Hi guys im wondering about the cast buff the Wizard get when he cast multiple ability from the same school Fire, Cold and Arcane.
Wizards focus their studies on three schools of Magic: Fire, Cold and Arcane. In battle, the Wizard will gain a stacking Focus buff when an ability from one of these schools is first used. Each time a spell from the same school is used in succession, this buff will continue stacking until it reaches its stacking limit. The Wizard will retain the Focus buff until:
Focus: Fury of Flame (Passive) - As your Fury of Flame grows, your Fire spells will gain bonus Fire damage up to X%, bonus chance to critically hit up to Y% and will cost up to Z% more mana to cast.
Focus: Numbing Presence (Passive) - As your Numbing Presence grows, your Cold spells will lower your target’s Hate towards you up to X% per land. Additionally, the damage of your Cold spells will decrease up to Y%.
Focus: Arcane Affinity (Passive) - As your Arcane Affinity focus grows, your Magic spells will return up to X% mana to you when they land. Additionally, the Mana cost and damage of your Magic spells will decrease up to Y%.
So its a buff and a damage debuff for 2 of the 3 schools? Cold, Arcan and only fire get crit and damage buff?
Also this got me curious..
While adventuring, Wizards may discover scroll fragments connected to some of their core abilities. Once found, these fragments are scribed into the Wizard’s Living Codex and join with the core spell. Once joined, the markings become discernible and show the Wizard the secret of weaving these spells into successive, more powerful versions of themselves. In addition, Woven spells are instant cast and have no Mana cost.
Are these Woven spells singel use? i mean if they are instant cast with no cost, seems pritty strong as a standart spell :)
What do you all think about the reveal?
Seems quite solid and nuky, and to me looks like a mix of Wow's mage (bump, PBAOE spells, and fire/cold/arcane) with FFXIV's mage (astral fire and umbral ice stacks, extended with arcane).
I'd have loved some magical thunder or different abilities, I fear a pure fire/cold/arcane might be a bit redundant, however let's wait and see.
I didn't understand the woven spells part yet so.. I don't know.
Edit: Nevermind, I'm not sure what it's implying either.
The spell weaving appears to be a discoverable, permanent addition to your "Living Codex" (love that concept). It seems that once you discover these powerful spell fragments (im thinking runes of the old EQ), they bind to the spell and allow it to evolve as you use it. The way I read it, you cast Smolder, which then morphs and allows you to instantly cast an otherwise uncastable spell, Char. Once you blast the enemy with Char, the otherwise unavailable spell Engulf become available for you to finish things off.
I do agree that the focus effects seem an interesting choice. I am most fond of the arcane focus effect, lowering damage and mana costs of spells that will allow you to then use them to regen mana to an extent. I have complete faith that the dev team will ensure the maximum regained and minimum cost balance eachother out to prevent mass spamming to go from 0-100. Maybe assign the duration of the focus buff long enough to maintain max stacks during longer fights while using just a stun/snare or two (with the max stacks maybe negating the costs of those spells) and rely on passive mana regen to ultimately net positive your mana.
In regards to the fire focus effect, it feels one dimensional, but I truly love the concept and it aligns with the fire type the most; I cant wait to see my big criticals!
I suppose my only letdown was with Numbing Presence. Having played a wizard in classic and in multiple emulators, I was thrilled to see an aggro/hate mitigation effect. Of course none of us understand how hate generation will work in the game yet, however my initial thought was just how long it could take to get high on the hate list, and how many casts it might take to get off of it. Again, I have the utmost faith that the devs will manage this system to perfection, but I wanted to point out some questions I had about the mechanic.
In normal gameplay, will wizards regularly be in a fight that getting high on the hate list (putting out some serious damage) without drawing aggro, having time/need to lower your aggro through a similar number of casts (with diminishing damage) so that you can output that damage again? I do understand the need for this situation when you are intending to dump mana on a dungeon boss or tough enemy, but I am more curious how effective this focus effect might be in more ordinary dungeon crawling.
