66 replies to this topic

[Genesis]

Also I'd like to add that overtime damages (burns, posion) goes through the mana shield (ignores the shield, depletes the hp). Working as intended?

Good catch, this has been corrected for next patch.

[Leonis]

Is it only me or everyone thinks the Frost Ring skill is total useless? I don't see a reason for a skill that doesn't do damage and only slows down the m-speed for mobs around me.
Also why did we lose mute skill? And Cold Snap animation is TOO slow (against a Raider he can hit me before the animation is over in a PVP).

Frost Ring is intended to be a utility skill to allow escape from a group or an untargetable opponent. However, the base % reduction has been boosted to something much more notable of an effect.

As for Cold Snap animation, it has been sped up to help with that issue.
 

too many passives, maxing the passives in 1st and 2nd job takes about 100+ skill points (not counting the common skill tree passives) O.o

some skills are also repetitive...

Repetitive, yes, but they stack with one another. Passives are intended to be an investment, so the fact that they take so much SP is intended, because it is not intended that you're able to learn everything.
 

it increases debuffs like burn etc

Actually, it will not affect burn, but it will affect the +bonuses you see from buffs and debuffs.
 

Some notes on the Mage class:

Fierce Cudgeling and Staff Stun originally had a skill power to them (when I first obtained the skill) then I realize somewhere after maxing them and or relogging they both became 0% + 0 skill power.

This was intentionally done. The skill is a utility skill and the fact that the skill power passive was increasing its damage was not intentional, so the damage was removed entirely.
 

As far as Fierce Cudgeling goes, this skill is already controversial as it is on the live server with a 20 second cooldown. Giving it a 2 second cooldown just isn't going to work even if the effect of buffs are weakened. Honestly the cooldown should be left as it is normally (20 seconds).

2 Second cooldown, melee range, just where a Mage shouldn't want to be in any fight as they are squishy, didn't feel that bad to me. But I reserve the intention and will wait to hear the outcome of the skill's use, be it pvp or pvm situations.
 

Thunder Storm is going to be overpowered being it is a ranged aoe 3 second stun with 50% success. Remember the threads about Artisans and Bourgs stunning in Crystal Defenders? Stuns are very strong in pvp especially when they can hit multiple targets at once, likewise 3 seconds is a long time. I want to say reduce it to 1 second. If anything maybe increase the success a little (60%?).

I am very aware that stuns are strong, but this is the time to give feedback over applications. Theoretically discussing possibilities with the number of changes that have been done only goes so far, so please give it a test and see how it feels. There are more factors to consider than the two you listed as a concern. Cooldown, to name one.
 

The burn status on the fire skills is very weak. It would be intuitive to be able to influence the threshold rather than have them deal a small set amount of damage. I heard you (Leonis) wanted to make them influenced by attack power but I feel like attack power is already the main go to stat for damage, and for something indirect like this I think charm would fit better.

Correct, I do recall having a talk with you about this. Unfortunately, the mechanics behind it don't support even the ability to influence the damage by charm. As much as I like the proposal, we're just not able to do it at the moment and it'll have to wait.
 

Also, what happened to the mute status effect?

They were kind of powerful and we'll see if any return to player's use. Until then, they're heavily in the hands of monsters to make use of.

 

Lastly with the removal of reliable skills, and mages lackluster accuracy I feel they should be able to hit a little more often. They might be worthy of a small accuracy passive.

Actually, we're going to be adjusting the accuracy formula, because it's a seen issue across all classes.

 

Mana shield is a godsend and it fits Mages and helps them well. I don't want to jump the gun but I feel this skill might need a longer cooldown. Skill range passives are nice too.

Part of how the mechanic works for the Mana Shield is that it adopts your available mana. It doesn't create a shield based on your MaxMP, so the amount of shielding you get from casting it will reduce the lower your MP gets. I feel this is acceptable enough a penalty for constantly recasting it if you are taking a pounding and trying to survive. Don't you?

[zenheartbeats]

First of all, good job on Pegasus so far. I was hesitant at first, but I managed to playtest both Cleric and Battle Artisan in this latest phase of testing and I absolutely loved the new and intuitive designs for both. However, my experience with the Mage was, to put it nicely, a disappointment.

 

It is of my own personal opinion that although the Mage now deals more damage on the Pegasus server, the class as a whole is even less powerful/less viable of an option than it currently is on the live server.

 

I cannot speak for Draconis, but on Leonis, you can probably count the number of people who choose to play Mage as a main character on one hand. Even less of those handful are anywhere near to being fully PvP geared-- my mage, Dreamborn, happens to be one of them. People do not choose to play Mage on the live server because they have a very limited survivability. A few other Mage-players (Wet, Cornellio, GOing, and Majikah are the only ones I can think of in recent memory; note that some of these players I have listed have already quit playing ROSE) have managed to "bypass" this weakness by forsaking some offensive skills in favor of supportive skills such as heals and purify. As far as I have seen, doing this and being able to manage a high degree of supportive and offensive skill spam is the best way to build a PvP-viable Mage on the live server. This method is undoubtedly more skill-intensive (and arguably provides more room for diverse character-building) than the linear Glass-Cannon vision/direction of the Pegasus mage, who only seeks to deal an enormous amount of damage at the cost of almost all survivability. Mana Shield is NOT ENOUGH, especially in PvP scenarios!

 

You might be thinking, "Mages on Pegasus do have access to heals! Look at the Support tab!" Compared to the current live server common tab and support tab heals that Mages currently have access to, these heals are less than half value in terms of raw HP gain, and even less when you consider increased cooldowns/Global cooldown--

 

I should take this moment to say that Global Cooldown affects NO other class more than the Mage, a skill spammer class. If you are so intent on incorporating this incredibly clunky feature in the game, then at least give Mages a ranged staff melee so that they have something to do inbetween the 2 second pause they have between attacks. I fear that even giving Mages something like a "rooting" or more access to "slow" spells would not alleviate this blatant flaw because by the time you even begin casting another spell, the "stay away from me" status effect has already ended.

 

Having access to better support skills is essential to the survivability of a Mage, who simply has no access to defensive skills besides the MP shield, which isn't even a passive (so you have to continually activate it, giving yourself even more of a cooldown opening where you are doing no DPS, not to mention it takes away and ENORMOUS amount of your most important resource, MP, as a skill spammer. Heals for Mage on the live server as it stands are NOT overpowered! Healing myself with Heal, Restore, and Integrity,  I am only able to tank ONE geared attacker at the cost of pretty much not being able to do anything else except for an occasional skill. I must reiterate that without defensive passives, there is no way for a Mage to even try to keep up with incoming damage from an equally geared character. A simple flurry of Knight melee attacks was able to take out a full, 600 INT-backed (~10k MP), level 5 Mana shield in just about 5-7 hits. In order to put it into perspective, I will just repeat that they were melee attacks, and they were coming from a Knight!

