How to make Mages friendlier to mage-unfriendly content

tinkaa

tinkaa

*fake Tinkerbell*
Here's my idea already discussed briefly in Discord:

Rework the magician line of DoT spells Elemental Maelstrom (44) and Wrath of the Elements (55) into an unresistable debuff* that lasts 5 minutes that when cast on mob changes the mage's subsequent rains on that mob to DoTs with 3 ticks.
It would make mages much more friendly when you need to mez or when the target is moving. The tradeoff is that then you'd need affliction enhancement focus, too, and you'd have to make room on your spellbar for this spell. The rains/dots would still have their old recast times, so you'd still have to keep all of them memmed.

*Edit: Nwaij pointed out a potential problem, maybe it would be better as self buff so it's decided when you start casting whether it would land as dot or as rain. Then you'd also need to have a buffslot for it. Could also just make it a stance. Mages already get pet stances with tomes, so it's not that out of the line. Whichever seems a more reasonable tradeoff. The idea is to keep their dps as it is, just not be hindered by their spells.
 
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As part of the conversation from discord earlier, I came up with this mockup spell which is essentially Magician Conduit. It takes the total potential damage of a rain that a mage can do and combines it into a single nuke when the buff is on. The cost is an increased 50% cast time as well as a 100% increase in mana cost. The buff would also reduce the mages crit spell rate to 0% because critting a 5900dmg base archaic would be rediculous, and gives them a neat "mana drunk" effect nuance for trying to manage the magic.
 

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Mage dps is fine, I don't think it needs boosting or nerfing. It's slow sustained damage, our "burst" comes from pet abilities/clickies/AAs. When the mechanics allow it, mages are pretty solid dps in long raids (if the swarm pets survive and they don't go oom way too early), in the range of beastlords (judging from our Taeshlin parses with Daenar and Sintasia; it's a fight where mages excel). They are less dps when their swarm pets die early, when they can't rain or use pet, or when mobs are resistant to both fire and magic damage. They can't effectively heal their pet so they always have to look out for it (the heal they get heals about 2200 hp with healing inc 8 and 20% tome and specialization bonuses and has 20 sec recast time; the pet with companion health 7+ has 15k hp when buffed, but you'd be surprised how fast it can die - not just because you forgot to recall it on enrage or attack from the back, just from simple whirlwinds or AEs in old content). However that is a minor issue, if they got better pet heals or beefier pets, that would be overpowered. When there are at least 2 targets on which you'd want to rain at same time, make sure you have aggro on both before you cast (either send pet or get close enough for proximity aggro).

No offense, Swift, but this spell doesn't solve the most pressing mage problem: sustained dps on single target when the game mechanics prevent you using rains, which is sadly not that rarely. A spell that takes forever to cast, forever to recast and kills your mana while your spells also cast slower just to see grand nukes like wizards have, seems like a terrible idea.
Mages do have some nukes: relic Bladewind and 64 Storm of steel (both magic based) and 62 Shock of fiery blades (fire). They already are an option, but they are a lot less dps than rains and the fire one is both slow casting and has a recharge time, making it overall a very subpar choice even when fire damage is your only option because mobs resist magic spells.

