Mage nerf is way overboard this release.

Magic on this game is broken and limited in so many level it is a joke. Most archetype mages are not simply possible on this game due it's poor magic system.

They efficiently destroyed any chance to make enchantment mage, that role is to buff the group, by making EVERY buff spell self cast only. Only those stat spells can be cast to others but hey....even those were nerfed when you can cast only one of them. Resistance spells are all capped to very early levels or can be cast only to yourself. There are only one damage buff spell as Ignite Weapon but hey that is self cast only. Idea of mage that buff their group is dead on this game.

Idea of summoner/necromancer mage is a impossible as summons cannot carry character even on starting areas LOL. Summons are not even weak, they are practically visual skills only.

Idea to specialize your mage to one school of magic is impossible. Most magic trees does not have enough damage spells to make specialization to one magic school even viable option. Most monsters are hyper resistant to magic and even immune to many magic types, that would literally make your character useless if it have specialized to one school of magic. Yet specialization to one school of magic give penalties to other schools of magic and so on.

Magic in SOTA is mess even on information level. There are no open information what spells stacks or not. Most spells does not stack, so if group have two fire mages, they cannot place Ring of Fire as they would nerf each others damage XD So would their direct damage spells as well. Good luck finding these mechanisms with personal testing only.

 

Nope nope. Liches resist life very well. You never kill higher liches with life magic in any sensible time Only way I kill liches with magic, is to poop my fire spells to them that are rank 120 with attunement 200. I mean ALL of them as then combined resistance debuffs due fire specialization start to slowly kill them with 10-20 hp per tick. I have overall spend 170 million exp point to fire to make it decent. But I still lol how basic forest animals, undeads and evne spiders seems to have VERY high fire resistance. I mean in all the fantasy worlds FIRE is only certain way to destroy undead and fire burn that flesh sweet. Not in SOTA, here everyone resist fire like having full body mechanically cooled asbestos suit.

 

Ah, I was killing them with searing ray/banish undead - I don't have the fire specialization option. Of course, my husband could walk up to one with a sword and kill it in about 2 seconds, while I continue to pummel it with anti-undead spells for a good minute....which is kinda of my point about magic, really.

 

I really think the developers in this game are on Crystal Meth. Especially with the latest nerf to the Moon tree and meteor. the rest of the magic was already too weak in the other trees. I mean you truly need to stop basing your decisions and changes on the few players that have so much game time and xp in their characters they are OP. You destroy any chance for the average to above average play to gain any traction in this game. Then you listen to and make decisions based on the PVP players and the whining that goes on about spells that are to powerful... and you Nerf Meteor. WTF? If your going to do that then balance the PVE environment to scale with the poorly thought out nerfing of mages in this game. I am a level 94 Life / moon mage. Finally got to a point where I could get through zones and do things without having to rely on finding a full group of othr players to go do the same things i was doing. we could get 2 or three peeps and get things done. But now ... yah good luck. Quit sucking the life out of an obviously dying game that has real potential. Instead of punishing the PVE player for the whining done by OP stat'd PVP players why not just create a debuff for pvp flagged players. I mean you could always just remove the unlimited cap you have on stats and balance the game that way. Because right now it makes no sense why you would leave level and skills uncapped. So what if someone becomes OP because they play all the time... that is their reward for dedication and working on their character. Seems like your just trying to make everyone equal so those that aren't playing as much or don't want to work as hard can feel special too. I say Increase the loot tables in PVE to include some real gear, give mages a chance and give us some real spells that do some damage. I mean you have to blow through all your mana to kill things and stay alive. If your trying to encourage people to group and quest together don't do it by nerfing the crap out of us, do it by creating some real content and loot worth working together to get. Seems very amateur. I have only been playing this game for a few months, and really want to like it but I am starting to see the big picture and why there are so many poor reviews for this game. You better treat your founders and kick starters well cause i have this feeling they are the only ones you will have arounf here to support your business in the months to come. There are two MMORPG's coming out in 2019 and 2020 that have everything this game has, plus a persistent world, reall loot tables, and a player economy that surpasses Sota. Quit making changes that are destroying gameplay and do something that will invigorate the community.

 

To be honest, the disparity between playing a melee skill set and playing a mage is pretty noticeable.

Mobs with immunity and the way attunement is worked right now makes using a tree a major investment in skill points. To make a combat deck you need multiple schools... This is not parity with melee at all.

Obsidian Golem - Shut down.
Troll - Earth is shut down
Etc.

I have yet to find anything immune to a sword, mace, or halberd specifically. To complete parts of the story prior to me resetting Merv's quests, I had to use melee at one point due to mob resists. I've never seen a melee skill set have to stop using that skill set and train magic to get past a mob in content.

Starr, Richard, Chris... sit down and objectively look at this. This system and how it interacts with mobs in PVE is broken and lacks parity/balance.

