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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Direction of Mage Class
TheDarkSorcerer
Member, Alpha Two
I have main'd a Sorcerer in ESO since 2014 on console with over 9000 hours, with majority of that time spent in PvP. One thing I love about Sorcerers in ESO is the mobility with Streak, Lightning Form and placing passives/champion points into how fast my character can sprint and move out in the PvP field. It's easy to get in and out of combat fairly quick. When it comes to the visuals of combat in ESO, I wouldn't use ESO as best example as they have downgraded visuals of spells over the years due to server issues. For Ashes, I was incredibly impressed with the recent Ranger showcase, and it almost made me contemplate in main'ing a Ranger over a Mage as I feel the visuals of the Mage feels like it's lacking some love compared to Ranger...
The pace and animation of spell effects in unreleased Throne & Liberty for Staff/Wand does a great job. Below are a few clips from Staff and Wand showcase in Throne & Liberty. I feel their effects are somewhat flashy, but quite quick on the screen to where they don't take up too much of screen itself and becomes a lot on the eyes. I also enjoy seeing how fast-paced the combat feel and the mages ability to move on the field. I like the effect of fire and ice in T&L (Very happy Ashes moved away from the blue ice spells we saw for Mage showcase and is now a more whiter ice in Feb showcase).
My question to our community who plan to main a Mage in Ashes, what are your thoughts on the visuals and mobility of the class? Are you liking what you are seeing so far? What are some improvements you'd love to see? Does the class look as "cool" as the recent Ranger with all of their abilities and mobility? What are some games you enjoy playing a Mage in?
Throne & Liberty Examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppSF_-O4pqQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO1YY4LuY3k
The pace and animation of spell effects in unreleased Throne & Liberty for Staff/Wand does a great job. Below are a few clips from Staff and Wand showcase in Throne & Liberty. I feel their effects are somewhat flashy, but quite quick on the screen to where they don't take up too much of screen itself and becomes a lot on the eyes. I also enjoy seeing how fast-paced the combat feel and the mages ability to move on the field. I like the effect of fire and ice in T&L (Very happy Ashes moved away from the blue ice spells we saw for Mage showcase and is now a more whiter ice in Feb showcase).
My question to our community who plan to main a Mage in Ashes, what are your thoughts on the visuals and mobility of the class? Are you liking what you are seeing so far? What are some improvements you'd love to see? Does the class look as "cool" as the recent Ranger with all of their abilities and mobility? What are some games you enjoy playing a Mage in?
Throne & Liberty Examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppSF_-O4pqQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO1YY4LuY3k
6
Comments
make the wand more of a filler ability not part of the rotation
more instant casts, maybe procs that make abilities instant
long casts for slow animations dont feel good
more mobility, maybe add a sprint effect +30% speed boost for 7 seconds after using blink
maybe with the extra levels, second classes, religions, etc it will work out some of these issue's either way i look forward to the changes they make in the future!
I fear no dedicated Mage ... ... ... ... ... but this Sorcerer - he scares me. 😆 . 😅
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Wondering if their will be a talent that makes blink do aoe damage, so you can use it offensively and not just for defence
EDIT: From what we have seen Ranger looks dope as for PvP
That being said, I want an option for me to be build a slow casting class cannon that unleashes that one big ''run for your life'' spell that obliterates a player if it connects.
What if I dont want to focus on stacks on debuffs? What if I want to mainly use fire spells? Can I do that?
So all in all, it all boils down to options on how you build your character and options to do so...
''Very happy Ashes moved away from the blue ice spells we saw for Mage showcase and is now a more whiter ice in Feb showcase''
Same. Lightning still looks oversaturated with color and that Ball of Lightning still has that unnecessary dome around it...
My question to our community who plan to main a Mage in Ashes, what are your thoughts on the visuals and mobility of the class? Are you liking what you are seeing so far? What are some improvements you'd love to see? Does the class look as "cool" as the recent Ranger with all of their abilities and mobility? What are some games you enjoy playing a Mage in?
Visuals are varying from good to mediocre for me.
1. Blink has that annoying purple puff that exposes your location. It might be just me, but I am used to my Blink just being a flash of light blue/white light.
2. Blizzard lost its blue crystal meth look. Good. Still more space for improvement.
3. Cone of Cold- Better. Not quite there yet...
..and so on.
Mobility shouldn't be uniformed. I think it should depend on how you build your mage.
Are you liking what you are seeing so far?
For an alpha standards-Yes.
What are some improvements you'd love to see?
