With meteor being fixed, mages could use some love (as seen by countless posts here).
Some thoughts on some changes to better be in line with bonuses granted to weapons such as Great Axe and Bow while still providing a unique flavor to the weapon and opening up some new builds and possibly a medium playstyle.
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PILLAR OF FIRE
Radius increased from 2m to 3m
First Strike RENAMED TO Final Strike
No longer deals 40% bonus damage to foes at full health, instead gains 10% critical strike and deals 20% bonus damage to foes at 30% or less health.
Arson’s Advantage
Changed from “gain 10% mana per enemy hit by Pillar” to gain 5% empower for 5s per enemy hit by Pillar (max 15%).
METEOR SHOWER
Meteor damage is no longer restricted to when the projectiles hit the target (this was too random). Any enemy who remains in the Meteor Shower will be hit for the damage listed, similar to Ice Storm.
Fiery Determination
Adds Grit and grants 40% weapon damage on all hits after the initial impact.
Judgement of Helios
Meteor now scales by an additional 15% every .75s (max 6s), punishing anyone who stays in your meteor shower for an extended period of time.
Empowering Meteor Shower (PERK)
Damage unchanged. Perk can now trigger on each tick of meteor instead of only the initial cast.
FIREBALL
Empowering Fireball (PERK)
Damage bonus remains unchanged. Direct hits now stagger opponents and cause enemies to be placed in recovery animation (similar to when hit by a melee attack).
INCINERATE
Wind-up time reduced by half. Burn damage increased from 6% to 8%. Has grit (perk no longer required). Now staggers and grants a 30% slow for 3s.
Cauterizing wounds
Life steal increased from 20% to 25% and cleanses all debuffs.
Stable Incinerate (PERK)
Damage granted remains unchanged, now also grants 10% fortify for 5s
FLAMETHROWER
Infernal Flames RENAMED to Armor Melt
Decreased flamethrower bonus damage from this perk from 25% to 10%. Each tick of flamethrower now applies a new unique debuff that reduces the targets armor by 5% (max 3 stacks, lasts 5 seconds). This is separate from rend / rend caps. Burn damage changed from 6% to 8%. This change should help motivate players to chain other abilities after reaching the max stacks as it will provide more burst damage. This will also add utility to the ability allowing synergy with your teammates.
Accelerating Flamethrower (PERK)
Speed bonus unchanged. Now increases burn DOT damage caused by flame thrower by 4% instead of increasing burn duration. With this perk, Flamethrower will be able to deal a total of 10% burn dmg per burn tick up from the previous 6%.
BURNOUT
No longer has a wind-up time, similar to charge and fleche, matching other escape abilities.
Heat It Up
Range increase from this passive remains at 50% and now leaves a trail of fire behind the caster that slows any user hit by it 20% for 3s. Fire trail remains on the ground for 4s before fizzling out. This will help add more utility and depth to burnout and give value in group play for combos and control.
Efficient Burnout (PERK)
Damage bonus on next hit is unchanged. Removed mana regen bonus, replaced with speed increase by 10% for 5s.
PASSIVE ABILITIES
Singe
Changed from light attacks inflicting burn to heavy attacks (to better synergize with Fiery Restoration, Spell Focus and Flare). Burn damage increased from 6% to 8%.
Heat Up
Changed from “gain mana while blocking” to gain a reflective fire shield that deals 10% wep dmg when struck to attackers for 5s (10s CD). Does not trigger off damage over time abilities.
Let It Burn
Fortify granted on burn damage increased from 2s to 3s.
Kindle
No longer increases burn duration, now increases burn damage by 5%.
Watch it Burn
Burn damage increased from 6% to 8%.
Combat Speed
Cooldown reduced from 10s to 8s. Speed bonus increased to 15%
Trial By Fire
When you are struck in combat, gain 2% empower for 5s (max 5 stacks), does not trigger off damage over time abilities.
REHEAT (Final Skill in Pyro Tree)
Reheat renamed to Cleansing Flame.
BEFORE: After 4s without activating a fire staff ability, your mana regen is increased to 400%
CHANGE: When you take a hit below 30% health, burn off (cleanse) all debuffs (1min cooldown).
Rune of Helios (final skill Fire Mage tree)
Renamed to Consuming Flame.
After a target receives 5 stacks of burn, your next burn application consumes all burns for 80% of their damage immediately. This should help give a pop a burst but requires a careful setup of how you manage your burns to time it with a nasty fireball or pillar setup.
