Changing Archmage, without overpowering… I hope.

[Delmuir]

UPDATE: I've edited this down because the idea was kind of a crap one. Then I moved on to the Hail Storm idea listed a few posts down. I prefer that one.

Shatter is a massively disappointing spell. It's only virtue is that you could heavily damage or kill numerous frozen enemies at once. Sadly, that's very unlikely to happen seeing as Archmages only have three spells that will freeze someone with two being unreliable thus making it unlikely to consistently be able to freeze multiple targets.

It's a waste. It's easier to kill an enemy than it is to freeze them and use Shatter. Besides, once you've frozen them, aether beam is a much more effective method of killing them then Shatter ever will be, especially against bosses. Get rid of shatter and replace it with something useful.

My suggestion is a large-area "buffer" spell. I'll call it Snow storm:

Reduce fire and poison (Say 25% - 5% per level, ending at -10%) damage while increase lightning (say 2% per level, ending at 10%) damage.

Greatly increase chance of blinding with light magic and have it slow attack and movement for any non-ice characters like a Shivgoroth. Add a percent chance per level of super short-term (like one turn) blind effect. Reduce projectile speed as well by "x" per level as the air has thickened… this would also affect aether beam and arcane vortex.

Make the spell super expensive: 100 mana like Inferno.

Make it have a radius of 3 + 1/level up to a huge radius of 7. Make its range equal to its radius - 1 such that you would always be in the area of the spell.

Thoughts?

[Sirrocco]

If you aren't looking for an explicit upgrade to a class, don't give them an extra buff spell. Also, it could probably do to be less complicated.

[cttw]

I agree with Sirrocco but there is indeed need to do something about this tree. The Necromancer can cast a 100% chance area freeze for comparison...

[tylor]

If you aren't looking for an explicit upgrade to a class, don't give them an extra buff spell. Also, it could probably do to be less complicated.

It's not upgrade of a class, it's upgrade of a barely used branch of a class, to make them a viable alternative to Wildfire.

[Delmuir]

Too complex… fair point. However, as noted above, it's a little-used line of magic and really serves little viable purpose.

Here's another idea:

Hail Storm:

Area: 11
Mana cost: 150
Cool down: 14
Duration: 2 turns plus another at level 3 and level 5.

Hits 50% + 3% per level of all spaces in range for "x" damage.

At level 5 give it a 10% chance to freeze an enemy for 1 turn or cause "bleeding" damage.

It's a huge range and, like most ice spells, a reasonable cool down. High cost, unreliable accuracy and a short duration.

That's a simpler spell and I'd rather enjoy that. For one, it would make Shivgoroth more interesting and two, it would be nice to have another huge area effect spell other than wildfire and illuminate. I'd also suggest that the damage should be fairly high… even more so than Inferno if it hits on every turn.

Thoughts?

Update: I'd like to not get rid of shatter entirely so why not make it happen upon an additional critical hit but only with physical damage? In other words, if you crit someone physically after they've been frozen, it does the additional shatter damage. That could work for any class.