Runes of Magic US / AU

A third of the problems with mages would probably be fixed if they fixed our staves. Our weapons are still 30% weaker than they should be (20% from KBNH, 10% from BethH).

Crit cap on mages needs to go. When you look at R/M's simple damage log, its like crit crit crit nope crit crit crit crit. On mage, its more like nope nope nope nope nope still nope, no crit for you. lol.

Similarly, make a mage accessory set that's the best that's NOT level 62 and has some semblance of decent crit on it would be nice.

But yes the main problem is still staves being too weak, as well as the fact that all of a mages damage comes from the first 20 seconds. After EC is down, mages become worthless. They need some sort of sustained dps.

Quoted from "Cike"

yes, the crit issue seems to sound like a problem, but aside from crit, is there any other reason having the best set be lvl 62 a problem? i mean, it's the best(or at least one of them) for a reason...

similar to a fix i've proposed for scouts, and kind of like some mage elite skill(i think): a 5 second buff that increases magical damage by 1%, triggered by any casted spell, stacks to 50. numbers can be adjusted, but you get the idea. or a twist: increases spellcasting speed by 1...50%

of course, just an idea. would love to hear more suggestions ^.^

The problem with lv 62 being the best set is crit. Lv 62 necklace doesn't really give much crit, though with the mage crit cap, I suppose that doesn't really make a huge difference.

M/W does have an elite that gives 40% increase in casting speed for 10 seconds every 30 seconds. Even then, people are still flocking to W/M from M/W.

Another thing I've noticed is that Flame does not hit anywhere near 3 times harder than melee instants, which it should, because it has a 3 second cast time, so in the time it takes to cast a Flame, melee gets 3 hits off already. Instead, Flame hits like 1.5 times harder than melee hits at most, which is why mages get screwed after burn. But if you increase flame damage, M/Wd 70 elite will be even more stupid in siege, though I'm pretty sure RW meant to add a GCD to flame while flame is instant...

And no, I don't think they'll fix mages. People have screamed about mage staves since 10 levels ago, still nothing done yet. Maybe if they fix scouts someday, we might get our turn too.

Sure, buff flame, that might fix part of the damage problem, but it still won't fix the problem of mage simply should NOT be 100% based around flame. If that's what it takes to make them good, then buff flame, but it'd be really nice if they could find a way to give Mages a rotation besides just flamex40 and then flame for the rest of the boss fight too. I realize they seem to like making classes dumbed down: W/M simply whitehitting, K/M simply white hitting, R/M and their white hits (Though they luckily have a rotation outside of that).

As for mages hitting too hard in PvP if their instants were buffed, that's purely a problem of nobody statting for PvP. If people statted mdef on pvp gear they wouldn't get destroyed by Mages. Rogues don't really hit me that hard. Know why? Because I go into SW with at minimum 500K pdef, usually higher. Mages tend to hit for quite a bit, because I only have around 200K mdef buffed. So i expect that. And we're talking maybe 50-60K crits max on things like EGWB. Hell some rogues can hit me that hard through 500K pdef. But mages STILL don't hit as much as a rogue would if I only had 200K pdef. The only exception to this is M/wd with their flamespam. That is unbalanced. Note that applies to Wardens and stuff too.... just 90% of sw seems to be rogues so that's what I have to compare to.

Mages hit less than melee in SW. I get hit by wardens and rogues for 200k+, whereas most mages hit me for 60k-80k. Granted, I only have 60k Pdef but have 100k Mdef, even then, 40k should not account for such a huge difference in damage.

After doing a lot of recent boss kills and grotto clears, I'd like to offer my two cents...

In PvE mages are very viable, even with "outdated" staves. I've seen m/w hit 2m flames in Beth hard mode, 1-2m flames in grotto hard and have seen m/wd's do 4+M DPS (not on the retarded 5th boss). A mage/warden has hit a max of 6m dps -- 27m dmg in 4~ seconds or so. I don't think many classes/players can match that without sigils...

The mages I'm speaking of above use warlock, p/s d/wd m/p and a p/r who is actually in the group/instance, to get 250k~ matk and increased damage without cds, and we have a m/wl and k/w to debuff the bosses. The result are very strong flames and on burn bosses, stupidly high dps from m/wds. When we run Bethomia Hard, one of our players has stopped coming on w/m because he can do significantly more dps on m/w . Mage/warrior and m/wd aside, I am unsure of how the others perform due to lower matk. However, I do know that m/wl in particular is extremely helpful regardless of how high the damage output is.

As already mentioned in the thread, "defense" doesn't have as great an impact on melee as it does magic classes, so by having m/wl and all the buffs i mentioned, the mages we have on indigo can do crazy high damage using hoson spines. I consistantly hit 2-2.5m Charged chops on my warden/warrior, with well over 7k crit rate buffed, and get out dps'd on burn bosses by a m/wd.

