Rethinking mages 1: what should the elements mean?

[Atarlost]

I've complained several times about elements not standing on their own the way the NPC classes indicate they should and overly gimmicky form factors pushing fire/wildfire into a position of too much prominence.

I'd like to talk about actually fixing the whole shebang. Step one seems to be starting from lore and metaphysics and determining what themes the elements should have.

Fire is obvious. Fire burns. Fire hurts. These go together nicely since DoTs can justify having higher total damage. I'd make every single offensive fire spell burn over at least 3 turns.

Earth is currently vaguely about terrain manipulation. Auger and Stone Prism manipulate the terrain very directly. Earthquake in Angband and T2 made random terrain and there's a sand wyrmic ability with similar theme that moves existing terrain around so there's at least one more terrain manipulation concept that can be used. Some spells would probably remain dull or Earth/Stone would wind up with a higher fraction of non-attack spells than other elements, but I think the theme is workable.

Water and Air are problems. They should classically be movement themed, but apart from tidal wave and feather wind they're not. Water is freeze themed and air is daze themed, but both run on stun resist and if you include storm with air both include different ways to reduce stun resist. This means they're probably too synergistic if the balance between individual elements is fixed. I'd say maybe water/ice gets the theme of moving or stopping others and air gets the theme of moving the player.

Arcane is another problem. Right now the theme is cutesy form factors. I'd like to see those removed or spread among all the elements because it's hard to balance ease of use in terms of damage. That leaves arcane with no identity. I guess the question of whether or not it should have a thing or just be the default element (replacing fire in that role) is a question for the lore people.

Discuss please.

[Delmuir]

I like Arcane/Aether.

The idea of unstable pure magic is thematically appealing and fun for game-play. The Arcane/Aether build is my favorite of all Archmages.

Having said that, Arcane Power is the only skill that I dislike but that's been discussed.

What I like is the idea of stable and unstable aether power. To that end, the only thing I'd change is to switch Aether Beam with Arcane Vortex so that each category is thematically stable or unstable.

Of course, that might demand a slight improvement to Arcane Vortex and maybe a slight nerf to Aether Beam (and I wish it could be placed in walls again), along with thematic name changes, but whatever… I love those categories.

Honestly, I find Wildfire mages interminably boring. Cold is fun but kind of crappy, and Air/Storm is pretty dull… the only spell I like is chain lightning and hurricane.

[Atarlost]

I like Arcane/Aether.

The idea of unstable pure magic is thematically appealing and fun for game-play. The Arcane/Aether build is my favorite of all Archmages.

Having said that, Arcane Power is the only skill that I dislike but that's been discussed.

What I like is the idea of stable and unstable aether power. To that end, the only thing I'd change is to switch Aether Beam with Arcane Vortex so that each category is thematically stable or unstable.

Of course, that might demand a slight improvement to Arcane Vortex and maybe a slight nerf to Aether Beam (and I wish it could be placed in walls again), along with thematic name changes, but whatever… I love those categories.

Honestly, I find Wildfire mages interminably boring. Cold is fun but kind of crappy, and Air/Storm is pretty dull… the only spell I like is chain lightning and hurricane.

Individual spells are for a later thread. That's why there's a numeral in the thread title. I mentioned some examples in Earth because I didn't think it was obvious that the theme of terrain manipulation could be extended over the whole two trees. The question I'm looking for ideas about now is more or less "how should the elements be different from each other?" with an emphasis on thematics. Rethinking Mages 2 will probably be asking "how should elements be similar to each other?" and only RM3 will get down to brass tacks of what spells to put where.

Right now I'm not talking about the spells going away. There are, in fact, at least a few exotic form factors that can be copied from elsewhere. There's the seeker orb from storm wyrmics and a combination beam/blink from the old chronomancy and the creeping darkness or cold variants from afflicted and that necromancy tree vampire NPCs have even if we assume that I'm going to have to build a prototype addon and can't implement any actual new form factors.

I am assuming they'll be moved around, though. If you wind up liking arcane less because it became the generic element (or wound up with any theme other than programmers getting cutesy with spell effects) you'll like some of the other elements more because those spells are going to wind up in another element (except Aether Beam for reasons I'll go into in whatever future thread discusses individual spells).

[Effigy]

I think Fire/Wildfire and Earth/Stone are already in a good spot. Specific skills may deserve a buff, but overall I think they do what they need to do. I think it would be best to focus on Arcane, Water, and Air, since they are the least used. They need to offer something that Fire and Earth don't, but we should also keep in mind why people favor those other elements. Having synergy between elements is a good goal, but ultimately players will tend toward focusing on one element due to gearing and point efficiency, so it would be best if each element is viable on its own.

