MM&M 8.0 Item Tier System

MM&M Can Hold up to 255 Gear Pieces, it is my intention to get as close to that number as possible while I have control of this map, which hopefully is for a very long time.


Lets start with defining the Items, Currently the stats possible with gear are :

Move Speed = ms
Armor = ac
Damage = dmg
Hit Points = hp
Mana Points = mp
Hit Point Regeneration per Second = HpR
Mana Point regeneration per Second = MpR
Stamina = Stm
Power = Pow
Essence = Ess
Abilities = Ab1,Ab2

This is everything possible with gear, I did not create this list and I do not see any valuable additions to make, it pretty much sums it up right there. So now we all are on the same page as far as our limitations are concerned.

Now everyone already knows about the Tiers that we are going to use, its fairly self explanatory. I quickly realized that I wanted more out of the Item Tier system and that the game could handle it, so I created what I will call "Grades"

Normal Grade - This is your basic gear, there are 4 Tiers in this Grade. Each Tier in this grade has 4 Variations on the same Tier. So You may have a Tier 1 Boot that is leaning towards more Move Speed with its Stat Allocations or you may have one that leans towards Armor and Stamina. In total 4 Variations on each tier by 4 Tiers equals out to 64 Normal Grade Items. Normal Grade items do not have any special abilities attached, they are extremely normal in every sense. Tiers each have a set Progressive stat Allocation, a Tier 1 boot may have 3 points to distribute amongst its stats, so a tier 2 would have 6 points to distribute amongst its stats. and so on and on, you could almost say its methodical in its progression.

Magic Grade - Now things get interesting here. With the Magic gear we do away with the tier system and we actual rely on the normal Grade gear for any stats we have. Literally a Normal grade gear piece is chosen to become magic grade, we duplicate it and its stats then add a ability onto it. In addition to this we add a single tier progression to its stats. Technically Magic Grade gear can achieve a maximum Tier 5 Progression where as a Normal grade item can only achieve a Tier 4 Progression. Magic gear is not all Tier 4 items, to start things off I Evenly distrubuted 32 Magic Grade items across the Normal Grade items, so every Tier of every gear piece has 2 Magic Grade items available to you. In addition to this there is a set Price progression for Magic grade, which is 150% of the price of the originating Item.

Elemental Grade - We all know this so no need to go over it, all I can tell you is this grade is going to get a buff to its actual stats not its spell buffs. In addition to the stat buffs there will be a new price scheme for them that will fit them somewhere between the Magic and Unique Grade prices.

Unique Grade - Unique grade is up in the air right now. 8.0 will not have any unique gear in it however the system is implemented, I technically have 4 Unique gear pieces ready to use, however it is in my and pyth's opinion that we should release them into the game slowly. So 8.1 will have a single unique piece added, 8.2 will get another piece. So on and on. There are two avenues Im going with unique Pieces. First is to make them Set pieces, each piece helps the other pieces in whatever they do. I like this idea and its the leading contender so far. The second option is to attach a spell ability and a spell buff to the unique piece. To explain better it would be like this, it would have a random spell that I have contained for items only, then in addition to this it would buff up a pre existing elemental spell in addition to the spell ability. So you may have a unique spell that has a damage ability and a lightning strike buff on it. I'm ok with this idea but i find it abusable so Im (EDIT**NOT**) jumping into this idea. What I can tell you concretely about the Unique grade is this. It will not based on Normal Grade gear like the Magic Grade is. Magic Gear is still restricted to what stats it can have, where as Unique Grade items will not be at all, stats for uniques will be determined on a item to item basis and each. Unique Grade will be progressed 2 Tiers from whatever Normal Tier item it is based on, technically Unique grade items can achieve a tier progression 6 which will be the highest in the game when they are finally implemented. In addition to all of this the Price for unique gear will be 200% of the Original Gears price.




Here is a Layout of how a gear piece will be displayed for you in this thread

Equipment | Tier | ms | ac | dmg | Hp | Mp | HpR | MpR | Stm | Pow | Ess | Ab1 | Ab2 | Price |
Boots | 1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | No | No | 40


This Piece of Gear here is a Example for you to look at it. In this Example we have a Tier 1 Gear piece that is a Boot, it gives you all the info you need and a price to purchase it.

