Return of Reckoning

So, I've tried out the Magus changes on the PTS.

Magus gear - There were no changes, so it is basically the same build like on live:
* With a mixed set build a magus can easily reach the soft cap of 1050 int. Their int increases the damage of all trees. Perfect for mixed builds like sniper/aoe.
* Since they only have int as damage stat on the items they have more secondary stats like wounds, initiative, toughness.
* With 5 sov and 4 triumphant they get additional 15% higher crit damage (and 15% chance to debuff the targets toughness by 130 and increase the own int by 130 like other classes get as well). I think it is the best you can get for Magus. Lots of wounds, int, crit, and the two additional boni. 5% crit talis in triumph ring.
* With that gear you need ZERO tactics to increase your damage stats. 4 empty slots for your build. Same as on live.

Magus build - I have been focusing on a max burst, high dps build:
* For high single target damage you want to have a lot of points in Havoc, you want the Indigo Fire of Change channel and you want the Chaos Unleashed 15% for the Havor tree. The Bolt of change I took as well, I will explain later.
* The points left I've put into changing. Here I wanted to have the Firestorm and the 15% crit for Changing. It gives you some pretty decent AOE and harder hitting changing dots to stack up on tough targets before the single target Havoc rotation comes in. For more burst.
* Renown: max crit, 2 FS, 3 DD, rest int or wounds.

So far so good.

Magus - New stuff - Only what matters to me:
* Withering Soul is your main dot now. The 20s cooldown got removed but it can only be applied to one target. It is a pretty hard hitting dot and gives 5% reduced disrupt. Since Withering Soul is now spamable and your main dot, you want Daemonic Withering as tactic (15% damage from all sources). That goes into the first slot.
* For the 2nd tactic the new Swift Flames is a MUST HAVE. It decreases the cast time by 50% after using the instant Surging Violet Fire. That means that you can cast Bolt of Change in 1.5s or Mutating Blue Fire in 1s - pretty crazy.
* For the 3rd tactic I have taken the 15% crit for Havoc obviously.
* For the 4th tactic I have taken the 15% crit for Changing. This can be replaced with something else but I wanted max burst.
* The pink horror damage got increased (125% from magus int instead of 100%) and it now gives 10ft more range to all abilities.
* Pets give now instant 20% damage when close to it, 10% when a bit further away.

Magus - New main rotation:
* Always put down Pink Horror first and let it attack for the 20% damage bonus and the elemental debuff on the target plus the pet damage.
* Then open with Withering Soul for 15% more damage, 5% less disrupt and the dot damage. Havoc. Elemental.
* Follow with Baleful Transmogrification which is the second Havoc dot. Havoc. Elemental.
* Then Surging Violet Fire instant to trigger the 10s 50% reduced cast time on the next cast. Havoc. Elemental.
* Now cast Bolt of Change in 1.5s. Havoc. Elemental.
* Finish with Indigo Fire of Change channel. Havoc. Elemental. When you kill the target then it spawns a screamer mob that attacks people nearby.

This rotation is crazy. You can repeat it every 10s. That's the cooldown of the Bolt of Change and the Surging Violet Fire.

I have managed to get 1650 damage per second on the training construct, with up to 9000 3s burst. With Bloodlord staff which I didn't have on PTS and a bit of fine tuning I'm sure it can go even higher.

Conclusion:
To be honest, I think it is a bit too crazy. A magus has pretty decent survivability. With that new build he has massive burst with the new spamable Withering Soul, the new Swift Flames for 1.5s Bolt of Changes, a buffed pet that does pretty decent damage - all while still having pretty decent AOE with the same build.

* Swift Flames is a nice idea for a tactic but 50% cast bonus seems a bit extreme. Make it 25% maybe.
* Withering Soul is also too strong. In an assist train you can easily put it on every target. Those will get 15% from all sources. That's a bit extreme. It used to be 20s. Now it is 0s. The 0s are nice for the rotation but then the 15% from all sources is too strong. Same for the engi.
* I don't know why the Pink Horror int from gear got increased to 125% from 100%. It was already hitting pretty good before. Id revert that to 100%.

I have tested the Engi as well. Magus does like ~20% more damage, has the better rotation, better survivability, permanent +15% crit chance with my build for Havoc and Changing, +15% crit damage from sov and better kiting options with his m1. Engi is not weak at all after the new changes but Magus is on another level.

I challenge you: Post an Engi screenshot where you do 1650 dps and 9000 3s burst on the training construct. That's what I was able to get on the Magus:
https://i.imgur.com/0cXS8b1.jpeg

You know what is the funniest? ST problems were not really the damage. So all what you described are sideeffects of the improvements magus really needed.

With the change to Close Quarters, Surging Power tactic including Warpfire and the change to Agonozing torrent the AoE spec starts getting somewhere where Magus could we wanted for WBs.

