ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Summary:

As the game evolves, I choose to replay the same character class, Arcane Blade, to get a feel for how the difficulty of the game changes over time. It makes it easier for comparisons between revisions, and getting at the higher level content to how its changed.

In the transition to the new scaled power and saves system, along with changes to the weapon mastery talents, has caused certain classes, like the Arcane Blade, to have their relative effectiveness reduced more than others. I believe the current incarnation of the Arcane Blade class is in desperate need of a balancing pass.

The Arcane Blade has never been one of the stronger classes; just look at the number of winners. Or perhaps more importantly, the numbers for the realtime level statistics.

At this time, Arcane blades have: 4,304 @ Level 1, 753 @ Level 10, 12 @ Level 50.
I'll note 5 of those level 50s were created by me in different beta revisions, and 1 other looks to be modified test character with 5 in all talents.

Compare to a class like Berserker: 7,859 @ Level 1, 2,320 @ Level 10, 55 @ Level 50.
Or to to a class like Archers: 4,390 @ Level 1, 1,144 @ Level 10, 21 @ Level 50.

The class could win the game on rogue-like, but tended to need most of the optional quests (i.e. escorts, alchemists, lots of far portals) to have a shot good shot at doing so.

With the latest revisions, I was finding the class harder to play than previously and then started delving into the code base to see how the Arcane Blade had been affected by the recent overhauls.

The short summary is that the Arcane has many, non-direct damage effects based on spell power, which when retooled with saves and damage in mind, let buffs fall through the cracks. Most other melee classes don't have this problem because their buffs are based on their stats, not physical power. One example is Arcane Destruction which is about 1/10th its old effectiveness, and is now redundant with Strength and mastery talents. Its other buffs have similar problems.

More detailed explanations of how the effectiveness of the class was reduced follows.

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Many Arcane Blade builds relied on passive buffs and multiple sustains to have a high damage auto-swing. This would then be augmented by Arcane Combat (25%-75% chance of casting Flame or Lightning Bolt on a swing, depending on talent level and Dexterity) and the occasional well chosen spell. Unfortunately, nearly all of those buffs are based on Spell power.

Except for the attack and healing spells, these effects were low values when compared to damage, and thus did not get hit that hard by the old logarithmic damage scaling formula. Now, however, the equivalent of 250-300 old style spell power is needed to achieve a similar level of effect that 150 spell power used to achieve. This is fine for the new rescaled damages. However, any non-damage type numbers need to be effectively doubled for the late game to maintain the same values. Given any talents based on statistic scaling didn't change, this is roughly a factor of 2 effectiveness cut (i.e. talents like Shield Wall which scale on getDex rather than things like Feather Wind, which scales on combatTalentSpellDamage).

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Arcane Destruction and physical power changes:

One of the most important buffs to the Arcane Blade came from its unique tree, Magical Combat, which has as its tier 4, Arcane Destruction. It takes spell power and adds a fraction of it as physical power. The problem with the new system is that Arcane Destruction gets hit *twice* by the tier system. Once in the calculation of spell power, and once in the calculation of physical power. At the highest tiers, to raise physical power by 1, it requires 34.6 points of magic. Or about 69 points of dexterity (assuming 5/5 Arcane Dexterity). Conversely, at the highest tier you could just invest 5 points in strength to get 1 point of physical power. Strength also directly increases damage with the stat modifier of 120% STR on 2 handed weapons.

The other thing to note, is that everyone now has access to physical power increases in the weapon talents, at 5 per point. At the highest tier, 1 generic point in a weapon mastery will increase physical power by 1, plus anywhere from 3% to 17% damage multiplier. 10/10 Weapon mastery and 105 Strength will already put a Arcane Blade at 70 rescaled physical power (160 old style), so looking at what Arcane Destruction does at the highest tiers is appropriate.

