End game mage is very fun, borderline insane to think that I was playing melee for most of my time with nrftw. Never before realizing how fast and easy mage can be. This sentiment makes me second guess whether the mage experience is subtractive to the melee experience overall.
Being able to spam spells is super fun, with the right enchantments you don’t even need the legendary rings to have an infinite supply of focus. And with the insane variety of spells it’s super easy to pick which ever you want for your playstyle.
The Real Issue I am feeling from the mage experience is that compared to many melee builds, its too easy to dps, clear mobs, and overall debilitate enemies.
- Example one being Blast spells are Too Cheap, and overall Too Good of a spell. 50 focus cost for a spell that can easily lock on to enemies within LOS (Line of Sight). In addition has almost no start up or end lag to the move. Making blast spells EXTREMELY good at clearing mobs. Lightning Blast is my go-to spell since it doesn’t have a large AOE to hit Co-op players, and has the possibility to shock other enemies when proccing lightning.
- Mages have more variety of elemental rune attacks compared to melee users. One handed weapons do have a decent variety, but not many ranged elemental attacks. Two handed weapons are generally what I use and there is only ONE ice rune attack (Ice Ram). I hope in the future there will be more elemental varieties for melee, especially two handers to have options to debilitate enemies without resorting to coatings and infusions.
- What Sucks is that if I were to try and freeze and enemy with Ice Ram, generally the enemies die before they are frozen. It feels as if the attack has a mix of physical and elemental damage. Those Torn Bloaters I try to hit with Ice Ram, only to get hit in the face with their death explosion cause Ice Ram didn’t freeze before it died. COMPELTLY negating the purpose of having an ice move to nullify the bloaters death-plosion.
- Playing Co-op with mages leads to the mage hogging the kills. I have been catching myself doing what I once called out mages put for doing, that is spamming certain attacks (Blast Spells) and killing enemies before other players even get a chance to approach. Its just too easy to kill mobs at range as a pure mage in quick succession. Being able to recover Focus on Fatality, Reduce Focus Cost on Rune Attack, and legendary rings makes the whole issue easier to induce. I’ve also caught myself thinking “if I don’t play mage, then someone else will and hog the kills”. I don’t have a good suggestion in mind on how to fix this issue, but I would like to feel more than comfortable playing melee without feeling compelled to play mage.
- Enchants and some gear are too good for mages.
- For example, due to the base critical chance on staves/wands being 40%. Its easy to build up Critical Damage due to its base stat of 10% unlike Critical Chance being 5%. And Crit Dmg increases by 5% each exalt, whereas Crit Chance goes up only by 2.5%, literally scaling at 1/2 the rate as Crit Dmg.
- Rune Ring is too good. Mages never really use melee attacks, therefore the negative on the ring to reduce Attack Damage is pretty pointless. 20% Rune Damage is equivalent to the Fierce Ring’s stat, BUT without the caveat of having to activate the effect.
- Since Mages are more than often attacking at range, and have access to rune attacks with whatever element the player wants. It’s equally more easier to choose gems that increase enchant power. When I play melee I’m more often infusing my weapon with an elemental gem.
I would like to Suggest…
- adding other elemental rune attacks to melee weapons for more variety. Especially ones that would do more pure elemental damage, at the expense of more end-lag maybe? Something so that freezing a Bloater with one good hit freezes and kills them.
- changing how the Blast Spells work, make them require the player to aim the spell in a translucent circle on the ground. AND it has to arch through the air and cannot easily hit enemies at different heights. Making the spell unable to easily clear rooms on LOS alone.
- change the crit chance on wands/staves to equal the average melee crit chance of ~25%. and crit dmg to ~120%
- maybe change how rune ring works?
Right now, it really feels like the damage from elemental rune attacks is being split into physical damage and elemental damage. And it also seems like the damage itself determines how much the status effect builds up on enemies.
The first part actually makes sense, since melee builds often still scale physical damage. But the second part is something that should maybe be reconsidered.
Not only do magic attacks almost always apply their status effect on the very first hit, but with melee weapons this almost never happens, simply because the enemy usually dies before the status effect can even trigger.
I really think elemental damage and status effect buildup should be separated for balancing purposes.
I know that would make development much more tedious, since every rune, oil, and gem would require manually adjusted values for both aspects, but I’m pretty sure it would be worth it in the long run.
Maybe I explained my point poorly.
What I’m mainly referring to are elemental oils and gems, because from my own testing they do seem to noticeably affect how elemental damage and status buildup behave on melee weapons.
For example, when comparing a spell to a heavy two-handed attack that both deal very similar damage numbers, the spell often builds up significantly more status effect than the melee hit does.
That’s where my impression mainly comes from. From a gameplay perspective, elemental spells seem much more reliable and efficient at applying status effects than elemental melee attacks infused through oils or gems.
And yes, I know there are probably hidden modifiers and more complicated calculations behind the scenes. I’m not claiming to know the exact formulas.
