Thoughts on mages

I personally have been playing around with the different tree (air/fire/water/earth).

I Dont know for you, but for a "pure" caster (more like a "pure ranged") I'm having a hard time; Wands/staffs are... pretty meh (melee attack with ridiculous bonus!?), so for free attack (free added DPS in between cast/focus recovery), I found that a bow was the ultimate solution (which shouldn't be the case).

Then it goes to the different tree. Water/air, Fire/earth, Fire/air, Earth/water, as other combination get you stuck with an bad - attunement.
My opinion:

Fire:
-fire fist; DoT dosnt always land... for unknown reason? and close combat.
-Fire arrow; Best fire spell IMO
-Ignite weapon; lets not talk about this one (dosnt work on bow, and its more like +1-5 dmg)
-Fireball; aweful. Loose target, dmg is pretty meh, and DoT is pretty short.
-Immolation; dosnt show in chat, but I wasn't really impress with it (low DoT/short duration, but goes on through the whole buff time and follow you)
-Ring of fire; Fire arrow's DoT, without the initial tick and stuck in a specific area (unlike Immolation)
+So only Fire arrow is worth it (and it is worth it!) so I only use 1 spell out of this tree.
=Fire tree looks good, but need work. Most of these spells are hard to use and need some balance(+)

Water:
-Ice fist; the lenght of the debuff is pretty small, and close combat.
-Ice arrow; only offensive ranged spell in the tree. Not bad, and debuff gets better has the level increase, so good to slow down enemys.
+Only Ice arrow is worth it, just like Fire arrow.
=Water tree lacks offensive skills. Unless they make buff skills worth looking at at some point, this tree feel as subpar as Fire tree is.

Air:
-Gust; knock back and stun, but no damage. I preffer using other method of CC has... well it has a pretty short range
-Discharge; AoE close combat spell. Its actually decent, somewhat a medium range, so can use it while kiting. Not casting time (but does take 1s, un-interruptable) and good stun% (but lower lenght)
-Lighting; Decent dmg, and medium stun% but good stun time.
-Lighting chain; actually somewhat a copy paste of lighting, but chain to other enemy. the AoE is weird. I sometime wasnt able to hit more than 2-4 enemies in a larger pack, but sometime it is hitting 3 enemies really far away. Focus cost is lower then Lighting, and on a single enemy, it sometimes hit it more than once! so IMO, the best Air skill
*Worth mention: Blink; good to run away keep a good distance from enemy, but need skill to use (and costy! focu$!)
+The offensive spells are quite good, and make it the tree with the most usable offensive skill
=Best tree for pure caster so far. Only real DPS tree with more than 1 (working) offensive skill.

Earth:
-Stone fist; I find it deals the most dmg of the Fist spell, but close combat.
-Obsidian arrow; Long cooldown and "ok" dmg, never really felt the "ignore armor", so it feels lacking (air/fire ranged skills do better DPS).
-Earthquake; close combat, 2s casting time AoE + stun around you. tried it, was "ok" but the interruption can be a pain
*Worth mention: Root; good CC spell, equivalent to the Ice arrow, but enemie is stuck on place.
=Root itself is decent, and worth mention, but using anything in this tree block Air and leave you with nearly no offensive skill.


So you pick between DPS(Fire) or Movement speed debuff (Water) and DPS/stun(air) or good CC/meh arrow (Earth). It is hard to choose which tree to take, as they all have something valuable, but for DPS caster, it feels like only solution is Air tree + something else. I have not seen a single buff worth using in these tree.



So far, the most efficient build I had was with Air/water with bow(innates) or Air/bow (disabling shot+innates). Melee can do quite decent single and AoE (Multiple hit) dps, while caster do just as good (at least, what I saw) for single DPS, but lacks completely the AoE side. I also feel like the caster lack a real free attack and more AoE option.

 

I think the main point on mages should be that or you use Chaotic Feedback (and death magic) or you will suck big time as a pure mage (compared to mages that do).

 

I think a lot of this is more a sampling bias and a couple other issues(the hp formula seems broken when elite footman and archers share the same hp). It just so happens that NPC archers actually use 3 strong skills unlike every other type. I mean melee monsters often use a tiny stun and that's about it. Mages may have 1-2 spells and fiery auto attacks. Archers have a hard to shake cc, a useful debuff (they naturally have high dex so decreases yours further plays up their strength) and the only armor ignoring attack that monsters use.

 

Dadapawa's post is similar to my impression of the magic trees, albeit I have not spent most of my time there. The point that the attunement system can feel limiting for mages is a good one. On one hand, I like that attunement leads a mage to think they need to focus on a few synergistic trees vs. dabble in all of them. On the other hand, if one does focus in a few trees, then the few spells in those trees have to be meaningful. As is, it can feel that active combat skills are sparse in some trees. I'm looking forward to seeing the spell weaving system develop. That might be the answer that helps round out the availability of mage skills much more.

