it’s a concept i remember from the dead rising series. you could craft items you didn’t have the recipe for but it was more fragile, less damaging and lacked bonuses
i feel like rune mages should need to discover and record the runes in order to get maximum impact out of them. it’s cool and all that there is constantly runemage study groups outside the high steepe house but i feel encouraging low level mages to get out and explore and need to use lower level spells would add more to the game
likewise the rune should need to be hit with certain low level spells in order to reveal it which should reduce the number of players like me who recorded them all as a different class
I would have to agree with this. It just seems a bit wrong that level 1 Mages are running around shooting level 3 fireballs at everything. I can’t imagine the game is balanced around entry level players having high end spells.
I feel like this would just become a have-to-do-before-playing-runemage chore for the new players, AND put them at a disadvantage while they are still learning the class.
they are the only class who gets leveled versions of their craft AND equipment levels. i feel like they’re supposed to already be doing this and the player base has killed it off
They get more total but they are still basically just abilities. Frost 1 to Frost 2 to Frost 3 isn’t just a straight upgrade so once you get good enough to Frost 3 you never use Frost 1 and 2. Each tier has trade-offs, and all of them have their place, even if it’s rare and contextual (which can also be said of some ranger arrows, musketeer orbs, and warrior combos).
No. If level 1 rune mages can cast level 3s consistently without even finding the runes God bless em they have some talent. Not like the level 3 does anything against a level 5 if it’s coming off a level 1 mage. Plus part of the beauty of rune mage is having those mage school lessons outside of highsteppe home. It’s an mmo players are supposed to share info and orbus implemented that aspect damn near perfectly I would consider putting a prereq of combat rune mage level 5 on teleport but outside of that rune mages don’t need a nerf if anything they need a buff
I think it should stay just as it is for what we have so far. As a level 7 mage, I feel that the community of mages helping each other is half of what makes it so fun and engaging. I learn a tip or way of doing things every time I party with another mage, and often teach something else at the same time! It makes for an awesome environment.
I do think that it may be nice to have something else to learn or do once you reach higher levels though. Maybe a quest or something can unlock an item or something you need in order to cast crazy complex spells that won’t work without said item (maybe an off-hand magic book or something?). I think having two or three part spells ala revive or transport that offer attack or defensive capabilities would be really neat, and also give people something to strive for! Or maybe spells that require two or more mages to do. THAT would be cool.
No thank you.
There are balances in the system already based on skill and practice. The only way a level 1 mage is spamming Frost 3 is after real world hours of practice on a target dummy before feeling confident enough to leave town.
Additionally the 3 levels of spells don’t just change the damage, they also change the projectile speed, distance traveled, and cast time making each useful in different situations.
at level 5 you can out dps a level 11 musketeer. using frost II and ice lance. the damage numbers i saw at lvl5 were approximately 3x the wands damage level. musketeer weapons seem to be in the range of a third of the weapons listed value and have a definite RoF. good runemages can go faster while dealing more damage
rune mages don’t need buffing
to the other respondants. i’m not saying you can’t use runes you haven’t learnt yet. i’m saying they shouldn’t be as effective. they should incentivise rune mages looking for them. technically i’d like to see the runepillars moved to the end of mini dungeons so people can have an adventure to find them
AND i believe the other classes need to earn their abilities too. musketeer’s should start with a healing turret and a weakness orb and everything else needs to be found. warriors need to find trainers in each town to teach them combos. rangers need to find hunters or something to learn new arrow types
Musketeer is a healer, not a DPS.
Runemages get 2-3 shot by mobs that are red, Musketeer can heal tank through it while chain-pulling the next.
Mages have to potion, kite, or stop and rest any time they make a slight mistake during a pull. They either die or wait to heal up. If you’re not spot on your game and drawing everything perfect, the mob per minute speed can actually be slower than a Musketeer despite having more DPS. One whiffed spell can mean a corpse run slowing your xp/hour considerably.
I leveled Runemage to 20 and am currently working on my alt Musketeer at 14. The fights are slower on Musketeer, but they are a lot more consistent and I can chain pulls together to speed up the pace. It’s a different play style, but it is not weak. Between the gun, turret, and poison ticks there is a respectable amount of throughput. Quoting just the auto-shot numbers as a comparison point is misleading.
