Runes of Magic US / AU

@cike based on my calculations I end up with a boss mdef around 460k once you use everything in a standard group. based on a 1 050 000 mdef boss
so m/w in burn end up in the matt>mdef category for the calculation and that means modifier = 1-0,5*mdef/matt. Now for the multiplicatives effect. you are going to have base value*mutiplierA*multiplierB*etc... now if you do abstraction of the flat value given by the buffs we have m/p = 9,6% buff and p/s = 9,6% buff so they do mutiply 1.096*1.096 = 1.20 roughly. say your ma before those buffs was X then after you add them you end up with 1.20X. so we aren't really removing 20% by removing the buffs, we are removing 100/120 =0.83 so about 17%. now if you add up the flat values into this it turns out to about 20% in total. meanwhile we are really removing 80% of the boss mdef. equation pre change
1-0.5*mdef/matt equation after change if you ignore the flat part of the buffs 1-0.5*matt/mdef*0.83/0.8 so if anything it's a 0.5*83/80 damage boost that's less then 2%. If you do add the flat part of the buffs you get closer to a null impact change i believesince it would drag the 83 down by a certain amount depending on the player's gear.

@cloaked Mage/warrior are not made to be sustain dps. I think it would be an insult to m/s if they actually were made into sustain damage. If you want to compare with the melee dps, aside from w/s yes m/w will fall off, but the sustain from wd/w and w/wd of this world is nowhere near the one of true sustain damage class like w/m. Other classes like wd/s will outdps a wd/w in a prolonged fight if chiron is allowed to live. Now if you look at r/m, it is true their sustain is hight, but they also tend to deal less damage then the wd/w and w/wd combos during the first 15 seconds of the burn. I think mages are a lot more like scout where you have a very strong 12-15 seconds and it falls down a lot after with the potential do to a decent burn every 2 minutes. the difference to me is that scout is very reliant on 2 hits doing a lot of damage where as mage have more reliable damage. Why do mages and scout have lower sustain damage than the rest? imo it's to make up for the fact that they have the range advantage so to make up for it they have lower sustain then the other burst combos. anyways that's my take on the current meta classes and why i think it is fine as it is. each of the top class bring a different set of strenght and weaknesses

Quoted from "pachat93"

@cike based on my calculations I end up with a boss mdef around 460k once you use everything in a standard group. based on a 1 050 000 mdef boss
so m/w in burn end up in the matt>mdef category for the calculation and that means modifier = 1-0,5*mdef/matt. Now for the multiplicatives effect. you are going to have base value*mutiplierA*multiplierB*etc... now if you do abstraction of the flat value given by the buffs we have m/p = 9,6% buff and p/s = 9,6% buff so they do mutiply 1.096*1.096 = 1.20 roughly. say your ma before those buffs was X then after you add them you end up with 1.20X. so we aren't really removing 20% by removing the buffs, we are removing 100/120 =0.83 so about 17%. now if you add up the flat values into this it turns about to about 20% in total. meanwhile we are really removing 80% of the boss mdef.

i looked at the values more closely and it appears that we can use the % as a "close enough" for the purposes of comparison. I looked at the buff skills, and the flat number increases are just not large enough to make a real difference (unlike, for example, food, which the % is just 15%, depending on how many buffs you have, the flat increase can push it into a 21% or more attack buff).

anywho, carry on. just the mad ravings of some guy that has no clue what he's talking about.

Quoted from "Cike"

do i actually have a stance on the "double buffs vs. tact smash" issue? not really. i suppose that means i should just gtfo.

Sorry if I came off to harsh. I didn't mean it that way at all. Also I didn't even have you in mind with that statement. I was talking more about the other M/W's. That is by far the change that would cut down on the work by at least 50%. 2 clients instead of 4. Leveling 1 alt instead of 3. Rebuffing only every 30 minutes isntead of every 10 or 15. (Sometimes you still have 5 minutes left, but you know you won't make it to then next boss in a timely manner, so you gotta go out and rebuff either way). 15 minutes run out at the most inconvenient times. I would've thought this change would be unanimously accepted.

