Epic Mage Armor nerf........

[Bargeld]

i've never ever heard of mages standing toe to toe with melee and calling that any kind of balance to a class. mages are squishy bundles of dirty arcane might....thats why they get 1d4 hp at lvl up and not 1d8.

When playing an arcane class, 90% or more of your enemies are melee... it's just how it is, realistically. That translates into winning 1 in every 10 fights; and usually due to a target making their bigs check at an inopportune moment.

[Amoenotep]

that is true, but why would you expect any mage to be able to stand face to face in a fight with melee classes?

[Nyeleni]

i've never ever heard of mages standing toe to toe with melee and calling that any kind of balance to a class. mages are squishy bundles of dirty arcane might....thats why they get 1d4 hp at lvl up and not 1d8.

When playing an arcane class, 90% or more of your enemies are melee... it's just how it is, realistically. That translates into winning 1 in every 10 fights; and usually due to a target making their bigs check at an inopportune moment.

I still get the most trouble out of mages (combo or not). Yes, they die fast, but the same applies to our non-shifter mêlée classes without 1000+ hp. A lonely CoT against a lonely mage? Mostly the CoT will die. Even if we use 30% magic protection.
I think the only problem is: you have to run, duck, target and shoot your nasty spell, to accomplish something in party fights. That can get messy in a raid.
Should a mage be able to stand before any warrior and just cast his or her spells? I wouldn't think so. But then again, many are spoiled by the über-chars like Gandalf. Mages shouldn't be like that.

[Cyrian]

that is true, but why would you expect any mage to be able to stand face to face in a fight with melee classes?

you shouldn't, but imo they should have the tools made available to them to make that situation more avoidable.

edit: i always thought they needed some sort of dimension door spell for short range teleports. ledges would be your best friend.

[Bargeld]

that is true, but why would you expect any mage to be able to stand face to face in a fight with melee classes?

I still get the most trouble out of mages (combo or not). Yes, they die fast, but the same applies to our non-shifter mêlée classes without 1000+ hp. A lonely CoT against a lonely mage? Mostly the CoT will die. Even if we use 30% magic protection.
I think the only problem is: you have to run, duck, target and shoot your nasty spell, to accomplish something in party fights. That can get messy in a raid.
Should a mage be able to stand before any warrior and just cast his or her spells? I wouldn't think so. But then again, many are spoiled by the über-chars like Gandalf. Mages shouldn't be like that.

The problem with both of these lines of thinking is that you have both referred to a bigs/igmer. This is the only viable mage that anyone ever considers, and I think what we are asking/looking for is some other viable mage option. Yes a mage shouldn't be able to stand toe to toe with a fighter, neither should an assassin or even a monk. But at least assassins and monk have abilities with DCs high enough to give them a chance at some sort of 1 hit cheese. Mages don't even get that. The most powerful mage in the realm vs the most powerful fighter... the mage should at least have some chance at success by casting a powerful spell or spell combo, and right now it's not the case. EMA and EW are supposed to be part of the reportoire to change that, but sadly, given the multiclass environment, it's a tough cookie to bake.

Since the only comparable spell to a mage's reportoire is a cleric's implosion, take a look into the differences between arcane and clc. Both can sacrifice up the wazoo in order to get to 48 DC, and when they do, it gets real scary. But very few non-NC toons get saves into the 50's normally. SO when a clc with 48 dc implode can run through an SL/MA party and kill 4 people in 2 rounds with insta-cheese, THEN turn around and run away faster than us due to monk multiclass, avoid our hits with their monk wis ac (from having a 48dc spell), and then heal themselves for another 20 rounds... yeah not quite the same as a mage who can throw a wail, kill 2 who fail the 48 DC (but who are now deaf and immune for 3 rounds or so), and then run around with 40 AC in robes. The tradeoff: the wiz can spot, search, and mord. Oh wait, so can NC (thanks for that PURGE reference, I knew it was something).

[Cahaal]

Okay, during the raids the other day Ipomoea lasted about 30 secs after the party showed up. I had time to get a hellball off and 2 dispells before being creamed. Everyone made a beeline right to me and whack dead. Melee builds are not the only thing that can take down a mage and mining proved that: Imploded me I don't know how many times. The stacking of spells at the entrance was a nice tactic to burn my mantel and stun/slow me then wack: dead again. Over all the past couple of days I brought her out I have been dead more than 90% of the time and the only time I got a kill was when I had respawned and ran into the room where someone was near death already. I don't rely on Bigby or IGMS. As you notice I use all kinds of spells. The Slow Bigby is easily dispelled by even melee toons. If you don't know how, I'm not telling. But I watched it go poof and said Yep knew that was comming. Shifters have shapes that get used often enough that are immune to lvl 5 spells and lower and one that is immune to all but lvl 9. Not many lvl 9 offensive spells out there.