To top off the burn damage, you get really nice utility skills -- discharge, silence, lightning. Some popular classes don't have any interrupts/stuns to use.

From what I've seen, mages can definitely be more then viable -- they have the potential to be top tier dps (at least on burns), and can be extremely helpful in clearing trash (aoes, and aoe stuns) as well as strat boss fights (silences, interrupts, ranged damage).

Being on indigo, I know where Xamd's information is coming from, and I'd just like to touch on a point of his and one of Nobbles.

Firstly being, the fact that mage/wardens and mage/warriors beings such high burn dps. This is what we mages do, we burn, if that isnt your play style then yes switch to another class, however with the right party as Xamd mentioned above, a boss burn can even be best suited for mages over melee classes (or W/M). Also, just as any other class, there is always a 'best combo' just as there is for rogues, and knights, and such else. Not all mages need to be able to good dps, how many rogue/druid's does anyone see dpsing? None. Because there is simply a 'best combo' being r/m. I agree, mage should be altered in damage some ways, but if you arent doing enough dps in a raid, simply adjust your party/buffs, or in some cases, adjust your class combo. (PS- the max dps was higher if you count Beth )

Secondly,

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

Another thing I've noticed is that Flame does not hit anywhere near 3 times harder than melee instants, which it should, because it has a 3 second cast time, so in the time it takes to cast a Flame, melee gets 3 hits off already. Instead, Flame hits like 1.5 times harder than melee hits at most, which is why mages get screwed after burn. But if you increase flame damage, M/Wd 70 elite will be even more stupid in siege, though I'm pretty sure RW meant to add a GCD to flame while flame is instant...

If the skill Earth Core Barrier was meant to give flame a GCD well then, that would be just plain stupid. Yes in pvp it is OP, however it is 4 seconds of pure power, many different classes can counter this, just as anyone can with a 6second magic immune food. Heck, tonight in siege is survived a full flame spam from a decently geared m/wd simply just by having a good healer next to me. Back to why a GCD would be stupid, during a burn, mages get there flames to a .5second cast time. Now why in the world, would a mage want to use a skill during a boss burn, that increases the time of the flame attacks, to a full 1 second? It would destroy the class, maybe they did intend for a GCD on flame, maybe not, who knows. But many classes out there have there moment of power, that one or few skills that makes them great. This is just the one that M/WD's have and as 1vs1 and siege war proves time and time again, every class is beatable.

I don't think they are talking about mage burst, in burst a m/w can make insane damage. I think they mean after burst when flame has a 3 sec cast and hits for less then 3x melee. After burst mage is just... :3

That would be a problem Cenre, but most things in Rom are a burn. Xamd/Blank Minded spelled out what we do perfectly. Indigo does not have R/M's for some reason most of our players are magic based. We therefore go nuts on magic buffs and mages have been tearing up the last few instances. I personally can only do 6-10m damage because I give the boss the Soul Brand debuff and the mages slaughter him before I even get started. Grotto burns are so fast I have just resorted warp charging the stronger players, getting soul brand up, and then do whatever dps I can fit in.

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

Crit cap on mages needs to go. When you look at R/M's simple damage log, its like crit crit crit nope crit crit crit crit. On mage, its more like nope nope nope nope nope still nope, no crit for you. lol.

there is no crit cap on mages. lets deal with it, its just a rumor made by mages themselves.

u compare the crit of a r/m and a mage. do u realise than a r/m has approx 3k more crit (maybe more) due to burst buffs apart form the base crit (lets say 5k base crit that can be achieved without investment in t7 etc).

so i ll ask u: do YOU have as a mage 8k crit during ur flame spams?! if not, stop commenting on crits.

and calculations have been made with 5k base crit. there r ppl with 6k crit base, meaning 9k on burst.

most mages use VN set or GC set. how u expect to compare ur crit performance with that low crit numbers? yes, u can get % int boost and % dmg output boost but u need to deal with the crit loss cause its YOUR choice after all.

and ofc this is not only for the person posted the quoted part but to all that support that "crit cap on mages" theory

Quoted from "BlankMinded"

After doing a lot of recent boss kills and grotto clears, I'd like to offer my two cents...

In PvE mages are very viable, even with "outdated" staves. I've seen m/w hit 2m flames in Beth hard mode, 1-2m flames in grotto hard and have seen m/wd's do 4+M DPS (not on the retarded 5th boss). A mage/warden has hit a max of 6m dps -- 27m dmg in 4~ seconds or so. I don't think many classes/players can match that without sigils...

