Edited: As it was pointed out below I had some misunderstanding how the bracer buff works. I had the impression that it was adding the +% to the skill WD % increase but actually it increases the total output by the +%. Also I did some testing on the skills to understand how the attack mehanic worked. I corrected the numbers and to my surprise the final numbers arent that much different.
I did a fast browse and didnt see any threads like this, so decided to make one. It is for the reason that there is actually a lot of balance related discussions in mage discord and probably your guys do not read all of it. Im going to put my ideas here and anyone who feels the need to add stuff please do so.
First of all I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to brush dust off ELR and finally mage feels magey again, but as it was stated by you, many times, the purpose of this update was to give more than one viable build to play with. Well, its not what happened, we have only one build and it is very far ahead or anything else. "The frostbeam"
Lets go then one by one the possible builds or directions:
1. The Frostbeam
Required gear: ELR set with GMC weapon set, Frostfire sash and frostbeam bracers of mastery.
Main damage sources: frostbeam and thermal shock
There isnt much to add to it. Everything synergizes well, I like the build and it seems that its pretty much on par with other classes and has more potential as its is learned to play proper. Just fix the Garm aura bug.
2. DFA or Fire build
Required gear: ELR set with GMC weapon set and Igniters sash. For bracers it seems that DFA is the best option but they are not far ahead from other choices.
Main damage sources: Thermal shock and DFA
Currently this build is quite far behind the frostbeam and there are some pretty obvious reasons.
Since noone likes nerfs and the cat is out of the bag I'm not suggesting to lower the damage of beam build just buff fire:
Bracers: Buff DFA bracers to give 1600% to DFA skill
Belts: Buff iginiter belt to give 2000% weapon damage per stack.
One could argue that DFA has shorter cooldown, but in reality, to get 26 stacks of combust dot, you have to cast other abilities or just autoattack pretty much the same ammount of time it takes for beam to come off cd.
One could also argue that DFA has better defence, yes it does, but the maximum potential damage output is still higher on beam build since I didnt suggest to address the damage synergy issue and forstfire damage is scaleable. So on paper beam will win, but needs better skill or more investment into surivability.
3. Arcanist
Unfortuantely with the alacrity change and LOH proc change this build is broken. I personally didnt like how that was played and saw it as an abomination from the start, but there are people who like it and I wouldn't scrap it already for that reason.
Since the build does not work there hasn't been any intensive testing in other regions than AR stacking. It became clear that there isnt possible to gather enough AR to keep SOFT on all the time and without it there is no damage nor survivability. There is a viable belt option and some trinkets what can boost this build, so I do not have any idea of its damage potential now but there is no knowing until SOFT is fixed.
The solution: It is pretty easy actually, just double the SOFT duration or even better, remove "finishes all cooldowns" effect and triple the duration. All this will make the build less spammy and more mobile friendly. You should be able to use blink when you need to, not just spam it mindlessly.
hen that is done, proper testing can be commenced and we would know other issues of this build.
In general I would keep the damage potential of arcanist a bit lower compared to the squishy builds. It is easy to play but pays the price for it.
4. Stormcaller set
I have played the set, its very enjoyable but currently not viable at all.
The problems I see:
I tried the set with a shield and deflect and I could see it working, but the damage is not there.
I would redo the deflect rating completely. Make deflect on top of block and have the deflect rating increase the deflected damage %
Each time you block, you deflect the ammount of damage what is determined by your deflect rating.
As I understand SW warriors have also left a bit behind and such a chane would give a bump to them as well.
But this is just one approach what i came up with to cure the defensive issues.
Before there is a belt and synergizing weapons its hard to tell what to do damage wise, they should be the solution.
I did a fast browse and didnt see any threads like this, so decided to make one. It is for the reason that there is actually a lot of balance related discussions in mage discord and probably your guys do not read all of it. Im going to put my ideas here and anyone who feels the need to add stuff please do so.
First of all I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to brush dust off ELR and finally mage feels magey again, but as it was stated by you, many times, the purpose of this update was to give more than one viable build to play with. Well, its not what happened, we have only one build and it is very far ahead or anything else. "The frostbeam"
Lets go then one by one the possible builds or directions:
1. The Frostbeam
Required gear: ELR set with GMC weapon set, Frostfire sash and frostbeam bracers of mastery.
Main damage sources: frostbeam and thermal shock
There isnt much to add to it. Everything synergizes well, I like the build and it seems that its pretty much on par with other classes and has more potential as its is learned to play proper. Just fix the Garm aura bug.
