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Mage Desires Compilation and Analysis/Conversion
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
This week's Compilation is for Mages, since we have some more information on flows. As usual, references and data have been taken primarily, if not entirely, from this official thread and this unofficial(?) one.
Disclaimer: I don't need a bias-disclaimer this week. The Mage of my group literally hasn't said a single thing to me about what they want or the combat or anything, and the tabletop game influence doesn't exist here either since the magic system for that game is miles away from standard MMO Mageplay except in the obvious 'we cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down'.
Things that Mage-interested people wanted, sorted pretty easily:
Things Mages want seem to rely less on specific aspects of Augments, and more on broad concepts for the Augments that seem fairly likely, but it's still possible to miss the mark. Mages are also the class so far with the heaviest 'double down' on the Archetype, but that's predictable enough, given how they work in most other games. So there's not much to say. The Augments are likely to fit, the goals of almost all players are clear, forged by decades of development of this class concept. There is barely any need for any schema.
Mage is probably the class where Intrepid can take the most feedback on thematics, though, and have the highest chances of special cool 'emergent spells' when Archwizards 'combine elements' from the main spell with the Augment. Since these would probably not mess with much, just 'do a bit more damage, or two damage types', it's unlikely to be unbalanced or generate too much 'Archwizard Envy', especially given the trends...
Archwizards are actually the reason I don't think that the Creative Director meant that Mage Augment schools will be taken up by three different elemental augments. It would cause Archwizards to be the ones with the least reason to actually double down on their Archetype. You'll notice that my speculative Reverse Engineered Augments List actually starts with Mage, and for that reason.
As always...
THIS POST IS IN NO WAY AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT INTREPID IS ACTUALLY DOING
So you should tell them what you need to make your mage the spellslinging powerhouse of your dreams, whatever you consider 'power' to be.
Disclaimer: I don't need a bias-disclaimer this week. The Mage of my group literally hasn't said a single thing to me about what they want or the combat or anything, and the tabletop game influence doesn't exist here either since the magic system for that game is miles away from standard MMO Mageplay except in the obvious 'we cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down'.
Things that Mage-interested people wanted, sorted pretty easily:
1. One Archwizard wanted nukes and forbidden spells, another had a full list of their specific ideas, another wanted to make sure they were as 'magicky' as possible, twelve others wanted this class, most said for the big damage
2. One Warlock wanted to summon magical spirits, another two wanted DoT, Debuffs and CC rather than instant burst damage, one was willing to be an Acolyte, two others wanted this class (one of which I put here because they insisted on having summons)
3. One Spellstone dreamed of defeating enemies with their sculpted abs, another was willing to be a Spellshield, one other wanted this class
4. One Spellhunter was also willing to be a Scion for the 'magic archer'-ness, mobility and utility
5. One Shadow Caster wasn't explicit about it, but liked Mesmer from GW2, one other wanted this class (also not explicit, wanted an Evasion-Tank styled Mage so I put them in here), another ( @bot ) had explicit wishes, another only wanted this over Nightspell if augments provide stealth, one other wanted this class
6. Two Battle Mages were also willing to be Spellsword, another was willing to be a Spellstone, another was willing to be Gandalf, one wanted to elementally enchant weapons, four others wanted this class
7. One Acolyte was also willing to be a Sorcerer for the buffs, one other wanted this class
8. One Sorcerer felt it would fit their RP, another had wishes for how augments would work, two others were willing to be a Warlock if the synergies were better, two others wanted this class
9. One undecided Mage wanted big ranged damage at the cost of standing still, while having mobility spells (treated as Spellhunter for Schema analysis), one wanted to limit the opponent's mobility and damage, another was excited for the diversity, yet another wanted to be on the move and cast quickly, another wanted to play like the Lineage II Spellsinger, there were ten others
2. One Warlock wanted to summon magical spirits, another two wanted DoT, Debuffs and CC rather than instant burst damage, one was willing to be an Acolyte, two others wanted this class (one of which I put here because they insisted on having summons)
3. One Spellstone dreamed of defeating enemies with their sculpted abs, another was willing to be a Spellshield, one other wanted this class
4. One Spellhunter was also willing to be a Scion for the 'magic archer'-ness, mobility and utility
5. One Shadow Caster wasn't explicit about it, but liked Mesmer from GW2, one other wanted this class (also not explicit, wanted an Evasion-Tank styled Mage so I put them in here), another ( @bot ) had explicit wishes, another only wanted this over Nightspell if augments provide stealth, one other wanted this class
6. Two Battle Mages were also willing to be Spellsword, another was willing to be a Spellstone, another was willing to be Gandalf, one wanted to elementally enchant weapons, four others wanted this class
7. One Acolyte was also willing to be a Sorcerer for the buffs, one other wanted this class
8. One Sorcerer felt it would fit their RP, another had wishes for how augments would work, two others were willing to be a Warlock if the synergies were better, two others wanted this class
9. One undecided Mage wanted big ranged damage at the cost of standing still, while having mobility spells (treated as Spellhunter for Schema analysis), one wanted to limit the opponent's mobility and damage, another was excited for the diversity, yet another wanted to be on the move and cast quickly, another wanted to play like the Lineage II Spellsinger, there were ten others
Things Mages want seem to rely less on specific aspects of Augments, and more on broad concepts for the Augments that seem fairly likely, but it's still possible to miss the mark. Mages are also the class so far with the heaviest 'double down' on the Archetype, but that's predictable enough, given how they work in most other games. So there's not much to say. The Augments are likely to fit, the goals of almost all players are clear, forged by decades of development of this class concept. There is barely any need for any schema.
