I wanted to give some feedback regarding spellcaster gameplay. Bows received some much-needed tuning during the latest patch, but magic still feels way too strong, even after the adjustments to enchantments and gear.
(TLDR at the bottom)
As long as you have enough focus; which is not hard to come by you have several “delete buttons” at your disposal. We still don’t know how much the upcoming class rework will impact this, but in the meantime, I have some feedback regarding spellcasting.
At this point, I’ve made a spellcaster during every single major update or patch that impacted balance. After we got free basic ranged attacks on staves and wands, it really helped with the class fantasy, but it also removed some of the risk involved in building up focus, since you no longer have to rely on melee.
I think the dart runes on wands are the main offender in terms of range. You can easily plink away at enemies without them ever being able to touch you. I think wands should be more of a close- to mid-range weapon, so adjusting the range of dart runes would help.
Speaking of runes, one of the things I really like is the ability to customize them on weapons. However, during one of my recent playthroughs, I found myself asking: is there currently any real difference between staves and wands? Since we now have basic attacks that generate focus (dart runes, fireball, chain lightning, etc.), I can slap whatever rune I want onto a staff or wand, and there’s effectively no difference, especially since melee is technically no longer required.
It would be nice to have a distinct, inherent difference between wands and staves. For example, runes slotted into staves could have slower cast times but deal more damage, while runes on wands could cast faster but deal less damage. This would make the choice between a staff and a wand more meaningful.I know we’re still waiting on off-hand items to pair with wands, but when those arrive, what will be the reason to choose a wand + off-hand over a staff?
There are also some major outliers in terms of rune balance such as Armageddon, Homing Frost, Fire Blast, Lightning Strike, and Cold Sling. You can easily delete everything in the game using a Magus Wand or Entwined Root with dart runes plus Fire Blast and Lightning Strike. You simply generate focus at range and press the delete button that only cost 50 focus.
The Endless Winter staff is also way too strong. Slot in a frost dart rune, and you’re set with Homing Frost and Frost Stream. In my most recent playthrough on the current patch, nothing could touch me.
I think adding charging mechanics similar to nova runes could help create risk/reward scenarios. For example, Lightning Strike could require charging to deal more damage, or Homing Frost could fire one projectile by default and add more the longer it’s charged. Additionally, adding range limitations to certain runes could help as well.
TLDR:
- Magic is still overpowered even after the nerfs to gear en echantments
- Free ranged attacks removed risk from focus generation.
- Wand dart runes have too much range and allow no risk gameplay.
- No meaningful difference between wands and staves anymore. Since you swap runes at will, some inherent differences would be welcome
- Several runes are overtuned (e.g., Lightning Strike, Fire Blast, Homing Frost).
- Endless Winter staff is especially overpowered.
- Add charge mechanics and range limits to create better balance and risk/reward gameplay
EDIT:
Another I thought about, was: what if certain spells required manual targeting?
Dragons Dogma popped into my head where certain aoe spells you had to manually target, went of after a small delay and were chargeable.
so instead of tweaking numbers, you change the behaviour of certain spells which require more player input risk of missing which would leave open for being. So risk reward again but in a different way.