 

Another issue that I have with the Pegasus mage is the decreased access to skills producing status effects (for example, some status down effects and mute have been removed from their skill tree). Don't get me wrong, dealing damage is awesome, but Mages on the live server are already able to do that. One of the things that are unique to Mages (and spellcasters across all MMORPGs that I have played) is that they are the quintessential skill-spammer. Skills provide a great deal of interaction in PvP, and their effects both large and small can dictate the outcome of a battle. As it stands, Mages on the live server have a great variety of accurate, status-inflicting spells. As an opponent becomes afflicted with status condition upon status condition, the Mage gains an increasing incremental advantage until the odds begin to tip into their favor. The way that I like to think about it is that the longer a battle goes with a Mage, the less and less chance you should have of winning. Stuns, mutes, burns, slows, dodge down, accuracy down, debuffs all add up. This provides for a unique PvP progression that stands in contrast to the assassin style hard-and-fast hitting nature of raiders, scouts, and battle artisans, the tank-until-you-die style of champions and knights or the artillery of the bourgeois. The Mage's primary stat is Intelligence, and therefore it makes sense that the Mage has access to more status effect-producing skills than other classes, to use in a manner that will warp and wrack both the opponent's mind and body for the win. What I see is reckless and savage spell slinging that makes you wind up dead more often than not.

 

Pegasus has reduced the Mage to just a flashy, yet "vanilla" (pure damage and nothing else) animation producer with little to no intuitive playstyle, an extremely linear design, topped off with a build meta that is almost completely dependent on one defensive skill, the Mana Shield.

 

That being said, I apologize for being so harsh at points, and I just wanted to emphasize that I really love you guys and this game and say that I only want to see it go in wonderful directions. As always, thank you for your hard work and dedication!

[rodolfocm]

Is it only me or Leonis seems to have a defense for every critic that we make? There are things that many people are pissed of about and the answer is "it was intended for this, sorry we won't change". I feel like more a beta tester trying to find bugs than someone that is helping build a better system with sugestions.

[zenheartbeats]

Is it only me or Leonis seems to have a defense for every critic that we make? There are things that many people are pissed of about and the answer is "it was intended for this, sorry we won't change". I feel like more a beta tester trying to find bugs than someone that is helping build a better system with sugestions.

 

I disagree with this assessment. From what I have read so far there have been many changes already made based on player feedback. I can understand how his systematic responses can seem defensive, but I believe he is just trying to hit all of the key points that people are bringing up.

[Leonis]

I apologize if any of my responses seem defensive, but as zenheartbeats noticed, I am just trying to help open some awareness to some aspects that are not being mentioned and may be getting overlooked. While there are some definite changes that are intended, it is not impossible to change, however just saying you don't like it, doesn't tell me why aside from the most common reason I face with the community, which is the dislike of change of any kind at all.

So far, it has been my experience that a larger majority of those who previously were very much against the idea of this update, have since played, tested, given feedback and helped shape it for the better and now they are along side with the update.

Take zenheartbeats' recent post, I'm still reading through. xD

There are a number of points he's making that I look at and in my mind, am thinking "yes, that's correct and intended" though it is being argued that it is not fun, the next step for me is to see if there's a means of helping to facilitate something against this unpleasant experience or if it is merely a design intention that will remain by design.

The points that Mages do more damage, is certainly something that was a large focus on for Pegasus because Mages were in low regard for their offensive power. Which is what they are supposed to be, glass cannons. Powerful, but fragile. Even so, this is magic we're dealing with, so why shouldn't there be a way for them to figure out how to defend themselves?

Well, considering that, mechanics developed specifically for this was the Mana Shield. It offers a means to pseudo-boost their HP by creating a shield of defense or HP buffer. Now, this new mechanic was in no way intended to be a means for the Muse as a class to be able to now compete with soldiers and the idea of tanking. Muses are still low defense and very squishy.

Now, the idea that they sacrifice all survivability isn't quite true, because they have a low survivability to begin with and as much as you may want to try to cover for this weakness, by design you just aren't going to be a tank. You certainly can deflect issues of being overwhelmed, by boosting defenses for those times you take hits. However, those aren't the true advantages of an offensive caster class. Your benefits are your range and fact that you can hit so hard. There are several skills that provide utility use in slowing a target (Cold bolt), or dealing additional damage over time while it approaches you (burns). You can even enhance your ability to deal additional damage by weakening their defense (Mana Bolt) or take your chances on stopping the target in its tracks with Voltage Jolt.
These are all 1 on 1 kind of situations though, so what about the group combat? Well... again, the muse isn't intended to tank. Those AoE skills are intended for the situation where they can be applied with relative safety to the caster. If you have a party, that's where you'll shine and you shouldn't be in the range of most monsters while you cast. Unless you've gone with the wind tree, in which case, you will be in the midst of it, but your also be able to cast those AoEs with less wait because of that 'sacrifice.'

And yes, you're right, I will say that they have access to heals. No they're not as powerful as what you see on the live server now, but are they skills as powerful as what's on the live server by comparison to begin with?
The healing skills are supportive, to help with either downtime or mid-combat, you take your choice when you want to use it.
However, what all of this still doesn't amount up to is that the offensive casting muse/Mage is still not a class intended to stand up to high amounts of damage, but dish it.

Having access to better support skills is essential to the survivability of a Mage

which would put them in to the support category, if you truly wished to take those skills up. You are more than welcome to dip in to them, there nothing stopping you from being able to choose those basic supportive skills to enhance attack power, accuracy, defense, magic defense, MaxHP or MaxMP. But you will miss out on the more advanced skills that may make more of a difference in the end, which remain in the Cleric's tree.

Mute has been removed from nearly every class, except the Cleric which was placed as an intention of providing offensive support.

Now, you noted that you can get about 10k MP with 600 INT and you shield about 5 to 7 hits. Well, hits from what? 10k MP, mana shield is at best going to shield you 5k of damage before it reaches your HP bar. Not only that, but if your regeneration is high enough, you could recast and have probably just as strong of a shield to buffer again. If you have the MP Consumption passives and a few items to support it, you could get the cast down pretty low, so let's put this a bit in to perspective.

