Attunement is a good idea gone terribly wrong.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Aetrion, Sep 30, 2019.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Superbitsandbob

    Superbitsandbob Avatar

    Messages:
    307
    Likes Received:
    684
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Except it's not subjective because a game will have a base level of character performance tuned around the content. It is provable that most of the game can be soloed or grouped just with base attunement. The system allows a character without artifacts, and actually without any equipment at all as I also removed my wands, rings, sash and necklace (I wore my cloths) to be competitive in the content it is supposed to be competitive in and also content where it is probably not supposed to be. That is a fact, build a deck and test it out.

    You can also do this content with various different builds. I actually find as a tamer some content is easier, some not so. My taming build uses various glyphs from different trees as does my fire mage. If you watch players that play swords or spears then their builds will contain glyphs from different trees and it is not unusual to see them swap out glyphs for others mid fight depending on the situation.

    Fun is something different entirely and has nothing to do with the impact of artifacts but as I said, myself and pretty much all of the players I watch on youtube and twitch use a variety of different glyphs in their build and it is generally fun. It's sounds as though you either don't have the time to invest in the game you would like or you don't want to invest that time and that is a very valid point as it is super grindy. This would require a fundamental change in the games systems and mechanics though and making artifacts weaker would not achieve what you want.
     
  2. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

    Messages:
    3,054
    Likes Received:
    11,752
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    As a fire mage specialist, sure, because damage-over-time based damage that strips resistance.
    Not the case with other magic schools.
    Fire is an exception rather than the rule. It also has evaporate combo.
    Some other schools have resistance stripping, but not to the same extent, and no others have damage over time (aside from meteor, but its the only damage skill in moon tree, so not usually the thing you gem/gear up for as primary.)

    If I put on fire gear, even with mediocre attunement and no specialisation there's a lot of content I have a far easier time with because of stackable dots. I just didn't want to be another fire mage. That's a separate issue.

    Fair enough to say you don't "need" artifacts, without artifacts, you get 10 attunement from ring/neck, 10 from chest, and 50-55 from a pair of crafted wands. So like, 70-75 out of 200 - That's still a big chunk of your attunement coming from gear rather than skills, which I think was the point.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2019
    the Lacedaemonian likes this.
  3. Superbitsandbob

    Superbitsandbob Avatar

    Messages:
    307
    Likes Received:
    684
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Are all of the magic trees supposed to though? Fire to me is just traditionally a more damaging element in games. Death works well as does Air. If the intention is that all magic trees should be viable though then I agree, some are not. Life and water seem as though they shouldn't be as they offer other things? Earth seems as though it should be paired with a strength based weapon but again yeah if you want to use it as a main damage tree it's probably underwhelming. There are options though beyond fire as a mage.

    I think the issue with most of the posts I have seen is centred around artifacts as opposed to equipment. Even without the +50 att from a staff or wands though the content is very doable.

    I understand not wanting to be just another fire mage but if we synergise all of the tree's damage then that would seem to make things less fun. You would also then need to balance out the utility other trees have. I honestly don't think the system has been designed to focus on mostly one tree. This makes it super grindy xp wise so we can be more viable in more areas but it is the price of an open system like this.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2019
  4. Girlsname

    Girlsname Avatar

    Messages:
    263
    Likes Received:
    532
    Trophy Points:
    28
    Location:
    Oregon
    As a Specialized Fire Mage, I should be able to do damage, and kill a Fire Elemental.

    It’s kinda lame that Death Mages can’t be used in 75% of the “end-game scenes” because it’s mainly ALOT of undead...

    (For reference, Fire Elementals are IMMUNE to fire damage; Undead are IMMUNE to all death magic)

    ** if you’re specialized, at LEAST you should have the know-how to damage, and kill a monster of that element.
     
    Zepplynn and Superbitsandbob like this.
  5. Aetrion

    Aetrion Avatar

    Messages:
    789
    Likes Received:
    1,725
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Artifacts have an enormous impact on fun when they can make the difference between damage being so low that fights seem tedious and so high that fights seem trivial. And yea, fire magic is really the only school that deals decent damage right out of the gate, everything else is a complete disappointment.

    Also yea, a mage that completely understands and controls a certain element shouldn't be defenseless against a creature that embodies that element. It makes no sense that your character can enslave fire elementals one second, and not deal with them at all the next. Same with undead.
     
    the Lacedaemonian and Girlsname like this.
  6. Superbitsandbob

    Superbitsandbob Avatar

    Messages:
    307
    Likes Received:
    684
    Trophy Points:
    43
    I never understood the Death thing either. Necromancer type characters are always defined as the masters and manipulators of undead including damage.

    Necromancy/Death would be my preferred type but it's not justifiable cost wise late game considering the amount of undead.
     
