All I know is Essence sounds like a badass type of magic for a wizard to focus on - whether that means healing, blood, dark magic, metaphysics-y magic, soul magic, or whatever. If the implication is the wizard is tapping a foundational force of the universe, cool =) Or even if it's just blood, still cool.
There was some speculation that the 4th school of magic "essence focus" would essentially make a wizard like a blood mage and allow them to have heal abilities mixed with damage. This speculation coming because of the direlords combat resource entitled "essence" which often heals based on damage.
I'm torn. If the speculation ends up being true, as a wizard, I wouldn't want to be forced into a back up healing role. That is not why people pick the wizard class. I could see this turning myself and others off to playing a wizard.
I have bad memories of playing a runekeeper in lotro and wanting to be a dps caster role but was expected to heal at times...which wasnt fun for me.
If the essence focus heals were self only that would be fine I guess but not exciting to me.
As a wizard you want to do the highest burst damage possible period. Other spells can be a nice bonus but if a player unlocks this secret 4th spell focus type and it ends up not being about doing noticeably more damage I know I would be disappointed.
I hope it is only a placeholder name, having two classes with "essence" isn't the best for clarity.
Likewise I hope it isn't about buffing/healing/etc, but that wouldn't seem to be the case with "There is rumored to be a fourth school of Magic discovered by certain recondite Wizards - devastating in effect and untethered to elemental constraints"
So that makes me think it might be a physical based damage type or otherwise a resistless damage typing.
Just a random thought... What if it doesnt give access to heals? What if the 4th school is essence focus (essence does refer to the players health similar to the direlord so the term fits)...but it does damage at the expense of a wizards health without allowing the wizard to heal themselves like other blood mages? Direlords do generate essence based on the damage they take. It would require the wizard to rely on the group.
Instead of monitoring your arcane/fire/cold focus meters your health becomes your focus meter.
You end up with a scenario where a wizard is riding the line of low health in order to do the most damage.
It could be "devastating in effect" to both the mob and the wizard.
...healers would hate wizards who use it in normal groups. It wouldnt provide a good group dynamic normally. But it could be tuned in a way to make it worth it in certain situations.
If this ends up being the case I hope the wizard wouldnt get healing abilities like other "blood mage" type of classes. Force the wizard to rely on their group to heal them if they want to use the essence focus spells. Maybe the wizard could have some runes or something that would absorb some of the damage but no outright heals like we have seen in other games would be my preference.
philo said:
I'm torn. If the speculation ends up being true, as a wizard, I wouldn't want to be forced into a back up healing role.
Rydan said:since I played EQ (as such I can't quite remember), but Wizard had minor healing options...
Are you talking about bandages? They didn't have specific healing spells... (I'm referring to when EQ was a good game the first 4 years or so after it came out and not when it was a watered down wow clone...hopefully that doesn't need to be said)
philo said: Are you talking about bandages?No, it was like I put it, no direct or self healing as such. Sorry, I forgot:
If the Wizard can spec into a Blood Mage/Chloromancer concept that can heal through damage, that would be insanely exciting for me. With the Necro being a Control archetype, that would seem to open up the possibility a little bit more for the Wizard to entertain this type of speciality option.
@mathir
That wouldn't excite me. Wizards have to be top ranged burst dps. If you start adding heals to their spells they have to be balanced with less damage. Not to mention that's not the play style most people who play wizards is looking for.
I would much rather the essence focus be tied to very high damage spells that cost the wizard health to cast...with no way to heal themselves efficiently so that the spells can be tuned in a way where the wizard produces extremely high damage if you have a dedicated cleric focusing heals on the wizard.
Uhhh... Nesy answered this in the very first response:
Nesy said:Isn't essence related to the Dire Lord resource? No idea what it means in the context of "X-Focus" though.
The screen capture from the original post shows a list of resources for all classes... The Dire Lord's resource is Essence, their mechanic is to build it up and then use it.
Darch said:Uhhh... Nesy answered this in the very first response:
Nesy said:Isn't essence related to the Dire Lord resource? No idea what it means in the context of "X-Focus" though.
The screen capture from the original post shows a list of resources for all classes... The Dire Lord's resource is Essence, their mechanic is to build it up and then use it.