For a typical late game Arcane blade running 150 spell power (67.5 in the new scale), 5/5 class points in Arcane destruction will increase the highest tier physical power by 10, generally 5% or less damage change on a bump attack. In the old system, it was roughly a 50% increase in damage at 5/5 points on a bump attack.

As far as overcoming saves is concerned, Arcane Blades have exactly 3 skills which rely on Physical power. Stunning blow, which is a good stun, Sunder Armor, which can reduce a single target's armor by 27.5 at 5/5, and Sunder Arms which reduces accuracy by -16.5 at 5/5. The first is good, the second ok, the last, too small to make a difference, especially since it doesn't have any melee defense skills to stack with. As an Arcane Blade, you're simply going to get hit when someone swings at you.

Arcane Destruction has been reduced in damage effectiveness by a factor of 10, and its secondary benefit other effect is to improve one good skill and one ok skill. Its arguably worse than a generic talent tree that every single class in the game can get. Lastly, since reaching tier 4-5 physical power late game is readily achievable without this skill, perhaps its entire mechanic needs to be changed to something other than physical power.

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Inner Power:

To reach +11 to all stats, you previously needed about 140 spell power. Now you need 89.2 rescaled, or 246 spell power in the old system. This is mostly due to the small number of the max value (10), compared to some other things like the heal in the Aegis tree (520 - comparable to damage numbers).

There is a minor benefit at the very low end of spell power, in the 1st and 2nd tier, the bonus to stats are slightly higher for equivalent gear in the new version, but thats mostly just in the +1 to +4 range.

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Fiery Hand and Frost Hands:

Previously, 150 spell power and 5/5 Fiery Hands provided 42 damage per hit and 16% extra fire damage. The newly rescaled 150 to 67.5 spell power now provides 30 damage per hit and 10% extra fire damage, roughly a 33% power reduction.

Frost Hands suffered a similar fate, although its mostly used for the random ice blocks it can produce.

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Earthen Barrier:

150 spell power provided 61% physical damage reductions for 10 turns. 67.5 rescaled spell power now provides 46% damage reduction for 10 turns.

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Flameshock changes:

Flameshock up until a few revision ago, used the old style stun mechanics. No actions on the part of those affected by burning shock. Recently it was brought up to date with all the other stuns (namely a 70% damage reduction, healing reduction, and movement speed drop, no talent recharge, and 4 random talents put on cooldown), in exchange for some more damage over time.

Unlike an Archmage, an Arcane Blade doesn't have many AoEs, nor the mana to spam them in any case. Faced with a large mob, an Arcane Blade needs to find a corridor to fight 1 at a time, or simply teleport out. Flameshock allowed one to move in, stop enemies, finish one with its superior single target damage, and then get out of the way. Its reduction needs some form of compensation elsewhere, in the realm of being able to deal with groups of enemies better, defensively.

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Defense Trees:

The Aegis and Conveyance trees are mostly unaffected by spell power changes. Movement is still fundamentally the same, and the Aegis numbers are scaled initially to damage like values (i.e. 520, 400, 500, 500) before being scaled down inside the talent math itself.


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Other comments:

It may also be a good time to look at the synergies, or more often lack there-of, of the various Arcane Blade talent trees and mechanics. A large section of talents simply don't work, because the trees were designed with other classes in mind.

1) Generic points may need to be looked at, as the Arcane blade's defenses mostly come in the form of generic talents, namely the Aegis Tree, Conveyance Tree, and the Combat Training tree (which everyone has access to). Where as a Bulwark or Berserker can happily spend 35 generic points on Thick Skin, Armor Training, Combat Accuracy, and Weapon Mastery, an Arcane Blade spends 8-16 in Conveyance and 11-15 in the Aegis tree, limiting racial tree and combat training trees to 26-14 points combined.

2) Trying to use Precise Strikes to make up for Combat Accuracy has the unfortunate effect of cutting Fiery Hands/Frost Hands and Arcane Combat damage by 10% per game turn, with no corresponding crit increase for those effects.