2. DFA or Fire build
Required gear: ELR set with GMC weapon set and Igniters sash. For bracers it seems that DFA is the best option but they are not far ahead from other choices.
Main damage sources: Thermal shock and DFA
Currently this build is quite far behind the frostbeam and there are some pretty obvious reasons.
- The damage dealing skills dont synergize. DFA is fire damage and Thermal Shock is cold. So the player has to make a choice and in any case the other part will suffer.
- Bracers
Edited: The buff given to DFA through bracers and the belt is more than 2 times worse compared to beam. Lets start from the fact that DFA gets max 26 missles off per cast and an average end game beam build gets around 50-60 beam attacks off per cast Lets say its gets 55 casts average. So DFA potential per cast is already more than 2 times worse.
The beam skill does damage per attack as follows:
650 - 975% wd
1300 - 1950% when the target is frozen
Bracers buff the damage 500%
3250 - 4875% wd (4062,5 average)
6500 - 9750% when the target is frozen (8125 average)
Per cast with average end game build beam gets off: 223437 - 446875% weapon damage with bracers equipped (335156% average)
Death From Above damage per attack in numbers: - 800% wd
Bracers buff 200%
1600% with bracers
Per cast 41600% weapon damage
To summarize the bracer issue - To bring the damage of those attacks closer to eachother DFA base damage has to be buffed around 1600% (335156 / 26 / 800 = 16,1) - Belts
- Forstfire gives a DOT of 1000% weapon damage per stack, Igniters give as DOT of 500% weapon damage per stack.
When you cast frosbeam with basic endgame stats, you get around 50-60 stacks per cast. When you cast DFA, the maximum you can get is 26 stacks.
Frostfire stacks scale with attack speed Igniter stacks don't.
To put this into perspective, currently Igniters is 4 times weaker belt than frostfire and I'm not even counting scaleability. It gives 2 times less stacks per cast and the stacks do 2 times less damage. It almost if someone switched the bonuses. If frostfire would be 500% and igniters 1000%, then they would be almost even.
Since noone likes nerfs and the cat is out of the bag I'm not suggesting to lower the damage of beam build just buff fire:
Bracers: Buff DFA bracers to give 1600% to DFA skill
Belts: Buff iginiter belt to give 2000% weapon damage per stack.
One could argue that DFA has shorter cooldown, but in reality, to get 26 stacks of combust dot, you have to cast other abilities or just autoattack pretty much the same ammount of time it takes for beam to come off cd.
One could also argue that DFA has better defence, yes it does, but the maximum potential damage output is still higher on beam build since I didnt suggest to address the damage synergy issue and forstfire damage is scaleable. So on paper beam will win, but needs better skill or more investment into surivability.
3. Arcanist
Unfortuantely with the alacrity change and LOH proc change this build is broken. I personally didnt like how that was played and saw it as an abomination from the start, but there are people who like it and I wouldn't scrap it already for that reason.
Since the build does not work there hasn't been any intensive testing in other regions than AR stacking. It became clear that there isnt possible to gather enough AR to keep SOFT on all the time and without it there is no damage nor survivability. There is a viable belt option and some trinkets what can boost this build, so I do not have any idea of its damage potential now but there is no knowing until SOFT is fixed.
The solution: It is pretty easy actually, just double the SOFT duration or even better, remove "finishes all cooldowns" effect and triple the duration. All this will make the build less spammy and more mobile friendly. You should be able to use blink when you need to, not just spam it mindlessly.
hen that is done, proper testing can be commenced and we would know other issues of this build.
In general I would keep the damage potential of arcanist a bit lower compared to the squishy builds. It is easy to play but pays the price for it.
4. Stormcaller set
I have played the set, its very enjoyable but currently not viable at all.
The problems I see:
- There is no belt to synergize with it.
- There is no weapon set to give benefit to the build. Both offhands from the staff sets are suitable due to their defensive properties, but main hands are not.
- It is too squishy compared to ELR or Arc. For the level of squishiness it should dominate all aother builds in terms of damage, but the reality is quite the opposite.
I tried the set with a shield and deflect and I could see it working, but the damage is not there.
I would redo the deflect rating completely. Make deflect on top of block and have the deflect rating increase the deflected damage %
Each time you block, you deflect the ammount of damage what is determined by your deflect rating.
As I understand SW warriors have also left a bit behind and such a chane would give a bump to them as well.
But this is just one approach what i came up with to cure the defensive issues.
Before there is a belt and synergizing weapons its hard to tell what to do damage wise, they should be the solution.
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