Equipment | Tier | ms | ac | dmg | Hp | Mp | HpR | MpR | Stm | Pow | Ess | Ab1 | Ab2 | Price |
Boots | 1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | | 40
Boots | 1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | .0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | | 40
Boots | 1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | | | 40
Boots | 1 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | | | 40
Boots | 2 | 30 | 1 | 0 | 50 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | | | 120
Boots | 2 | 30 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 45 | .0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | | | 120
Boots | 2 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .6 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | | 120
Boots | 2 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | | | 120
Boots | 3 | 35 | 2 | 0 | 75 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | | | 240
Boots | 3 | 35 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 60 | .0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | | | 240
Boots | 3 | 35 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .9 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | | | 240
Boots | 3 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | | | 240
Boots | 4 | 40 | 3 | 0 |100 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4 | | | 480
Boots | 4 | 40 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 75 | .0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4 | | | 480
Boots | 4 | 40 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |1.2 | 12 | 5 | 4 | 3 | | | 480
Boots | 4 | 45 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 5 | | | 480



You may or may not understand this but this is a 4 Tier progression with 4 variations in each tier. I did not both showing the 5/6 tier because theres no need, this is for the normal grade items and you can pretty much assume what the magic and unique grade items will be power wise from this.

In addition to all of this Ive laid out for you there is one more thing you need to know that I alluded to earlier in the unique section. Each gear type has specific stat progressions, you may have noticed from the Boots above but here it is for you :

Boots = Ms + Ac + Hp + Balanced Stats 3/6/9/12
Accessory = Mp + Essence 4/7/11/15
Weapon = Damage + Mana Regen + Power 4/8/12/16
Armor = Ac + Hp Regen + Stamina 5/7/10/14

Variations in the tier will stray slightly from these set paths but nothing major in the Normal Grade items. The magic grade items will slightly stray farther simply because they are on average a higher tier, therefor they naturally have a wider range of straying from the path. The main reason why unique gear will be so powerful is because we have standardized stat progression with this system to the point where if you want power you have to goto a staff, you can some power from other places but not much at a time. Unique Gear will break this mold, putting mass power on accessories or boots, it becomes a customization game at that point with the unique gear.



Lastly if all of this wasn't enough there is one more piece of info for you.

Random Shops
There will be a single shop in the Rpg section and the Aos section, both carrying the same items. In a Normal and All New game mode these shops will have 4 Random pieces of Magic and Unique Gear for sale. These pieces of gear will change from game to game. Of course every item in this system is savable so enjoy hunting good items down.
Unique Items will be more rare then Magic items, they will have a lower chance to spawn in the merchants then the magic grade, making them truly rare and eventually tough to find a specific unique you want.
(Edit** IN ANNS Game Mode these shops will be filled to 12 Random gear Pieces)


Thats all Ive got for you right now, there is more to tell on this topic but nothing that I can share at the moment. I hope this satisfies everyone for tonight =)

This is epic. I take back any bad things I was thinking or fearing about this gear. This is essentially everything I could have hoped for and much much more. So long as things are properly balanced, this will be a GREAT improvement to the game. You will always be remembered for this gear system as SinisteRing is for the M-books even if you pass the map on at a later time.

I do still have questions, and I want to see this implemented, but yeah awesome.

The only issue I see right now is making sure that the absolute upper most gear stuff would not be too vastly superior to what is widely available. It should be better considering it will be hard to get both money and random chance wise, but it shouldn't be unbeatable. I doubt highly that this will pose any issue, but I just thought I would get it out in the open right now that we don't want the difference between a 62 with normal gear and a 62 with unique gear to be game-breaking.

Oh, and one final thought, one of the next projects we are going to need (It basically coincides with the gear.) is a new system for team balancing. Total value of the items your holding should be taken into account along with your level, how many skill points you have spent, what element you are, and multiple other factors. The team balancing right now is moderately fail.

I couldn't sleep so I'm back to my computer for a bit of work, i figure no one will mind a bit more in this thread to read.