Basically, my point is that some of the arguments presented here are silly. No one attacks a mages summon. I know, I tested it. They came for me because I'm easier to kill.

Rant over

[Alkapwn]

Due to yet another nerf against the pure mage....
Protection from spells used to give +8 vs spells which was fine and all. nobody was running around yelling MAGES ARE TOO POWERFUL! now its what +2? lol.

CONS - No ArmorClass+No Hit Points+No DamageReduction+ No Saves + vs High Saves + vs. High Spell resistance + having to rest very frequently

Pros - there are a few i'm not going to get into them here in this "Why do you make our Arcanes suck Thread"

[LinuxPup]

Protection from Spells nerf was mostly a nerf to other builds, not mages... they can pump up their spellcraft high enough that they generally make their saves vs spells. That hurts pure fighters more than it hurts wizards for example.

[Rufio]

none of the NC imploders with a 48 implode have a single monk level, and they have some pretty crappy acs

I don't really understand the complaint about imploders, not a single one of my TC builds can be imploded.

mages have an ability that can absolutely murder rak form shifters, but i'm not telling. (and that spell immunity isn't just a mage spells only thing)

Purge is a pure paladin only thing. There are a few tagged pure paladins out there, but not too many.

[Bargeld]

none of the NC imploders with a 48 implode have a single monk level, and they have some pretty crappy acs

Well they have full discipline bonuses, because they resist pure fighters who spam KD with 65 ab. I don't know what other class combo would be a smart choice for disc with clc. And about the outrunning part... and no shield w/ robes?

And ty for reminding me about the SR spell, which a vast majority of both NC/TC toons have. Yes the other factions always have the option to build a high SR caster, but due to the class combos available to NC/TC, the reality is that a higher % of the toons from those factions have a high SR buff. AO/RK also have a higher percentage of toons with SR, when compared to SL/MA, cause they have druids also. SL/MA can only get that high SR by having a high lvl clc, and that is it. Yet we fight against factions with many ways to get that high SR buff. From that standpoint, SL/MA mages are really at a disadvantage, as we have to defend againt the cheese DCs, without a whole lot of SR defense available to us. Perhaps EW/EMA could have an SR component added to it... or maybe prot from spells?

[Nyeleni]

Well, I certainly agree on making more offensive spells usable for mages. The problem lies with the reflex saves and evasion or even impr. evasion. It makes a lot of spells obsolete.
Maybe transforming Meteor Shower into something useful would be a start. But other spells could use some boost in the way that the enemy wouldn't be able to dodge/avoid half or the whole damage right off too. Variety would certainly make the mage more attractive.

Btw. we always target mages first, because they are the most dangerous enemy in raids. And they go down fast too, if they try to flee.

[Cyrian]

Protection from Spells nerf was mostly a nerf to other builds, not mages... they can pump up their spellcraft high enough that they generally make their saves vs spells. That hurts pure fighters more than it hurts wizards for example.

i guess, but why does nerfing builds with wizard in them take precedence over maintaining the pure mage's playability?

[LinuxPup]

Actually it makes mages more powerful (as well as other casters)... +8 vs spells on everyone hurts wizards.

[Cyrian]

yep realized that about a minute after i posted and edited. still though, it looks to me that nerfs are being made to other builds, and those nerfs are affecting the already very fragile playability of a mage, and that is being overlooked a bit. yes, a mage can be very strong and potent in some situations, but in most other situations playing one feels worthless. i think others have done a much better job of describing that than i could do.

[Daral0085]

Well the high-reflex saves are going to be a problem for as long as this server favors dexers. And yes, a ton of builds will have evasion, due to the number of rog or SD types. Even so, there are a lot of builds out there without evasion, namely pure bards, fighters, barbs, pallies, some varieties of WMs, clerics, even the much vaunted CoTs don't get evasion, so the pally/CoTs, etc, etc.

A lot of these builds are dexers so they get good reflex saves, but even with good reflex saves you still take half damage from fireball, etc. You could probably make it work if you put enough thought into it.