Call me crazy but ever since i have memory i’ve played RPGs as a mage, and normally you would expect your staff to launch ranged bolts (elemental or non elemental) when you do a basic attack, it feels super awkward having to get into melee range with a mage in cloth armor and no shield, just to be able to recharge my focus to cast spells.
I’m not asking for a cheese build where i can spam light attacks and kill enemies before they reach me, but hell, even if the light attack does like 1 damage but it recharges my focus, that’s already better than swinging the staff like a bat.
same for archers
i understand their caution but ultimately you can just cheese the system with focus potions so i see no reason to not just let people play ranged normally
To each their own I guess, I thought that was very cool. I loved using staves in this game personally and I suspect ranged default attacks would be completely op or hard to balance or just unfun
As Archer you don’t event need focus potions. Just have a pants with gem “On Focus use restore Focus”, bow with gem %dealt as focus and ring that give you more focus gain. With a little of good rng on gem you can spam those 15 focus arrows.
I mean, i could give you a hundred examples of games where magic light attacks are balanced and fun to use. What are you basing your opinion on to say it would be OP?
One, I thought the monk like fighting style was cool. Gave me Avatar bending vibes.
Two, similar to archer you can make focus builds that basically make the spells free or even go as far as gaining you more focus. Though this is a bit late game, could be earlier if they give us an easier way to farm gems.
Imo, the mage “class” is the most accessible op build early on. You can buy the ice staff blueprint from the level 1 vendor, it only requires 13 int, and it freezes everyone in place. It was the first weapon I beat the crucible with.
EDIT: Also, I do think that because range attacks are so strong, many enemies will just look at you confused if you’re on a cliff as you beam them, the balance to it is the cost of buying a bunch of focus potions. I thought the medium ones were good bang for your buck. I also recommend blink on your staff so you can get in and out as you choose.
You can carry an obscene amount of meals and potions. There’s a rune that converts HP to focus. Focus gets super high with only a couple of points. There’s a ton of regen + focus items.
It shouldnt be that hard to make a build with a gameplay loop where you never have to melee attack.
I am using the falling sky staff and and with the ranged attack I oneshot every enemy (except the boss). I have 900 max focus and one use costs me 35 focus so I can do that a lot. I have to use potions but they are not too expensive.
Yea that’s my feelings as well. Even in diablo 2 i try to play without mana potions which is nearly impossible but I just don’t like not having “infinite” power.
I’m not high enough level to judge whether or not the devs got it right yet, but I’d say the balance you want is that infinite focus (or infinite ranged attacks in general) should be possible, but require a large part of your build to be dedicated to it.
A fully ranged build is not the same as immortality. You still need stamina to dodge, many enemies have charge attacks that span a full screen, and ranged enemies do also exist.
It doesn’t even require a large part of your build to be based on it. I’ve made near infinite focus on nearly every character I have. However you need to be lucky enough to get the right gems or the right stat rolls on your gear. 3% focus on attack is my go to if I can get it. Focus on focus use is okay for low cost runes like arrow or blink.
Edit: Full focus is not immortality but it’s very close. My archer build doesn’t allow the crucible boss to move from spawn. Knock arrow, spread shot, repeat until dead.