However, although Magus might have an advantage stat wise it also has a major flaw in terms of real effectiveness and that is strikethrough. The amount of disrrupt that Magus and Sorc face is insane. Healers run around with 40% disrupt by default, HTL buff from tanks... Engineer and SW do not face these problems in such way. This can not be felt dpsing the dummy.

Apart from this one, there are 2 more problems magus has they have not been addressed in the current patch:

- Mechanical wise, turrets/deamons are still irrelevant. They provide some damage + a damage buff. Might be important PvE or small scale wise (where magus did not have any problem before) but at WB level they remain irrelevant. There is no group sinergy with the pets or their positioning. Some of the new changes will allow magus playstyle become an enchanced Sorcerers (with a bigger toolkit like AoE stagger and Rift).

- Magus has too many tactics that define their playstyle. Chaotic Attunement effects for example should be by default. The GDC spent on summoning an static turret should be enough cost. Repositioning of the turrets should come without any AP cost by default as well. Unearthly Shriek is a bad joke. They missed the chance big time with this one. Surging Power affecting X skills while other classes have flat X crit damage increase for all skills...


Imagine Magus/Engineers making turret placement their class mechanic and playing around controlling the battlefield with them. Would not that be a completely different playstyle compared to BW/Sorcs and SW/SHs?

- They could have given turrets meaningfull benefits buffs/debuffs so that placement would matter for the entire both enemy and ally groups/WBs. AoE snare, AoE Heal debuff, AoE cooldown increase, AoE speed buff, AoE damage buff, AoE cooldown reduction, AoE CC inmunities...
- They could have created tactics that would allow having more than 1 turret active in exchange of some X damage for example.
- They could have added the possibility of making turrets placeable like mines/nurglings.

So much could have been done to make Magus its own class instead of just trying to make it feel like a Socerer with a bigger toolkit.
With the current changes, the difference between Magus, Sorcerer and SH (playstyle wise) is smaller than ever.

Thanks for sharing your PTS tests. Before drawing conclusions, I still have a few questions, especially concerning the PBAoE build.
Close Quarters
Has anyone tested its exact interaction with Warpfire and the other untargeted/channelled abilities?
Does it keep the same number of damage ticks while shortening the channel, resulting in faster ticks?
Or does it shorten the channel and remove some ticks?
What are the exact tick count, tick interval and total duration with and without Close Quarters?
This point is essential before considering it a mandatory PBAoE tactic.

I will never understand why a magus gets to have better penetration on an armored target than a shadow warrior stacking like 300 extra of an ablative stat (wpnskill).

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=61098

For anyone interested, I’ve put together an analysis of the changes, and I’d like to compare my perspective with yours.

salazarn wrote: Sun Jul 26, 2026 9:41 am I will never understand why a magus gets to have better penetration on an armored target than a shadow warrior stacking like 300 extra of an ablative stat (wpnskill).

Can you understand why engi dont get disrupts from healers (who usually has like 50+%dis chance)?

Iv tested it alot , I dont think its Extreme. It didnt get as many dmg buffs as Engi but it got movement and feels more fluent then Egni does. Both came away from this rework well tho.

Not sure about the Turn target into Screamer, its Lore accurate and cool but may be abit messy and what I saw Screamer does only AA's. The traversal is nice tool, u need LoS and range is very short.

Some nice dmg buffs to Havoc wich I do like, but compared to SH I would not say Magus got more in this rework

ravezaar wrote: Sun Jul 26, 2026 10:00 am Iv tested it alot , I dont think its Extreme.

Says the magus?

If this goes live you gonna see A LOT of Magi and they gonna wipe the floor with Order. See ya in the "Nerf Magus" threads after patch on page 20.

lumpi33 wrote: Sun Jul 26, 2026 10:15 am

ravezaar wrote: Sun Jul 26, 2026 10:00 am Iv tested it alot , I dont think its Extreme.

Says the magus?

If this goes live you gonna see A LOT of Magi and they gonna wipe the floor with Order. See ya in the "Nerf Magus" threads after patch on page 20.

Iam not a Magus main emoji-lover just saying it got great stuff but wouldnt use Extreme at all, SW got the rw deal from this Patch tho we can agree on that. And if u havent noticed it while playing , we already have alot of Magus however very few of them are in WB's and even now AoE isnt what got buffed most either, more ST dmg and movement.

I was testing it and SH on the PTR yesterday, and the names for some of the Magus characters present were quite telling. Imba, Overpower, Dontnerf. A saw a few more with those themed names throughout the day.

Players quickly realize what can and will be( too) strong, question is will the devs before this goes live?

I've said it before and i will say so again, Magus did NOT need any direct singletarget DPS increasing buffs, it was always powerful. Only aoe related and quality of life improvements to mechanics.

Problem is devs did the Mirror thing again, Magus = Engineer without realizing that the Magus has much stronger itemization due to not needing Weapon skill and tactics that increase % armor penetration occupying tactic slots.