Celtic Heroes

Hmmm...I never played mage with a vitality build even pre-update because the logical thing to do seemed to be to put points in focus. Usually this stat boosts dmg for mages in games, but not in this game until after the update. So no, I never ran around with the pre-update 'noob build'. With 18 points invested in energy shield it cost over 700 energy to cast. It either lasts 90 seconds or until a set amount of dmg is received. The cool down for this spell is 60 seconds. I have 3000 energy so I can afford to cast twice, but shield gets knocked off before 60 seconds. If I'm not close to killing something within this time frame I am essentially dead. If 15 seconds were removed from energy shield cool down (made 45 seconds instead of 60) I think energy shield would be more sufficient without being overpowered. Yes, I got a stopwatch and actually timed this. You wouldn't want to cast it more than twice in a fight anyway given its cost. If I'm not mistaken, energy shield cost more energy than the druids spring of life rez spell with enough points invested to rez a lvl 115 player. It costs a mage more energy for basic protection than it does for a druid to resurrect another higher lvl player from the dead! I know I am not the only mage that is unhappy with the energy costs for the actual dmg dealt as compared to other dps classes. Anyone I know with a mage that has an alt like rogue or ranger of similar lvl has essentially ditched their mage.

Before the updat we all heard how the crappy class of Mage was going to be beefed up so it won't be the worst class anymore. So what happens, they make them worse. We have garbage armor so we get our clocks cleaned by every other class who does 200 damage per hit. nd now we need to put half our points into focus so our hit points can't save us.

My build used to be
Str 20
Dex 45
Focus 120
Vit 310
I had 15s in all fire and ice and had some left over for bandage to be up to 250 pts

So what happens I couldn't even get past all the wisps on the path much less hope to get to falgren. I had to switch to a 50 50 vit foc build and still couldn't survive a red eyeball so I switched to 20/20 for all fire and im at about 15/20 for both ice and I am surviving biput in a boss fight I am useless after the first 3 min. I can't cast a single spell until I can regenerate 80 e for fire or 100+ for ice. People have already stopped inviting mages into groups.

Pvp is simple if ice shards misses the Mage dies. If it hits just get a good heal off and the Mage dies.

They took away the only thing we had going for us.

As your new abitys level up you will hit more ,miss less and evade more attacks
Get the 5 new abiltys ASAP and level them up makes a huge difference

@Frostine: Uhm, preupdate I played a mage lvl 65. With heroic ammy and rejuv offhand and an energy built I'd run out of energy too after one mob. I had energy shield and boost maxed. I could use energy shield for one mob and had to wait until energy refills... is it any different now with the current mobs? As I haven't been playing mage in update theres little I can say to mage specific changes.

However, heroic ammy was way op in first place. I understand that newer players are very used to the rejuv items since they aren't used to playing without them. However, the OP items were the reason for idiot builds (excuse my language - but a 5 5 5 400 built is not extremely creative, yet everyone had it before update). Now you have to switch and check what Focus/Vit built works best.

As has been said many many times before, the 5 new abilities add a huge advantage. While you get 100% dmg now, you will get way less once those abilities are maxed.

For Warrior: I don't run out of focus... I mean in boss fights I mostly use taunt, bash, stance and an occasional dmg skill... but then again tanks aren't meant to be the big dmg dealers in boss fights. This way dmg deals are actually quite necessary. For solo walks I can't say anything as i have not tested it.

Druids: I lose about 50 percent energy per fight (with mobs giving me about 2600 xp... ima lvl 87 atm). I rarely die, just have to watch out that Im only aggroing one mob at a time. But thats nothing new (now other classes feel the druids pain ).

As a beta tester we didn't pick the amount of energy that spells would cost. They did, and I think it is your opinion that the high cost of energy is the devs trying to balance out overpowered regen items. Let the admin answer, because if what you say is true then they are purposefully nullifying lux items which were put in this game only to give a player an edge over another. I now feel ripped off.

Also if this is true then everyone without a regen item has no prayer.

Yes my warrior single hand blunt build got screwed too.

Because now skills can miss, if I miss big swing(almost always) = i die
because I lose about 300-500 worth of dmg and cool off is slow.

Not sure if its meant to be like this but i do see lower lvls soloing just fine(same class two sword build).

err... idk what you did to your warrior but I'm doing just fine. As equipment i have hp regen shield, warden armor, heroic necklace. As lvl 86 I can solo lvl 95 (3*) with a little over half hp left after the fight. I don't even have to pay much attention to what I'm doing...

