So I decided to roll an new character to try out a spell casting build. While it is very powerful, there are some annoying drawbacks and sustainability issues I would like to address.
The biggest issue I seen early game with this build is Focus and Health Sustainability. I am sure everyone has found a Gnarled Staff at some point within the first hour of the game. It is probably the best leveling staff there is as it has 2 abilities on it: Fireball (cost 50 Focus), and Channel (converts 21 Health into 50 Focus). While the Channel Skill sounds like a great deal, it is bad for long term playability. You end up in a situation where I am facing now is that you begin to run out of food to sustain your health (and focus for spells via Channel). Not only that but it takes roughly a 3-5 second channel time. If you break the channel before the end you don’t gain focus for what you channeled. You just lose the health. There is also this weird glitch where you can channel all of your health and wind up with 0 health after a full channel but you don’t die.
First change I would like to suggest is to make the Health to Focus conversion of Channel to: 10 Health converts to 50 Focus. This would help with early game sustainability more as you are not eating after every 1-2 channels. This would also prevent your food from running out too quickly.
Atm casting 3 Fireballs costs roughly 2 Mushroom Soups (35 health food). That is a bad conversion ratio. Even mixing in melee attacks in between spells, doesn’t fully help with the sustain issue and the spells are not guaranteed to hit. I either misfire (casting more spells than I need), miss with the spell, or I hit with the spell. The Channel skill and conversion ratio makes sense if you never misfire or miss the target. However with those errors, which players learning how to play the game for the first time, are too punishing. Focus potions help mid combat but are too limited in drops and are often saved for Boss fights.
Maybe using Channel can take some Stamina and Health mix instead. I would say it needs to either be: 10 Health converts to 50 Focus or 10 Health + 10 Stamina converts to 50 Focus.
I understand that some players may find items with % Focus on Damage Dealt affixes on their gear, but this is purely with no Focus generation or Focus on Damage Dealt affixes.
Second change should be to prevent the Channel Rune from activating if you would end up with less than 1 health remaining. So basically the spell would not count your last health point as a viable consumption cost.
Third thing I have noticed is that using spells to one shot enemies drop less loot overall than a melee build does. It maybe by design the more effort you put into combat the more rewarded you become. If that is the case then I understand but then another issue crops up with running out of currency. Since currency is so precious even with a melee build, you wind up with less to sell and less currency overall as a caster build.
These are just some of the early caster issues I have seen playing through. I am sure once I get a few pieces of gear with Focus on Damage Dealt and Focus Generation, these issues will probably become non-existent. Until then, I am in a very tight spot currency and food wise. Pretty soon, I will probably need to do no-combat farming runs for food mats to replenish my supplies which is a bad situation to be in gameplay wise.