MM 6-8: Mass distortion

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
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MM 6-8: Mass distortion

Unread postby zeus-online » 07 Oct 2014, 19:30

So mass distortion does 25%+2% per skill point current hp damage to a target.

Does anyone know if it is possible to do 100% current hp damage with it?
would require 38 points in earth magic, but could be fun.

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Unread postby Avonu » 08 Oct 2014, 06:46

Max skill cap is 60, so it is possible to do so much damage. You even don't need to have so many skill points in Earth Magic, you can use "of Earth Magic" item, which gives you bonus to its skill points - half of current points put in earth skill, rounded down (so if you have 10 point, you will get +5 more; if you have 20, you'll get +10, etc.).

My Necromancer (lvl 136) in MM8 has 40 skill points in Dark magic (plus "of Dark Magic" item) so she already reached skill cap. IIRC max trainable character level is 200, so if you play very, very long, you can max more then one magic school.

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Unread postby zeus-online » 08 Oct 2014, 08:57

I was thinking that they might have capped the damage.

I did not know that there was a max skill cap or even a level cap.

I think i only ever reached around 38 in a skill (MM6 Dark magic) and around lvl 150 (MM6 ^^ )

Guess i will have to try to reach 40 in earth magic, playing MM7 right now so i don't know if i will be able to reach such a high level.

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Unread postby Konfuzius » 08 Oct 2014, 10:11

zeus-online wrote:I was thinking that they might have capped the damage.

I did not know that there was a max skill cap or even a level cap.

I think i only ever reached around 38 in a skill (MM6 Dark magic) and around lvl 150 (MM6 ^^ )

Guess i will have to try to reach 40 in earth magic, playing MM7 right now so i don't know if i will be able to reach such a high level.
The last two times I played MM6 TCC, I chose to make a Socerer focusing on Earth magic. And yeah, once you have +25 points in Earth magic everything will be called instantaneously.

I always saw wit as a more "reliable" Finger of Death ;)

25 * 2% = 50% * 1,5 = 75% + 25 = 100%

Apart from a few other dark magic spells, it's probably the best spell in the game. The reason why it's not as strong in MM7 and 8 is that earth resistance is very common and makes the spell fail very often.

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Unread postby zeus-online » 08 Oct 2014, 13:03

Hmm i thought resistance only lowered the damage.

I usually just focus on dark magic and kill everything in melee with shrap metal :devil:

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Unread postby Xfing » 10 Oct 2014, 17:19

Speaking of which: insta-hit spells on monsters in MM7 and 8 (not sure if 6 also) are wrongly scripted and don't work. I'm talking spells like Implosion, Paralyze and yes, Mass Distortion. This is most apparent in MM8 where all three of these spells are put on monsters, and would have made the game nintendo-hard, had they worked. But they don't :( In a similar fashion, Wizards in MM7 have Paralyze on them, but it never works either.

That said, I've also wondered more than one time if it was possible to get Mass Distortion to one-shot monsters. Good to know that it is indeed possible. The Earth school is otherwise rather unremarkable.

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Unread postby zeus-online » 11 Oct 2014, 13:09

Even with mass distortion being a one-hit kill it's rather unremarkable.
You need 38 points in it (without an "of earth" item) which is the equivalent of 740 skill points.

38 points in dark magic would deal 1197 damage on average with shrap metal :)

I would also add that at those high levels you would have access to ancient weapons which are far more powerful than a one-hit spell.

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Unread postby Konfuzius » 11 Oct 2014, 13:52

zeus-online wrote:Even with mass distortion being a one-hit kill it's rather unremarkable.
You need 38 points in it (without an "of earth" item) which is the equivalent of 740 skill points.

38 points in dark magic would deal 1197 damage on average with shrap metal :)

I would also add that at those high levels you would have access to ancient weapons which are far more powerful than a one-hit spell.
Well having no "of Earth item" isn't really an argument, unless you really are extremely unlucky. I don't remember ever not getting one and I played those game a loooot. And 25 points really aren't too many later in the game.

I used to spam dark school spells as well and imho that's the way to go in MM8 (but since the game is so easy anyway, there is no real need to).
Also, you only have dark spells in MM7 if you choose the dark side. And the thing in MM6 is that dark magic spells cost an awful amount of spellpoints.

Well... blasters are kinda cheesy, I don't like taking them. And if I remember correctly you cannot really fight with them in turn based mode as this slows down the rate of fire rather ridiculously.

Walking around killing epic monsters like Titans and Dragons with seemingly enless waves of sci-fi energy... yay.

Regarding difficulty, I actually don't remember a lot from vanilla MM6, as my last 3 playthroughs have been with the TCC mod only. And on the highest difficulty you just don't want to walk straight up to the enemy's face just so you can spam Shrapmetal a few times... in the endgame it hurts you more than it hurts them.

There it is much safer and convenient to kill them safely from afar and with some cover, slaying them one by one ;)

Not only that, but normally you have at least two spellcasters, right? So I don't see a reason not to max out dark and earth magic.

Edit: Oh and it's not only Mass Distortion, Earth has other very powerful spells too. Rock Blast is devastating against groups of enemies and Deadly Swarm is a great starter spell as well.

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Unread postby zeus-online » 11 Oct 2014, 14:24

Konfuzius wrote:
zeus-online wrote:Even with mass distortion being a one-hit kill it's rather unremarkable.
You need 38 points in it (without an "of earth" item) which is the equivalent of 740 skill points.

