Fire Staff / Ice Gauntlet is already outdated

[SlayerofWaifus]

FS and IG have some of the most counter intuitive kits in the entire game. I’ve been playing this specific build since release, and have only recently decided to switch off the fire staff after this revelation. Don’t believe me? Let me break it down:

Mana Management

-Across skill tree perks and weapons/armor, fire staff has EIGHT mana recovery tools in its kit. This is from weapon tree and efficient burn out alone.
-Ice gauntlet has a modest 4.
That’s not even including jewelry like brilliant, mana recovery, etc. or weapon perks like siphoning or mortal siphoning.

I personally only use flare and storm summoner. I also use efficient burnout, but only for the %dmg increase, and that is more than enough, I’ve never lost a single fight due to being out of mana since I also use healthy toast as any mage should. This all equates to wasted potential.

Lack of Crowd Control / Utility

• Ice gauntlet has 1 melee range stagger, 2 slows, 2 roots.
• Fire staff has nothing.

Heavy freeze is hands down the worst CC combo in the entire game. You have to cast an ability, wind up a very telegraphed heavy attack, and then land it. All for a 1 second root that holds almost zero potential for you to unload damage if your target has stamina. That’s 3 inputs for 1 outcome. Compared to a very underrated Social Distancing in the hatchet tree, you do 1 input for 6 outcomes. You get a leap backwards, invulnerability during that leap, haste, then your target gets staggered, rooted, and slowed. Now that’s value. The main difference here is that mages have to sweat for a 1 second root. Roots in other weapon’s kits are like a side benefit or reward for just hitting a single ability.

Edit: Social Distancing also gives CD reduction for that ability on hit and reduced stamina cost on your next dodge from Adrenaline Rush. So I guess it’s actually 8 benefits from a single action.

Mobility/Stamina Management

-Fire Staff has burnout as it’s main mobility move and has some haste, but it’s almost entirely negated by self slow on autos and abilities
-Ice Gauntlet is the same, but also has entomb.

Burnout is a decent ability but the real threat to a mage’s mobility is the self-slowing on all attacks and abilities. When this is paired with the fact that all of the mage’s highest DPS moves like ice spike and flamethrower are melee ranged, mobility clearly becomes a necessity that is lacking in the kit. Dodge translation nerfs and shirking energy nerfs means that this playstyle is extreme risky for the reward of maybe killing an already low health opponent.

Conclusion

So many other weapon skill trees synergize much better than FS/IG does with its self and with each other. The weapon feels like it was designed for early leveling and non-competitive PVP and as the meta has shifted away from roots and away from burst combos and towards utility and value per attack investment, FS/IG has clearly fallen behind. It says a lot that the only things keeping FS relevant were two unintended changes that were abused to the max. IG’s nerfs to ultimate chill and weakening gust has had it’s utility almost entirely removed, even it’s slows are nothing special since literally every melee attack and ability apply slow now.

Thoughts or disagreements?

[RequiemDosVivos]

i agree with you, if you have some time check this, posted today.
Ice Gauntlet need some love - IG Balance / Wind Chill Rework

[kiwdahc]

Heavy freeze should have had its cooldown removed and time increased the second you could dodge in roots. The ultimate chill, meteor shower, and movement nerfs have me seeing around a 30% effective damage drop off in fire staff. Both weapons need large buffs to specific parts of their kit. I co-sign 100% and will help bump.

[Maister]

I find it funny we have an ability with 30 seconds of CD to do CC at melee at the same lvl that melee autoattacks (no cd) CC you by slowing and not letting you roll the full distance. And suffer much more from being at melee. It seems stupid, doesn’t it?

[newb]

Ya a bunch of the traits for fire staff and ice gauntlet are kinda underwhelming but what would they change them to that wouldn’t make the weapons become overpowered? Lets say they rework the 8 traits on fire staff that give mana back into other things that give empower, weaken or rend, or stam regen or even a CC like a stagger. I feel like that would make fire staff insanely busted. I know fire staff isn’t top of the food chain but its still definitely strong and i feel like if they give it any sort of buff that isn’t extremely minor would just make fire staff new bandwagon of the month?

-Pillar of Fire needs its targeting system fixed and maybe a minor dps increase, sometimes it hits like a wet noodle.
-trial by fire needs a complete rework, completely useless perk with a massive cool down.

• incinerate is slow and very easy to dodge but i don’t even think speeding up the animation will fix things. ( look at execute, they increased the speed of the animation by half and it still never gets used.)
  -Meteor shower is still viable when the perk isn’t bugged. I don’t see what they could do this ability that would change its usefulness outside stat padding. If they reworked it to have a stagger, i think that would just be dumb. The game is filled with staggers and CC, and another ranged one would just be even more obnoxious. If they made it a place and go like ice shower, they would have to rework all the trait lines for it and reduced the damage it does to be on par with ice gauntlet. I also just don’t think it would work since IG is more a utility type weapon so, sure you drop ice storm but besides spike, you aren’t going to be raining down dps with ice gauntlet unlike a fire staff. If you could place meteor shower and then go and pump additional dps and cast fireball or pillar, i think that would just be insane.
  -the slow after auto attacks on both weapons needs to go, you are almost forced to dodge to either kite and or chase someone while trying to auto attack. You can’t auto attack and just walk like a clown and hope to either get away or continue chasing someone, you have to burn stam.

But I think the main thing that really hurt mages the most are the new dodge changes. I’ve already made 2 posts explaining how this shafts mages the hardest and how we have no way to apply this new slow and almost all of our abilities are melee distance. Almost all melee weapons have build in slows on auto attacks or abilities, multiple melee weapons have the ability to slow stam regeneration that all stack on top of this new dodge mechanic. IT IS A COMPLETE JOKE. a kiss from literally any melee can be a death sentence because sometimes you literally CANT MOVE. You can’t even roll to break there tracking on weapons. You are just walking there like a complete jerk off while the zombie hoard mobs you down. they need to change it, make it so only heavy users can apply this dodge slow. something. at least give mages the abiltiy to put this slow back onto them so its at least an even trade.