Here are Tinkaa's numbers over the course of her manabar (1.2 mil charm, Empowered storm 4, dmg inc 8, csi 8, 20% codex and deity bonuses, Critical evocation 2) on Grimstump (negligible resists, everything did its full spell damage, didn't use clickies or AAs for more damage):
  • Archaic rain + Relic rain + 2 sec cooldown: 881 dps
  • Archaic rain + Relic rain + 60 rain: 922 dps
  • Archaic rain + Relic rain + 60 rain + Runic swarm pet: 987 dps (the swarm pet being 190 dps over 306 seconds, I forgot I had others' melee damage turned off so I didn't see the Monster summoning damage; I attribute the lower overall dps to unlucky spell crits and the fact that I lost a couple of seconds casting the three swarm pets)
  • runic pet Herbert from front in fire elemental form, 20 dmg weapons that proc icy aura, ancient pet haste, gruplok collar, rbow: 270 dps + Monster summoning IV + III + II from the back: 91 dps - this is all melee dps + pet procs, but it seems low, Herbert is usually high 300s (when attacking from front) to mid 400s dps (when attacking from the back) - Grimstump specific? Herbert's accuracy was 65% due to misses, 58% when taking evades into account; it's usually about 73%, 5% of all his hits were criticals, 43% of all his damage was from procs (innate fire proc, weapon proc icy aura and rbow).
  • just chain nuking with Bladewind: 514 dps
Now you'll say that a loss of 300 dps on encounters where you can't rain isn't that bad, but:
  1. there are surprisingly many encounters where you can't rain because mobs are either mezzed or are moving or you are on aggro list of both, but must only dps one, or you need to be so close to them you'd rain on yourself if you tried to; or they resist fire and magic even once malod/malosinid; or the tank is simply bad and doesn't keep aggro on both mobs
  2. when mobs resist magic, you're screwed because the 62 Shock of Sun is only half its dps (with casting time 6 sec before CSI, and 2.5 recast time)
  3. old-school mobs will kill swarm pets (and real pets) with AEs or whirlwind
  4. the runic swarm pet will cast rains when you're on aggro list of more than one mob (which I actually find pretty cool)

What I'd like to see is how necros feel about their style of damage, since they are also sustained damage with some limitations. Apart from Zake complaining about lack of fast damage in groups I haven't seen necros compain about their raid game.

Another option would be to lower the resist mods on single target nukes and change the DoT spells to an unresistable debuff that increases the damage of your single target nukes cast on that mob by 20% (lvl 44) and 35% (lvl 55) and would work only for the mage who cast it. Then you'd just continue blasting Bladewind on single targets like you already do when you can't rain, it would just be better dps, but still less than rains in optimal conditions, and less than wizard nukes.

I haven't played a pre-runic/tomed magician in about 6(?) years, but I'd like to hear input of those mages, too, if they exist. I remember Plane of Torment being a true torment because the mobs were immune to fire and resisted magic, you can't use fire in deep FR, Tower of Tarhyl, a lot of Shadowdale 6-man mobs are immune to fire and highly resistant to magic (even after malo), outer Prison resists magic a lot, some of Emberflow mobs are immune to fire. I know there are also zones and mobs resistant to wizard and necro spells, but at least they have a broader spectrum of them to choose from.
 
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Instead of rains, make their dps spells just put short term procs on their pet. It'd scale with whirlwinds from the pet and be boring as all fuck but at least you can cast your spells.
 
tinkaa said:
No offense, Swift, but this spell doesn't solve the most pressing mage problem: sustained dps on single target when the game mechanics prevent you using rains, which is sadly not that rarely. A spell that takes forever to cast, forever to recast and kills your mana while your spells also cast slower just to see grand nukes like wizards have, seems like a terrible idea.
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No offense taken. I do think that a buff like this would fix your inability to use rains problem though. "forever to cast" is debatable... 7.25 seconds (with CSI8) to cast a double damage single target archaic sun storm doesn't seem that bad to me. Although, I personally never had an issue with long cast times, but I could see it bothering some players. The increased mana cost would be warranted for the additional damage done per cast and I'm sure it would have to be adjusted. I was mostly just spitballing.
tinkaa said:
Another option would be to lower the resist mods on single target nukes and change the DoT spells to an unresistable debuff that increases the damage of your single target nukes cast on that mob by 20% (lvl 44) and 35% (lvl 55) and would work only for the mage who cast it. Then you'd just continue blasting Bladewind on single targets like you already do when you can't rain, it would just be better dps, but still less than rains in optimal conditions, and less than wizard nukes.
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This is a neat idea. Basically a DD version of Beastlord Bitter Cold. I like it.
 
