I am playing a pure INT build and I have enjoyed it a lot. That being said I two shot Darak with the first rune attack of the endless winter staff and almost one shot the Riven twins with the Hellfire rune. Was funny the first time but I have stopped using such runes to challenge myself more. Certain rune attacks might need some pretty big damage nerfs/use limits/cooldowns/only usable after X hit combo or parry as a finisher to make sure they don’t break the game.
To be fair they did get review bombed into oblivion so it’s natural they react like this. Once things cool off they will probably rebalance the combat to be more in line with the original intent for the game.
Have you tried DPSing the bosses without Homing Frost? How long does it take compared to a sword or fist or 2H blade build?
Now you have your answer as to why an all cloth armor build with zero weapon DPS and long animation locks does so much damage with a spell that costs a whopping 100 focus, ie the entire focus bar.
Who would play a glass cannon mage build if it is less survivable than leather/mesh/plate melee builds and doesn’t even do significantly more damage? And the only time it does damage is when using a 100 focus spell, so generating 100 focus either takes a dangerous stationary Channel cast that eats up half your health bar to convert or two entire attack chain sequences with bonus focus generation affixes.
You lost me at 100 focus being the entire focus bar LMAO. Have you tried putting levels into the stat? 7 points in it gives 210 max focus for reference, I never needed to use channel or anything like that because I had that much in the Darak fight. And don’t get me started on gems, gear and food that increase max focus.
And don’t forget you can move those OP ass rune attacks on a non INT weapon like fists or 2H swords. Maybe if they made focus ability damage scale with INT I would agree with you but even then these runes need nerfing.
I run a cloth armor mage, so the points to survive not getting 1-2 shot by enemies amounted to 1/1/1 per level up on health/stamina/int to be both able to survive hits on cloth armor as well as have the stamina to dodge and attack to generate said focus. I don’t get the luxury of spending points on focus because of the damage intake on cloth armor, and what few armors i could slot some max focus gems was entirely RNG. I finished the whole content update and didn’t even get a single lv21+ staff, cloth armor, and most of the gems dropped were electricity, health regain, and cold and heat resistances. I had to buy the lv21 staff, cloth body, and cloth gloves+pants from the tailors (no lv21 cloth hat was available, so had to use Cerim hat and invest in equip load to keep speed to fast).
I’m also not gonna move the rune to a melee weapon. That defeats the entire point and fantasy of playing a MAGE archetype. The robes and staff and spell. I don’t want to use a 2H blade or fists as a mage. I don’t want to use mesh armor as a mage, it runs completely counter to the fantasy of the character and class I’m running.
A game is not just optimizing a build or metagaming. It’s about having the viable choice of inhabiting the character you envision in an RPg. The RP isn’t just nominal here.
The fact that melee mesh armor builds can run around with equal survivability to a mage in cloth with half the health/stam investment and around 10 more offensive scaling stat points to spare while casting runes for the same damage as a mage just shows how deeply imbalanced the armor and weapon system is in favor of melee. There’s absolutely no point to running cloth armor since it’s trivial to get to fast speed anyways with equipment load and a ring, and being in fragile cloth armor doesn’t even afford you more damage output.