1. Less flash-iness, less spell color saturation, more realistic effect.
2. Variation of the builds, but thats something I cant compliment or scorn because we haven't seen augment system yet. So far, mage is one trick monkey.
Does the class look as "cool" as the recent Ranger with all of their abilities and mobility?
Nope. Why? Because mages lack that telegraphed skillshots with two modes of firing that you can trigger earlier like rangers have...
Current mage just focuses on stacks of elemental dmg which you just trigger. Imo thats boring, unless you are something like a spellsword that gets his stacks from some fast melee weapon.
What are some games you enjoy playing a Mage in?
WoW Fire mage before or even during MoP.
Frost before Cataclysm
Gw2 staff/wand Elementalist. <-Probably my favorite because majority of spells you cast don't lock you in place and most of them are AoEs, that you actually have to properly target on the ground. Love the mobility of mage class in GW2.
As for Throne & Liberty videos you linked.
I LOVE the animations, BUT...
...even though spell effects are way more realistic, they are over the top.
I mean, it would be way over the top for a game like Ashes, where there are suppose to be hundreds of players on your screen.
That constant yelling is so annoying too. Something like actual chants (voice lines) being spoken as you cast, like in DnD games (Baldurs Gate 3, Neverwinter Nights 2...) would be way better.
Something like this...
I'm -very- excited to test out the Mage archetype and while I have some minor concerns, I think that Intrepid studios has delivered a great product of Mage so far. I do agree with you that the Ranger showcase was just absolutely spectacular, so I'm already expecting a TON of Rangers in the game lol. Fortunately, Mage has some spells where they can channel while remaining mobile, such as the blizzard spell. I also really enjoy the spell graphic of blink, I think it's incredibly fun.
I did however feel that there are some spells which I'm concerned about, namely the magic missiles and ball lightning spell. The concept of them are solid, but the graphics feel slightly rudimentary still, mind you that I say this with all the love in my heart for the developers who worked on this because I know how tough it can be to create something of that scale as a developer myself. I love that the ball of lightning can trail forward and interact with stairs, but we can see how it's a little choppy for each stair it moves onto. If there would be a way to do an "ease-in" so to speak as it engages with the obstacles, it may look more cohesive to the environment.
Instead of a ball of lighting concept though, I think a small storm cloud that projects outwards and drifts down stairs or other objects with a cloudy/foggy appearance would've served a much stronger look for the spell, and when the cloud interacts with an enemy player or mob, then have lightning strike out of it and hit them. Maybe use the graphic like in the February 24' showcase when fighting the Stormcaller Minotaur and the lightning strikes were accumulating in small aoe's on the ground.
As far as Mage goes for looking like a great class, Yes, I think it's nearly there, but Ranger is still a top contender for how awesome their showcase was.
One thing that we also have to consider is that we still haven't seen endgame spells, and there could be some very sick spells that we eventually get introduced to in the game, so I can't wait for that! I'm hoping that the devs make it so that some heavy-hitting spells can cause screen shaking, adding to the realism of combat. Some folks may not be too enthused about screen-shaking abilities, so maybe it should be a toggleable feature in the settings as well. /shrug
When it comes to other video games that I draw inspiration from... Definitely Final Fantasy 14 when it comes to the screen shaking. Casting Fire IV is no easy feat, and that little added screen shake really just sells the experience for me when in combat.
Also, Dragon's Dogma has some of the best spellcasting I've ever seen. Granted it's insanely large scaled involving massive meteors and even tornados, I don't think that would necessarily play out well in Ashes haha. The levitate that Mages can do though in Dragons Dogma II looks great! Would be really cool if Mages eventually could get another spell added to their defensive kit where they can levitate a short distance.
What I love about Intrepid is that they' love to brainstorm and work in tandem with agile development, alongside the community members and their feedback. They are also not afraid to put in the work, even if it means migrating to Unreal Engine 5, they'll put in the labor for it to become a more polished game experience.
Click here to visit Snow elf's Twitch channel
By "recursion" I mean spells such as Drain (steal enemy HP to restore your own) and Aspir (same for MP). I personally like the way FFXI balances this - these spells are cheap and have fairly quick casting times, but very long cooldowns, relative to the game's APM (about a minute, which is a long time in an FFXI fight).
A spell like Drain is important because it lets a Mage maintain their momentum while sustaining their health and MP. It means you aren't as dependent on items or other classes to help sustain you, while at the same time not overtaking those roles at all - a Healer is still going to far exceed the output of Drain in this regard as long as it's balanced right.
