After having played DL for what....12 years give or take a year or two. I have noticed some issues of balance.

All but two classes seem to have unique skills/spells pertaining to their class.

Cleric: sanctuary, resurrection, unholy word, succor, animate dead, dispel good, protection from good, recharger, full heal

Cavalier: charge three, charge four

Magic-User: beholder's acid, portal, blitzkrieg, enchant weapon, dragonsfire, paralyze, power word kill, enchant item, fireshield

Barbarian: berserk, (plus them being able to have insane amounts of hp)

Illusionist: mirror image, life gate

Monk: iron fist, iron foot, thunder strike, stone fist, circle kick, meditation, basic defense, vital strike, eagle claw, tiger claw, advanced defense, crushing blow, shadow kick, master's defense, hands of wind, Hajim's defense, flying kick, stunning blow

Thief: pick complex locks, find master's traps, pick master locks

Assassin: assassinate one through assassinate fifteen

Ranger: glass blowing

Druid: blade barrier, conjure elemental

Bard: rejuvenation ballad, (plus them being able to have TONS of charmed pets)

Ninja: spider kick, Hyder's kick

Warrior: NOTHING

Paladin: NOTHING

Alright, so what can we add to make this balanced out?

#1: Bard and druid should get some sort of resurrection spell.
#2: Paladins should get some sort of spell after level 51 that is level dependant, but allows them to buff peoples HR/DR perhaps a 1/1 per 100 levels. So at level 300 they could buff people for say 10 minutes with a 3/3 HR/DR bonus. Call it aura of the devout or somesuch.
#3: Warriors they should technically be THE tanking class, perhaps they should get a level dependant skill equal to stoneskin, so for every so many levels they get another 1 stop all. Perhaps every 50 levels, so by level 300 they would have an extra 6 stop all naturally.
#4: Rangers though they are a druid/warrior hybrid they should get also some sort of aura after level 51 that is level dependant that allows them to do a bonus, perhaps a universal regeneration bonus. So per every 50 levels they could do a bonus of 1 regen for hp/mana/song/power/moves.
#5: Illusionist gets two nice spells, but they should get a series of illusion like spells similiar to monsum, though not getting monsum. Conjure Illusion One, Conjure Illusion Two, ect.

Really I believe with the current setup the most beneficial classes are Magic-User and Cleric. Overall cleric gets every possible skill combination that paladin and warrior get other then push and pull. And Magic-User gets portal and the ability to charm mobs, plus a broad array of other skills/spells that make them likely the strongest class in the game currently.

Other balance possiblities which might work would be as i said above giving druids and bards a resurrection spell, perhaps giving paladins sanctuary since its only what 2 levels away from what they would get anyways, else perhaps giving illusionists portal OR giving them a set of unique conjuring spells that are allowed to be used beyond the typical room restriction flags (something like animate dead where with a regeant they could create their pets anywhere).

Just some thoughts, perhaps once we get some players up to 250-300 there shall be some unique skills/spells for every class that levels the playing field.

Either way, as always loving Distant Lands and enjoying it.

Sol, Sylvar, Sylvius.

Some very good ideas old man. I totally agree that warrior needs something that makes them stand out from other classes, like natural stops is a good idea to make them better tanks than any other. Paladin aura's would be really cool. A Regen aura and a defense aura would be awesome, it would encourage grouping even more if classes complimented each other like that.

By no means did I post this or the last post towards any reason to make anyone mad.

I just though each class should get something thats beneficial to them that they are the only ones to get.

Some agreed upon the group auras for paladins and rangers, one for damage the other for regen or some other such benefit towards the majority VS the minorty. Perhaps even a melee damage aura for one class, a spell damage aura for another, and a regen aura for the third. Else possibly healing bonus aura or something that gives a percentage bonus to all healing spells cast by anyone in the group.

Otherwise seems that it would be inversely beneficial if sanc was lowered to 49ish, so that not only clerics got it but warriors and paladins. Clerics have enough spells that are unique to their class, that it wouldn't hurt to give sanc to a couple other classes. It is the most used of all aura spells in the game.