    Girlsname likes this.
  7. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

    Messages:
    3,054
    Likes Received:
    11,752
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    I'm not disputing "doable". But if you're trying to be on par with similar-exp-investment, mages really get the short end of the stick here.
    Imagine if we told sword users that in order to be effective they'd need to level bludgeons, polearms, and bows as well to the same levels and it would average to determine the potency of their sword attacks. Not a perfect analogy, but its kinda the point.

    Not all the magic trees are meant to be the same. All of them are limited in some way. But there's a reason why you see so many fire specialists, and I don't think its just because people like to burn things, its just leaps and bounds beyond what you can dish out with anything else. All bosses are magic resistant, period. Fire has the ability to bypass this. Death/air specialists can a bit. Other elements, forget about it.

    The problem in Sota is that because mages are locked into a single element, whichever it is, because you can only gear for a single element - a lot of content is tedious at best.
    Physical damage users have no such issues - take a sword, or bludgeon, or bow, or spear, and go kill something.

    Life can only damage undead.
    Death can't damage undead and/or loses its healing component, and there's undead in nearly every scene in the game.
    Water/Earth both have decent single target with wands boosting their 'arrow' damage, but are subject to strong magic resist on large targets.
    Air magic does alright, has a bit of res stripping with specialisation but also requires raising dexterity and has high focus/reg costs and the attune buff/shield can kill your focus fast if taking damage.
    Moon magic has meteor and nothing else.
    Sun damage has searing ray and the...really unimpressive new solarflare, which is not enough to really build a deck around without mixing in other stuff.
    Chaos is kinda same boat.

    Only fire really has the tools needed to deal with different situations - single target, aoe, bosses, etc. Other than fire elementals. ;)
    The problem is that the fire mage is by design a lone wolf - because more than 1 fire mage attacking same target cancel each other's dots. Because it seems every mage I encounter to group with is using fire, there's no point in me using it as well. Sad that there's no other good alternatives.

    I'm not saying make them all work the same - you can still have variety without diminishing effectiveness. Death could get a decay-type dot spell. Earth could get a ground based 'thorns' type aoe that did poison damage over time and/or stripped resist. Water could get freezing cc that shatters when hit again for high burst. Moon could get gravity-inspired attacks (tidal forces and all that). There's a lot of potential to bring other schools up to snuff. Fire can still be the frontrunner damage wise, but other schools can't even come close, esp. vs bosses.

    I'm an earth mage that changes to fire gear to do bosses with -60 less attunement and its more effective. This is silly.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2019
  8. Superbitsandbob

    Superbitsandbob Avatar

    Messages:
    307
    Likes Received:
    684
    Trophy Points:
    43
    I'm not disagreeing with you at all although as of now right now for me, many bosses are not doable with my paltry 208 fire attunement. :) So we are talking about the big boys mostly I think?

    As I said I just don't think the idea was for someone to not grind away and have a number of trees at a good level. The game requires it and would need a major overhaul to change. Removing the can't kill undead from the Death tree would help as I would do that instead of just being a Fire mage. Make the Earth tree a more single target focused tree, a boss killer as it were? I think you have brought up another issue with the game and that is because we can be everything, most players have some healing and so it's not even worth healing in a group as a second fire mage as the tank just does it themselves. Same with buffs.
     
    Girlsname likes this.
  9. Steevodeevo

    Steevodeevo Avatar

    Messages:
    1,431
    Likes Received:
    2,806
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Cheers that is useful, can anyone point me at the formula as to how the attunement value is applied as a multiplier to damage?
     
    Girlsname likes this.
  10. HogwinHD

    HogwinHD Avatar

    Messages:
    610
    Likes Received:
    1,730
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Somewhere.....
    the innates are 4x Chain lightning and lighting are 2x :D

    Edit : the passives are 2x but Chain lightning and lighting are indeed 2x
     
  11. Aetrion

    Aetrion Avatar

    Messages:
    789
    Likes Received:
    1,725
    Trophy Points:
    93
    It's still the cheapest of all the magic trees because it gets half price innates for some reason.
     
  12. Lazlo

    Lazlo Avatar

    Messages:
    1,497
    Likes Received:
    3,223
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Yeah, it's pretty crazy how easy it is to make a decent melee deck compared to magic. Just lock 8 buffs/situationals, draw your two best damage glyphs, fill in the rest with offhand attack, and in less than a minute you have a deck that's viable almost anywhere. Not only do most magic trees not have enough damage to reasonably fill out a dynamic deck, but the skills available are also of different types (range, pb, ae, etc), making it very hard to use them like that anyway.

    Other than having more damage glyphs available, being able to make combo attunement gems would be pretty nice. Maybe something like combining 2 gems to make a gem that gives +7 to two trees instead of +10 to 1, or +6 to 3, or +5 to 4, etc. Not sure if those exact numbers would be balanced, but having more stuff like that would be nice considering how hard it is to do anything with 1 tree if that tree isn't fire.
     
    kaeshiva likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.