My review of Mages

[Freyon]

First of all, I'm happy to see the obnoxious casting from Rebirth is gone. But mages are still lackluster and boring.

Early gameplay is basically click-click-click-kite while waiting for your SP to slowly recharge. If you play single-player and meet a boss enemy be prepared to waste several long minutes clicking and waiting, after all you're completely useless without SP and you'll be without SP most of the time. You might as well as be playing one of those clicker games, but those are less of a hassle.

This will basically be how you play the game until level 12ish when you can finally unlock the quicker SP regen. It'll still be Wanderlust Clicker, but with less downtime.

The abilities themselves are a huge letdown.

Bolt spells are no more than choose the right ammo for the right enemy. Fireball, Ice Shard, Spike and Shock all work the exactly same way. Fire doesn't burn, Ice doesn't freeze, Earth doesn't slow, bolt doesn't stun/knock back. So unless you're exploiting a weakness, it's pointless to change your element.

If you play solo, you're out of luck, as you'll barely make use of element combos.

Defensive spells are very lackluster.

Fire spreads into a cone, range increases with level, but it still doesn't burn and hits as hard as a normal fireball. The push isn't that strong either. Not only is this the worst defensive spell, it's also probably the most useless one in the Mage's arsenal. Damage is pathetic and not worth the risk of getting close to enemies.

Ice blocks a hit and freeze whomever hit you, and getting the buff on heals you. Leveling the skill only makes you heal more. In general the game doesn't say what's the advantage of having a skill on level 3. Compared to level 1 most of the ones I tried are exactly the same. Skills are very poorly explained in the game in general.

Earth will create orbiting rocks capable of blocking projectiles and repel enemies that come close, much better than the fire spell in every single way, also heals you (same amount as Ice Shield). I consider this the best defensive spell. Once again, levelling basically increases heal amount.

Bolt teleports and generates a wide area of electricity which deals damage to enemies. Poor damage (about the same as a bolt). Teleporting is great and that makes this the second best defensive spell.

Then we unlock the bolt upgrades. What do they do? Increase the size, power and SP spent to fire each bolt. Very lackluster/unimaginative...

Tier 4 has the essential Increase SP recovery speed. That's all. You'll still be running around like a headless chicken, but you won't be doing that for as long now.

Tier 5 has the auras, which are charged defensive spells. They good, but are very samey. Basically pick your flavor of elemental buff and that's all. On the bright side you can finally do some debuffs on the enemies.

Tier 6 is when you'll start to feel like an actual mage. Charged offensive spells include meteor, frost nova, chain lightning and boulder. They also inflict debuffs which is great. However they share the cooldown between themselves. So forget Frost Nova to Chain Lighting combo, or Meteor to Boulder.

It only takes 18 levels for you start feeling like a real mage.

If you're going to be playing solo, do yourself a favor and don't be a mage. I would be happier if the Devs deleted this class and replaced it with a Ranger class that lays traps, as that would be way more fun/interesting than what we got as our ranged class.

I don't mean to offend, but this is how I feel about Wanderlust: Adventures' rendition of mages/wizards/sorcerers. It's not the worst rendition of a spellcaster I've seen in a game, but it's pretty high on the list. I'm very disappointed, mages are my favorite class.

[blurryhunter]

I certainly understand where you're coming from, but I think it's a pretty safe bet when they designed the classes they did it with the context that people would be playing with others. This is fairly evident in the consist 'supportive' spells/skills somewhere in most/all class trees.

I definitely want to see a better tooltip for the skills so I know more about what's getting increased when I drop a skill point in. I've never been one to min max, but it seems like wasted potential when I've got to basically stand there and hit respec repeatedly just to figure out how much I'm actually getting out of a skill point in this vs that. Doubly so with non-combat style spells like the shields and such.

[blurryhunter]

So I'm only Lv.13, going solo on Mage, and I'm currently using Defensive Stance and have Dragon's Breath and Rock Ward maxed out. I chose to ignore the Advanced offensive line as I find the SP cost just not practical for me in single player at the moment, but I'm rolling through dungeons just incinerating groups.

Dragon's Breath's knock back is much greater than the cone of attack itself, so you'll shove them across the room easily when it's maxed out.