 

im a light armor / dual bludgeon / tactics build, and i focus mostly on strength for extra damage. my earth magic is almost an unfair advantage. the innates make my defenses way better, my obsidian arrow often hits harder than my axes, and my root works a little too good. with the strength buff, my damage output is excellent. i cant speak for any of the spells which require reagents, thats just too "mage-ish" for me .

 

I got no problem killing anything...well...of course I get trouble when fighting mobs that are yellow or if I get adds. And I die a lot...and I probably do a lot wrong, but...

...I think you people bring your ideas of other games and your "roleplaying clichés" into SotA. Like "pure mage". The idea of having anything "pure" in SotA is alien. No I didnt come here to tell you how to play...no no...but since I play SotA I got rid of my illusions "I wana be a mage" that got me nowhere. Its the combination that gets you to where you want in SotA. There is no maximum skillpoints, you can learn plate, swords and everything...your not doing it because you have a clear understanding on what you want your character to be. But you notice it doesnt get you to what you want....and instead of being flexible and start training the stuff that gets you where you want...you think in straight lines and notice your way isnt making you happy.

Since I am kind of a new commer still, can I please ask you guys that are here since the beginning what was communicated from the devs about the development in characters? Is it "you will be able to do anything"...or is it more like "you will be able to create your archetypes and be successfull with everything"...or what was it.


Cause I remember in UO there was a max skill Points level, and there you needed to think in classes...but not in SotA imho.

But then, you guys probably know more about it.

 

Ah mages.. I love the look and ranged of casting spells. Just my favorite way to play.

So that being said.. I find it very hard to be really viable as a non melee mage. You would think those elementals would help, but they are horrible compared to tamed pets and just suck our focus as bad as a tamed pet. I think negative attunement just messes with combos (death ray and healing ray hello) alone. Aoe damage targeting just causes more delay in getting away or re-targeting your mob. I can't really tell what the devs real direction was for magic combat. Was it meant to be able to stand alone or was it meant to just be an addition to melee weapons?

@Chris I would really love to see a hangout just discussing your vision and direction for spell casting in general and, additionally, how it is supposed to compare to melee.

 

I see where you are going, and I had to come up with the same "solution", which is not really one: Mage alone is not viable. We can say that "Melee fight alone isnt viable", and I would 100% aggree, but a melee with some magic (life/death and earth, usually) will do so much better, while a "caster" with some melee... wont do much more. Melee skills might increase a caster suitability... by a bit, but has soon as you get in melee range, fizzle and interruption will damn you. This can be countered, but the lack of free attack drop the DPS greatly. It make you need a melee tree or the Bow tree, which is added to the other 4-6 tree you already had to improve. There is no cap, but it still slow down your progress by quite a bit.

Attunment does not work like the weapon skills innate does, or at least, I havent felt like it. Weapon skill gain something like 80% bonus damage from 1 to 70, with a bonus that diminish every level, while the attunment... I have seen a +1 max damage every 10ish level, or a 0.025s increase per level for stuns ect (which isnt too bad), but overall... meh. I wont even go into Int, as using Air make you use both Int and Dex, and if you go earth... well that will be Str. AND even more, a caster with a bit of melee will need some str/dex in the end.


Overall, it feels like caster need to be "a bit of everything" while a melee built can specialize more.

 

Honestly this is how I felt when I started playing the game as well. You get this feeling of Sweet! I got so many choices! In the end though this complete open system often tunnels players into the same builds in the end. The only flavor choice you really get are Bow, Sword, Blunt, or Polearm. Sure you can weave a shield in there if you want. The only way to go Staff/Wand is if you go full mage since it's not like you can punish enemies who get in your face. If you go mage/melee hybrid you will suffer casting any spells beyond tier 2 or 3 so half of each tree is unusable. You absolutely need either life or death so that's not much variation between people.

My personal opinion is the lack of restraints and leaving things completely open ended may sound great on paper but in the end reduces the number of meaningful decisions you as a player gets to make in the long run.

~Wodin

 

I love my mage. His main skills are Earth, Fire , Life and a tiny amt of Water (frozen fist skill) with Bludgeon skills. He wears cloth everything and carries a 2-H Mace. I can take on 4-6 NPCs with hardly any worries, however, archers/mages are a pain so I go after them first (archers first and then mages). Root is mainly used for archers/mages to stop them from running away. But otherwise, everything seems to be working well. The crits are what hurt most, especially from those archers.

 

Using a staff now, and light armour. I changed from using a polearm to supplement my magic, to using pure magic, and working on attuenements and speed of my attacks. I also used to use heavy armor, dealing with the higher fizzle was interesting, but the light armour is alot easier to manage of course, allowing me to use the higher tier spells more often and effectively.

I don't miss the autoattack that the melee weapon provided (or a bow, I've also trained bow this release).. I can get enough lower tier spells to output about the same DPS as when I was using a polearm and magic. The Staff's reagent reduction is handy.

 

Water/Air/Death leather armor with +weapon damage 2hd Sword with +weapon crit. Nothing short of a CP or World boss gives me any trouble. Only skill I have in Bladed is.. Bladed just use the weapon as a fill in while stacking, waiting on glyphs.