I have no other stats put in aside from 400 INT, at level 200, Mage.
This gives me 8269 HP with no gear on.
I have 10,200 MP
With just a staff (10% MP Consumption)
All Class Passives that give MP Consumption for Mages (35%)
I have a total of 45% MP consumption, making it take 27.5% of my available MP, and creating a shield that's 50% of my MP (5100 Mana Shield)
Check my math, but I just increased my HP by a little over 61%. But here's the best part, I regenerate 47MP/sec and it only costs me 2805 MP if I was at full.
Just shy of 1 minute to regenerate that, sounds long, but let's just say, I recast that every 5 seconds, because my shield keeps getting destroyed from all the damage I'm taking.
Starting Shield: 5100HP Shield
10,200MP - 2,805MP
5 seconds + 285MP = 7,680MP (creates a shield of 3,840HP)
7,680MP - 2,112MP
5 seconds + 285MP = 5,853MP (creates a shield of 2,927HP)
5,853MP - 1,610MP
5 seconds + 285MP = 4,528MP (creates a shield of 2,264HP)

I could go on, but you should be able to see by now that IF you were solely just casting for the sake of tanking, you're now able to tank for a duration, if you could keep your MP up. Now drop in the use of MP Foods and Potions and how long do you think you could keep that up for now?
I think Mana Shield is an entirely powerful mechanic at the Mages disposal and perhaps a bit more than you might give it credit for. It shields quite a bit of damage from the caster, depending on how you build as well. However, remember it does not mean you reduce damage, you just sponge more of it. You are still squishy.

Now, again, just some food for thought, that's with just some skills, stats, no gear at level 200 produced. Let's imagine you put on gear, boosting INT, MaxMP, MP Recovery, MP Consumption, any of those stats that would contribute to the efficiency of this one skill's ability to increase your ability to take damage.
Now, just to put this a bit in perspective, a Knight, 400 STR, level 200, adding the two HP passives they get, 18,503HP. You could comparatively compete with the amount of HP they get to sponge, however they will outlast you because their armor and other passives are much higher in their defense and ability to resist physical damage.
If we put this to a magic tanking competition, Clerics and Mages should do better than Knights now, with the Mana Shield Mechanic and passives they have at their disposal.

In time I hope to see more monsters that utilize magic in their attacks to help offset this risk.

At any rate, the increased range of spells, damage to spells, passives that can be used to combine and build off one another, could create potent outcomes. Vanilla? Possibly, but from where I sit, they have some finer points to them that just aren't obvious and I kind of designed it that way. Be straight forward but offer subtle avenues of awesome if you take that path.

zenheartbeats, I have no hate for you in any way, you have some great points and ideas and as you mentioned, I'm just trying to help show something that might not have been thought of. It is true that there are some lacking status effects in the grand scheme of things across all the skills, but I think where there are skill effects strategically placed, it works and matches up to other classes if not, I think they might even actually have more at their disposal than most. Remember, most classes have to choose between two trees of weapons within their class, while the Mage have choices of elements, but could take them all depending on the skills chosen, build they take and game play path they choose to follow.

I've put in some mechanics that should help Mages with avoiding elongated close counters with melee fighters. Give a glance over the skill tree and see if you can spot them. I was hoping to make the Mage a bit more on the tricky side than current and not just the glass blast cannon you tend to expect. If you want any help in what was designed for them, please ask and I would be extremely happy to share some of the possibilities that were invented.

[Bendersmom]

I have not tested mage but I think Leo is right in that I have found that you actually have to try out some of the skills and not just think they are like the ones on the live server.  Some have the same names but do different things and some are not really described well and until you try them you don't really understand what they do.  At least that is me.  I think we will all have to "practice" playing some with our new skills to see which you would cast first against different classes or mobs, which will need to be saved for really bad situations, etc.  And with the Global Cooldown that will really be the trick.  We can't just think OMG 3 people are attacking me, quick spin, spin again, another aoe, spin. It will take some work to be good I think.

 

And Dreamborn and Preshanti are both extremely good mages (not to take away from any other ones), so I am happy to see that you guys are testing.  I trust your assessments a lot.  

[rodolfocm]

 

I apologize if any of my responses seem defensive, but as zenheartbeats noticed, I am just trying to help open some awareness to some aspects that are not being mentioned and may be getting overlooked. While there are some definite changes that are intended, it is not impossible to change, however just saying you don't like it, doesn't tell me why aside from the most common reason I face with the community, which is the dislike of change of any kind at all.

So far, it has been my experience that a larger majority of those who previously were very much against the idea of this update, have since played, tested, given feedback and helped shape it for the better and now they are along side with the update.

Take zenheartbeats' recent post, I'm still reading through. xD

There are a number of points he's making that I look at and in my mind, am thinking "yes, that's correct and intended" though it is being argued that it is not fun, the next step for me is to see if there's a means of helping to facilitate something against this unpleasant experience or if it is merely a design intention that will remain by design.

The points that Mages do more damage, is certainly something that was a large focus on for Pegasus because Mages were in low regard for their offensive power. Which is what they are supposed to be, glass cannons. Powerful, but fragile. Even so, this is magic we're dealing with, so why shouldn't there be a way for them to figure out how to defend themselves?

Well, considering that, mechanics developed specifically for this was the Mana Shield. It offers a means to pseudo-boost their HP by creating a shield of defense or HP buffer. Now, this new mechanic was in no way intended to be a means for the Muse as a class to be able to now compete with soldiers and the idea of tanking. Muses are still low defense and very squishy.

Now, the idea that they sacrifice all survivability isn't quite true, because they have a low survivability to begin with and as much as you may want to try to cover for this weakness, by design you just aren't going to be a tank. You certainly can deflect issues of being overwhelmed, by boosting defenses for those times you take hits. However, those aren't the true advantages of an offensive caster class. Your benefits are your range and fact that you can hit so hard. There are several skills that provide utility use in slowing a target (Cold bolt), or dealing additional damage over time while it approaches you (burns). You can even enhance your ability to deal additional damage by weakening their defense (Mana Bolt) or take your chances on stopping the target in its tracks with Voltage Jolt.
These are all 1 on 1 kind of situations though, so what about the group combat? Well... again, the muse isn't intended to tank. Those AoE skills are intended for the situation where they can be applied with relative safety to the caster. If you have a party, that's where you'll shine and you shouldn't be in the range of most monsters while you cast. Unless you've gone with the wind tree, in which case, you will be in the midst of it, but your also be able to cast those AoEs with less wait because of that 'sacrifice.'

And yes, you're right, I will say that they have access to heals. No they're not as powerful as what you see on the live server now, but are they skills as powerful as what's on the live server by comparison to begin with?
The healing skills are supportive, to help with either downtime or mid-combat, you take your choice when you want to use it.
However, what all of this still doesn't amount up to is that the offensive casting muse/Mage is still not a class intended to stand up to high amounts of damage, but dish it.
 

 

which would put them in to the support category, if you truly wished to take those skills up. You are more than welcome to dip in to them, there nothing stopping you from being able to choose those basic supportive skills to enhance attack power, accuracy, defense, magic defense, MaxHP or MaxMP. But you will miss out on the more advanced skills that may make more of a difference in the end, which remain in the Cleric's tree.

Mute has been removed from nearly every class, except the Cleric which was placed as an intention of providing offensive support.