As a beta tester we didn't pick the amount of energy that spells would cost. They did, and I think it is your opinion that the high cost of energy is the devs trying to balance out overpowered regen items. Let the admin answer, because if what you say is true then they are purposefully nullifying lux items which were put in this game only to give a player an edge over another. I now feel ripped off.

Also if this is true then everyone without a regen item has no prayer.

Yeah you're right, we didn't get to chose the energy cost and unfortunately very little mages played beta.

Nullifying lux items? You play a warrior too... its a class where you can very clearly see the advantages of regen items. I agree that you don't notice them much on Druid these days, but warriors still have a significant advantage when wearing a regen item (esp in boss fights). However, a lux item should not completely replace one whole stat, as was the case since christmas patch.

I appreciate everyone's input on this convo. Learning that very few mages played beta kind of explains why some of us are feeling quite frustrated. I'm taking a break indefinitely from the game until some bugs are fixed and perhaps further tweaks to the mage class are made. I've invested a lot of time and effort into playing mage and I'm sure a few others have done the same. If we need to put the majority of our points into focus in order for our offensive spells to do dmg that leaves little to be left for vitality. I think this is normal for the class of mage provided that we have an adequately balanced shield skill and strong offensive efforts. As of now, an unmaxed shield cast costs over 700 energy (I can't imagine what 25/25 would be), which costs more than a druid rez'ing a lvl 115 player from the dead (somewhere around 600 energy). The shield cool down is too long to recast a second time when caught up with a mob. If the cool down time were dropped from 60 to 45 seconds I could live with that even with the unbalanced energy cost comparative to other classes spells. I assume sacrifice will balance this cost when people can procure that spell.

Also something else to keep in mind is the range of fireball. I actually took the time to play as ranger as well as play alongside a ranger of close lvl to my mage to compare arrow distance vs. fireball distance. Given that mages are a ranged class we should be able to cast a fireball from a similar distance as that of ranger, this is typical of mage classes in other mmos. When I am spotted by a mob and that mob casts ranged spells on me and hits, I have to first run up closer to that mob before my fireball will take off, causing me to take more dmg before I can deliver any. Such is not the case when I play as ranger. I understand that ice shards needs to be a shorter distance than fireball because it is much more damaging than fireball. The cast time for ice shards seems more adequately balanced in this update, which is a good thing.

Anyway, I can't grind on blind faith believing that things will improve as we acquire more skills. I firmly believe that mages could benefit from further beta testing and honest and insightful review. By this I mean playing the game in its current state, not as a mage who already has their skills and is simply playing around testing them out on others in the pvp arena and making videos about it...This class is obviously still a work in progress and could use a serious working over. I'm afraid that with so many new things introduced and the current bugs that must be ironed out, the time for considering a patch for mage may not come for quite a while. This is just some food for thought for the admins. I was really excited the new content looks fantastic. I'll keep my eye out for potential changes in the future and hope to one day return to the game. Thanks for the fun!

I really wish that mages would just be given sacrifice instead of spending forever getting it dropped. Druids don't have to work for natures touch... why should mages not be given virtually the exact opposite spell from the beginning? Please consider this admin.

As your new abitys level up you will hit more ,miss less and evade more attacks
Get the 5 new abiltys ASAP and level them up makes a huge difference

But this is a general concept and applies to all classes. How does this help clases that by definition are energy dependant?

I was just in a group fight with Brutus. Next to me was a warrior same level as me with a diamond weapon, I have a diamond weapon. He did over 400 damage with every hit which by the way takes no energy. I periodically do that much with my maxed out fire bolt and can beat it with my ice shards but after 3 min I'm done, energy spent with no decent way to regen it back fast enough to make up for how much we use. And franky I am not interested in using 5 diferent rebirth books in order to experiment with which build might actually suck least. Oh, and dont even try to claim fire cloak helps me. It got nerfed. Only does damage when I am hit. That make it one third as useful as before. (see other post) I was in a PVP with a druid and he never took any damage from my cloak.

Deuc was right. The common perception in the game is that the mechanicss were changed for one purpose, to make your lux regen items worthless and force people spend more money on crystal armor which still does not solve the energy problem

There are a few common phrases, I have been hearing over the past few days.
We got cheated.
They will never get another dime out of me.
Screw this, I'm done.

I spoke to a clan chief yesterday on the phone who actually deleted all 5 of his toons.

Hi there

this was changed in response to lots of complaints about 5,5,5,400 type builds.

However I'm sure we can improve the balancing of the energy costs going forwads.

We also did give everyone more energy per forus, more base focus, improve the power of energy regen spells and added sacrifice to compensate somewhat for this.

Thanks!