New Player: Brief thoughts on the mage class.

[TheGrinnz]

Armor still does not really matter in PvP. Most damage is mitigated from Valor, and any non-physical damage ignores armor, which in PvP is everything except Marksman, Assassin, Druid, Paragon and Warlord.

[V1rul3n7]

Armor still does not really matter in PvP. Most damage is mitigated from Valor, and any non-physical damage ignores armor, which in PvP is everything except Marksman, Assassin, Druid, Paragon and Warlord.

And shaman, and champion, and ranger, and saboteur, and beastmaster. And every auto-attack from every class in the game.

Sure isn't important this armor stat.

Actually what IS important isnt valor or armor or resistance, its an underlying base mitigation that every class seems to possess.

For instance, warlock and necromancer are a lot more durable than dominator, warlords are a lot more durable than champions etc. There is some hidden factor that isnt respresented visually by stats.

[TheGrinnz]

And shaman, and champion, and ranger, and saboteur, and beastmaster. And every auto-attack from every class in the game.

Sure isn't important this armor stat.

Actually what IS important isnt valor or armor or resistance, its an underlying base mitigation that every class seems to possess.

For instance, warlock and necromancer are a lot more durable than dominator, warlords are a lot more durable than champions etc. There is some hidden factor that isnt respresented visually by stats.

If you are seeing champions and rangers in PvP, or getting DPSed down by a beastmaster or saboteur, your armor is the least of the issues there.

Warlocks are more durable than dominator because they have more HP and have warlock armor. Necromancer is more durable because of bone armor. Warlords get additional health, armor, and resistance from both the tree gift and various talents. There's no mystery here.

[V1rul3n7]

If you are seeing champions and rangers in PvP, or getting DPSed down by a beastmaster or saboteur, your armor is the least of the issues there.

Warlocks are more durable than dominator because they have more HP and have warlock armor. Necromancer is more durable because of bone armor. Warlords get additional health, armor, and resistance from both the tree gift and various talents. There's no mystery here.

Try a few tests without warlock armor or bone armor on.

[Jaybirdmcfee]

Armor is a hugely important facet of the game and mages just have way too little of it. There are some spells that increase a mage's armor or survivability, but they're very limited. Even with my tankiest mage builds, I can barely hold on against much tankier, harder hitting warriors, rogues, and even clerics. With my most damaging builds I fall short, and get insta-gibbed in a fight.

Rogues are traditionally squishy, sneaky, and high in dps but rogues in rift can be as tanky as any warrior if not more given the right build choices, this is true for just about every class except mage; this is in part due to inadequate gear balancing and no real tank mage soul.

[TheGrinnz]

Armor is a hugely important facet of the game

Yep, almost as important as Dwarven Breakfast.

[V1rul3n7]

I'm a new player, I hope that was well clarified by the title of this post. I've enjoyed the game tremendously thus far, and I think it brings a great number of unique boons to the Mmorpg market; however, I've encountered several distasteful experiences which I attribute to a lack of pragmatism in character balancing. My particular qualm is with the current state of the mage souls in comparison to others.

I love mage souls, their play styles are very unique and elegant in design, but they are tremendously lacking in... well,"oomph", for lack of a better word. As things currently stand what the mage class can do, another can do better. These are some things I've noticed while playing.

• Mages fall off of the damage spectrum when compared to other classes.
  
• As healers they can do moderately well, but they risk much more due to their inherent frailty.
  
• As buffers(Archons specifically), they have several buffs, but they incur penalties for them, but the buffs themselves(with the exception of a few), are very weak.
  
• Mages have several abilities(split among souls), that are used to regain mana; however, I have not found a need to use a single one of those abilities. They are in my opinion, wasting space, because all classes regenerate energy sources at a very high rate.
  
• Mage gear has ridiculously low statistics. Clerics receive many of the same stats a mage does(with some differences), but the armor rating is much, much higher. It is really aggravating, to run into a shield of my level, that had more armor than all of my mage gear(and an armor buff from ashen defenses) put together.
  

