@MidniteArrow

Yeah it sort of is 2 issues but I'm for less restrictions but they are also still tied together. One of the nice things about fractured is the mixed builds yes can it lead to some OP stuff & harder to balance but since the CC changes it isnt as bad.

Saying a fire mage using a fire staff should be locked out of the rest of the schools will also create some new imbalances especially with the defensive options out there. The other option then is are we switching some skills to be 2h only? For the sake of having restrictions like melee? Still doesnt solve the issue that a mage with a staff wont be killing someone who is very tanky if thats all we doing .

You could shift firestorm, hailstorm, permafrost and maybe a couple others to be 2h but its not really going to effect the hybrid much. Hybrids currently get the best of both worlds because the 2H mage staff is garbage and there is no choice. It has nothing over weapon+ shield. Yeah we could restrict some spells to 2h staves which would be fine but it wont effect the hybrid much & possibly still have them out damaging the light 2h mages because of the resistance differential.

Make Second Wind the defacto heavy armor skill & think that would be fine so hybrids cant stack that + any other heals. Then balance the mage spells with the 2h staffs increased damage. This way the hybrid has more options but isnt hitting the same as the 2h. If wands come into play and paired with a shield they could do more than a 1h melee + shield so you have an actual pecking order of power for magic. Then if its still a problem you could adjust the cooldown modifier for shields to make hybrids take a little longer to recover.

You want a 2h to do more than a 1h. Which I agree with. What I'm saying is that increase the damage or add more buffs to the elemental staves & it will possibly balance out the rest. So the fire staff has lets say an innate extra 20% then i can do + 20% added by material . Right now with the 20% i gear only 2-3 spells toward my element. If it was up to 40% then I'm going to load more from my school.

Now with scholar a 10 stack is another 20% damage. So 60% increase to a primary school when fully buffed or 40% under any other armor with my primary options. Or opt for a sword and board which leaves me at a 20% for my elemental maybe with scholars up to 40% at full stacks. If I'm running anything else then its just a flat 20% to a specific element because of my choices or if im using a 10% ability weapon thats basically it. So Light mages would be the boom, hybrids some where in middle , while heavies would be tankier but still be able to hurt mages if they get into melee because of low resists.

@spoletta I'm wondering if the increase in hp since it has to fill said hp & looks like a heal but if you're doing it every 12s it might as well be one correct even if it temporary? Might be something to look into.

Lighting Rush - No matter targets fortitude only putting 1 stack of shock on.

Primal Storm - Not draining correct mana rate.

Petrify - Not setting energy resistance to 0 like the tool tip says its supposed to.

Heart piercing Strike - Does the damage amplification work?? At 0 skill 0% amp for critical's at 2 skill still 0%

@MidniteArrow

Yeah it sort of is 2 issues but I'm for less restrictions but they are also still tied together. One of the nice things about fractured is the mixed builds yes can it lead to some OP stuff & harder to balance but since the CC changes it isnt as bad.

Saying a fire mage using a fire staff should be locked out of the rest of the schools will also create some new imbalances especially with the defensive options out there. The other option then is are we switching some skills to be 2h only? For the sake of having restrictions like melee? Still doesnt solve the issue that a mage with a staff wont be killing someone who is very tanky if thats all we doing .

You could shift firestorm, hailstorm, permafrost and maybe a couple others to be 2h but its not really going to effect the hybrid much. Hybrids currently get the best of both worlds because the 2H mage staff is garbage and there is no choice. It has nothing over weapon+ shield. Yeah we could restrict some spells to 2h staves which would be fine but it wont effect the hybrid much & possibly still have them out damaging the light 2h mages because of the resistance differential.

Make Second Wind the defacto heavy armor skill & think that would be fine so hybrids cant stack that + any other heals. Then balance the mage spells with the 2h staffs increased damage. This way the hybrid has more options but isnt hitting the same as the 2h. If wands come into play and paired with a shield they could do more than a 1h melee + shield so you have an actual pecking order of power for magic. Then if its still a problem you could adjust the cooldown modifier for shields to make hybrids take a little longer to recover.

You want a 2h to do more than a 1h. Which I agree with. What I'm saying is that increase the damage or add more buffs to the elemental staves & it will possibly balance out the rest. So the fire staff has lets say an innate extra 20% then i can do + 20% added by material . Right now with the 20% i gear only 2-3 spells toward my element. If it was up to 40% then I'm going to load more from my school.

Now with scholar a 10 stack is another 20% damage. So 60% increase to a primary school when fully buffed or 40% under any other armor with my primary options. Or opt for a sword and board which leaves me at a 20% for my elemental maybe with scholars up to 40% at full stacks. If I'm running anything else then its just a flat 20% to a specific element because of my choices or if im using a 10% ability weapon thats basically it. So Light mages would be the boom, hybrids some where in middle , while heavies would be tankier but still be able to hurt mages if they get into melee because of low resists.