3) The class is also starved for category points, given its defensive trees (Conveyance and Aegis) start closed off initially, and that it requires a rune slot to run its mana abilities (half of its powers). Another category point is needed if you want to open its stamina recovery talents (which run the other half).

4) With the change of Strength to providing physical power instead of accuracy, dexterity is more needed then ever.
Arcane Blades can't both sustain their defenses (sustains from Aegis/Conveyance) and their offenses (Fiery Hands/Frost Hands) and have any hope of casting more than a single AoE. Yet they have access to 5 moderate to expensive AoEs (Chain Lightning, Fireflash, Inferno, Earthquake, and Thunderstorm). Without a focus in Willpower, or some in class way of reducing mana costs, putting points into more than 1 is foolish.

5) Frost hands doesn't synergize well with Arcane Combat, since a Frozen target can't receive new debuffs, like burning (or bleeding). The vast majority of Arcane Blades use Flame with Arcane Combat because it simply does both more damage and consistent damage than Lightning. Frost Hands also doesn't synergies with anything else in the Arcane Blade talents since its the only cold/ice damage talent.

6) Body of Stone in the Stone tree simply doesn't work at all with a class that is required to be in melee range, since its self pinning. In addition, if you open the Stone Tree, you virtually need to take Earthen Missiles 5/5, since there's no way to set which spells Arcane Combat casts.

7)To get the resources an Arcane Blade uses in combat on a useful time scale requires 2 category points, one to open the passive combat-techniques tree and one to used for a mana surge rune. Although the newly improved resource leech items may have improved the situation, but I'm having difficulty surviving long enough to test that.

8 ) Feather Wind isn't useful to Arcane Blade with the new Accuracy tiers. Its primary benefit is an Encumbrance bonus, but given an Arcane Blade's focus on strength, its redundant. The ranged defense bonus is too small, doesn't stack with anything, and the Arcane Blade is usually in melee, not at range. The trap avoidance looks to only work on low level traps as well.

9) Blood Frenzy is now mostly redundant between strength and weapon masteries. Ditto with Arcane Destruction. Since physical power is capped at 100 now, it can increase swing damage by maybe 10% late game, possibly less. The hard cap means Blood Frenzy + Arcane Destruction, Strength and Weapon Mastery is too much. Since Strength and Weapon mastery increase damage by more (straight percentages rather than tier scaled), the other two will generally be ignored. Unless you really want 100 physical power just for the stunning blow skill.

The question to ask, what is the Arcane Blade supposed to be?

Is it supposed to be hard hitting, but low defense? Its raw defensive abilities are those of an Archmage, Aegis and Conevyance, but lacks the mana to run the AoE control talents the Archmage relies on. Is it supposed to fall somewhere between the Berserker and the Bulwark, but with a magical flavor? Does it need passive/sustain Armor and Defense boosts rather than a Physical Damage drop for 10 out of 25 turns and a moderate mana cost? Does it need Stun/Pinning resistance like many other melee classes, since thats where it is usually fighting?



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Appendix:
Large amounts of mathematics to follow in regards to auto-swing damage.

Old System:
Assumed Stats: 100 Str, 100 Dex, 100 Mag, 150 Spell power

PhysPower = 108 (Arcane Destruction)

base_damage = [sqrt([weapon.dam + PhysPower]/10) - 1] * 0.8 + 1
base_daamge for perfect 2h sword = 3.53
base_damage for perfect dagger = 3.27

total stat modifier = 1.2 * STR = 120 (2h Swords)
total stat modifier = 0.45 * STR + 0.45 * DEX = 90 (Knives)

talent_mod = 2.0 (approximately - this is from weapon or knife mastery)

pre-scaled damage = (total stat modifier/1.5) * base_damage * talent_mod
2h Sword pre-scaled = (120/1.5) * 3.53 * 2.0 = 564.8
Dagger pre-scaled = (90/1.5) * 3.27 * 2.0 = 392.4

scaled_damage = pre-scaled damage * [1 - log10(2 * pre-scaled damage) / 7]
2h Sword = 565 * (1 - [log10(2*565)/7]) = 318
Dagger = 392 * (1 - [log10(2*392)/7]) = 214

