Some Artifacts are way too rare for how build defining they are.

I mean, if you do not want to invest into that playstyle, you don't need to, simply find the style that suits you and if something is not possible with your current setup, find a group that will help you accomplish it. I was simply stating the way that you can afford to do it solo. I have a very weird gaming schedule nowadays, and can't group all that often (more often then not I have to stop what I'm doing to take care of my newborn, which isn't a great experience for the group I'm joining...) so Instead, I'm using the games mechanics to do the very same stuff alone. If Port finally fixes these things to stop us from soloing everything, and makes the best content group content, I won't be mad, I'll adapt, but why would I stop myself from making the most out of what I can? Honestly, it is Port's fault for making these things solo-able as easy as that, They seem to have 0 sense of combat balance for this, as it is either too easy and rewarding, or too hard and far not enough rewarding, to a stupid level, so yeah, blame port, not the players.

 

Given that a major focus of the game design was Single Player Online, it has always seemed to me that being able to solo stuff (eventually) was a part of the whole idea behind this project... and part of what sold me on the game. I've never been interested in forced grouping and it is why I end up quitting most MMOs.

 

I understand this, and I thought that was why SP had companions to aid in doing harder stuff. I never actually tried SP so they are possibly worse than the other guys phoenix, but that was my impression at least.

 

companions is Single Player Offline. I'm talking about Single Player Online

 

Always forget about that one, my mistake, in that case yeah, we should be able to solo everything at some point, and obviously some archetypes are better than others for each step.

 

I think the aoe build is the one for all steps.

 

It actually is not. Many enemies are very resistant to magic, when me and my guild run mysterious swamps undeads, we are actually all physical. Most bosses are easier to kill with bows, and most are almost immune to magic, so the AoE serves no purpose there. Sure it is very strong against waves of enemies, but that's usually where it stops.

 

There is no fight where you don't do more damage when the enemy is standing in some kind of ground effect that just ticks away while you're doing whatever else you want to do.

 

AoEs take time to cast, especially if you're charging them up. That's time that you could be doing significant damage to an enemy. If that enemy is highly resistant to your AoE then it's simply not worth it.

 

Oh please, even if enemies that are that resistant to magic were common enough to make these AoEs not totally dominant, that still wouldn't make the game balanced for people who just want to play as a mage. Being able to slap down 30 seconds of non-stop stacking damage without any further attention required is OP, full stop. Making enemies immune to it is really just an admission that it's broken, not a solution.

I posted a whole topic about that.

 

That kind of paints a picture of just put down a rof and walk away, and that is not the case, you still have to stay alive. Even at my level, if I go to UT and drop my aoes down, I still have to kite to avoid melee damage, keep heals and buffs going, and when I try a hybrid build, just from taking one wand off my magic dps is halfed. For some enemies like lich bosses magic just tickles them. Even saw glepo who playing a fire mage was trying to fight elryn nayer the lich boss at brightbone pass control point, and said after 15 minutes of trying he just could not kill it with his mage build, he had to go home and grab his tridents.

I have also seen people drop a meteor shower on the zombies in tartarus and all you see are 0's.

 

I don't see how it paints that picture. It's simply saying that no matter what you do you do more damage if you do it while the enemy stands in a fire. The only time this doesn't apply is if the enemy is immune, which again, isn't really balance, or if the enemies die so fast that the duration of the spell doesn't pay off.

 

Its very hard