Reply To: Mage Class

Great points and glad to see someone address mages again.

My biggest concern has always been that mages are just all glass and no cannon.
Completely agree that the damage needs to be increased for spells, especially ones beyond the regular spell book that require pagans and heaps of mana.

As far as protections go, the higher level the mage, the more skill, time, tomes/scrolls, money and dedication that has been put into a level 6 mage, and that should be rewarded with play-ability. This might require a heavy amount of reworking to make possible, but I think it would be fair and more balanced if player mages were able to cast through protections relative to their level.

That’s to say that if a mage were level 5, then he would be able to override level 5 and below protections. Maybe at the very least, they wouldn’t completely override it, but still do damage at a calculable rate determined by their class level vs. the protection percentage they’re casting on. An example might be that you get a 10% reduction vs. protections per class level of mage. So, if you are level 5, then you would get a 50% reduction against any particular protection. A level 5 mage casting a necro spell on someone who has 125% necro protection would therefore do 75% of the damage the initial spell would have done at 0% protection, and so on.

There’s a lot of other ways to do this, but the core problem that pretty much any class can be protected completely by spells no matter what level the opposing mage is really drags the class through the mud.

Also had some various thoughts on skills:

A ranger has tracking to gain information, a thief has stealth. Evaluating Int. is good for PvM, but it would be nice if Eval Int. also gave protection information for player characters. Bumping elbows in town and sizing someone up for what they are wearing doesn’t seem too improbable, plus if you actually take the time in a moments-notice-pvp scenario to use Eval Int on your enemy and do it successfully enough to not die and use the information, i’d say you deserve it.

I’ve heard a few ideas for Spirit Speak.
One idea I had personally is maybe Spirit Speak works the same way as Peacemaking. Mobs can be a pain for a solo mage, so might be a way to help them go deeper into dungeons.

Could also just do something simple but beneficial, such as SS provides mana instantly like mage refresh. It sort of seems to be some form of meditation, after all.

Maybe SS could raise your intelligence depending on your class level and skill, but has a really long cool down, or makes it where you use less % of mana when casting. It could just increase how quickly you regain mana naturally and while meditating at its simplest.

This class is incredibly hard to play, and even harder to play well.
As it stands– mages have as much significance as a hood ornament.
I’d really like to see this thread taken into consideration.