Weapon Range effect [1-1.6 for 2h Sword (1.3), 1-1.3 for Dagger (1.15)]
2h Sword 318*1.3 = 413
Dagger 214*1.15 = 246

For wielding perfect plain voratun greatsword, average damage is around 413 = 413
So for dual wielding perfect plain voratun daggers, average damage is around 246 * 1.5 = 369 (ignoring crits/armor)

For a Berserker, with 5/5 Berserker talent and a 2 handed weapons adds 5 + (7 * 100 / 60) * 7.5 = 92.5 power, so very comparable damage (3.53 base for AB -> 3.38 base for Berserker), so about 5% more for the Arcane Blade on auto-swing.

For a combat class without Berserk/Arcane Destruction, 2 handed weapons have 2.25 base damage (213 damage), so an AB does about 1.5 times more damage per auto-swing.


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New System:
Assumed Stats: 100 Str, 100 Dex, 100 Mag, 150 Pre-scaled Spell power (67.5 post-scaled)

base_damage = [sqrt(weapon.dam/10) -1 ] * 0.5 + 1
weapon.dam = 66 for perfect 2h sword, weapon range 1-1.6 -> 1.3
weapon.dam = 40 for perfect dagger, weapon range 1-1.3 -> 1.15

total stat modifier = 1.2 * STR = 120 (2h Swords)
or
total stat modifier = 0.45 * STR + 0.45 * DEX = 90 (Knives)

PhysPower is tiered: 1-20 for 1 point each, 21-40 for 2 points each, 41-60 for 3 points each, 61-80 for 4 points each, 81-100 for 5 points each. Hard capped at 100.

Arcane Destruction PhysPower boost: Spell power * 6.5/9 = 67 * 6.5/9 = 48.75

Typical PhysPower: 100 (Str) + 55 (Weapon Mastery) + 49 (Arcane Destruction) = 204 rescaled to 80

talent_mod = 1.52 (for 52% increased damage with weapon mastery, 1.1 skill modifier)

final_damage = ([0.3 * (PhysPower + total stat modifier) * base_damage * talent_mod]^1.04) * range
2h Sword final_damage = ([0.3 * (80 + 120) * 1.784 * 1.52]^1.04)*1.3 = 259
Dagger final_damage = ([0.3 * (80 + 90) * 1.5 * 1.52]^1.04)*1.15 = 161
Dagger dual wielding 145 * 1.5 = 241

For a Berserker with 5/5 Berserk talent and a 2 handed weapon add 5+ (7*100/60)*7.5 = 92.5 power instead of 49. So rescaled PhysPower is 89.4, making final_damage 272. 272/259 = 1.05, so the Berserker is now doing 5% more damage on auto-swing.

For a class without Berserker/Arcane Destruction, PhysPower will be about 155, rescaled to 69. A 2 handed sword will do about 244. 259/244 = 1.06, or about 6% more damage.
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The net result is Arcane Blade swing damage has gone done while classes like Bulwarks and Rogues have seen their swing damage go up.

Interesting, and very impressive analysis there. I agree that the AB should definitly get some TLC

Looks like you spend a decent chunk of time thinking about this. The next step would be to make a diff to patch the game?

* download latest SVN version
http://te4.org/wiki/howtosvn
* modify the files to reflect changes needed for arcane blade
* make and SVN diff and post it on the forum
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/re09.html

I am not really an expert on this, but perhaps this will help you on your way.

You make a good point Marvalis.

If I think its broke, fix it. Thanks for the links.

