2009-01-18, 05:48 PM
Quote:IL/FP: Again, kill the ultimates. Again, 2 new skills
1) Advanced Teleport (max10) - separate skill from regular teleport, max 400 range. Teleports the player next to the nearest monster.
IL) Thunderstorm. 300 range, ~80 spell atk, fast casting, hits 20 targets. Lightning elemnt obviously.
Also I'd swap the summons and ice/fire demon around. The way it is is dumb >_>
Chain Lightning/Paralyze would be dropped 10 points to make room for more mastery:
Advanced Elemental Amp - 10 point, -1% mp cost, adjusted elemental bonus (at max, 170% against weak targets, 100% on neutral, 70% on resistant), +2% spell mastery
Mana Reflection would be changed to work like PG, so mages take less damage. (not the full 200% or w/e obviously, maybe 1/5 of it)
Ok so you've taken away the ultimates and proposed this in order to balance mages with other classes. Now I'm just going to speak from the perspective of an I/L mage as I'm sure the F/Ps and Bishops out there would inform you on how ridiculous this proposed balancing is.
Thunderstorm - Where in gods name would there be in a situation where there are 20 monsters within a 300% range? As it stands with blizzard its hard to target 15 monsters and that's a full screen attack. The only possible place this move could work is Himes in combination with CL mobbing, but then all you would have done is given I/L AMs slower exp gains for the same pot costs as if they were using Blizzard. (Magic guard is a blessing and a curse.) This move is weaker than Ice Strike does not freeze and has only 100% more range it is a pathetic improvement over a 3rd job skill.
Advanced Amp - With this skill the average archmage at my level (16x) would be hitting ~
55k CL with an elemental weapon on Lightning weak mobs
44k Ele wand, Neutral
35k No ele, Lit weak
20k No ele, Neutral
The skill does what you intend it to do that is, increase AM damage on elementally weak mobs, however, you've gimped our training speed so it will take some time to reach that high a level. Meanwhile when compared to other classes at similar levels our 1v1 output would still pale in comparison. The only thing which would possibly balance us out i.e. letting us excel in the bossing aspect of the game rather than training, would be a party buff. Which brings me to the next skill you've proposed changes to.
Mana Reflection - You opted to make it like PG reducing damage taken and reflecting some (1/5th). All you accomplished was replacing a somewhat useless skill with another somewhat useless skill. An I/L is more likely going to take bump damage rather than magic damage. (Freezing means no magic attacks, and the Thunderstorm skill you proposed would require standing in the middle of a mob getting hit by touch damage more than magic.) The only good improvement to MR would be like some others have said making it party buff which would allow mages to have a nice support skill for bossing. Reflecting 1/1s being the major contribution.
Advanced teleport - This is just meh. As it stands teleport works well enough. If a monster is far away you can CL->Tele->Demon and Tele along avoiding damage by freezing, inflicting some addtional damage while traveling with Demon and continue on with that monster aggro'd towards you and the next mob you're focusing on.