The combined nerfs to light armor, shirking energy, fire staff abilities, as well as entomb bugs, maelstrom bugs, etc. has made this the absolute most unrewarding class to play in the game. I’ve played fire staff / ice gauntlet (referenced as ‘mage’) since launch and through all of the nerfs over the course of this year this is the first time I’ve even considered putting this combo in the storage shed and playing something else.
Forced walk animation after every ability/light/heavy attack and low ranged dps.
Being forced to walk after every attempt at doing damage has always been a huge drawback to the build, but it feels 10x clunkier now that you also are forced to walk or waste stamina on a shortened roll after every time you get hit by a melee ability.
All the abilities with any kill potential whatsoever are melee range abilities.
Ice spike, aside from feeling like complete RNG at times as well as constantly not staggering as it should, is the best burst ability in a mages kit but can only be used in melee range.
Flamethrower, aside from being low skill cap and what I personally believe to be a boring ability, is the most consistent dps ability in the kit and is only usable in melee range.
Little to no utility or CC.
Fire staff has no utility or CC.
Ice gauntlet has some utility and CC but almost none of it allows mages to capitalize on the few burst opportunities they create. Shower can easily be dashed out of, heavy freeze only lasts 1 second and requires you to apply status, charge a heavy without getting staggered or interrupted, and land the hit = high risk low reward.
Nearly every class can do what mages do, but better. Out ranged by dex, Out CC’d by pretty much everything, little utility, slow mobility. I think it’s safe to say this is the weakest archetype in the game at the moment.
There’s barely anything a mage can do in this patch. Heartrunes don’t synergize that well due to lack of point presence and it being slow to charge, burn out nerf and meteor shower fix means irrelevant damage, self slow and wind-up mobility means melee tramples you, bad stamina management compared to dex, and almost no meaningful utility.
The 20% dodge distance reduction after getting hit by a melee swing was an incredibly heavyhanded change to a problem that mainly exists because of the way that the rapier (still) works and I really hope they revisit that change as it not only makes combat feel extremely slow and sluggish, but also punishes certain “class” setups like classic Mages way too hard compared to others.
If the issue is Melee characters not being able to stick on targets enough, buff Melee players by giving them more haste or more tools for gap closing, but do not universally nerf everybody playing light armor.
It’s just not a good approach to balance the armor weights and if anything this change will force even more people into playing rapier to have any chance of ever getting out a Melee attack chain since a regular dodge does no longer get you out of range of the next swing after getting hit by the first.
Like what’s going to be the next change? 2s root every time you get hit by a melee swing?
Oh, yet another post saying that Combat controls / Combat experience sucks.
This is not only a fire staff problem. It’s a problem in the very core of combat controls. And affects to the entire game. PVP & PVE
The game makes it very unpleasant to play.
People tend to use words like Clunky & Sluggish to describe the feeling many of us have while we are in combat.
And it’s pretty simple… Combat controls are too archaic / rigid.
Because it forces us to walk for almost everything.
Because weapon swap are prone to errors
Because consumables takes ages to be used
Because light attacks prevents consumables to be used.
If only some genius, industry changing designer was on new world forums warning about mage being screwed over by bad design. How amazing the class could get then.
I agree that point is not at all limited to a single weapon, its just exacerbated in this scenario due to the next point. I also agree that combat should be as you stated, but it just doesn’t seem plausible as it would come at the cost of rebalancing literally everything. Do I think we deserve that as players? 100%. Do I think AGS can pull it off? Questionable.
would kill mage. and they killed build. It feel like sh… now. You can play vs mele only if you outskill them heavly. Any good mele near your skill lvl just sh… on you now.
They wanted to nerf range builds that were to mobile: dex.
But they f… up. And mages got hit as a result.
So now i suggest to fix mages by adding slow on range hit that will allow mages to kite. Since we cant get distance when mele does close it and we cant kill them before they close it and we dont have dmg and/or cc to fight close combat.
Dude there is at least few mele builds that could easly stick to mage even before this patch. GA/hatchet, GA/SS, SS/Hatchet to mention few. You count not run away from this builds, they would always jump back on you again with all mobility they have.
Well feel melee pain before update when it was pew pew battlefield that was dull too. Against spears, hatchet, sns nothing changed those builds were always hard counter to FS/IG.
No they were not hard counter. They had lot of tools to kill fs/ig mage but you coud fight this build and win. It was metter of who will do more mistakes. But now result is decided before fight starts. Since mage has nothing to respond combination of mobility cc and dmg bruiser does have.
i feel like people ignore the fact that actual irl mage probly wouldn’t cast spells in full sprint, also in-game musket and bow also walks slower when attacking, not mentioning melees who are sealed in specific animation
You never had any response nothing changed about that cc combo is same stagger, shield stun, hatchet into back you are dead… Shield bash stun lasts very long …
Melees are out ranged by dex so hard that it’s still going to be ‘pew pew battlefield’. These changes really only screw over light mages and light bruisers / skitzos so don’t worry, bowpr isn’t going anywhere.
Bruiser with GA or GS and hammer you should kill easily if you cant dunno maybe you do something wrong I mostly win this fight with FS/IG and IF I play VG/IG build is like war crime not a fair fight tbh… , assasins are problems for mages. But As I said its a counter build and he must do many mistakes before he will lose. Its really tough fight and in Most cases on FS/IG build against hatchet and SnS I lose dunno how to counter it. I go tomb even if he miss stagger and shield stun he change to hatchet root me wnd due to his mobility I cant run away.