As for Aspir, what I actually rather like the idea of is an FFXI 'Weapon Skill' for staves called Spirit Taker - instead of stealing enemy MP (which means it's ineffective on enemies that don't have any MP), Spirit Taker deals physical damage (but with Intelligence and 'Wisdom' modifiers), and then converts the damage done to your own MP pool. As with Drain and Aspir, this is balanced by being an ability you can't simply spam.
I understand that weapon types are technically outside the scope of the question to an extent, but any weapon or similar that grants an ability like Spirit Taker is most probably going to be my default pick - in FFXI, I use this ability to sustain myself in long fights, and I can plan my entire MP and ability flow around it rather than just using abilities whenever they cool down. Drain, for example, allows the caster to plan around its use by hitting harder and pulling some hate on purpose - when the enemy gets off you and you're hurt, you know you can use Drain to quickly restore yourself. The long cooldown of these abilities means they are aspects of the build you can structure your playstyle around, and it's a foundational aspect of the 'offensive Mage' ability flow that I feel Ashes is currently missing.
EDIT: Since I didn't mention visuals at all... honestly, I'm not picky (I play Skyrim without sweeping visual overhauls, for God's sake), so I'm not really the best person to comment on that, but I have no complaints with the direction they're taking. Looks good so far.
MAYBE something like, "enough Fire effects on the enemy turns the flames blue" to be like, "damn, you REALLY fucked their shit up". That sounds pretty cathartic!
No because those are just two/three extremely small abilities added to the Mage core. They're literally the only things about the class as presented I'd change; I'm not interested in summoning or whatnot
For the class to feel complete, I'd need some small utility stuff like that. Mages need options aside from just "hit stuff hard" and "enfeeble", even if those options are limited compared to a more dedicated class like Healers or Necromancers
Just a bit of sustain, you know?
Point of mage in almost every game is to be hard hitting glass cannon with high mobility, when you add self healing to it, it becomes very broken and steering away from the core of being a mage hence why I said sounds more like a necromancer or warlock even, lower burst rate but has life steals to sustain
The direction your taking it sounds like other classes available, mage is controlling elements not life/souls etc
So... I really love how TTRPG-inspired the mage feels, but.... My biggest issue with the mages right now is how shoe horned their class fantasy feels.
Casters can be so many things, and I do not quite feel like mages manage to hit enough of them. You have all of these mixed elemental magic topped with arcane force, but that is it, right now.
I really hope to see massive cosmetic choices to the mage via augments where they can choose to specialize in fewer elements (BDO just nailed the wizard imo, even D4 does this pretty well) to reach that sage-like fantasy. I want to be able to feel like a master of lightning. Or fire. Or ice. Or the arcane. I do not want to feel forced to to wield all of them like you do in GW2.
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Anyways, apart from that, I feel like AOC Wizards still lack that "oomph" that one should feel from a mage. Imo, the flashiest, scariest and biggest spell effects should be from the mage. Clear sound ques, slight camera shake (that can be turned off ofc), visual indicators as abilities charge up. Honestly, and I am probably in the minority with this, but I'd love to have some spell chanting as well (verbal components, anyone?). The spell casting in CRPGs just feels Infinitely cooler than in most MMORPGs... Till this day, the spell casting voice lines from the wizard Aloth in Pillars of Eternity (you go, Matt Mercer) gives me the chills.
Every powerful mage in fantasy stories worth mentioning were not defenseless. Some mages used illusions, mind control, summoning monsters, barrier magic, or they were so good with a sword that even without magic they were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.
Almost everyone forgets the sole reason mages as glass cannons in games were the one percent raiding guilds of MMOs that wanted to max out damage output for damage dealers at the cost of everything else. That type of playstyle was not fun and caused many guilds to burn out and collapse.
Barrier is already in the game for mage, I also stated high mobility with blink etc
Adding more than this just makes it require a balance for skilled players ie nerfing there burst output, then at that point may as well play a ranger or summoner class
Point still stands, most games mages are high hitting glass cannons with high mobility
classes need to be balanced, by giving baseline mage defense baseline mage would have to sacrifice some of the following mobility, range, control, damage, and utility.
This would create a pet-less summoner class
I do not follow how this would create a pet-less summoner. It sounds like a bard to me.
As for balance, that it was the Alpha and Beta phases will be for.
Visuality:
I don't like the lightningsphere spell much. It's goodlooking but also draws a lot of my focus on it.
The spheres slow movement speed bothered me and the damage I saw it do was not justifying this snail pace's existence to me.
And due to this I also had to look at it longer cause it exists so long in this slow advancing speed.
Mechanic:
Either the speed has to be buffed twice-fold or the damage it does with each tick.