My only complaint is that SP seems to be completely okay one minute then drained the next. I'll go from blasting a whole room of 12-14 enemies without running out of SP and then walk into a room with just 3 and be drained before anything dies. I'm not sure why that is.

[Freyon]

I'm playing as other classes, and the game feels much more fun than when playing with a mage. I feel like a crusader is capable of basically doing anything a mage can, but they're much better than a mage in every aspect.

[(Farkon) 2m_anylootboxes]

Originally posted by Freyon:

I'm playing as other classes, and the game feels much more fun than when playing with a mage. I feel like a crusader is capable of basically doing anything a mage can, but they're much better than a mage in every aspect.

Or an assassin with thier own elemental combos.

[cl4yt0n]

I think the main problem it's that mage depends on elemental combos for DPS. Endgame and epic mode mobs had a lot of status resistances so your DPS goes down. Only having 2 slots for spells it's also a problem and I feel the only viable build right now it's Energy/ice ( DPS+CC+survivability). With other combinations you have not DPS or heal or CC. By example: fire/energy don't have heal or elemental combos. With fire/ice or fire/earth don't have teleport. I feel that Energice it's a staple spell in epic mode so Energy it's almost mandatory. Also, the shared cooldown of Tier 6 spells is a nonsense.

Assassin has more AoE DPS (potions), more single target DPS (death strike/potions) and more survivability (stealth and dash. Dash also let Assassin dodge ranged attacks, sorcerer main problem). And Assassin's AOE "spells" (potions) don't share cooldowns like Sorc AOE spells (Tier 6).

[DoEFotGS]

Originally posted by cl4yt0n:

Only having 2 slots for spells it's also a problem and I feel the only viable build right now it's Energy/ice ( DPS+CC+survivability). With other combinations you have not DPS or heal or CC. By example: fire/energy don't have heal or elemental combos. With fire/ice or fire/earth don't have teleport. I feel that Energice it's a staple spell in epic mode so Energy it's almost mandatory. Also, the shared cooldown of Tier 6 spells is a nonsense.

Agree. For the mage his arsenal is very important. Particularly a quick and convenient switching between a his spells. Or a sufficient number of slots to spells. But in this game i have only 2 quick slots and 3 mode on them: offense-offense, offense-defense and defense-defense. It sounds good, but in practice it is terribly inconvenient. Yes, there are still have spell-switching wheel, but on epic difficult in small dungeon room open it - like a suicide. Cut off a balanced stance and instead it give a one more slot - it would be a better idea.

Shared cooldown of tier 6 spell... i have no decent words.

But for me the biggest disappointment was the charging system of spells. It simply is. That's all. Multi-level spells charge at the third level spells, with the possibility to use the not fully charged spell at non maximum available level - it would be much better. For example: 3 charge bars at level 3 spell, if you fill two of them and release spell - it cast level 2 spell, not level 3. With this the next level of the spell must to be a lot stronger than the previous level, but have more SP usage. In my opinion, of course.

Actualy, playing as a magician now - it's click-click-click-click-1 second hold-release-click-click-click-click...
I already beat the game as warrior and completely finish epic mode as crusader solo. The feel of the game as these classes is much better.

[DoEFotGS]

So, I almost got the achievement for a leveling mage up to 25 level. And I have no desire to continue to play as mage. What I think about it:

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1. Control.
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As I mentioned above, we have two quick slots and three stances, which bind on a three different buttons. But it would be more rational to remove one stance, and other two bind to one button for quickest change offense-defense mode of spells. I'm do it right now with a two buttons, 1 and 3 (for keyboard), and never use button 2 (balanced stance). So, in this way, we could a have on 2 buttons more for 2 remaining magic elements. Eventually it's come to 4 slots for spells and 1 button to quick change a combat stance, without adding any extra buttons.

The same number of buttons, but much more features.

Also, spell-change wheel is not needed anymore and save 1 more button.

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2. Spells.
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Aura. For example ice aura. It's ridiculous. I spot a mark where it appears and after that i need stand on this (do not simply pass through) about 1 second to gain ice damage buff to... 1 attack? Oh, crap. Augment gear with sapphire - it works much better. Also a chance of freezing the enemy works in a similar way. How about rework it to ice blast (like "Sanctuary" on crusader) with no knockback and high chance to freezing?

