Wizard's spells odd damage design.

[Guest BugsVendor]

 

One of the solutions that comes to mind with Fans of Flames is to get rid or greatly reduce the safe zone in it's area.

 

I think it's too big and in too many situations you are in clear.

 

This spell would make much more sense if you really had to damage both your companions and the enemies.

I would never use Fan of Flames if I had to nuke my party to use it.

 

 

Why not ? It's all about gain / loss balance.

 

Imagine you have only a tank and a wizard left.All the enemies are attacking your full hp tank.

 

You cast 2 FoF and fight is over.

[Emptiness]

-10 accuracy is significant unless your enemy's accuracy is so high they they will crit you every time even with -10 accuracy (because it will mean that 10% of their attacks will do less damage than they would otherwise do) or so low that your enemy is incapable of even grazing you (in which case casting any spell is a waste...just beat them to death with a spoon and save your spells for worthy foes).

[Caerdon]

One of the solutions that comes to mind with Fans of Flames is to get rid or greatly reduce the safe zone in it's area.

 

I think it's too big and in too many situations you are in clear.

 

This spell would make much more sense if you really had to damage both your companions and the enemies.

 

How would you do that? The safe zone is determined by the caster's INT.

[Dongom]

 

 

One of the solutions that comes to mind with Fans of Flames is to get rid or greatly reduce the safe zone in it's area.

 

I think it's too big and in too many situations you are in clear.

 

This spell would make much more sense if you really had to damage both your companions and the enemies.

I would never use Fan of Flames if I had to nuke my party to use it.

 

 

Why not ? It's all about gain / loss balance.

 

Imagine you have only a tank and a wizard left.All the enemies are attacking your full hp tank.

 

You cast 2 FoF and fight is over.

 

 

But two other caster classes already do considerably better AOE DPS without hurting the team or having to waste time positioning.

 

So I'm not seeing the issue.

[dirigible]

Why not ? It's all about gain / loss balance.

 

Imagine you have only a tank and a wizard left.All the enemies are attacking your full hp tank.

 

You cast 2 FoF and fight is over.

I generally don't build a strategy around having my entire team dead.

 

Rather than have Fan of Flames in my spellbook, I'll have some other spell which doesn't require a tpk before it becomes useful.

[Tigranes]

 

Flames isn't always the answer when you're on Hard/POTD and Expert Mode. The AOE on Flames fans out pretty quickly, so if you're in a chokepoint and one of your characters is standing next to the mage but maybe one step ahead, you're going to kill him/her instantly on earlier levels.

 

 

 

 

Guys, he said damage in the title.

Well, consider the following:

 

Prone enemies have -10 deflection

Blind enemies have -24 deflection

 

How much more often is your party going to be hitting/critting against enemies that are blind and prone? All thanks to your mage.

 

 

Why bother blinding them when you can just cast 2 fans of flames and finish the whole encounter ?

 

 

The more party members you have and the lower the difficulty this will be more true of everything. Level 3 PC Rogue & Alroth in Eothas Temple right now on POTD, and if I don't act quickly to disable them with blind or whatever, Alroth won't be alive to cast two flames, especially given interrupts.

 

I disagree. I play on PoD and I find it extremely easy to use the FoF.

 

Even with a tank in the door you can stand right next to him and get most of the enemies behind a door casting it so that the straight line of the half circle is perpendicular to the door.

 

 

With expert mode, or not?

 

Maybe when I use it more I'll get more used to it. I also find Aloth misses with it quite frequently.

 

Besides, Aloth setting everyone blind or prone is often a more surefire way to get my rogue to stab them all in the face 80 times a second, while not taking damage.

[Guest BugsVendor]

This topic has been moved ?

[Asmodean-]

What do people have against Wizards? lol. They're pretty gimped as it is, in this. And I don't mean, "huehuehue, but yu can save al ur spells for a baws, then eazy kill pwuueew".

 

I mean from an enjoyment factor, in comparison to other classes. And especially in comparison to other games' Wizard/ pure caster class.

 

You obtain all of these cool spells, you hardly ever get to enjoy, because you've to "save them" for "when you'll need them", or basically the rapture. Plus the Idea of the Grimoire from an RP perspective, is really cool, and I like it, but all it effectively does is increase clunkiness. Takes the fun out of acquiring spells, and experimenting, etc.