This or I hope the spell only starts this pitifully and you can further buff this spell particularly with talentpoints or something to give it the characteristics you want.
Like you can skill if it homes in on the target you were locked on while you cast it, or as I said before, either the speed and/or the damage respectively.
And with the Mage in general:
This might be an unpopular opinion especially since I was once pro-"limitations" on classes like the one's World of Warcraft has and greatly enjoyed the "unique feel" each class had in Vanilla WoW, BUT...
Maybe two or three talent tree's that give a class a vastly different character might be good after all.
You could give a Mage especially to have greatly varying functionality tied to their skill tree's!
Lets go with examples like
° Fire Mage
Broadest damage tree. Gives you lots of reliable damage spells with cooldowns short enough so that you can safely create a rotation between single-target efficient, or AoE spells.
May also be able to lit enemies on permanent fire by its continous fire-attacks, creating a damage over time debuff on an individual target.
Being able to also create small burning area's which also do a damage over time and also stack "flammability" on targets which can invoke the damage over time debuff.
° Ice Mage
Slow targets by muscle crippling cold. Create slippery surfaces especially on water.
Put out fire scources by sheer cold and help allys to... stop burning.
Reliable damage spells for constant single- & AoE damage and maybe things like alternative terrain traversal by freezing a pathway on water.
Being able to walk on river's or lake's... and halting the advance of raft-caravan's for a brief time.
° Arcane Mage
A mage type that can buff itself or allys a lot with lots of mobility spells like blinking, movement speed enhancement or bodystrenght enhancement.
Not so regular reliable damage due to it's tricky cooldowns, but nice burst-damage potential on single- & AoE targets, if the timing alligns with other spells.
How those would be arranged is something that is up to the developers, duh.
This is basically the type of Mage that cannot pressure other targets down as easily but it also not to corner and kill as easily and can give allys the edge they might need to pose a much bigger threat to nearby foe's.
I feel like one could utilize the secondary archetype for this. An arcane mage in that specialize in utility sounds just like Sorcerer (mage+bard), and the frost mage feels like it could be Spellstone (mage+tank)... I feel like fire mage could be either the Battle Mage (mage+fighter) or the archmage (mage+mage).
In general, I really hope Intrepid manages to deliver on the different feels for all different combinations across all classes. I feel like the execution on that department will be one of the biggest deciding factors in whenever AoC will be a smaller niche MMO or one of the dominant top ones.
When we saw the Ranger Showcase, we saw originality. There were effects and skills added that felt like a breath of fresh air to a Ranger class in an MMO. The acrobatic jumps, the laser vision aim, the different Hunt abilities. It was unexpected, but works so well for that specific class.
Where the Mage class is right now, it is missing that feel of a powerful ferocious Mage and a unique originality with the visuals. I am hoping some of the spell effects gets another pass. But also hoping Intrepid consider not forcing all the elements onto a Mage, but that one can choose to specialize in a specific element if wanted to with the different subclasses.
Just look at this DD2 Mage. That ice spell looks incredible. Or even the lightning strike at the very end.
DD2 Sorcerer at 0:20 is a good example on how to do a large lightning ball on the field.
I come from Final Fantasy XI, where Black Mages (the direct analogue to AoCr Mage) have various tiers of elemental nukes, but also have some supplementary debuffs, and Drain-enemy-HP/MP spells that are balanced by long cooldowns. HOWEVER, Black Mage is still way worse at debuffs and sustain than other classes. It's just a bit of versatility - it lets Black Mage players solo more easily if they want, and in a party situation, a Black Mage can manage less-critical debuffs. I.e. the Ninja might handle most debuffs in their ability cycles (Slow, Paralyze, etc), while a Black Mage might maintain some secondaries to keep the Ninja from being overburdened.
A bit of extra flexibility like this is a feature of most classes in FFXI, and in practice it allows solo'ing and especially duo'ing or small parties to have a much wider array of actions with which to strategize and approach situations. Black Mage IS not and SHOULD not as good at utility stuff as other classes - hell, it's not even the best at casting Drain spells, that'd be Dark Knight - but HAVING some of it, imo, is important for class to feel complete.
While mages can cast destructive spells, it is not their desire to use such magic unless necessary. They prefer guile and subtle magic, instead of an iron fist and destructive magic.
What I fear most is a "useless glowy pew pew class" and when you write "Umph" I relate to it immediately.
Of course we saw nothing yet but to use a more recent example, the Mage/Sorcerer in Baldurs Gate 3.
You have to be smart about using spells correctly I guess but in the end what I used most were about two or three spells for what felt like +92% of all encounters in the entire game.
