I am in the middle of a poker festival and I don't have the time to get on my computer at home and write something up, but I am of the impression that Aspects are still part of the classlead system?
As ever, it generally gets ignored but I still think it needs a lot of help to make it less pony/worth far more to encourage fighting and competition for the monoliths.
Why not just tell @Jeremy and @Garryn that Mage needs a remake? I mean, we have been for so long, but it couldn't hurt to tell them again. The class is horrendously broken and needs to die - it is the legacy class guilty of the most offense to class balance in any capacity. A remake to fit Imperian and the themes of the Magick circle would be suitable.
Also, as promised earlier in this thread:
24 U Sarrius Wisps With the advent of new Druids comes a ne 30 U Sarrius Lash A current problem with Druid combat is t
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
Are you really going to cry about favoritism when Magick's legacy classes have been the ones that are the most offensive to class balance? Hunter? Druid? Both overpowered throughout a great deal of Imperian's life. Mage? There is no way to fix it, and it absolutely NEEDS to go. Vibes are a problem, retardation is an even bigger problem, and the class is a newbie trap. I would rather a polarized class that is either too good or too bad be remade.
I guess my point is that you seem to talk about big picture thinking a lot, but when it comes to class remakes, you are stunningly near-sighted. The health of the game would improve greatly if Mage died a painful, messy death and was reborn as something relevant. I am sure that is true of Diabolist, but Diabolist doesn't possess what I could only call format warping abilities whose scope cannot be properly addressed in classleads despite our hardest attempts.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
Yeah, the magick circle needs another revamp. Right.
Yes, it does. Did you know that acknowledging this is something you can do at the same time as acknowledging that Diabolist and Summoner and Predator also need loving?
I am going to probably write one other report for Magick classes besides my Druid reports, unless something really strikes me for Mages. That report will have to do with increasing the viability of Bards in team combat, since their pile of odd 'kind of sort of not' remakes have pushed them further along on a duel-centric sort of set of mechanics. Binding songs, building resonance on a target, etc - these are all duel skills. The class has very little in terms of sweeping options for team combat. I have a few ideas, but only one is really ready to share:
What if Geis became a room-bound song that acted as a 'megaphone' for Voice words? I.e, you would use some kind of syntax to sing up to 2 Voice words through the Geis song. The song would amplify the words, striking each enemy in the room. It would come at a slightly higher mana cost, and perhaps at a higher equilibrium cost. I also don't think it would build resonance, but that is up to debate. Thoughts?
EDIT: The rest of my reports will be written in the vein of improving class representation for other classes in other circles.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
Why not just tell @Jeremy and @Garryn that Mage needs a remake?
Oh, I know that. Sadly, there are only so many hours in a day and other projects in need of attention, and good class design is not something that can be rushed.
People have already taken aim at the main things I think need changing this round:
- Druid needs to lose the ability to triple/quad break every combo.
- Poison wisps end up the default wisp, outside of breaking shield using a reinforced metallic wisp.
- Noctusari need to lose some of their ability flee.
Things that may still need looking at:
- Life and terror aspects aren't a patch on change. Life took a series of nerfs that took it from the best by far to the middle, and it's only there because terror is so godawful.
- Instant-entangles - Most of them have some prerequisite now, or are slow enough that they're not a problem. Quarterstaff entangle became the two-stage naturebind entangle, for example. I think perhaps hangedman could do with the same treatment, and shortshot nets could have the same fail chance appended to them that net has when fired by a non-bowmanship archer. I realise some will say hangedman is somehow vital to Noctu, but it's too easy for them to just stall out a fight indefinitely at current. This is change I may be wrong about, since the place I most often see hangedman right now is in team fights.
- Caloric/Hypothermia not curing randomly like everything else, but instead curing in a predictable order. This might be intended, and making it random might make pulling off a shatter too difficult, so again, not sure about this change.
Other than that, the only other thing would be to see a mage overhaul. Mage is the legacy class people seem to complain the most about and seem to want fixed soonest, because there's little that can be done via classleads without either crippling the class or making them overpowered in some way due to their linear damage tactics.
I never mentioned favoritism or a lack of necessity for a mage rework. Magick's been at the rework water fountain for about a year now. I think it's time to let someone else have a turn. Though, I'd rather see more outrider-like development.
Edit:
Looking back, the predator rework was...weak. Not sure if it was the testers or the rework itself. Maybe is was a first time beta thing or tackling too many dissimilar skillsets in the same classlead? You could almost make the case that it was a lateral change or a step back.
