Definitely an improvement. Our ability to survive is a lot better and our ability to put down damage on both PVP and PVE has improved. The complexity has also gotten harder, but this is expected with a mage. For instance switching twice between elements grants an extra 100 element attack for 10 seconds.
That back and forth switching within 10 seconds creates a serious complexity depending on how you have arranged your bars. If you use the mouse, or you macro it to a macro or mouse/gamepad macro. The mage who finds the best balance in playing his complex character will be strong.
The mana shield is probably the biggest thing as it helps you take in a lot of damage. The complexity now is managing your mana. In oly you have to use body to mind, in pvp you need to map in a mana pot. Now you need to ensure you can map in a mana pot, a HP, pot, and a CP pot.
Complexity, complexity, complexity. But great potential.
Idk, I still do rift 100 in about 50 mins like before.
well, I don't know how about dim 100 because I already finish it before update but 30 min is the time I did before. Iss buff one time.
This update give us very good defense ability. Now I can do pvp easier than before a lot with barrier skill going to toggle instead 20 seconds and 40% p.def buff from Essence of Mana
That back and forth switching within 10 seconds creates a serious complexity depending on how you have arranged your bars. If you use the mouse, or you macro it to a macro or mouse/gamepad macro. The mage who finds the best balance in playing his complex character will be strong.
I still cannot use this thing. Maybe we need a mouse or keyboard with macro support.
Yeah, survivability has increased because of the mana shield upgrade and extra debuffs/ stun/ freeze for destruction and buster.
The damage output.. maybe it feels as if we do more damage now (I feel it too) because we do more or less consistent damage all the time, instead of doing a lot of damage on double casting + wiz spirit and then sucking balls the rest of the time. Burst casting/ mana burst doesnt do that much, because +100% m att doesnt do that much for actual damage and and we only get the full +100% for ~10 seconds, the rest of the 30 seconds are even weaker.
I lost Aqua Crash, which was much better than spike - 199 power, same cast speed and reuse +slow debuff. But is that enough to negate the the extra power? Idk. My baseline is definitely higher, but without double casting my top dps is lower... aaaand I still do rift 100 in about 50 mins.
Also my elemental destruction used to land 100% and, with that, I got 100% buster. Now I sometimes cant do buster.
I'm decently geared, +8 Bloody set, +7 bloody buster, int+mattack hat, +1 int / 15% mskill damage on my weapon augment, 4 sapphire... basically all around solid Feoh gear. Not god tier, but pretty solid
There's a pretty huge difference pre / post Crusade. I'm Archmage and switched from water to fire and loving it. My crits , especially with volcanic destruction are pretty huge. I haven't done much PvP yet, but I died to Marcelus (who is god tier pvp gear) and a Yul who was geared to the teeth. Normal gear people I can pretty much wreck them and stroll away which I couldn't do before, or people at least on par with me and not dark + jewel out with pvp defense stuff.
The only change I dislike is dual casting, but I had +20 time (my only +20 skill) and I miss that... but Essence of Mana is super **** now :)
I dislike AoEing especially on classes dependent on Destruction to trigger their second AoE, because they removed one AoE outright.
Additionally, Earth Burst AoE seems affected by terrain similar to how terrain affects the directional AoE on Archers. I was PLing a friend at Fairy Settlement and had to leave because my AoE was missing so many MOBs on every cast. Unless the area you're killing is relatively flat, it's absolutely horrible seeing half the MOBs take 0 damage from your cast.
And since you're missing a second AoE, it really affects your kill speed. If you crit and kill the MOB you destruction, you basically have to wait on it to reset and cast twice more just for that second AoE.
Great change for surviveability and single target. Horrible changes for AoE (at least for me on my Soultaker).
Classes that retain 3 AoEs (like StSc and AM) have less issues with that, though.
I dislike AoEing especially on classes dependent on Destruction to trigger their second AoE, because they removed one AoE outright.
Additionally, Earth Burst AoE seems affected by terrain similar to how terrain affects the directional AoE on Archers. I was PLing a friend at Fairy Settlement and had to leave because my AoE was missing so many MOBs on every cast. Unless the area you're killing is relatively flat, it's absolutely horrible seeing half the MOBs take 0 damage from your cast.
And since you're missing a second AoE, it really affects your kill speed. If you crit and kill the MOB you destruction, you basically have to wait on it to reset and cast twice more just for that second AoE.
Great change for surviveability and single target. Horrible changes for AoE (at least for me on my Soultaker).
Classes that retain 3 AoEs (like StSc and AM) have less issues with that, though.
try aoe with a feoh soul hound .. i like the new chronic but yea .. aoe power for some feoh class were rly nerf D: