In Patch 0.7.5 we are introducing the new Mage skill, Flame Ward!
Flame Ward is intended to be a reactive option that gives Mages survivability when they need it most. The goal is to remove Fire Shield and Ice Ward due to neither of them typically seeing active use in combat. We will be taking some of their functionality and making it available through Flame Ward, class passives, specialization tree nodes, and unique items.
Flame Ward
23 Mana
Grants a burst of 300 Ward. Then for 3 seconds, hits deal 30% less damage to you and have a 20% chance to cause a retaliatory burst of flames. 10 second cooldown.
We are aware that there are some concerns regarding the survivability of Mages - Sorcerers in particular. Our original intention had been to implement Flame Ward and remove Fire Shield and Ice Ward in the same patch. We are currently reviewing this decision, and we will probably perform this transition more gradually than we had originally anticipated.
While we recognize that some builds rely on Fire Shield and Ice Ward to bolster their defenses, we would prefer that this wasn’t necessary - and we do not believe that Mages benefit from such passive effects requiring skill slots & skill specializations to acquire. We will be adjusting class passives when removing these skills to ensure Mages are in a good place.
Hoping theres a cd reduction node that gets it down to 3 seconds. Or a duration node that gets it up to 10 seconds. Thinking OP already Better prepare a sorc.
The skill tree is really interesting. My main is a melee spellblade so I use both ice ward and fire shield full defense. So I had some fear of seing them disappear.
The skill and tree is very interesting. It goes well with the build. It’s hard to say without testing how good this skill is, but I think it will be interesting. I will have to manage between the protection of teleport and the protection of flame ward.
I am happy to see some damage reduction and that ward on block is still here I love it.
I am curious to see passives that will complete that skill and how mage could defense themself.
Little question how many ward on block ?
For someone that want to go full defense, it’s a shame that you have to go through “improve retialation” to go for frost tree armor and block are very interesting and could be cool to be access more directly.
It’s a shame to lost the 40% lithening damage from fire shield but it’s not so powerfull
I will have a skill slot free now for my spellblade
I’ll try to remember to follow up here when I know more.
The skill’s 2d art and its visual effect aren’t that similar at all, to be honest.
There are different demands placed on each - one has to look good while being quite small, the other has to avoid creating too much visual noise (and be performant, as you say).
Hmm. There was a good skill, by 25 seconds, increasing my damage, giving protection, and so conveniently breaking barrels and boxes.
And in return we get another empty slot on the skills panel.
@EHG I just made Fireshield Sorcerer ORIGINAL build but I use some uniques synergy (can provide a screenshots but dont know how I make them in Last Epoch), basically I use Soulfire relic + Rahyeh’s Light shield and chest that make you lost 20% of hp every second but giving at the same time WARD, tl;dr I made true RF PoE build! Low Life version BTW
Who cares? there, the essence will most likely be that the chance of the block will be increased. And to collect ward, without ward retention it makes little sense. And you don’t have enough points for it, because you still need to collect the action time and reduce the rollback. As I understand it, it will turn out 8 seconds cooldown and 4 seconds duration. That is, 50% of the time your defense will be many times less.
Another new patch another mage/mage->sorcerer change disappointment/nerf. I have been playing sorcerer since i started few months ago and i am have been following closely all the changes. It is starting to feel really disappointing… Without being disrespectful but anyone calling this a good change (judging by the flame ward skill tree) has played mage->sorcerer only for a limited time or does have any idea how mage->sorcerer end game defensive builds/tools work and mage->sorcerer defense overall.
It seems a huge nerf again on few aspects:
Looking at the tree you have to basically choose between Block chance/block protection/ward on block build(Glacial Reinforcement and previous nodes to it) or play with Dilation->Energize->Recollection-> Prismatic buffer while currently you have both of them via having both skills fire shield and ice ward and their trees…
Mage damage is already bad/horrible compared to the other classes and currently you are forced to take as many passive nodes as you can that improve damage in order to be somehow competitive. Changing ice ward/fire shield with passive tree nodes forces you to sacrifice damage passive nodes which will in addition hurt the already bad sorcerer damage. Many would say that we will have a free skill slot but lets be honest @AbstractGaze is very right saying that it will only leaves us with this - “And in return we get another empty slot on the skills panel” since beside a very few skills(fire ball/meteor/volcanic orb/teleport/focus/fire shield/ice ward) the rest is just bad/unusable for a good end game build and very few people would ever consider trying those skills. Moreover you only need one of the fire ball/volcanic orb/meteor + teleport + Focus+ 2 defensive skills(fire shield ice ward) and when the 2 defensive skills are combined in flame ward will be left with 1 unused/rather useless skill slot.
Judging by the skill description i hope that only the 30% less damage and the retaliation will be will be up for 3 seconds upon activation and other passive buffs from skill tree will be maintained permanently(same as how ice ward works now). Because if all the effects from the skill tree are maintained only for 3 seconds with 10 seconds cooldown that would be huge nerf in uptime(without having to invest in skill tree nodes that improve the uptime and CDR affixes in gear) compared to the permanent maintained buffs from fire shield/ice ward currently.
Sorry but for my melee build, ward generation and ward on hit does need a lot of ward retention that is already given by inteligence. I just need to get as much ward as I am hit. There is build that does not want to cumulate ward but to use them to only mitigate damage
You nn to make the passives in good order, the problem with mage are the following 2:
Survivability
Every skill besides Meteor and Focus is grab!
A personal third would be, that killing two Fallens just to have to rechannel your Mana slows playspeed too much!
Ofc These 3 work together: U have to stop all the time to rechannel mana, and while u do so, u are super vulnerable: MB that´s intendend, but then there should be a skill like black whole, just with a way shorter cooldown.
Don´t get me wrong, I enjoy Last Epoch a tone, just not much help in telling u all the time!
I disagree. I have a sorcerer black hole/ meteor build lvl 92 and its quite functional. You just don’t see it on the leaderboard cause its an old char. I’ve hit wave 200+ with it.
Try a few different skills and try all the different branches. The sorcerer can synergise well just gotta find that balance just like any class.
Also there is a node on the new skill tree to get 50% increased duration (putting active time almost to 5 seconds) I don’t see this as a nerf to the sorcerer at all. Its actually a defensive buff.
Flame Ward
Better prepare a sorc.
Low Life version BTW