So assuming DarkGod has no objections, I'll try coding up a fixed Arcane Blade this weekend and present it here for consideration and approval. Here's some ideas I'm considering, none of which are really fixed yet.

1) I still think Arcane Destruction needs to be switched away from just raw physical power or even just more raw damage.
Some ideas:
1a) Arcane Destruction changes/adds to damage type (Arcane?). Perhaps allows you to switch between a limited subset of damage types by re-activating the power and sustaining. Fire/Lightning/Ice?
1b) Rework the Magical combat tree and replace Arcane Combat and Arcane Destruction with effects which provide a very short duration (1 round) buff that improves spell casting speed up to 100%, perhaps reduces cooldown by up to 6, and that gets canceled as immediately after you cast any single spell. This would have a % chance to activate when hitting with a weapon. An effect that produces a short (1 round) buff to reduce mana costs upon hitting with a weapon might be another talent, to provide some synergy with the AoEs. This provides more flexibility in that you can choose what spell to cast on your next action (or even if you want to). The disadvantage is its not as up front about the damage, but in the long term should be about the same. You have to get into the flow of swing, cast, swing, swing, cast, swing, cast.

2) A Rune tree.
Right now the Arcane blade is supposedly drawing it magical power from outside, not within. A unique Rune tree modifying inscribed runes could be interesting. One could re-write the Magical Combat tree to rather use Flame/Lightning/Earthen Missiles to rather use inscribed offensive runes.
This could be done in similar ways the wild-gift infusion talents work. Another idea is to have a talent add an extra rune slot on the weapon or armor could be an interesting talent, that only activates with % on hitting or being hit. Actually give someone some use out of all those Heat Beam/Frozen Spear/Acid Wave/LIghtning runes.

Perhaps coordinate it with changes to the magical-combat tree.

3) Ditch the Maiming tree and come up with a unique Arcane blade melee tree, based on stamina. Too much dead weight for the Arcane Blade, its used by other classes that I don't want to mess with, and it just needs better synergy.

4) The Arcane Blade is warrior first and foremost. He shouldn't start with more magical trees opened than physical ones (ignoring the combat training and survival trees everyone gets). I'd be tempted to close off the fire and air trees initially, and if I get a sensible rune tree working, go with that as the initial open "magic" tree. I think it might be a nice option to have an Arcane blade with no actively cast spells - just runes and sustains. This means you *could* have a manasurge-less arcane blade.

5) Perhaps replace Earthen Barrier with a altered defensive sustain rather than the purely physical resist? Perhaps replace with another offensive talent.

6) Create a custom advanced tree for the Arcane Blade. Maybe a set of defensive talents to compliment the offensive ones in the enhancement tree. Or maybe a set of active stamina abilities. Needs some thought.

So open trees would go something like:
["technique/Reworked active melee tree"]={true,0.3},
["technique/combat-techniques-active"]={true, 0.1},
["technique/combat-techniques-passive"]={true, 0.1},
["technique/combat-training"]={true, 0.1},
["technique/magical-combat"]={true, 0.3},
["cunning/survival"]={true, -0.1},
["cunning/dirty"]={false, -0.1},
["spell/new rune tree"]={true,0.3},
["spell/fire"]={false, 0.1},
["spell/air"]={false, 0.1},
["spell/conveyance"]={false, 0.1},
["spell/aegis"]={false, 0.1},
["spell/enhancement"]={true, 0.3},
["spell/advanced Arcane Blade tree"]={false,0.3},

unlockable_talents_types = {
["spell/stone"]={false, 0.1, "mage_geomancer"},

Then I just need to figure out how to get an initial Heat beam inscription with a scaling with magic ego type (to replace the now initially closed fire tree).
resolvers.inscription("RUNE:_HEATBEAM", {cooldown=15, range=5, power=???}),

Opinions, likes, dislikes? Other ideas?

Keep in mind you can try contact Darkgod in IRC chat:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=23463

Or pm him on the forum.

