For fun and bragging rights My guess: We get a Volley type spell for magic spells (credit: Sancus) We get a summoned clickie, 10 charges, like Firebound Orb, but with ice damage Chaotic will count as Fickle spells wrt AA, Fickle line is discontinued in new expansions We get a mini-epic of some sort (aug, upgrade, quest is semi-generic with other casters) We get a lot of focus AA for Magic spells, bringing Magic dps over current Fire with 0.5% +/- 2% points, leading to cascading re-respecs to conju and debates forever on Evo vs Conju :-D Pet dps get a small bump somehow, maybe through new summoned pet gear that makes Conflagrant look like Classic gear, and makes all melee drool, but in reality is just a way to give pets an easy expansion appropriate power increase without changing the pets themselves. We get more RS duration, so that we can keep up an extra RS pet when rotating Normal upgrades to AA All in all: 23% dps increase (credit: Sancus) (over post-EU nerf levels) What is your guess?
No clue, but I really like #2. Pretty sure those of us who are particularly curious and resourceful will find out this week, though.
Not quite. Our expansion announcement came exactly two weeks after EQ 2's. They announced EQ 2's livestream on Monday, October 1st and it occured on Tuesday, October 8th. Beta opens the same day as the livestream. Adding two weeks to that makes the livestream announcement today and the stream Tuesday, October 23rd. Last year beta opened on a Wednesday (October 25th). As such, today or tomorrow are likely days for the announcement of the livestream, with beta likely to open the 23rd or 24th. Beta opening and beta patching are not necessarily the same, however.
Livestream last year was pretty bogglingly vacuous. I hope they have somewhat higher production value this time out.
Let's hope to see an upgraded bolt. Would like to see magicians start to see ice spells. Perhaps we will get one and not just in the form of a new clicky. There definitely needs to be a magic version of Chaotic and Of Many.
Missed the edit window, Last version is lvl 99 https://items.eqresource.com/items.php?id=76505 12K-ish cllck, 5 charges. Points of critique: Damage too low 5 charges only 1 sec casting
Those are wizard usable. It's just one of the distinguishing things between mages and wizards. You get pets for a 3rd dps option and we get cold. We can't pet tank so we get root/snare to compensate. Do your pets and summoned items give you limited use version of things outside your class? Sure but they're usually pretty limited.
It never made sense to me that Mages were Fire / Magic and not Fire / Cold. The "Master of the elements" only uses one and the "Master of the Arcane" gets the other element. It would have made more sense for mages to be fire and cold, with wizards being all three and magic being ahead in damage or something. Kinda late to change anything, just something that always bothered me about how they made casters. It probably made more sense before to give mages something that wasn't going to be resisted all the time though.
Mages are first and foremost a conjuration/summoning class. Their number 1 ability is summoning and controlling elementals. The idea that they're masters of the 'elements' is a common misnomer whether the developers are partly to blame or not.
It doesn't seem implausible to me that it's possible to conjure elemental-based damage. Our Magic spells are conjuration, and generally involve (in a lore sense) summoning daggers or something like that for a brief period (or effectively instantly) that do damage. I don't know why there couldn't be a conjuration based spell that was driven by one of the elements.
Like conjuring a comet! Made of Ice! An "Ice Comet" if you will right? riiiight? Or like a SPEAR. A SPEAR made of Ice. We could crib it from a famous ice mage named.. . Solist? So the Ice Spear of Solist! Sounds like a mage spell sure does!
Traditionally you can't summon/create elements. Those things fall under evocation. Looking at mage spells it is odd that rain of knives/blades is evocation instead of conjuration. I think someone made a mistake at one point. Granted, they can change the rules all they want so anything is possible. It just wouldn't be consistent to add conjuration based cold nukes. Now, I don't see why you can't have more evocation based spells. However, they should be weaker than the wizard version. If it were me I'd probably have given mages the same evocation spells as wizards as far as direct damage spells. But mages would get wizard spells from like 5 expansions ago. The alternative way to limit evocation is just to give you some other subset of spells like fire/magic nukes only. And I think there is a valid argument if you assume some loosely d&d based rules that wizards should have access to all evocation spells.
Earlier, there was the distinction "burst" and "sustained", which meant that wizards could hold back somewhat in goups, and then save the day by "bursting" if things got problematic, quickly nuking a mob down, at the expense of mana conservation. Mages would be "sustained", with the pet always doing damage, and the mage casting a few mana efficient nukes, then join the other casters in medding through the combat. The balance of magician magic spells has its roots in these roles, roles that no longer are actual. Likewise the damage shields, which have also been an obsolete concept for a number of expansions. Today, with swarm pets, mages take longer to build up dps than wizards, both in groups and on raids. Until next patch, mage dps will be close to wizards' on raids, but will then fall back quite a bit with the change to EU/TU. (even more on no-swarm-pet targets). The only advantages I can see mages retain over wizards is the ability to be a strong box class, and a strong solo class.. The only relevant of these two is the box class, IMO. In a regular group, the pet will not be able to fill the role as tank, and the wizard will do more damage, while also providing evac. In raids, wizards will also do more damage. And then of course the advantage of being a super fun class to play! /tease I don't believe mages will get another native element (like an ice nuke), but if we did, the impact would be marginal, and would be to mitigate falling into falling dps based on situations like resists or lack of pet performance. It would not infringe on wizard lore wise, IMO, and wizards would continue to rule group and raid scene, as per above caveats. Adding swarm longevity is an interesting thought, I believe, it appears to be a manageable way for devs to increase mage dps. Persistent pet gearing likewise, if the community backlash can be handled; both approaches assume that tech issues with pets on raids are solved over time.
