FIX ENGULF it is NOT increasing the area of spells

[Sephiroth]

Its quite clear they intended for the area to be increased with this spell. (not happening),
Instead the range is increased.

Mages are under powered enough this was going to make them nice possible.

Even the name of the ability "Engulf" shows its clear the area was supposed to be increased.

Otherwise they would have chosen a word that describes range being increased instead.

[Zoid13]

its supposed to increase the 'range'. as in the AREA from the unit it can be cast in. as in it can be cast within a 5 tile AREA from the unit and with engulf it can be cast within a 7 tile AREA of the unit. you are engulfing more area coverage that you can target things in. (made up values but you get it) its not referring to the area the damage / status portion of the spell can target.

its supposed to keep them safer at the back line as they are fragile units and still be able to target things happening on the field.

workign as intended its more of a wording translation choice quirk. its a poor word choice for clarity (i agree range would be more clear) but 'area' does work in both context's

also casters are FAR from under-powered. they end up being extremely powerful for control, large area damage and have the largest single target nukes in the game.

[Sephiroth]

Originally posted by Zoid13:

its supposed to increase the 'range'. as in the AREA from the unit it can be cast in. as in it can be cast within a 5 tile AREA from the unit and with engulf it can be cast within a 7 tile AREA of the unit. you are engulfing more area coverage that you can target things in. (made up values but you get it) its not referring to the area the damage / status portion of the spell can target.

its supposed to keep them safer at the back line as they are fragile units and still be able to target things happening on the field.

workign as intended its more of a wording translation choice quirk. its a poor word choice for clarity (i agree range would be more clear) but 'area' does work in both context's

also casters are FAR from under-powered. they end up being extremely powerful for control, large area damage and have the largest single target nukes in the game.

Been playing plenty and they have been under powered since I started. Unlike Final Fantasy Tactics they do not have any powerful spells. The direct damage spells which are a little stronger (barely) than the splash damage spells are EXTREMELY weak in comparison to any other class doing a sword attack etc. In addition other classes get to use those twice like double attack and get strength increases. There is no double cast for spell casters in this game and the spells are weak as hell. This is the one tactics game where casters are actually under powered.

and if they happen to be powerful later on in act 4 or what ever than what does that mean for the entire rest of the game? That they just weak and need to wait till late game to be any good. That is bad balance and bad design.
Spells are used less frequently than melee attacks because they require MP even if you use mp items you still are going to be running out of mana and need to wait or use more items in battle.

Compared to other tactic games this is the only one that made casters under powered.

I been seeing all this time even enemy mages are not strong.

Here is what it comes down to.

Why should I bother putting a caster in the game when they are soo weak when I can fill the slot with another sword guy who does not need to worry about MP to deal damage and on top of that he will deal more damage and have more survivabiltiy. ....

You see how it works.... the casters are just under powered.

Sure may be late game and may be far far FAR into late game they get good. I am not there yet. I may be approaching it soon though. I just started act 4. (now)

[Sephiroth]

I honestly think a little balancing is in order for casters. They are too weak at least from act 1,2,3 they have been weak everywhere you look.

Honestly to start out it would be nice to see a 40% increase in damage to the direct damage spells. Which means the ones that only hit 1 target.

[Zoid13]

depends how you use them. early game they are the only ones that can hit multiple targets at once and from good range. if denam is hitting things with his sword for 100 damage and the casters spell is hitting for 50 damage but can target 5 tiles that's great 5x50 = 250 2.5x what denam is doing. its your job to lure and bunch things up to make them effective.
as for single target spells they should do less because you throw them from safety half way across the map lol (same reason archers were toned down against heavy armour units)

end game magic is the only thing that can demolish 13 tiles at once from across the map with giant area spells that do tonnes of damage.

status is super powerful in the version of TO.
as is poison which does % damage every tick.

increasing damage will also have the knock on effect of you getting constantly AOE'd from enemies and in turn healing becomes a much greater problem.
then people will want healing increases. (and no healing is also fine the way it is)
and with a healing increase comes the enemies healing for way more too. and that boss that you are trying to take out will be yoyoing around while decimating your army or just outright stalemate the encounters and make them take 10x longer to grind everything down.

point is you cant just change 1 thing in a game like this without a whole slew of knock on effect.
that and casters are fine, highly effective and also very consistent across the board as their damage isn't affected greatly my armour like physical attacks. TO requires more synergy and setup to make things effective than FFT where every unit is a custom 1 man army. (i love fft but it is NOT balanced at all lol)

different classes are also stronger and weaker at different points in the game.