The mages I'm speaking of above use warlock, p/s d/wd m/p and a p/r who is actually in the group/instance, to get 250k~ matk and increased damage without cds, and we have a m/wl and k/w to debuff the bosses. The result are very strong flames and on burn bosses, stupidly high dps from m/wds. When we run Bethomia Hard, one of our players has stopped coming on w/m because he can do significantly more dps on m/w . Mage/warrior and m/wd aside, I am unsure of how the others perform due to lower matk. However, I do know that m/wl in particular is extremely helpful regardless of how high the damage output is.

As already mentioned in the thread, "defense" doesn't have as great an impact on melee as it does magic classes, so by having m/wl and all the buffs i mentioned, the mages we have on indigo can do crazy high damage using hoson spines. I consistantly hit 2-2.5m Charged chops on my warden/warrior, with well over 7k crit rate buffed, and get out dps'd on burn bosses by a m/wd.

To top off the burn damage, you get really nice utility skills -- discharge, silence, lightning. Some popular classes don't have any interrupts/stuns to use.

From what I've seen, mages can definitely be more then viable -- they have the potential to be top tier dps (at least on burns), and can be extremely helpful in clearing trash (aoes, and aoe stuns) as well as strat boss fights (silences, interrupts, ranged damage).

That in part only because M/Wd's can cast Flame as quick as they can click, so, theoretically, there is no limit to their DPS. I do remember that happened with Scout once, where they were able to attack as fast as they can click as well, and that was fixed. Also, if melee classes and getting no class buffs/debuffs whereas mages are getting all the buffs/debuffs in the game, then its not a fair comparison.

And how does M/W DPS compare? You mentioned they can crit for 2m, but what about their actual DPS?

Quoted

Back to why a GCD would be stupid, during a burn, mages get there flames to a .5second cast time. Now why in the world, would a mage want to use a skill during a boss burn, that increases the time of the flame attacks, to a full 1 second? It would destroy the class, maybe they did intend for a GCD on flame, maybe not

@RTP: Depends on perspective. Flame does have a 3 second cast, so from that perspective, instant Flame with 1 second GCD is still more powerful than 3 second Flame. And how would that destroy the class? Only M/Wd gets it. So, every other mage class is destroyed already? And as mentioned in my reply to Xamd, it happened once before and it was fixed.

@Crit cap: Then go test it and PROVE it. The mages have done their tests with max crit gear at over 7k crit and proven that Aoth > crit.

Well it seems most people here are looking for more dps after mage burn is done. As i said before, if thats what your looking for, simply change classes, mage was built to do burns, nothing more, if thats not your play style, then you just dont play it. Also, with the Earth Core, again, mages are used in burns, so the buff wouldnt even be getting used because cast times during a BURN are under 1 second, granting it useless. Also this skill doesnt make other mages useless, a M/W flame will still hit for more then double what a M/WD's flame hits for, and atks at a fast speed for a longer duration. Other mage combo, like I mentioned, just aren't 'the best', every class is like that however.

Also, if you wish they increase mages dmg/dps after burn, what do you think will happen to thier dps/dmg DURING burn? it will go up-up-up, and its already at a high enough point if you know what you're doing.

Lastly, I do not use aoth, I don't even use all Proof gear, nor do I have more then a single orange stat on all of my gear total. However I have about 7k crit rate. And yes, I crit alot more then you are suggesting, so I too believe there is no cap, just that mages are so worried about super high matk unbuffed, that they forget the crit rate. Use the right buffs, and you can have both to a very high amount.

(Just read your question after Ruisen "And how does M/W DPS compare? You mentioned they can crit for 2m, but what about their actual DPS?" I play M/wd for burns, where as a player I usually run with chooses M/w, if the fight is over 10seconds or so, they will out dps me, if it is under, I out dps them. It all depends on the debuffs on boss and how long the fight goes, but most people do more dps with M/W.)

I agree there are a couple mage classes that could use a boost. But we are all aware that class combo can make or break you in this game. As a warlock I used to be able to keep up with mages until lvl caps were raised twice. Sadly my most powerful skills are not base dark damage (they are x int dark damage) therefore all my dark damage buffs don't help.

For a long time we thought we couldn't dps with magic classes because everything here seems to be about the rogues etc. However once we learned how to properly buff a party, 12 man raids of mages started ripping bosses to shreds. In my experience you usually run with the same people. So buff your party according to your strengths. If your running with mostly physical classes, and don't get proper buffs you will never match them.

