Flame Ward: Move the skill node that grants armor someplace else in the tree so you don’t have to convert flame ward to cold to take it. With fire aura becoming actually viable and having an effect on builds this season, it doesn’t feel good to be forced into cold aura to get defensive stats on this skill.
Vilatria’s set - There needs to be other sets that grant spell damage of other element types. Right now, almost every build gets forced into lightning element skills because this is the only way to scale a bunch of +spell damage and it’s only one element type. Yes there is mourningfrost for cold but then you have to stack a primary stat less relevant to your class and get a resistance downside.
Fireball - This is a classic mage fantasy spell, and there’s almost no way to make it viable except as a way to apply spreading flames. The damage scaling is poor, it doesn’t work as a utility skill, and the things that can trigger-cast it don’t proc enough.
Spellblade defense - If this mastery is meant to be dealing damage up close and in melee, it’s still too squishy. The passive nodes that grants defenses are incredibly odd, splitting between armor and dodge but not granting nearly enough of either one. Ward generation is good but even if you’re running thousands of ward, if you have no dodge or armor, you’re going to get obliterated after a few hundred corruption. Other classes can double up defenses with armor/ward by cheesing with cleaver, which really isn’t a viable option due to offhand restrictions and loss of spell dmg.
Thus, time to nerf cleaver then.
To be fair, Flame Ward already provides disgustingly insane damage reduction againts hits, additional armor isn’t that beneficial. And I am not sure what do you mean by becoming actually viable this season - for a long time, it has been one of the best defensive skills in the whole game.
It’s more about Vilatria’s set becoming OP in combination with the Legends Entwinned - you are no longer locked into using a staff, so you can get use like a Laddle to add more inteligence scaling to a build.
Yeah, Fireball, unfortunately, pretty meh. Mediocre synergies, far from stellar damage, limited utility and AoE. There are few reasons to use it.
It’s the base Mage class that is overall squishy. By contrast, the Spellblade tree is packed with defensive nodes - like half the nodes in second part of the tree are purely defensive or have defensive bonus, The problem, though, is that the defences are quite discordant - a bit of health, a bit of armor, a bit of dodge, some endurance and even some parry, but none of them is sufficient on its own.
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And I am not sure what do you mean by becoming actually viable this season - for a long time, it has been one of the best defensive skills in the whole game.
Sorry, typo in my OP that I fixed. I mean fire aura is viable now for spellblade, and to get the armor nodes you’re locked into converting it to cold.
The problem, though, is that the defences are quite discordant - a bit of health, a bit of armor, a bit of dodge, some endurance and even some parry, but none of them is sufficient on its own.
Yeah that’s what I was getting at. The intent may have been to provide options for how to get defense, but none of these individually provide enough, and mixing them is pointless.
Still not sure why you would need additional armor during Flame Ward. With the Barrier node, it already provides almost 60% DR against hits. Though I’d say armor is quite thematic for ice, so maybe it would be better to give fire and lightning appropriate unique boons.
The developers are definitely trying to support several archetypes, like an armored battlemage, an evasive spellfighter, and that’s why it ends up like this. On the bright side, some nodes are crazy cost-effective: 16% increased armor / 2% endurance + 1 INT / 2% parry per point. I think the play is to cheaply grab relevant defensive nodes from the tree, spend the remaining points on damage, and then make up for the missing defenses with items or blessings.
Endurance feels out of place, though. It would be nice if there were some way to apply endurance to ward within the ward threshold. That would be thematic for a semi-melee mage.