Now, you noted that you can get about 10k MP with 600 INT and you shield about 5 to 7 hits. Well, hits from what? 10k MP, mana shield is at best going to shield you 5k of damage before it reaches your HP bar. Not only that, but if your regeneration is high enough, you could recast and have probably just as strong of a shield to buffer again. If you have the MP Consumption passives and a few items to support it, you could get the cast down pretty low, so let's put this a bit in to perspective.

I have no other stats put in aside from 400 INT, at level 200, Mage.
This gives me 8269 HP with no gear on.
I have 10,200 MP
With just a staff (10% MP Consumption)
All Class Passives that give MP Consumption for Mages (35%)
I have a total of 45% MP consumption, making it take 27.5% of my available MP, and creating a shield that's 50% of my MP (5100 Mana Shield)
Check my math, but I just increased my HP by a little over 61%. But here's the best part, I regenerate 47MP/sec and it only costs me 2805 MP if I was at full.
Just shy of 1 minute to regenerate that, sounds long, but let's just say, I recast that every 5 seconds, because my shield keeps getting destroyed from all the damage I'm taking.
Starting Shield: 5100HP Shield
10,200MP - 2,805MP
5 seconds + 285MP = 7,680MP (creates a shield of 3,840HP)
7,680MP - 2,112MP
5 seconds + 285MP = 5,853MP (creates a shield of 2,927HP)
5,853MP - 1,610MP
5 seconds + 285MP = 4,528MP (creates a shield of 2,264HP)

I could go on, but you should be able to see by now that IF you were solely just casting for the sake of tanking, you're now able to tank for a duration, if you could keep your MP up. Now drop in the use of MP Foods and Potions and how long do you think you could keep that up for now?
I think Mana Shield is an entirely powerful mechanic at the Mages disposal and perhaps a bit more than you might give it credit for. It shields quite a bit of damage from the caster, depending on how you build as well. However, remember it does not mean you reduce damage, you just sponge more of it. You are still squishy.

Now, again, just some food for thought, that's with just some skills, stats, no gear at level 200 produced. Let's imagine you put on gear, boosting INT, MaxMP, MP Recovery, MP Consumption, any of those stats that would contribute to the efficiency of this one skill's ability to increase your ability to take damage.
Now, just to put this a bit in perspective, a Knight, 400 STR, level 200, adding the two HP passives they get, 18,503HP. You could comparatively compete with the amount of HP they get to sponge, however they will outlast you because their armor and other passives are much higher in their defense and ability to resist physical damage.
If we put this to a magic tanking competition, Clerics and Mages should do better than Knights now, with the Mana Shield Mechanic and passives they have at their disposal.

In time I hope to see more monsters that utilize magic in their attacks to help offset this risk.

At any rate, the increased range of spells, damage to spells, passives that can be used to combine and build off one another, could create potent outcomes. Vanilla? Possibly, but from where I sit, they have some finer points to them that just aren't obvious and I kind of designed it that way. Be straight forward but offer subtle avenues of awesome if you take that path.

zenheartbeats, I have no hate for you in any way, you have some great points and ideas and as you mentioned, I'm just trying to help show something that might not have been thought of. It is true that there are some lacking status effects in the grand scheme of things across all the skills, but I think where there are skill effects strategically placed, it works and matches up to other classes if not, I think they might even actually have more at their disposal than most. Remember, most classes have to choose between two trees of weapons within their class, while the Mage have choices of elements, but could take them all depending on the skills chosen, build they take and game play path they choose to follow.

I've put in some mechanics that should help Mages with avoiding elongated close counters with melee fighters. Give a glance over the skill tree and see if you can spot them. I was hoping to make the Mage a bit more on the tricky side than current and not just the glass blast cannon you tend to expect. If you want any help in what was designed for them, please ask and I would be extremely happy to share some of the possibilities that were invented.

 

 

1 - With global cooldown, mages are most likely to be "glass slingshots" than cannons. It also make the skillbar usage very confusing: it's hard to know which skill is in the normal cooldown and which one is in the global cooldown. 

2 - Frost Ring still look useless. If mages are fragile, why would they be close to a large quantity of monsters and want to reduce their speed? Mages can't tank, so they shouldn't be close to so many monsters. The skill still looks totally unecessary and its animation is awful.

3 - In my experience in PVP, Mana Shield doesn't save much. It is gone in 1 or 2 skill hit and that doesn't give mages space to counter-attack.

4 - even with heals, mage can't do much. You can't stun for a decent amount of time with a reliable chance of actually stunning and you don't have mute. So you just don't get the chance to heal: your enemie will be hitting you hard and non-stop. In my PVPs, I could only beat a really slow 2-hand swords champ. Raiders, scouts, artisans, bourgs and knights would kick my ass easily. Knights don't even lose HP: they hit hard and their HP recovery rate is so high that when I hit, 3 seconds later they are full HP again.

5 - In my opinion, there are too many skills to learn. With the new element system, you can end up being able to fight only certain types of monsters, because you can end up having only skills that are weak against other types. 

6 - What does the % on skills attack power means? It's % over the character attack power? Like if I mage has 1k attack power, a skill with 200%+100 would do a damage equal to 2100AP?

7 - The accuracy still looks horrible. I got a Shattered Hope (15) with a Moonstone (7) and 180CON at lv200 and I miss 95% of the time against raiders. Is that intended?

Edited by rodolfocm, 10 July 2013 - 05:43 AM.

[zenheartbeats]

After playtesting the accuracy changes and trying several builds with my Pegasus Mage, I am still of the opinion that Mages continue to not be a viable PvP option.

 

Accuracy is still unacceptable versus nearly all classes. I tried several CON values between 150 and 200 and still had a tremendously difficult time even hitting 75% of my spells versus low DEX classes (Knight, Champion, Artisan), and not even 20% against high DEX classes (Raider, Scout). This is all while wearing a full Glorious Set to further enhance accuracy. What exactly was the logic behind removing reliable skills?

 

I still insist that the general lack of status effects and their low % of success when present are a huge problem. By far, the Ice Branch of spells is the most "powerful," when combined with increased skill range passives; decreasing your opponent's movement speed makes it very easy to kite them. In this instance, I use "powerful" lightly because even though the opponent can barely get to you if they are a melee class, the accuracy continues to be so poor and the raw damage is so low when your skills actually do hit that it just becomes pointless kiting. Keeping in mind that being kited is not exactly the most fun experience for an opponent, everybody loses. Furthermore, as the absolute slowest class in terms of movement speed, Mages have a difficult time making use of the increased skill range. Perhaps something to think about implementing is a short distance teleport spell, which might reset targeting, for example.

