Fighter/ Mage :: Mage/ Fighter :: How should these 2 Differ ?

ArchivedUser

In every Archetype-Blend, I've always wondered how these two differ.

ArchivedUser

Well.... A class that is primarily a Fighter but has a secondary Mage class should be a person who uses magic to buff themselves, his core strength, for example, is punching you in the face very hard. Whereas a Fighter/Mage would be able to punch you in the face with a fist of fire (RIP Ace). This combo would be able to take down enemies and Fighter/Mage would be useful when fighting elemental beings that are weak to physical attacks.

A mage would primarily use long distance attacks, so in the same thought process, their strength would be staying out of the fight and hurling spells from a distance. Let's say in this example a mage uses a staff. With this staff, they can throw endless amounts of fireballs and lots of nasty things. However, if you manage to get up close to a normal mage then you could give them a 'good doing'. A Mage/Fighter, however, could use his staff better than expected, imbuing it with elemental properties and using physical (Fighter) strength if necessary to bop you in the face and all other areas. Perhaps some sort of spell that would knock you back that would tire him out but would still suit his Mage/Fighter style. This class would be useful in other scenarios, perhaps, when facing an enemy with great mobility but low health.

Does that make my opinion of the two clear or is that still... Foggy?

ArchivedUser

The way i see it, a fighter/mage would use magic to enhance his melee abilities and perhaps mobility, similar to an enhancement shaman in WoW. A mage/fighter would use a fighter's weapon versatility and prowess to enhance their magical attacks.
We won't know exactly how a they might augment a each other until Intrepid gives us some information about the fighter's abilities.
But, we can speculate on the 4 classes they have told us some about

ArchivedUser

Well since we don't know fighter skills atm I'm going to use the PAX Mage as an example atm to try express my vision ^^

ICE PRISM: A long casting ROOT SPELL. Lay down shards of ice that fully root a target. Currently does not do damage. Pure CC Fighter Augment : long cast removed, root applied instantly on close range attack. 

LIGHTNING BOLT: A line template of an attack that involves the mage determining the direction of the bolt and striking targets and dealing damage within that line. Fighter augment: additional damage done to close range enemies.

SELF TELEPORT: Allows the mage some mobility. Mage will teleport depending on direction facing. Fighter augment : can teleport to target and instant attack

MIRROR IMAGE: BUFF SKILL *Mage casts and creates a shimmer around them* if mage is attacked - buff increases evasion. Mirror breaks after so many attacks fighter augment : mirror reflects some damage back onto attacker

I don't normally play melee type characters so bad examples but the point is - augments apply flavours of the secondary archetype to your main skills ^^

Fighter/Mage will be the same but perhaps applying elemental buffs to your weapon and what not but hard to imagine because we don't know how fighter will work xD

I forgot the fireball skill xD I'll get in morning xD

ArchivedUser

I think every " Mirror-Archetype Match-Up " is going to be very interesting to watch tbh. Just imagine:

• Tank/ Fighter vs Fighter/ Tank
• Mage/ Ranger vs Ranger/ Mage
• Bard/ Cleric vs Cleric/ Bard
• Summoner/ Rogue vs Rogue/ Summoner
• Including the other 64 Combinations ( Etc ... )

I'd personally imagine the Fighter/ Mage to be " Sword wielding Magician " .

• being able to wield a Sword in the Right-hand & Cast Magic in the Left. In addition being able to alternate to Left-Handed Swordsmanship. Thus now having the Magic to be in the Right-hand now.

The Mage/ Fighter ... so far i think " Magic-Materialization into Weapons "

• this 
• Turning into .. this (below)  

... Or any other Weapon ? 

... Almost like how the Green Lantern from DC / Marvel can materialize Weapons from their Rings.   . Can't think of anything else atm

EDIT: I suppose having the Grimoire ( the book ) in the Right or Left hand ? 
And the " Materialized-{Insert Magical-Element} Weapon " being distinctly different than a potential in-game Weapon-item too

ArchivedUser

Imho, most important differences:

- Fighter / Mage would be melee range
- Mage / Fighter would be long range

Fighter / Mage uses fighters attacks buffed by magic, extra magic damage is added to fighters attacks, like burning effect added to target on hit, or magic forcefield added to fighter upon using some defensive skill...

Mage / Fighter is a Mage whose long range magic attacks are buffed by some of fighter attributes. For example Mage / Fighters fireball gets extra armor penetration effect, or Mage / Fighter after teleporting to a certain spot, knocks down nearby targets (depending on secondary class this can be knockback, fear, blind, confuse etc.).

Primary class always stays primary class, its skills just get buffed by secondary class flavor.

ArchivedUser

@Gothix I initially thought of something like that for the " Mage/ Fighter " too. But then ... how would the Mage/ Fighter differentiate from a " Mage/ Mage " ? 

ArchivedUser

@Eragale Mage / Fighter would get his spells buffed by some physical boosts, for example fireball getting armor penetration, while Mage / Mage fireball getting extra fire DOT effect.

Mage / Fighter after teleportation would knock back nearby targets, while Mage / Mage would do a small AoE attack after teleportation. Mage / Archer would get temporarily increased movement speed after teleportation. Mage / Tank would get small magic barrier on himself after teleportation.