I think a few of these changes are good. Reheat imho is fine… reducing wind up time is good.
Changing singe would be amazing.
Fire staff already deals tons of dmg so just reducing animation wind ups would increase dmg itself… meteor shower would become way too powerful so thatd be ridiculous. I like the idea of dmg scaling up, but the 40% dmg every tick at start is a bit much.
Flamethrower change would basically destroy the skill.
I think changing flamethrower should be a heat-up thing like the gun emplacements have. Makes you think a bit more on it… change the “no cooldown” perk to “no cooldown and reduces heat up of flamethrower by 25%” so it charges back faster than the guns with it.
It’s not though, running out of mana isn’t really a thing. Between regen pots, mana pots, free mana on dodge rolls, it makes this end ability so worthless.
the 40% dmg is already there, I just moved it up a tree. It’s 40% additional dmg after the first impact (which is 75% dmg). The third passive in the tree would grant bonus damage scaling the longer the meteor is channeled, rewarding the caster for the shitty animation lock meteor has that makes you extremely vulnerable.
The most weak abilities are incinerate and meteor shower and those need to get buffed.
Pillar is hard to aim and requires a lot of skill and there should be a better reward than it is now.
Flamethrower - I honestly don’t like this ability, such a low skill cap. I would give it the Wind Chill mechanic.
You activate a 5-6 second flame burst and then it goes on CD.
Burnout animation is so bad, you are under a high risk every time you use it.
Definitely one of the weakest mobility abilities in the game.
I would change flamethrower to a “heat up” mechanic like the gattling guns have.
Burnout needs a shorter animation.
Incinerate trucks though? Maybe a shorter wind up would be nice
Give a perk in right side tree that uses extra mana for longer range attacks, or an extra modifier on them to hit a bit harder. makes reheat make more sense.
Pillar is kinda weak, would rather see it crash down from above VS explode from the ground.
Most of the people asking for changes/suggesting them make some insanely WILD suggestions that would turn FS/IG into absolutely broken weapons. Imo the fantasy of the weapons is something different and refreshing, just needs some small tuning here and there but doesnt need complete reworks like people claim it needs
Cause they’re all different and serve different purposes:
Flèche - short distance, no windup, can’t be body blocked
Charge - long distance, no windup, can be body blocked
Burnout - long distance, windup, can’t be body blocked
I’ve pvpd as FS/Rapier for 200+ pvp ranks, and imo burnout is in a very good spot. Try to use it after dodge rolling around a corner, and then dash THROUGH the opponent that’s chasing you. You’ll end up in one of two scenarios:
Opponent is now damaged, burning, and you’re fortified - fight
Opponent blows a dodge roll and is now at a stamina disadvantage - kite him
I’m a FS main as well, the fact you have to waste stamina to make the ability viable is the issue. Stam is such a scarce resource now with the light nerf. It felt “ok” before, but with the changes it feels abysmal. There is no reason to not have it match other abilities of its type. What is the point in making it worse than fleche, charge, leap, net shot, social distancing…??
I’m 109% on board with the change to meteor shower and also 100% going on the path of flame charge needs to have its animation smoothed out at either the back or front end.
I’d also like to see the double hit mechanic of pillar of flame returned sort of, maybe not as potent but it should reward a direct hit with an extra tag of damage
Officially FS is dead now. I play all day pvp from few months as FS + IG or another combination. After patch FS is doing almost 0 dmg. On OPR or open world pvp most ppl run mid armor. Melee with mid armor have high defence, good mobility with right skills and still great burst. FS have very low dmg with mid and light. VS melee (that is no brainded) FS is dead in every aspect. No mobility = melee can catch u very easy. No dmg = cant trade dmg with melee. No CC = cant stop melee. Same thing is witch archer or musket. Fire mage is officially only meme class, no pvp class anymore. If someone still want to play mage in pvp, then better find another game.
not to mention they have better combo setups. A grav well into a shockwave then maelstrom is insane burst. Fire can’t match this setup in any way. Fireball is a missle projectile affected by gravity, Pillar is ground targetted and our light/heavy is aimed on our cross hair with no drop off. All three of these top skills have different aiming mechanisms and weird setups that make comboing them a huge pain. Whereas a bow can sit and use the same crosshair for almost all their setups.
Yes, and icetomb is bugged or changed to unplayable version.
Before patch i though that it will be quite hard time for mages but true is that mages are not playable anymore in competition pvp. Any half brain melee or archer can kill mage with only 1 hand.