 

One thing I did notice was that Frost Ring's status effect is extremely out of place. It is a self-targeted AOE and for some reason reduces enemy movement speed. I was thinking that the intent might be to use it as a means of escape, but the animation is so long that your opponent can get many hits in edgewise before you are able to escape to a safe distance. Along a similar vein, mages just don't have a reliable ranged stun (if I remember correctly there are three stuns total, one of which is a spin AOE), the best being the "AOE" Thunderstorm, which doesn't even do damage (although it does stun) to the characters within the AOE range (it does do damage to the target). In addition to these problems, the Fire branch is also incredibly weak-- the burn effect produced by many of the spells was negligible in all cases where I used it against an opponent. I am most perplexed by the lack of any status effects at all in the Sorcery branch, bar the first skill on the Muse tab. The skill damage % is also low here, which is concerning, as it would be logical for a skill that doesn't produce a status effect to actually deal more damage...

 

So I was thinking to myself, O.K., so accuracy and status procs are terrible-- let's try and beat out my opponent with damage! I exchanged Glorious for Luminous, used Aries Stones across the board, +15'd everything, restatted to a INT/STR centric build to maximize AP, and maxed every single attack power and skill power passive there was-- if I'm doing my math correctly, this adds up to 85% skill power and 50% attack power with some leftovers. The result was STILL pitiful! FULLY BUFFED, I was doing 1.5k-2k MAXIMUM on other players, and these were criticals! On opponents that were properly geared, I dealt even less, usually in the 800-1k range, once again for criticals! To top it all off, focusing on attack power made my accuracy even worse, not even hitting 60% of my spells on low-DEX classes, and barely any at all on high-DEX classes.

 

My point is that you claim that the Mage is designed to be a damage dealing class with little to no tanking ability, yet many of the mechanics that you have implemented conflict with each other in such a way that makes the class simply inferior to every other class bar the Cleric in terms of raw DPS. Your skills never hit them, and when they do, they deal an amount of damage is is easily offset by increased HP regeneration or defensive passives. Meanwhile, as a mage, you always start off with 15 less Skill Points than every other class because a level 5 Mana Shield is essential for survival. Furthermore, if you intend on keeping your only defense up for longer than several seconds before your opponent hits rapid 1k's on you (which has been exacerbated by the accuracy change; dodge is no longer a viable option for mages because they cannot reach levels that are outside of most other classes' accuracy... in many ways, I believe the accuracy change has more so negatively impacted Mages because now they have even LESS survivability), you have to expend a further 10-100+ Skill Points into MP consumption passives (the range is so high because you MUST get other passive skills maxed in order to even reach them). I have a feeling that you are forcing the fundamental Mage build-- although you have freedom to choose in your offensive style (wind, water, fire, sorcery), every Mage is locked into the same 100+ skill point hungry passives if they have any hope of surviving a combat encounter.

 

I will repeat what I said before, that as far as I can see, even after testing several skill, stat, and gear builds, that the Mage has an extremely linear and arguably vanilla class design. I believe that there are many, many changes that need to be made before I can say otherwise!

 

As always, thanks for listening!

Edited by zenheartbeats, 10 July 2013 - 07:42 AM.

[rodolfocm]

After playtesting the accuracy changes and trying several builds with my Pegasus Mage, I am still of the opinion that Mages continue to not be a viable PvP option.

 

Accuracy is still unacceptable versus nearly all classes. I tried several CON values between 150 and 200 and still had a tremendously difficult time even hitting 75% of my spells versus low DEX classes (Knight, Champion, Artisan), and not even 20% against high DEX classes (Raider, Scout). This is all while wearing a full Glorious Set to further enhance accuracy. What exactly was the logic behind removing reliable skills?

 

I still insist that the general lack of status effects and their low % of success when present are a huge problem. By far, the Ice Branch of spells is the most "powerful," when combined with increased skill range passives; decreasing your opponent's movement speed makes it very easy to kite them. In this instance, I use "powerful" lightly because even though the opponent can barely get to you if they are a melee class, the accuracy continues to be so poor and the raw damage is so low when your skills actually do hit that it just becomes pointless kiting. Keeping in mind that being kited is not exactly the most fun experience for an opponent, everybody loses. Furthermore, as the absolute slowest class in terms of movement speed, Mages have a difficult time making use of the increased skill range. Perhaps something to think about implementing is a short distance teleport spell, which might reset targeting, for example.

 

One thing I did notice was that Frost Ring's status effect is extremely out of place. It is a self-targeted AOE and for some reason reduces enemy movement speed. I was thinking that the intent might be to use it as a means of escape, but the animation is so long that your opponent can get many hits in edgewise before you are able to escape to a safe distance. Along a similar vein, mages just don't have a reliable ranged stun (if I remember correctly there are three stuns total, one of which is a spin AOE), the best being the "AOE" Thunderstorm, which doesn't even do damage (although it does stun) to the characters within the AOE range (it does do damage to the target). In addition to these problems, the Fire branch is also incredibly weak-- the burn effect produced by many of the spells was negligible in all cases where I used it against an opponent. I am most perplexed by the lack of any status effects at all in the Sorcery branch, bar the first skill on the Muse tab. The skill damage % is also low here, which is concerning, as it would be logical for a skill that doesn't produce a status effect to actually deal more damage...

 

So I was thinking to myself, O.K., so accuracy and status procs are terrible-- let's try and beat out my opponent with damage! I exchanged Glorious for Luminous, used Aries Stones across the board, +15'd everything, restatted to a INT/STR centric build to maximize AP, and maxed every single attack power and skill power passive there was-- if I'm doing my math correctly, this adds up to 85% skill power and 50% attack power with some leftovers. The result was STILL pitiful! FULLY BUFFED, I was doing 1.5k-2k MAXIMUM on other players, and these were criticals! On opponents that were properly geared, I dealt even less, usually in the 800-1k range, once again for criticals! To top it all off, focusing on attack power made my accuracy even worse, not even hitting 60% of my spells on low-DEX classes, and barely any at all on high-DEX classes.

 

My point is that you claim that the Mage is designed to be a damage dealing class with little to no tanking ability, yet many of the mechanics that you have implemented conflict with each other in such a way that makes the class simply inferior to every other class bar the Cleric in terms of raw DPS. Your skills never hit them, and when they do, they deal an amount of damage is is easily offset by increased HP regeneration or defensive passives. Meanwhile, as a mage, you always start off with 15 less Skill Points than every other class because a level 5 Mana Shield is essential for survival. Furthermore, if you intend on keeping your only defense up for longer than several seconds before your opponent hits rapid 1k's on you (which has been exacerbated by the accuracy change; dodge is no longer a viable option for mages because they cannot reach levels that are outside of most other classes' accuracy... in many ways, I believe the accuracy change has more so negatively impacted Mages because now they have even LESS survivability), you have to expend a further 10-100+ Skill Points into MP consumption passives (the range is so high because you MUST get other passive skills maxed in order to even reach them). I have a feeling that you are forcing the fundamental Mage build-- although you have freedom to choose in your offensive style (wind, water, fire, sorcery), every Mage is locked into the same 100+ skill point hungry passives if they have any hope of surviving a combat encounter.