Mage / Archer fireball would remain the same but get a bit increased range. Mage / Summoner fireball would have a small chance to fear the target shortly.

Main spells remain the same, only subclass flavor / utility is added to them.

At least that's how I would do it.

ArchivedUser

@Gothix I see what you mean. Augments will just change the
Mechanics / " Aftermath ".

i think was referring to different PlayStyles / Combat-Styles - Not just the
" End-Result " , but rather more than just that. 

ArchivedUser

Well if we are focusing on the Fighter and Mage dynamics I'd go for something like this:

Fighter/Mage - This class is going to be of course focusing on using magic to augment their physical prowess and should be apparent in their skills they'll probably be staying in the front line and powering through their enemies

Mage/Fighter - Now with mage being the primary class you have to think how martial prowess could augment your magic, now of course it can't directly so you have to see how it can aid it.  I can see this taking a more roguish route of more hit and run attacks with your martial side and maybe additional speed to maneuver combine this with your magical attacks at range and I could see this being quite annoying
 (Additional armor would be nice if that is class restricted but I'm unsure how things like that will be treated)

(For those of you who are worried about the Mage/Rogue being overshadowed I was thinking that it could pertain to more illusions and stealth combined with powerful spells with a speed boost as well)

If you want an example you could look at D&D 5es (Fighter) Eldritch Knight vs the (Wizard)  Bladesinger. Both have aspects of the other while still being quite distinct.

ArchivedUser

ONE'S MELEE MAGE AND THE OTHER IS MAGE MELEE!


melm melm melm melm melm melm melm melm ~

ArchivedUser

I am super excited to see how these class systems pan out. Could get some unique blends.....If not unique, who wouldn't want to play as a Bard/Summoner summoning magical singing demons to form your own Acapella. 

ArchivedUser

@Wolfwall I wish i could +1 Like & +1 LoL that comment 

ArchivedUser

@Eragale  no worries i did it for ya

ArchivedUser

@Eragale @Guildart You guys are just da best!   

ArchivedUser

Well we have melee and range slots for every build.

So I dont think mage would necessarily be range focused unless there was a melee range class too.

Which begs the question of...if you can have close range and far range DPS classes, why not close range and far range tanking and healing classes..as well as magical melee/ranged to go with physical melee/ranged. Perhaps melee/ranged should be a physical slider and tank/healing should be magical slider. But then you have physical and magical tanks, so why not physical and magical healers.

I'll wait and see what Inprepid come up with and hope there is symmetry and preferably duality among the class types.

ArchivedUser

Rune_Relic said:

Well we have melee and range slots for every build.

So I dont think mage would necessarily be range focused unless there was a melee range class too.

Which begs the question of...if you can have close range and far range DPS classes, why not close range and far range tanking and healing classes..as well as magical melee/ranged to go with physical melee/ranged. Perhaps melee/ranged should be a physical slider and tank/healing should be magical slider. But then you have physical and magical tanks, so why not physical and magical healers.

I'll wait and see what Inprepid come up with and hope there is symmetry and preferably duality among the class types.

They are trying to break the cookie cutter builds of MMOs past where the healer sits in the back and just watches health bars for most of the fight and may have to move a couple times to avoid mechanics. I could see an argument for range tanking (kiting?) in regards to controlling a battlefield, but as soon as you give them pesky healers a choice of getting up front in the action to heal, or hanging out on a rock watching stuff go on and throwing aoe blanket heals it is going to go back to the same old boring stuff. 

ArchivedUser

@UnknownSystemError I don't know about that . Imagine a " Ranger/ Cleric "
 Never having to get close to anything or Anyone .... just Shooting the ...
 " Arrow of Life " at everyone  >~>

ArchivedUser

MAge/Fighter is still primarily a mage who uses range attacks however instead of normal mages have virtually no melee and relying purly on spells this one should be able to fight in close combat,  Fighter/Mage is a fighter who uses mage spells to make its weapons do elemental damage like fire strike,  frost slash, so on and so on.

ArchivedUser

Eragale said:

@UnknownSystemError I don't know about that . Imagine a " Ranger/ Cleric "
 Never having to get close to anything or Anyone .... just Shooting the ...
 " Arrow of Life " at everyone  >~>

From what I understand not every ability will be available to flavor from your secondary. So that fire arrow ability may not have a self heal as an option. It isn't like you are going to be able to slap whatever you want from cleric skills onto every other skill to make them all self heals, but will be a skill by skill option. Maybe an arrow that curses, or so on. Until we see exactly how they plan to let us modify with secondaries we just won't know.

ArchivedUser

@UnknownSystemError
I thought that they'll be a set of " Basic-Primary Abilties ". Then, when a Secondary is selected, then all of them will have after-effects that'll visually show whats happening

Even during the Ability-Animation

ArchivedUser

Didn't Steven already explain how this works?

Something about a tank or fighter (can't remember which it was) class having a Rush skill where the melee character dashes towards an enemy..
But then if it's augmented with tank/mage skill, the Dash instantly teleports to the enemy.

Then if you're a mage/fighter I'd imagine it'd be your Teleport skill could be augmented as instant teleport, with small melee damage or stun up close.

Whereas mage/mage would just teleport, maybe at a father distance or quicker rate than others. Depends on what they come up with for augments.

ArchivedUser

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

There we go, perfect, straight from the horse's mouth lol