Mage damage comparison

Is this because you use locked skills/spells, or are spells different than physical skills in this respect? (ie, when I'm dealt a glyph, it's immediately available to use)

 

Cloth gives you 0% fizzle, leather and plate does not.
you can make cloth armor with bonuses like 20% spell damage / +2 INT

rest of your post I have to agree with

This is most likely to balance since those of us that use random deck start getting glyphs once we draw weapon.
I do think a 10 second cooldown for all glyphs would be enough when entering combat

 

Here are some of my thoughts on balancing mage out.

Summons - do not drain focus or loose HP but rather reduce your over all focus by half of the spells cost to cast. That way you can still regain focus in combat.
Staves should not drain focus when used, the dmg is not much better then wands anyway. Wands and staves should alter the spells being cast.

Wands - increase accuracy and decrease casting time.
Staves - increase damage and increase casting time.
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Would also be neat if each tree can be used individually and be survivable. like the combat trees.

 

Great feedback @Lord Baldrith.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o8i5v07ta6umzps/searing ray lvl 60.png?dl=0

9-56 (base searing ray damage, no gear, no enlightenment)

10-60 no gear (enlightenment x1 +14 INT)

10-61 (enlightenment x4 +16 INT, cloth chest piece +2 INT)

18 INT = +1 min +5 max

min = .0714 (per 1 INT)

max = .357 (per 1 INT)

The spell icon doesn't show the real time damage range of day and night cycles so you have to make reduced estimations of your damage potential at night. Is it actually possible that searing ray has increased effectiveness if a monster/player is standing in the sun light, opposed to standing in a shadow? That would be awesome.

One reason glyphs might not be refreshed when you go into combat mode is because of the Mind Wipe spell. Perhaps it would make mages too powerful to have a constant cycle of searing rays (or whatever spell) in the end game? Right now my lvl 15 mind wipe has a 36.3 second recast and it's going down .3 sec every level. Not sure if this is consistent through the progression but at lvl 100 your mind wipe would be 10.8 seconds. If you only had mind wipe locked, you'd be able to cast 3 searing rays, then hit mind wipe and probably cast 3 more again, mind wipe 3 searing rays again, etc. Is that too much DPS? Not arguing against having them refresh immediately just trying to figure out the reasoning or perhaps we're just observing incomplete game mechanics.

 

I use a locked deck. I lost interest in random decks a few releases ago. Still don't think they should start with a cool down. That is unnecessary punishment.

 

The 0% fizzle isn't on every spell. It's a small compensation for armor to have lower fizzle rates. With the amount of damage output vs the ability to avoid attacks armor needs to either be more effective in helping with damage output, or defending us against hits. As it stands now plate armor would be worth wearing as the higher fizzle rates don't matter anyway because my polearm does more damage than my spells. That is my big problem with the magic system. My mage is NOT powerful he is a complete WIMP.

My cloth armor is bought from other people's vendors. I haven't had any success in crit during crafting, so I love to shop at capable crafters vendors. That is a very fun part of this game to me...Back to the point, even with the +2 int and the damage reduction bonuses and the spell damage bonuses...my fire arrow does 7 and my ice arrow does 10. So I guess naked my fire arrow would do 6 and my ice arrow would do 9? Haha big help cloth armor

I am just asking for cloth armor to be effective in some ways. Mages are not supposed to be hit. Spells are supposed to stop mages from getting hit. Hence the need for cloth armor to defend the mage either by boosting spell power, focus regen, or avoidance. As it stands now my ice does not slow mobs enough to notice. Fire DOT damage is pretty pathetic. Defensive/Passive stances are not helping me survive.

Creatures come in quantity most of the time. That makes immolation very handy...YET I cannot take hits long enough to thin out the mob...generally die or run or both haha.

 

Well my standard practice with a mage is to prepare for battle. I turn on combat mode and wait for my spells to be ready. I prefer to start with defensive stance and then follow with tumble or ice shield...then go to ice arrow, fire arrow, sun ray, repeat...The hope is that eventually ice arrow will slow a mob enough to where the rotation kills them or nearly kills them.