Might be a good idea to contact DG before you make sizable changes, to prevent unnecessary work.
I'm not much of a coder myself, but I'm glad I can help out ^_^.

Oh and a very general, superficial observation from me: Perhaps first try to fix the current talents, and improve balance before adding a lot of new things.

Interesting thoughts here... It's a shame the AB has gotten so screwed over by the latest revision, but it wouldn't be that hard to balance it back.

Arcane Destruction being changed to add arcane damage on-strike would make sense, as long as it gave a high enough amount to be worth its status as a level 4 talent. However it would end up furthering the feel of the class most being benefited by dual-wielding, which I think is a big weakness of the current set-up.

Some of the suggestions are good. Some of the trees the AB has feel tacked on, and whilst one or two spells might fit a lot are irrelevant to the class. Having said that as a whole it still plays well, and of all the classes has some of the most interesting decisions involved around build and playstyle. It's still my favourite class for a lot of its elements.

I don't like the idea of bump, cast, bump playstyle though. The distinguishing feature of the Arcane Blade is that it is sustain based, with most attacks being straight bumps, requiring little activation of individual talents. In a way the class feels more strategic rather than tactical, with the focus being on the build and the pre-battle prep. Of course it still has many in-battle decisions, but generally I find the class requires an extremely minimal hotkey bar during normal play.

Some of the issues you bring up are more features to me. I like that I'm starved of mana at points, and the likes of PD are closed off unless I pull resources away from strength and magic power. The class can be played spread thin or very focused on different areas. It should feel all-powerful like Berserkers or Archmages.

Grey wrote:Arcane Destruction being changed to add arcane damage on-strike would make sense, as long as it gave a high enough amount to be worth its status as a level 4 talent. However it would end up furthering the feel of the class most being benefited by dual-wielding, which I think is a big weakness of the current set-up.

Thats a good point, and could be addressed by making the effect add a percentage of the base weapon damage rather than a flat amount. Fiery Hands and Frost Hands could in principle receive a similar change, at the cost of making the class more equipment dependent - although that is true of Berserkers and Bulwarks already.

Grey wrote:I don't like the idea of bump, cast, bump playstyle though. The distinguishing feature of the Arcane Blade is that it is sustain based, with most attacks being straight bumps, requiring little activation of individual talents. In a way the class feels more strategic rather than tactical, with the focus being on the build and the pre-battle prep. Of course it still has many in-battle decisions, but generally I find the class requires an extremely minimal hotkey bar during normal play.

That's a reasonable point of view. The reason I advocated it was because it could allow some synergy with less used talents, like some of the AoEs, as well let you control which spell actually gets cast. Arcane Blade is one of the few classes where adding a skill point to a talent point can actually make the resulting character weaker. Going from 5/5 Flame, 0/5 Lightning to 5/5 Flame, 1/5 Lightning is a significant drop in overall damage.

How about this for an alternative then, to maintain the bump, bump combat style, while providing control over which spell gets cast:
Remove the fire, air, and stone trees. Add a new tree with 4 stamina sustains. Each sustain does what Arcane Combat did, provide a % chance of triggers an effect on a swing. However the sustain determines the effects, strength, and mana cost upon trigger. Arcane Combat is then replaced with a skill which costs nothing in and of itself, and merely triggers the effects of the current sustain without swinging.

The first tier could provide a lightning bolt damage effect, the second could provide a flame type effect, the third tier could provide a manathrust type effect, and the fourth tier could do something unusual, like a mana intensive single target control effect, or perhaps an enemy only large AoE effect.

Grey wrote: Some of the issues you bring up are more features to me. I like that I'm starved of mana at points, and the likes of PD are closed off unless I pull resources away from strength and magic power. The class can be played spread thin or very focused on different areas. It should feel all-powerful like Berserkers or Archmages.

As Marvalis points out, I could also just try tweaking the existing numbers and scaling, although I'd have to watch the effects on other classes, which have different synergies.