38 points in dark magic would deal 1197 damage on average with shrap metal :)

I would also add that at those high levels you would have access to ancient weapons which are far more powerful than a one-hit spell.
Well having no "of Earth item" isn't really an argument, unless you really are extremely unlucky. I don't remember ever not getting one and I played those game a loooot. And 25 points really aren't too many later in the game.
I am currently playing MM7 (as you have probably guessed), i am over lvl 70 and am on the way to colony zod (Just cleared land of the giants) and the only "of earth" item i have found was an artifact halberd, which i cannot use.
Konfuzius wrote: I used to spam dark school spells as well and imho that's the way to go in MM8 (but since the game is so easy anyway, there is no real need to).
Also, you only have dark spells in MM7 if you choose the dark side. And the thing in MM6 is that dark magic spells cost an awful amount of spellpoints.
I still think shrap metal does the most damage per spell points in that game. Clearing the kreegan hive near the end of MM6 was rather difficult to do with dark spells because of the mana costs though. (My party was cleric, cleric, sorc, sorc)
Konfuzius wrote: Well... blasters are kinda cheesy, I don't like taking them. And if I remember correctly you cannot really fight with them in turn based mode as this slows down the rate of fire rather ridiculously.

Walking around killing epic monsters like Titans and Dragons with seemingly enless waves of sci-fi energy... yay.
Yeah they suck in turn based mode. Well its rather subjective if you like/dislike blasters.
Konfuzius wrote: Regarding difficulty, I actually don't remember a lot from vanilla MM6, as my last 3 playthroughs have been with the TCC mod only. And on the highest difficulty you just don't want to walk straight up to the enemy's face just so you can spam Shrapmetal a few times... in the endgame it hurts you more than it hurts them.
Never played it with mods, i usually cast all my buffs and fly straight into them and cast shrap metal which 1-hits most monsters.
Konfuzius wrote: There it is much safer and convenient to kill them safely from afar and with some cover, slaying them one by one ;)
Takes too long! ;)
Most ranged spells do very little damage, hell i think a grandmaster archer could do more damage than most spells.
Konfuzius wrote: Not only that, but normally you have at least two spellcasters, right? So I don't see a reason not to max out dark and earth magic.
Well, i usually max all spell schools. But i am starting to wonder if i should even bother with earth and fire magic.
Konfuzius wrote: Edit: Oh and it's not only Mass Distortion, Earth has other very powerful spells too. Rock Blast is devastating against groups of enemies and Deadly Swarm is a great starter spell as well.
I find both to be inferior to other spells.
Last edited by zeus-online on 12 Oct 2014, 02:45, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby Arret » 12 Oct 2014, 01:23

In MM7 especially shrapmetal is absurd. No reason to get anything else once it's available.

In TCC, you just get blasters and steamroll the last dungeon and all of part 2 which is the same regardless of what difficulty you picked in part 1.

I never saw much use for Earth in any of the series and fire is really only useful for torch light MM7/8 fire aura or MM6 fire blast. Certainly nothing that compares to sparks or poison spray.

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Unread postby Xfing » 15 Oct 2014, 23:38

The problem with Shrapmetal is that you need to get in close, as it works best at point blank range. Grayface's mouselook tweak lets you aim your shots from bows and blasters where the unmodded game wouldn't let you to, which lets you take care of monsters well outside their own natural range of fire.

Shrapmetal's probably the best thing if you like turn-based combat, though. I personally only ever use it in MM6, as its difficulty makes it necessary all the way through. 7 and 8 are way too easy to bother, except when going up against like William Setag with a vastly underleveled party or something.

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Unread postby the beavers1 » 15 Oct 2014, 23:44

I guess I am the only one here who has never actively used shrapmetal.... I never thought it was much good when i read its description.... apparently I was wrong :D
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Unread postby Arret » 16 Oct 2014, 02:53

The problem with Shrapmetal is that you need to get in close, as it works best at point blank range.
Yes, and? Getting in melee range has never been hard and once you are in point blank range, everything usually dies in 1 round.

The exception are the Behemoths in the tunnels to Eeofol, but with those you charge in, nuke, portal out, heal, beacon back in and repeat.

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Unread postby zeus-online » 16 Oct 2014, 05:49

the beavers1 wrote:I guess I am the only one here who has never actively used shrapmetal.... I never thought it was much good when i read its description.... apparently I was wrong :D
You probably just missed the important part ;)

If you are close to a monster it is possible to hit that monster with all the shards. This is why it does absurd damage.

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Unread postby Xfing » 16 Oct 2014, 19:46

the beavers1 wrote:I guess I am the only one here who has never actively used shrapmetal.... I never thought it was much good when i read its description.... apparently I was wrong :D
I hadn't used Shrapmetal either until recently. I had played MM8 for like 5 or 6 years before I realized how awesome that spell was.

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Unread postby zeus-online » 16 Oct 2014, 19:55

Xfing wrote:
the beavers1 wrote:I guess I am the only one here who has never actively used shrapmetal.... I never thought it was much good when i read its description.... apparently I was wrong :D
I hadn't used Shrapmetal either until recently. I had played MM8 for like 5 or 6 years before I realized how awesome that spell was.
Heh, my first encounter with the series was MM7 which i never finished since these games can be quite tough on a newbie. The year after one of my friends recommended MM8, which was the first i completed. I used dark magic extensively this time around, but never found shrap metal to be any good since i cast it at a distance. Many years later i found my MM7 disc when i moved to my second apartment, and gave the game a spin...I had still not discovered shrap metal. :hoo:
Some years later i decided to play MM6, which i downloaded and at some point i ran into some dark knights who destroyed me. I tried shrap metal and it just died.
I then played all three (6+7+8) through using almost nothing but shrap metal.


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