I see where you’re coming from, but I feel that just having the spell-pillars out in the wild is enough incentive to go and find them. They don’t need to be more than a cosmetic addition to the journal for us completionists. Maybe add an achievement for adding them all to journal, but that’s about it.
I think I posted a similar idea to this a while ago. It’s really exciting to go around and discover new runes, but then you walk through town and you see a bunch of low level mages trying to perfect the high tier spells they looked up in some youtube video. It’s a little annoying.
It wouldn’t be too negative for most players anyways, since a huge amount of the pillars are located surprisingly close to the starting town in relatively easy to locate areas. I think the hardest ones to get to are Fireball 3 and Affliction 2.
Though to be fair, I’m still not sure where you learn the portal and revival rituals, and I’m level 17. And those are pretty important spells for a rune mage to know. But I’ve found all the spells expect the arcane bomb or whatever it’s called (and if anyone wants to give a hint at what region it’s in, that would be appreciated).
They already have to practice a ton to even be able to use all the runes properly. I don’t see why they should get hamstrung by another disadvantage unless you want to drive people away from the class or force them to obtain the two closest spell combinations (you know what I am talking about) just to be efficient at killing stuff.
Perhaps instead of forcing people to discover runes, maybe make it so they need to cast a spell a certain number of times to “master” that spell (and higher level spells master all the lower ones so you dont need to repeat the process for every tier, you’d just do it on the highest one possible). This way you don’t tunnel vision mages and they can jump right into playing around with spells after learning from someone in highsteppe.
The fact that almost every runemage simply learns their spells from other people already makes discovering pillars moot at this point. The focus should be making spells more accessible not less.
The mastery of rune mages is consistently casting spells. And then consistently casting them as fast as possible. And as accurate as possible while under pressure. But right now they also have to deal with spell discovery, journal pages that aren’t necessarily one to one (like polymorph), pillars that aren’t exact (like Frostbolt 3) They also have to deal with a much tougher early game. And lets not mention the class itself is locked behind several quests itself making it somewhat of a process to even obtain.
Compare this to every other class that can “jump right in”. People were always going to go to youtube and find these things out if they are curious enough. I don’t think veteran players or people who didn’t go that route should be petitioning to make the class less accessible simply because they didn’t have the potential luxuries newer players might have access to.
I feel like runemages learning the high level spells quickly and early on is just a testament to natural talent and dexterity. Not every runemage can cast every spell well or efficiently regardless of their level. I’m extremely proficient at every level of fire ball, but I struggle with all stages of frost bolt! I can’t even cast ice lance at all so I don’t have access to a really potent combo. I’ve put in tons of hours practicing, but some spells just elude me. Really this system is great, because you are only as good as your own skill allows you regardless of your level.
I’m considering just calling myself a Fire Runemage and sparing myself the embarrassment of trying to cast any ice spells…
What is the ultimate goal of a suggestion like this? No other class needs to “discover” any part of their tool kit. If the argument is simply to force some kind of progression for mages I’d like to point out that learning the spells and practicing them is it’s own kind of progression. There is no need to force players through hoops. The difficulty of the spells to cast is enough. Many of the level 3 spells are considered too difficult to complete they aren’t even used by experienced mages.
If you would like to nerf mages this way I have a bit different idea.
Maybe the wand lvl could affect the spell effect. If with lvl 10 wand you are trying to cast a wand lvl +15 spell (let’s say tier 3) the wand could get damaged and the spell would be not much stronger than lower, accurate to the power of the wand tier.
i’m a firm believer that needs to change for everyone. musketeer orbs need to be found, combo swings need to be trained and arrow types need to be found.
for all classes, there is a character level cap to the amount of damage you can do currently. IE: a lvl 5 runemage, will do the same damage with a lvl 5 wand as they would a lvl 10 wand. the only bonus to getting gear higher than your current level is that you don’t need to upgrade for awhile, and maybe looks. So even if a mage is casting Firebolt 3, it doesn’t mean they can take on something 5 levels higher as the damage is being scaled to player level. So in a sense, power level is already being lowered.
To what end? Does it make sense to gate warriors who have a grand total of 7 abilities 4 of which could be considered essential to the class? I’m all for adding more progression to the game but the ability list just doesn’t make sense for the other characters. There are simply too few of them to gate and make it meaningful and rewarding.
Agreed that musketeers are healers. Now if they just get resurrection like healers should have instead of limiting it to the all-powerful necromancer Runemages
