Hey, i have been playing a little bit in these past few days, exclusively as a runemage, i m lvl 17 now, so here are my thoughts:
Life is hard as a solo runemage… especially the felid type monster, wich can 2 shot you, and you can’t shake them off at all, aside from turning them into chicken… red is very very difficult for a mage (which doesn’t seem to be the case for other classes), don’t expect to be able to kill them unprepared, and even prepared it’s still a hard fight. pink is doable with preparation, but if you are unprepared, chances are the mage will die.
i won’t dive too deep here, despite other topics on it, i still find the my own casting to be inconsistant, might come from me, might come from the fact that casting needs to be too “accurate”. i have played quite a bit, and still have trouble consistantly casting ice lance (i must have a bad habit for that particular spell, that i can’t correct…), especially in parties…
In my opinion, Lvl 3 spells are useless in combat, the additional time required to cast it, plus the fact that fireball 3 and frostbolt 3 are way slower and have less range (correct me if i am wrong here), make them never be a good alternative to anything else… even for initiation. all of that without taking into account the success rate of these spells, especially frostbolt 3. (Btw the rune for frsotball 3 doesn’t look anything like what you are supposed to cast, which doesn’t help with trying to reliably cast it…)
Pathing is a B**** for distance oriented class. the worst is in the frost area (don’t remember the name), with the hills and the trees… you get stuck everywhere, and monsters take the long way around for seemingly no reasons, there are the small foxes everywhere, which you can barely see… (BTW dreygur, and the other smaller ones draugr or something, don’t have a their level known, no icons)
Range is also very difficult to judge, be it for casting or how far is the mob gonna keep the aggro. as a mage, since i m being very fragile, i tend to stay at the limit of the aggro, to have more time to cast and stuff. Time and time again, i was gonna finish off a mob, but since i keep backing up when i can (you never know; 1sec might save you :D), i reach the limit of the aggro, and the monster just go back, despite being a 2% health.
The way monsters spawn, is very frustrating, especially being so fragile, i have been killed countless times while farming, and a monster just pop up behind me… there should be a radius around the player, in which nothing can spawn.
I don’t understand why everywhere i go, there are monsters on the roads… aren’t road supposed to be safe ? especially in low level are, when you start and want to get to tinny’s cave, it’s pretty difficult… i get that someplace, like the frost area or the frontier, but come one, if there is a road it should be safe!
And please disable the aggro of green monsters… they don’t seem to aggro as much, but they still do sometimes…
At the end of the day, i really like playing rune mage, it can be very frustrating, but it feels great when everything goes smoothly.
I think there are a lot of things you can improve on, to balance things out, and make it aven better, so keep up the good work !
Been playing runemage too. You have some good points, but I have to say that some of your issues may be personal skill related.
I have a 90% success rate with every spell now except push 3, and I’ll get that one too. I can even reliably cast frost 3, in combat, in about .3 seconds (impossible, I know, but I figured it out with a little help!)
I saw something crazy yesterday too. A kid in the desert was chain-casting Frost 2 and had three airborne before the first reached his target. He was tearing it up! He’d probably tell you runemage is overpowered, so I suppose it depends on the player…
Keep at it, or don’t. I guess this class isn’t for everyone, but it’s obviously great fun (and easy) for some!
Thing is, i can have 3 fireball 2 at the same time in the air (never tried with frost 2, but it should be the same difficulty or easier). But sometimes, whatever i do, some cast just don’t work, even though i take my time or do it as usual it just doesn’t work… (if i can, i m gonna record how i play, and i m sure it will be interesting !)
i know i m not the only one, because someone said that apprently some high levels say that casting is harder if you don’t have the aggro in a party. (i saw that in another post, somewhere here, so there is at least another one with similiar issue!)
Edit: to be clear, i m just saying that other people seem to also have trouble with being consistant in every situation, that might be why such rumor started (which have been debunked in another post). Which might be coming from concentration or all the distracting effect and so on…
another level 17 mage here, not a pro, but grinding on reds all the time. aff 2 to initiate, start sliding backwards, stop to cast frost 2, release and slide again while its travel. then 1 or 2 icelances if failed something one more icelance or pushback depends on mobs health. There are some variations, but mostly backsliding helps alot with high level mobs.
You even can kill red elites, by kiting them in circles, just keep that slow on them.
Usually I keep ultimate for unexpected respawn.
Tigers a bit harder but still reds are doable, most of the time I prefer to play safe and kill them on level.
Eehm 0.3 seconds… I can cast 3 frost runes lvl 2 before they reach the target, but 0.3 seconds for lvl 3 makes you able to cast like 6 of them before reaching a target…
I’m sure you can. I think it’s more like half a second. I don’t usually cast while guiding missiles (but w/Frost 2, I should). Generally don’t find it needed—if the thing is big enough to warrant multiple frost 2, I’m usually circle kiting and can’t hold still long enough to chain f2. Also range in f3 is REALLY short
The ‘F’ without the middle horizontal line is also possible. So a single stroke that is even shorter than the P. But it is mainly the billion clicks on the touch-pad to get it started and fired that holds my speed back. That might be the only thing that annoys me about the Runemage. The touch-pad shooting -.-
It’s easier to aim with the “F” without the line, as the cast doesn’t really change the trajectory of the previous cast… But strangely i m not consistent with the “F” without the middle line, i m more consistent with the full “F” ^^
I tried the very small one too, but same, sometimes i can cast 10 in row, sometimes i miss 10 in a row… so during fights it’s not a really good bet…
Yeah not a big fan of the touchpad shooting coupled with some latency, and it makes casting way slower ^^
Does anyone else have problems with casting (not drawing) your spell while moving? It seems like it always lags behind me and either hits my back (worst case) or is pretty offset from where I was (best case).
I try not to release spells while moving forward or laterally. Your spell will release from where you just were instead of where you currently are (due to latency). More latency probably makes this effect worse. Backpedaling is ok—spell will originate in front of you by a bit.
I’m only a lowly level 7 mage atm, but I’ve noticed it takes a lot of work and practice to be just decent. I remember when I first learned to cast frost 3, and spent a significant amount of time just casting it over and over until I could get it on every try. Then one morning (this morning) I was having an off day and couldn’t even get it to cast at all. Then I picked it up again and started to flub the ice lance over and over. So then I had to spend more time in town casting these spells until I could get them right consistently. I feel this is going to be pretty regular.
The frost/fire rank 3 spells do move a lot slower and have a shorter range than the rank 2 spells. So it’s hard to initiate well with them. When I’m in the zone I’ll pull a mob with ice bolt 2, follow with ice 3, then ice lance all day. The rank 3 ice slows them down a lot more and seems to last longer than ice 2.
For my personal complaints, I really dislike casting with the touch pad. Can’t we use the left trigger or the grip or something? I want to use my trackpad to move/turn. And since we’re not really using our left hand at all, it’d be nice if we could guide the spell with that and be able to start drawing the next run with our wand. Chain casting seems like it would be annoying with your spell flopping about as you draw the next rune. Although I suppose that could just be something mages needed to work on to become more effective in the game.
