7 replies to this topic

[Nombus]

After just having tested out sorcerer a bit, something I was really excited about as renewal offers them a chance to broaden their play style, I have to say Iâ??m heavily disappointed. I'm curious if others are also, and thus I want to put my interpretation of it forward to see if others agree.

At first I was elated by the ability to use decent physical attack and hindsight as a sage while mixing in casts that are fairly quick even with mid-ranged dex to do some decent damage in PvM on a hybrid sage/scholar build. In fact these new mechanics work great on those builds despite the matk nerf taking too large of a toll on the bolt skills (due to their 100% matk modifier).

However, upon changing to Scorcerer I was dismayed despite my hopes, by the sheer imbalance in the skills. The Spell Fist skill, which seems perfect for a hybrid hindsight build, completely out damages hindsight and casted bolts; while the power of this skill isnâ??t even remarkable to begin with. At most one finds Spell Fist dishing out 2k per on a normally geared player in PvP, and if one tries to make use of free casting to combine other spell damage they cancel the skill.

Further, Scorcerers are given remarkably powerful and fast casting AoE skills that easily dish out more than double bolts or spell fist. If one takes the time to physically attack, he or she is wasting time whereas they could simply have cast a much higher modified AoE spell to better effect. Further, after testing a caster build, I found there was no reason to even consider getting double bolt after seeing my damage in PvP hardly exceed 1k (both bolts combined) with 50% clips.

While I could go on, it is clear from the above that the class does not meld well with its old skills. The new damage skills completely outclass the old rather than add to them and thus makes for a poor addition to the class. I expect to see the end of hindsight as a built altogether (much to my dismay), the end of double bolt, and further the idea of getting bolts past what is needed as a prerequisite.

[TheGuindo]

Hmm I tried out a pure-battle Sorc and I was pretty happy with the changes. As a Scholar, Renewal's formula changes made high agi/str and moderately low int/dex a viable build. Bolting speed is good with reasonable damage, and double-bolt + hindsight makes things die REALLY FAST if you've got the right equip/endow.

As sorc, I feel a lot of the new skills serve to flesh out what sort of things you can do in battle. You can mix it up, and adapt to various situations. Psychic Wave if you get mobbed and keep attacking while you're casting it. Spell Fist if you need to kill something really fast. Use double bolt/hindsight/freecast for standard combat. I felt like the sorc skills rounded out your combat abilities fairly well.

The only thing I don't like is that Striking doesn't stack with Spell Fist. If you're pure battle, spell fist is so much better than the damage striking add, and since striking is such a short buff, it just doesn't feel right to keep casting it when you can just spell fist stuff and kill it 10x faster. Stacking it would probably make it OP as hell, though, so I don't know. It is castable on party members, so it's not worthless as a buff. Just feels like it's not as worthwhile as a self-buff as it seems like it should be.

[Sera]

I really don't want to take this off topic, so I'll just speak generally.

It seems that with a lot of the third classes in general, classes were taken away from what they were supposed to be doing and given new roles that may not really match the class very well, and these new roles have made many of their old skills purely obsolete rather than complementary.

Also, there's really no reason a Sorcerer should be a better Warlock than a Warlock.

What they need to do is keep Sorcerer as the primary single-target magic damage class, and Warlock as the primary area of effect caster.

Like I've said before, kRO doesn't care what it is as long as they can get stupid people to buy it, jRO doesn't care what it is as long as they can make perverted fanart out of it.

[Nombus]

I'm surprised that you find the balance appropriate Guindo. I found the dmg from Spell Fist so far exceeded what I could do with Hindsight and endowed attacked, even with a spirit in passive stance offering the extra dmg, I couldn't excuse not using Spell Fist all the time. Even if I were to link myself, as I already know the dmg output having a hindsight scholar on Ymir, I doubt I'd be able to match the dmg from spell fist; the only advantage is that you don't have to renew it. As such the skills simply didn't seem to work well together, and they hardly can match the dmg of the AoE skills, though Spell Fist was doing a better job than Varetur Spear so far as single targets were concerned in ID3, but not by much.

I agree with you Sera that poor balancing with old skills has occurred generally. While I don't agree that Sorc has become a better AoE caster than Warlock, as Warlock appears the best implemented class from what I've seen, most classes have found their old attacks lacking the updates in modifiers needed to make them viable. Further, the new attacks often simply focus on damage, which makes them pointless as Gravity could have simply updated the old attacks and been more innovative (I.e. CI>SB).

[TheGuindo]

I didn't comment on the balance, just that the new skill set seems to flesh the class out pretty well. I do agree that Spell Fist is WILDLY overpowered compared to the other Sorc skills; my sorc at level 110 with 40 int was doing 5k to anolians with it, which is when I realized that when you have that why bother with striking even as a battle build? I can do 1k+ a hit with the right equip/endow, and even more with striking, but that's still 4/5x less than I do with Spell Fist.

But the problem with Spell Fist is that it only lasts about 5 hits, so to keep it constantly on you have to keep constantly casting it, and that's more effort than I'm willing to put in for standard PvM combat. It is definitely easy to abuse, though. Especially, I imagine, if you've got hindsight stats.

I'm not sure how the other 3rd classes measure up in damage rates, but I think if you lowered Spell Fist's power a bit and allowed Sorc to cast bolt skills during Spell Fist's effect it'd mesh better with the purpose behind the Scholar skills. I would gladly trade off some of the atk power Spell Fist adds for the ability to double-bolt while it's on. Either that, or factor physical atk into Spell Fist's damage calculation (does it do this already? I assume not because Striking doesn't seem to affect it), so that it's not as useful for int builds to the point that it completely negates their Sage/Scholar battle strategy and build, and so that it compliments the original purpose of battle sages instead of completely overtaking their play style.

bla bla I don't even know if I'm making sense. Basically what I do like about Sorc is that the added abilities give you options on how you'd like to play your class. But Spell Fist is definitely overpowered enough that if you're only concerned about pure damage output, it's what you'll be using constantly.

[Hrothmund]

I visited ID3 on my pre-renewal hindsight scholar build, bolts did ~4-5k so 8-10k double bolts (titans have 20k hp down from 38k) so in pvm a hindsight scholar performs about the same as pre-re up till 110 or so.

Spellfist also did 8-10k hits on titans, although i had dropped from 190 aspd down to 180aspd so eh. You can't simply start casting bolt then immediately cast spellfist either, theres like a 1sec delay after you start casting bolt before you can cast spellfist. for me its something of a hassle. It works in conjunction with hindsight though so i'd use it on targets who dont die in 1-2 seconds, but i probably wouldnt take the time to recast it during a fight.

Didnt go beyond spellfist, cept to note regular hits with and endow, 1str and encyclopedia did ~200-300 crits on titans lol.

Also new classes should take the tree in new directions. Just look what scholar did for sages.

Edited by Hrothmund, 20 September 2010 - 02:50 AM.

[Prodigy]

Spellfist stacking with Hindsight is what makes it really versatile. Ideally, you'd use Spellfist as your opening move against anything. If you got the time to recast Bolt>Spellfist, then do so since it would end up better dps. But if you're being mobbed or otherwise unable to recast your bolt, then you can still rely on Hindsight for the cleanup.

Oh btw, has anyone tried Spellfist with Sidewinder card? It works you know (at least on kR/jRO it does)

[Hrothmund]

nice, i did wonder about that. I'll still use musketeer hat over chick hat though so sidewinder ledger it is