Quoted from "Cike"

anywho, you might want to look at this graph showing the diminishing returns of stacking attack/reducing defense when attack is already substantially over the boss defense. on the x axis is (attack/defense - 1)*100 (in short, what % are you over the defense). the y axis is the increase in damage (%) over what a toon with attack equal to the defense would be doing (simply a baseline for comparison).

simply note that when you have double the magical attack (x = 100) of a toon with attack equal to the boss def, you are only doing 50% more damage than them.

or don't, i'm a weird random stranger on the internet, don't let me tell you how to live your life.

(note: both of these graphs are ONLY comparing relative ADF's. I assume things like crit, mdam, etc, are all the same)

What I was trying to say is that by removing the two 9.6% buffs from stacking you actually lose out on 30% matk full buffed not only ~20%. But like I said earlier, it SHOULD NOT MATTER. Please correct me if I'm mistaken. Even my low matk as Mage/Warden, on burn, should break the Boss' defense.

Quoted from "pachat93"

@cloaked Mage/warrior are not made to be sustain dps. I think it would be an insult to m/s if they actually were made into sustain damage. If you want to compare with the melee dps, aside from w/s yes m/w will fall off, but the sustain from wd/w and w/wd of this world is nowhere near the one of true sustain damage class like w/m. Other classes like wd/s will outdps a wd/w in a prolonged fight if chiron is allowed to live. Now if you look at r/m, it is true their sustain is hight, but they also tend to deal less damage then the wd/w and w/wd combos during the first 15 seconds of the burn. I think mages are a lot more like scout where you have a very strong 12-15 seconds and it falls down a lot after with the potential do to a decent burn every 2 minutes. the difference to me is that scout is very reliant on 2 hits doing a lot of damage where as mage have more reliable damage. Why do mages and scout have lower sustain damage than the rest? imo it's to make up for the fact that they have the range advantage so to make up for it they have lower sustain then the other burst combos. anyways that's my take on the current meta classes and why i think it is fine as it is. each of the top class bring a different set of strenght and weaknesses

*Nod, nod* Yeah I've gotten to ignore a lot of strat by being range over the years:

BP 3rd
CoE 7th, 6th, 5th (running away is easier)
Grotto 6th, 2nd, 1st(?)
Idr remember Bela, been so long
Bethomia 7th, 5th, 4th(?), 3rd (you're usually away from other ppl's orbs), 1st (postule, there was always a noob that popped it...)

I remember being the only DPS that survived a fail burn on 6th once and I took it down. It was epic (yes, it took a while xD)

Just a short list. I might've missed some and others are arguable, don't fight over that. Just illustrating a point.

Quoted from "Magío"

What I was trying to say is that by removing the two 9.6% buffs from stacking you actually lose out on 30% matk full buffed not only ~20%. But like I said earlier, it SHOULD NOT MATTER. Please correct me if I'm mistaken. Even my low matk as Mage/Warden, on burn, should break the Boss' defense.

with the amount of debuffs and buffs, breaking defense shouldn't be much of an issue for mages (or many classes, really, as long as you have half-decent base attack and bring all your buffs). to be honest, the point of my last example was the fact that after you break the defense, additional attack has diminishing returns (going past double the defense just seems overkill to me, at that point you are getting something like less than half a %dps for each %attack).


that being said, my last few posts really had no point besides me procrastinating on writing an essay by doing math instead (yeah, what a nerd). it's late. i'm tired. i'm probably going to wake up tomorrow, read all this, and cringe.

Quoted from "Cenre"

Also I think mage in PvP is fine, leave it as it is, instants and flame hit hard enough already.

This kind of stopped being true on US servers ever since W/P and K/P became almost a staple for so many decently siege geared players. Its not uncommon for someone with 100k+ matk and 14k Mdam to hit only 30k instant crits and 75k flames against a melee prior to defense upgrades. Granted, this is more of a buff alt issue, but figured I'd mention it since it was brought up.

In regards to k/p and w/p I hope they do not nerf those buffs, as somone that actualy playes w/p and k/p (not as alt buffer) those two buffs are essential to even standing a chance in pvp with casters. If anything, make the upgraded magic bairer effect only self. Otherwise you destroy a classes ability to survive in pvp against the classes they were built to go head to head with. Yes it sucks for mages and I feel you on that, but nerfing other classes because of (what i consider) multilog exploitation will not solve the problem.

This was in regards to ruisen2000 "Granted, this is more of a buff alt issue, but figured I'd mention it since it was brought up. " and I am assuming you mean the players multi logging buff alts into siege.