Perhaps mage pets could just be given the mimic spell ability sorta like wizard familiars that only mimic single target nukes? Mages also suffer from their utility line of spells summoning pet gear is a chore if there was a way to combine gear summons into one spell or activated AA it would make them more appealing overall as well.
 
generally speaking i feel Necros are mostly fine. just some minor things would make me happy. They have been mentioned before but the Leeching servant tome mimicking lifetap instantly instead of casting it would help not gimp pet dps when utilizing direct taps like ancient lifebane. Some other minor things would be slightly reduced casting (no more than a second cut off) time on direct nukes like cryotoxin / torbas venom blast would be nice or alternatively increase their base damage a bit.

One other thing that would be nice is some form of "ability" given to the melee relic necro pet. it does okay basic dps but lacks any special flair and is quite boring. Maybe a chance to proc a direct nuke like a sk poison/disease spear or some form of debuff.
 
One plus side for a basic melee pet is some fights do bad things if you or your pet cast spells like the druid pet so you wouldn't be able to use your pet for those fights anymore. Though I don't main necro so I know little of the class at 65.
 
I always found it weird that elementalists could rip powerful creatures from their native plane and subjugate them but are unable to cast an element that isn't fire (technically, though magic based, their blades line is them summoning physical blades to rain or blast at their enemies). They can summon a pet that can cast cold spells (Runic 1) but the mage themselves are unable. It further confuses me with a class that can only do magic and fire to make those the two most common and most resisted of spells or to pull power from their pet even though thats pretty much the draw of the class. Even in Live they seems to not be a well thought out class.

My experience with mages is that they like their class till about t9 when they just feel like utility vending machines and start running into limitations because of their class set up. Their pets die pretty easy and they lose a good chunk of their dps and flexibility in those situations. In the healing role I know that if I let that pet die the mage is going to lose 1/3rd of its dps but during intense healing situations they are entirely expendable to me. I also just feel bad when the guild is getting a 6man together and you invite your favorite mage to join you only to have them pass because what you are fighting is highly resistant to their weaker spell line and totally immune to their stronger spell line. Nothing is worse than feeling like you picked the wrong class after investing the ton of hours this game takes.

I know this is a thread about taking what mages already have and make it work for them and I think thats a great step in the right direction and I am not looking to reinvent the wheel. That said:

Why don't mages get a spell line or two (rain and/or DD) that mimics the elemental damage type of the elemental form they are in?

Would mages benefit from having a recall pet AA like in live. That they can have one pet stored and ready to pop out when the other one dies? I know this suggestion comes with the shadow of mages just having really geared out pets with animation blades in reserve and that creates another balance issue. What about an AA that creates a 5min pet with the same stats and gear as the one who died that poofs at the end of the timer/is also killable. Kinda in the same vein as the rogue class tome where they get 30secs of sweet dps after they die.

Could the blades based line be tempered by AC not MR? Putting it more in line with the lore of the spell or would that create too many balance issues with the damage of the spell/even doable?

In the event that a Mage can't rain, could there be a spell or stance to significantly increase the pets DPS and survival?

I like the idea of having a buff that turns your next rain into a DD or short duration dot but I don't like the idea of mages being penalized for it.

Losing 300 dps because you can't do the thing your class was designed to do when its 1/3rd of your dps is actually super terrible. Personally, it feels like a bait and switch.
 
Yusuke said:
There is a thread "Magicians" from 2015 that discusses the class failures/draw backs and some opinions as to how it could be improved.

https://shardsofdalaya.com/forum/threads/magicians.29506/
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Thanks for the link! Nothing ever came out of that, not a single dev reply. I'm assuming the focus was on 2.5 at the time. I didn't play from 201X- 2016, most mages from that thread had quit by now. I'm surprised to have learned recently there have been 3 mages among the staff, aware of mage limitations, and this is still an issue. I love what @Taryth did with beastlords, and since mages could be useful more often with simpler fixes, I hope we finally get around to seeing them.
 
