More Support For All-Elements/Hybrid Mage and Sorcerer

[Scrubstar]

Looking at Sorcerer’s Dragon Mage and Dragon Breath Passives got me thinking about an All-Elements or Hybrid Sorcerer. After looking at it for awhile I believe this idea for high-tier Master Sorcerers needs to get more support.

Currently Mages who opt for these talents are spend 20 Passives for 100% Increased Damage and 100% Increased Shock/Ignite/Chill chance in a cycle. The damage portion is already outdone by two 300-Max-Mana Idols of a chosen Element. It’s a big investment that’s out scaled very easily. It seems like something at the peak of the Sorcerer Tree should be a bit more enticing.

Overall I think this idea is a lot of fun and think it’s a shame that it just doesn’t seem to compare to specifying in a single element, not just in damage but in utility. This tradeoff currently applies to Passives, Spell Specialization and Gear, but there’s just not enough support to warrant that tradeoff currently.

Ideas on how to promote this playstyle:

Idols that give % Increased Elemental Damage - Doubled if 300 Max Mana

• This is a major source of damage that Dragon Sorcerer would be missing out on. I think a similar philosophy to Elemental Damage % on weapons being less than the specific Elements would work well.
• On this topic, please add % Increased Cold Damage - Doubled if 300 Max Mana to the 2x2 Idols. Lightning and Fire both appear on two of the larger Idols, whereas Cold is left with only 1x4. Seems strange. Feels like Cold is left with less options for Idols and preemptively slaps down Frostbite being relevant

Hybrid Skills / Hybrid Specialization

• These skills seem to promote Hybrid-Type skills, but the skills that have this option is unfortunately short: Disintegrate; Elemental Nova; Fireball*; and Blackhole*. Nova I’ll discuss separately, but there really isn’t a way to synergize with these. I think some more Specialization Options for Hybrid Types would be nice.

Elemental Nova Specialization without Immediate Elemental Commitment

• Elemental Nova is the one skill where it seems this skill would really shine, but the Specialization Tree for the skill severely hamstrings this potential. You’re basically locked into the Lightning wing and forced to take Channeling and then do nothing else.
• Add a Passive into Fire and Ice similar to Silenced Spark that reverts the Nova to Elemental. Alternatively remove the condition of “If you have not taken Fire Nova or Ice Nova” from Silenced Spark.
• Alternatively to that: I think there should be another wing that allows folks to avoid picking Fire/Ice/Lightning Nova immediately. Specific ideas for Elemental wing:
  - Boomerang: Fires Nova out like a Projectile, stopping once it reaches its maximum range before returning to where it was cast
  - Fractured Nova: (Fires three separate projectiles for Boomerang, each being Fire/Ice/Lightning (unless specced into specific Element Nova), cycles the order between Elements (Ice, Fire, Lightning > Lightning, Ice, Fire > Fire, Lightning Ice). Branching options to reduce spread or revert back to all-Elemental while maintaining the multi-projectile for increased Mana Cost
  - Elemental Dissonance: One element will do significantly more damage, while the others do less. Element selected at random, maybe branching off passives to improve the chance of an Element being chosen for the damage boost. Does not function with Ice Nova, Fire Nova or Lightning Nova
  - Harmony: Disables conversion from Ice Nova, Fire Nova and Lightning Nova

More Dragon-Like Passives

• I cannot overstate how much I like the idea of these Passives. I wish there were more like them, or that supported this idea. Some specific ideas:
  - Arcane Fusion: Similar to Rune of Winter, except instead of converting to Cold, it turns some skills into Hybrids. I think Meteor, Ice Barrage, Static and Static Orb would be fun options for this.
  - Elemental Current: Increases Critical Strike Chance while an enemy is Ignited, Chilled and Shocked
  - Dragon’s Mind: You are granted increased Mana Efficiency for spells of an element whenever you have casted a spell of another element recently.
  - Chaos Theory: Adaptive Damage no longer splits evenly between Element Type, but alternates between the spell’s types. Significant Increased Elemental Damage when you cast a spell of an element whenever you have casted a spell of another element recently.

[Scrubstar]

A few more ideas:

Passive

• Energy Transfer: Adds a % of your Increased Damage % for an Element Type to another Element Type. This bonus only applies to base Increased Damage %.
  - Increased Lightning Damage % gained from Increased Fire Damage %: 70%
  - Increased Fire Damage % gained from Increased Cold Damage %: 70%
  - Increased Cold Damage % gained from Increased Lightning Damage %: 70%

Alternatively:

• Energy Transfer: Converts your highest Increased Damage % for an Elemental Type into Increased Elemental Damage %.

I don’t expect it to be 1:1, maybe 80% max? Might help with some Gear Flexibility and be a workaround for Idols.

Alternatively:

Encyclopedia Elementa: Takes the sum of all Increased Damage % for all Element Types and converts it to Increased Elemental Damage %.

Again, not at a 1:1 rate, but I don’t think taking the straight average would work well. Perhaps a weighted average? Either way, the idea is to allow for Hybrid Players to catch a break and gain a little bit more flexibility in their Gear and provide options for Idols that don’t involve creating new Suffixes for them.

[nerdherdv02]

I really love the dragon like passives.

[VapingNeckbeard]

i love the idea of a powerful sorcerer wielding multiple elements. it would be great to see more support for it to make it feel more viable. lots of good ideas in OP, hope we can see some of them implemented.

[TrundleGod]

I would like to see the dragon mage nodes maybe slightly buffed or something unique added to them to encourage the hybrid multi element mage builds too. I always thought those nodes were lackluster ever since starting the game and I don’t believe many people use them despite them being the prime top mage nodes.

The thing is that multi element mages aren’t that strong at the moment as trying to scale multiple elemental damage types is alot harder than trying to scale a single one. I did before try to make hybrid element fire+cold meteor mage while using ice volcanic orb as a CC support skill to freeze enemies, but it did not work so well. There just wasn’t enough item stat budget to itemize for freeze rate multiplier as well as getting my fire damage high enough as well as getting a big mana pool for meteor, also focus is in a really rough place right now for high mana builds, but that is a different issue

I do hope to make a meteor archmage build in the future once focus becomes better for big mana pools as meteor is one of my low key favorite skills ever. My 1.2k+ mana pool sorcerer is just collecting dust though as playing him in arena and holding down focus for so long isn’t that fun

[darkdeal]

I agree. I love the idea of a mage using spells that are of all 3 elements.

I would think the easiest way to achieve something like that would be the introduction of a small Set or a Unique item.

I was thinking though, what should be the benefit of going all 3 elements over specializing in a single element? In balancing it should probably not out-damage the specializations. The only think that I could think of was ailments. If there were a Lightning DoT, it would be neat to have increases in ignite/frostbite/Light DoT to increase all 3 if the skill deals the element of the ailment. For example, if you used Nova and it deals all 3 elements as damage, 20% increase to ignite would also increase Frostbite and Lightning DoT by 20%.

Other than that, I don’t see the benefit of all 3 elements other than character theme. I would like to see it as a benefit for some playstyle though.