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one of the big issue with merlin is really that spells has fixed range, so especially with the fire spells that have no cc with them, it is a major disadvantage that you can't properly aim where the spell effect will land, but are reliant on fixed ranges.
(my god i cannot explain how angry it makes me when devs makes sht designs, because they are making console design instead of pc, on a pc game.. fu devs for that)
i found the fire setup to be the worst without a doubt, the damage output is no where near enough to make up for the lack of cc and defence; especially in a game where it is all about "wars of attrition".
anyway:
i feel like merlins weapon sets are more gimmick then anything else. i don't think they where done very well, or thought over very well.
this is properly because they simply tried to chenge out existing spells, instead of giving new ability setups.
i think a better approach would have been to give weapon sets that didn't require "element mixing" but streight out gave you "rmb, lmb, x amount hotkeys" spells more in the mindset of the other classes, and focused on what they wanted to accomplish (dps, defence or utility).
btw: they really should just have given us hotkeys for the spells instead of the mixing system -.-
then maybe we could also have actual CD counters for each ability.. sigh...
I disagreed with every single thing you just said.
I agree that the Eldritch Sphere currently compromises some defense, as it does offense. I'll also grant you that Rift Jump takes some getting used to, but it is reliable as an escape. It has the same pattern every time and it covers much more ground than Flaming Serpents. That said, Flaming Serpents is both an excellent attack and just as good an escape. Rift Jump needs some extra spice. Finally, I think simply lowering Storm Barrage's cooldown will give the set all the defensive and offensive power it needs. This set seems to be all about direct and active defense, cycling Thunder Blast, Freezing Wave, Storm Barrage, and Storm Barrier to keep most threats out of your hair.
Hellfire is a focused, high damage replacement for the freezing ray, it even has the same animation. Unlike freeze ray it has crap range and doesn't slow targets down. Movement, range, crowd control...it needs something.
Rift Jump is consistent but the aim is off center making it difficult to use. Enemies either form up in a group or more commonly in a line which is perfect for flaming serpents. I use flaming serpents in tight spaces too much to even think about using this spell as a get away.
I noticed they increased the cool down on thunder blast which is rough since that is a great defensive spell.
When there are tons of ghosts or spiderlings everywhere, it is fun to spin in circles with dark torrent to kill them all quickly.
I don't know if it actually makes a difference, but try holding the spell down. I always do that when using vacuum, but I don't know if it actually changes anything, or if it is like leaning to the side when playing a racing game, ie: reflex but not helpful.
I find the new Fire spells to be excellent. The hellfire is shorter, but a lot wider than ice beam and can kill spawners and mobs together without moving if at proper distance. The fire blast (freeze replacement) is instant kill on most mobs, heavy damage on others plus DOT.
I don't particularly like the new electrical spells.
The void school is interesting for group play; low damage but lots of CC ability.
-Invisible is wayyy too powerful. You're practically invincible when using it and it can be chained forever. Use flute, get the monsters to kill each other and just float around almost untouchable until you can use flute again, you can even use flute while invisible without breaking your invisibility. You're still vulnerable to attacks but as long as you don't walk into aoe then you're pretty much in the clear.
-Vacuum is really cool and I can see it being pretty useful in some situations but the long cooldown makes it kind of meh overall.
-I found dark torment to be pretty disappointing, the slow down is nice and it has a huge AoE range but the damage is almost negligible, i mean it took me like 5-7 seconds to destroy a door on hard with it... I'm not saying it's weak, because like the OP said, you can pretty much kite forever without any worries but it's poor damage is super boring and I'd rather just not use the skill. Imo, up the damage but lower the AoE range by half or something.
Personally, I found Sinister Sentience to be my favorite so far.
-Hellfire is great for destroying spawners and you can keep another spawner completely locked down with burning orb, making spawner rooms pretty easy.
-Searing blast does insane damage and is like a short range AoE instant sniper shot from the elf but the AoE range is almost too small for it to be very useful.
-Burning orb is awesome, probably my favorite skill out of all the spells and like I mentioned above, it's great for locking a spawner down since it's burn time is so long. It won't destroy the spawner by itself but you don't need to worry about any monsters from the spawner it's on while it's active. I just wish you could control where burning orb goes like the ice orb spell but that might make this spell too powerful. If you could launch it on yourself when getting cornered it might be way too strong.
I found Endritch's Mystic Sphere pretty meh overall.