Edit II:
Honestly, like I've said before, I would put knights in front of everyone else, for a lot of reasons. I'd also pre-game the knight rework with the bump-to-general smithing project, a complete overhaul of the terrible weapon system for something less dumb. After that, I'd probably delete chivalry|brutality, thus exposing necromancy|runelore|necromancy for the terrible skillsets they are and proceed into a 9 skill knight rework.
After that, I'd revisit predators and give them some much needed love. Third place, I'd toss the outdated, archaic and very boring malignist class into the trash and rework that.
Then I'd rework the last legacy class in magick, making them 100% new and shiny.
Knights ahead of Mage, Predator, and Summoner? Did you fall into a portal to 2007 or something? If so, please send me GPS coordinates so that I can go back and warn myself about all of the stupid things I am about to do.
At the time of the beta, predator was a reasonably solid class with no real closer against people with high health. Compared to assassin, it didn't need a lot of help. Admittedly as a result, most of my attention was spent on assassin changes.
There was a late in the beta nerf to quarter that put them back close to the starting point against people with high health, but everything else the class got certainly was an upgrade to their combat utility. The class is in a much better position than it was, but still is missing that one critical piece that would let them set up kills on people like Justus or Khizan - which could be solved by classleads.
Edit: Mage is the only class left that I feel needs an entire thematic rewrite. The others have a workable core of strong concepts that just need tightening up.
After that, I'd probably delete chivalry|brutality, thus exposing necromancy|runelore|necromancy for the terrible skillsets they are and proceed into a 9 skill knight rework.
After that, I'd revisit predators and give them some much needed love. Third place, I'd toss the outdated, archaic and very boring malignist class into the trash and rework that.
Then I'd rework the last legacy class in magick, making them 100% new and shiny.
God, no.
Knights are the best thing in Imperian because they share two of three skills, making it possible for them to change circles at a relatively reasonable fee. It should be a 5-skill rework. Swordmanship, Knightly Crap, and Unique skill.
Also, Mage needs a revamp in the way that Demonic classes do not. Along with knights, they're the last class to get stuck with a crafting skill as their third, and they've also got the least engaging and least expandable design. The other classes can be fixed without remaking them entirely, imo, though I would not be averse to doing it just to scrub away the last 'stock' classes.
Knights, frankly, come in last place for me, because while they might be boring and stuck with smithing, they workin a way that Mage/Summoner/Diabolist/etc do not.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Your go-to argument for mage reworks is that it's "boring and gimmicky." The same is true for knight. Mage sucks, 1v1 (without toys). That's sad, really. Luckily, it's the bees knees for group combat, which imperian has been horning in on for about two years. They'll live. Thematic rewrite? If that's the contingency plan...I think Predators, Malignists and Noctusari can go first
It's a very good point you make about circle hopping. That's actually a huge motivator to alter knights. Why? Imperian is a business and shouldn't have a 'cheap' way to circle hop. That being said, it should be significantly less expensive to change, while allowing Imperian to cash in on the transfer.
There are more knights than mages. There are more people who want to pick up smithing to do metal work than there are mages. Such a rework would benefit more players than a single-class revamp. Mages have a crappy mercantile skill? That's odd, so do knights. You can two-birds-one-stone smithing/weapon rework in the knight remake. Smithing becomes a general skill, opening up the population of people who will buy it ($$) while adding diversity and "thematic" fluff to the knight professions. Sabre knights are boring, since you can pretty much autobash someone down with a half-assed razing/engage system. Anything that's not a sabre knight falls apart in 1v1 (mage argument similarity). Luckily, cry-knights are a staple of team combat (more mage similarity) and really need to go the way of the dodo. Enduring spam stunning sucks and propagating spam stunning sucks. You could base an entire thread on the +/- of CC bonanza.
Knights and Mages are in the same boat. If artifact quality cookie cutter, will win 1 v 1. If not, will team like boss. Both mercantile skills are complete and utter shit. There's no redeeming quality to either skill. Fullplate is ok, but not worth 300cr. Purity is ok, but not worth 300cr. What it really comes down to is that a knight remake has a larger impact on the game as a whole. To a lesser extent, Magick has picked up 4 class revamps. AM has picked up 3 and Demonic has picked up 2. If you really want to foam@mouth about game balance (looking at you, Enron) the new skills are vast improvements over anything in the legacy toolkit. An entire circle doesn't need to be wielding the new hotness against team throwback jersey.
