RuneScape's Great Magical Debate!

Thieving, Magic, Agility, and Summoning should all be marked up as semi-combat skills.

Slayer should be marked as a full scale combat skill, not a non-combat skill as Jagex currently has it marked as.

As I view it it should be like this for all combat

Attack increases likelihood of hitting at all
Agility decreases it

Strength/Magic/Ranged increases the range of possible hits
HP diminishes the effect that these have upon the player

Slayer weights the damage range to higher hits...(99 slayer would me much more likely to max hit than 1 slayer)
Defense weights enemy damage range downwards

(Maybe)Thieving Decreases enemy retaliation time (agility might counteract this)

Summoning stays as is

invinible wrote:Thieving, Magic, Agility, and Summoning should all be marked up as semi-combat skills.

Slayer should be marked as a full scale combat skill, not a non-combat skill as Jagex currently has it marked as.

I don't agree on Slayer, for it doesn't offer anything to combat. Should it have a combat use, then I would agree. Requiring combat, in my opinion, is not the same as a combat skill. As for "Thieving, Magic, Agility, and Summoning" - I disagree with Magic being down-classed. Magic still deserves its status as a full combat skill in RuneScape. I hate myself for saying this, though, but I think Ranged and Magic could quite easily just be support-skills for Melee - it would make curing hybrids much easier, because all players would have the right to be them. *shrugs*

• Attack - Increases your accuracy.
• Agility - Increases your evasiveness (a counter to accuracy).
• Strength, Magic and Ranged - Increases your power-potential in specific areas (brawn, will and dexterity).
• Defence - Increases your resilience (a counter to power).
• Hitpoints - Increases your health, ie the amount of damage you can take before death.
• Prayer - Increases your comprehension of your god's voice, ie allowing your greater access to their arsenal (or bribes).*
• Summoning, Demonology and Necromancy - Increases your knowledge and control over the specific minion, ie your ability to have more powerful minions present.
• Zoanthropy - Increases your conscious-resilience to possessive spirits, ie your ability to take on more powerful spirits.

Possible skills;
• Sorcery - Increases your knowledge of the energy-potential stored in runestones, ie enabling you to naturally progress to more challenging spells.
• Thieving - Increases your reaction-time (related to attack speed rather than evasiveness).
• Slayer - Increases your... odds?

I don't fully understand what determines how much you attack, I think it's ultimately random. But I know it's current factors are your Attack level + Attack stat - their Defence stat... then something to do with your max hit. The Defence skill currently does nothing but control your Defence-stat potential (by not allowing you to wear rune until 40, for example).

Dark Avorian wrote:
Slayer weights the damage range to higher hits...(99 slayer would me much more likely to max hit than 1 slayer)

I somewhat don't see the point, as this is determined by your accuracy. Accuracy determines how much damage you deal - how does Slayer affect this without replacing Attack?

*I've always considers Prayer to be the gods whispering to you. From an early age we're raised as Saradomists, and taught to understand his voice from all those whispering. It's subconscious, we aren't fully aware it's happening. It almost like growing a tolerance - like getting used to a smell. The level requirement I set for the Zamorakian Prayerbook was, aside from a game point of view of needing requirements, was because our minds are not strong enough accept Zamorak's voice. This is one of my reasons for Guthix not having a prayerbook, aside from his own creed. Guthix's voice is too powerful for human comprehension - to hear Guthix's voice would rip your head apart; Zaros' voice cannot be heard from the Shadows; Marimbo's voice isn't human, etc. This was inspired by the Tower of Voices within the Crystal Undercity, and the film Dogma. When you activate a prayer it strengthens your god, almost like it's absorbing your prayerpoints. So whether a prayerbook is a bribe or a thank you remains to be seen.

I'm pretty sure attack determines whether you miss or hit...and then chance chooses what number you hit...

Also we don't need resiliency...that is HP

Attack is confusing, however it definitely doesn't just determine hit or miss. Examples is that a higher attack increases your damage-average. A player with 60 Attack and 60 Strength wielding a Dragon Dagger will hit a lower average than a player with 99 Attack, 60 Strength wielding a Dragon Dagger.

Your damage-average being how much you hit consistently. Magic, as a class, has a high damage-average as they will hit close to their max hit regularly provided they have a positive Magic bonus (ie, the amount of Magic bonus has no significant difference after a certain point).

Hitpoints is not your resilience, it's your personal damage-cap. Defence should actively reduce the damage you receive (natural resilience) - hitpoints cannot be responsible for this, as it would be a vicious cycle (as your level goes up, you have more hitpoints, but you reduce that which you take? No thanks).

My favourite example of how bad Defence is at the moment isn't mine, but it compares two fishers in the guild being attacked by River Trolls. The 99 Strength player massacres it instantly - killing it too quick to take damage. The 99 Defence on the other hand, had to run from the fight because Defence actually offers nothing to the fight when it should keep you alive by itself - sort of, taking slower damage so that you have more time to kill it. Basically, Strength is fast damage-dealt, little taken due to speed of battle; Defence is slower damage-dealt, little taken due to resilience.

No that's not what i meant...at lvl 10hp a 10 is 100% of your hp

but at 99 it's 10.101010101010% of your hp

Therefore the amount of your health it takes out is "less"

Re-written!

In a game resilience doesn't work like that. By definition your hitpoints would factor resilience, but it generally doesn't work ingame*. In a game you'd expect that as you raise your defence, a lower level should hit less and less on you. At the moment, they do - but it's not because of the Defence skill, it's because your Defence stats go into the damage formula as a direct minus to their stats. Hitpoints is merely how much of a meatshield you are. Hitpoints don't exist in real life, life is based around Defence only.

If you fall over a child you will go crying to mum, whereas a teen wouldn't give a crap - they've become resilient to the damage (ie, the damage they took was less). In your scenario, you took 10 damage both times - with Defence, you'd have received less damage. Your hitpoints is irrelevant to this style of gaming environment.

*percentage is the reason it could be defined as resilience.

Yeah but the injury to the knee is the same in both cases

It's not. As a child I am likely to cut myself, bruise, or something that needs a plaster - nowadays I rarely see my own blood (seeping out or as a bruise).

I guess that's the difference between them - lol, I've just thought of a word. Hitpoints is your tolerance - you can tolerate 10 damage at 99 because it's less significant. However, resilience should have reduced that 10 damage. Although both words could be used the other way round... I was going to say like getting tolerant of heat as an example of Defence - but you catch my drift how they differ.