Magic feels like its in a decent place but some of the spells are redundant or flavorless. Lightning is a perfect example of this since most mages completely replace lightning with thunderlash since the range, mana, and cast time differences are not significant enough to justify the lower damage. The various flame spells are balanced for damage, cast time, and range in my opinion, but are really just generic magic damage with with a fire particle effect. Changing the way fire spells work so they more closely match their descriptions would help this, and could add counter play in the process.
I propose the following changes:
1. Increase the range on Lightning from 2400 to 3000. All other stats remain unchanged, or perhaps increase mana cost from 20 to 24 to make up for this buff.
The objective here is to give mages a medium range, medium damage spell to fill in the gap between outburst and the higher damage nukes like thunderlash or flamestike. Range 2400 not quite noticeable enough to fill that niche.
2. Outburst / fulmination / flamestrike now do 50% of their damage upfront and the remaining 50% as a Fire effect. This new Fire effect ticks more quickly then corruption, but is not as likely to interrupt casting or aiming, and initially lasts for 8 seconds. Landing additional fire spells refreshes the burn time, and adds another stack of Fire. Each additional stack of Fire increases the damage and duration of the burn effect (capped at 4).
Fire stack burn time / damage multiplier:
1 = 8s x 1.0 burn multiplier
2 = 12s x 1.1 burn multiplier
3 = 14s x 1.25 burn multiplier
4 = 15s x 1.4 burn multiplier
3. Spurt now extinguishes one stack of Fire, and reduces the total burn time and damage accordingly. Spurt does no damage and will not interrupt a target that is on fire. Fire stacks are unaffected by cleanse.
4. Fulmination and flamestrike add 2 stacks of Fire
Example: Target dummy is hit by outburst for 15 damage (previously 30) and begins to burn for 15 damage over 8 seconds and has 1 stack of Fire active. At 4 seconds remaining fulmination detonates for 35 (previously 70), this refreshes the burn duration on the target dummy to 12 seconds, adds two additional Fire stacks and increases the damage multiplier of the active burn to (15 + 35 x 1.25 = 62.5 total damage over 14 seconds). At 1 second remaining an additional outburst is landed for 15 damage, increases the Fire stack count to 4, and refreshes the burn time to 15s. The damage of this burn will be (15 + 15 + 35 x 1.4 = 91 over 15 seconds). Immediately 3 spurts then hit the target dummy reducing the Fire stacks to 1. Since 3 of the 4 Fire stacks were extinguished, the remaining damage will be one quarter of the original damage and is now (91 x .25 = 22.75).
The objective here is to add flavor to fire spells, allow for counter play with spurt, and reward mages who can land repeated fire spells.
While it may be difficult for a mage to spurt a foot fighter in the chaos of battle, mages can easily spurt themselves, so using fire spells against them may not be ideal. Using lightning and thunderlash against mages may therefore make more sense.
5. Thunderlash now gains the Mind Numb effect: When used against a target with a fully summoned spell, thunderlash will lose 40% of its damage but will destroy whatever spell the target has readied.
6. Lighting now gains the Mental Paralysis effect: A target struck by lighting will gain a 4 second debuff which doubles cast time for spells summoned while that effect remains. Summoning time returns to normal for spells in progress when the Mental Paralysis effect wears off.
Finally and most glaringly, mounted magery is not currently viable for pvp in my opinion since the cast time + maneuvering penalty TOGETHER make it almost impossible to ready an offensive spell and still be close enough to a target to use it. This is especially stark when compared to mounted archery, which suffers no such penalties. Mounted healing, particularly for ones self, is in a good place and should not be overly tweaked.
7. Spells summoned while mounted now have 1.4x cast times (down from 2.0) but will PAUSE while maneuvering and will not resume summoning for a quarter second after no longer maneuvering. Healing spells summoned while mounted will no longer be interrupted while maneuvering, but will keep the double cast time penalty they currently have and are still effected by the summoning pause while maneuvering. A spell that is continually paused due to maneuvering for 5 seconds will fissile.