1.) A lightningstrike spell that charges forward in a straight line and does solid damage.
2.) An ice spell, preferably on slippery surfaces to make it a hazard for melee's to try and reach the spellcaster.
3.) And maybe some mind affecting spell when I felt quirky "and just wanted to do something different".
And with that I mean I really did not had to do something different.
As I should be. Just nuke 'em. And if a MAGIC USER cannot do that, they are TU~RAY~AAAAASH!
" The Sorcerer/Mage's I played felt of passing skill.
Although acceptable magic had barely run in their veins. "
Barely enough to make me feel like I want to use a spellcaster in BG3 at all.
I find there is just some powerfantasy tied to magic in which you just wanna go ape sh°° and blast an entire being with the barrage of destructive, overpowering magic of your choosing.
It felt wierd to me to see physical classes do about the same damage if not more under certain conditions.
Magic is used to overcome reality and conjur effects that no limited physical body can mimic.
Like... creating a small celestial body and dropping it on a city... if you just have enough Mana for example.
Balancing asside, in an RPG, if an offensive spellcaster is not making other classes sweat buckets and cough up blood just to stay remotely close to the damage they can dish out, I feel like something is pretty wrong.
Drain has and always will be a move around Necro/Warlock… never a Mage.
I agree with you here! Though, I wouldn't mind a mana drain spell that drains opponents mana. Health drain should be Necro/Warlock exclusive.
A spell I spam a lot on my ESO Sorcerer is Rune Cage. I sorta feel like this dominatrix using it. It cages you down to the ground while I scream in my head "Kneel for me!" lol.
Example: (Visual has changed over the years though, and it's much more instant today).
The vision I see of the mage so far has these strengths: High burst damage, lots of AE damage, "burst" movement via blink with a 20-30s cooldown, multiple CCs. I don't expect them to be continuously mobile. We have not really seen much of fire spells, but I expect fire will allow for high continuous damage via burning, at the cost of burst.
Honestly, this looks a lot more like the WoW classic mage (before ice lance), running frost shatter combos in PvP and ignite in PvE. But secondary classes and augments will allow for a lot of customization.
We'll see if they have an augment that gives 2 charges to blink (or a "return" second blink) to enable diving.
With that said the examples many of you have provided can be quite helpful in understanding thoughts and ideas. What Mages, Sorcerers, or spell-slingers have you enjoyed playing and what games were those in? What made them special to you, and how does that impact the feedback you wish to provide for the Mage archetype (or its VFX
If you haven't seen it, you may want to check out the last feedback thread we did on the Mage archetype: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/55467/feedback-request-alpha-two-mage-updates-shown-in-the-april-livestream/p1
They made it clear in Ashes with the way stats work that you can have mana regen, reduction to cooldowns, casting speed or damage, but not all at the same time like in ESO. Just the fact the CONCENTRATION stat exists should be an indicator that, unless you have some people to guard you and allow you free casting, you should not be counting on being a guy spamming Mages' Wrath in Ashes while Rune Caging people and zapping around like the Flash, having endless mana to boot.
CONCENTRATION as a stat means Rogue McDaggers is gonna have a field day pushing back your cast if it's too low of a stat - and that is not counting them adding any sort of Universal Action Skill like Kick (interrupt) or poisons that lower your Concentration when applied, cause if they do, the moment you try to pull off that "big lightning spell" you are dead, as you should be, Mages should not be able to tank a melee damage dealer.
Personally, I hope the class can be altered via gear and passives, to the point it can be specialized to work with both "Death by a Thousand Cuts" builds as well as "One Shot One Kill" builds. Death by a Thousand Cuts allows you to cast fast, never hit hard but hit often via fire dots, and the ability to move around and kite, blink, whatever you do, while the One Shot One Kill is self-explanatory. Both flavors that cater to different people. And given the crafting system they develop I think the direction of the classes is gonna be "your business".
And hey, given how sweet the Earth spells look, who knows. maybe melee mage/rogue with daggers and dodge rolling might be an actual playstyle.
Blink into danger, comeback with whoever was over there, could be used to rescue or for kidnapping.
This spell would have significant risks for the mage, he would have to go in there, cast the spell and come back aka "booshing".
Tricky, dangerous, deadly for users and targets.
If we simplify it, so it doesn’t become a chaos of players teleporting everywhere and being really annoying and lame gameplay
Give a talent to Mage where blink causes an aoe damage where you teleport to and then re activate to go back to where you blinked from but without the aoe
Means you have turned blink from a defensive escape move into a deadly finisher, initiate ability