 

I will repeat what I said before, that as far as I can see, even after testing several skill, stat, and gear builds, that the Mage has an extremely linear and arguably vanilla class design. I believe that there are many, many changes that need to be made before I can say otherwise!

 

As always, thanks for listening!

You, sir, have my respect. Great commentaries. I agree with everything you said. While all the other classes lost thing but also gained some, mages only lost (and a lot).

I wish I was a native english speaker so I could make my point clearer, like you did.

[Leonis]

 

1 - With global cooldown, mages are most likely to be "glass slingshots" than cannons. It also make the skillbar usage very confusing: it's hard to know which skill is in the normal cooldown and which one is in the global cooldown. 

2 - Frost Ring still look useless. If mages are fragile, why would they be close to a large quantity of monsters and want to reduce their speed? Mages can't tank, so they shouldn't be close to so many monsters. The skill still looks totally unecessary and its animation is awful.

3 - In my experience in PVP, Mana Shield doesn't save much. It is gone in 1 or 2 skill hit and that doesn't give mages space to counter-attack.

4 - even with heals, mage can't do much. You can't stun for a decent amount of time with a reliable chance of actually stunning and you don't have mute. So you just don't get the chance to heal: your enemie will be hitting you hard and non-stop. In my PVPs, I could only beat a really slow 2-hand swords champ. Raiders, scouts, artisans, bourgs and knights would kick my ass easily. Knights don't even lose HP: they hit hard and their HP recovery rate is so high that when I hit, 3 seconds later they are full HP again.

5 - In my opinion, there are too many skills to learn. With the new element system, you can end up being able to fight only certain types of monsters, because you can end up having only skills that are weak against other types. 

6 - What does the % on skills attack power means? It's % over the character attack power? Like if I mage has 1k attack power, a skill with 200%+100 would do a damage equal to 2100AP?

7 - The accuracy still looks horrible. I got a Shattered Hope (15) with a Moonstone (7) and 180CON at lv200 and I miss 95% of the time against raiders. Is that intended?

 

 

1. Cannons need to reload.
2. Consider it for using when you have things near by you, you want to escape. Not everything is for blasting something's face off.
3. Mana Shield is a buffer, not a means to survive everything.
4. Mages aren't support, why you would be healing yourself mid combat is a risk you take to a class that's not intended to be for support.
   • Fighting a Knight is not meant to be easy. Their entire design is to be a tough target to bring down, even if they have weaker magic defenses than most, they still have a large pool of hit points to eat through as well as their ability to regenerate.
   • When fighting a knight, exploit their weaknesses: keep them slowed so they cannot get close to you, burning to negate their regeneration and reducing their magic defenses so your skills do more damage when cast.
5. "Too many skills to learn" is if you are trying to learn them all. Pick a path, make a build, it is intentional that you have to do this now so even within most classes, there are different 'types' and available styles of play.
6. The % of a skill is how much attack power you're going to get out of it. So, 200% is 200% of what your attack power is.
7. Raiders are dodge based and you didn't say how much accuracy you had in the end or how much dodge the raider(s) had. Knowing just the stats you put in and some gear, doesn't help me recreate any situation to test if it should be that way or not. Also, was this before or after the update last night that changed the accuracy weight? A lot of players said it felt a lot better. But I know that doesn't mean it's done yet either. There's still room to make further adjustments.

Thanks for the feedback though.

 

 

----

 

 

 

zenheartbeats

Okay, so accuracy is still an issue with Mages. Very much noted!

Setting all the skills to 'hit or miss' was a test to see if it was a needed mechanic or not anymore. Don't worry, it still exists, I was just seeing how it worked out otherwise and if it was needed or not. I'm not really in total favor of being able to hit regardless and half damage can still be pretty painful on a 'miss' when you're a very hard hitting spell caster.
The reliable skills would do half damage on a 'miss' attack. Can you think of another means to help this caster class out without making it about their accuracy but still include accuracy as a means to do 'full damage' when a spell lands successfully in full force?

Frost Ring's animation is still too long? I can push it up to be faster and see if that helps, but yet it is an escape design skill.

Thunderstorm does do damage, but any hits from the AoE weren't showing up because of a bit of a bug in how the skill effect lands a 'hit'. I'm working on that one now.

But all that aside, you bring up many good points and you are right, the Mage is underdeveloped and I'll tell you why, not that I'm using it as an excuse, but because I had a greater vision for them that wasn't able to be seen because the mechanics were overly complex and unable to be added to the skill update in time. Even now, adding them would take an additional month's time.
1. Skill Specific passives - I originally wanted each tree to have a couple passives unique to their element.
* Ice was intended to have passives to: magic defense pierce, critical damage increase, and finally a bonus to slow effects for all ice type skills only.
* Wind was intended to have passives to: add an additional stun chance(if it had stun, increase the % chance), increase effect durations, and reduce cooldowns for wind skills only.
* Fire was intended to have passives to: add burn (if it had a burn, make the burn more powerful), increase burn durations, increase burn strength (further), to fire spells only.
* Sorcery was intended to have passives to: reduce cooldown, reduce mana cost further, increase spell power, to Sorcery spells only.

But as I said, the mechanics to restrict effects to one tree of skills wasn't possible in the time table we had. I would still very much like to provide them, but for now, I do understand your point in what makes Mages feel vanilla.
So, let's brain storm a little and see if we can improve upon them a bit, keeping what I just mentioned in mind, because I still want to add that in one day.

Brainstorm:
Add Staff Accuracy Passive.
Increase Accuracy for Staff Weapons.
Reinstate 'reliable' spells, however I think 50% is too high amount of damage for a 'miss'
OR
Develop a new method of how magic spells are applied to a target when it comes to damage that may not rely on accuracy, but accuracy could perhaps act as a means of penetrating magic defenses?

Let's see where this goes.

[DestinyDeoxys]

Okay, so accuracy is still an issue with Mages. Very much noted!


Brainstorm:
Add Staff Accuracy Passive. Yes, I think mage need staff accuracy passive.
Increase Accuracy for Staff Weapons. Either this or the above.
Reinstate 'reliable' spells, however I think 50% is too high amount of damage for a 'miss' Just do the above instead of making the PvP mechanics so complicated, people will be confused.
OR
Develop a new method of how magic spells are applied to a target when it comes to damage that may not rely on accuracy, but accuracy could perhaps act as a means of penetrating magic defenses?

Let's see where this goes.

 

 

Also, is there any chance the skill "Glaciating chill" have a 10% dodge down + number effect with it? The whole mage skill tree does not have any skill that has dodge down effect.
 

[Leonis]

Accuracy Passive will be added.

 

Quite right, but I'm not sure about the cold, because it has a lot of slow effects already.

 

What about if I did it to the wind tree, in essence blinding you from seeing oncoming attacks, would that work?

 

And I could change the wind AoE skills to be targeted, so you don't have to stand close range for the skills.

[DestinyDeoxys]

Accuracy Passive will be added.

