Mage damage comparison

I have still been struggling with my ice/fire mage in regards to survival, and I found it kind of odd that a character that I restarted to see the new intro scene was doing relatively well with sun magic. I went onto my main character and found that indeed level 1 sun magic is much better than both fire and ice magic spells even at high levels as seen in this picture. Is there a benefit to using fire and ice or is it still unbalanced?

 

Hmm...that's a pretty significant difference in damage I feel rather silly now for sticking with fire and death magic (which have both been nerfed quite a bit in the last couple of releases ), but it's a vital part of my character concept

 

I agree with you Gabriel. I have specific skill-sets for my character too. He is fire/ice and avoids all other magic trees besides Heal which thus far is required for survival (sadly).

On a bright note...I love my elemental now he doesn't go away anymore...I just have less focus

 

The fire has DOT and the ice has slow, so maybe the increased damage for sun has to do with balance because it has neither "additionally effect".

 

My fire / death build is pretty lackluster

Sun just got buffed, and they added 2 positive damage criteria. Great idea tbh.

My Lich dies from 'summon drain' in the same amount of CD time. Moves terribly slow and sucks as a tank.

Autoattack with greatsword seems to be my largest source of damage. Working all those passives up, as well as the synergy in Light Armour tree

Working stealth now for the Backstab option ... lol

 

some mage tips. fist spells do aoe dmg like weapons do. If there is any enemy close to your target it gets dmg also. Earth does the most dmg because it is pure dmg. Fire has dots so its direct dmg is less to make up for the dots, same with water and air. I havnt used death so i can't say for that one. Searing ray does direct sun dmg so it is higher then other spells, also does bonus dmg to undead and in sunlight but costs more focus.

 

Ok so you can Max out 34 dmg for Searing Ray and with Fire arrow - and if oyu do MAX dmg outright and avg for the 12 seconds that = 31 dmg?? Not to far off at all

 

From what ive seen so far, ice feels ok. Fire feels under-powered.....needs a bit of a boost (not by much but it does need a tweak).

 

After some training on my new character who is sun/air he is much more powerful than my fire/ice mage. Ice does not slow enough to matter. I have ice in the 50's. Fire damage is terrible as well including the DOT effect.

Sun is doing over 60 damage which seems about right based on the hit points of a lot of the creatures. I am surviving fairly well in South Valeway. My Fire/Ice mage is not. He dies most of the time. I have also noticed Air damage is lousy, but the stun effect on discharge makes up for it. A high damage sun spells combined with a low damage stunning air spell is a great mix. Now if only there could be utility in fire and ice spells.

In the fun mage games, Ice literally slows things down to a crawl. Mages are not made to be hit so that's what should happen with high level spells. As of now, I am having much more fun with my sun mage

 

The Sun spell also has less range and a higher focus cost.

 

Great info here...didn't realize I get more damage on undead...Very helpful since undead is how I am making money right now.

My sun mage doesn't fight during the night, that's when he is drinking and sleeping

 

I found that sun spells dish out much less damage underground and during night, but are great outdoor and during day.

 

This is really why I can't justify spending experience in the attack skills for sun/moon. It only works if you never plan to go underground/to the surface, or fight at day/night - which is never going to happen.

 

Well, yes. But they are complementary! Underground, the Moon spells must be devastating. But in plain sunlight they suck. So you cannot be just a Moon mage, but need to be Moon+SomethingElse.

It's like elemental damage. You can specialize all you want in a single element, say fire. Then you meet a dragon, it's immune to fire (or actually, HEALED by it), and you're dead in the water. Or dead roasted, most likely. You have to diversify your arsenal to face different conditions. The more generic the damage, the lesser it is. The more specific, the greater - but also wildly situational! I think it's good design.

 

Juxtapose is cool for swapping elements too. Something Sun/Moon do not offer

 

I am full Mage at this point and I find that soloing in mid level zones is not hAppening for me. However, in a party I am very happy with the build. I am guessing we will see powerful items that will allow for pure Mage in SPO.

So for now, I am happy we have at least one school with high damage output.

 

Yea, I might have to experiment with a "Day" deck and a "Night" deck.... hmmmm.

 

In general, fire/ice direct damage are less than earth/sun direct damage by design, no? I thought so because fire also adds damage over time effects, and ice adds slowing effects, which the others do not get.

 

@Lord Baldrith

I think you bring up an excellent question, but I'm not sure what kind of answer you are looking to get.

