[Archmage] Playing the mechanic

[bangkokeight]

one thing i always wondered about was how effective a 3 AM 3 SM party would be.. with the Ams all speccing for dissipating energies and the SM all slotting the heal tactics.

We have all been in the type of sc where mdps and tanks mix it up in the middle.. so having 3 snb SM with heal tactics slotted dishing out dissipating energies at the same time could be pretty effective.

Or if dissipating stacks having 4 AM and 2 SM party would be even more effective.

If any AM/SM is up for giving it a go please let me know

[Sigimund]

Spoiler:

like a lot of classes the frustrating thing about an AM at least imo is the lack of effectiveness in the third path. Leach healing/dps was at one point a fun way to play. I remember pre 1.36 regularly seeing AMs top dmg and top healing in scs.. a few of their names still play on RoR (Llondo springs to mind)..

however they were playing back then the current state of the AM means there really does not seem to be a third way.. people either go all out glass cannon or (and this always baffles me on an AM) full healtard...

One suggestion to make a leach heal spec work would be to move arcing power further up a try but also to make it proc of either all the AM dots or at the very least the dots in that tree.

Part of me seems to recall this being the case on at least one patch back on live, in that transfer force also procced the additional 25% if you had arcing power slotted.. however i am told it didnt.. and i do consume the occasional bttle of vodka so who can say for sure..

anyway, just my two satang

My AM is full Vaul. The single target healing is good and needs no buff at the moment. AOE healing is the real weakness.

Edit: I have not tested it but since lifetaps are not affected by heal debuffs it is very likely that SM Isha's Protection would not interact with AM Arcing Power heals.

[bangkokeight]

i agree, the heal tree works as intended. as does the full glass cannon dps build, although i dont think people who have never played a DPS AM realise what this does to the base tool tips for heals. honestly a restore pot is more use.

However it would be nice to have a build reliant on lifetap (leach healing) based around Balanced essence as a main attack and with arcing proccing of dots. The play style would be hugely different.

To make it work shifting def target would need to be done the way a tank moves guard with offense needing to be targeted to targets that had been debuffed to get enough dmg on a tick to make the proc worth while.

Most AMs atm just focus on either straight out heals and forget dmg or straight out dmg and forget the heals.

[Sigimund]

Arcing Power proccing on dots would be helpful for some more damage focused builds but would do very little for Vaul.

It can take some setup but EoV is a very powerful heal. BE is ok filler but not to be relied on. The gap is AOE healing. If you want to promote the lifetap spec then change Transfer Force or Arcing Power to heal the party rather than increasing the ST overheal.

[gungnir08]

One suggestion to make a leach heal spec work would be to move arcing power further up a try but also to make it proc of either all the AM dots or at the very least the dots in that tree.

Part of me seems to recall this being the case on at least one patch back on live, in that transfer force also procced the additional 25% if you had arcing power slotted.. however i am told it didnt.. and i do consume the occasional bttle of vodka so who can say for sure.

I don't remember that at all. Arcing Power was once different, yes, but it didn't do that.

If you want to reminisce about how different AM used to be early on, though, check this out. Drain Magic being a DD attack, having Storm of Cronos as a Core ability (albeit with a 2 second cast), Feel the Winds... Good times.

[greenstoned]

Arcing Power proccing on dots would be helpful

unless its a low percentage, it would be op as **** ;p

[Sigimund]

Spoiler:

Arcing Power proccing on dots would be helpful

unless its a low percentage, it would be op as **** ;p

Well, the point of the post was that it is the wrong buff for the wrong spec.

[Penril]

Well, the problem with Wind Blast is you'd have to risk running afoul of any targets that may disrupt or block the knockback. Besides, I'd argue that a healing AM has no reason to risk being that close to a melee train in the first place.

Cleansing Flare at least offers some semblance of security in that you don't risk personal harm if it fails to do what you need it to do. I agree with its poor knockback distance though, but it certainly has situational use (drop MotM, let the train run through it, and then knock them back into it, ideally). My main point was that, as far as I can recall, that is the only real use a healing AM has for the AM's mechanic.

I have been giving a lot of thought to this. You are correct; the mechanic is pretty much worthless for a Heal-spec AM. But what if it wasn't?

Let's look at the AM skills, what they build (either Force or Tranquility) and what benefits they gain when used with some points in their mechanic:

Spoiler:

Basically, all heal spells build Tranquility (from now on i will refer to them as T) and all damage spells build Force (F). As you pointed out, a heaing AM doesn't really benefit from using F except for Cleansing Flare and Law of Gold (instant 5-sec Silence). A Isha/Asuryan AM could also use Scatter the Winds, but i really don't know what is this "Increased Effectiveness" it gains from Tranquility.

I was thinking of maybe changing 3 skills in order to make the mechanic more useful:

Spoiler:

Healing Energy now builds Force instead of Tranquility. The AM could use HE and build 5 stacks of F, and then choose to use an instant group heal, big ST-heal, rez, or a stronger Funnel Essence. These spells will now be building T, and when he has a few stacks he could use Healing Energy again, which will increase healing received on his target by 3% per Tranquility point. Keep in mind the AM has been using his mechanic AND healing the whole time.

Cleasing Light would now build Force as well, and benefit from Tranquility. So the AM could choose to build T with his other heal spells, and at 3 stacks his cleanse would affect an additional groupmate. At 5, it would affect 2 groupmates (highest number of groupmates cleansed would be 3). Since HE and CL both build Force, the AM won't be able to constantly group cleanse AND buff healing received on a target. He will have to choose one. Also, since both build F, DPS AMs won't really benefit from these changes (since all their damage spells build F as well)

Why do i suggest this? Because Blessing of Grungni and Cleansing Power. Those tactics make Rune Priest + Warrior Priest an excellent healing duo. If the AM was able to buff healing received on a target, or have a semi-AoE cleanse, he could easily replace a RP or WP in a group.

Moving on to Life-Tap healing, i think Balance Essence should build T instead of F. This way, the AM could spam it (healing a groupmate) and then have a instant (or really fast) Energy of Vaul. Or he could use his other F spells and then have an instant Balance Essence. This alone won't fix Life-Tap healing, but if Expanded Control was also changed so it makes BE heal your whole group, it would certainly improve its viability by a lot.

TL;DR: Make Healing Energy and Cleansing Light build Force, and buff healing received/cleansing depending on how many stacks of Tranquility you have. Make Balance Essence build Tranquility instead of Force, and change Expanded Control so it makes BE heal your whole group.

Thoughts?

[Shadowgurke]

Mechanically I like the idea but then again I don't think the class needs buffs

[Penril]

Mechanically I like the idea but then again I don't think the class needs buffs

What if we only changed the mechanic part on those skills (Tranquility/Force on Healing Energy and Balance Essence) and ignored the other buffs i mentioned. Would that make sense or still no?