ELSE: If people dont want sanc to come from a couple other classes, why not an aura that when cast upon a tanking person, it does a 50% damage reduction of sanc or whatever it was, and then does a regen of mana/song/power to the group. The catch? The person who is tanking that has the buff upon them has a hr/dr reduction upon themselves. Could call it aura of fortitude or something.

Well I hope I didn't enrage any of my friends, as I said it wasn't meant to make anyone mad.
Sylvar, Sol, Sylvius.

P.S. I believe none of us are really hitting the endgame content of the game. Once a few of us get to demigod, the vast majority of the mobs that we will be after for gear will be level 300-500 mobs that wont be able to be tanked by charmies, that will really take talent and group setup to defeat them. Consider even the current highest people with what around 2k hp and 50 stop all, well at demigod if one keeps looking at the rate of which we are going we are looking at around 3-4k hp, and 75 or so stop all. What would balance this out would be a small percentage of RIS (resistance) towards certain damage types that would have to be capped, we cant have players running around with 100% melee RIS now can we?

Anyways more food for thought.

I miss those days of running around with near 100% RIS fun fun times

I like your idea of some illusions being possible in non magic rooms since illusion is a distorsion of senses which can be done without magic.
I know there were new spells for illusionist in the last dlds that didn't work out too well. I remember that you could see number of mirrors in
under affects. That would be handy. Not sure if dispel illusion worked. Your other ideas are very good too! The more balance, the better.

I love it.

It's great that you keep the end game in mind and are proposing tools for groups rather than just buffing individual classes. Druid/Bard rez would be great as well, as they don't directly benefit the class but better group dynamics.

Cheers for Sylv.

Well here are a few more spells I thought would be fun in DL and possible additions to the flexibility in spells:

Mana Shield Minor: reduces damage taken by 50% takes that damage out of mana at an average of 1 mana per every 2 damage.
Mana Shield Major: reduces damage taken by 100% takes that damage out of mana at an average of 2 mana per every 5 damage.

Renewed Life: Heals the target over time for a duration of so much hp per tick.

Heavenly Embrace: Increases the healing done per person for spells such as laying of hands and summon rain for anyone the caster is grouped with.

Fortified Health Greater: 500 hp for a given duration, target must be above level 200.
Fortified Health Lesser: 250 hp for a given duration, target must be above level 100, but below level 200.
Fortified Health Major: 100 hp for a given duration, target must be above level 50, but below level 100.
Fortified Health Minor:50 hp for a given duration, target must be below level 50.

Those were a few spells I thought of today, plus this in addition.

What if when we cast a buff upon another player, it does a check if that player has that buff already, and the duration remaining of that given buff. If the remaining duration of the buff is greater then the duration of the buff cast upon that person then it does nothing, but if the remaining duration of the buff upon the person is less than the duration of the buff being cast upon them then it replaces the duration with the newer buff. (In plain terms, you can renew your buffs by casting a fresh buff on yourself.)

The last idea was a maintain command.

You would type for example: maintain bless self

You could do this with all your running spells: bless, levitate, protection from good, protection from evil, armor, ect.

What it would do is find the cost of casting the spell and the duration of the spell then average the mana cost per tick, then directly deduct the mana to keep that spell active. So instead of casting what 4 mana for bless (i forget the exact amount) it would deduct one mana every five minutes. (considering that the spell lasted 20 minutes and cost 4 mana) Since obviously I should have greater regen then the cost of this spell it would maintain that its up constantly without any mana loss, now if I had zero mana regen then obviously over a long period of time I would see a decline in the mana level.


Also say I wanted to cast laying of hands with my paladin on player X 25 times, why cant we just type c 'laying of hands' X *25

Maintain and the multiple iteration casting of a spell would of course have means to cancel the effects.

Thanks for your time, and just my two cents.
Sylvar, Sol, Sylvius