I do not want to wait 60 seconds to start every battle...that is the cooldown of the stances. Makes no sense to me since I have not yet used any of these spells...Also, the ability to cast them out of combat would help, then I could turn them on before starting combat as well.

 

Agreed. High fizzle is supposed to penalize people with armor. Low fizzle should not be considered a reward for wearing cloth unless the damage output is high enough to justify not wearing armor. And then, fizzle rates would need to be jacked up even higher for armor wearers to dissuade them from casting.

 

See I've never used a locked deck, so I don't know what punishments are suffered by those who rebel against the state. ;-) But maybe the penalty should be lowered, and the random glpyhers such as myself should be rewarded a bit more for our struggle.

 

Will we ever be able to block these spells using other spells? So like fire damage is a great example. I can block some of the DOT effect with water magic, but I can't really block the initial damage. Searing Ray is an even better example. Will there ever be a reflection spell that blocks that instant damage? This is where I feel we're really lacking at the moment. The ability to block and counter pure damage. It's what allows someone 50 levels higher than me to stand around laughing as they spam their highest damage spells knowing that there's nothing I can do to defend myself as I don't have enough hit points to match them.

Imagine every new player having to fight Lord British, that's what pvp is like right now until you get all your skills into the 60's and 70's. Hit points are a big deal, the ability to heal those hit points, and the ability to perform instant damage is a big deal. I'd really like the combat system to focus less on these things, and more on blocking, countering, and setting up smarter more thoughtful attacks to be successful.

Every spell and skill should have a block and a counter, I hope that's our long term goal.

 

Glad to hear about the changes (increased spell damage in general and improved effectiveness of Obsidian Arrow) for R23, Chris That means I will be able to rely more on my magic in R23 instead of relying primarily on my arrows to inflict major damage on my foes

 

So make a spell for each type of damage that absorbs X damage of type Y?
then make it so they is exclusive so only can use one
If wants to make so mages is the ones that is prepared could have so was *4 more absorb if you casted it before combat

Ice and slowing? could have so everything you do during x seconds (including movement) costed double focus (but with a total extra focus cost that depends on your skill)
So when you is slowed your movement costed extra focus and same with your skills until the extra cost passes X focus or Y seconds has passed

 

I like the idea of slowing requiring extra focus. But what's the counter to slowing? How do you block slowing? I feel like we're always playing checkers when we should be playing chess. Everything is one move instead of two or three moves. I cast slowing on you - now you're slowed, the end. Where as it should be, I cast slowing on you, but you already countered it by casting Dash. But now you're going to block future attacks by casting, "Speed Shield - a spell that deflects any attempts to slow you down." However the weakness to this spell is that it drains focus over time. So you might tap yourself out in the middle of the fight if you leave it on too long.

 

I noticed you can only be affected by crowd control effects every 30 seconds...will this always be the case? Haven't tested it but I'm guessing after a 3 second stun you have 27 seconds of not being affected by other crowd control spells? is it different between monsters and players?

So lightning for example might scale from 3.6 sec to 5 seconds.. then a 25 sec delay before you can stun again.

In shadowbane they used a combination of snares, stuns and power blocks. Power blocks were pretty effective but you had to be up close to use them

 

I don't think that's exactly how it works. You get a resistance to stun spells and skills for a period of time, but you're not immune.

 

I think health and focus regen is very high while in combat. I wonder how many players could say they didn't run out if that wasn't the case?

It seems to me that not allowing automatic regen of health and focus during combat (just because you have high innate stats) would be a great way to achieve more effort from players while also giving added incentive to use potions and spells and skills that would assist you. Yes, it would be a major change from where we are now. But I think it would be a good change and also open the door up to more strategic preparation.

 

Cool... I need to get my skills up so I can get a better idea of how the system works.