Confused as to where to go now

First day back to the mines since the new release and I am very confused.

Imagine my surprise as a mage when none of my spells seemed to do any damage to ghosts etc.

I died confused, swapping out spells on the fly unable seemingly to do 1 point of damage? I am told that swords will damage elementals but:

1. I am a middle of the road mage and do not want to put points in nor have the relevant skills for that tree
2. How is a creation of the aether hit by a sword but not by magic? Makes no sense.

When not playing a mage I like to craft (it makes my day job IRL feel more exciting and less tedious), I was already irked by the change to recipes as the previous method of learning was both satisfying and gave a welcome craft boost. Makes no sense.

The +25% xp to activity when flagged for PVP also seems like a bit of a kick in the teeth. As a humble crafter who has already sacrificed character development to build up my crafting I have limited desire to be gank fodder for players 50+ levels above me as I do not share the ghosts immunity. So effectively in a year someone who went all out for PVP will have a +2 month advantage in any crafting they might pursue while flagged? Makes no sense.

I understand that the game will continue to be balanced with each release but right now it feels every choice I have made was the wrong one, and these were what informed my decision to back SotA and get involved as a crafter and as a mage and I cannot practically see how I continue, or is that the point?

So to recap, this release has:

Effectively removed the principle way for me to gain materials to both craft and make money.

Made crafting more costly but without a corresponding recipe rarity to justify the change.

Made my crafter 25% less of an avatar then a PvPer.

I am really not feeling it and a little embarrassed at the money sunk into the game thus far and really confused as to where I go now.

I guess I will craft a bench, and spend my remaining days in game looking at my row house until it is swallowed up by taxes and then I guess stare at the vacant lot wondering what might have been...QQ

 

Not sure why having this +25% bonus is such a must have and it would make you less of an avatar than any PvPers. At the end of the days, we're all just nerds playing a computer game here.

Let's say if I really just want to get 12.5K XP as fast as possible, I can just go to Deep Ravenswood in FOO or SPO and kill 12-13 elder wolves under 10 mins. If I want to potentially get into more actions (either jumped by gankers or encounter others who already hunting there) and only need to kill 10-11 elder wolfs to obtain 12.5k XP, but it may take 30 mins just to find wolves to kill and/or spending time with pvp combatants.

Alternatively, you could try finding 1-2 good players to party with and then clear the entire Deep Ravenswood in FOO mode without any interruption and also enjoy 40% skill boost.

 

Everyone wants to race to the finish line, and they feel they are less of a person if they don't get there first.

Gemini - remember that the most important part of playing a game is to enjoy what you are doing. I am a crafter, and can in NO WAY compete with other crafters who are being supported by their large guilds with resources and such. THEY will always beat me to the finish line... I accepted that long ago and decided that I cannot waste my time and energy worrying about that.

So I will take my time, and get to the finish line in my own time... and I will make sure to stop and smell every rose along the way... and meet as many cool and fun people as I can in the process.

 

Stop using simple math to make a productive statment regarding the pvp flag bonuse! Clearly flagging means non stop, no pvp stopping or dieing, just exp abuse!.


As for OP.
Mages got balanced finnally. You may have to downstep a skull in dificulty, but if so it means you were further along then intended. With the new patch, your attunement and you passives greatly impact how effective you are now, cant just burn through evrything anymore.
That being said, each high resist mob has a counter which you might have to accountt for now.
If your completly struggling where your at , down step till your back able to handle everything.

 

Also note that there are several spells that mage can now move while casting, so you can stand still to start the cast, then move around, so you won't get hit. While there are some mobs that now have super crazy immunity against magic. Other mobs are still beatable and it might even get easier now that you can move around for most of the spell casting.

I've been playing pure mage since the final wipe. The big negative impacts I got from the changes were: 1) obsidian golem can no longer be killed, 2) liches are much stronger, 3) darn fire ball now take too long to cast. Other than that, I find it actually easier to play especially that I can cast arrow spells, lightning, chain lightning while moving. Having ice field target-able and able to cast while moving is also a big boon as well.

For case, you will need to raise some more offensive spells from other trees. If you fight with earth elements a lot, then get air/fire/water. You just need to train them up to around 40, then push to 60 after you get them all to 40. You can fight all 5-skulls areas with all spells at 60 relatively easily. Raising spell skill too high may end up eating too much of your focus anyway.

 

What Mr Blight said as a mage now you will have to actually be a true mage and study your opponent and attack his weakness.

I would try different spells to see what sticks, personally on a ghost I believe fire would be best to use. Now I am no mage but I assume that is what the ghost is weak to.

As for creatures created by magic ie. undead, it is safe to assume that they are going to resistant to magic. Perhaps this has all been figured out by some mage on the forums. I would poke around and see what turns up.

I do know one mage took a melee skill for such things.

 

Good post and there are many more out there feeling this way that have given up posting on the boards. Just teetering on the edge of stay or go.

I think the resist first pass hurt PVe mages a lot and hopefully will get a redo. I understand resists on mobs to make them more difficult for mages of certain trees. But they need to balance it out so that mages can still be useful against certain creatures without forcing a melee mage template.

The 25% exp boost for PVP is rediculous. And any PVP'er that thinks giving incentives to get novice sheep to go to slaughter is just a coward who wants to grief inexperienced players. They should be focusing instead on good PVP combat with PVP incentives, not carrots at the end of a stick.

I hope you stick around, use the oracle handout and try to work through it. Maybe, one day they will see where it went wrong and correct the course.

 

As they have said above the changes were a hard hit....but with everything you have to learn to adapt. Since they are changing things all the time its a good idea to not get too comfortable with things as they are. As in RL you have to adapt and adjust to make it in the world. I am working crafting too...but at my own pace...no rush to do anything major except making my house. I use swords and magic. I dont do one magic school....i have a bit in each cause frankly you need a bit of something in each one. My swords is my primary with magery as back up and i hold my own in the levels I can manage. I have fun with groups going for bigger things sometimes but i know my limits. And i guess that is the thing....dont go elbows and such to mobs that you think you can manage unless you know for sure you can. Also remember they changed some scene levels too. What was once level 3 can now be a 4 and so on. And there are always high ends to those levels that might be a bit harder to fight.
As for pvp. Not my bag. I avoid it and will as long as i can. Keep up the good fight and dont give up.

 

The * sheep to the slaughter * argument is pretty weak, and i could and hsve completly countered your opinion on the pvp change.
But theres enough threads on it alrrady.

Other then obsidian golems, was there anything else that requires melee?

 

I love training at Twin Foothills at the thug camps. Next up should be Sequanna Colossus when the thugs turn green.

 

Actually think, incentives for people to be sheep for the wolves was how Chris put it in the telethon. I wish he did go into more details on the actual numbers because, increased by a factor of four is really just a way to avoid giving dismal results in a positive way.

I hear ghosts are the other one mostly complained about. Honestly I have not had many problems with the resist changes because I am not a pure mage, but they do want to be careful to always give a pure mage some usefulness against each creature even if it is diminished dmg.

 

Against certain mobs I think a pure anything should have problems solo. If they don't then this game turns into WoW.

The forced pvp is ridiculous. I cruise my day in friends only and when the guild folks show up we all flag. As some guy that decided to play zone line games with us the other night found out, you probably shouldn't mess with folks that understand stun lock builds pve.

The game is growing and we'll have to adapt. Hopefully Port will figure out that catering to the pvp folks is a dead end. Otherwise, on to the next game.