[HousePet]

I find the different elements to be too focussed on just the damage element and then one or two tricks.
Water only has one 'water' spell and Air only has one 'air' spell.

I don't think that spreading all the weird form factors that are in Arcane/Aether into the other elements is a good idea. Weird shapes is a good theme for Arcane, which helps distinguish it. Simpler shapes are also good in that they tend to be more useful/reliable.

If this is going to be about 'rethinking mages' then a step has been skipped. Working out what playing an Archmage should be like should be done first.

[Mankeli]

Arcane is another problem. Right now the theme is cutesy form factors. I'd like to see those removed or spread among all the elements because it's hard to balance ease of use in terms of damage. That leaves arcane with no identity. I guess the question of whether or not it should have a thing or just be the default element (replacing fire in that role) is a question for the lore people.

Discuss please.

Arcane is about pure unadulturated magical desctruction. That's the theme. If there is a problem it's that you can't cast BiL while in Aether Avatar form. I haven't tried light/aether build so it may turn out that you can still take advantage of Aether Avatar efficiently enough.


Aether thematically is actually my favourite build although it is not the strongest one.

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Wildfire is about DoTs and status cleansing. I think the theme is strong enough and the build is very strong.

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Stone/Earth for me should about toughness, physical damage and resistance and dungeon manipulation. The problem with this is that Stoneskin is a horrible waste of points no matter what. Also earthquake doesn't really feel that quaky. Stone builds are also much weaker than wildfire builds.

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Water has self-healing via affinity which is useless because archmage is the last class in this game that I would advice to rely on HP for defence.

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Storm/Air is about...draining your mana, moving fast and dazing? Except that you don't really move that fast and I'm not sure I'd even want to invest in the talent that makes you move fast at all. I haven't really understood lightning builds at all and I don't know what they have to do with actual storms. A spell like tornado from DCSS would be cool: It takes a couple of turns to get to full radius but after that it freaking murders things and also moves them around in circular pattern like a real tornado would. A spell like that would be unique to archmages (moves monsters constantly, grows in power over a few turns).

[donkatsu]

Aether Beam is the only problematic Arcane spell. Its theme is pure damage, and it's delivered through "gimmicky" form factors because that's the only way to differentiate its spells while keeping its theme. Don't fix what isn't broken. Leave Fire and Arcane alone.

[Effigy]

Stone may not be popular for Archmages, but it's the most common tree for Arcane Blades so it's important not to make any drastic changes. It's fine to buff the weak talents in Earth/Stone, but leave the main ones like Earthen Missiles, Crystalline Focus, and Wall of Stone alone.

[Atarlost]

If this is going to be about 'rethinking mages' then a step has been skipped. Working out what playing an Archmage should be like should be done first.

Elements are a lore concern and some of them appear across multiple classes (and in my view at least all except arcane should have at least their first trees on the AB). What elements mean strongly impacts the talent trees and how they might play should have a lot of influence on deciding how they should work, but the five elements seem to be the thematic core of mana casters.

Archmages clearly fill a niche and if moved out of that niche something would arise to replace them. Something has been filling the role currently filled by archmages since before Zangband broke off from Angband. In theory the shield emphasis could go away, but in practice ToME needs strong tanking mechanisms and I'm not sure what could replace them.

Stone may not be popular for Archmages, but it's the most common tree for Arcane Blades so it's important not to make any drastic changes. It's fine to buff the weak talents in Earth/Stone, but leave the main ones like Earthen Missiles, Crystalline Focus, and Wall of Stone alone.

There's a reason the thread title is Rethinking Mages not Rethinking Archmages. I am not going to let the Arcane Blade escape unchanged unless I abandon the entire exercise.

[Effigy]

I agree Arcane Blade should get all the elemental lines, except Arcane/Aether. Making the other elements competitive with Stone for AB would be great, but I really don't want to see Stone get nerfed.

[HousePet]

The elemental categories are primarily used by Archmage. So any consideration about what they mean will have a direct effect on Archmage. Currently Archmage is focussed on using only one element. Is this the way it should be? The answer to this question is important for thinking about what the elements should be about.

I'm puzzled that Arcane Blade doesn't get Arcane. It is in the class name, but not the skill set?

[Effigy]

Well, that's a fair point. The thing is Arcane Combat would need to be expanded to allow casting more spells, like Manathrust. I guess it's not a bad idea though.

[Planetus]

I like the idea of a big remake of archmages, especially as far as air/lightning and water/ice go. Here are some ideas:

Fire: May not need any rebuild, but I'd like to see the pain and later nerve damage caused by burns to be added, probably a status effect that reduces accuracy, defense, and/or healing while burning and for X turns after. I also support the idea of making all fire spells cause burning. Flameshock doesn't really feel like it fits into the fire theme, except for it's cone nature, and Flame becoming a heat beam also seems iffy. Maybe break the tri-beam build by making Flame become a cone instead of a beam, and then replace Flameshock with something else?

