Mute Change?

[Kyou]

Mute - 7 MP - Silences one target, keeping them from casting spells. Works until target is hit or dispelled. Has 90% success on small monsters and 70% success on large monsters. Does not work against leaders (bosses). Cannot be cast on a MUTED target.

Ok, lemme start off by saying this is a beautiful spell, the problem is, its almost never used.

I think a good beneficial change for it would be to make it last 5-10 rounds and not be removed when target is hit.

*P.S. give a few monsters this spell MWAHAHAHAHAH*

[U. Dye]

kyou said:

*P.S. give a few monsters this spell MWAHAHAHAHAH*

That would be funny.

* Monster >> Mute --- BM
* BM --- Silenced
* BM's Boost3'ed Knight >> Slash --- 10 Hits --- Monster death

[Sarm]

They could be really cruel and make Mute affect all skills, and not just spells so that it'd cripple meleers too.

[U. Dye]

sarm said:

They could be really cruel and make Mute affect all skills, and not just spells so that it'd cripple meleers too.

Yeah right. Sarm, out of curiosity, do you have any melee types?

Techs and that sort of thing aren't necessary for melee types. They're just gravy. Really GOOD gravy, but that's beside the point. The point is, melee'ers don't NEED skills to kick ass. They can do it just the same with the Attack command. Cripple a melee'er? Only real ways to do that are to cast Weak or Slow on 'em. But those spells aren't the topic of discussion.

[Hiroshima]

or just give monsters a para/sleep spell with boosted effictiveness to counteract your blessing? along with mure...;D

[U. Dye]

That prolly wouldn't cripple anything, Hiro. It's gone when the person gets hit.

[Sarm]

Well, I STARTED a couple of meleers. The way I see it, if Mute can be used on the party (which would make most spellcasters COMPLETELY useless) I don't see why it should let meleers get away completely free. I see melee skills as a counterpart to a magic-user's, well...magic.

Props for treating me like I didn't know what I was saying though. It wasn't even a REAL suggestion anyway, but just a passing comment.

[U. Dye]

sarm said:

Props for treating me like I didn't know what I was saying though. It wasn't even a REAL suggestion anyway, but just a passing comment.

Sorry about that. Hadn't meant to come off sounding that way. I was just saying, y'know, melee types have skills, and a lot of them are damn good ones. But in the end, they wind up doing most of their ass-kicking the old-fashioned way, since these skills use MP and the MP supply is kinda limited.

[Sarm]

True, they still have Str to fall back on, but I think it would still limit them enough to where they feel a downside too.
Imagine an ambush with Gold Strikers and the Knights all get muted. Or a Fighter that can't block, or a Dragoon who can't jump, or a Thief that can't hide, a Ranger that can't morph, a BlackBelt without...Mantra, or Pummel or something. That's what I was getting at.

[just2slick4u]

Mute on a dragoon would cripple the hell out of him, I know whitemages that hit harder than my goon clean sometimes, namely Rapta's whitemage who crits for 1+K with that hammer. Mute would also cripple a thief, without his instant crit from Backstab or 50% boost from Pressure Attk, and most relied on for me Bloody Murder, my thief is quite useless. The Knight is brute force, all around, if Flint had 10 hits, he would break 1K without a boost, enough said.

[Kyou]

I was thinking more of a % chance of being removed when hit, not 100% like it is.

*Laughs at the PWNED WMs*

[Rapta111]

I love the hammar. ;D

The part I don't understand is, why would hitting a monster un-mute him? I mean, I can understand waking up a sleeping monster, or breaking the paralysis of a paralyzed monster, but why would attacking a monster un-mute him?

[Sarm]

I don't see Mute as a physical mute, but as a "I'll negate any magical energy you put together" sort of thing. Since the spell is brittle, taking a whack will break it but it sustains itself through the power of any other spell to hit the target, so it doesn't wear off that way.

[Manboy]

Just make it last a couple of turns until dispelled like 3 turns. Maybe even boost the mp cost a bit.

I wouldn't mind monsters using mute. But since there is a mute for magic spells, there should be one for melee skills. Something like...

Disable (or whatever) - (same mp as mute) - Disables a target's ability to use skills. (should work like the 3 turns then gone like I said for mute). Same percentage for monsters as mute and same restrictions on bosses.

Basicly, it's just mute that blocks melee skills instead of magic.

If monster skills are added, bluemages should get the spell too =P

[Caoineag]

The part I don't understand is, why would hitting a monster un-mute him?

I'd pictured mute as a sort of mind-confusing spell, putting the enemy in an aphasic state, with hitting the enemy somewhat equivalent to the old movie cliché of slapping women when they 'hysterical'-- that is, bringing them to their senses.

Basically a lesser form of the "confuse" spell where instead of actively distorting mental associations (friend/foe), you render the enemy unable to associate concepts with their respective words.

'Course, this assumes that spells actually do require speech, but I don't see why the spell would be called "mute" otherwise. You'd think something along the lines of "obviate", "disrupt", "suppress", "spellbind", etc.

Then again, I really don't see, say, mesosaurs possessing human-like speech, so. Maybe I'm thinking about this too much.
[edited, 'cause apparently I can't spell]

[Rapta111]

Of course, a "mute 2" would be pretty cool. But then again, the monster Attack is always more deadly than the monster's spells... you don't see a Thunder Dragon's Lit do 400 damage. ;D

[Sandlight]

yeah, Mute would be more effective if it had a tier2 spell that can affect an area and if the tier3 mute effect was permanent or something

[Taterz]

area mute really only has 2 or perhaps 3 times when it's actually useful.

1. during boss fights. we all know how well debuff spells work on bosses (i.e., never) which is probably the ONLY time those spells are worth using

2. dragons. i mention this because dragons in monastery hurts a lot to people without magical defense (anything non white/black mage). later on, magic becomes the type of damage you WANT to be hit with instead of melee.

but then again, later on when the spell is useful the resist rate is quite on par with bosses. so unless bluemages get an ability to amplify the resist rate, mute is one of the most useless spells in this game

[Kain]

I think the only way Mute would be useful is if there were monsters in the game who had at least some of the following characteristics:

-Weak physical attack power.
-Infrequent usage of physical attacks.
-Strong magic (strong enough to warrant a Muting).
-Frequent magic usage.
-Frequent use of stat buffs on themselves or other enemies.
-Frequent usage of healing magic on themselves or other enemies.

As was mentioned earlier, why Mute a monster when 9 times out of 10, its physical attacks are much, much more harmful and their white magic (if any) is relatively weak? Muting enemies like those I described above would actualy benefit the party and give Mute a reason to be in the game, seeing as how we'll never be able to Mute bosses.

[Taterz]

kain, i can only think of 1, yes 1, monster that fits one of those points: vampire wizard in ice caves. but yeah, who levels on those? me and sub used to level on them, since there are no giant monsters that appear in that part of the cave at all.

aside from that, there is really nothing else that merits the use of mute that i can think of

[talon]

If it makes you feel better kain, I believe I made a few like that for v8. Mute may have a reason once again, at the very cost of all your lives. xD

[Kain]

There was one more thing I forgot: High HP/Defense/Resistances. No point in Muting a monster you can just kill in one round, right?

Anyways, it's good that there are enemies like that in PoP2, but perhaps a few could be added elsewhere (in areas that most players would be in around the time they got Mute--I don't know what level that spell is learned.)