Monster Idea: Mage

I'm starting to see a trend where less junkies are needed to win a map.
Engineers have the only wep they need, Medics can make any wep to be their one wep. WMs are capable with what they are given.
Maybe to add some value to the AMs, we could have a mage monster.
I'm not sure what monster to base it off of. The nali would be the best choice, but subclassing the nali seems to have issues (ex RPG nali, and the log warnings when using the satore monster pack on a server)
A merc could be a good choice.

Some Ideas for the mage's abilities:
Weapon reduction: Every X mins the mage can target a player with the highest weapon modifier and reduce it by 1. There can be a higher priority on dropable weapons so players can't just rely on copies.

Weapon disintegration: A little more harsh, and maybe less frequently. Completely remove a players weapon. Denial lvl 2+ can protect against it. ("oh no my vorp!!")

Null fire: A player cannot fire his weapon for certain amount of time, or until the mage is killed. For effects, maybe a shock ball could be spawned to form a bubble around the player, so other players will know to kill the mage.

Exp drain: This would probably be too nasty to have on the DC server. It was something that I was about to use when I ran my server. (I was going to use slow moving zombies to drain exp from players that were AFK for an extended amount of time)

Mana Burn: Expanding on the Exp drain...it removes some adren from the target...could be a passive ability like energy leech where damage given to the player by the mage results in a proportional amount of dren removed from the player. Maybe a new ability could be made to reduce the effects of it.

Curse: Health artifacts and medics will actually do damage to a cursed player. Need to set a minimum health limit so we don't have any team killing. Regen, and Vamp should just stop healing. I'm not sure if there should be a status indicator for other players (medics) though, maybe that could be a new awareness thing. This could even be expanded even more by making the curse contagious. Any player that touches a cursed player will also be cursed. A 2nd generation cursed player could have a shorter duration or weaker damage from healing. I can see this really doing a number on engineer bases. In which case an AM could have an ability blast that cures all cursed players in range. Maybe the cure should be in the hands of the medic, but AMs can be protectors too.

I wouldn't expect the mage monster to have all of these attacts, maybe 2 or 3.

I like this idea, and the idea of a new type of monster; might i suggest if we were to be choosing monsters that it could be a new type of monster that is not in use; instead of a different color of an already existing monster.
For instance like one of the doom monsters i proposed earlier

I have a few ideas for the curse: the curse could be purple(taking this from another game ive played) in the shape of an X floating on top of the players head. Also if you plan for it to spread among the people i suggest it to be a different attack that the monster does.

One of its attacks could be the "curse" and the other "plague", in which case the plague could be green(again taking this from another game) and the plague could spread among people and dealing damage to anyone that comes within range, but as the plague spreads it diminishes in potency until full eradicated. The plague should also have a time limit, maybe 60 seconds maybe more or maybe less. Again these are just suggestions that I wouldn't mind being modified but as long as they are taken into consideration

And as for the mana burn, I like this idea, it could burn the adrenaline like 50 in one attack or maybe less, and then it would combust dealing damage to the health of the player

I have also been thinking of a new idea for the adrenaline master, but a passive ability. Since people are often asking for adrenaline why not give the AM class the ability to give adrenaline to players in a sort of stream of energy (a certain amount of adrenaline per second) and would also give xp to the player. Now this was my initial idea but maybe this idea could be intermixed somehow with the mage you are proposing.

Maybe in order for the mage to do an attack it would assault a junkie and absorb its adrenaline kind of in the way I mentioned above but as a result of the mage absorbing the adren it could also stun the player so it cant move or possibly attack for a couple of seconds. Then the mage could use the junkies adrenaline against everyone else. The mage could be a boss on the later waves depending on how powerful people want to make him.

Well these are all my ideas hope you like them

think of the jedi academy force drain ability. if the enemy got close enough to you they could grab you and you can't do anything for 5 secs. it drained your force power (adren) until that was gone then started leaching health. combine that into ut and you got your leech thingy.

plauge sounds like getting poisoned but has a contagency.

the weapon reducer should target a certain priority... vorp would be top of course and move down from there.

we could use the yoda skin and simplify it down for that enemy. its small, unnoticed, and make it pretty easy to kill. all affects can be regardless of walls as long as the mage can see the target line of sight when it is applied. so it "snipes" a player with something like the null fire but until the mage is dead, the affects stay with player but has to be sniped in the first place. the manta burn could be like that force drain in academy which would make it bigger like the vamp flies. bigger means faster but also bigger target

Elite wrote:

...assault a junkie and absorb its adrenaline kind of in the way I mentioned above but as a result of the mage absorbing the adren it could also stun the player so it cant move or possibly attack for a couple of seconds. Then the mage could use the junkies adrenaline against everyone else......

I like the idea of a monster sucking adrenaline from a player, then using it in an attack. Could then give the monster a number of different attacks, which it would use depending on a random chance and also how much adrenaline it had. Perhaps also give the monster adrenal drip or surge so it can build up a limited amount by itself.

Elite wrote:

...why not give the AM class the ability to give adrenaline to players in a sort of stream of energy (a certain amount of adrenaline per second) and would also give xp to the player.....

Problem with AMs getting xp for giving adrenaline is that it is exploitable. Imagine an AM feeding 200 adrenaline to a player, the player then throws it back, so the AM can feed it again. When I made the "Drop Adrenaline" command I had to make it no bonus to the donor to avoid this exploit.

Elite wrote:

One of its attacks could be the "curse" and the other "plague", in which case the plague could be green(again taking this from another game) and the plague could spread among people and dealing damage to anyone that comes within range, but as the plague spreads it diminishes in potency until full eradicated. The plague should also have a time limit, maybe 60 seconds maybe more or maybe less. Again these are just suggestions that I wouldn't mind being modified but as long as they are taken into consideration

As Trooper says, contagious poison. I like it.

greg11 wrote:

I'm starting to see a trend where less junkies are needed to win a map.
Engineers have the only wep they need, Medics can make any wep to be their one wep. WMs are capable with what they are given.
Maybe to add some value to the AMs, we could have a mage monster.

True, Engineers and Medics do not really need AMs - although a good piercing weapon is beneficial to all high levels, regardless of class.
However, I am not sure how the Mage monster will redress this.

Weapon Reduction and disintegration affect Medics least, as they can easily create a new medic weapon. It would be a bit rough to have it apply to the Eng link for the rest of the map.

Null fire, Mana Burn and Curse seem to affect all players - although Mana Burn is likely to hit AMs hardest as they usually have the most adrenaline. And if the medic has the Curse healing, then it is one more step better for the Medic.

I can't see exp gain getting popular consent. Once people have their exp they will want to keep it.

So, interesting ideas, but I am not convinced it makes the AM more in demand?

If the main perceived benefit of AMs is to provide better weapons, then the only way to get Engs and medics to appreciate them would be to make the AM supplied weapons significantly better than the inherent class weapons. And since we can't up the AM weapons, that would mean nerfing the medic weapon and the eng link. Which is not likely to get acceptance from Engs and medics

So we need to add another benefit.

I tried adding the team artifacts to make AMs more useful, but they do not get used much.

I suppose there is an argument that an AM is a mage like the mage monster, and perhaps could have an inhibiting effect on it. So, the higher the level difference between the AM and the mage monster, the less effective the mage monster is - "subdued by the presence of the AM". Applies to all mage monsters in the vicinity of the AM. Perhaps that is what you meant when you refered to AMs as protectors. Not convinced though.