If you spent less time trying to force the 'affliction' aspect of mages in classleads, you could force some reasonable classleads through the pipeline. There are enough new mechanics out there with pre-existing code that you could modify to give mages more situational modifiers. Off the top of my head, you could almost allow converged elements to give a combat/healing malus or even conditional damage modifiers. Actually, I'd really just throw it in as a new skill. You
Psst...if you do knights, it'll look like Magick 5, AM 4, demonic 3. -do predators
5:5:3 -do malignists 5:5:4 -do mages
6:5:4
You'll still be on top in the end. And really, that's what Enron is fishing for anyways. Assuming 6 months per class rework. You'll be rage quitting during Malignists and Predators and will be on schedule to reappear for the appearance of new mages. So it really works out for you personally.
Thank for stating the obvious, Juran. It's helpful. Is it a point? Not really. We both know why people roll knight in team-combat land on demonic. It's not like DK's are going to get less tanky/more tanky in any remake (virtue of knight) and it's more than likely that they'll actually lose stun-bot. It would actually behoove me to maintain the status quo (Khizan's platform) because it's what keeps me ho-humming through pk without any sort of real effort (also in the K plan). Though between you and I, if they made Malignist not suck, I would rather emo-kid it up.
I can't pick a reaction to that post. LOL seems suitable, but then so does disagree. Why is there no 'complete and utter bewilderment' option?
I mean.. it straight up screams 'I don't know how things work anymore, but here is my opinion'. Did you get killed and replaced by Iriaen at some point? Mages work in the exact opposite way to what you just said.
Artifact cookie cutter mages don't win anymore against anyone with a modicum of awareness and a few hundred lessons into miniskills and some gear-resistances, which have become even more prevalent. (15% electricity resist on AM armor was a horrible, horrible change for damage mages.) Now, it's cheaper and more effective to just light people up as a Druid, or to asphyx train someone as a Renegade (never thought I'd see that day, but there it is). Even Templars have better damage potential. What Mages do still do really well is murder people in 1v1s and small group fights, entirely on the power of retardation and passives alone. Either you kill someone with three buttons, or you don't kill them at all and reset the fight. That is the Mage in 2012. Three buttons. If you think that's a stable class design that can afford to be back-burnered, you are out of your goddamned mind.
@Ahkan : Ignoring your silly new nickname for me (or Sanai? Or maybe magick at large? Or Bellatores? You need to stop being so vague, it ruins the purpose of a joke), I'm going to go ahead and side with Khizan on this one. Knights are a functional class outside of artifacts. Mages are too, but less so. They have no potential outside of one versus one. Knights do - the outlier, mythical mega-smithed sabre will make them good in 1v1, plus they can cryknight their way to victory in group. I don't think we should look at class remake distribution as some kind of candy to dole out equally to three impoverished orphans. Instead, you should look at it as fixing the biggest problems. Mage contains some of the most unworkable, irredeemable concepts that were born of a simpler time in IRE when people making classes in Achaea had no idea what they were doing. That it has existed for so long in a game where the selling point is the contention over different brands or the extent of usage of magick is beyond me.
It is the most difficult legacy class to address the issues for, because it works on such a wild dial of scalability while also having a binary offense that makes even DEFILERS feel complicated. Any buff will make them out of control in artifact-covered hands - any nerf will render them further useless in budget hands. That is the state of Elemancy damage + passive Crystalism damage. In addition, Crystalism itself is an egregious offender to the precious team balance that you and the majority of this game seem to champion. It is a very powerful, 'set and forget' set of skills that can hinder and harm with no input from the Mage besides EMBED FOCUS;ENEMY JOE;ENEMY BOB;ENEMY JIM;ENEMY JACK. There is no decision making, no sacrifice of opportunity, no customization. The class has no room for it, as it has been crafted from stone - which is an apt phrase, considering it is from the stone age of IRE. I have heard you often complain about it in the past. In addition, it contains a mercantile skill as its last ability - something I just cannot stand or abide by. Alchemy doesn't even provide that many useful benefits - Engineering has replaced some, resist rings are another thing that contribute to making it harder for non-artifacted people to kill with damage, and Purify isn't really all that fantastic.
The point I am trying to make is that Knights are pretty well off. They are tanky, they have a role in combat, they can stand on their own without a legion of artifacts, and they bring a lot to the table. Some people even find them reliable, interesting, and a fantastic budget option. You cannot say much of the same about Mages (their scope in most combat is much more narrow, leaving very little breathing room) - who also contribute more to the problems in group combat (set and forget offense, mash F1 to win, Cataclysm ranged damage, un-interactive passive offenses, and retardation, good lord, retardation!) than most other classes in this game. It is prone to requiring gimmicks to survive or even get kills. In addition, I am not fishing for remakes to empower my side. I am requesting that a class that has become utterly unworkable in modern Imperian be removed and replaced with something justifiably more balanced, more interesting, and more thematic.