 

"Nope, I've only got a few uses, gotta save them, and spam the same niché spells over, and over". I love Wizard/sorcerer classes, in general. And I'm also enjoying this game a lot so far, but I do think that the Wizard class was poorly done (in theory it works fine, but not in practice so much).

Edited April 6, 2015 by Asmodean-

[Malitias]

There's no sense in using a debuff if you might as well just kill the enemy with the other spell. Killing alot of enemies fast is good crowd control too.

[Dongom]

There's no sense in using a debuff if you might as well just kill the enemy with the other spell. Killing alot of enemies fast is good crowd control too.

 

Cipher and Druid do that quite a bit more effectively and with less risk. 

 

CC is still Wizard's true role and strongest capability. 

[Malitias]

 

Cipher and Druid do that quite a bit more effectively and with less risk. 

 

CC is still Wizard's true role and strongest capability. 

 

That's true, but the wizards CC capabilities are not that much higher than a ciphers from my experience. Especially until they reach lvl 9. Their damage is crazy low compared to them, yes, but in the beginning FoF will nuke most enemies.

Not everyone is playing PotD where enemy stats are increased. On lower difficulties it'll kill stuff quite effectively.

As I said, Ciphers and Druids damage is alot higher, but that doesn't mean a Wizard should be restricted to using CC. He is being advertised as a versatile spellcaster and I don't see much useful versatility here so far.

If I'm correct the thread is about exactly that. ^^ Wizard damage being too low compared to those 2.

[Dongom]

 

 

Cipher and Druid do that quite a bit more effectively and with less risk. 

 

CC is still Wizard's true role and strongest capability. 

 

That's true, but the wizards CC capabilities are not that much higher than a ciphers from my experience. Especially until they reach lvl 9. Their damage is crazy low compared to them, yes, but in the beginning FoF will nuke most enemies.

Not everyone is playing PotD where enemy stats are increased. On lower difficulties it'll kill stuff quite effectively.

As I said, Ciphers and Druids damage is alot higher, but that doesn't mean a Wizard should be restricted to using CC. He is being advertised as a versatile spellcaster and I don't see much useful versatility here so far.

If I'm correct the thread is about exactly that. ^^ Wizard damage being too low compared to those 2.

 

 

Cipher is on a different level than all other classes.

[Caerdon]

You can't argue that there's something wrong with wizard by comparing it to cipher, that just destroys the whole foundation of the argument. It's cipher that's broken, not wizard.

[tenfrith'ssavourypie]

It's funny to see so many people saying FoF has a high risk, my personal strategy for almost the entire game has been to just flame the tank. 1) walk Eder into a clump of enemies, 2) walk my main and Aloth slightly behind and flame everything, 3) repeat flame, 4) collect loot. It really takes off at level 5 once you can grab vigorous defense. Silly mages couldn't actually hit Eder if they tried. And they have, hundreds of times. Guy doesn't even get grazed without a reflex debuff. Of course, the mages on the other hand will instagib each other if the positioning gets too sloppy. This is on PotD with a non-bugged Eder. It's a bit silly, honestly.

 

I can't comment on mage balance vs druid or cipher as I haven't mained them yet, but in the context of other mage spells I would argue that FoF could use a slight alteration. I like that it's so powerful, damage wise (devs have done a great job keeping at least some spells from each level relevant throughout the game), but it outclasses so many other damage options and all the other level 1 spells that something needs to change. Possible changes from best to worst:

 

Better encounter and monster design - why is burn damage basically the best damage type throughout the whole game? Why are 90+% of encounters pure tank and spank (for which FoF's positioning disadvantages are irrelevant)?

 

Buff the competing level 1 spells. Most of the single target alternatives do less damage and do not have strong enough debuffing effects to compensate. They're also riskier to use: any aoe on a group of enemies is almost guaranteed to be of some use because of multiple hit rolls, but single target spells are often completely wasted by a miss, particularly at low levels when wasting a spell is particularly detrimental. I think this risk is actually a bigger problem than either the low damage or effect. Increased accuracy on these spells might help. Better effects might help too (priests can inflict stuck at level 1 with halt, which is ridiculously powerful - halt doesn't do damage, but also isn't a touch attack). Slicken probably needs to be completely reworked at this point, the old version was lol, the new version is terrible (not sure why so many are still supporting it - am I missing something?).