I realize this list isn't very specific, and somewhat incomplete, but I just wanted to drop by and dial in on some of the things I've seen that have really hurt my game experience. The game features innovative content, like it's soul system, but balancing is really hurting the experience. I've found that few people want to play a class for a long time because of it's theatrics, and people usually don't invest in something they won't like for a long time.

Just my two cents.

Totally correct, but you also failed to mention how mage utility is generally quite poor. People will huff and puff at me saying that but it is the absolute truth.

50m teleport from flashback, dispels CC
Unlimited Stealth in general
34m Pulls
Resettable cooldowns for stuff like senti and inquisitor
Superior purges on inq and marksman
Rogue stuns being equally as viable as Harbs
Passive snaring on basically everything you do as a rogue with debilitating.
No permission to die
Wavelength

Not to say that other classes haven't also got bad utility, Its just some utility is so "beyond" it is truly game changing. Mages haven't got anything like that really except maybe harb stuns.

Mage roots are pretty decent too but id say root on charge is almost equally as effective.

Coupled with the other stuff you mentioned, yes it puts mage in the bucket.

[Frailaq]

Armor is a hugely important facet of the game...

LOL

...oh wait, you were being serious? Umm... tell you what... if you really want to know how much difference armor makes, go find a very low level mob. Unequip everything you have and then enter combat. Let it hit you a bunch of times. Run away. Re-equip just your armor (no trinkets, rings, sigil, or anything else with resist or procs). Now go enter combat with that same mob again. Let it hit you a bunch of times. Compare the values of it hitting you with and without armor. Now tell me again how important armor is in this game.

If you were talking about dungeon and raid boss monsters, then yes, armor is very important. However, if you're getting hit by them as a mage then either you're doing something very wrong or your tank just likes watching you die.

And no, I don't care about PvP. Y'all do your own thing there.

[Jaybirdmcfee]

LOL

...oh wait, you were being serious? Umm... tell you what... if you really want to know how much difference armor makes, go find a very low level mob. Unequip everything you have and then enter combat. Let it hit you a bunch of times. Run away. Re-equip just your armor (no trinkets, rings, sigil, or anything else with resist or procs). Now go enter combat with that same mob again. Let it hit you a bunch of times. Compare the values of it hitting you with and without armor. Now tell me again how important armor is in this game.

That is a horrible way to test armor effectiveness or class armor values. Please, troll elsewhere.

[Frailaq]

That is a horrible way to test armor effectiveness or class armor values. Please, troll elsewhere.

Do you have a better way? I'd love to hear it. The point is that armor is a virtually worthless stat for any non-tank and anyone who uses it as a crutch to claim that mages are getting the short end of the stick really don't have any idea how it works. My previous description was simply one method of getting an actual number parse example of how ineffective armor is.

[vexare]

Do you have a better way? I'd love to hear it. The point is that armor is a virtually worthless stat for any non-tank and anyone who uses it as a crutch to claim that mages are getting the short end of the stick really don't have any idea how it works. My previous description was simply one method of getting an actual number parse example of how ineffective armor is.

A parse like that wouldn't do any good. A very low level mob won't be able to hit you regardless of what your armor is, just like you can't hit a very high level mob.

The mentioning of armor was in the context of pvp, and in that regards it is a valid concern. Is there an absolute ton of physical damage flying around? probably not, but there is plenty enough of it to at very least make a difference. In my mage pvp gear i negate about 18% of physical attacks, meanwhile a cleric with their slightly higher armor value will negate 24. This apparent 6% difference means that in reality thanks to the magic of math, physical attacks will hit a mage roughly 8% harder than it will hit a cleric. I don't know about you, but when it comes to pvp I'd rather take 8% less damage if I had the option, especially considering we don't get any tradeoffs such as the 'glass cannon' effect that mages have in essentially every other game known to mankind.

My biggest gripe however is the overall ability to shut down casters as opposed to war/rogues. There is no such thing as a melee equivalent to the interupt ability (which is a rediculously common ability), and while there are very limited disarm abilities, there is no aoe disarm like there is several aoe silences.