Something similar should also be done with other auras. Make them something else, because is not an aura - at this moment it's stationary area effects.

Tier 6 spells. All of them has a shared cooldown. How about remove it, but make some reworks to gain a similar effect of usage? I am referring to the revision of the charging system on spells and SP usage. As I mentioned, is possible to add 3 leveled charge bar to 3 level spell. if you fill two of them (or 2/3 if not separated) and release spell - it cast level 2 spell, not level 3. This will allow to cast the first-level spells, one after another. But if you do a spell of 2 and 3 level commensurate SP usage - it' makes more harder to spamming fully charged spells. For example a spell at 1 level use amount of 250 SP (it's still tier 6, don't forget), but level 2 spell use about 500 SP. In this embodiment a fully charged spell may use about 800-1000 SP, but it's granted a high damage or high chance of apply effect to enemy, and still not be able to spamming. It is also possible to make use all your SP to cast, if you have 800-1000 SP to charge them to full power, but give an additional damage bonus for each 10-25 remaining SP.

I understand that it can be very hard to do, but in my opinion it would be better. Just suggestion.

Oh, and what to do with the SP bar refilling after burning out all your SP to cast fully charged tier 6 spell? At the first paragraph we have 1 unused button. Hold them to charge SP bar, but without movement during this - it would be nice and solves the problem of lack of SP in the early game :)

And one more thing: there should be no knockback for each type of element. Only for physical spells (earth). Fire can burn, ice can freeze, energy can stun and earth have a knockback. It would be more fairly.

P.S: My English is still bad...

[BlackWren]

It's amazing how people completely don't understand how the Aura skills work, party due to poor wording. They don't give you a buff for the level of the skill, they give you a buff for the level of your character. Cast an Ice Aura, walk into the ring until you see the buff and at level 25 you can apply 25 Ice Debuffs before needing to walk back into the ring. Beyond that it also applies to other players and such. They are your bread and butter skills, use them to make your core element that much stronger.

Plus they have the added effect of applying whatever debuff to enemies that walk into the ring too, it's the exact reason why they gave us 3 stances. You have a stance that allows you access to both of your big hitting spells, a stance that lets you apply core defensive spells to assist and to suppliment damage and then a third stance to be full on party support. It's very useful and really it just takes a little bit of tinkering around to figure out why we don't have full on damage in multiple stances.

Before heading into any given room, drop an Aura down to buff your entire team. As soon as you enter drop another into a group far away to hinder them, attack a clear threat with your main attack and buff your team as needed throughout the room.

That said, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ would be nice if your attacks had a lot more oomph behind them. I don't like playing support as much as I like being DPS, and while I never expect to be DPS for a single target I'd sure freaking like it for crowd control. RIght now even a half assed player Assassin can out DPS me, especially with good Aura control coming from a Sorc.

[DoEFotGS]

Originally posted by blacksniper:

It's amazing how people completely don't understand how the Aura skills work, party due to poor wording. They don't give you a buff for the level of the skill, they give you a buff for the level of your character.player Assassin can out DPS me, especially with good Aura control coming from a Sorc.

Anyway.

Originally posted by DoEFotGS:

it appears and after that i need stand on this (do not simply pass through) about 1 second to gain ice damage buff to... 1 attack? Oh, crap. Augment gear with sapphire - it works much better. Also a chance of freezing the enemy works in a similar way.

Is no sense. Standing in this game at epic = death. Some enemy make one shot you with 3000 HP (3750 overcap) and 75/75 p.resist. No balance.

Originally posted by blacksniper:

it's the exact reason why they gave us 3 stances.

Originally posted by DoEFotGS:

But it would be more rational to remove one stance, and other two bind to one button for quickest change offense-defense mode of spells.

Quick change stance - cast defensive spell - quick change stance - spam offensive spells. You don't be able to cast any offensive spell before release defensive one. And vice versa. It's very simple to understand.

[Duodecimus]

I just don't get why mage needed to work differently than the other classes. The system of 'hold guard to access your other skills' would work perfectly fine for swapping between offense and defense with far fewer buttons required.

[Carnog]

HI
i think you can take asasins or ...
you do not have to take mage class