mancers?

[Graziel]

Well up to now there are 4 mancers and each one of them differs only by 1 talent tree... dont get me wrond but seriously is there any reason why 1 talent tree make class? if there will be such disproportion to other class categories there will be like 10 mages and 3 from eachother category. I see much difference between Divine category, Warrior also Archmage and Alchemist but mancers... so my idea is to make like 2 more trees and join them into 1 class - Elementalist.(since its Stone, Storm, Wildfire, Ice it would also make sense)

[Kemsha]

I agree that there's too little differentiation between these classes

Another thing that could be done is to take the "basic" schools from the other classes.
For instance, only pyromancers had access to the Fire school

Of course we would have to find something to replace them with but if we kept them in theme (mana and meta to archmages, elements only to their classes) they could have a more unique feel

There should still be some common talents but not that many in my opinion

[Grey]

If Archmages don't have fire and ice spells it could become tricky to unlock Pyro/Cryomancers in the first place :P I agree that it would be a good way of making them much more individual though, and it wouldn't be that hard to make a replacement arcane damage school for Archmages.

[edge2054]

I haven't played the tempest, pyro, or cryomancer yet because I have yet to unlock them but the Geomancer played quite a big different then the last archmage I played (by design).

Looking at the talents it seems to me that each of these four talent trees offers something really unique (combust, shatter, stalactatic missiles, hurricane). There's also synergy in these classes through the tier four talent and through the lower ranking talents listed above which is something the straight archmage doesn't have.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm a pretty big fan of how they where done and I think they look like a lot of fun.

If they did get rolled into one class you'd have to strip them of every non-elementalist school to compensate, something like...

Water, Air, Fire, Earth, Conveyance, Divination would be their starting schools with the specialist schools pushed into learnable talent categories.

My real question boils down to this though, have you played the specialist wizards Graz? Where they boring? Or is this just stemming from a fear of 10 different specialist wizards being added to the game?

[Graziel]

Yup i played them all couple of times now(using altered version of ToME, maybe except a little not much Geomancers which they showed up now) and they werent boring(i love all mages equally ;P) but thats not what i ment in this post the thing is that they are not unique, i felt like i was playing archmage with changed 1 talent tree to another and there it is, its uniqueness ended there so why not to join them into 1 unique class(or grant them more unique talents as sugested here) and give more fun when unlocking it, i like the way Berserker,Archmages, are it has many trees but you can choose only few of them according to your playstyle, the way it is now we could create hammerthrower, discthrower, javeliner, etc. in archers or paladin, templar, crusader in Divine etc. and each one of them would differ only by 1 talent tree, i know that class category has to have something in common but come on 9 talent trees?
i think you should be able to pick general class and later let it specialize or be jackal of all trades(the RPG for me is all about choices and not limiting player too much).

[ghostbuster]

I also agree. I have played pyro and I start a tempest. I enjoy them, but they are very close an archmage. The 4 mancers lose nature and 2 elemental trees and gain a new set of offensive spells. While slightly different from the base class, the general strategy remains similar.

I have not tried geomancers, but I would suggest for them to suppress conveyance and to replace it by a new terraforming talent tree. Here are some ideas for this tree.

Terraforming

Tunnel
Activated
mana 20
CD 20
Creates a permanent tunnel (jumpgate) from your position to a random location. Tunnel length increases with the talent effective level and the magic stat.
At effective level 5 you can choose he target area.
At effective level 7 you are instantly teleported on the other side of the tunnel

Fumaroles
Activated
mana 30
CD 30
Randomly create fumaroles for 10 turns around you (similar to grow trees of T2). Fumaroles can be passed through, but they cause a small damage, prevent vision and block projectiles and spells. Radius increases with the effective level.
At effective level 6, you can see through the fumaroles (but cannot be seen).
At effective level 7, your spell projectiles can go through the fumaroles.

Barrier
Activated
mana 40
CD 10
Creates a magic barrrier that temporarilly closes anexisting door next to you. The door can still be opened if the npc has the ability to open doors.
At effective level 3, you can close a distant door.
At effective level 7, you can create a door in any type of wall (except vaults, of course)

Force field
Activated (or maybe sustained and very expensive)
mana 60
CD 30
Creates a force field around you. Any creature that hits you will get a small physical damage and be reppelled and pushed back (typically 1-4 squares away depending on the effective level).


There can be other ideas for terraforming: temporarily surround you with rings of protective terrain (like lava, water...), a dig that creates ramblas, etc...

In either case, by suppressing conveyance (and without phase door and probability travel), one would have to develop a brand new strategy and this would make a really different character.

[edge2054]

Slightly off topic but Terraforming will be a Chronomancer spell (for those that don't know Chronomancers are a ground up meta-class and won't use any spells currently in the game).

What it'll do is dig through passable tiles and grow stuff out of non-passable tiles. For example terraforming a grass or a flower tile in the forest will create a tree, terraforming a floor tile in amon sul will create a wall, etc. etc.

Also Tunnel is pretty much exactly how Wormhole works (except it's not a jumpgate but a trap technically, meaning anything that steps on it will move to the other side).

Back on topic, I can't really see these classes being combined into one Elementalist class without setting the Ice, Wildfire, Stone, and Storm trees to unlearned.

Another option would be to come up with more stuff for them, such as the Conveyance replacement idea above for Geomancers (note that Conveyance is a generic tree and any tree designed to replace it probably should be too, since the elementalists only start off with two generic trees taking one away would leave them with no options on how to spend points).

I also considered making Geomancers sort of a Alchemist/Mage Hybrid but didn't to keep them in theme with the other elementalist classes. But really stone alchemy would be a good fit for them and fire alchemy would make sense for pyromancers.

Anyway, I'm really just brainstorming ideas for the sake of brainstorming. I don't feel there's anything wrong with them as they are. If people have ideas on how to make them more unique through tree additions (the better option the making them one class imo) I'd be happy to contribute but honestly I think the one talent tree difference does make them unique enough.