Perhaps I am biased, because I have always had an affinity as a wizard to using my cold based damage and utility spells - call me an ice witch if you will. It is a little sad on that end to know that my ice spells may be most effective when used infrequently, or overshadowed in most situations by the fire based lines. In this regard, I might suggest/request the devs add a hate management mechanic in a different form for wizards, and reward wizards using ice spells differently? The most obvious one to me off the top of my head is allow ice spells to shatter physical armor by X% each cast up to Y%. With a mechanic like this, I can see the damage reduction of each additional cast going down making much more sense, and rewarding wizards in a new and fun way.
Just some of my initial thoughts, but I am so happy to read everything about the wizard. This reveal solidified my decision to continue playing one - thanks VR team!
@Deadly
I can understand the Wizard gameplay looks very straigthforward. Pretty much like the FFXIV one : Fire is a MP consumer with high damage, and ice is a regeneration mechanic you try to use as little as possible, lightning beeing a "no buff" spell that you use only one procs most of the time or during the ice regen shortcycle.
In this design, ice or even arcane schools look like lackluster and only here to fill a secondary functionnality : Reduce hate or increase mana pool.
However, In my mind, the cycle is interpreted like FFxiv one, where you burn all your mana in a few cast, then renew it in a few cast, etc..
Maybe it won't be that extreme. Maybe Fire will burn your bar and you won't be really DPS effective and D/MP effective if you reach max stacks, and you will end up oom if you focus on that. Maybe cold and arcane spells have better damage values than fire baseline spells, making them excellent fillers or mana conservative options, this system will probably not prevent downtime at all, but offer you very flexible cycles and styles :
fire focus : Extreme burn of damage and manapool, good for low on health bosses. Very high threat.
fire / arcane weave : Good damage with mana conservation, sustain damage for a medium amount of time but generate high threat.
Fire / Cold : Good damage but limited sustain, however you are unlikely to draw aggro from the boss even if you will have to meditate more often.
Ice / arcane : Medium damage but very good sustain, as cold spells will not ramp up in cost. A sweet spot must be found to keep ice spells with a better DP/M than base fire spells. Completely unlikely to grab hate with this cycle.
Mix of all : not sure how intuitive it will come in the end. My guess is fire/arcane or cold/arcane will be the basic bread and butter for levelling as long as your healer's mana remain close. Ice/arcane might be best if your group can chain pull withouth a pause, with fire used to maintain yourself under 80%. Fire cycles and fire burst will probable come in handy in sticky situation : unexpected adds, healer's death or oom, boss pull exhausting your group, etc...
I think balance here will be an easy trap for players, too much fire and your wizard will be medding all the time, too much ice or arcane and he will deal very poor DP/mana ratios.
It looks great.
I feel like on my Wizard I'll generally be using arcane for most general mob clearing to stay as mana efficient as possible and allow consistent damage + having the arcane debuff available to benefit Enchanters landing mezz.
Then I'll also have some Fire available or switch my available spell set up to go mostly Fire with one or two emergency Ice abilities for burning through boss fights.
Alexander said: Also - any ideas for the fourth, mysterious school of magic? Very happy with the wizard, looks like satisfying nukeage with fun balancing and synergizing. And hell to the yes regarding the Order of the Gatekeepers...
The inner me would say "lightning" but in the end, I think it will more be something like "oblivion" or "Soul damage". Some sort of planar energy hard to resist to, tied to very specific spells.
Looks like we're going to be "forced" to cycle between elements on long fights.
Start with arcane for mana conservation and reasonable aggro, then fire to deal much damage, then reduce aggro with ice, then back to fire if mana permits, else go arcane for mana conservation till the end of the fight...
I honestly don't like it as it is presented (the summoner reveal looks much more interesting), I hope the actual malus numbers are weaker than the bonus numbers, which would result in not being "forced" to swap elements.
At least there's a good point : A group of Wizards could elaborate "ping-pong" strategies (making the mob run between wizards and never reach anyone in melee range) with a good aggro management thanks to fire & ice spells. Well, we'll see if that's doable or not.
