[Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Stuff you would like to see in the world of Eliatopia.
Post Reply
Anchorarius
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2021 8:53 pm

[Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by Anchorarius » Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:43 pm

As you can see from the title, in this post I’ll be talking about wizards (or, mages) and mid-range attacks. There’s no real introduction to the topic, so I’ll just dive right in.

Wizard sets have the lowest defense
I’ll start my argument with this. It’s evident that wizards have the lowest defense; you can see this from comparing nearly all level equivalent sets. Why does this matter, I hear you ask? Well, by having naturally low defense, wizards would have a hard time with their primary attack against monsters. It would take a wizard much more defense to be (name of enemy)-proof than all the other classes. On top of this, archers and gunners have way more range. This alone puts wizards into a bad spot on the Eliatopia class tierlist. How can a wizard, who needs to invest much more stats into defense, compete with other classes who don’t need to spend as much stat points? You may say that wizards have a defensive field, or wizards have a healing field, but I’ll be tackling these arguments later on. For now, the only thing to take away from this is that mages are at a disadvantage due to having to put up with waving their weapon directly in-front of enemies with having sets with poor defense. And you also have archers and gunners who have even stronger armour with being able to attack from range.

Wizards and stat spread
Unless you’re a hybrid class (which, to be perfectly frank, is a worthless investment), you’d invest your stats into the following areas: HP, MP, expertise, your respective stat class and defense. Naturally, wizards must invest their stats into MP more than any other class. This means that wizards have fewer stat points to put into the other areas. But then, since wizards have sets with poor defense, they’d also have to invest a lot more points into that. This leaves very few points for HP, expertise and magic. For health field to be useful and effective, you’d need to put quite a few points into HP too. See what happens? As a mage, I have to invest many points into other stats with leaving enough for magic and expertise, which is virtually impossible. There will come a point where you’d still be farming crabs as a mage but could’ve been grinding puffs if you were a gunner. Wizards have one defensive ability though – protection field. But it’s essentially useless unless you have a load of defense as the field does “inherit base defense”. Therefore, the glass-cannon mage build is viable – you forget about investing into HP and defense since you worry about your MP, expertise and magic. Some may say that crucial MP makes wizards OP, but I think it balances mages out since you have to invest actual stat points, instead of paying 1 coin per projectile you shoot. (Not to mention there’s other “OP” skill points… *cough* loot thief)

The PvP dilemma
The mage 1v1 scenario is most of the time neutral because you’re facing the same class with the same skillset (assuming stat points are more or less the same). Although it depends which mage build you’re running, archers and gunners will most probably win the 1v1 scenario. Gunners win due to range and raw DPS output: just run and shoot, run and shoot. Archers are an entirely different story. Fire 3 homing arrows and run in circles for a few seconds and you’ll find a dead wizard. I’m surprised there’s no kind of nerf imposed on homing arrows in PvP specifically. The warrior vs mage scenario is kind of interesting. Mages only have 1 ranged ability: thunder. When used well (and assuming warriors magically fall in its radius), mages win. But without thunder, it’s 50/50. Both players need to be in close-range, and again, this scenario entirely depends on class stat spread. There is some sort of pattern, though. The more range you have, the more likely you are to win. This obviously isn’t 100% true because a lot of factors come into play but if an archer can hit a warrior from a distance, the archer wins. The warrior would never be able to get into close range. So it goes something like this: Archer > Gunman > Wizard > Warrior. But this is only if the wizard has thunder, which is a skill that can perform nicely or terribly.

Thunder and MP usage

To be honest, thunder (most of the time) can only be used well against enemies with spawners. A level 1 thunder attack costs 6MP. Let’s suppose our mage can 1-hit shot rafflesias (or any monster without a spawner). For the thunder attack to be more useful than a primary attack, it must kill 7 rafflesias within its lifetime. Now, that’s highly unlikely, since a level one thunder’s lifetime is 11 seconds, and according to the latest patch notes, “lightning strikes from storm clouds only strike every 3 seconds now instead of every 2”, which means that the lightning can strike for a maximum of 3 times before ending. 7 rafflesias killed in 3 strikes is the same as 2.33 rafflesias killed per strike. Unless you’re relying on pure 50/50 chance (chaining crit), this is pretty much impossible. You also must position your thunder cloud at an optimal location, praying that all 7 rafflesias don’t bounce out of the radius. I’ve talked about stat spread before, but MP is literally what you need to farm as a mage, and thunder attack takes away 6MP when it’s level one. In a recent post by TrapFish, he stated that the cost for using MP is too great since you must buy so many pineapples to regain MP which leaves less money to buying new sets. This is a separate problem altogether, but I’ve linked this here anyway:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2512

