And when I say “changes”, I mean lack there of. Spellblade is in an awful place, it’s a class with little variance. Yet there was not a single change to them, I really hope this class gets a total revamp in the near future.
In addition, there’s no reason to play Sorcerer other than for Meteor. And any Cold focused builds are best suited for Runemaster. In general, most builds you’d normally play as a sorcerer are best suited to play as a Runemaster.
I’m not saying the changes that are being made are bad, but the problem is there’s nothing the Sorcerer offers that the Runemaster doesn’t. The Sorcerer lacks an identity.
So it’s almost like the focus is on the 2 new masteries and factions then?
Simplicity, the Runemaster is a much more mechanically complex class. I know it’s not much. But they will be jazzing up the older masteries to bring them into line with the newer ones.
What I dislike the most is how you regen mana. Either you root yourself in place for a few seconds with “Focus” after a few casts which makes you very vulnerable and is also not fun to use or even worse you have to use a MELEE skill …
Sorry but thats terrible design, disappointed so far …
Sorc needs better passive bonuses. +50 mana only helps when you are at full mana. Which is almost never. It basically amounts to you can cast one more spell when you enter a zone. Otherwise it’s just a higher cap you wont reach if you continually fight. Spells cost so much, and do so little damage, my mana never gets back up over half.
Spells do extra damage equal to there mana cost - The only spell I found so far that does decent damage is glacier , it cost so much though that you can only cast it once (twice when you first enter a zone =p ) I found a passive in teleport tree that lets me cast next spell free when I use. So I teleport (which does no dmg) then cast glacier (no mana cost = no extra dmg) and then run for my life until i can repeat this, meaning I’m getting nothing at all from this passive.
Change +50 mana to mana regen buff
Change dmg on mana spent to spell crit or something more useful.
If I had 150 mana, and became Sorcerer, I’d have 200 mana. I may never reach full mana again during that map, but when I’m at half mana (100) I still have 25 more mana than a non sorcerer with 150 base mana that’s also at half mana (75). I agree that it should scale or be a percentage (maybe +50 flat and +5% max mana) but to say that the 50 flat mana isn’t helpful because you’re not at full mana isn’t true.
Getting 50 mana only raises the cap. Unless in this game your mana is regenerating by the % of mana you have, that extra cap is only useful when you are getting back to that cap, or the first time you spend it. Also if like in ESO , a higher caps adds to your damage it would be useful.
Having your half way point at 75 mana instead of 50 means nothing if you both have the same mana regen. It only means the other person would have there bar 75% full and yours would be 50% full but you’d still have the exact same amount of mana left to use.
Mage A has 100 mana, regens 5 mana per second, and casts 1 spell for 25 mana per second. He can cast 4 spells, wait 1 second, and cast a 5th spell.
Mage B has 150 mana, regens 5 mana per second and casts 1 spell for 25 mana per second. He can cast 6 spells before waiting 5 seconds to cast a 7th.
After 30s, Mage A has cast 10 spells, while Mage B has cast 11.
That’s in a vacuum. In game, you’re not only casting 25 mana cost spells and you have Focus for a burst of mana. Having a higher cap means more spells and more effects that scale off max mana. I’d happily cast 10 more 5 mana cost spells than wait for my mana to regen.
Ok but Mage A switched to RM and is getting 30% more elemental damage instead. So if those 10 spells do 100 base damage he is doing 1300 in that 30 seconds Mage B only did 1100 even though he cast one more spell. This margin gets bigger unless you are able to get back to mana cap. Because the next 30 seconds Mage B will not have that extra spell unless he got back up to cap.
Airowird’s post shows that you can make the extra mana do better but only if you are using the things he showed, where the RM buffs just help all the time. My build was using none of those skills except Glacier but that was only a placeholder until I got Ice Barrage. Wisdom I would have had in the build and probably archmage but with archmage it’s only going to help if you needed that 50 mana to get to the 200 cap that gives the buff. Wisdom it would only help if it put you over another 100 mana threshold.
So it is possible none of the info he showed would have helped my build at all. In that scenario I’ll take RM’s passives over Sorcerer everytime.
That’s absolutely true, but that’s not an issue with +50 mana “only helping when you’re at cap” and a different issue altogether. I completely agree that both Sorcerer and Spellblade are drastically undertuned in comparison to Runemage and hope we see some changes in the coming months.
I use neither of these methods and never have an issue with mana, just get more Int, or use mana-regen items?? or choose skill paths that use less mana/mana efficiency??
like i dont actually get what youre trying to say lol
I don’t think his comment on this is unreasonable. How many viable Spellblade builds don’t require Enchant Weapon/Flame Ward? How many aren’t using either Mana Strike or Firebrand?
I wonder if you’re doing wrong what I was doing wrong. Embarrasingly, it took me to my third character to realise it. I’m new to this game (but experienced rpg gamer) so grain of salt there. Maybe you aren’t, but I’m sure others are.
At first I thought mana and mana regen were correlated, similar to PoE. Didn’t even occur to me they might not be. Anyway, here’s what I was doing wrong:
Run/Teleport to first pack - maybe 2-4 mobs.
Cast AoE, possibly two or more times, possibly trying to use Focus and AoE again.
Check loot, use Focus again to regain mana.
Repeat
Where it falls down is in the inefficiency of using AoE like that - it doesn’t use the A in AoE properly. Wayyyy more efficient, not hardcore method:
Run to first pack
Run past first pack
Run to second pack
Run past second pack
… Repeat until there are maybe 10-20 mobs behind you.
Turn and AoE x2. You may need to run back slightly and to the side to group them up nicer.
Skip loot. Return to Step 1.
By the time it comes to casting again, you’ll have full mana or near.
When you reach the NPC or thing to click on, ignore 1-2 normal mobs hitting you, just click through dialog as quick as possible and keep running.
If its a rare hitting you, you might need to kill it first before talking.
Use Focus only if you cant keep running, e.g., above or in boss fights.
Use quest gold, shrine gold and random bits at vendor and gambler.
Use loot filter, if not so you arent tempted to look at stuff on the ground. There’s no point while levelling you’ll only replace it quick, stuff from vendor is fine for ages.
Only craft stuff if you die or DPS starts sucking. Bump whatever you need.
EDIT: oh yeah, and skip rares if one AOE only tickles them.
Have the same issue. It’s unplayable the amount of breaks I have to take to use Focus. Played a rogue this morning and it kills smooth and does not seem to run out of resources. Seems unfair. People in the chat even say that Bladedancer can rip through the content very fast.