I do agree this is a problem, but the only fix that runewaker would make would destroy the classes them selves by bring a nerf to the skills making them useless.

Though it's true with those 2 mdef buffs now everywhere in siege mages are hitting a lot less, its only true to a point, because many players still dont stat mdef and buffing a minimal amount of mdef won't provide them with much help.

Also have to think about if these weren't usable anymore that you would be seeing anymore even more k/m's and w/m's since without k/p and w/p buffs it would be nearly impossible for most classes to tank 3 k/m's at that point.

Best thing they could do is change mage damage formula where casting spd increases damage, which is the reason why a tanky patk/pdmg class can hit so hard in siege while in full pvp gear. That's the one and only difference as to why it appears patk classes can hit harder in siege (minus k/m w/m). But that would require WAY to much work and things would change drastically and most likely get screwed up sorry to be negative. But it's too large of a change to make in the game after having been out for so many years now.

honestly its been about a year since I actively seiged, bit from what I remember tanks played right did cer well. Mages, rogues, and practically any class did fine in seige, it realy came down to was skill with your class combo and thinking about engagement options. Instead, about 75%+ of those in seige just run up and attack, or lone wolf it and wonder why they got their butts handed to them. As for as pvp mage specific, I always ran m/k for pvp stacked as sta/int/matt/deff. Basically a tankish build mage and despite lower damge it owned most class i game, and now with punishment no loner needing a sheild your very powerful against melee fighters.

So what i am getting at is leave the pvp alone. With exceptions of certian class combos it is nearly balanced right now. Mages in general (not saying you the reader in particular) need to start working with others inseige and not run around doing your own thing like the rogues do. If enemy buffs are the problem, just have a s/w or p/r tag along with the mage brigade.

I may not play mage main anymore, i play monks and melee d/w now and any other class supposedly broken or weak, and I can say this, i have yet to find a actual broken or weak class in this game that can not pvp or do absolute last instance in the game. Note that does not mean hard mode competing against flavor of the month combos.

Soul,

P.S. any one now on apple ipad how to get darn spell check back lol.

it looks like most ppl agree that mages in general needs a boost but that would make m/w (and m/wd in pvp) really strong. so a simple solution would be to change wisdom and bravery skill to provide 50% inc in int directly (this removes the need for 2nd pair of gear and lowers the total inc in int after using this skill ~ 50%) and than go about providing mages a boost.

the only other concern of m/wd in pvp is their flame spam, which is really easily countered; serestrum, silence, stun, fear or even just rooting and running out of range or behind that convenient pebble to create LoS issue can help against the flame spam and there is no way that they can immune against all of these, so it shouldn't really be a problem.

The whole point is to make m/w stronger. If you make mages stronger then nerf m/w that totally defeats the purpose.

I'm not exactly sure how or why this thread was locked, but I don't see anything really bad here, and this was a good discussion, so I'm making an executive administrative decision to reopen. Remember, please keep personal attacks out and stay on topic. :D

okay, so i've never had a dps mage before so take this for what it is. I am basing these changes from what i've seen is an issue for mages i've ran with.



Cost and time (running out for buffs) is clearly more than other dps classes to just stay the same. This is obvious and unanimous. Changes have already been suggested. This i think is the biggest frustration among endgame m/w can really only be changed if Wisdom and Bravery was altered to just straight increase your int by a %, therefore throwing out the need of a swap set.



The suggested skills, I think, do not dramatically increase the already strong m/w burn. These are more to help elemental dmg dealers and off burn.

Electric Explosion

• Add a mark of explosion on the target for 8 secs. This mark is triggered (not consumed) to cause the next elemental hit double hit. Can only be triggered once per toon, per mark. [Not sure if it should cause 100% or the following hit should be for a reduced amount]
  

Okay so the key is that it can be triggered by anyone else hitting the target as long as its elemental damage (i dont know how elemental rampage is coded, but this should not be included). Therefore a group of magic dealers will all benefit from it getting a double hit.
Also the other point is that if the initial hit already has a double hit, the mark will be triggered and cause 4 hits. So a warmage hitting the mark will auto and hit 5 times (1 auto attack, 2 fire damage, 2 electric damage) A M/L Fire Lighting Burst will hit 4 times. Eruption can work with it too. So now a mage can potentially quad hit a flame. You DO NOT trigger all marks on the target, only one at a time.
This won't make burn on m/w that much stronger since it can only be used once every 8 secs, it just helps them have a potential to deal some crazy burst dps like melee's can with silent seal. It does help more if there are more mages in 1 group. This also alleviate some of the issues of off burn.