So, now I’m going to be providing some solutions. Mages need another mid-range attack; relying on thunder RNG is simply not good enough. We need an attack that takes skill (i.e something that we can aim with). This will help with pretty much all the problems I’ve stated. Wizards would be alright with lower defense sets since they could attack from some range. The stat spread problem would be half-solved as wizards don’t need to invest as much into defense; a mid-range attack would make wizards stronger. The PvP dilemma would also be solved as they’d be better suited to the warrior 1v1 scenario. And finally, wizards would be able to battle more monsters with confidence with another skill up their sleeve.

Solution 1 – A short, powerful beam
Pretty much self-explanatory. This would cost around 3MP and would harness the player’s magical power, releasing a burst of energy. It’d start from the wand/staff’s tip (basically 0 + wand/staff’s reach) and become more powerful the further it goes. It would have a length of around 7ft (if it’s longer it’d become a bit too powerful) and initially, at 0ft, would have 60% of the damage of a regular primary attack. At 7ft, it would have 110% damage of a primary attack. I’d say it can be upgraded to a maximum of 4 times, up till level 5. Each level would increase the damage it can do by 10%. So:
Level 1: 0ft -> 60% / 7ft -> 110%
Level 2: 0ft -> 70% / 7ft -> 120%
Level 3: 0ft -> 80% / 7ft -> 130%
Level 4: 0ft -> 90% / 7ft -> 140%
Level 5: 0ft -> 100% / 7ft -> 150%
(Each foot would basically be worth an additional 50/7% which is around 7% extra damage)

Solution 2 – A longer, strong beam
I’m fonder of this solution. Again, it would cost around 3MP (if this is too high/low, lemme know with a reply) and would harness the player’s magical power, releasing a ray of energy. Like the previous solution, it’d start from the wand’s tip but would become more weaker the further it goes. It would have a length of around 15-20ft, and initially, at 0ft, would have 110% of the damage of a regular primary attack. At 15 (or 20ft), it would have 60% of the damage of a regular primary attack. It would also be upgraded to a maximum of 4 times:
Level 1: 0ft -> 110% / 7ft -> 60%
Level 2: 0ft -> 120% / 7ft -> 70%
Level 3: 0ft -> 130% / 7ft -> 80%
Level 4: 0ft -> 140% / 7ft -> 90%
Level 5: 0ft -> 150% / 7ft -> 100%

Final thoughts
So that wraps it up for this suggestion post. Hopefully it’s not too long and I don’t bore you, but yeah. Please, feel free to post any criticism or ideas to make this suggestion better. And you’re more than welcome to come up with your own solution: I’ve found that I’m not good at making them.

User avatar
Insomnia
Posts: 694
Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:34 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by Insomnia » Sun Jan 10, 2021 4:09 pm

I am deeply amazed with your analysis, I big time support this. I agree that the mage overall falls short, and in the ranking system is classified as the weakest class that being below warrior. And I do agree entirely on all of your points here, in my opinion both archers and gunners need a range nerf, but I find it wierd that (almost all of the) archers say their class needs a dps boost, I mean I can understand that to extent, but their stats plus range already make them incredibly overpowered, also I think stats overall need tweeking. Another opinion, give more mp to the mage specific class, that way it isn't so much of a hassle for mp consumption or just make mp consumption for mages exclusively, slower.
Image

Image

masnam
Posts: 538
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:52 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by masnam » Sun Jan 10, 2021 4:18 pm