 

Buff the competing nuke spells. As others have mentioned, the missile spells are essentially all completely outclassed by everything else. Like much of the itemization problems they seem to have suffered from the DR changes before release. They need better damage, possibly in the form of increased DR reduction, increased accuracy, or even auto-hit. Fireball could use an aoe buff considering it usually hits the same number of enemies as FoF but does far less damage (1 to 1, fireball does have its uses but its more of a niche spell than FoF).

 

Nerf FoF. Last resort. I wouldn't want to see the damage reduced, but honestly one idea that might actually make for more interesting strategy would be to block damage behind targets. It would actually make sense and could even be tactically interesting, eg when a ghost teleports into your group you could flame into it without hitting the squishy caster directly behind it. However that would require there to actually be more tactically interesting encounters in the game, of which there are few, otherwise it would be too hard a nerf.

[Infares]

You're mistaken. -10 ACC debuff is not "minor," it's a very big deal indeed. Fan of Flames is indeed great, but so is Chill Fog (can be cast from behind your front line), that Ice Blades thing which also Hobbles, Slicken even after the nerf, Thrust of Tattered Veils if you're facing a caster, and Eldritch Aim if you're targeting a (hard-to-hit) boss.

 

(It's the level 2 spells I'm having trouble with. Curse of Blackened Sight is awesome, Fetid Caress sometimes useful, but I haven't had much luck with Rolling Flame, Binding Web is obviously worse than Slicken or that Ice Blades thing that also hobbles, and the gishy self-buffs/self-defense spells are a waste of a cast and a spell slot.)

Miasma of Dull-Mindedness does the following: 

 

-30 Interrupt

-30 Concentration

-20 Deflection

-20 Reflex

-40 Will

-60% AoE

-50% Skill Duration

[Guest BugsVendor]

You guys posted a lot of good points here but the discussion went a bit further than I originally intended. 

 

My main concern was:

 

I consider only the wizard class. I look at his spells available. Damage doesn't make any sense. I thought I missed some good reason for it, but it seems there isn't any.

[Caerdon]

You guys posted a lot of good points here but the discussion went a bit further than I originally intended. 

 

My main concern was:

 

I consider only the wizard class. I look at his spells available. Damage doesn't make any sense. I thought I missed some good reason for it, but it seems there isn't any.

 

Honestly, I still don't understand your point.

 

You can't just look at damage in isolation. Spells have multiple properties, damage is just one of them. One spell does more damage than others? Cool. Other spells do other stuff.

 

Besides, wizard's spell vs. spell balance is one of the least important categories of balance in this game. Why? Because A) different spells are still better for different purpose, and B) spells of different levels use different resources. In other words: even if level 1 spell X is "better" than level 2 spell Y, that's not a huge problem, it's just a matter of managing your resources. What other spells do you want to be using? How many level 1 spells can you cast? Do you want to cast this now so you can cast that later? And so on.

[Mungri]

You guys posted a lot of good points here but the discussion went a bit further than I originally intended. 

 

My main concern was:

 

I consider only the wizard class. I look at his spells available. Damage doesn't make any sense. I thought I missed some good reason for it, but it seems there isn't any.

You're just doing something wrong:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/75918-wizards-and-paladins-are-underpowered/

[Infares]

Depends on how you define "damage". 

A wizard's presence in a group is arguably better than just another source of raw damage. Even at that, even if their early level damage spells are somewhat lacking, there are 6 levels of spells.

For instance, every time a wizard CCs an enemy, or reduces its damage capability, or increases its vulnerability, those are all equivalent to damage or healing by themselves depending on which other classes you have in the party to monopolize.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Infares

[Mungri]

Like blindness. You cast that, and everything dies so much faster.

[Guest BugsVendor]

 

You guys posted a lot of good points here but the discussion went a bit further than I originally intended. 

 

My main concern was:

 

I consider only the wizard class. I look at his spells available. Damage doesn't make any sense. I thought I missed some good reason for it, but it seems there isn't any.

 

Honestly, I still don't understand your point.

 

You can't just look at damage in isolation. Spells have multiple properties, damage is just one of them. One spell does more damage than others? Cool. Other spells do other stuff.