@spoletta I'm wondering if the increase in hp since it has to fill said hp & looks like a heal but if you're doing it every 12s it might as well be one correct even if it temporary? Might be something to look into.

@MidniteArrow

The problem is the staves are to weak not that the shield and weapon combo is to strong. Go play a mage in light armor vs someone who is tanky without said shield. Scholars vs a medium with good resistance + shield or even a heavy is a chore or basically a no go without using certain skills ie. Firestorm etc.

The defensive spec'd melees and hybrids do more damage than a full fledged mage does to them because of how stacked resistance is plus capped fort , will , evasion whatever. Majority are running second wind + inspire (which is basically perma up time if you have the right stats on top of the nice heal). Poor mages have no hope of basically killing a medium hybrid or heavy melee without having to "kill" them 2x over sometimes 3. While a hybrid is killing someone in light faster with spells since they end up doing more damage to said person than the mage does to them. The heavy because of no shield & low resistance on the armor is just hitting like a freight train vs the light armor guy/mage. While the mage is basically doing chip damage.

Then we can go on to the whole stacks mechanic at high level is beyond useless except for a few spells in cryo. Permafrost + shivers to freeze someone. You'll usually end up killing someone before you get to enough stacks to have an effect in the battle. Except in the case when they have low fortitude , evasion, willpower. Then its the total opposite. The stacks pile on.

@spoletta the CD reduction enchant being on a shield is a non factor. If you're trying to balance the hybrids. I messed around with a CD reduction build to see if that would help vs the tankier guys without using a shield. Helps kill people you can already kill but against the more resistance folks CD reduction just puts more stress on the mana bar. You basically need higher damage or stacks (which is non existant). All it will do to the people that use a shield if you increase CD is delay the next cycle before the whole healing cycle starts again. There's just not enough incentive damage for pure mages to use a staff currently even if you tried locking them into the element which you sort of do with the material types.

@spoletta

Except having the staff doesnt bring you any options. Taking a melee weapon + shield is better as a caster. You get a slight cooldown increase but gain resistance across the board still keep your damage amount depending on the weapon made.

Switching to a staff you lose a nice chunk of resistance across the board especially in something like scholar. You're still going to choose the element type you to get that bonus damage just like the melee weapon to get the 20% increase. In return the staff gives you stacks on autos that is useless. Having something like 15% block from scimitar is more valuable.

Energy is the only good staff & its still not worth taking if I can equip a shield in my off to pick up 2x more enchants.

So why take a staff again over a shield and melee? You lose out on 6-8% at least resistance on the shield this is for a stock one. Anywhere from 10-15% block & 2 enchant slots. Elemental staff you get 10 stacks of whatever element from autos thats gone in a blink of an eye. Even if the staves had a 10% increase to the main element that I could stack another 20% by the type material then maybe it might be a consideration.

I disagree with the weapons should tie you with the skills at least as mage. The heavy armor restriction makes sense in locking out abilities but that can be resolved by adding more specific armor class skills or schools. This is one of the things that makes it different than albion. If this just becomes another clone by locking you into a weapon type then there is no point in playing. Heavy melee gets locked in because of their tankiness + the damage they can put out to things like light armor / medium. Granted some skills should be able to be used by multi weapons. Like pommel strike shouldn't be exclusive to sword. The currently variation isnt making light mages any overpowered thats for sure. Even the mediums with right skills aren't crazy(few exceptions here).

Then you're forgetting about being Evil. Basically that would be an extra 2 weapons dropped if at -10k karma.

As a new player who only started since last test I dont really see the issue with freeze.. The CC on the other hand was pretty big and being able to chain it. Still some outlying issues with it but better than last test & learning how all the resistances like fort, will , evasion interact with skills. Bigger issue is going to be explaining to new players how important those 3 stats are to reduce damage, stacks, etc

Been dueling a lot since last play test plus this one and maybe can count a handful of times I was frozen if that. A lot of complaints seem to be coming from permafrosts massive stacks. Only done a handful of group fights but with most skills friendly firing you're not going to see massive freezing unless the group is coordinated. Also as usual high fortitude negates a lot of this stuff to begin with.

Currently you have the 4 elemental shields that negate the secondary effects while massively increasing your resistance. You also have the elemental absorb shield that can mitigate the damage. I feel like its self balancing currently with the options available.

Frequency of Hailstorm is 1 globe dropping from the sky every 1 second in random locations (with my stats should be dropping 14.4 like firestorm).