About the mysterious 4th element, I'm hoping for one of those couples : Gravity/Void themed magic, or Light/Darkness themed magic.
To clarify, my goal with the Arcane school was not just for Mana conservation, but actually regenerating Mana during combat.
The idea here is to answer the age-old problem of Wizards unloading a spell or two, then sitting down for the rest of the fight to keep Mana up. Now, Wizard's can stay meaningfully involved in combat through their Arcane school (damage, roots, stuns, etc.) and actually generate Mana while doing so, building back up to another "burn" phase.
I wish I had shown this mechanic more clearly in the recent All Star stream - always harder to focus on playing well during those times :)
Alexander said: Also - any ideas for the fourth, mysterious school of magic?
This is a very important piece of the Wizard puzzle. I slid that tidbit in the reveal to assuage the concerns regarding Fire as the main source of Wizard damage. What happens when the Wizard comes up against an NPC highly resistant or immune to Fire damage?
There is a fourth school... :)
deadlycupcakez said:The spell weaving appears to be a discoverable, permanent addition to your "Living Codex" (love that concept). It seems that once you discover these powerful spell fragments (im thinking runes of the old EQ), they bind to the spell and allow it to evolve as you use it. The way I read it, you cast Smolder, which then morphs and allows you to instantly cast an otherwise uncastable spell, Char. Once you blast the enemy with Char, the otherwise unavailable spell Engulf become available for you to finish things off.
This is correct. Let me put it in the context of a "player story":
As a Wizard, I learn Smolder at level 1, let's say. Then let's say at level 14 I'm fighting the Wraiths in Halnir Cave and the Wraith boss Tyrassura drops Scroll Fragment: Char! I win the roll against another Wizard, loot the fragment and then open my Living Codex. I notice I can't scribe Scroll Fragment: Char in a normal slot like other spells, so I read the description on the Fragment:
"Woven from Smolder to inflict increased Fire damage to your target with an X% bonus to critically land."
I remember that this Fragment is connected to smolder, so I flip to the Smolder icon in my codex. I notice that it's different from the other icons (this is not currently implemented, but will be soon). Instead of being a complete icon like the others, it appears to be torn in half. In the space where the missing half of the icon should be, there are two small, empty squares. I click one of those small squares with the Fragment on my cursor and it begins scribing. When the scribing is complete, I get a message saying, "You have learned how to weave Smolder into Char."
Now how does this work? My group pulls the next Wraith and we begin combat. I stand and cast Smolder which casts and fires as it normally does. But now, as soon as Smolder fires, the Smolder icon on my bar flashes and there is a new icon instantly in its place: Char! I activate Char which immediately fires on my enemy (instant cast, mana free) doing significantly more damage than Smolder. Once Char fires, the icon returns to the Smolder icon and begins Smolder's cooldown.
It's also worth noting that Animation, Audio and Visual effects will play a big role in "selling" this mechanic and making it feel like actual spell weaving. But trust me, it will be an awesome, visceral feeling when it's all said and done :)
Thanks Joppa, that sounds awesome! Looking forward to playing the wizard. There has been talk about it feeling uninspired or like nothing new but I disagree the whole thing seems so dynamic and engaging to me!
Thanks Tagaderm!
I think the community will warm up to it quite a bit once they have more time to sit with it and see the implications, especially with Spell-weaving, knowing that Smolder -> Char -> Engulf is only one example - many of the Wizard's spells will be able to be Woven in this way with some amazing effects. Can't wait for you all to see it in action :)
I am overwhelmingly THRILLED with the spell weaving concept - I hope the comments about my concerns with the Ice focus weren't seen as derogatory bc I am truly thankful someone (Joppa) has but so much effort in defining the wizard in such a great way.
Tagaderm said:Thanks Joppa, that sounds awesome! Looking forward to playing the wizard. There has been talk about it feeling uninspired or like nothing new but I disagree the whole thing seems so dynamic and engaging to me!