 

Besides, wizard's spell vs. spell balance is one of the least important categories of balance in this game. Why? Because A) different spells are still better for different purpose, and B) spells of different levels use different resources. In other words: even if level 1 spell X is "better" than level 2 spell Y, that's not a huge problem, it's just a matter of managing your resources. What other spells do you want to be using? How many level 1 spells can you cast? Do you want to cast this now so you can cast that later? And so on.

 

Depends on how you define "damage". 

 

A wizard's presence in a group is arguably better than just another source of raw damage. Even at that, even if their early level damage spells are somewhat lacking, there are 6 levels of spells.

 

For instance, every time a wizard CCs an enemy, or reduces its damage capability, or increases its vulnerability, those are all equivalent to damage or healing by themselves depending on which other classes you have in the party to monopolize.

Like blindness. You cast that, and everything dies so much faster.

 

Guys :D, I like cc. I like other wizard uses than raw damage. But non of this has anything to do with this topic.

 

I don't know how to express it in any other way.

 

Only damage spells. Only wizard. There is a few, but the aoe one is best in 99% of the situations. Seems weird to me that aoe spell has higher damage than single target ones. And it has range advantage over the spells that require a touch.

 

That's all I wanted to look at. O_o

[kickthezombie]

 

Guys, he said damage in the title.

Well, consider the following:

 

Prone enemies have -10 deflection

Blind enemies have -24 deflection

 

How much more often is your party going to be hitting/critting against enemies that are blind and prone? All thanks to your mage.

 

Well this is why it is nice having my ranger's companion having the knock down ability. They can knock down most enemies and then be targeted by a wizard/cipher/cleric  to finish them off in short time.

[Althernai]

Only damage spells. Only wizard. There is a few, but the aoe one is best in 99% of the situations. Seems weird to me that aoe spell has higher damage than single target ones. And it has range advantage over the spells that require a touch.

First, it's not 99% of situations. If enemies have mingled with your group or your tank is holding them at a choke point, FoF is usually not the way to go and this happens quite often. Second, yes, the single target, pure damage Wizard spells are pretty bad. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this was; I guess they just don't want you to play a Wizard that way.

[Wolken3156]

Only damage spells. Only wizard. There is a few, but the aoe one is best in 99% of the situations. Seems weird to me that aoe spell has higher damage than single target ones. And it has range advantage over the spells that require a touch.

Jolting Touch actually is pretty good... as a scroll or weapon effect. For some reason the grimoire version does less damage than the scroll or spellbinded weapon versions. Sunless Grasp though, does have very limited applications... even if you're running a melee wizard.

 

As for the missile spells, they're pretty garbage. They do have short casting times, but this is the class with Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. That spell alone makes Wizards cast times virtually instant anyway.

 

First, it's not 99% of situations. If enemies have mingled with your group or your tank is holding them at a choke point, FoF is usually not the way to go and this happens quite often. Second, yes, the single target, pure damage Wizard spells are pretty bad. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this was; I guess they just don't want you to play a Wizard that way.

Look at the size of that safe zone. Its a pretty damn safe spell to cast. Granted I stacked a lot of Intelligence stuff (You can see my resting bonus), but yeah, with a lot of intelligence AoE spells become very safe to cast.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Wolken3156

[Caerdon]

Guys :D, I like cc. I like other wizard uses than raw damage. But non of this has anything to do with this topic.

 

I don't know how to express it in any other way.

 

Only damage spells. Only wizard. There is a few, but the aoe one is best in 99% of the situations. Seems weird to me that aoe spell has higher damage than single target ones. And it has range advantage over the spells that require a touch.

 

That's all I wanted to look at. O_o

 

But you can't look at damage only. They have other properties. Speed, range, accuracy, target defense etc.

 

I agree with you whem it comes to Fan of Flames, it's usually the best level 1-2 wizard spell if you just want to deal some damage quickly to a bunch of targets. Maybe it should even be toned down a bit. But still, the other damage spells serve their purpose, and often they don't deal as much damage as the Fan because they offer other benefits, and this is the point you don't seem to get.

 

Look at the size of that safe zone. Its a pretty damn safe spell to cast. Granted I stacked a lot of Intelligence stuff (You can see my resting bonus), but yeah, with a lot of intelligence AoE spells become very safe to cast.

 

I agree. Personally I think INT should increase AOE area they way it says, not the way it does.