are mages really underpowered?

[Grumpy Old Guy]

I keep hearing this over and over on the forums and I'm not really having any issues with magic users myself and I think its just due to poor utilization.

I'm at level 17 right now and sebile is my Geo/pyro mage. In one turn she can pretty much kill just about anything. She's got 2 in warfare for pheonix dive and for the executioner talent. She also has glass cannon, she has 41 intel and 15 pyro. She has 50% fire resist (supernova hits you) and stupid high initiative so she almost always goes first and for the crit boost (she has about 25 wits). Her first turn goes something like this.

Pheonix dive into the enemy (1 ap) then use supernova (3 ap) supernova does about 1700 damage (it can also crit with the talent) now with elemental affinity all her other fire spells cost 1 less ap. I use adrenalin rush (+2 ap everyone should have this skill) so now I have 4 AP again. Fireball hits for about 1k damage (1 ap) laser hits for about 1500 damage (2 ap) and Combustion hits for about 800 damage (1 AP) . Usually anything at my level can't survive the 5k damage I've just delt (without crits mind you) and even if it has fire resist it still usually dies giving me 2 more AP. Fire whip spell (2 ap) gives me another 1200 damage.

If I use flesh sacrifice I can also use searing daggers which hits for about 750 damage.

Proper talent use and making sure my intiative is higher she can easily do over 7k damage in one turn, without her 20% crit chance ever activating and without hitting more than one person, which she can usually do since most of those skills have a pretty big AOE on them. That's without the extra 10% damage from flesh sacrifice if I use it before the nukefest starts. With that factored in the damage is nearly 8k on one target.

By comparison Ifan has 58 strenght, 16 warfare, 6 2 handed and a legendary sword. He can hit for about 1300 damage per swing.He gets two attacks with glass cannon after closing distance, three with the adrenalin rush ability. He can do about 3900 in one turn, with executioner he can do 5200. Yes he can crit too, yes he has some abilities that hit multi targets, and yes physical damage can't be resisted like fire can but physical attacks can miss and magic can't.

If he had flesh sacrifice he could squeeze in one more melee attack, +10% total damage for a total of about 7100. That assumes he doesn't have to move again between his attacks, if he does he loses a swing or he has to use a less damaging attack.

Seems pretty even to me. I know I'm not accounting for fire resist but I'm also not accounting for misses or crits or hitting multiple targets for simplicity sake.

[corisai]

And later you will see mages true power - their OP source spells ;)

[Grumpy Old Guy]

yes I didn't even put source magic in there because it's not spamable and I wanted to keep it simple

[Freshmaker]

Yeah I also don't understand anyone saying magic is underpowered. Sure it's not that great the first few levels because you don't have enough spells to spend all your ap on, but once you do the aoe is so much more then anything a warrior/rogue or huntsman can do.

[Kriez]

No mages are not underpowered, they just serve more aoe than single target but they still hit high when specced right. physical is a lot better but mages are not "unplayable" all of my playthroughs have 2 mages

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Originally posted by KRIZ:

No mages are not underpowered, they just serve more aoe than single target but they still hit high when specced right. physical is a lot better but mages are not "unplayable" all of my playthroughs have 2 mages

See I wouldn't even say physical is outright better. Maybe early on it is but late game because you can reduce the cost of spells with elemental affinity you can cast spells for 1 ap where you can't swing for 1 ap and if your magic can crit and easily hit multiple targets it can do more damage in a turn than a melee fighter.

[corisai]

Magic IMHO actually have only one problem : there's mobs with 100% fire resistance and no mobs with 100% physical resistance.

So it's "feeling" like magic weaker and not as comfortable as physical damage.

So if Larians throw here and there physical resistance for mobs - all will be OK with balance.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Originally posted by corisai:

Magic IMHO actually have only one problem : there's mobs with 100% fire resistance and no mobs with 100% physical resistance.

So it's "feeling" like magic weaker and not as comfortable as physical damage.

So if Larians throw here and there physical resistance for mobs - all will be OK with balance.

See that's true but there are also enemies with evasion, enemies that teleport and fly, there are a lot of ways to negate a melee character's ability to do his damage just like you can come across enemies with fire resist

[Farsha]

Originally posted by Rabid Elevator Midget:

yes I didn't even put source magic in there because it's not spamable and I wanted to keep it simple

Source skills become spamable soon as you get source vampirism. That can be lvl 12 or so if you aim for it

[Grumpy Old Guy]

It still requires you to spend turns using source vamp, or to get more points between fights, I don't like having to bother refilling my source points so I just never use them.

[Колотун Бабай]

Iam lvl 18 fire/aero undead mage, 96% crit, 52 initiative, 24 pyro/12(or14) aero, supernova hit around 3.5k without crit, source skill meteor... hit around 650 dmg per 1 meteor (and total 25 meteors). My coop friend tells me that he doesnt needed at all), all died or almost died when he got his turn.

[Roamer.GFX]

try to geather more multipliers for ur warrior (dont go 16 warfare better go 8 warfare 8 scoundrel , dont go 58 str, better pick some wits,,, etc)... and u will see his true power
executioner, tons of singletarget dmg, 5+ TP abilites for 1 ap

anyway mobs are more underpowered then any classes

[wds_ncs]

Yeah, mages are stronger. They just require a little bit more effort and they don't get clearly superior until Driftwood, so most of the forum still writes them off. I still think an ideal 2H build does better *single target* damage per point of AP and Source and is simpler to use, but hot damn are mages powerful

[Farsha]

Originally posted by Rabid Elevator Midget:

It still requires you to spend turns using source vamp, or to get more points between fights, I don't like having to bother refilling my source points so I just never use them.

You can source vamp corpses and spirits out of combat. You have 3 point for each character every fight. More than enough, given their strength.

[Yaldabaoth]

Mages have no problem with damage. Physical is just superior because of area effect knock down which can negate all challenge of an entire encounter. Geomancy has knockdown too but you have to break physical armor first which only a necromancer could do and necro spells are pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for that purpose.

[Roamer.GFX]

Originally posted by Farsha:

You can source vamp corpses and spirits out of combat. You have 3 point for each character every fight. More than enough, given their strength.

Or u can use a spell that makes spells source free