-The repeater bolts are pretty fun to use but overall they just feel weaker than the fireball. I think they should maybe lower the damage just a little and add an aoe effect to them. If they added damage to this spell though, it would just outclass fireball hard. The stagger on fireball is nice but being able to shoot 2-3 times faster with almost the same damage would be way stronger. Also, you can't destroy food with it! haha.
-Rift jump isn't random, if you do some tests, you'll find that you'll end in the same location every time if you jump from the same spot while facing the same way. Also, once you know the pattern for jumping, you'll hardly get tripped up. You always do a diagonal zig zag to the left of your character. It's basically the same as twin serpents (is that the name? i forget) but with a much higher skill cap. It's not really less reliable, just a lot harder to use.
-Storm barrage is awesome, each orb has an AoE that does pretty decent damage and knocks everything away and stuns them. I also love how pots won't use an orb.
The difficulty of use with rift jump and the underwhelming power of repeater bolts is really what makes this set of spells meh though. If repeater bolts got buffed then I would probably use this set much more often.
A few things I have noted on the abilities:
(1) Repeater bolts do have a bit of stun associated with them, just no stagger. They will stop enemies from firing projectiles even if they are mid animation for firing. They also interrupt the mage curse in temple levels, as well as stopping mages and cave shamans buffing spawners. With direct and constant fire on smaller enemies it stops them completely. This can be crucial on the Unfair (37+) portions of endless with mages, mummy priests, and cave shamans..
Repeater bolts will NOT destroy food or potions.
(2) Storm barrage deals a LOT of damage, and as noted above has an AoE shock on hit. This seems to do a large amount of splash damage as well as knocking down regular enemies. The radius of Merlin's Storm barrier is just a bit shorter than the radius of Storm barrage. So using the two together works quite well. Storm Barrier+Storm Barrage+Ice Beam will kill small and medium spawners before the barrier runs out. The larger ones will take a second or two more.
The duration of the barrage is just short of the cooldown so if they do not impact anything you can pretty much have it up constantly.
Storm barrage WILL destroy food and potions.
(3) Rift jump. Not my favourite spell but I am starting to really appreciate it. At first I deemed it almost useless due to the leftward offset from centre of the teleport direction. Yes, you can compensate by remembering to TP just to the right of where you want to go, but that gets forgotten easily under pressure. Things can go downhill really quickly if you zigzag into an object and get stuck which happens a lot.
The distance of the port is great, but the really interesting part is the sizeable damage it deals if you hit mobs with it. This includes spawners. Another good use is when fighting the large beholder demons. The TP is long enough that you can be phased when the AoE blast goes off if you can't get behind him or find cover.
Rift jump will interrupt mage curse IF you can hit them.
You can also mimic Merlins standard book combo of Freeze+Twin Serpents with Freeze+Rift Jump but you must move Merlin slightly before you TP as he ports on an angle v.s. straight. More commonly I'll use Freeze+Storm Barrage+Repeater Bolts and just walk into the group firing.
Rift jump will knock over lesser and some medium enemies.
(4) Storm barrage stays active while Rift Jump is active. This requires some finesse to pull off, but if your barrage is active and you rift jump correctly you can knock down and deal some pretty hefty damage to a large swath of enemies.
Anything within the purple radius gets affected and anything within ~3-4 normal mob "widths", e.g. 3-4 mummies grouped front to back, outside of that radius gets pulled in as well.
I'm going to try using the fire book but Hellfire is such a huge downgrade from the ice beam.
its not realy. Its fat so mobs just pile up onto it and get murdered. It seems to have wonky targeting when hitting spawners though. Sometimes you can drop it right on a spawner and it doesnt do any damage.
So far the book of fire is my favorite wizard weapon. You just have to remember to use thunder blast to keep big things at bay.
Hellfire and Ice Beam are both channeled spells that do the same amount of damage, Hellfire trades in Merlin's longest range spell (great against the giant eyeball demons) and a slow effect for a slightly wider area of effect.There's no way you can tell me that is comparable or a fair trade in power.
Against spawners is a bit risky even if you just put the corner on the spawner so that most of the effect hits incoming mobs. They won't run through the middle so you're only going to hurt not kill them. Meanwhile from across the map Ice beam kills ethe mobs before they get half way to Merlin and he safely wastes the spawner.
To make the spell good it needs something more like a slow or better yet larger aoe. Not too bit otherwise it could completely lock down a spawner. Even then I'm not sure it puts it on par with Ice Beam