EDIT: Hey, not that damage matters - we all have so much defense that damage from Mages is completely unworkable, and only over the top momentum damage like Druid or full-charged Bard, etc really operate as good damage in 1v1.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
Basically, TL;DR: Mages are a broken class in three ways. In 1v1, they either dominate without opposition or they're forced to reset the fight (or die). In group combat, they are toothless and completely without utility that doesn't run a huge risk of screwing their own team. And none of what it can do is very fun anymore, because it has all the finesse of a sledgehammer. Not many classes manage to be broken at everything - Diabolist is probably the only one that can make that case.
1) Many classes have this problem. (I think the meteor skill would remedy a lot of this.) 2) Mages toothless. I'm guessing this is some form of anti-toothpaste rp? 3) Repetitive group combat is not fun. This is a personal issue and probably outside the scope of classleads and/or class revamps.
@Sarrius: What was Enron famous for? (Also, thematic upgrades, Knight < Mage.) Despite divergent story lines, they all use the same tactics, same weapons, dress the same..yadda yadda yadda.
I never said I don't think mages don't need a revamp. If the situation were in a vacuum, I'd think the priority would be.
Critical Need of Fixing: Predator, Diabolist Moderate Need: Mage, Knight, Noctusari
Looking at that, Predator and Diabolist -should- be a coin flip away from an upgrade in a few months (I am not inspired). After two coin flips, Mage, Knight and Noctu could draw straws (Less inspired). Even based on a pure 'need' basis, Knight and Mage take a backseat to classes that have it worse. The real world isn't a vacuum. Demonic has a smaller population and Malignist wouldn't really impact that many players. Sure, it'd shift the populations around as people came out to try the new hotness, but it wouldn't really have too far reaching of an influence. Knight made the most sense to me to push to the front because, like Khizan said, it's the go-to sleezy way to get a refund. As Juran said, thematics might be a role in class design, and as I said (and you used for mage) it's boring and gimmicky. Most people seem to subscribe to one or all of these newsletters. You also get the added perk of it feeds into Galt's sense of entitlement that since he cashes into this game his side should get constant buffs, which they would (maybe). It's just my opinion that you should hit up knights first, differentiate them, modernize them all while making smithing general and making a less archaic/illogical/broken/crappy weapon system.
Retardation is an interesting mechanic and a unique way to shake up combat... but it's so inherently impossible to balance that there's really no place for it.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I love retardation in the abstract, but I really hate Crystalism overall because it hasn't changed in a meaningful way in the past 15 years over three separate games. I hope a mage change brings the destruction of the Master Crystal.
Oh, I know that. Sadly, there are only so many hours in a day and other projects in need of attention, and good class design is not something that can be rushed.
Retardation is an interesting mechanic and a unique way to shake up combat... but it's so inherently impossible to balance that there's really no place for it.
I know it's nearly impossible to balance but it's the kind of skill I like, big flashy, can win you the fight or screw you over. Same reason why I like to use rune circles, though before anyone jumps on me, retardation > rune circles. Also, Sarrius, purity is awesome, any passive healing is good. Is it worth 300 credits to get, probably not, but I wouldn't ever in my right mind say it's bad.
It's not worth 300cr, which is the point I think everybody has made.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
Purity is worth 300cr, especially with the current state of Mage and its reliance on retardation. Purity can, will, and does win fights. And it doesn't even actually cost 300cr, considering you need Alchemy for toxic rings of pestilence and eldritch robes. It's better for the Mage than smithing is for the Knight, but that isn't saying a whole lot.
Also, at least rune circles are more dynamic than retardation. I don't think circles are totally unsalvageable, but they're too slow and gimmicky right now to be worth much.
Mage needs a rework far more than any other profession at current, because it's hideously overpowered in some very limited situations and utterly useless in others. Part of the problem with it stems back to statpacks, because the only way to deal viable damage as a mage is to use intelligent statpack or hope you can retardation-gank people.
Ahkan seems to think revamps work like a slide, in that everyone takes a turn. Really, they're more like repairing a car - You fix the broken part first.
