Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Mage Feedback
PurpleHurricane
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
This is really a combination of feedback for the game in general, but really the game from the mages perspective.
1. Equipping mages is an awful experience. There are 1/4 of the mage mobs. Party comps typically consist of a minimum of 3/8 being magic users. Cleric, bard, mage. But the reality is 2x cleric, bard, 1-3 mages.
I have now grinded nearly every major mob spot. There is typically 1 magic item type mob for every 2-3 physical item type mob. The drop rates are the same and so generally groups receive 1/3 of the drops for magic items in what is usually a very dense magic user party comp.
The end result is that getting gear is near impossible. I am constantly under geared in every setting. We then have to take *special* trips just to farm gear. Please adjust drop rates based on mob density for a region to balance it out. If it’s a 1:3 ratio, it should be a 3:1 drop rate and vice versa.
The current behavior forces the crafting route. If you look at chat there is constantly someone looking to buy mage gear. Nobody sells it because nobody has it. It’s then also very difficult to make - but that’s feedback for the crafting system.
2. More skills and more sustain. I do like the current rotation in general. Love the idea of proc chains. However, there has to be a specialization. Reduce the proc chain based on the specialization. Frost specialization should not require chilled - frozen for example. The rotation is too dense in terms of timing. It is not hard to get all skills on cooldown. The real problem then comes to the sustainment.
Yes gear has a lot to do with mana sustain, but the ability to be geared is already at a very high threshold. But there are 2 things which are consistent - I am always low on health, I am always low on mana. If there is no bard present, it’s very difficult to sustain any activity. There needs to be a way that I can recover mana. In a solo engagement I only last 2-3 rotations before I’m out of mana and then the recovery rate is slow enough that I will never get back up and I am down to only auto attacks and 1-2 skills every 60 seconds. Which in a PvP fight is too long.
If I have to run around and dodge for 4-5 seconds I understand that and it will push me for better gear, but being non recoverable is not acceptable. You can’t be a glass cannon both in health and mana. Mana should not be a problem for mages. No other class has as much as a sustainment issue.
3. Fire is not strong enough. There is not enough fire AOE options, the ones that exist are incredibly mana expensive. The easy fix for this is that fire spreads - back to the fire specialist - conflagration regardless of specialization, should be applied to all targets nearby with burning stacks. Do that and fire will be a viable play style.
4. Shatter builds should automatically come with additional critical chance and critical power.
5. Blizzard is lack luster, it has limited utility and damage is terrible. It’s too long of a cooldown, cost too much, and makes you too vulnerable for the little that it does.
I would suggest increasing its damage and then making it attuned to the element with an immediate application of the tier 2 status - frozen, shocked, conflagration. And/or after using it, receive a 30 second buff of some kind. It’s very hard to make it make sense in any use case because of how long the animation is - in and out, how slow you move, and how long it takes to apply frozen.
The only 2 use cases it currently has is to keep conflagration running, and to upkeep frozen time in a group. If conflagration was applied in bulk, it would make the skill useful to some degree.
6. Back to mage gear. Ok, so I have to kill magic mobs to get magic items.. they’re all magic resistant. So in most scenarios I still have to convince a physical character to go out of their way to assist me - or worse, I solo farm and am left with very little health by the end and have to take my ration break. Meanwhile, the fighter who is 4 levels below me, is clearing the island every 4 minutes. If you notice, everyone avoids magic mobs because they will 1 shot you (looking at you flame bois) or they will silence you. But, fighting a mage all you have to do is watch their mana bar and they’re screwed. Mages should be a risk reward in PvP. Risk is they’re highly dangerous if they deal their damage, reward is you took out the biggest damage dealer. Right now mages represent 0 risk to engage and are out sustained by every class. If mage is meant to be an AOE class, provide me the sustainment to last at least a second or two against a mob of otters. Give me more magic resist, or more magic pen, or enough mana that I can use my skills to survive.
7. Arcane, more arcane skills. I see that arcane can be the route for mana regen, sure. Make it more available.
8. Earth skills? Where are they. We need more CC options or you force only shatter builds.
9. 4 seconds of frozen good for CC length, bad for the duration which I can apply shatter. I need another 2 seconds at least to apply shatter. Unless you’ve got legendary gear to back that cast speed (which becomes the only stat variety encouraged) then applying frozen and subsequently casting a single lightning skill takes up the entire 4 seconds. If you’re fast you can get 2 in, barely.
10. Attunement needs work. I see that we were trying to do something like the GW2 weaver, but that worked because it affected all skills and made it a high complexity class. I think it’s the right direction, but it needs a larger role and needs the ability to switch manually, not chased by skill order which makes it.. redundant? Clearing my attunement literally doesn’t matter because it’s going to change on the next skill I cast. I would ditch the passively gained skills and dump them in the tree. Replace them with higher enhanced versions of the attunement.
It should be the core of every build. *cough* there should be a floating orb dancing around the mage which matches their attuned skill.
1. Equipping mages is an awful experience. There are 1/4 of the mage mobs. Party comps typically consist of a minimum of 3/8 being magic users. Cleric, bard, mage. But the reality is 2x cleric, bard, 1-3 mages.
I have now grinded nearly every major mob spot. There is typically 1 magic item type mob for every 2-3 physical item type mob. The drop rates are the same and so generally groups receive 1/3 of the drops for magic items in what is usually a very dense magic user party comp.
The end result is that getting gear is near impossible. I am constantly under geared in every setting. We then have to take *special* trips just to farm gear. Please adjust drop rates based on mob density for a region to balance it out. If it’s a 1:3 ratio, it should be a 3:1 drop rate and vice versa.