I’m simply describing how the system currently feels in actual gameplay.
Especially with slower melee weapons, enemies often die before a status effect can realistically trigger, while spells frequently apply them almost immediately.
And honestly, your idea about using a separate status buildup modifier is already very close to what I was trying to suggest in the first place.
Whether it’s handled through a multiplier, a separate buildup value, or another internal mechanic doesn’t really matter to me. My main point is simply that elemental melee weapons currently feel much weaker at applying status effects compared to spells, and I think the buildup on melee attacks could use some improvement.
Thank you for your answers and testing, appreciate it.
To answer your points..
- Not much to add…
- Elemental Variety, I understand what you are saying and sure, if you want to do elemental damage all the time, not much issue with infusions or facets. My complaint comes from using Ice and Shatter combos. If I want to do shatter dmg as a 2-hand wielder I only have Ice Ram to do ice damage unless I infuse. Which then If I infuse a weapon I HAVE to switch to another weapon to do physical damage. Now this is probably just me rambling as a 2-Hander simp. But 1-Hand weapons have 3? different ice runes to deal ice dmg, and of course mages have a bunch of spells to choose from. Seems to me that adding 1-2 other rune attacks would help give 2 and 1-h weapons options? Throw is great for 1-handers, but I find it easy to miss enemies if they move around a lot.
- My experience in groups is always mages get a munch of kills, every decent mage I have played with are always using fire/lightning blast, and plague smite. All of which are stupidly easy to spam if focus/health regen ain’t an issue. And I too fell into the same rabbit hole when I made a mage. Maybe I too need to find a new 2-hander that does wide sweeping attacks, problem is I can’t support/be near anyone else cause of the wide swings…
- I tried stagger builds that include plague damage cause the plague enchantment for chest pieces that reduces enemy stagger resistance when plagued… Even with a hammer at lv 30, mobs die too quick, and bosses still feel as though it takes way too long to stagger them. 5-10 hits is what I recall needing to stagger a boss with ~30 stagger dmg. And that is if the boss doesn’t move too far to drain their stagger meter…Whereas magic makes it super easier to trigger elemental statuses and combinations.
- I understand and agree with the enchantments being evenly available. Problem is that I feel that mages synergize with said enchantments more so than melee. Solely on the basis that they can easily utilize their range to kill mobs before the enemies even notice them, inflict the boss with an ailment without having to get close, and not have to commit to defense when everything dies or get afflicted to a single spell.
- you are correct that Ice Ram kills enemies in one go, therefore too much damage. My main reason to use Ice Ram is to freeze enemies like the Torn Bloaters and Sirens, if frozen they don’t explode and release smaller enemies.
Please give me your opinion, but after reading your thoughts. Maybe I’m trying to play more to a generalist build? Obviously 2-handers do more damage at the cost of speed, and mages have their elemental kits that they can play with. I originally played melee, and then mage. Mage just felt so utilitarian cause of the ailments, freezing, combining elements like seared and overload. As a 2-hander player it seems a bit unfair that mages get to have so many ways to clear rooms, compared to a 2-hander that I HAVE to run up to every individual enemy or group to kill. Not many ranged options especially at varying heights. Even though I do a LOT of damage as a 2-hander, I clear areas far slower than as a mage.
There was a time when 2H weapons had access to the Throw Weapon Runes which now is one handed only, but i can atleast still experience that in the legacy build of the game 
-Edit: it seems that you like using 2H weapons for freeze and shatter you could always try the physical staff Pinwheel Staff and put Ice Ram and the frost stream rune on it you can utilize the Run Attack as the shatter, and you only need frost build up on your gloves and physical for the rest.
I think there is a rune that you can use on all weapons that doesn’t get its physical dmg overridden by your weapons infusion?
And what about bombs?
Yes me too, thats why i choose and prefer playing with melee weapons mostly because i like that playstyle, i still use wands too but i mostly use their roll attacks some wands have really nice roll attacks! (Looks like a lunge forward attack and then backs away)
-Edit: The wand im specifically referring to is Rune-Stricken Wand in the Normal or heavy weight class
The wand im specifically referring to is Rune-Stricken Wand in the Normal or heavy weight class, as i think it isnt possible to do this type of attack without access to normal or heavy roll.
The quickstep attack is essentially the same as the run attack on the Rune-Stricken Wand perhaps with some variation maybe?
It would be fun to see a dodge roll build with the Rune-Stricken Wand and similar wands with the same Roll Attack (i hope i dont see it in PvP)
I mean that sounds very impractical, but HEY! i would probably consider it over using the Heavy Roll Only Downside x)
The only Wand out of those 3 that has i-frames atleast in the Normal Attack chain is the Rune-Stricken Wand but ofc this is just my empty statement.
I do wonder tho, Do you know if Movement Speed and Attack Speed combined improve start up and recovery? (maybe its mostly an Illusion to how it Feels but i cant stop wondering)