1.7 Archmage... concepts

[Delmuir]

The recent changes to the Archmage have, in my opinion, made it kind of boring. Mana shield can now largely be ignored as just another damage shield and it has little useful synergy with the mana-consumption nature of the class. In fact, it now works against that by also consuming mana.

The new Meta category is more efficient, which is nice, but it now allows you to mix and match whatever categories you want which doesn't actually add to anything but rather detracts. There are no more constraints on play style predicated on which element you choose to focus on. There's no reason now to pick up Stone or even Aether because Lightning Storm is so comically useful as to render any other choice somewhat silly. This is particularly true when you can now convert that damage into whatever your preferred type is via Energy Alteration.

There is a German word for this: verschlimmbesserung , which means "an improvement that makes something worse."

My suggestion is not a complete overhaul or a return to what once was but rather, another attempt to restore the function that was previously pursued. All of my ideas are designed to work together so please consider them that way (except maybe 5). So...

1. Disruption Shield

The only issue with the original shield seemed to be the fact that it shut down when you suffered any damage at all at full mana, which made it quite clumsy. My solution is:

Return to the old mana shield but now when you're at full mana, it has a 10% buffer and anything over that causes direct damage, instead of the shield failing. The buffer gives you 3 turns to use all of the excess mana or it shuts down. An alternative to shutting down is that you suffer direct damage (which could be mitigated with another damage shield).

2. The changes to meta are fine except Energy Alteration and so I offer an alternative with a somewhat related idea...

Fusion:

This would be a sustain that adds a bonus to any combination of two elements one after another. Most of them would just increase damage but a few would have unique effects (or a chance of them), such as:

Aether + anything would reduce the enemy resistance to the second element used by x%.

Cold + fire would reduce the next fire damage to nothing (standing in Glacial Vapor, for example, would mitigate a ton of incoming fire damage)

Lightning + any element would produce an increased chance of a critical on the next spell used. This would produce the effect of alternating between lightning and anything else in order to produce that effect.

You could have four or five of these special combos and the rest of would just increase overall damage.

3. Restore much of the older mana costs on skills...

4. Arcane Power... a perpetually underwhelming ability. Thus, make it a passive skill, keep the resistances but dismiss the spellpower increase and replace with:

Increased mana. Gain +0.20/active talent level mana for every single stat, regardless of what it is. This could net 200-400 additional mana (perhaps even a little more).

At 5 invested points (not active talent level), have it grant the old Aether Permeation prodigy idea that no one ever took.

And finally...

5. Disperse Magic is now a bit underwhelming given that there is a rune that most will have access to that does the same thing. As such, I think that whenever you cast this spell on yourself, not only should it eliminate negative magic status effects but it should reduce all incoming magic damage by 50% for 2 turns afterwards.

And those are my ideas...

[PseudoLoneWolf]

1. Disruption Shield

The only issue with the original shield seemed to be the fact that it shut down when you suffered any damage at all at full mana, which made it quite clumsy. My solution is:

Return to the old mana shield but now when you're at full mana, it has a 10% buffer and anything over that causes direct damage, instead of the shield failing. The buffer gives you 3 turns to use all of the excess mana or it shuts down. An alternative to shutting down is that you suffer direct damage (which could be mitigated with another damage shield).

I like this a lot and I support the shield detonating at max overcharge, shutting down and causing damage to yourself and everyone nearby a la old DS.

2. The changes to meta are fine except Energy Alteration and so I offer an alternative with a somewhat related idea...

Fusion:

This would be a sustain that adds a bonus to any combination of two elements one after another. Most of them would just increase damage but a few would have unique effects (or a chance of them), such as: [...]

Not gonna lie. I like this, I would play this in a mod class, I think it's probably way, way too complicated to be included in a vanilla class. Archmage just by itself has access to lightning, fire, cold, physical, arcane, light, and bleed damage - and some composites (ice damage [phys+cold], most notably, but also phys+bleed in Spell/Stone). Discounting the composites because they would probably apply in sequence that's still 7 damage types for a possible 21 pairings. Not all of those will be useful (cold+light?) but even so...

4. Arcane Power... a perpetually underwhelming ability. Thus, make it a passive skill, keep the resistances but dismiss the spellpower increase and replace with:

Increased mana. Gain +0.20/active talent level mana for every single stat, regardless of what it is. This could net 200-400 additional mana (perhaps even a little more).

Yes pls

5. Disperse Magic is now a bit underwhelming given that there is a rune that most will have access to that does the same thing. As such, I think that whenever you cast this spell on yourself, not only should it eliminate negative magic status effects but it should reduce all incoming magic damage by 50% for 2 turns afterwards.

First of all, define magic damage. Anything sourced from an arcane talent? Or any of the "magical" damage types (fire, cold, light, temporal, lightning, dark, blight, arcane), some of which come from nonmagical sources?

Either way it's essentially an off-brand antimagic for archmage. I don't like that, I think that's... well, off brand. I say, Disperse Magic should have an AOE of X tiles where X is the number of effects you've removed from yourself. It'll reward tactical usage of it as a cleanse, but you can still use it at range if you only have one target you want to hit.

[Delmuir]

Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding #2, Fusion, my general theory was that of the 21 combinations, only 4-6 would do anything other than enhance damage. That way it wouldn't be too complicated.

Regarding #5, Disperse Magic, yeah... I didn't really have a great solution but I thought the skill deserved a little attention. Not sure I understand your suggestion. Would the AOE linger or..?