I think as the class unveils itself, people will change their minds on this one. This is going to be a class where the player has a lot of power and control. There is some real depth there. We’ve left some stuff out as well that we’re excited to talk about down the line.
The Wizard sounds great to me, and I really like the Focus mechanic, Spell Weaving, and Gatewalking. Now I have to add this class to my pool of possible options for my main class. Why couldn't you guys have made the Wizard lame so I wouldn't have to worry about that? Thanks for making my choice that much harder, VR!
Alexander said: Also - any ideas for the fourth, mysterious school of magic? Very happy with the wizard, looks like satisfying nukeage with fun balancing and synergizing. And hell to the yes regarding the Order of the Gatekeepers...
I have a speculation regarding the fourth school. I'm thinking it might be the implementation of the War Wizard which has been discussed and is in the official Lore. Here are the clues I picked up on:
Joppa said:To clarify, my goal with the Arcane school was not just for Mana conservation, but actually regenerating Mana during combat.
The idea here is to answer the age-old problem of Wizards unloading a spell or two, then sitting down for the rest of the fight to keep Mana up. Now, Wizard's can stay meaningfully involved in combat through their Arcane school (damage, roots, stuns, etc.) and actually generate Mana while doing so, building back up to another "burn" phase.
I wish I had shown this mechanic more clearly in the recent All Star stream - always harder to focus on playing well during those times :)
I would like to add..
That having a limited spell bar (6~8 spells?), will make for tag-teaming certain spells schools, rather situational. And that a Wizard might have only one (1) spell from the "mana regeneration" shool of spells on his spell bar, while the rest are several (ie 3) from the "fire dmg" shools, because that Wizard wants the sequential effect of that said school's output/benfit. (ie: 3 chain-nuking fire spells)
If that same Wizard chose to remove one of his three "fire" spells and opt for another "mana regen" spell, that will/can have a sequential cumulative effect... or chain. Which result in more of what they do, that Wizard would have less dmg output, but more mana regen potential, etc. (Or however)
This fit in nicely with Wizards being able to situatiate themsevles as high hate/high damage dealers... or sustained output for continueous/long duration battles.
DynamiteFizzlebum said:Alexander said: Also - any ideas for the fourth, mysterious school of magic? Very happy with the wizard, looks like satisfying nukeage with fun balancing and synergizing. And hell to the yes regarding the Order of the Gatekeepers...
I have a speculation regarding the fourth school. I'm thinking it might be the implementation of the War Wizard which has been discussed and is in the official Lore. Here are the clues I picked up on:
- War Wizard (melee/caster) exists in Pantheon Lore and is depicted in the concept art (see below)
- Wizard is the *only* caster class that according to the new information, can wield "certain one-handed edged weapons"
- Prestige classes have been mentioned on multiple occasions (making the 4th school a prestige class)
I don't believe that is how war wizards will be implemented.
Here is an older quote from Brad:
1. The player will encounter WarWizards, usually on an epic-level quest. They will assist the WarWizard, and the WarWizard may assist them in certain battles.
2. In some epic-level quests, the player's character will temporarily (so as not to cause a balance problem) be able to assume the abilities of a WarWizard and access spells and abilities usually not accessible by that character's class.
I'm not totally sold on the idea of the wizard so far, I played everquest from its release year up until like the 8th expansion and wizards were a pain to level in the early days and as i saw mentioned before it was only once AA came along that wizards really picked up class defining abilities, From what I've seen so far on wizard reveal it doesnt seem like wizards are truly a class of their own, druids have teleports and summoners/rogues will likely out dps them from what I've seen in streams so far, Yes I'm aware it's still very early days.
I'm just not seeing the wizard being the "wield a force barely imaginable in awe and effect." Perhaps I'm wrong (I hope so) and perhaps it would be a good idea to have a "Stance" type system for the wizard aswell, So like a stance for single target casting and a stance for Area Effect that would work with all spells the wizard has, Instead of making seperate AE and single target spells, Just let the stance choose. Dunno maybe a crap idea but might help with the brainstorming =) Also where is invisibility?