Mage woes

While leveling has made my mage somewhat heartier, i still find myself losing in a head to head duel against my well armored non mage party members. Stunning spells/root have really become useless. Actually the knockdown from certain melee attacks has a better and longer stun effect. And after unloading whatever spells i could muster before i got bum rushed and started my run away routine, i realized that both my arrows and spells barely scratched my charging chain mailed, hammer wielding foe. A couple of shots from his hammer to my leather/cloth clad character were able to put me out of commission quite easily. I hope there is eventually a noticeable benefit to offset the cost of not using heavy armor and weapons for the sake of casting. these frustrations won't change my playing style as having a world full of heavily armored hybrid PvP optimized characters seems a boring alternative.

 

I am playing mage this release and it is way too hard.

- I keep losing my target when I run jsut a small bit beyond range of my fire spells (with max range).

- I see opponents too far behind me and they still can hit me. Which is annoying, as I cannot use most of my spells when moving, while melees can.

- Range of spells without extended range is way too short, root distance seems smaller than reach of polearms (because of lag issues).

- Summons are useless and more often than not attack me.

- Roots do not stun (and because of lag when I cast them opponent gets to hit me.)

- Lightning does not stun (like it does when performmed by Lich). Knockback and other melee stuns are far superior.

- Gust range is laughable especially with lag and reach of polearm.

- Slowing spells barely slow if they slow at all. Disabling Shot works all the time.

- Stack of 5 Healing Rays can heal 70-90 points if not interrupted. Critical hit does 100+ damage. It is not worth the risk to heal yourself.

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The only viable strategy for mage is to run away It is possible to get away from combat, which is something, but it is hard to be able to survive and deal enough damage to kill your opponent. I must make no mistake, I must take lag into account, I must do way more things that melees to stay competitive and I need to have 10 level or so headstart

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The only advantage of mage is that there are so few of them that most fighters are so used to fighting other melees and hybrids that they do not use fire resistance.

 

Well said and your post reflects my sentiments exactly. You also have to take into account the cost of herbs to "boost" spell performance (ginseng stopped existing in this world?). I have had to do lots of running away, even at level 30, supplement my magery with archery to get more range and damage aside from the limited damage wands and staves provide and unfortunately even without the use of resistances, i still just tickle fighter types.

 

Good points, all.