I came back recently and started playing again. I had a desire to play my mage, and read through this thread and the linked thread started by Yusuke. Between both threads and my experience playing my mage, there seems to be three main problems:

  1. Scaling. Mages have the worst spell scaling of any class in the game because rains get one third the normal crit chance of other spells. This is fixed when you have all four ranks of empowered storm, but honestly a class tome should not be being used to prop up a classes damage at such a huge rate. Currently without the empowered storm tomes done a magician with a supreme, all spell crit aas, four critical evocation tomes, and 4 tome of the mind opuses have a 9.666 crit chance, compared to 29% for anyone else. With all 4 ranks of the class tome plus the other 8 tomes and aas, mages have 32.77% crit chance on their rains. Essentially mages have to fill over 3 full class tomes to get the same crit chance scaling of every other caster, and this fundamentally breaks mage scaling from the early tiers up until tier twelve.
  2. Non-Rain DPS. In any situation where a mage cannot rain, their dps is reduced drastically. The damage per cast time of bladewind is about 60% of that of Relic: Storm of the Elements, and about 50% of that of Archaic: Sun Storm. This means when you aren’t raining, you lose about 45% of your personal dps. A mage’s personal dps is about 70% of their total dps. Meaning not being able to rain is about a 32% dps loss overall. When they can rain, mage dps is nothing insane to begin with, so losing 30% of that is a very steep penalty.
  3. Heavily Resistant Enemies. Mages only have access to two different elements, and their main dps rotation involves both of them. As soon as they lose access to one of them, their dps plummets. Not to mention on magic resistant or immune enemies where mages can’t rain their dps is reduced to casting the level sixty two single target nuke shock of sun, which is far worse than even bladewind.
Now it does need to be said that I do believe a maxed out mage seems fine compared to most classes provided they can rain and their pet isn’t getting destroyed. Zapple and Shimone both always did fine damage once their characters had their tomes in situations they could actually rain. But there are too many checkboxes that have to be ticked before a mage can do acceptable damage.

I believe most of these problems can be fixed relatively easily, without a large class overhaul such as monks and beastlords received.

I believe the first and most important thing is to fix the rain scaling. There is no rational reason rains should be penalized on critical strike chance, and this punishes mages from tier one all the way until tier twelve. Make rains have the same baseline crit chance the same as all other spells, and change empowered storm to something else.

As far as non rain dps, I believe the solution lies in something that has been suggested many times before; Expand the Scars of Sigil line of mage spells. For those not in the know, Scars of Sigil is a level 54 Mage nuke with a 2 second cast time and a 2 second reuse, and deals 450 damage.


My recommendation would be two additional spells in this line:

Scars of Nagthilian
Level: 62
Mana: 350
Target: Single
Range: 300
Resist: Fire -25
Cast Time: 1.5s
Recast: 6s
Slot 1: Decrease Hit Points 975

Scars of the Veiled City(Replaces Elemental Barrage From the Refuge Spells)
Level: 65
Mana: 525
Target: Single
Range: 300
Resist: Fire -50
Cast Time: 1.5s
Recast Time: 6s
Recharge time: 2.5s
Slot 1: Decrease Hit Points by 1500

An expansion to this line would be relevant for multiple reasons:

  1. It’s a fire spell, which mages are lacking outside of archaic at the high end. Given a reasonable resist adjust, it would help deal with magic immune enemies.

  2. It gives mages a spell to fill their current 2.5 seconds of dead time while raining. Casting a third rain during this time is currently barely worth it because of the long cast speed cutting into casting another Archaic rain.

  3. It gives mages a small amount of burst for target swapping, which is relevant at high tiers.

  4. It gives mages a spell to alternate with bladewind, which would increase their dps when they are unable to rain.

The last change I’d make would be a bump in Archaic: Sun Storm’s resist adjust to -50, to match that of Relic: Storm of the Elements. This would help deal with previously mentioned resist issue.
 
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I think the idea of having spells that mimic your elemental form is a really awesome idea, that is not in fact viable in general, due to the Elemental Embodiment tome line, which revolves around you using your elemental form defensively. e.g., using fire form in PoFire or ToT or some such, so having your nuke turn into a fire nuke would present a major flaw. I do love the idea, though.