[Mellowpocalypse]

I agree that the damage spells aren't the best, but get yourself some dark magic like petriburst, sleep, and charm to start denying the enemy team their actions. Eventually you'll get access to Paradigm Shift which can grant your own units free turns. Even Mind Drain can help stop boss units from using ♥♥♥♥♥♥ finishing moves every turn.

Wanting big numbers from magic is a fruitless endeavor, embrace dark magic and don't let their team have a turn.

[Pickleton]

Double Attack is a meme, btw. Absolute beginner's trap. One of the worst skills in the game by a wide margin (yes, even worse than resist charm/petrify). When you use Double Attack, you have to pay the RT penalty of both weapons combined to swing twice. Especially in the late game, using Double Attack makes the unit so slow that it can actually make your unit do LESS damage.

Meanwhile, Warrior's Double Impact spends a flat 18 RT hit twice with a weapon and works with 2-handed weapons and if you "sword and board". Or you can equip an ice-element sword in one hand and a water-element hammer in the other, and double hit with whichever the enemy is weak against ... plus have 8 different finishers to choose from.

Magic gets better in the late game when you get access to apocrypha, summons and draconics. Until then it's just "the AoE option" and casters are better off as debuffers, since poison is in most cases objectively the strongest attack in the game. Or at least I can't think of too many cases outside of Ogre Blade shenanigans for 999 INT/MIND where an attack can do more than 60% of several enemies' HP in one action ... for a tiny MP cost.

[Franz]

Poison, sleep, charm are great spells for low-mid lvl mages

[Sephiroth]

Originally posted by Zoid13:

depends how you use them. early game they are the only ones that can hit multiple targets at once and from good range. if denam is hitting things with his sword for 100 damage and the casters spell is hitting for 50 damage but can target 5 tiles that's great 5x50 = 250 2.5x what denam is doing. its your job to lure and bunch things up to make them effective.
as for single target spells they should do less because you throw them from safety half way across the map lol (same reason archers were toned down against heavy armour units)

end game magic is the only thing that can demolish 13 tiles at once from across the map with giant area spells that do tonnes of damage.

status is super powerful in the version of TO.
as is poison which does % damage every tick.

increasing damage will also have the knock on effect of you getting constantly AOE'd from enemies and in turn healing becomes a much greater problem.
then people will want healing increases. (and no healing is also fine the way it is)
and with a healing increase comes the enemies healing for way more too. and that boss that you are trying to take out will be yoyoing around while decimating your army or just outright stalemate the encounters and make them take 10x longer to grind everything down.

point is you cant just change 1 thing in a game like this without a whole slew of knock on effect.
that and casters are fine, highly effective and also very consistent across the board as their damage isn't affected greatly my armour like physical attacks. TO requires more synergy and setup to make things effective than FFT where every unit is a custom 1 man army. (i love fft but it is NOT balanced at all lol)

different classes are also stronger and weaker at different points in the game.

They dont get splash damage early.

They get it im act 2 or 3. But definitely not act 1.

At least I did not find it.

In addition spreading lower famage among multiple enemies is under powered or at the least less useful. The game even teaches you early on to focus down 1 enemy at a time.

Thus more damage to 1 enemy is more useful than a little damage to many,

The single target only spells could use some increased damage.

[Sephiroth]

Originally posted by Pickleton:

Double Attack is a meme, btw. Absolute beginner's trap. One of the worst skills in the game by a wide margin (yes, even worse than resist charm/petrify). When you use Double Attack, you have to pay the RT penalty of both weapons combined to swing twice. Especially in the late game, using Double Attack makes the unit so slow that it can actually make your unit do LESS damage.

Meanwhile, Warrior's Double Impact spends a flat 18 RT hit twice with a weapon and works with 2-handed weapons and if you "sword and board". Or you can equip an ice-element sword in one hand and a water-element hammer in the other, and double hit with whichever the enemy is weak against ... plus have 8 different finishers to choose from.

Magic gets better in the late game when you get access to apocrypha, summons and draconics. Until then it's just "the AoE option" and casters are better off as debuffers, since poison is in most cases objectively the strongest attack in the game. Or at least I can't think of too many cases outside of Ogre Blade shenanigans for 999 INT/MIND where an attack can do more than 60% of several enemies' HP in one action ... for a tiny MP cost.

It does more damage on that turn though and more damage in that 1 turn is more important than the delayed turn afterwards because you are finishing enemies off.

You combine the double attack with increased critical % and damn you are looking good or any of the physical cards.

But basically the burst damage you can do is amazing and that kills enemies and is more advantage even if it sacrifices some RT.

[Pickleton]

Rucession will probably chime in with specifics, but iirc in most cases using an appropriate element finisher will do more damage than a double swing of 1 handers, and take far less RT.
And then we've got Sonic Blade with 16RT or whatever cost which is kinda busted.