 

Quite right, but I'm not sure about the cold, because it has a lot of slow effects already.

 

What about if I did it to the wind tree, in essence blinding you from seeing oncoming attacks, would that work?

 

And I could change the wind AoE skills to be targeted, so you don't have to stand close range for the skills.

 

If you want do it onto the wind tree, then may be you should replace the accuracy down 5% +235 with dodge down 10% + number for "Soul electric" because accuracy down is really not appropriate for mage, since mage basically can't dodge.

I'm not sure if the wind AOE should be self aimed or targeted AOE. For now I'm guessing the Ice skill tree is for PvP, the Fire skill tree is for PvM, but what is Wind tree for?

But remember the more self AOE you put in the skill tree, the more skill people can put in their bot for leveling.

[zenheartbeats]

After testing with the new accuracy passives, I am actually very content with where the Pegasus Mage is currently at. The overall damage output now appears to balance out the lack of defensive capabilities (I use balance in every sense of the word; the Mage feels neither too weak nor too strong, with clear strengths and weaknesses)! I am also glad that skill requirements for many of the passives and offensive spells have been reorganized, allowing for better diversity of Skill Point allocation. Most of all, the passive that grants 3 accuracy per 1 INT is a GODSEND (i cannot stress this enough) to the class, allowing for the Mage to forsake the narrow stat CON (which I have always thought was a huge waste of skill points) in exchange for more INT, STR, DEX, or CHA. Making the accuracy dependent on passives is also balancing because it essentially locks you into one branch/a branch and a half unless you want to lose out on your attack power/skill power passives!

 

Before I get into the next part, let me just give a small disclaimer: addition of DODGE DOWN effects to the Wind branch AOEs are great!

 

I am still concerned about the efficacy of the non-Ice branches, however. The lightning half of the wind branch does seem a little bit underpowered (I can really only see myself getting those skills for the 50% stun proc on Thunderstorm)-- 20% stun proc on even a 3.5 second cooldown single target spell feels weak (even Tempest has the same 20% and Thunderstorm has 50% as AOEs perhaps it can at the very least be raised to 30% (1/3 chance to stun sounds fair to me!), and if that still makes you feel weird, the stun proc could be put on soul shock with the 6.0 second cooldown instead (or both! ha ha ha, wishful thinking....). I say this because the opportunity cost of using a wind spell to ward off attackers is much less appealing than with an ice spell-- when you use a MSPD down ice spell, you know you're going to be getting away from your attacker, but it feels kind of embarassing when your stun misses and your opponent's axe literally (since you are a Mage and don't really like getting hit with axes) rips your face off. This is made worse when you consider that half of the wind branch is devoted to close-ish AOE combat.

 

Additionally, Fire and Sorcery Mages have it kind of bad. Burn definitely needs some love in the form of stat down or higher burn damage. You said that mute might be considered overpowered-- what if SOME burn spells depleted a target's MP over time (Mana Burn is quite weak, and is not over time)? This would have a similar, yet more mellow effect to muting an opponent-- it would limit the number of opponent skills while at the same time it can be counteracted by builds with high MP regeneration. The sorcery branch is still probably the weakest of the four in all regards, in terms of damage output and status effect-wise-- they're just not there.

 

Finally, I was just told ingame that PvP damage/buff effects are currently bugged, and I will withhold further statements until this has been patched or verified misinformation. I seem to be extremely high amounts of damage using only self buffs; however I am not sure because I dumped all of my SP into Ice Branch, Attack Power & Skill Power passives, add damage selfbuff, and Accuracy passives.... Only on players wearing poor gear, Champs in particular... which makes sense.

 

Also the problem with Frost Ring is that after jumping into the air, your character stays up there for about a second before the skill finally activates, even longer before you are able to move away from your position.

 

Again, great job and I am happy to see that you are taking feedback seriously and professionally. Thank you for your hard work!

Edited by zenheartbeats, 11 July 2013 - 08:47 PM.

[DestinyDeoxys]

Mage


-all these "HailStorm" "Icy hailstorm" and "Frost ring" animation still need to be smoothed out, after jumping in the air, then you will be stuck in mid-air for awhile in order to execute the skill

-"Wind storm" and "hurricane" have inconsistent skill animation, it is a target AOE, but the animation is a spin, while the AOE damage is ranged, so it looks very weird

[LexLoyalty]

A friend of mine asked me to post a feedback from him.

 

"A stun  decides  the whole battle as each class dies in about 4 hits (without red dots or food), and mages only have a reliable close range stun. We should increase % on voltage jolt. 20% is too low for crucial start of a fight"

Edited by LexLoyalty, 12 July 2013 - 01:50 PM.

[KTFlash]

The mana shield animation is super long. There is no point of using it cause when you finish the animation, the raider/champ has already depleted it.

[DestinyDeoxys]

The mana shield animation is super long. There is no point of using it cause when you finish the animation, the raider/champ has already depleted it.

 

You are not supposed to constantly use it? I thought it is only designed for an initial damage taker.

[KTFlash]

You are not supposed to constantly use it? I thought it is only designed for an initial damage taker.

 

I saw Leo making a post regarding the possibility of re-shielding in battle. Did not went as expected. Lost all pvp I did.

 

And btw, I have no idea if I re-shield, the shield is refilled, or how much damage it can take.

[SuiMeister]

Here are my Mage suggestions:

 

Problems:

- The animation of mana shield is too long as someone pointed out. The only PvPs I won were the ones where I did not get killed before my shield animation was over, which was usually only against a slow class like knights. Raiders could easily hit me 3 times by the time my shield animation is over, making this skill a huge disadvantage for me. If reducing the skill animation time makes it easy to spam it to survive, then perhaps a 1-2 sec extra cooldown would be in order. I will gladly try this out and let you know if you make any more changes.

 

- I would like to be able to tell exactly how much damage my mana shield can absord at all times, even after getting hit once or after re-using the ability.

 

- I cannot see any skill that mutes the opponent. It has always been a vital part of a Mage's strategy to prevent your opponent from casting skills for a few second, I believe that should be added back in. Perhaps the sorcery skills would be good for this? Or if possible bring back soul doubt as a stand alone skill.

 

- Each class has a long range reliable stun, but my only ranged stun is voltage jolt which only does 20% success. If I use staff stun then I will be down 60-70% hp by the time I even reach my opponent, as most of them have long range stuns. We need a more reliable ranged stun to be able to compete with skills like the 100% success 25m ranged stun from raiders.

 

- In general I like being able to do 3k damage, but if every class does 3-4k dmg and we all have only 10k base HP, PvPs tend to be over in 4 hits. I would suggest increasing base HP of classes or reducing damage somehow, so that a PvP without pots will only end after 5-7 hits or so.