I suppose one possible thing that would be kind of dumb but effective would be to make the relic nuke unresistable(or give it some crazy resist adjust, like -5000, so it will always land on targets that don't have special immunity) and bump up the mana cost to like 400. The dps would be fundamentally unchanged, but you could ALWAYS have access to it for stable dps. This would create a brand new dynamic for mages that would give them high value in quite a few situations where they were previously worthless. Additionally, similar changes could be made to the other "blade" line of spells, so it would jive more with the idea of summoning magical piercing blades.

In another direction, I still stand firmly by adding cold spells to the magician arsenal. Their refuge nuke already uses bleedin' POISON and DISEASE(and cold+fire), so it's not unreasonable to give them the ability to cast cold spells. A simple first step would be to give them a level 65(not relic) cold rain, since before the relic rain, they have to use a level 60 magic rain, and a level 59 magic rain. Heck, their only fire rain before the archaic is down at level 55. Jamming a cold rain in there between 57 and 65 opens up a world of possibilites for new mages, and would tremendously help(but not empower, so much) old mages. Obviously this does not address the issue of 99% of content being explicitly anti-mage, but I think that flavor is an important part of the game.
 
Adding an extra element to the mages aresenal does very little to help their current problems. Gearing the class is already incredibly difficult between the extra focuses it needs because of pets + managing evocation and conjuration mod. Adding cold just means trying to balance extra focus effects which would just make problems worse.
 
cpoff said:
I suppose one possible thing that would be kind of dumb but effective would be to make the relic nuke unresistable(or give it some crazy resist adjust, like -5000, so it will always land on targets that don't have special immunity) and bump up the mana cost to like 400. The dps would be fundamentally unchanged, but you could ALWAYS have access to it for stable dps.
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Except that this isn't true. Suddenly, magic focus wouldn't effect this spell any more, nor would magic damage on gear, effectively making it fall behind MORE with progressive tiers. (Wizards know that effect from their Relic: Lure of the Void.)
 
Nwaij said:
Except that this isn't true. Suddenly, magic focus wouldn't effect this spell any more, nor would magic damage on gear, effectively making it fall behind MORE with progressive tiers. (Wizards know that effect from their Relic: Lure of the Void.)
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There is a key point he said. which was "(or give it some crazy resist adjust..." meaning it would keep its magic damage and focuses.

Should make all classes like bards, and not have them benefit from focuses.
 
Pulling this out of my comment from an old post by Haenir from a year ago.

DodoBot said:
I really like the idea of moving the blades line of buffs to mages. It fits the kind of utility that the mage class should offer as an aside to their DPS and it allows RBOW to be soulbound, something players have wanted for a long time! It also does not take anything away from wizards because let's face it, they all hate recasting RBOW anyway! I'd like to propose the following options for dealing with the relic situation this would create.

For Mages:
  • Use this opportunity to eliminate a major progression bottleneck that is arbitrarily random (Relic Pet). Replace relic pet with RBOW and make the pet a questable spell at lv 65 (comparable quests to the BL stuff)
  • (or) Keep mage relics as they are and make RBOW non-relic
For Wizards:
  • Go with what Haenir proposed regarding a raid-wide evac
  • Go with Haenir's portal creation idea - (cool but prob hard to code / exploitable)
  • Offer a relic upgrade to Winds of Gelid for additional PBAOE ability.
Other notes on this thread...
  • Mages need some love in the higher tiers IMO. A lack of big utility or burst dps hurts them a lot on many fights. This could be part of a larger visitation on the class' role in the highend game.
  • Solution to wiz murk spell complaints would be instead of short acting 100% reflect bypass, it could be a long term buff with counterspell stun immunity and a percentage chance to bypass reflect mechanics - this gives wizards dps potential on counterspell fights but with the loss of a buffslot and a percentage chance of hurting himself via spell reflect (think of it as melee during enrage)
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