I'd like to play a mage on a character, but the best mix I've found is fire and sun (fewest immune mobs, best damage) and its just now what I'd like to do.

 

Does this surprise anyone? Every release it is something else and its infuriating to say the least. I have all but stopped playing because I simply cannot stand the constant nerfing of every freaking thing under the sun.

The sad reality is, the task is literally impossible. With the amount of permutations possible, top tier players will min/max around any nerf that comes up because they have literally maxed out every skill. So when the good old nerf bat comes around to hit these players it really ends up hurting the little guy the most.

I have honestly come to believe, the only way around this is to institute a hard cap on skills. It will never happen but I think it is necessary to save the game...

 

Top tier players that have maxed every skill would just need to change tactics. There is zero down time for them no matter what the nerf.

 

Which is exactly my point.

 

I am not a hardcore player and I am leveling 5 avatars so that spreads my time thin, my avatars range from 60 to 85. Every nerf so far as not been crippling. My tank is fine. My archer/tamer no issues. My pure Mage (fire, air, sun, life) has not been effected by this nerf. My death/moon Mage is still killing large groups of mobs. With all the nerfs do I need to be more careful and do I use more potions yes but now I feel challenged which is what I enjoy about gaming. There is very little sense of accomplishment in SotA.

 

Hasn't affected me much either. In fact, my heals seem much more powerful this release.

 

I feel like most of the negative feedback on things here is based on people who are locking themselves too much. My character has 3 different sets based on the situation and if I am playing solo. I have my pure mage build, for AoE, which still manages great even after the meteor shower nerf (I honestly feel like MS is better now). Then I have my hybrid 2h polearm + magic build for solo 2-3 target playing, which has no issues at all, and then my tank set-up but that one I just started playing with so I cant compare to before.

Now I dont have any 200 attuned schools, and I feel like that is what is getting hit the most, but with my set-ups, I have had no issues doing all I was doing past release. If I fight a ghost, I take out my halberd. Fighting a group of cultists? Take out Immolation and MS with chain lightning and down they go. Addapt and survive, stop locking yourself in one spot. Also, for those who say this reduces group play, not at all. We have been having so much more fun this release with my tank build paired to a healer and a DPS, our 3 man group can do a Whole ton, and we played with an archer 2 nights ago and things went so smooth it was amazing.

Enjoy the game by creating a hybrid class or maybe 2 classes that you can quickly swap from one to the other, stop going over 120 in your skills and branch off a bit more, and make a specialized class for group play so you can compliment your group nicely, and you will love the game. Stop thinking every one should be able to do everything with 1 trick, that one trick is good for some things, but not others, thats where combining becomes fun!

 

I don't heal, and while I have heard others report this as well, they have also mentioned there being a seeming delay between completing casting and the actual effect happening.

 

I had 240 moon attunement, 140 meteor 100 spec and my single hit damages went from 500-600 to 100, so I do not share the idea that it actually got better now.

 

try getting instance master, that will help a lot to solve that problem. If the instance master is overseas, it gets really bad.

 

Well said OP.

This is why I gave up on magic a long time ago and picked up heavy armor and blades.

 

I've seen Death and Earth mages solo the troll, but it takes 15 minutes compared to how fast physical weapons do it. Even "physical" pets, tamed, are far better than anything magic can summon! You literally have to gimp yourself with the Ancient Staff of Death and jewelry that boosts death summon damage to have a summon that deals average damage (Let's not forget the millions of xp you have to put into Undead Mastery and Mummified Undead so they deal slightly more damage and don't die immediately from health decay)! The bug that keeps pets from scaling appropriately in terms of damage and health still hasn't been fixed and they continue to ignore any question about it!

With these recent nerfs to magic, it feels like the team has it out for mages in general and only want them to be relegated to a healer only role (Since that is what it seems like they are best at now). I keep playing and leveling my Necromancer because I'm stubborn, but I am fully aware of the fact how bad magic has gotten (which is why I look for ways to improve my skills even more).

 

My hope is that there is a long game present that were not seeing yet. As in several new skills that will be added to magic to increase it to a point where it will be on par with physical skills. Currently magic is not on par with physical which can be seen easily if you take 10 skills up in physical versus 10 skills up in magic. You can have a fully developed damage producing physical character with 10 skills but with magic you need much more then that to event get close to being on par. I just want to know the why behind the decision. Why was this change needed when compared to physical damage producers.

 

If nerf was huge then Mage was more OP than anything. I started a pure Mage 8 days ago, already have my Shroud and ran through and kited my way through everything,... on my 4th account. He ia lready level 75. I feel no pity.

 

Good for you. I'm level 122 and I can count. I want parity not it's ok I can do this when physical could do it for 1/10 the exp.......if I'm spending 10 times the exp to be on parity the system is broke.

 

You can get +25 attunement wands at pretty decent prices and they never need to be replaced...