The next suggestion helps even more with off burn and trash clearing.



Phoenix

• Gain the buff 'Phoenix Rejuvenation' when a target is hit. The next spell cast becomes a 1 sec cast. (Reduce this skills CD to 8 secs)

This is useless in burn since you have to get close to the boss, triggers GCD, and actually makes your flame casts longer. However this is good in trash clearing and off burn since you are able to use your hardest hitting skill more often. This however will not be a huge factor in PvP since it requires you to be in close proximity (120 range), losing that comfort of being at range. Plus this skill looks cool.



Now combine these 2 and you got some decent single target damage for non-burn. Even better with more mages in the party. You get some sort of rotation, burn has the potential to be very strong, and having more mages come to the party actually increases dps. Trash clearing becomes better, and pvp is not affected so much.






These changes can help but the work work work work work work ( >.> dont hate me) that a m/w needs to do needs be addressed first.


Thanks for reading.
EDIT: all these edits is because i can't type properly and have way too many typos lol

Changing Wisdom and Bravery would make some people to get angry since they already got their complete str/sta set, me myself got 5 pieces already .


1. Sugestion : Increase sustained dps

M/w burn time is 12 - 10 seconds, after that ur dps will drop a lot compared to other melee r/m wd/s w/s s/r, if a change is made, it could be to increase the sustained dps of m/w and all other m/x combos.
How can you do that?
a. Add a debuff or elemental effect on Flame skill, or maybe 1 fire debuff on Fireball and 1 wind debuff on Lighting. The debuff can be stacked 1 time for each mage in party, then each stack of debuff will increase the next Fire or Wind spell cast on boss ( like b leed and Tactical Attack from Warriors, or the Arrow something from Scouts/rogue )
b. Make Elemental Catalisys last 30 second
c. For M/W make Meditative Current last 20 second, and trigger it again after 10 second
d. For M/P increase the Outburst % chance of Eruption while Elemental Catalisys is used,
Make Disable debuff last for 30 second and trigger it after 15 second.
Make Magic Drain to be a selfcast buff ( if u cast it on boss during ur buffing time then u gonna aggro and all die ) and the effect will land on the next tarjet ur hit with Flame.
Other class combos idk i dont play them much
2. Suggestion : Increase staff magic dmg
Doesnt matter how high u can get ur magic attk if ur magic dmg is low. also you can compare melee classes single target instant skills vs M/w Flame, other M/x will hit even lower

3. Suggestion : a GM should try testing a mage for few weeks, then make his report with numbers and how good or bad is it.

Quoted

These changes can help but the work work work work work work ( >.> dont hate me) that a m/w needs to do needs be addressed first.

One of the most important point of this thread I think, and here the last mages stand hoping that if they at least get one thing from this thread, this will be the one.

I'm not sure if staff Mdam is that huge of an issue. Magio was hitting some 62k Mdam, which is pretty high, and that's with 17k? Mdam unbuffed? Some DE mages have 20k Mdam unbuffed (with T13 HoC staff), so I'm sure they can hit well over 70k Mdam during burn.

Agree that changing Wisdom and Bravery is not going to make people happy, because there are much more geared mages with swap and almost no "gearing up" mages. I guess we'd all be happier in the long term, since we don't need to update the swap, assuming the few mages will still be around after the change. Also, W&B doubles my Int atm, so changing W&B to 50% int increase will be quite a nerf. Not sure how the work for W&B can be dealt with at this point... By this point, I don't know if there's any solution that will even make a large amount of mages happy. They've waited way too long to address this.

