I would do a complete overhaul of the Magus. You see the problem with Magus in WAR is they’re nothing like the tabletop and background story version. In Warhammer the Magus (and in fact all Chaos Sorcerers) are heavily armoured; they wear Chaos armour, which is actually the same as Chosen. Also traditionally the Magus has very powerful nukes, but they are only short to medium range. And to top it off, the Magus is also not too shabby in melee combat.
So essentially you have a heavily armoured, short ranged nuking, power house. Which is exactly what I would have made the Magus in WAR. OK I wouldn’t make them as tough as a Chosen, but I would have made them significantly tougher than traditional casters. After all, they would need to be to stand a chance of performing their medium range nuking role. Then I’d try to make their spells actually reflect those from the lore, so it’s bye, bye DoTs and hello huge nukes and uber debuffs.
Just because MMOs normally give every faction a long range nuker, it doesn’t mean they must have one. Attacking Keep walls a problem? Well sorry this is Chaos, their whole theme is meant to be melee and short range. Plus that’s what their War-machines are for. If the ones in WAR were good enough I guess. Hellcannons are such a disappointment.
Oh, and no more summoning Nurglings, that’s just sodding silly.
I like the idea... as long as it is a career with not many AoE spells..which every "successful" (dd and healing) career tends to get in some way.
ReplyDeleteBut this idea of a heavier armor for a Magus doesn't fit to the design of distributing the four armor classes to the four careers... so I think that this idea has no chance of getting implemented by Mythic.
Another career that could need some love would be Engineers..what a surprise..the mirror career to Magus is also not loved by Mythic ;)
Could anyone tell me why I can't shoot anyone who's in close range, i.e. 5ft. Are rifleman specced Engineers that overpowered that they need this heavy drawback? Ok..I went a bit off-topic there. A complete overhaul was wanted...I'm not sure if any career needs this complete change..it's all more or less a balancing/design problem, e.g. Warrior Priest/Disciple of Khaine, Bright Wizard/ Sorcerer..
Yeah no chance of such a change happening. The class could do with some love, particulaly it's Havoc tree which is bloody terrible.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree about that 5 foot thing. Makes no sense. Copy and paste from WoW hunters...
Cant pick one cos there is 2 with the same thing. According to the fluff Blackguard and Swordmasters should use great weapons.
ReplyDeleteMythic shoulda had them both as parry tanks with GWs instead of gettin scared of doing something new and giving them a choice of GW or sword & shield.
BGs look dumb with shields.
Would love to see some love to the Magus. I really do think there is a case to be made to have SW and Magi upped to medium armor permanently.
ReplyDeleteDoktor - I totally agree matey, though I think it would need more than just beign parry based. With block working against spells and melee, that's a huge amount of mitigation to lose. Perhaps if those classes parry skill also worked against spells, say half the parry chance counted against spells or something. Would look cool, parrying fireballs :D
ReplyDeleteShadowwar - TBH I don't see how anyone could argue against them having Medium armour. Makes sense to me. I've got a very low level Shadow warrior on another server, its cool so far but I know it's gonna get tricky :P
I would agree that Magus need more than just a bump (having just gotten mine to rank 40 last night). Some basic things like getting rid of that stupid blue horror that spawns from IFoC and making the pets useful for something other than blowing up. But fundamentally, the mechanic needs to be looked at- so much of the magus damage is based over rather weak DoT', many of which are AoE, that is completely at odds with any kind of crowd control now. Right now they aren't particularlly effective in their supposed role as area deniers/controllers (not enough damage to keep people out of area, but CC changes significantly limit that approach as well).
ReplyDeleteThe challenge with the lore is that to some extent the marauder got bumped up from cannon fodder to fill the role you describe (moderate armor, lots of up close damage). What the magus (and engineer) need are significantly stronger AoE (like pandemonium) as well as some more robust buffs/debuffs (heals, wounds, silence- make IFoC have a snare component to it).
The problem with doing something unique and making it reasonably decent, is the forum whine. You could imagine the incoming sniveling. But but but, they have medium armour .... woe is to me .... nerf them back to the dark ages ... etc etc etc.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the easiest route causes the least heartache for all.
@thatsskarwithak:
ReplyDeleteI guess the real trick is "doing something unique and making is reasonably decent." PvP is very hard to balance. Aggressive PvPers (like me, and no doubt you as well) tend to be very quick to find every slight advantage and exploit it. So if you have an asymmetry in two faction's power based upon range, it could actually cause genuine problems worthy of grumbling.
Make one side that has greater power but shorter range, for instance. That will force them to adopt a mob style (which they might have already been doing... but they'll resent it after it becomes actually necessary). Once they get in close, they'll destroy the other faction--which will be (legitimately) upset because they were clearly overpowered up-close. So the other faction will find ways to keep the other side at a distance, nuking from afar... and whenever they're successful, the medium-range faction will be (legitimately) upset because they don't have the range. But the frustrations each faction will experience when it's on the losing end of that asymmetry won't *necessarily* be sniveling. Because one of those asymmetries will prove to be easier to exploit than the other.
Making a situation where one faction wants to close and the other faction wants to keep a distance would make WAR’s PvP much less fun. The best times I have in WAR is when everybody’s in the middle of it, mixing it up! Make one side that becomes more powerful than the other up close, and say bye-bye to those kinds of fights.
That’s what I think would happen.
And since I play Alliance, I’d hate to be reduced to the faction that retreats so we can use our long range to advantage. Whether you prefer Chaos or Alliance, I think PvP would be a lot less fun for both sides.