Here is a list of abilities that are for item effects only, you may see duplicate abilities on magic and/or unique gear, this is intentional since some players may want a specific gear type with a specific ability. We cant possibly with the limitations of 255 gear pieces make a duplicate gear piece for every magic ability. My plan is to shuffle these abilities every code reset as to add a bit of change in each reset that players can look forward to. Also new additionas will be added in between code resets, I already said earlier that uniques will be introduced one at a time, these magic grade abilities are basically a combination of default spells and spells that I personally created in order to learn my way around jass, most any spell I make can go in here even if it fails as a elemental spell, Energy Spike for instance may become a great Mspell, but if it doesnt find its way into a elemental book then Ill probably add it to this list. Also these abilities are not finalized and need to be balanced, I will not list a perfect description of each ability, just a name and a basic function.

Magic Grade Abilities :

Howl Of Terror : Aoe reduce physical Damage 15%
Roar : Aoe increase physical damage 15%
Elunes Grace : 10% magic resistance and a 55% damage reduction from arrows (not towers)
Spiked Carapace : + Armor and Melee Damage Return
Team tactics : Aoe Channeled Invulnerability, caster does not become Invulnerable, lasts 2 seconds
Heal : exactly as creep priest have it with an auto cast
Magic Blast : From Arcane Book
Magic Missile : from Arcane Book
Arcane Push : From Arcane Book
Magic Resist : 33% Magic Resistance
Frost Attack : As Implied
Immolation : 20 Damage per Second
ShadowMeld : As implied
Thorn Aura : Melee Damage Return
Evasion : A much Higher Evasion then the Arcane Book
Blink : 550 Range Blink
Invulnerable : 3.5 Second Self Invulnerable
Watcher : From Jays Jade Jewel
Fire Breath : As Implied
Spectral Shift : As Implied
Cloud : From Cloud Boots
Raise Skeleton Warrior : As Implied
Devour Magic : From Shimmering Armor
Devotion Aura : +4 Armor 800 Aoe
Berserk : Increase Attack Speed + Movement
Critical Strike : a much higher critical strike then Arcane Book
Sleep : From Arcane Book
faerie Fire : As Implied
Frost Armor : As Implied
Skeleton Parasite : Infects a Hero with a Skeletal parasite, if hero dies while under effect hero corpse will spawn 4 Skeleton Warriors.
Periodic Healing : For 12 Seconds Heals Targeted Player every 3 Seconds for 1*power

32 Abilities


In addition above I mentioned I made a few Unique Items, these items where actually a test to see how Set Items would Work, as such they have item effects that are separate from the magic grade abilities, this set is not garunteed to go in, it was actually a joke to start but a few people liked it so it may go in, not sure yet :

Jays Jaded Armor :
Jaded Transfer : Transfers 1.5* Power Damage from Target to Self
Jaded Bite : Increases Jaded Bites Damage Factor by .75

Jays Jaded Staff :
Jaded Bite : Melee Range : Initially Deals .75* power to target, Slows Target for 5 Seconds then Deals an Additional .75*Power to target, Damage Dealt with Jaded Bite is Transfered to Owner.
Jaded Speed : Increases Jaded Speed by 10

Jays Jaded Boots :
Jaded Speed : Slows Target Unit by 20 and Speed up user by 20, Lasts 5 Seconds
Jaded Sight : Adds a -4 Armor to Jaded Sight and Increases Duration by 15 Seconds

Jays Jaded Jewel :
Jaded Sight : Tracks the Targets Scent, giving true Sight of Target for 30 Seconds
Jaded Bite : Increases Damage factor by 1.5

As you can see the unique set is self contained in its buffs and abilities. The spells themselves may not be great alone but together they start to get fairly good.

So, just a thought... question almost. More like makes me laugh. Is Jay really that Jaded *hears Aerosmith in head* J-J-J-Jaded! Or is it just that he tends to bring the hammer down on ideas when necessary and moderates really well?

I'm still slightly confused with the Tiering, but I mostly get it. Mostly. From what I get, however, it sounds spectacular and is pretty much what the game needs... like epicly hardcore needs to make it truly customizable. Now several new strategies will be legit and that's exciting. I think that some "exploits" (read: impressive synergy) will be discovered and people will, *WILL* I say!, bitch that so and so is too strong because so and so killed my mage and the sound of violins in A minor will be heard cascading off of the poor soul for miles, and all will understand that dude just needs to relax and get better or be backhandedly rewarded for ruining one person's fun in the name of "fairness" (i hate that guy sometimes). I.e. some synergy will truly be really, really strong but should be able to be countered. I don't know where I was going with that, and that's a good sign to sleep.