I could list the problems with mage, but it'd be pointless to do so as they're widely understood and accepted. Instead, I'll ask - Anyone got an opinion on anything on CLASSLEAD LIST GALT? I can't remember, but I think one of my "Omg hangedman" solutions was a cooldown on the target, to stop them being re-hangedman'd within a short period. If it isn't, that should be solution 1.
Anyone got an opinion on anything on CLASSLEAD LIST GALT? I can't remember, but I think one of my "Omg hangedman" solutions was a cooldown on the target, to stop them being re-hangedman'd within a short period. If it isn't, that should be solution 1.
If they ended up adding a cooldown to crowd control skills, it would have to be a fairly short one - 2 or 3 seconds after you writhe free at most. I'm also entirely against a shared cooldown between multiple CC methods. If a group needs to chain entangle/impale/transfix the same person over time that should work. It's already too hard to hold people down in this game sometimes.
Comments
Also, as promised earlier in this thread:
24 U Sarrius Wisps With the advent of new Druids comes a ne
30 U Sarrius Lash A current problem with Druid combat is t
I guess my point is that you seem to talk about big picture thinking a lot, but when it comes to class remakes, you are stunningly near-sighted. The health of the game would improve greatly if Mage died a painful, messy death and was reborn as something relevant. I am sure that is true of Diabolist, but Diabolist doesn't possess what I could only call format warping abilities whose scope cannot be properly addressed in classleads despite our hardest attempts.
What if Geis became a room-bound song that acted as a 'megaphone' for Voice words? I.e, you would use some kind of syntax to sing up to 2 Voice words through the Geis song. The song would amplify the words, striking each enemy in the room. It would come at a slightly higher mana cost, and perhaps at a higher equilibrium cost. I also don't think it would build resonance, but that is up to debate. Thoughts?
EDIT: The rest of my reports will be written in the vein of improving class representation for other classes in other circles.
Looking back, the predator rework was...weak. Not sure if it was the testers or the rework itself. Maybe is was a first time beta thing or tackling too many dissimilar skillsets in the same classlead? You could almost make the case that it was a lateral change or a step back.
Honestly, like I've said before, I would put knights in front of everyone else, for a lot of reasons. I'd also pre-game the knight rework with the bump-to-general smithing project, a complete overhaul of the terrible weapon system for something less dumb. After that, I'd probably delete chivalry|brutality, thus exposing necromancy|runelore|necromancy for the terrible skillsets they are and proceed into a 9 skill knight rework.
After that, I'd revisit predators and give them some much needed love. Third place, I'd toss the outdated, archaic and very boring malignist class into the trash and rework that.
Then I'd rework the last legacy class in magick, making them 100% new and shiny.
God, no.
Knights are the best thing in Imperian because they share two of three skills, making it possible for them to change circles at a relatively reasonable fee. It should be a 5-skill rework. Swordmanship, Knightly Crap, and Unique skill.
Also, Mage needs a revamp in the way that Demonic classes do not. Along with knights, they're the last class to get stuck with a crafting skill as their third, and they've also got the least engaging and least expandable design. The other classes can be fixed without remaking them entirely, imo, though I would not be averse to doing it just to scrub away the last 'stock' classes.
Knights, frankly, come in last place for me, because while they might be boring and stuck with smithing, they work in a way that Mage/Summoner/Diabolist/etc do not.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Knights and Mages are in the same boat. If artifact quality cookie cutter, will win 1 v 1. If not, will team like boss. Both mercantile skills are complete and utter shit. There's no redeeming quality to either skill. Fullplate is ok, but not worth 300cr. Purity is ok, but not worth 300cr. What it really comes down to is that a knight remake has a larger impact on the game as a whole. To a lesser extent, Magick has picked up 4 class revamps. AM has picked up 3 and Demonic has picked up 2. If you really want to foam@mouth about game balance (looking at you, Enron) the new skills are vast improvements over anything in the legacy toolkit. An entire circle doesn't need to be wielding the new hotness against team throwback jersey.
If you spent less time trying to force the 'affliction' aspect of mages in classleads, you could force some reasonable classleads through the pipeline. There are enough new mechanics out there with pre-existing code that you could modify to give mages more situational modifiers. Off the top of my head, you could almost allow converged elements to give a combat/healing malus or even conditional damage modifiers. Actually, I'd really just throw it in as a new skill. You
-do predators
-do malignists
5:5:4
-do mages
You'll still be on top in the end. And really, that's what Enron is fishing for anyways. Assuming 6 months per class rework. You'll be rage quitting during Malignists and Predators and will be on schedule to reappear for the appearance of new mages. So it really works out for you personally.