Insomnia wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 4:09 pm
I am deeply amazed with your analysis, I big time support this. I agree that the mage overall falls short, and in the ranking system is classified as the weakest class that being below warrior. And I do agree entirely on all of your points here, in my opinion both archers and gunners need a range nerf, but I find it wierd that (almost all of the) archers say their class needs a dps boost, I mean I can understand that to extent, but their stats plus range already make them incredibly overpowered, also I think stats overall need tweeking. Another opinion, give more mp to the mage specific class, that way it isn't so much of a hassle for mp consumption or just make mp consumption for mages exclusively, slower.
I also agree and fully support. and the idea of giving beginner mages base mp is great idea

Jakub34
Posts: 477
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 11:03 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by Jakub34 » Sun Jan 10, 2021 7:12 pm

Anchorarius wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:43 pm
Wizard sets have the lowest defense
I’ll start my argument with this. It’s evident that wizards have the lowest defense; you can see this from comparing nearly all level equivalent sets. Why does this matter, I hear you ask? Well, by having naturally low defense, wizards would have a hard time with their primary attack against monsters. It would take a wizard much more defense to be (name of enemy)-proof than all the other classes. On top of this, archers and gunners have way more range. This alone puts wizards into a bad spot on the Eliatopia class tierlist. How can a wizard, who needs to invest much more stats into defense, compete with other classes who don’t need to spend as much stat points? You may say that wizards have a defensive field, or wizards have a healing field, but I’ll be tackling these arguments later on. For now, the only thing to take away from this is that mages are at a disadvantage due to having to put up with waving their weapon directly in-front of enemies with having sets with poor defense. And you also have archers and gunners who have even stronger armour with being able to attack from range.
This is something I want to eventually address in my Eliatopia overhaul/rant post, and that is the issues with classes. The issue I mainly see with wizard is that it is not a wizard, but it is a warrior with magical weapons. There is nothing about the class that really makes it feel like a wizard. It has its skills here and there, but rarely you will ever need to use them. Wizard is not class that should be about getting up close to an enemy. It should be a class that attacks from far away with magic (which you do state below). Now, the formulas for the game really are not great, as 100 expertise and a fair amount of defense is all you really need, which is where I think most of these problems arise from. If the game were not easy as it is right now, I think the classes could certainly be shaped a lot better.
Anchorarius wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:43 pm
The PvP dilemma
The mage 1v1 scenario is most of the time neutral because you’re facing the same class with the same skillset (assuming stat points are more or less the same). Although it depends which mage build you’re running, archers and gunners will most probably win the 1v1 scenario. Gunners win due to range and raw DPS output: just run and shoot, run and shoot. Archers are an entirely different story. Fire 3 homing arrows and run in circles for a few seconds and you’ll find a dead wizard. I’m surprised there’s no kind of nerf imposed on homing arrows in PvP specifically. The warrior vs mage scenario is kind of interesting. Mages only have 1 ranged ability: thunder. When used well (and assuming warriors magically fall in its radius), mages win. But without thunder, it’s 50/50. Both players need to be in close-range, and again, this scenario entirely depends on class stat spread. There is some sort of pattern, though. The more range you have, the more likely you are to win. This obviously isn’t 100% true because a lot of factors come into play but if an archer can hit a warrior from a distance, the archer wins. The warrior would never be able to get into close range. So it goes something like this: Archer > Gunman > Wizard > Warrior. But this is only if the wizard has thunder, which is a skill that can perform nicely or terribly.
Honestly, I think PvP is simply just always going to be garbage in this game. Even with warrior and wizard getting some ranged skills, archer and gunman is most likely to always overpower them. The only suitable work around I can really see is having a combat similar to most other MMORPGs.
Anchorarius wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:43 pm
Thunder and MP usage

To be honest, thunder (most of the time) can only be used well against enemies with spawners. A level 1 thunder attack costs 6MP. Let’s suppose our mage can 1-hit shot rafflesias (or any monster without a spawner). For the thunder attack to be more useful than a primary attack, it must kill 7 rafflesias within its lifetime. Now, that’s highly unlikely, since a level one thunder’s lifetime is 11 seconds, and according to the latest patch notes, “lightning strikes from storm clouds only strike every 3 seconds now instead of every 2”, which means that the lightning can strike for a maximum of 3 times before ending. 7 rafflesias killed in 3 strikes is the same as 2.33 rafflesias killed per strike. Unless you’re relying on pure 50/50 chance (chaining crit), this is pretty much impossible. You also must position your thunder cloud at an optimal location, praying that all 7 rafflesias don’t bounce out of the radius. I’ve talked about stat spread before, but MP is literally what you need to farm as a mage, and thunder attack takes away 6MP when it’s level one. In a recent post by TrapFish, he stated that the cost for using MP is too great since you must buy so many pineapples to regain MP which leaves less money to buying new sets. This is a separate problem altogether, but I’ve linked this here anyway:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2512

