Posted 27 August 2010 - 04:07 PM
Ok, time to give my opinion.
I believe each class should have a balance potential between 1vs1 and 2+vs2+.
No character should be weak in 1vs1, but strong in 2+vs2+, or vice versa.
They should be able to do equally well in both scenarios with slight disadvatages and advantages.
Now, every character has to be evaluated vs each of the others individually. They should somehow manage to balance themselves.
Currently... some classes completely devastate others.
To understand this, both characters have to be placed on equal footing (skill, level, equipment bonuses.)
I cannot pretend to know how to balance the characters when there are so many stats possible for stacking and so many different skills.
Ill leave that to the developers, but, I can comment on how the skills work and how they work in PvP/PvE.
I don't have any idea on how the game will end up after the patch, so, ill coment on the current abilities like this post is initially intended to, ignoring if the skills will disapear or change.
Magician:
Most of the magician class skills are pretty weak and are intended to just be usefull for PvE to reach the lvl 20.
While at the same time they set the basis for the magician's build.
Point Buster:
Well, a slight reduction to the cast time would be helpfull. Instant cast would be stupid, so just very fast is ok. The amount of damage it deals is ok for a lvl 1-20 character. in the future it is meant to be usless, maybe a wider range and speed upgrade could help a little in its future.
Air Combo:
I agree with a previous post that it should be renamed. It is very usefull, but it is not meant to be easy to use, requires good timing.
Maybe it would be used more if it could slightly follow its target, sort of like a priest's chain-lighning skill, but instead of the ground, in the air, and with only three shots, instead of infinite lock.
Meteor Fall:
The improvement to Point Buster. At a certain lvl it sends all enemies in the area of impact to the air, exactly to the height of the Air Combo for a follow up. Maybe it should have a higher critical rate.
MP Potion Maximization:
Well... usefull, should cost less skill points for using lvling it, and also have an even higher MP recovery. If not, its not used much and the difference is not even high enough to be used from lvl 1-20, its better to buy extra potions and continue on.
Magic Enhancement:
Well, +100 at lvl 5 is a lot of extra damage at lower levels, but, it could be changed to +1%,2%,3%,4%,and 5% of the max. Or, it could be given an added passive buff to all spells considering the skills name. Maybe higher critical rate for all spells, or higher chances for spell's debuffs to work, or, reduced animation time considering they are taking away animation canceling.
Focus:
Excellent!
Every skill in the game has the condition: X% of maximum weapon atack/magic atack.
This should be changed to X% of character's maximum magical atack/physical atack.
That way this skill by raising the Max % of the characters magical atack, it would also raise the skill's powers which makes sense.
Slow Heal:
Excelent, due to massive complaints maybe should be reduced to 30% of maximum hp, but seriously, it takes a whole 30 seconds to heal, and it helps others.
Heal Thy Self:
Excelent, it heals you instantly with very few animation. Considering that it takes away a whole % of the MP no matter the lvl, the X% of weapon magic atack that it is based on should be increased.
Re-Launch:
Well... usefull, but its more usefull to repeat a skill that launches rather than use this one... specially for mages, other classes would benefit so much more.
Fortress:
This skills is quite usefull for hitting single enemies, and enemies that cant be launched into the air, with hard powerfull blows.
It is also instant to cast. For PvP, it should knock down enemies and intercept them if they are in a dash-jump like warrior's sword dance skill.
Speeding Bullet + Cannon Upgrade:
These two skills should get mixed into a single one. The cannon should go faster, farther, as well as cause bleeding.
The speed would be excelent for pvp as well as the Bleeding. Currently the Bleeding works only at lvl 1 for some reason. This should be increased.
This skill at lvl 5 should cause lvl 5 Bleeding, with atleast 65-85 damage twice per second instead of 33.
Now for the upgrade to Battle Mage:
Battle Hit/Wound (or something like that):
Sucks a lot, I know it is meant to stagger enemies in front of the caster but... if it were like 300% magic damage sure, but, its not worth it. And it stops the character from moving at close distance. Besides the power boost... if it caused bleeding or slowdown... maybe it would be used more.
Spear Mastery:
It should not have the previous skill as a requirement, besides that its cool, maybe instead of physical boost, some extra magic enhancement.
Imagine if it could increase all skills damage based system +10% of max magic atack.
Fire Symbol:
Perfect as it is. Maybe a few animation glitches, in PvP, sometimes it hits oponents and doesnt shock them, or it does but they keep moving slighty through it. But its practically perfect.
