Although the freedom and cleanse changes were nice they didn't seem to address the problem of the black robe. I have a dream where white and black and red are all equal!
But seriously, between comeuppance and spell power ranks nightmare is still completely ridiculous. Not only does it make red and white robes look frankly pathetic, it dwarfs the offensive power or defensive mechanisms any other class(es) can provided. Casting level was a nice idea as well, but in reality getting to 30 cl is extremely easy and achievable with mostly no limit junk items. The problem of the trash mage never went away it just changed persona slightly. Now the trash mage is played until rank 20 and wears some items like two plain black rings, blue gloves, plain brown tunic, heavy golden chains and so on.
The last two wipes have been completely controlled by black robes with nightmare. Something has to change. Although Sanjuro's new zones and some fun legendary stuff gives us some things to play with, the player vs player aspect of the game has been severely neglected. Something has to give or Arctic is going to continue to bleed players.
Firstly I still maintain the game content is far too easy. In my opinion player damage across the board should be cut by 25%, and non heal spell healing (like regenerate, healing wave, healing cloud, cure crit) should be cut by 25%. Player max hitpoints should be reduced also, but how much I'm not sure. This would not only make the game more challenging and enjoyable (some zones might actually be a challenge again), but would combat the fact that Cyan can be done with 0 prep on a whim, several times back to back. These top tier spells should only load in one location and they should be EXTREMELY difficult to get. That one quest that can be done on a 3 man that loads the best spells for mages is a bad joke. It should load like a higher tier green dragonhide book, not a random top 3 spell. Nightmare also needs to be super nerfed to shit. It should firstly deal no damage whatsoever. PWS was strong as hell and that didnt do damage. Spell mod ranks should probably be removed entirely. Comeuppance should be changed to a spell damage boost or have its spell power bonus cut to ribbons. The number of items with +spellpower on them should also be reviewed severely. The damage tent does should also be looked at. Just because you can avoid the damage in a certain way doesn't mean it should hit for about 70hp and have targets automatically fail their save if stunned, and focus. That means one tent cast could potentially do 1400 damage to a 10man group per cast per round.
I've had enough of mage wars. I'm not the only one. It's boring, seriously. Yeah i'm sure "project lube" will fix the problems, too bad there'll only be 12 people left at that time.
A final option is to delete all three mage classes altogether, which frankly seems very appealing.