If we're only going to measure skills and spells based on the amount of damage they do, then shouldn't all skills and spells do the same damage per tier? And if the answer is yes, then isn't that a boring system?

If the answer is no, then we have to ask why would anyone want the other spells that did less damage?

This is why for the past 2 years I've been talking about "DPS wars" and why this is an impossible system to balance if all we do is tweak DPS. If we make water magic do more damage, it's as if we made sun magic do less. That's why this system is - not good.

Does this make sense to anyone else now?

It's also good to consider that all the systems are not in place, we don't have cover, we don't have Chaos Magic, magic doesn't do more damage to some things and less damage to others. There's a lot left to go into this game. But at it's core, this is a broken system based on DPS. So "right now" anyone that doesn't have Searing Ray is probably wishing they did. But next release that might not be the case. The problem is that it seems very difficult (using this system) to ever achieve balance and challenge in the same release.

Let's face it, if you have a choice between three spells and one does 100 points of damage instantly, another does 80 points and then 20 more over the next 10 seconds, and a third spell does 70 points and 30 more over 15 seconds...which one do you want? That's where we are without the other systems in place. But I would argue that's where we'll be once all the systems are in place too..because the whole thing is based on DPS.

BTW, I love how much better combat is getting overall in R22. It's been a lot of fun. But we're still unfortunately battling a core base that is unbalanced by design, and this is a perfect example.

 

I have been testing all weekend. I am not normally one who uses defensive buffs etc as they are usually too complex for me to understand

What I have noticed tho, is that Tumble, and Acrobatics, and ice shield, and dodge do very little to help your mage survive. My mage has to run around a lot. Mages are supposed to be able to slow down targets. Ice should slow. It doesn't. Believe me I know, I have high ice spells. Level 60 ice arrow. 20ish Icy breath. (It's veryyyy slow and veryyy ineffective thus far). I am a pure fire/ice mage. I refuse to use death spells, earth spells. I like to specialize. I did add 1 sun spell because the damage is triple my ice and fire arrow damage. I think that is lousy. Why should I be penalized for specializing? Shouldn't my spells be more powerful when I focus on them? Ice Arrow does 10 damage at level 60. Fire arrow does 7 damage at level 55.

You are right, it shouldn't be about all DPS, but that should factor in to survival. The lore of a wizard is power. Spells should be powerful. They should kill creatures quick because they will be killed once that creature starts hitting them.

I worked my polearm up to 98 because it's my only hope for melee contact. It's not the way I want to play a mage. I want my ice arrow to slow down mobs to a point where I can blast them until they die before they reach me. I want my shields to keep me from being damaged until it turns off (7 seconds isn't much to ask)...Why are mages utility ineffective?

**I was going to do a long post about this. I have a huge list of notes with the problems I have with my mage. He is terrible. When I go back to my swordsman who is in full plate with a shield and sword and hasn't hardly practiced, I feel like he is a whole lot more powerful than my mage. That to me is terrible. I am a mage. I want to be powerful! I have worked many many hours on my skills and they are still terrible.

Here are some other notes I was going to post:
-Passive and defensive stance should be castable outside of combat. They take 60 seconds to cool down when you go into combat.
-Speaking of that spells should not start on cooldown when you enter combat. Makes no sense. I didn't use them yet.
-Tumble seems to get you a backstab from creatures. It makes aiming a real pain. It seems ineffective for defense.
-Fire/Ice Arrow should have lowered cast times, higher damage at higher levels. They are not going up in damage from what I can tell.
-Icy Breath effectiveness is too low. It says I get .6% per level but the damage of my ice arrow did not increase. The slow of my enemies doesn't seem to be improving with ice arrow...PLEASE HELP
-Immolation is the best fire spell for groups. I'm not saying it's perfect, but at least it gets everyone and doesn't fizzle.
-Need more combat bars. I use a static bar. I can't have all my spells. I don't like the random system. Sorry.
-Heal has become nearly ineffective. It's my only hope of survival in most battles. Potions take too long to drink and don't heal enough. Hence the need for better shields/defense so I don't need to rely on heal...PLEASE HELP!!!
-Cloth doesn't speed up focus gain. It should. It doesn't protect the mage.
-Cloth doesn't help me fizzle less. It should. It doesn't protect the mage.
-Cloth should increase my spell damage. It should. It doesn't protect my mage.
Perhaps I should just wear plate! But I won't. I'm a wizard.
-Staves should increase spell damage and casting speed for a magic tree. Same with wands. Same with spell books...PLEASE HELP!

That's my rant


Am I doing something wrong?