 

In general

- the 1 sec cooldown after each skill is fine but at the moment it is making the game very unresponsive. I click after the 1 sec skill cooldown but because the next cooldown only starts when the animation starts, I cant always tell if I activated the skill or not. Is it possible to like grey out a skill when it is actually being activated? That way, even if I need to walk a bit before the animation starts, I atleast know that the skill is active. I died many times in PvP because I thought a skill started but it didn't yet.

 

I would suggest to remove the 1 sec skill cd or atleast find a way to make the general responsiveness from the game feel better. Activating my skills on Pegasus felt like playing a broken version of the current game, it just felt buggy. Faster skill animations are important aswell, definitely for mana shield as it seems to be the biggest utility for a PvP mage right now.

 

 

Good feedback:

- I like how I am only able to choose 1 full skill path (e.g. fire mage) at lvl 200, while still getting my important passives. At 230 I should be able to add another full skill path so I could be fire + wind mage, that makes it interesting and I think it should stay this way.

 

- I like that now each class does a bit more damage, the new stats definitely scales better. On the main server it doesnt make much sense that a 230 mage does only 500 damage on a 230 raider, so this new damage feels a lot better. You will need to balance dmg versus HP though to find a good PvP duration, because dying in 3 hits is a no-go if you want people to actually have some competition in PvP.

 

Hope this helped!

 

/Sui

Edited by SuiMeister, 13 July 2013 - 06:23 AM.

[KTFlash]

I wonder why Fire Bolt has not a fire animation, looks more like a simple mana throw.

Also, why was Anti-Magic Shield nerfed so badly? It debuffs one spell in 50% chance on 1 minute cooldown. For sure I wouldn't take that skill and I hope I can take it back in live server if its goes through like that.

[Leonis]

zenheartbeats,
I'm glad to see you enjoyed the last tweaks. Your feedback is very much appreciated and that you take such a wide scope view over each tree very much helps keep things in perspective as well!

I'll up the proc chance for the stun effect for Voltage Jolt to 40%, but reduce the duration by 1 second (2 seconds instead of 3) and we'll see how that goes. I'm trying to avoid stun locking, because it really isn't that fun of a gaming mechanics.

As for the burns, it was originally hoped to make burns take a % of your attack power and apply it as a burn damage equation. For example, it would do 10% of your attack power in burn damage over the duration of the burn effect. We'll see if it can still be done.

I will also look in to the Mana Burn effect and see if it be bumped up a bit more from where it is. It is currently a direct MP negation, not over time.

I'll see about changing some of the animation effects since they're proving to be problematic.

DestinyDeoxys,
I'll see if I can switch up the skill animations so they're more fluid. I'll likely have to change the animation call entirely.

I forgot to change the 'spin' animations when I updated the skill effect to be a targeted AoE, not a self cast one. Thanks for catching that.
 

The mana shield animation is super long. There is no point of using it cause when you finish the animation, the raider/champ has already depleted it.

The Mana shield isn't honestly intended to be a mechanic you can use so fast that you are totally sustainable. Consider it to be a pre-combat prep, to help you sustain yourself longer than your normal HP would sustain and available to try to recast mid-combat if you feel the risk is worth it.
It is possible to recast, however it does not 'stack' it will override whatever remaining HP barrier you've created, which could be less than previously or what's available.
The tooltip should be getting updated soon to show how much of a barrier you will create when you cast and we're working on a visual aid to help show you where your shield's strength is while on you.


SuiMeister,
Some of the "problems" don't seem to be problems at all more than they are your weaknesses to the strength of your opponent.
The fact that a Raider is tearing through your shield quickly, when you let them get within melee range of you, I would say is fault of strategy. You should be keeping your distance on them because that is your advantage to them, since they are generally melee ranged.
Remember, the Mage as a class is squishy, the Mana Shield is just an extra buffer, so if you get in to the situation where you're now in a melee confrontation, expect to get hurt, unless you can quickly get control over the situation.

I will consider the suggestion of adding a silence effect to the Sorcery tree.

Voltage Jolt was mentioned earlier in my post.

Raiders don't have a 25m Stun, it is a sleep. Very different. Sleep ends the moment you take damage after the effect begins (DoTs excluded). Stun would leave you still inactive through damage until duration ends.

But all the feedback was great to read and gives me more to think about! Thank you very much!!

 

I wonder why Fire Bolt has not a fire animation, looks more like a simple mana throw.

Probably because I forgot to change the skill's effect. >_<
 

Also, why was Anti-Magic Shield nerfed so badly? It debuffs one spell in 50% chance on 1 minute cooldown. For sure I wouldn't take that skill and I hope I can take it back in live server if its goes through like that.

Suggest a change you would prefer to see?

[KTFlash]

 

Suggest a change you would prefer to see?

 

A lot of players complain about the 50-50 chance to debuff someone and make him rather useless for a period of time, due to the nature fo thr tremendous strenght of buffs currently. I would like to remove the coinflip nature of the skill, but make it a reliable source of making the enemy weaker.

 

I have 2 ideas (no idea if they can be done, just wanted to diferenciate the skill from fierce cudgeling):

 

- A ranged skill that applies 2 random debuffs to the enemy with 100% chance, wich are not currently applied to the target (for example, you cna't apply a slow to someone who is already slowed).

- A ranged skill that reduces incoming healing to the target for 50% during 10 seconds, no stackeable.

 

Also reduce the cooldown cause 1 minute is not really worth it.

Edited by KTFlash, 16 July 2013 - 01:27 PM.

[Leonis]

Unfortunately, the way the mechanics are setup now, we can't roll between multiple status effects (yet, believe me I had the wish to long ago, but wasn't able to justify more additions to coding with this update.)

 

Here is what we got right now, the "rules" we're currently under, as it were:

 

1. Skill Effect can be chance based or 100%, regardless to accuracy.
2. If an effect succeeds, it applies all status effects (up to 3) simultaniously
3. All status effects are on the same timer.
   • Only exclusions to this are status effects that have a condition to end otherwise (Mana shield running out & Cloak Running out of attacks)
4. Statuses can be set to not be allowed to be overridden, even if the status trying to be applied is stronger.
5. Statuses can be set to not be allowed to be dispelled. (Item Mall effect)
6. Not all 'stat types' are able to be set as a status effect. For example, many of the new stats, "Defense/Magic Piercing, Critical Damage, Skill/Weapon/AoE Range" are not able to be given as a status effect.

Your skill that reduces target's MaxHP by 50% would effectively make their HP be reduced by 50% too, which is too powerful. We would have to figure a way to code that once the effect ends, HP is rescaled back up. That's a pretty powerful ability to have, even if it were only for a few seconds.

 

Any other ideas now that you can kind of see the rules?

 

I'd have to check, but it is theoretically possible to make "Damage Reduction" be treated as a negative, to where you make the target take amplified damage instead of protecting them. Likewise with enhanced damage, if a negative value is used. Not sure on that, need to check our formulas and see if it is supported first, but it was an idea.