At the moment a large number of mage buff spells kind of suck and it's a dull playstyle to have to cast them at all - like playing a Cleric in DnD except instead of stacking all your buffs once per longer period of time, mage would have to do it every fight while in combat.

 

It just doesn't work out well.

 

 

I suggest moving (some of)them to passive, always active spells. Most are not interesting to cast in combat anyway. Some sort of cost to keep them up, perhaps, and limits to how many can be active at once, of course. Kind of like "upkeep" spells in Dragon Age: Origins. Maybe some class talents that allow you to stack more of them.

 

I think this would be a step in the right direction to making more "gish" mage builds work.

 

 

This could extend to some other spells for other classes, but I think mage could use it most.

At the moment a large number of mage buff spells kind of suck and it's a dull playstyle to have to cast them at all - like playing a Cleric in DnD except instead of stacking all your buffs once per longer period of time, mage would have to do it every fight while in combat.

 

It just doesn't work out well.

 

 

I suggest moving (some of)them to passive, always active spells. Most are not interesting to cast in combat anyway. Some sort of cost to keep them up, perhaps, and limits to how many can be active at once, of course. Kind of like "upkeep" spells in Dragon Age: Origins. Maybe some class talents that allow you to stack more of them.

 

I think this would be a step in the right direction to making more "gish" mage builds work.

 

 

This could extend to some other spells for other classes, but I think mage could use it most.

 

I like this idea. Some of their defensive spells could be modal. You could choose one (or two) to have on at any time.

Got an idea from this thread title:
- Enemy starts chanting Fireball, what do you do?
- Cast Flame Shield or Resist Fire or even Absorb Fire
- Take less Fire Damage/No spell damage+% Chance to absorb the Fireball and gives 1x"Spell Level" Cast.

In essence: If you can read combat and see that an enemy Wizard is casting a fire spell, you could pause and react and start an anti-flame aura that protects the Wizard (taking 0 magical damage, Immunity Spell). Though, spells or modals like these would require a large revision on balance ("Immune to [Damage]" spells or combat game balance).

Abstracted, it could be viewed as if the Wizard counters the hostile Fireball with a veil of fire, or of a shield, and that the Fireball can't penetrate that but maybe explodes outwardly, away from the Wizard (A half a VFX).

EDIT: All of these so called Counter-Spell Modals would be vs all elements and other spells. Spells you can cast mid animation, if you see a Minoletta's Missile heading your way, you'd have time to pause mid-animation and the counter spell would still manage to be cast before the magic hits. Instant Cast, and would subsequentially continue to block the same type of damage type for the duration of its activation.

AI could react to it, and then use other spells or arsenal as to counter your counter. How? Tons of new triggers and scripts^

A bit advanced because, AI should be able to control it as well, making Wizard battles potentially a puzzle or a difficult fight. You cast an Cold spell and the enemy Wizard blocks it entirely, you switch to Fire, and they block that too etc.

Or...

- Elemental Mirror
[Modal Spell: The Wizard creates an Elemental Mirror, of their choosing. The element of their choosing will negate any effects at the point of impact of the same variable. Fire Mirror blocks Fire, Earth Mirror blocks Earth, and so on. Furthermore, the Mirror devours any energy input, absorbs it and then fires it back from where it came from]

Edited January 24, 201511 yr by Osvir

I was just thinking in these lines, wrote this in another thread:

 

"I would suggest a slight alteration of the mechanics of Arcane veil.

Make it a passive that reads and functions something along the lines of:

 

Arcane Veil - Passive. When the wizard is attacked by a non firearm arcane veil activates raising the wizards deflection significantly for x seconds, x times per encounter.

 

this way the veil will automatically protect the wizard (kinda like a condition) it will still block firearms, yet firearms wont trigger it so they can still be used, but it is not as easy to abuse."