Arcane: It doesn't really feel like it has much of a theme at the moment, but any theme I can think of seems to pull in Aegis with it. I'm thinking of a division between controlled/uncontrolled arcane power. If Arcane is controlled and Aether is uncontrolled (moving from power to so much power you can barely contain it), then Arcane probably doesn't need much work, but Aether probably does. Get rid of Aether Avatar, Pure Aether, and Aether Beam (maybe switch that and Arcane Vortex?), and put in some other wild spells. The last one probably still needs to be a sustain that gives arcane penetration, though. On the other hand, if Arcane is uncontrolled and Aether is controlled (moving from power that's hard to control to higher skill that can control it better), could see a lot of synergy between the trees, with the Aether talents possibly stabilizing the Arcane talents once learned/while sustained, but it would also require a massive rework.

Air: Currently, this is really Lightning/More Lightning. Maybe just rename it Thunder and Lightning? If so, the theme should be massive spike single-target damage, stun, and probably some fear/blinding. If we want to make it truly air, then I'd say some movement and some evasion-based defensive abilities, with maybe some weak but cheap and fast lightning damage (just to avoid another physical damage tree). Essentially, make this a survival theme.

Water: I'd love to see water themed around mist, hiding, distraction, decoys, picking targets off one at a time, and the like. Maybe a little refraction that reflects some % of damage? Or at least deals it back to the target if it doesn't reduce it.

Earth: This could use a stronger focus on terrain manipulation. I've been playing around with the idea of a geomancer class, and while much of those ideas would produce fire and cold damage as well as physical, some of them can work here. Rename Auger to Fissure and make it also pin targets (as they've fallen into a fissure and need to scramble a bit to get out). Add an Earthquake spell that randomized the terrain, not necessarily self-centered. Then something like Uplift that created a wall in a line perpendicular to the target point and player (so it would be a blocking line), deals damage and knockback (though direction is random) to all targets hit by it, and maybe has a chance to cast Mudslide from every tile affected every turn, again in a semi-random direction. Any tile that casts Mudslide, though, would probably collapse and thus stop being a wall.

[Atarlost]

The elemental categories are primarily used by Archmage. So any consideration about what they mean will have a direct effect on Archmage. Currently Archmage is focussed on using only one element. Is this the way it should be? The answer to this question is important for thinking about what the elements should be about.

I'm puzzled that Arcane Blade doesn't get Arcane. It is in the class name, but not the skill set?

That's a question that's already been answered. Orc Cryomancer. Orc Pyromancer. Geomancer. Tempest. Making elementalists lose their mono focus requires changing what monsters exist and that requires spriting. The existence of mono-element NPC casters without the crutch of the tribeam is the base of my dissatisfaction with the current elemental trees.

If disruption shield remains in Arcane the Arcane Blade shouldn't get it. I have my doubts it can be removed without making the class nonfunctional without temporal, which I'd kind of like to remove anyways to not step on the chronomancers' toes. Possibly a new tree can be made of advanced shields that is exclusive to the elementalist in which case arcane doesn't have to be, but at that is for when actual trees are being built.

Thematically arcane fits in place of Quintessence or Void or Sky (as distinct from air) in the Greek, Hindu, and Japanese five element systems. In ToME itself the aether permeation prodigy requires the player to have been in space. It's not worldly and it is entirely reasonable to make it exclusive to classically trained mages while self taught mages like the arcane blade are limited to the baser elements.

[KaynDarks]

So, while I am far from a ToME expert (I have never actually beaten the game; I'm more of an alt-aholic), here are my thoughts on the general theme of the elements, developed from years of RPG play (tabletops and video games):

Fire: Damage. Specifically DoTs, but basically just damage. Limited or non-existent CC and additional mobility. Possible defense shredding.

Water/Ice: CC. Lots and lots of CC. Enemy displacement, freezing them in place, with a burstier damage combo (that can benefit from freeze but isn't reliant on it).

Earth: Innate durability, short range damage. Uses terrain manipulation to gain tactical advantages. Deals mainly physical/bleed damage.

Air/Lightning (Storm?): Primarily burst damage and/or consistent micro damage. High personal mobility and the ability to stun/daze enemies, but no reliance on it. Some displacement ability.

Arcane/Aether: A 'traditional' Mage with a mixture of CC, damage and mobility, along with great utility.

While I do feel that each of these is thematically carried out (to varying extents) in the current trees, I will say that the trees aren't really balanced against each other right now. So I give this project a +1!