*The FireSymbol Passive:
No problem.
Tornado:
It is a cool skill, but the animation time is so high that the enemy is alredy on the ground by the time you finish casting so if cannot be used for air combos much and while you run up to the body he might alredy be up so its not as usefull. Agaisnt the mobs it's the same, maybe it's good because it stops them from atacking?. I would make it bigger in circular range, or maybe it could stun the targets instead of launching, or to make sense, stun for a sec and then launch, therefore there is time to follow up. In a frenzy of creativity, I could suggest for it to work like a mine. But that is nonsense.
Blizzard:
Perfect, maybe it could make the initial hit little bit faster, and also increase freezing chance by 10% more, since there are no real ways to stop other players from moving unless they dont know how your spells work and jump into them, or if they rush in towards you, but honestly, if you play a warmage for a while and the fight them, you know how to avoid being in range of ALL their atacks, its just a matter of being carefull.
Mana Shield:
It is very good, specially during the battlemage times, afterwards at lvl 60's other people deal so much damage that the MP runs out very very fast.
Maybe it should consume less MP per damage absorbed, but it might be OP for the lower levels.
Cloud Kill and Poison Cloud skills:
Well, the poison last for quite some time which serves as a smokescreen, also it staggers when it hits, which is good too. The only thing I could complain for it is the long animation time to make it look like a fart. Also, it should be able to critical. To make it a usefull skill for pvp, the buff should get a much stronger poison effect, like 150 damage per second at lvl 5 and atleast 30% more damage.
Lower skillpoints cost would be excelent.
Magic Missles:
Nothing to complain about these. Maybe a bigger explosion radious, just a bit.
Now for the Warmage change:
Lower MP consumption skill:
Why not?
Convert Resources:
Sure, perfect.
Mirror Image:
Make the blocked atacks ignored in stagger animation since the skill has such a high cooldown.
Disease:
Cool, faster cast rate since it misses?
Fire Ink:
Make it decrease aim by atleast 70% at lvl 5, since mages dont stack evade and most high lvl people have so much aim that 30% less lets them hit anyways.
Increase the effect by atleast 10 more seconds and make it 100% sure that it will hit, since the animation time is so long that it takes ages to move after using it, and if it hits and it is 30%, you get hit back a lot more times by other's combos. Maybe even infinite stun locked.
This becomes the most useless skill if it misses or doesn't work like it should.
We need skills that work if we want to have other options to win besides luckyly freezing our oponents or healing till they run out of MP after 10 mins.
Snow Blues:
Perfect, fast animation after casting, used preentively, its not meant to be used while being seen.
Another mastery?:
Cool. Even more, if damage of skills is based on the character's magical atack and not the weapons magical atack, since the character's includes buffs while the weapon doesnt.
Backdraft:
Perfect but mp burn effect should be increased to 20 per sec.
Spiral cannon:
Should have faster animation and maybe cause burn or bleeding since you just got pierced by a giant laser. Withouth these its very useless.
It could also fire in diferent directions.
Energy Buster:
I believe the blind efect should last for a long time since it is so hard to hit with this skill. And, the blind efect is not working well, it should reduce aim to 0. Not lower it a bit, I still get hit by blinded stuff which makes you wonder, why did I get this skill for?.
Also, after using it, it takes a while to move, fix it, its too much for any atack at pvp.
Thunder Break:
Increase damage by atleast 15% more and even more per lvl. Also, increase its duration to 5 min or something like that.
Meteor strike:
It is so slow.... and costs so much Skill points... for a single big hit... make it 1500% magic damage or something like that. It even has cast time.
It should be able to do something big. Worth it.
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Well... thats it.
Some might say: hey, you want all the skills to be cool.
Yes I do. And it should be for all characters. That is what creates a dynamic game. With diferent options.
That way I will want to spend skill points in every skill and run out, then I'll have to actually think through to which ones I want and at which level. Currently, all characters have a set of 'useless skills' that are ignored by all, therefore, we all look alike and strive for the same things. By giving all characters variety, criticals, dodging, suport vs damage, status efects vs healing, aim vs inteligence, hlt vs agility. These choices will become diferent for each player.
Well, its my opionion in any case. I hope to see other's Skill reviews.
PS:
I'll change this so that it is updated when all skills change after update.
Also it would be cool if we got new very diferent PvP maps, that have obstacles, places where we could fall and climb, and thin passageways.