The objective behind these changes is to allow for offensive spell casting from horse back bringing mounted magery more in line with mounted archery, without overpowering mounted healing. Making mounted healing any better would make killing mounted mages all but impossible.
Discuss!
I propose the following changes:
1. Increase the range on Lightning from 2400 to 3000. All other stats remain unchanged, or perhaps increase mana cost from 20 to 24 to make up for this buff.
The objective here is to give mages a medium range, medium damage spell to fill in the gap between outburst and the higher damage nukes like thunderlash or flamestike. Range 2400 not quite noticeable enough to fill that niche.
2. Outburst / fulmination / flamestrike now do 50% of their damage upfront and the remaining 50% as a Fire effect. This new Fire effect ticks more quickly then corruption, but is not as likely to interrupt casting or aiming, and initially lasts for 8 seconds. Landing additional fire spells refreshes the burn time, and adds another stack of Fire. Each additional stack of Fire increases the damage and duration of the burn effect (capped at 4).
Fire stack burn time / damage multiplier:
1 = 8s x 1.0 burn multiplier
2 = 12s x 1.1 burn multiplier
3 = 14s x 1.25 burn multiplier
4 = 15s x 1.4 burn multiplier
3. Spurt now extinguishes one stack of Fire, and reduces the total burn time and damage accordingly. Spurt does no damage and will not interrupt a target that is on fire. Fire stacks are unaffected by cleanse.
4. Fulmination and flamestrike add 2 stacks of Fire
Example: Target dummy is hit by outburst for 15 damage (previously 30) and begins to burn for 15 damage over 8 seconds and has 1 stack of Fire active. At 4 seconds remaining fulmination detonates for 35 (previously 70), this refreshes the burn duration on the target dummy to 12 seconds, adds two additional Fire stacks and increases the damage multiplier of the active burn to (15 + 35 x 1.25 = 62.5 total damage over 14 seconds). At 1 second remaining an additional outburst is landed for 15 damage, increases the Fire stack count to 4, and refreshes the burn time to 15s. The damage of this burn will be (15 + 15 + 35 x 1.4 = 91 over 15 seconds). Immediately 3 spurts then hit the target dummy reducing the Fire stacks to 1. Since 3 of the 4 Fire stacks were extinguished, the remaining damage will be one quarter of the original damage and is now (91 x .25 = 22.75).
The objective here is to add flavor to fire spells, allow for counter play with spurt, and reward mages who can land repeated fire spells.
While it may be difficult for a mage to spurt a foot fighter in the chaos of battle, mages can easily spurt themselves, so using fire spells against them may not be ideal. Using lightning and thunderlash against mages may therefore make more sense.
5. Thunderlash now gains the Mind Numb effect: When used against a target with a fully summoned spell, thunderlash will lose 40% of its damage but will destroy whatever spell the target has readied.
6. Lighting now gains the Mental Paralysis effect: A target struck by lighting will gain a 4 second debuff which doubles cast time for spells summoned while that effect remains. Summoning time returns to normal for spells in progress when the Mental Paralysis effect wears off.
Finally and most glaringly, mounted magery is not currently viable for pvp in my opinion since the cast time + maneuvering penalty TOGETHER make it almost impossible to ready an offensive spell and still be close enough to a target to use it. This is especially stark when compared to mounted archery, which suffers no such penalties. Mounted healing, particularly for ones self, is in a good place and should not be overly tweaked.
7. Spells summoned while mounted now have 1.4x cast times (down from 2.0) but will PAUSE while maneuvering and will not resume summoning for a quarter second after no longer maneuvering. Healing spells summoned while mounted will no longer be interrupted while maneuvering, but will keep the double cast time penalty they currently have and are still effected by the summoning pause while maneuvering. A spell that is continually paused due to maneuvering for 5 seconds will fissile.
The objective behind these changes is to allow for offensive spell casting from horse back bringing mounted magery more in line with mounted archery, without overpowering mounted healing. Making mounted healing any better would make killing mounted mages all but impossible.
Discuss!