But, yeah, at this point with the items Rhys > Awesome.

Oh and Pyth too, 'cept he's like the bassist or the drummer of the band - super freaking important but not always noticed. Epic.

Everything sounds awesome, and I really like how you did set items.

I do have a few suggestions on the abilities you listed. (Since when do I not have suggestions about anything ehh?)

Howl of Terror could use a buff.
Elunes Grace should be toggle with a mana cost per second or a movement speed reduction while active. (And spell resistance should NOT stack.)
Heal could use a buff to like 50 hp healed per use and like 25-30 mana cost per use.
I don't think Magical Blast or Arcane Push have any place on items. Sorry, but I just don't believe they would be able to be interesting or balanced.
Fire Breath should scale instead of what it is right now. I suggest something like 2*power.
Raise Skeleton Warrior should be the level 3 version of the Dark ability, but should have approximately double or triple the mana cost.
Berserk should increase the damage you take while it is active. Giving movement abilities to every element at no cost could be a little imba otherwise. (Not to mention unfair to Wind.)
Skeleton Parasite should target units or get a buff so that it deals damage per second or get a buff so it slows. It should also have a reasonably high mana cost.
Periodic Healing should be 1.5*power or 2*power it is over time after all. Also give it an appropriately high mana cost. (I'm thinking something like 180-250 range with 1.5* power heal per tick.)

Also, be careful buffing attack speed and critical strike. To a limited extent they can be ok, but if you let someone seriously build a mage around that, it might get silly. This is a game about Magic, not about wacking people.

You also might have noticed, in my opinion items should be fairly powerful but have much higher mana cost than normal spells to balance this. I just don't think items should ever have the same mana-damage ratio as normal spells, but should have unique abilities and things to keep them useful. I would pay a ridiculous amount of mana for something if it meant adding something to my mage that it couldn't normally do, and that is how I envision items being used.


Anyway, thanks for the info. I hope you take my opinions into account, and good luck with 8.0.

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So, just a thought... question almost. More like makes me laugh. Is Jay really that Jaded *hears Aerosmith in head* J-J-J-Jaded! Or is it just that he tends to bring the hammer down on ideas when necessary and moderates really well?

I suggested the item and got it named after me...if that's what you're asking .

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I think that some "exploits" (read: impressive synergy) will be discovered and people will, *WILL* I say!, bitch that so and so is too strong because so and so killed my mage and the sound of violins in A minor will be heard cascading off of the poor soul for miles, and all will understand that dude just needs to relax and get better or be backhandedly rewarded for ruining one person's fun in the name of "fairness" (i hate that guy sometimes). I.e. some synergy will truly be really, really strong but should be able to be countered.

Agreed. There will, no matter how much customization there is, be some stratagies that are better than others, however it's almost always like Rock Paper Sissors, where one thing beats another. People tend to always complain about Rock though when they're Sissors. More than likely, out of 255 items, only 20 will be truely good, or worthwhile on mages. But that's fine - since a lot of it is GETTING to that item anyway, and it's still a hell of a lot more customizaton than currently .

Actually, I think this will give even more options than you give it credit Jay.

Elemental items will have like 3 options on their own, that gives you an initial 24 items from your two elements. Then on top of that, there should be at least one normal and one magical item that is viable for each slot, and hopefully 4+ unique items for each slot by the end. That gives it a total of 12 choices for each slot for a maxed mage. 48 item choices is MUCH better than the current 12 or so viable ones. (Counting your 8 elemental item choices.) This should be an epic improvement.

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(Counting your 8 elemental item choices.)

I laugh at that. Some elemental items are NEVER options. Ice armor? Wow +150 range on Icy Orb, a spell used mainly for melee. FAIL. Lightning armor? + damage to an underused skill, and +150 distance on a NEVER used skill. FAIL. Water armor? Do people actually use water elementals besides early in the game? Atleast since the addition of feedback to towers...maybe as sheilds, but why would you ever need to buff it? Not to mention they all have PITIFUL gains, especialy in comparison to the Robe of the Magi, or whatever.

