. In particular if an orc knight drops an arbalest in O:1-3 then there's your killdudes for rPois for the rest of the game right there.

[dowan]

True, VMs might be one of the best cases for doing orc before lair. And I was thinking of lair enemies when I was talking about early Rpois monsters... which may not meet everyone's definition of "early"

[Sprucery]

If you have Meph Cloud online, Orc is definitely the better option... at least with old 4-level Orc.

[MainiacJoe]

I only play stable, but one of the things I'm looking forward to the most in 0.18 when it's released is the new Orc.