I don't think this has been re-brought up yet, but the previous mage sustained DPS suggestion thread brought up a 10% crit damage from the charged state on Plasma Arrow and 15% casting speed buff from Electric Explosion, which I think is quite nice. Makes PA useful for burn and increases sustained, and gives a moderate 5%? burn phase DPS buff (I guess depending on your crit rate). Also provides incentives to actually use more than 1 skill. Only downside is TP... =/

@Shaynoff Interesting suggestions. Phoenix itself needs a change though (not going to happen, I know. But w/e). It used to be that "frontal AoE with CD and costs lots of MP but hits harder than other AoE's". That damage difference is negligible now and instance maps are so poorly designed that you can't hit something with an AoE half the time. With the CD and the frontal AoE restriction, it should hit 2.5x as hard as it does now to be worthwhile, or just change it to a single target 3s cast spell with some CD that hits 1.5x the damage of Flame so we can all feel like we have a fancy afterburn rotation and hope that RW will make the TP cost low.

Dumping my thoughts/suggestions/changes to Wisdom and Bravery. some can be a reach, some are probably not very good, but to me this is the skill that needs to be changed. Still give the massive boost it does w/o the need a swap set. Of course some people who made swap sets will be pissed if the need of a swap set was thrown out the window, but people are already upset they have to make one. So I can't really think of a way to have best of both worlds.



*** Percentages are just made up numbers, too a point, that are subject change ***


1. Changes Brute Strength to Calm Mind. Passively increases Intelligence by a %. (9.6% at 95 right now?) Can be activated to increase Intelligence by 100% (not enough i know) for 30 seconds. (Loses passive bonus while activated and on CD)

• The M/W elites already changes Berserk to help out the mage side, so lets keep with the theme of changing the warrior general skills.
• Unfortunately you will need to invest in more TP

2. Increases your Intelligence by 50% (not enough i know) for 30 seconds. Also increases your Intelligence by 30% of a friendly target's Stamina plus 30% of their Strength.

• This is probably stupid, just thought I put it in here. Would need to target your tank or healer and use the skill. Still can be used from your own stats.
• This wouldn't completely throw away the need of a swap set since you would need it for solo purposes, or maybe your tank does not have a whole lot of stamina, who knows. But this is more of a "lets not piss off the people that made str/stam sets, but lets make it not that appealing for new players to make one".

3. Increases your Intelligence by 50% (not enough i know). Also increases your Intelligence by 30% of your target's Stamina plus 30% of their Strength.

• Same thing as above, but instead of a friendly target, now it is an enemy. I don't know how much attribute values a boss has so numbers would have to be altered
• Does not affect solo potential
• Would need to add some crazy range to it like 250, and maybe not trigger GCD. M/W already go through a million buffs, last thing is to have this last, making Rage Mana last that much less than it already is. Or maybe also increase Rage Mana duration. WTH is this 12 sec crap ahaha.

4. Converts 100% of both Physical and Magical Defense to Intelligence. (Value refreshes immediately)

• Based off Magio's Gordy Test video, it looks like he starts at 67,093 int pre-burn buffs. Then right before his first flame, he is at 162,037 int. His combined Pdef, Mdef is 104,601 at this time. IIRC, W&B is the only burn buff that increases int. So with this change he will be gaining more int than before.
• However in the long run it won't be an increase comparing to the changes I mentioned above.
• Make M/W more squishy! more traits to define M/W the BURN MAGE.
• Probably go up even more since you can use PDef, or MDef food instead of HP or the usual, nothing at all. (so again numbers are subject to change)

WOW just looking at those numbers 100% int increase wont even be enough for the other changes lol. Probably need 250% to match these numbers.




5. More when I can think of them.




Again just throwing stuff out here to see community response or maybe even Runewaker/Gameforge response. Really kind of curious what a GM has to say about this whole thread.

#2 Probably would not change anything, since you could just target yourself, and in full swap set, you'd have more combined str+stam than any tank/healer.

Personally, I prefer if W&B is left alone. There's almost no "gearing up mages" that it would appease to, but has lots of already geared mages to upset.

out of the desirable outcomes, i doubt W+B will get a buff to reduce swap set reliance without us seeing a larger mage buff.

Quoted from "ancientgear"

So yes people can say that mages get more buffs than melee with p/s m/p p/r, but sadly they don't make up for the lack of mdmg that mages suffer from.

hit the nail on the head of what would need to be addressed to "fix" mages (across the board would be nice).

only issue is, how to buff mdam in pve without making it stupid in pvp (blood arrow was RW's way of fixing scouts to this effect). maybe have something that increases damage taken (call it instability or something), but also increases raw mdam.