I just said a random number - but I meant like 20 items of choice PER mage. That's actually a LOT. Considering you have spell boosting, or ability choices now.

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I think that some "exploits" (read: impressive synergy) will be discovered and people will, *WILL* I say!, bitch that so and so is too strong because so and so killed my mage and the sound of violins in A minor will be heard cascading off of the poor soul for miles, and all will understand that dude just needs to relax and get better or be backhandedly rewarded for ruining one person's fun in the name of "fairness" (i hate that guy sometimes). I.e. some synergy will truly be really, really strong but should be able to be countered.

I will of course do an Initial balance of everything, but i cant possibly be expected to make it perfect, I fully expect alot of threads to pop up when 8.0 comes out for balancing of many items. I welcome them and I wont think its bitching or complaining, I need help in getting them all right, so yes please do. I can already here the Violins being tuned!

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Periodic Healing should be 1.5*power or 2*power it is over time after all. Also give it an appropriately high mana cost. (I'm thinking something like 180-250 range with 1.5* power heal per tick.)

Basically how it works is like an enchantment. You cast it on a player and you dont think about it after. For 12 seconds every 3 seconds a tick occurs, at that tick the player is healed for 1*power, so a total of 4* power is healed over that 12 seconds. Thanks to pyth for this great system he implemented into mm&m that allows me to make delayed and periodic effects I absolutely love the system and many many spells can come out of it.

Berserk does have a Higher damage percentage that you take, although it is a default spell and im not entirely sure if that means you take a higher physical damage or both physical and magic damage, in any case the percentage increase needs to seriously be looked at because an extra 33% magic damage could be back breaking against a lightning mage and would make anyone not want to use berserk.

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Elunes Grace should be toggle with a mana cost per second or a movement speed reduction while active. (And spell resistance should NOT stack.)

The magic resist should not stack with other magic resist abilities. I do not think it should be a castable spell, the feel of it was mostly to give you protection from archers, because I have 2 spells that protect against melee I wanted something for the distance attackers. The magic resist I kinda just threw in there to make it seem more worth it and I am not even positive i want it in there, i could just increase the protection from archers and remove the magic resist entirely, im fine with that. testing is needed for it.

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Skeleton Parasite should target units or get a buff so that it deals damage per second or get a buff so it slows. It should also have a reasonably high mana cost.

Flavor wise this is what Im trying here. I wanted a parasite that feeds off of essence, and since regular creeps have no essence I did not want the spell to effect regular units, just heroes. The slow.... hmm.... I could honestly see this actually using a slow, like every few ticks it makes the targeted hero slightly slower until the spell wears off. I can see that. As it stands it deals 10 Damage per second for 20 Seconds, like the parasite is eating the bones away, I was ok with that just to get the spell in there and working, but changing it around is not off the table by any means.

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Raise Skeleton Warrior should be the level 3 version of the Dark ability, but should have approximately double or triple the mana cost.

Id have to make a separate skeleton warrior just for this spell, which is not out of the question, its 5 minutes of work after all. The reason dark mages get a boost here is because they researched a higher skeleton warrior upgrade, in my opinion they deserve a stronger skeleton warrior then someone who is not a dark mage. Kinda like a indirect boost to dark mages summon abilities.

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I don't think Magical Blast or Arcane Push have any place on items. Sorry, but I just don't believe they would be able to be interesting or balanced.

I knew ahead of time some players would not like this. It was overwhelmingly voted for in every test ive run so far to put the arcane spells into item effects, alot of players specifically enjoyed having push on a armor piece.


Howl and roar both where set to counter each other, I have no issue with buffing the percentage to 20%, i picked 15% solely because the towers have the heat aura which reduces physical damage by 15%. So Im not settled on that percentage.

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Agreed. There will, no matter how much customization there is, be some stratagies that are better than others, however it's almost always like Rock Paper Sissors, where one thing beats another. People tend to always complain about Rock though when they're Sissors. More than likely, out of 255 items, only 20 will be truely good, or worthwhile on mages. But that's fine - since a lot of it is GETTING to that item anyway, and it's still a hell of a lot more customizaton than currently Smile.