I wouldn't mind having an Arcane Brawler; try using gloves on an AB for weapons.

Hirumakai wrote: How about this for an alternative then, to maintain the bump, bump combat style, while providing control over which spell gets cast:
Remove the fire, air, and stone trees. Add a new tree with 4 stamina sustains. Each sustain does what Arcane Combat did, provide a % chance of triggers an effect on a swing. However the sustain determines the effects, strength, and mana cost upon trigger. Arcane Combat is then replaced with a skill which costs nothing in and of itself, and merely triggers the effects of the current sustain without swinging.

The first tier could provide a lightning bolt damage effect, the second could provide a flame type effect, the third tier could provide a manathrust type effect, and the fourth tier could do something unusual, like a mana intensive single target control effect, or perhaps an enemy only large AoE effect.

Yeah, could be like the rogue poisons - you choose which sustains you have running. Some could even involve effects like minor resource stealing, or chance to cause a status effect.

If you want to diminish the advantage of two weapons over a single one handed weapon, you'll have to get away from x% chance on strike entirely. There are a couple of gameplay parts that could change depending on your changes to this class.
Strike and cast independently in any combination:
Currently the AB feels partly like this to me. I havn't played the class much yet, but sometimes I feel like it would be better to just ignore arcane combat and cast my Flame outright, just so I can keep my mana expense in controll and start casting from a distance. I mostly don't do this because then I might just as well take a mage.
Cast on strike:
Currently this is implemented as %chance on hit. I feel like going for two weapons fits the mechanic behind AC a lot better. If you want to come across with the feeling of casting spells in during the clash of steel and have the blade keep 1 two-hander, perhaps it would be best to implement a system where you select a spell (instant use speed) and then that spell will be cast the next time you hit.
Buff strike:
Currently there are 3 buffs to striking itself: fiery/frost hands and Arcane Destruction. The hands greatly sync with dual wielding. I like the current hands, but if you want to promote 2-handers, you could choose to instead make the hands deal damage based on weapon damage.

Note: having arcane destruction convert your physical damage to an element feels very Arcane Blade. If you let the player choose the element, there will be more benefit to increase hand of frost. If you start making new elemental trees, perhaps it's time to add a shocking hand for lightning as well.

Skill idea:
Channel Strike
(costs stamina, range melee)
A complex strike that leaves open a channel for any feedback triggered by smashing your magic into the target.
Your strike only deals x% weapon damage, but you gain mana based on any elemental damage dealt by this attack.

I get the impression that there are supposed to be three mage-warriors - Arcane Blade, Shadowblade, and Sun Paladin. They each follow different combat philosophies - Berserker, Rogue, and Bulwark. I'd much rather have the choice to build in any fashion for these classes without feeling like I'm sacrificing any melee talents I might have access to. I'm not sure if this would mean providing access to more talent trees or redesigning skills to feel "right" for any combo - I'd prefer the latter, since it would make Arcane Blade feel less like an awkward amalgam of two classes.

From the way the spellcasting and striking have been split up for anything but Arcane Combat, it mostly feels like I'm playing something between a paladin and a time warden, only less effective than either of them. Or perhaps just like wyrmic. From the way defense now works (unless you max it it's useless against a lot of bosses), I'm considering putting more points into willpower at the cost of dexterity. This despite having started my build with the idea of getting high dex and currently not using stamina. (I put points into knive mastery )

The two locked trees Aegis and Conveyance are trees that can fit with a melee combat character despite having no direct relation with hitting things, since they up your survivability. The Fire and Air trees however really feel like you're supposed to be casting from a distance. This is where for me the AB feeling falls apart. Stone syncs a lot better since chrystaline focus ups your default attack and earthquake is low ranged. Previously I ignored it because I dislike body of stone and the cost of a catagory point, now I'm considering for a new build to use it instead of Fire just to try how it feels.