The current behavior forces the crafting route. If you look at chat there is constantly someone looking to buy mage gear. Nobody sells it because nobody has it. It’s then also very difficult to make - but that’s feedback for the crafting system.
2. More skills and more sustain. I do like the current rotation in general. Love the idea of proc chains. However, there has to be a specialization. Reduce the proc chain based on the specialization. Frost specialization should not require chilled - frozen for example. The rotation is too dense in terms of timing. It is not hard to get all skills on cooldown. The real problem then comes to the sustainment.
Yes gear has a lot to do with mana sustain, but the ability to be geared is already at a very high threshold. But there are 2 things which are consistent - I am always low on health, I am always low on mana. If there is no bard present, it’s very difficult to sustain any activity. There needs to be a way that I can recover mana. In a solo engagement I only last 2-3 rotations before I’m out of mana and then the recovery rate is slow enough that I will never get back up and I am down to only auto attacks and 1-2 skills every 60 seconds. Which in a PvP fight is too long.
If I have to run around and dodge for 4-5 seconds I understand that and it will push me for better gear, but being non recoverable is not acceptable. You can’t be a glass cannon both in health and mana. Mana should not be a problem for mages. No other class has as much as a sustainment issue.
3. Fire is not strong enough. There is not enough fire AOE options, the ones that exist are incredibly mana expensive. The easy fix for this is that fire spreads - back to the fire specialist - conflagration regardless of specialization, should be applied to all targets nearby with burning stacks. Do that and fire will be a viable play style.
4. Shatter builds should automatically come with additional critical chance and critical power.
5. Blizzard is lack luster, it has limited utility and damage is terrible. It’s too long of a cooldown, cost too much, and makes you too vulnerable for the little that it does.
I would suggest increasing its damage and then making it attuned to the element with an immediate application of the tier 2 status - frozen, shocked, conflagration. And/or after using it, receive a 30 second buff of some kind. It’s very hard to make it make sense in any use case because of how long the animation is - in and out, how slow you move, and how long it takes to apply frozen.
The only 2 use cases it currently has is to keep conflagration running, and to upkeep frozen time in a group. If conflagration was applied in bulk, it would make the skill useful to some degree.
6. Back to mage gear. Ok, so I have to kill magic mobs to get magic items.. they’re all magic resistant. So in most scenarios I still have to convince a physical character to go out of their way to assist me - or worse, I solo farm and am left with very little health by the end and have to take my ration break. Meanwhile, the fighter who is 4 levels below me, is clearing the island every 4 minutes. If you notice, everyone avoids magic mobs because they will 1 shot you (looking at you flame bois) or they will silence you. But, fighting a mage all you have to do is watch their mana bar and they’re screwed. Mages should be a risk reward in PvP. Risk is they’re highly dangerous if they deal their damage, reward is you took out the biggest damage dealer. Right now mages represent 0 risk to engage and are out sustained by every class. If mage is meant to be an AOE class, provide me the sustainment to last at least a second or two against a mob of otters. Give me more magic resist, or more magic pen, or enough mana that I can use my skills to survive.
7. Arcane, more arcane skills. I see that arcane can be the route for mana regen, sure. Make it more available.
8. Earth skills? Where are they. We need more CC options or you force only shatter builds.
9. 4 seconds of frozen good for CC length, bad for the duration which I can apply shatter. I need another 2 seconds at least to apply shatter. Unless you’ve got legendary gear to back that cast speed (which becomes the only stat variety encouraged) then applying frozen and subsequently casting a single lightning skill takes up the entire 4 seconds. If you’re fast you can get 2 in, barely.
10. Attunement needs work. I see that we were trying to do something like the GW2 weaver, but that worked because it affected all skills and made it a high complexity class. I think it’s the right direction, but it needs a larger role and needs the ability to switch manually, not chased by skill order which makes it.. redundant? Clearing my attunement literally doesn’t matter because it’s going to change on the next skill I cast. I would ditch the passively gained skills and dump them in the tree. Replace them with higher enhanced versions of the attunement.
It should be the core of every build. *cough* there should be a floating orb dancing around the mage which matches their attuned skill.
1
Comments
1: Agreed.
2: frost specialization not needing chill to freeze would be absolutely broken. A single mage could then disable mobs for 50% off the time, continuously, unless you hit the Frozen immunity debuff but then what's the point really? Doing a prismatic beam without an element helps with sustain, but yeah mana can still go low.
3: Fire is indeed weakest element. AoE combust would be nice. Letting other party members stack burning and then only doing the combust results in a lot of mana for damage. And hopefully a cleric doesn't butt in
4: Shatter is already our strongest mechanic
5: Blizzard is my go to 'oh crap' spell as it usually slows the fight down enough that the party can recover or run away. It's the only skill I know of that can bypass the chill immunity so it can freeze mobs repeatedly. If you want damage, lightning ball, rush in, blizzard still does amazing damage as they can easily trigger two shatters on every mob caught. I'm fine with it's low damage for the utility aspect it has for me.
6: if somebody comes close to you, prismatic beam in fire is an actual flamethrower. Watch them burn
7: more skills is always good
8: hmmm. more skills but if earth is also CC, ice+earth could be broken
9: 4 seconds freeze+ another 4 seconds window to shatter is plenty, i can even do two shatters if one is the shortest lighting bolt, then autoattack, then full lightning bolt.
10: I like attunement as it is now. Dropping attunement and then prismatic beam is the only way a mage can regain mana. And setting up in which element you will do an autoattack chain is rewarding you with the finisher and the recharge of the corresponding skills (frostbolt, fireball and lightning strike depending on element)
GW2 Weaver was cool but man that rotation was bonkers