Good balancing will have multiple strategies that will beat each other and lose to each other, rock paper scissors is a great analogy for balance because its very true. Some items may become stronger then others naturally as strategies evolve from this, the goal is to not make a handful of strategies the only ones to use and at least give players a good dozen or so viable strategies. Aside from viable strategies there will always be players who go off the beaten path and will win for it, with this much customization I truly hope to have more of those type of players.

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I laugh at that. Some elemental items are NEVER options. Ice armor? Wow +150 range on Icy Orb, a spell used mainly for melee. FAIL. Lightning armor? + damage to an underused skill, and +150 distance on a NEVER used skill. FAIL. Water armor? Do people actually use water elementals besides early in the game? Atleast since the addition of feedback to towers...maybe as sheilds, but why would you ever need to buff it? Not to mention they all have PITIFUL gains, especialy in comparison to the Robe of the Magi, or whatever.

You know your right, ill have to look into a few of these elemental buffs.

I am still going to disagree with those two arcane spells. Evasion, Crit, Sleep, and Magic Missile, are all fine. But the non-scaling barely any aoe little worthless thing, and the way way OP arcane push should not be on items IMO.

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Good balancing will have multiple strategies that will beat each other and lose to each other, rock paper scissors is a great analogy for balance because its very true. Some items may become stronger then others naturally as strategies evolve from this, the goal is to not make a handful of strategies the only ones to use and at least give players a good dozen or so viable strategies. Aside from viable strategies there will always be players who go off the beaten path and will win for it, with this much customization I truly hope to have more of those type of players.

Mhmm, except it's more like 4 different rocks, 4 different papers and 4 different sissors. Different rocks beat different sissors, but still do well against the other type of sissors...You know what I mean. More often than not though, I find in games with this much customization there's always a "Nuke" or "Snake". You know? They beat everything. However, the great thing about WC3, unlike most of the games I'm talking about can be updated to balance them .

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You know your right, ill have to look into a few of these elemental buffs.

Pfft, the whole elemental section needs a redo. Make it so out of the 4 types of gear, each one buffs 3/3/3/2, of QWE/RAS/DFZ/XC respectively. That's what it needs. Right now there are definate better elemental sets, and it's beyond unfair. Although, you may have to make some elemental buffs, because there are some elements that are balanced currently solely because of their gear. Earth and Light to be specific. I say they're both pretty weak right now, however their gear makes up for it. If gear was balanced out - then they would need some buffs.

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I am still going to disagree with those two arcane spells. Evasion, Crit, Sleep, and Magic Missile, are all fine. But the non-scaling barely any aoe little worthless thing, and the way way OP arcane push should not be on items IMO.

Edit: I agree, any pushing/moving skills should be solely used on M-spells where they can be monitered for balance. Movement is a very hard thing to balance in WC3 games. Things like Crack/Sinkhole etc. are solely balanced by what you can do after you use it. Positioning is KEY in MM&M.

Actually I don't think any C spells should be buffed by armor. When maxed they should be done w/ cause that is kinda unfair to m-spells, but maybe thats what ur shooting for idk, I just think that will kill w/e piece of equipment that would have been stuck w/ the c spell boost.

Not really...since it only has 2 spells that it upgrades, it would probably have more stats. I was thinking it would be the Staff that gets it. And...people have 2books, you're always going to have access to one of your NORMAL C spells, so buffing it doesn't hurt in the least bit. If anything, I'd want it to be more buff - look at Wind set, or Light set. They both have 2 items that buff their C spell - and both are great sets.

Wind set is fail for wind/earth. Only good thing about them is they give good stats which all ele items should, and idk bout ice but I def think no c spells should be buffed through items, cause it makes that item much weaker for m-books that have an m-spell.

I tend to agree that [C] spells should not be buffed by elemental items. Or, if they are, it should be optional which things you buff.

I could see the items buffing like this:

Staff buffs [Q] [A] and [Z]
Armor buffs [W] [S] and [X]
Accessory buffs [E] and [D]
Boots buff [R] and [F]

Then you would choose which thing got buffed depending on which tier upgrade you used. One tier for the staff might buff the [Q] and [A] while the other buffed [Z], on boots it might be one tier buffs [R] and one tier buffs [F], or one buffs both slightly compared to one of them a greater amount.

