Madness spell broken?

[srnaz]

Not sure if I have the right spell name, but the one that is supposed to make the target attack "themselves". I assumed at first that this meant "attack other creatures like themselves", or after that didn't happen I thought maybe it meant that a single creature would somehow attack itself. But so far after about 50 castings the only thing it's done is cost a boatload of sap and cause the target to charge me. This was all against low level creatures and I remained in the same spot doing nothing so as not to break the "link".

In any case at this point it is absolutely useless and tieing up 40 skill points. Is there anyway to unlearn this spell?

- Thanks

[chuangpo]

Originally Posted by srnaz

Not sure if I have the right spell name, but the one that is supposed to make the target attack "themselves". I assumed at first that this meant "attack other creatures like themselves", or after that didn't happen I thought maybe it meant that a single creature would somehow attack itself. But so far after about 50 castings the only thing it's done is cost a boatload of sap and cause the target to charge me. This was all against low level creatures and I remained in the same spot doing nothing so as not to break the "link".

In any case at this point it is absolutely useless and tieing up 40 skill points. Is there anyway to unlearn this spell?

- Thanks

No, you can't forget it. And yes, far as anyone can tell, the spell is useless. Note though, that Patch 1 is seeing a magic revamp, so hopefully it'll be dealt with then. In that case, you wouldn't have wasted any points....

Read the various magic guides in the player guides section of the forums. All of this is explained there. =)

Chuangtzu
Defenders of Zora

[vguerin]

Madness is not broken, and certainly testing it on small hitters wont show you the effect you need. It "may" cause the mob to hit themselves. For the big boys this is real damage, but it is not a sure thing they will do it every cast. I have had mobs cast madness on me, and I killed myself... that was not fun...

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[tetra]

Originally Posted by vguerin

I have had mobs cast madness on me, and I killed myself... that was not fun...

which mob was that? I know timari cast fear but that's all I can remember casting affliction spells, of course I suppose it could be timari too since I always left them the hell alone :P

[chuangpo]

Originally Posted by vguerin

Madness is not broken, and certainly testing it on small hitters wont show you the effect you need. It "may" cause the mob to hit themselves. For the big boys this is real damage, but it is not a sure thing they will do it every cast. I have had mobs cast madness on me, and I killed myself... that was not fun...

It may not be broken per se, but that doesn't make it useful, which as far as I've been able to discover, it is not. You'll do a lot more damage just slinging missile spells at it.

[gralen]

Originally Posted by chuangpo

It may not be broken per se, but that doesn't make it useful, which as far as I've been able to discover, it is not. You'll do a lot more damage just slinging missile spells at it.

It's best use is with higher power (better chance of it causing the critter to hit itself) AND grouping. Madness is not a solo mage spell, you need someone between you and the critter.

[shrike]

True, but it is still fairly broken. Used madness 3 (lvl 30) against a lvl 15 ragus - it didn't attacked itself once in 30 secs. A vulgar Izam dealt himself around 150 damage in ~ 1-2 minutes (25% of his total max hits), and drained 500 sap from me and hit myself for around 500 damage total. It is true that weak mobs won't show as big effect as the stronger ones - but the main problem is that the frequency they hit themselves is very low.

Just because it works when mobs cast it doesn't means the spell is working so it's actually usefull for mages. It is of cource not a solo spell, but it's useless in groups, too, because the damage it does is minimal. A nuke of half the lvl as madness deals a lot more damage in the same time (nevermind that its a lot cheaper, too).

vguerin, gralen - have you actually used madness in the (2nd) open beta or in retail?

[vguerin]

I have used Madness in OB, currently not using it because I found I wanted to specialize only one spell for each tree and that didn't suit what I wanted as well as the others.

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