I mean.. it straight up screams 'I don't know how things work anymore, but here is my opinion'. Did you get killed and replaced by Iriaen at some point? Mages work in the exact opposite way to what you just said.
Artifact cookie cutter mages don't win anymore against anyone with a modicum of awareness and a few hundred lessons into miniskills and some gear-resistances, which have become even more prevalent. (15% electricity resist on AM armor was a horrible, horrible change for damage mages.) Now, it's cheaper and more effective to just light people up as a Druid, or to asphyx train someone as a Renegade (never thought I'd see that day, but there it is). Even Templars have better damage potential. What Mages do still do really well is murder people in 1v1s and small group fights, entirely on the power of retardation and passives alone. Either you kill someone with three buttons, or you don't kill them at all and reset the fight. That is the Mage in 2012. Three buttons. If you think that's a stable class design that can afford to be back-burnered, you are out of your goddamned mind.
It is the most difficult legacy class to address the issues for, because it works on such a wild dial of scalability while also having a binary offense that makes even DEFILERS feel complicated. Any buff will make them out of control in artifact-covered hands - any nerf will render them further useless in budget hands. That is the state of Elemancy damage + passive Crystalism damage. In addition, Crystalism itself is an egregious offender to the precious team balance that you and the majority of this game seem to champion. It is a very powerful, 'set and forget' set of skills that can hinder and harm with no input from the Mage besides EMBED FOCUS;ENEMY JOE;ENEMY BOB;ENEMY JIM;ENEMY JACK. There is no decision making, no sacrifice of opportunity, no customization. The class has no room for it, as it has been crafted from stone - which is an apt phrase, considering it is from the stone age of IRE. I have heard you often complain about it in the past. In addition, it contains a mercantile skill as its last ability - something I just cannot stand or abide by. Alchemy doesn't even provide that many useful benefits - Engineering has replaced some, resist rings are another thing that contribute to making it harder for non-artifacted people to kill with damage, and Purify isn't really all that fantastic.
The point I am trying to make is that Knights are pretty well off. They are tanky, they have a role in combat, they can stand on their own without a legion of artifacts, and they bring a lot to the table. Some people even find them reliable, interesting, and a fantastic budget option. You cannot say much of the same about Mages (their scope in most combat is much more narrow, leaving very little breathing room) - who also contribute more to the problems in group combat (set and forget offense, mash F1 to win, Cataclysm ranged damage, un-interactive passive offenses, and retardation, good lord, retardation!) than most other classes in this game. It is prone to requiring gimmicks to survive or even get kills. In addition, I am not fishing for remakes to empower my side. I am requesting that a class that has become utterly unworkable in modern Imperian be removed and replaced with something justifiably more balanced, more interesting, and more thematic.
EDIT: Hey, not that damage matters - we all have so much defense that damage from Mages is completely unworkable, and only over the top momentum damage like Druid or full-charged Bard, etc really operate as good damage in 1v1.
2) Mages toothless. I'm guessing this is some form of anti-toothpaste rp?
3) Repetitive group combat is not fun. This is a personal issue and probably outside the scope of classleads and/or class revamps.
I never said I don't think mages don't need a revamp. If the situation were in a vacuum, I'd think the priority would be.
Critical Need of Fixing: Predator, Diabolist
Moderate Need: Mage, Knight, Noctusari
Looking at that, Predator and Diabolist -should- be a coin flip away from an upgrade in a few months (I am not inspired). After two coin flips, Mage, Knight and Noctu could draw straws (Less inspired). Even based on a pure 'need' basis, Knight and Mage take a backseat to classes that have it worse. The real world isn't a vacuum. Demonic has a smaller population and Malignist wouldn't really impact that many players. Sure, it'd shift the populations around as people came out to try the new hotness, but it wouldn't really have too far reaching of an influence. Knight made the most sense to me to push to the front because, like Khizan said, it's the go-to sleezy way to get a refund. As Juran said, thematics might be a role in class design, and as I said (and you used for mage) it's boring and gimmicky. Most people seem to subscribe to one or all of these newsletters. You also get the added perk of it feeds into Galt's sense of entitlement that since he cashes into this game his side should get constant buffs, which they would (maybe). It's just my opinion that you should hit up knights first, differentiate them, modernize them all while making smithing general and making a less archaic/illogical/broken/crappy weapon system.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
You don't have any minions?
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
Also, at least rune circles are more dynamic than retardation. I don't think circles are totally unsalvageable, but they're too slow and gimmicky right now to be worth much.