The main things that will matter for mages in a schema are:
1. The balance of 'how many abilities have big AoE and Cast times' to 'how many abilities are small'
2. The ways in which they can protect themselves.
It's therefore possible that Intrepid will limit the total amount of CC abilities so that classes that don't have Augments that help with CC will have less, and balancing them by pushing those toward damage.
Still, this is almost entirely handled by Augments, and the fact that even with multiple Elements, some specialization is expected. Mages might be able to have lots of spells, but they couldn't learn every element without being slightly weaker at each, probably.
Fireball, Razor Wind/Twister, Freeze, Meteor, Lightning, Black Hole, Prismatic Beam, Water Surge, Quake... done. Double up on some of this and make some more with natural AoE (Firestorm, Hailstorm, Sandstorm, Typhoon, Lightning Storm, etc) if we get two hotbars.
Many implied they would appreciate at least one other Mobility skill besides Blink and it's probable that they get the Sleep spell. Not much more to say, since Mages have such drastically different ideas of balance, but maybe one more CC and a Mana Shield will be enough for everyone.
1. The balance of 'how many abilities have big AoE and Cast times' to 'how many abilities are small'
2. The ways in which they can protect themselves.
It's therefore possible that Intrepid will limit the total amount of CC abilities so that classes that don't have Augments that help with CC will have less, and balancing them by pushing those toward damage.
Still, this is almost entirely handled by Augments, and the fact that even with multiple Elements, some specialization is expected. Mages might be able to have lots of spells, but they couldn't learn every element without being slightly weaker at each, probably.
Fireball, Razor Wind/Twister, Freeze, Meteor, Lightning, Black Hole, Prismatic Beam, Water Surge, Quake... done. Double up on some of this and make some more with natural AoE (Firestorm, Hailstorm, Sandstorm, Typhoon, Lightning Storm, etc) if we get two hotbars.
Many implied they would appreciate at least one other Mobility skill besides Blink and it's probable that they get the Sleep spell. Not much more to say, since Mages have such drastically different ideas of balance, but maybe one more CC and a Mana Shield will be enough for everyone.
Mage is probably the class where Intrepid can take the most feedback on thematics, though, and have the highest chances of special cool 'emergent spells' when Archwizards 'combine elements' from the main spell with the Augment. Since these would probably not mess with much, just 'do a bit more damage, or two damage types', it's unlikely to be unbalanced or generate too much 'Archwizard Envy', especially given the trends...
Quite a few of the undecided mages were placed in that category because the things they wanted, like survivability and defense, are currently planned to be moreso gear dependent. It is likely that they each would have a preferred secondary Archetype, but Augments are speculative, so I can't say what they would end up actually choosing, except the ones that basically said 'prob Archwizard but idk'. I still factored the 'likeliest' when I could. Similarly, a few of the Battle Mages and Spellstones with explicit wish to be those classes, indicated the same wishes. Archwizards were looking to double down, as expected, but a few seemed to think they 'had to'. Warlocks were fairly unanimous in their wish for slower damage and DoT. The Shadow Casters cared a lot about Rogue Augments, in different ways.
Archwizards are actually the reason I don't think that the Creative Director meant that Mage Augment schools will be taken up by three different elemental augments. It would cause Archwizards to be the ones with the least reason to actually double down on their Archetype. You'll notice that my speculative Reverse Engineered Augments List actually starts with Mage, and for that reason.
As always...
THIS POST IS IN NO WAY AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT INTREPID IS ACTUALLY DOING
So you should tell them what you need to make your mage the spellslinging powerhouse of your dreams, whatever you consider 'power' to be.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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Comments
The way it would work is the mage places a ground template (a ring or a circle) on what they want to displace (maybe some mobs, maybe some players) and then places a second ground template where they want to teleport them to. The range to place these templates can be far, but not unreasonably so. The cast time should be very fast but long cooldown.
Applications include:
- teleporting your allies to the enemy back line
- Teleporting enemies into a kill zone or off a cliff
- Teleporting friends up to a ledge or safely down from a ledge
- Teleport enemies who are hanging up on you away from you so you can have room to escape
There's a skill in Archeage that does exactly this
https://archeage.mokulu.io/skills#a=0000
Go to the bottom left and look at grasping void and it's ancestral skills
This reminded me of the mesmer portal in GW2. Some of the coolest engagements I remember from that game started from portalling in behind an unsuspecting enemy. Not sure how this community would feel about an ability like that. Not sure how it would even work considering the collision in this game and the issues it causes with the pyroclastic wyrm portal, but I'm sure Intrepid could figure it out.