As you can see in first post there are two values concerning "essence" - I think the "pure" essence is connected to DireLord and "Focuses" connected to casters (in case of essence focus limited to wizard). From what I can recall we havent seen any essence resistance, which leads me to belive that this fourth school of magic will (among other things) revolve around dealing raw damage, bypassing all resistances. Even the name - at least for me - brings up that association (although the name will most likely be changed to avoid confusion with DL resource).
Brand of Embers and Brand of Cold function as debuffs that enhance the opposite school of magic's ability to hit a target.
Brand an enemy with fiery markings, reducing their cold resistance.
Brand an enemy with frigid markings, reducing their fire resistance.
In Fortress DeViare we see Magical Stigma for the first time.
Brand an enemy with cursed markings, reducing their Magic resistance.
Could the rumored fourth school of Magic discovered by certain recondite Wizards - devastating in effect and untethered to elemental constraints, be Curse?
If so, what kind of direction would you like these spells to go? Some people have complained that the Fire and Cold lines look like fairly standard nukes with just a burning DoT or snare/root secondary effect.
Perhaps Curses open up a whole realm of possibilities for damage and debilitating effects?
philo said: We know "cursed" is a state that is in game but there is no cursed focus listed on the deep stats page. Shaman have the whole Primal Curse line of spells. It seem like curses fit the Shaman more than a wizard to me.
Shaman 'Primal Curses' and 'Primal Oath' are just internal Shaman names (Boon & Oath / Bane & Curse). See the example spell below, named Primal Curse Animus but the Magic type is Nature.
For the Wizard's Magical Stigma, the magic type is Curse.
Ezrael said:philo said: We know "cursed" is a state that is in game but there is no cursed focus listed on the deep stats page. Shaman have the whole Primal Curse line of spells. It seem like curses fit the Shaman more than a wizard to me.Shaman 'Primal Curses' and 'Primal Oath' are just internal Shaman names (Boon & Oath / Bane & Curse). See the example spell below, named Primal Curse Animus but the Magic type is Nature.
For the Wizard's Magical Stigma, the magic type is Curse.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make? We know of a few Shaman debuffs that fall under the curse line. Yes, animus is one, fire is another etc.
I think you are putting to much emphasis on the word "curse" to think it is the 4th wizard focus. All that means is it is a debuff.
We already saw the deep stat list and there were only 4 focus listed. There is no "curse focus". You were right the first time. It's essence focus unless it gets changed.
But just generally, curses are such a shaman or a necro type of thing. Having the 4th focus as curse doesn't fit with anything we have ever been told about the wizard.
I also wrote in the original post that it could simply have been a placeholder name.
The point I'm making is that you are mistaken about the Shaman Primal Curse Animus named spells, you imply that they are the 'Curse' type of magic, but the tooltips in game show that's just a name, the magic type is Nature. You're using your subjective opinion 'It seem like curses fit the Shaman more than a wizard to me.' and ignoring the objective evidence presented to you in the screenshots.
The Wizard's spells are all Fire, Cold, Magic and now we have seen one first ability with the magic type of Curse. That's a different shift and a potential indication of more like it, potentially the 4th spell line.
At no point did I :
imply that they are the 'Curse' type of magic
I even quoted both a nature based curse spell (animus) and a fire curse in my last post. I also pointed out that curse just means a debuff.
I didn't think this was necessary to quote shaman spells because this is a topic about the 4th wizard focus but, I've just been quoting the "official" wiki in our conversation..that's why the subjective part makes me laugh. I'm just repeating data we have been shown.
Primal Curse: Fire.
Primal Curse: Animus
Those ^ are the desciption of spells such as... Fang of Harune like you quoted above. Also Fang of Saigi and others.
But again, this is so off topic that none of that even matters and I probably shouldn't have let this get so astray.
The point was that curses don't seem to fit as the wizards 4th focus taking into account everything we know about the wizard up to this point. The description of one wizard debuff saying curse and you are leaping to that being the 4th focus? It sounds like a stretch to put it mildly.
Maybe you could explain more about why you think a curse focus would fit the wizard class?
Imagine if the 4th wizard focus was curse and it added different DD's with a debuff component ...you would have a bunch of wizards who want to do damage and kill things and then their difficult to unlock "epic" type spells are altering their play style to include more debuffs instead of focusing on damage ...that would be a ridiculous design choice imo.