I don't want to brag but Magic burns are the 1 thing Indigo has figured out pretty well. If we don't have (p/s d/wd m/p and a p/r) in party then we park alts of them outside the instance and we give ourselves every magic buff known to mankind. We always bring a K/W even if its a crappy one for the boss debuff. Wl/M (usually me) debuffs soulbrand, now all mages do 36% more fire damage. M/WL lowers boss crit resist (this one is tricky, needs to be geared with high crit rate to guarantee debuff) Even if you have a physical group a warlock/mage warp charge gives 16.5% more attack speed 8% ish for casters. (Warlock needs to be on top players he wants to give this too)

Just my opinion here, but outside of burn phases, m/w really isn't that great. The ability to berserk 30s on, 30s off, is offset by the fact that you don't get any attack skill elites. The lack of a solid rotation really hurts m/w over time, until of course cooldowns are back up. Mage/warrior is more of a burst mage then anything else. During burst, in bethomia the m/w critting for 2m flames gets 1-5-2.5m DPS. More then viable I think. No information from Belathis hard or Grotto (yet) to compare to. Outside of burns its one of the weakest mages. Mage/warden outside of burst is actually one of the stronger ones --

I'd say for all around play, m/wd or m/s would be my picks. For M/s Burst is okay, long term dps and trash clearing ability is extremely strong, you get another interrupt (throat attack), and the flame spirit gives a bonus for a long time -- the cast speed while its up and the dmg after it leaves. For m/wd you get the stupid flame spam for boss burns, and enough instant casts to avoid needing to flame outside of burst, not to mention more stam and defense to make survival easier.

Quoted

if melee classes and getting no class buffs/debuffs whereas mages are
getting all the buffs/debuffs in the game, then its not a fair
comparison.

When we raid, the physical classes DO get debuffs tho...We get druid seeds, m/wl debuff, k/w increased damage, amp attack, tactical smash, fire training, soldiers attack, lute/tambo...we usually have 1 group melee 1 group magic. And despite all that I still get out dps by m/wd and sometimes m/w. There is no single class that can increase physical dps by 36% during burst but has no effect on magic -- in other words no counter part to a wl/m soul brand. Taking advantage of wl/m and m/wl in 1 raid is key for mage dps. We could talk about comparing physical vs magic when s/w and s/wd and s/r come into play, but scouts are more or less useless and I don't even know anyone on Indigo that even plays one as a main class....I'd take a mage over a scout anyday.

I think people, and this included myself until not long ago, have been blinded by solo performance characters. And by this I mean the classes that can do really high damage without relying on anyone else -- the r/m, w/m and wd/w classes that can do 1m dps without much else. But remember raids are party based -- magic based classes get WAY more buffs available to them then physical players. You get crit from m/r, THREE matk buffs from m/p, p/s and p/r shadow fairy, and a % based magic damage increase from d/wd. Coupled with already mentioned wl/m soul brand (+36% fire and dark dmg received debuff) and m/wl elemental extraction debuff, and you get a crazy high dps mage.

Even without all the debuffs from "rarer" classes like m/wl and wl/m, mages can still be viable. My definition of viable is contributing good damage during burns, able to do strat fights and can help clear trash. A 200-250k matk -- without cooldowns -- mage can do a lot of damage during burns even without building a party for them, and being ranged/mobile makes doing strat fights easier --- not as hard to chase down boss adds or to bounce between clicking objects and attacking. And of course, discharge is just mean to trash mobs.

People need to remember that no class should be able to do everything with 1 set of gear. If you want to do the most damage, pick m/wd or m/w when you have the buffs/debuffs available. Otherwise you shouldn't expect top tier dps, but what you lose out on, you gain from being ranged, having long lasting or aoe crowd control, and other handy abilities. I play wd/w and can't interrupt any enemy skills, and can't kite or range kill any monsters. I gave that up for the advantages of wd/w but that's a personal choice. If you dont' like the mage set up you have, you just need to figure out why. Get more debuffs, find a wl/m, make buff alts, or learn to be more effective with and appreciative of your crowd control.

Im happy with my mage build, 75%+ crit, int/xxx everything, can still flog a r/s in dps, but not a r/m or w/m. I see mages as a crowd control class more so then a dps class and play it for that roll myself. But short term burst DPS at a boss and long term total damage is still fairly good as a m/s.

Many new bosses have less magic resistance then physical resistance too and you realy notice this if you can get that MA realy high. Aoth and Sigil (if you are lucky) and a well tiered wep surprises a few when you top the Scrut.

Quoted from "Gorgar"

Many new bosses have less magic resistance then physical resistance too and you realy notice this if you can get that MA realy high. Aoth and Sigil (if you are lucky) and a well tiered wep surprises a few when you top the Scrut.

Grotto actually has very high magical resistance, I find the second boss having one of the greatest resist rates of any in the instance. Also, if you are a dps class and have a sigil, regardless you should be one of the top on the scrut.