See, Iāve made a lot of suggestions and my thing is that Iād want a different type of skill. A lot of my suggestions wouldnāt really decrease mage DPS at all. In fact, as far as the suggestions Iām rallying for the most go, I donāt think they would decrease skill, just add a different type of viable skillset.
I donāt really see a big issue with how runemages are now except for the issues of exp and self injury (warrior being another class with that potential issue - rangers have precision for people who donāt feel like spamming). The exp could be fixed in many ways, including changing how participation is calculated in dungeons/events.
Right now the meta is speed over accuracy (that isnāt to say that accuracy isnāt viable right now, it just isnāt āmetaā. Often, metas arenāt necessarily the best way to do things, just the āeasiestā to do well with). I want to bring accuracy and rhythm or rituals and rhythm into that meta. Right now, as long as you are close enough to the intended design, there is a bonus, but Iād like to see a talent line where you can hit an even higher bonus if you are absolutely perfect and cast at a specific pacing - this could be an alternative to the offhand talent so you wouldnāt be able to really spam cast it as an exchange.
Basically, speed casts would use the offhand casting and any alternatives could use the other talent.
Iād also like to see a talent line that focuses more on combining runes together for specific effects (sort of like a scoundrel runemage hybrid in a sense of combining rune effects where it might lose dps in exchange for versatility (for example, maybe have ritual initiation runes and then the first rune used applies an effect to the second rune cast, but have it be on a timed bar. This could potentially be an alternative talent to triplicity even or an alternative to the first talent (so instead of the offhand direction, it could be an option to do rituals only)).
While Richleth is not known to have any hand problems (I didnāt have wrist issues for years in other games though so it isnāt necessarily something that will show up right away and it is something that differs from person to person (just like how some people need glasses and others donāt) and how I have stronger low light vision, but weaker color detection and a relative inability to see in bright light)), that doesnāt mean it wonāt happen to others as there are many cases of people being unable to play runemage (either at all or for sustained periods) due to wrist issues. You could potentially even say that Richleth gets those high numbers because he is resistant to wrist injuries, whether due to better control, better stretching, or some other reason.
An alternative doesnāt necessarily have to hit the exact same numbers as long as it is high enough that newbies can see it as viable, Iād like to see a talent line for accurate or ritual casting.
The reason why I think a ritual system would be nice is that you could then really reclass runemage into a support. Have, for example, pushback add an interrupt to your casts if cast first. Decurse could reverse damage spells into healing spells, as an example (such as renew and affliction 2 being a renew and renew and affliction 1 could be a healing buff). In exchange for the flexibility, this would then reduce the damage that the runemage deals (perhaps 25% damage or 75% reduced damage) and require memorization of different combos.
There could be a bar similar to precision ranger where the more full it is, the stronger the effect as an alternative to triplicity, so a full bar and a pushback into pushback could potentially do 4 interrupts at 150% damage, as an example (since triplicity does 3 times effect). Basically, for effects, it would do 50-300% effect depending on how full the bar is when cast, but for damage, it would only be 50-150% damage (maybe 100-400% would be fine due to the slower cast rate since speed casters would be still doing 3 a second or possibly more and with triplicity in effect regularly - 400% or even 500% once a second would still be less than 3 * 3 (900%) or 3 * 2 (600%). The skill level would be lower, but so would the effect/damage)) depending on that same bar. (If it is 50-500%, spamming would reduce the damage and effect down to a minimum value (1 interrupt for knockback) while casting at a regular pace would bring it close to the values you might see with triplicity, but still be somewhat lower than the maximum potential. Some skills wouldnāt really benefit and depending on how it is implemented, damage skills might get a smaller bonus. Triplicity would of course be the better option for dps as you get three copies of the spell, but the alternative could be more beneficial to other playstyles.
This could also potentially be a first tier talent, bringing it more in-line with precision vs rapidity, and have it so that it doesnāt affect triplicityās extra spells (so youād get +700 instead of +1500 if it was 500% max multiplier) or have a lower effect on the extra spells (that would be harder to balance since youād be reducing the number of spells cast in exchange for more damage, maybe have it do half the effect on the extra spells).
TL;DR
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Add either an accuracy bonus talent or a ritual talent for the first talent as an alternative to offhand (this would basically be similar to the precision vs rapidity choice where offhand would be rapidity).
- Accuracy would make it so that the closer your runes are to the book/official version, the more bonus you get - this would be even higher of a bonus than the current system, but would require even more precision. This talent line could potentially result in a more exponential line where truly perfect āperfect castsā would get enough bonus to make up for the reduced casting (since you wouldnāt be able to cast multiple spells as easily) while the less perfect your spells are, the less the bonus makes up for the reduced casting. Without hitting the minimum to perfect cast, this would actually do less damage (think of it like the scoundrel showoff talent).
- Ritual would allow the runemage to have more versatility in exchange for losing damage. (basically changing the runemage into a support/healer class). They would also need to remember combos to combine spells together for different effects similar to scoundrel cards.
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For the level 30 talent, as an alternative to Triplicity, have a precision styled gauge where the higher the gauge, the stronger the spells. This could have effect (interrupts as an example) and damage separate or both the same. For both the same, the gauge could go from 50% effect (minimum 1) to 500% effect at full gauge determined on cast. This could also have a small effect on dot duration at full gauge (no effect if not full). Triplicity would still be stronger for speedcasters, but would be viable for non-speedcasters. (This would be a more or less direct precision vs accuracy style talent). For balance (to prevent it from being just a way to dumb down runemage), it could be a duration based effect that requires casting the level 30 ritual, but without needing the 15 successful casts (this would also help train people to do rotations). Basically an option to train rotations and timing.
Players using the alternatives would likely not get as high of damage as speedcasters, but should still be viable.