Arcane blades are still very, very poweful class. They still have top 2 melee attack power in game. They still have excellent defense(if only because of pretty brokenly good aegis tree).

Yes, arcane blades damage has come down considerably, but it was absolutely ridiculously over the top before. 200ish damage from arcane destruction , over 100from burning hands, 80ish from ice hands weren't exactly hard numbers to archieve in endgame. Random bosses with arcane destruction and say flurry, well... heh. Flameshock was ridiculous, and it is still very very good spell. Long duration AoE stun with good damage? i'm sold.


Your analysis while i'm sure is mathematically correct, is bit weird. Sure , AB loses to zerk in raw damage, if you don't factor in fiery/cold hands and arcane combat, which would triple the damage. Strength based comparsion is bit weird anyway,because AB's live and kill by spellpower MAG+DEX have always been AB's primary stats, and even more so now that STR doesn't give accuracy anymore. Use staff. Use MAG then DEX, after that you are god and can throw the rest of the points to fishes. Only thing strength is good for AB is getting the arcane combat tree which for some strange reason needs strength to open but uses dex in half its skills.

You got plenty of generics to spare, as you need very little combat accuracy(maxed DEX and precise/perfect strike as needed), no real need for weapon masteries(vast majority of your damage comes elsewhere than your weapons basic damage) and no real need for armor mastery (you really want spellpower items & fatigue is horrid for AB although probably could wear anything with decent leeching weapon & aegis > armor).

That being said i agree with most of your points and yeah, AB needs facelift , badly. Most of its skills are pretty bad it and little synergy with anything. Yes maiming tree is bad match for AB, especially because it doesn't use stregth :E. Yes all those mass effect spells are redundant and worthless, unless you just want to go pure mage which i suppose its doable... but still not what the class should be about. Yes the icy hands is out of place. Yes arcane destruction is utterly bad now(just saw an adventurer with something like 11 levels of this giving 60 physical power). And its bit boring. In typical fight only thing you do is use rush and possibly shielding rune and bump. Only thing i disagree a bit with your change suggestions is earthern barrier. For me that always seemed like pretty clear replacement for having to wear armor. Use robe , cast this in tough melee, yay.

I've attached , which you can rename to tome-arcanebladefix.teaa. Once renamed, you can place it in your addons folder (game/addons), and it will add a new tree to the Arcane Blade class, called the Arcane Weapon Tree. This tree is basically 4 copies of Arcane Combat, modified to cast a particular effect on bump attack when its sustained. The chance of trigger and damage parameters go up with talent points. Its mostly a proof of concept, and not really balanced yet. The sustains are all mutually exclusive.

I modified the Combat.lua file to have the trigger occur during basic melee attack attempts. Not on individual weapon swing, or on melee talents. Only one trigger per bump. It will roll for change to trigger even if the attack(s) that caused it miss. I'm mostly testing this out as an alternative to casting on every successful attackTargetWith call. This in some sense balances the effects between 2 handers, 1 hander and shield, and dual wielding, as each is as likely to activate it. In general, it will probably mean fewer triggers, but is somewhat better in situations involving high defense, evasion, and invisibility.

The talents are called Enchant Lightning, Enchant Flame, Enchant Frost, and Enchant Manablast. I clearly shouldn't be allowed to name things, and am open to improved names. The first is a high mana efficiency, random damage lightning bolt beam (6 mana per cast). The second is a higher damage but higher cost (10 mana per cast) damage over time (3 turn) fireburn beam. The third is the same damage as the fire beam, but ice damage, with the usual 25% chance for iceblock, at a cost of 14 mana per cast. The last is a radius 4-10 (capped) cone of arcane damage, with same damage as the fire and frost beams at 18 mana per cast.

Thoughts, comments?

Gave it a quick try. The way you can only choose one at a time is just like the paladin's chants. Players can choose to max their favourite element but still keep the others handy (at lvl1 or higher) for certain situations.
I like it.