A bit late to the party hope that @Daniel_Rosales reeds this.
Since in this game each weapon has its own mooverst it makes more sense to talk about specific weapons in my opinion.
Maybe I’m in the minority but the current “combat mage” playstyle is very fun if you use the right weapons. In particular I find the mooveset of the Starting Staff, the Ice Staff sold by Eleonor and the Key-shaped Wand are very cool.
Almost all wands movesets are terrible and most staff are boring in terms of movesets.
I have more than 500 hours on NRFTW, I played the game several times from the beginning to the end with different builds, the “combat mage” builds are among the ones I liked the most, along with the Claymore, the Pig Sticker +(old) bow and Hunter’s Knife + (new) bow.
I think it’s fair to say that “true wizards” haven’t been introduced into the game yet.
The Attempt that was made with the runes that cost stamina was executed poorly.
Transforming the two runes, technically there are 8 because there are 4 variations of each for each element but in practice there are 2 the Elemental Ball (staffs) & Elemental Bullet (Wands), into stamina at the cost of damage is not a good idea.
The animations, the timing, and the range that the runes have were designed to deal the damage of a 50 focus rune, and if you reduce the damage they cannot function as an “alternative basic attack” only because they consume stamina,
because the animations are slow and are designed for them to be used at the right time, not as a basic attack, which is particularly problematic for the “Elemental Ball” more than the “Elemental Bullet”, since charging it no longer makes sense since it does little damage anyway and so it is worth using it twice to gain more focus, but in any case entebbe are too slow and sluggish to be used as a basic attack (the elemental ball also has too much range and allows you to camp the enemies in some situations).
In my opinion, there should be runes that cost magic for wizards, but they should be designed as such from the start (and they should also bring the current runes back to costing 50 focus since they are not as fun as they were before), I would also implement mage wands and staffs with basic ranged attacks.
How I would implement ranged mage runes that cost Stamina:
I would make runes that cost less stamina and have a fast animation (like a basic staff attack) that cast a spell that has a certain limited range (i.e. a bit more than the range of a spear, and the range of an uncharged arrow).
In general, the faster the projectile (by “projectile” I mean like a ball of fire or a shard of ice etc.) is, the less damage it does to compensate, but I think the most important thing is to limit the range so that the focus you gain and the damage you do is not “free” but you still have to put yourself at risk. It is important to find the right balance between range, attack animation, shot speed, damage, and focus gain, to make the player feel like a Real Mage, not a camping mage who casts spells from a distance without any risk nor one who casts spells in melee range.
For example more range faster projectile, but slower attack animation more stamina less damage, less range slower projectile, but faster attack animation less stamina more damage…
The simplest middle of the bunch Rune would be a projectile which has a little more range than a spear that travels a little slower than a fireball in a straight line but is slightly attracted to enemies with a slightly faster motion than that of a spear but doing slightly less damage than a spear.
(The reason the projectile should be slow is to give the illusion that it has more range than it actually does. The fact that the projectile is slow, however, makes it likely that it won’t hit enemies, so the projectile should magnify enemies a bit (not so much that it hits enemies even when they dodge, just enough so that it hits enemies normally like any other attack)).
The one with more range would be similar to the current stamina rune of the wands, with a little less range and less stamina consumption and a faster animation.
The very low range version would launch 3 bubbles that travel very slowly with a fast animation like that of a rapier, and the range is similar to a rapier, consumes the stamina of a one-handed katana and has the DPS of a dagger.
Obviously keep in mind that these are extreme cases, and the real mage would be more in the center like the first rune I described at least with more range than a rapier but certainly less range of the rune that makes you throw a weapon like a boomerang.
How I would implement mage wands and staffs with basic ranged attacks:
I would combine the attacks with a projectile so that with the same movement that you usually attack with the weapon you also cast a short range spell, so if you want you can also always be ranged but if you go melee it does more damage and you get more focus because you also hit with the weapon.
The characteristics of the projectile of these attacks are the same as those mentioned above Balanced between: range, speed, stamina etc.