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Wind set is fail for wind/earth

I have no idea why you said that. If anything, it's fail because it doesn't boost any spells used in the book. With my system, you're gauranteed to have something boosted in your book, and with proper item arranging, all of them.

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Only good thing about them is they give good stats which all ele items should

No..then why would I choose Normal tier over Elemental? It should be a hard choice, and based on customization - not one is downright better than the other, so I choose that. Not very balanced >.<

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and idk bout ice but I def think no c spells should be buffed through items, cause it makes that item much weaker for m-books that have an m-spell.

I have no idea why you mentioned Ice...Did you read what I said? If it's put on staffs (XC spells) than they'll have more stats that most other items anyway. So the item would be bought still because of the stats. Again, I repeat myself - You'll always have one IF NOT two C spells based on your second book. People do use books that aren't M-books, and should. You realize, some of the best elemental items out there buff the C spell right? I mentioned Light, which has 2 items that buff it - and it's flat out the best Elemental gear there is. Then there's Wind, which buffs Suffocate, and makes it an amazing DPS skill, and lets it rival the highest damage able to be done to mana ratio (atleast to a single target).

It doesn't make the item weaker for M-books, because you can toggle for one thing. So if you have something that buffs suffocate, a wind M-book and a wind book. You still get the bonus of suffocate...What's the problem? It also helps you choose what your second book will be by the item that you choose. In your Wind/Earth Example, your second book would be based on MOST LIKELY which staff you chose to boost your C spell with. Yes?

Basically, I feel that every spell should be able to be buffed by an item, but that you can't buff all of your spells no matter what items you get. You should have a choice of which spells you want buffed essentially, and be able to build the mage based on whatever spells you want. Not getting a choice in what spells to buff kills variety in mage-building more than anything else currently.

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Basically, I feel that every spell should be able to be buffed by an item, but that you can't buff all of your spells no matter what items you get. You should have a choice of which spells you want buffed essentially, and be able to build the mage based on whatever spells you want. Not getting a choice in what spells to buff kills variety in mage-building more than anything else currently.

You would be choosing WHICH of your elements you're buffing though...and it makes balance so much easier than your system.

typo my bad, meant to say light not ice, and I meant that all the ele sets should give the same relative stats not just good stats in general, and I see what you mean but then w/o that item your ulti will be a good amount weaker then the m-spell you could use and since the staff would only boost your x spell you would almost always be better off w/ a stat staff and the naturally stronger m-spell, then using a item that helps you less, to boost a c skill. And that actually seems like a pretty good idea dragon, I'd say you should be able to buff like 6-8 skills w/ full ele set.

I was thinking 4-8 depending on whether you wanted heavy buffs to a single spell on a single item, or lesser buffs to two spells on your item.

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and I see what you mean but then w/o that item your ulti will be a good amount weaker then the m-spell you could use and since the staff would only boost your x spell you would almost always be better off w/ a stat staff and the naturally stronger m-spell, then using a item that helps you less, to boost a c skill.

I don't see how. You have your X spell buffed, most likely for 2 books (Single & M-book). Then you have your C spell buffed for one, and it would be STRONGER than an M-spell (Unless said M-spell was really good because of a bad book) because M-spells rival normal C spells, and with the extra item boost, it would be slightly better.

So now, there's an actual choice. You can choose X element staff, Y element staff, or Normal gear. They're ALL viable now. You choose X element staff because it gets boosted and you use that for your second book as well, same goes for Y element staff. Or you figure, you won't be using your C spell or X spell as often as you would be using your M-book, and prefer the general better stats with Normal gear.

Yeah, as I said initially, buffing [C] spells is fine as long as you have an alternate choice. The bad thing is being FORCED to get an item that buffs you [C] spell because you want some other boost it gives, and primarily using your M-book.

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Yeah, as I said initially, buffing [C] spells is fine as long as you have an alternate choice. The bad thing is being FORCED to get an item that buffs you [C] spell because you want some other boost it gives, and primarily using your M-book.

I kind of like your system, but I think it would be a lot more coding, and a lot harder to balance. But ya, a choice would be good...but again, the more choice you have, the harder it is to balance .

Even having an option of a normal piece that buffs stats instead of spells is a great step in the right direction IMO. If you really don't want to have wasted spell buffs, then stat buffs are never wrong.