So, now I’m going to be providing some solutions. Mages need another mid-range attack; relying on thunder RNG is simply not good enough. We need an attack that takes skill (i.e something that we can aim with). This will help with pretty much all the problems I’ve stated. Wizards would be alright with lower defense sets since they could attack from some range. The stat spread problem would be half-solved as wizards don’t need to invest as much into defense; a mid-range attack would make wizards stronger. The PvP dilemma would also be solved as they’d be better suited to the warrior 1v1 scenario. And finally, wizards would be able to battle more monsters with confidence with another skill up their sleeve.
To go off on a rant for this, I do not understand why passive mana regeneration is not a thing. This game makes it so that if you want to use skills, you pretty much have to eat food. This ruins the whole purpose of what skills should be, and at this point, you may as well make skills cost coins instead of mana. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having food in the game, but it should not be a thing that a player has to rely on. The only time a player should really ever need food is either when fighting a boss, or fighting an enemy well beyond their level. Other than that, players should be able to play the game without having to rely on food the entire time.

User avatar
Artemis
Posts: 321
Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2019 4:54 am

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by Artemis » Sun Jan 10, 2021 8:22 pm

Don't think there's much more to say other than support. A bunch of major issues and great suggestions were mentioned here.
Image
Goddess of the hunt

User avatar
ughngelo
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:10 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by ughngelo » Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:31 pm

Hoping that this suggestion will be implemented :roll: 8-)

Great suggestion mate! :lol:

masnam
Posts: 538
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:52 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by masnam » Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:33 am

ughngelo wrote:
Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:31 pm
Hoping that this suggestion will be implemented :roll: 8-)

Great suggestion mate! :lol:
same

User avatar
Robby
Site Admin
Posts: 4167
Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2019 2:59 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by Robby » Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:08 pm

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! First, I've made some small changes to help mages a bit. They will be in the next update.

-20% increase in storm cloud range.
-Storm cloud base time has been increased from 10 seconds to 13 seconds. And each upgrade of it increases the duration by 2 seconds now, instead of 1.
-Storm cloud reduced from 6 to 5.
-Attack field from 2 to 1.
-Healing cloud from 2 to 1.

Regarding the new skill, I was planning to try and fit at least 1 new skill into this weeks update. I'll see if I have enough time for tomorrow, to consider making a new wizard skill similar to the one you mentioned. :)

User avatar
Insomnia
Posts: 694
Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:34 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by Insomnia » Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:46 pm

That will be helpful thx bud
Image

Image

Anchorarius
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2021 8:53 pm

Re: [Wizard/Mage] Mid-range attacks

Post by Anchorarius » Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:40 pm

Robby wrote:
Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:08 pm
Thanks for the detailed breakdown! First, I've made some small changes to help mages a bit. They will be in the next update.

-20% increase in storm cloud range.
-Storm cloud base time has been increased from 10 seconds to 13 seconds. And each upgrade of it increases the duration by 2 seconds now, instead of 1.
-Storm cloud reduced from 6 to 5.
-Attack field from 2 to 1.
-Healing cloud from 2 to 1.

Regarding the new skill, I was planning to try and fit at least 1 new skill into this weeks update. I'll see if I have enough time for tomorrow, to consider making a new wizard skill similar to the one you mentioned. :)
Ah, lovely! Thanks for taking considering this suggestion in the first place; I'm really glad wizards will have a little leverage to help support them grinding. And to everyone else, thank you so much for support! I hope to be making a comprehensive guide to being a glass-cannon mage in the near future, and if you're for it, make sure to shoot me a message via the forum or in-game (so I'd know how many peeps actually would like that).

Post Reply