Improving Arch Mages’s 1v1?

Reading your texts is like smelling the roasting of garlic on a buttered skillet tbh

 

I feel like we'd have to rework mages entirely for them to work as 1v1 bossers, something we all know is never gonna happen. And like others have mentioned, mages already have a strong niche in their strong ability to farm and grind. As a mage player myself i don't even think arch mages are that bad at bossing. I think a lot of the reason people think arch mages are bad at bossing is because there are no arch mages that actually have good gear. I am currently #2 magic on the damage range thread with what i consider to be a really poor magic, yet im #2 because there's just so few other people actually investing in mage gear (I've only invested less than 20b total-ish into my mage gear, which is super minuscule compared to the hundreds of billions top players from the popular attacker categories have invested). I think a well geared mage at 1650+ magic could really shine at horntail and do more damage than a lot of other attackers.
The only buff id really support for mages would be to either allow them to surpass damage cap (if that's even possible) or to ever so slightly buff paralyze/chain lightning, but tbh i don't really see a point in buffing paralyze/CL. Mages are gonna be trash at 1v1 regardless so i don't really see much of a point to slightly buff their 1v1. I think they are fine as they are, and any other change i think would just ruin the class i like to play.

 

@iEatEmoKids GMS has gone crazy so I'm not going back there. I'll admit that ideally I'd play in a ~ 2011 server (The version that had Battle Square) but: 1. There isn't any. 2. If there were, pretty sure there aren't nearly as many people on it as Royals. The community, people, here is why I like this server (And also why I liked Maplestory), which is why I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, just asking y'all opinions.

@Michael True, Pre-BB AMs were great mobbers and terrible at everything else. So sure, don't make new changes, but giving them at least the equal to what Pre-BB AMs had shouldn't be too much to ask, no? Increase on Paralyze 210 -> 240 and fixing Slow at the very least. I'm only talking about F/Ps since this is the class I know, but this goes for every other classes other there; fixing their broken skills and make small changes if possible.

 

I don't necessarily want a mage that's the best bossing class (because again, no matter how you buff skills, magic just doesn't scale as well as weapon attack does.) What WOULD be cool, is a buff to the non-ultimate part of the mage kit, in exchange for a cooldown on ultimates...even if it were just an optional thing, where a mage could choose to forego meteor for example, in exchange for fire demon, elquines, paralyze, big bang buff.

Or if not that, how about poison/lightning weakness on some bosses? It won't change the dps on any classes except for Paladin (which could use a buff anyway) and gives a 50% dmg boost to single targets on mages...

 

That is by far the strangest compliment I've ever received, but thank you.

Glad we agree on this then - you proposed some other things and I got kind of worried, but as I said in my first post in here, I think that the most that should be done is fixing skills that are still broken (rare as they are this long after new source came out) and bringing Paralyze and Chain Lightning up to the point where they're better than spamming ultimates for 1v1 damage, but still not stronger than any other class in the game - make the skills useful to the character without disrupting the class balance in the game.

Side note - if you are someone who considers making CL/Paralyze stronger than some of the lower tier attacker classes, put yourself in their shoes for a moment and decide if you think it'd be a cool concept to dump time and effort into creating gear, HP washing and leveling up your own Shadower, Paladin or Buccaneer only to find that grind-god, hypermobile element mages that don't need to HP wash to do anything are stronger than you are. Would feel pretty bad, wouldn't it! Mages have been and should always be the worst 1v1 dps in the game.

 

Exactly. Which is why I said earlier, and I quote again: "Lets say on a scale from 1 to 10, NL (Or whatever is the top DPS class) is 10 while AM is currently 2. Making them 4 or 5 wouldn't be game breaking imo; (Assuming) most classes would still be in the 7+ area." Its just sad that Meteor currently outshines (Or almost) every other AM skill even in a 1v1 situation while it was made for mobbing. Also, apart from the Infinity full revamp I mentioned earlier, all the changes I suggested before didn't really affect DPS. Having MP Eater work on a boss serves is a supportive role, but now that I think about it, Bishops also have MP Eater. f3

@Nes I haven't been to Obv 5 in Royals yet, but from what I remember back in GMS, Lyka was weak to poison. He/she is a useless boss, but I just wanted to point out that some are already weak to certain elements.

 

It's amazing how many people arent even reading the OPs post. He's not asking for mages to be a good bosser at all. He's asking maybe something small could change so theyd at least have a possibility of helping. Right now having a f/p in a bossing party is generally a crutch. Itd be nice if a mage could at least kill griffy/manon or something like that. Or maybe a small but weak party/ some sort of bonus effect to having one in a boss party.

 

we did read OPs post..
if you that desperate to play mage AND take part in boss runs. just make a Bishop, no point by give other mages extra edge in boss fights, since they already by FAR best farmers and grinders..

and as it was said here, by make that small change it take away from attackers who lets be honest Bossing is all they really got and at some level from Bishop who is the every good run should have one..

also worth to note, mages can easily kill griffy/manon SOLO, just make sure to keep your buff up and runnings so you won't die.. (should take 15-40 min)
--just yesterday i've killed manon solo, as bishop level 135.
and i have less then 2bil worth of eq on me.

 

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/latest-accomplishment-thread.2508/page-306#post-591676 just a reference for you, OP did solo papulatus in 16min at lv 158...I think this could at least proving that mage could solo Griffy and Manon with no problem...At least my BS has no problem on those 2 boss...

 

If anyone's wondering what archmage non-ult damage is like:
My I/L can 1hit petris but hits around 20k to 30k on the first target with chain lightning 30 and an ele8 wand. Second hit does about 2/3 of the damage. The cast time is pretty fast at least!