Now that all such spells have target limits, wizards can certainly ask to have their blind root disadvantage removed. But chances are, with how many issues this game has and how little resources they are willing to commit, it'll take the developers two years to get to it.
Maybe they could adjust the lockout time or remove the shared timer so we can use both beams together. Its hard cause all instants share the timer.. Not really sure what to suggest without looking at DPS closer. Keeping the det effects is fine.
Not sure why this turned into a comparison with Wizard Beams, but I don't think it's fair to characterize the current state of Mage Beams as "a bug" or "broken." They are "pretty dam strong" in niche scenarios, which they absolutely should be. It makes sense for them to be used with 5-6 mobs. It would seem more like a bug if they weren't viable at that point... Wizard Beams are really strong, with the obvious big downside that they have a 12s recast. They are instant cast though and have 43% higher base damage, so their DPS is substantially higher than Mage beam. They can't be spammed, but they have nearly the same base damage as Cloudburst. That means they can be weaved in with as few as 2-3 mobs, as opposed to needing 5-6 to make Mage Beams viable. That makes them relevant more often than Mage beams. The issue for Wizards are not their beams so much as everything else. They have access to a myriad of AE spells, quite a few more than Mages. If Mage beam did have a recast we'd need other spells to weave in, which, other than our one PBAE, we don't have. Unfortunately for Wizards, their other AE spells are kind of lackluster and don't seem to have been made with any sort of rotation in mind. You have a myriad of target types, some which require you to be near the mobs (PBAE, Self-Combustion, Beams to an extent) and some that will damage you if you're too close (I'd guess Pillar, Rains). The base damage of those options are also much lower, so it takes quite a few more mobs for them to be viable. I can understand the frustration with the current Wizard AE lineup, and if I were a Wizard main that's probably one of the main areas I'd look to improve about the class. Unlinking the Beams, as an example, makes sense to me. I don't think it's productive or warranted to complain that Mage beams are broken, they do exactly what they're supposed to do. I'd probably complain more that Wizard AE potential has stagnated significantly relative to classes that don't traditionally have strong AE DPS (*cough* Necro aura and vainglorious *cough*)...
Careful, we don’t want to turn this into the beam version of the Mage Claw thread from a couple years back. Remember the good times, where a wizard accused Mages of dev collusion when Chaotic got introduced? #ThemSchemin’Mages
Because I’m a sad preteen in my folks’ basement who rarely sees daylight, I looked it up: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/mage-claw.238261/ Quality, quality FQ content right there. At the time of that thread I didn’t Mage much though, so was pretty much in the middle between the mag/wiz debate. Now I’m solidly on #TeamMagician. Much like Slurm, it’s highly addictive!
nah. Improved Familiar XXX WIZ/2540s0s6h+n/aSelfStacking: Familiar Stat B 1 1: Increase Spell Damage by 45% to 60% (Before DoT Crit, After Nuke Crit) 2: Increase All Resists by 115 3: Limit Max Duration: 0s 4: Limit Type: Detrimental 5: Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 29% of Base Damage 6: Limit Target: Single 7: Limit Max Level: 110 (lose 5% per level) 8: Limit Type: Exclude Combat Skills 9: Increase Effective Casting Level by 15 10: See Invisible 11: Increase Max Mana by 6000 12: Increase Current Mana by 50 per tick
Which is why I said base damage. I could write another novel on Wizard AEs, but I don't particularly want to and I don't think I'm the right person to do that (I do raid on a Wizard, but there are better and more knowledgeable Wizards than me). The point though, was if you're going to compare Mage and Wizard Beams, it's kinda important to mention the large gap in base damage. That, combined with them being instant cast, means their DPS is higher (when comparing one cast of each). Therefore they're viable with significantly fewer mobs. That's a significant advantage. Obviously the lack of a recast on Mage beams is a huge advantage once they're viable to spam. I think it's pretty clear that the current Wizard AE rotation is pretty lacking, but I guess I don't know how that justifies calling Mage Beams "broken" or a "bug." There are some things Mages have that are broken for sure, but this isn't one of them. It's a niche spell that does its job. I'd totally support a re-work of Wizard AE spells, but please leave my Beams alone.
The reason it feels OP from the wizard side is that for magicians, the meta footprint of their AE lineup conforms to its utility. As infrequently as the AEing idiom is powerful, it deserves approximately that one spell being powerful when it can be employed. That's cool. But for wizards to deploy AE damage, it takes half the spell bar and a whole new ADPS, a bard, that otherwise wizards absolutely should not be bogarting.
I think that's fair, and it again speaks to a design flaw in the current state of Wizard AEs (when considered in totality). I also think there's a tendency on these forums to have a mentality of "my class has this deficiency, so a class that doesn't have that deficiency is overpowered." I don't think that's fair or productive. It seems reasonable to highlight a deficiency in the context of other DPS classes, but not in a way that suggests that the balance issue is with those other DPS classes. I guess from my point of view, I'd like to be able to share information about the Mage class without constantly having to worry that anything we have that's actually good will get called overpowered or broken or w/e. I could just not post, which is what a lot of other classes do (how many posts do you see about the power of the Necro aura from necros?). I'd rather share information though, and I don't really want to hide things. I guess that's the nature of forum quest, but it would be nice to have a little bit of insulation from that in threads that are supposed to be informative. I get that some things are legitamately overpowered, but it really doesn't feel like that's the case here. We just have a niche spell that performs well in (but not outside of) its niche.
I wouldn't use wizard beam without at least 4 or 5 mobs either though. And I didn't mean mage beam is broken in the sense that it's OP. It just seems odd, to me, to have a spell where there's no incentive of adding it to a weave with something else once there's enough mobs. Both our rains have 12 seconds recast times too. Hmmmm.
Sanctus, after i logged in the mage, i had over 3000aa's to spend i had no idea what they changed, so i just logged off in disgust. Never to return to the mage ever again or any characters on that server. So sad.... All my hard work ruined and i had no idea what was what anymore.
Some other notes I can add.. With the new /useitem functionality, you can apply it as /useitem Firebound Orb II in a macro. Some other easy macros I use are.. "DROP IT" /autoinventory "Make NukeOrb" /pause 54, /cast 8 /autoinventory For less pertinent clickable summons I preserve the standard /memspellset lineup, but swap 2 of the gems as the clickies in another /memspellset lineup. This limits memorization time since they are mostly the same.
I could also add that I have hotbar buttons that just do /memspellset. It's much nicer than the context menu on the gem window.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter Selfie, too? Do you find they jump to the front of the line, over Claw in sustained, over Skyfire in burns?
