Should there be more immediate casted spells for a mage?

One of the things I've noticed is that most of the spells require casting time. For a pure mage that is wearing cloth armour, I need to cast and run. When that melee gets on my butt, its hard to spend time casting while running. Anything that takes time to cast is unusable when you're using the best tactic you have, don't get hit. Hopefully there are some more immediate casted spells coming, or some way to speed up the spells that we currently have.

 

Yes for sure! A pure mage is doomed without the ability to do more damage or have a way to get mobs off of them like with a staff or some other option.

 

In a party tho, you'd have some fighter types up front whose job it is to not let them get to you.

What mages really need is a teleport / blink spell to bounce from getting chased and cut down...

 

and if your not in a party?

we still haven't seen any companions or even herd about them and the game is also single player only too

 

Instead of just reduce casting times, I'd do one of the following:
a) (I like this most) Casting time for spells in each school is determined based on how many skill points have you spent on said school. That way a heavily specialized mage would have little casting times for his predilect school while having to spend more time conjuring other kind of spells.
b) (Something more conventional) Have an innate skill, perhaps in the focus tree, that reduces casting time. A typical and simple way of telling apart professional mages from amateur spellcasters
c) Some kind of combination between a & b

That way pure mages could benefit of it (at a cost, but magic is never easy) while casual spellcasters would probably prefer to spend those points somewhere else losing casting performance, not to different as to how a mage with armor risks more fizzle.

 

They just need CCs like fear something that can get some distance in between you and your target if they get close. I don't think the mage should have many instant spells. I think it should be a class that deals massive damage takes time to cast and uses reagents but can be killed easily if not played right to offset the massive offensive powers they have. Also doesn't light armor have skills that make you harder to hit?

 

This is so true. Mages are supposed to be powerful with spells yet squishy against hits. Hence the need to be able to fight from a distance thru the use of spells or mage weapons. Currently, after my first spell is cast, the battle is right on my mage. My mage doesn't use root. Now if there is going to be a way to learn more than 2 or 3 trees of spells without making your spellcasting less powerful, grabbing important spells from every tree may be part of gameplay...But I was under the impression focus on your school of magic would be beneficial.

 

My biggest problem as a mage is at the moment the I'm out of focus after one fight. I use root and range spells and get nearly each mob down.

 

I found a staff and it actually shoots fireballs (hits around 10) as the auto attack so that might solve the problem of no instant range spells.

 

Being able to "craft + enchant" items with innate "skills" would be super keen.

 

We cannot fall into this line of reasoning. This is a single player game as much as it is an mmo. It needs to balance from both perspectives, so mages need a way to fight on their own AND have the right drawbacks for party fighting. It's gonna be tough.

 

strange. I keep reading and hearing from the development team it is NOT an MMO at all., but single player with selective multiplayer.

 

They toss around the term mmo in half the hangouts and deep dives as well as in numerous interviews. It's a recognizable term that I used for the multi-player aspect of the game, because it's easy to type and most people get the meaning. I was not implying that this is a traditional mmo. In fact, I have pointed that out numerous times in numerous threads.

So, when I say "it's a single player game as much as an mmo," it's shorthand for: "This game is a selective-multiplayer game which can be played in numerous modes from single-player to full blown online multi-player mode which is similar to an mmo, but distinct in several ways. Therefore, we must consider the impact of balance on each of the offered modes, rather than looking at it only from the multi-player angle."

I find the first version easier to type and easier to read.