Runes of Magic US / AU

Edited just a bit for clarity. Branching from RoMmunity letter discussions.

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

- Class balance: ??? We're getting increasingly more OP classes like W/S and also nothing done with the terrible classes. Mages in particular are increasingly rare now with more OP fotm melee classes recently and increasingly common melee oriented parties (like a dozen DE endgame guilds show screens of clear, and most of the time you see like... 1 mage in the entire party, b/c of debuff from M/Wl).

^ THIS.

Every time I say that mages are nerfed (compared to melee) and they need improvement and all the melee's in the raid goes what the hell am I talking about, mages are perfectly fine and balanced and yet they do dps to a level where the end game melee's I know can solo dps instances like pomh. Even with all the possible buffs available I seriously doubt a mage will even be able to solo dps half of the bosses hp in pomh, which is a real let down considering m/w's have to update 2 complete sets of gear.

For a game that is so rigged to give pay to play players an edge over others, why doesn't the strongest mage combo (m/w) not hit anywhere near as hard as the fotm melee combo's? I bet the average end game m/w spent more gold+dias keeping their 2 set of pve (yeah 2 set of gear just for pve) gear up to date than their melee counter parts have with their one set of gear.

Average r/m enchanted throw hits for 1.5-2m, and the r/m doesn't have even have to do anything since they can use other skills and ET will still go off. The average wd/w cc, for a skill with no cool down hits for 10m or so during a burn, and it goes up to near 20m or more during k/w ad. Flame, a skills with a 3 sec cast time should be hitting as hard as snipe. Yes you can make the other argument that the reason snipe hits as hard is because it has a 15 sec cool down, but scouts have a range of other hard hitting skills that they can use after or before snipe, what useful dps skill do mages have beside flame?

Every single melee class get a passive weapon damage boost. Starts from 40% for scouts going all the way up to 70% for warriors and rogues. (champs get 75% but they are mainly a tank class so I won't go too much into that.) Oh sure people makes the argument that mages get m/p, p/s, p/r all of which stacks, but guess what raw dmg trumps everything else. I would give up every single one of these matk boosting buffs if mages get a 70% passive weapon dmg boost. So don't make the argument that all these matk buffs are balancing out the mages, because all that says is that melee's will do equally well if they had these as patk buffs and lost their raw weapon dmg boost. And with the current burn meta that the game has going, there is no space to fit all these buffers in a raid. And no one in their right mind will run out every 15 min to get these buffs, its just idiotic.

Mage weapons- For a given weapon, given tier, dura and plus mage weapons have less mdmg than melee wepaons have pdmg. Hell the pdmg on the mage weapons are higher than the mdmg on the same melee weapon, what the hell? One would think without a built in dmg booster mage weapons will have more mdmg than they currently do. Please fix this.

Lute and guitar doesn't stack and in a mixed raid even if the dps ratio is 3 to 2 to mages the raid ends up playing lute anyways. The casting speed cap for mages is higher than the attack speed cap for melee. And as the attack speed for melee goes up so does their dps, which is not the case for mages.

WTB 70% PASSIVE WEAPON DAMAGE BOOST FOR MAGES LIKE ALL MELEE'S GET. AND NOW THAT INT/MATK HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM EASY MODE AND CRAFTED GEAR THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO SAY THAT MAGES ARE CHEAPER TO PLAY HENCE THEY SHOULD DO LESS DPS.

OR

GIVE BLAZING BARRIER SKILL TO MAGES AND TURN IT INTO RAW DMG, THAT SKILL IS SUCH AN UTTER WASTE ON WL/M, SPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT WL/M'S DONT EVEN USE THE TINY AMOUNT OF FIRE BASED SKILL THEY HAVE IN THEIR ARSENAL BECAUSE THOSE SKILLS ARE JUST JUNK.

So the those are the main issues I can think of atm. Either buff mages or nerf melee, at the point I couldn't careless which way it goes. Because right now the classes are not "balanced".

I will toss all my gear and quit the game if you can show me one mage that can solo dps pomh (using this as an example because its the highest one I've seen be more or less solo dpsed), and yet seen various wd/w, r/m and w/s more or less solo dps it with relative ease.

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

Quoted from "Heddin"

re to ancientgear-

m/w is fine as is in my opinion, your comparison is not fair, place them in magical party and they will do nicely, i think, and they wont be as good if most buffs/debuffs melee oriented.

Magic parties don't exist, and haven't for quiet awhile. You can't have a magic party unless you have mages.

Also, I think you have the magical parties of back then in mind, which is much different than they are now. Mages didn't come close to surpassing boss Mdef by 2x like we do now, so most of those Mdef debuffs have much less impact now. The damage buff alts used in physical parties are king, and that's true for a mage too.

It's not the matk that's the issue imo, mage have always lacked the raw dmg that all melee classes have. End game r/m using patk food buffs to like 55k pdmg using a 1h dagger, not even going to start on the other melee that uses 2h weapons. The highest I ever buffed to on m/w was like 54k mdmg and that's using a 2h staff. Doesn't matter how much fire dmg boost you put on boss, it doesn't mean squat if the mage sending the flames doesn't have the raw dmg themselves. In the entire game the pdmg for whatever reason has always been way out of proportion compared to mdmg. And there is no reason for it, I've looked at all the major instances all the way back to grafu castle, taking an average of pdef and mdef over the entire instances, each boss approximately have the same pdef and mdef (with exception of bethh) and yet mages have to work with less compared to melee using same equivalent gear.

Ehh was a typo, just noticed. Meant to be 52k, without k/p.

Quoted from "Cenre"

buffing intensification like that just makes k/m and w/m more op, that's not the solution. K/m with intensification boost would just be... unthinkable, since the main thing k/m lacks is the mdmg.

Agree, buffing intensification would just throw pvp off, w/m and k/m will go around one shotting everything. I would say get rid of cd or drastically reduce cast time on flame all together and make it more like cc (because for a skill with no cd, cc does a stupid amount of dps) but that would also mess up pvp. Just give passive weapon dmg boost to mages like every single melee dps class get, even if its just a 40% one like scouts.

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

I've also found it strange that, for a 3 second cast time spell, flame hits only as hard as instant skills from melee, and 1.5x more than ET (which is just from white hits). For a 3 second spell, you'l expect it to hit like a train, and right now it certainly doesn't feel that way, both in siege and in PvE.

ikr, 3 sec cast time and 2 complete set of gear. And on top of that mages don't get a dps boost with casting speed boost like all melee not to mention that casting speed cap is higher than melee's attack speed cap. Guitar and lute also don't stack for what ever reason.

No cerb, with all due respect the dmg really isn't there. I am a simple person and like to look at things in a simple but practical way. For melee and mages to be considered balanced (google's definition of balance-a situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions ), given same buffers and equivalent gear a mage should be doing approximately the same dps as a melee. Now even if the mages were to get an edge and get all their fancy buffs and debuffs, I seriously do not see a mage out dpsing an equivalently geared wd/w, r/m or w/s.