Class Changes: Magician

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Class Changes: Magician

With magicians, we’ve made a series of changes aimed at fixing problems that were created at low tiers by trying to adjust high-end mages. Specifically we’ve made changes a few high-level spells, mod rods and pet heals. We’ve also adjusted pet types to try to make them feel more distinct, and made changes to their AA’s to account for the changes to Area of Effect Crit Rates and spell defenses.

Magician Core Spell Changes

These spell changes are aimed at addressing problems created by attempts to buff higher-tier mages.

When Elemental Barrage was changed, the intent was to provide mages with an effective spell to use when their two best rains were on cooldown. However, the buff to Elemental Barrage made it stronger than all non-relic spells and even outclassed Relic: Bladewind unless the target had immunity to one of the elements. This adjustment inadvertently gave mages an advantage against high-resistance targets, which traditionally falls within the necromancer’s domain.

To address this, Elemental Barrage has been replaced with a new spell, Elemental Burst. This fast-casting nuke deals 1200 damage, has a two-second cast time, and a 4-second recast. The spell’s damage adapts to match the type of your current elemental form. The aim is to provide mages with a versatile third spell in their rotation, complementing their rains, and offering a reliable option when Bladewind is unavailable or when facing targets particularly resistant to fire or magic. Additionally, Elemental Burst is effective for quickly eliminating lower-health enemies that need to be taken down swiftly.

When we buffed Relic: Bladewind, the intention was to create a complementary spell to be used alongside the Relic:Storm of the Elements and Maelstrom of Electricity. However, the buff unintentionally buffed bladewind to be better than Maelstrom of Electricity effectively replacing the rain spell it was meant to complement. To correct this imbalance, Relic: Bladewind’s cast speed has been increased to 3.5 seconds.

When the changes to modulating rods were made, they were made with the intention of providing buffs to the high-tier player base. However, we found that during the seasons, these buffs made mod rods too strong at the lower tiers. With lower-tier fights being shorter and mana pools lower, an 850 mana mod rod provided a lot of power. In addition, these mod rods were actually less effective at providing more mana at higher tiers unless fights fell into specific fight durations due to the longer cooldown compared to normal modulation rods. To address this, Ancient: Greater Modulative Conjuring was reverted back to Ancient: Modulative Conjuring, and Modulative Conjuring was removed. Additionally, a new rank of mod rods is now available at the runic spell level

When pet heals were buffed, the focus was on the high-end player base. The highest-tier pet heal was appropriate for the runic pet’s massive health pool, but the changes to the lower-tier heals made them disproportionately powerful compared to pet health. Before focus effects, baseline pet heals were about 60% of the pet’s base health, and pet healing scales faster than pet health. Additionally, the lowest-level heals, which required the most attention, were not addressed. To balance this, we’ve buffed some of the lower-level heals, added a new pet heal at level 34 called Refresh Elements, and lowered the power of heals that were too strong. Furthermore, we’ve introduced a higher-tier pet heal that is more defensively focused, available at the runic spell level, aligning pet healing more appropriately with pet health.

Magician Spell Change List

  • Elemental Barrage has been replaced with a new spell called Elemental Burst.

  • Bladewinds cast speed has been increased to 3.5 seconds.

  • Ancient: Greater Modulative Conjuring was reverted back to Ancient: Modulative Conjuring.

  • Modulative Conjuring was removed.

  • A new rank of mod rods is available at the runic spell level.

  • Pet healing spells were given a balance pass to adjust them to make more sense relative to pet Health.

  • Renew Elements now scales by 2 healing per player level rather than 1.

  • Renew Summoning now gains 6 healing per level rather than 2.

  • A new pet heal called Refresh Elements is now available at level 34. It heals for 390 base health, scaling up to a max of 470.

  • Refresh Summoning now heals for 650 base and scales by 10 per level.

  • Transon’s Elemental Fusion now heals for 1000 base down from 1300.

  • Transon’s Elemental Renewal now provides 1450 healing down from 2000.

  • Del’s Elemental Recomposition now provides 2000 healing down from 3000.

  • A new pet heal that is more defensively focused is now available at the runic spell level.

Magician Pet Changes

Until the runic pet level, most of the pets felt very similar. We’ve made some changes to try to make them feel more distinct. We’re trying to make the pets fill different niches based on their element. To do so, we’ve adjusted their abilities and given each a buff that matches thematically similar to the fire elemental damage shield.

Runic pets have been adjusted for consistency and balance. All runic pets now have normalized melee damage, correcting the previous discrepancy where air pets had 20% more melee damage. The runic pet abilities now share the same cooldowns as non-runic abilities, and have been streamlined to be direct upgrades from pre-relic pets. Additionally, runic pets now have stronger self-buffs compared to their pre-relic versions.

Magician Pet Changelist

  • Air pets now get a spell damage reduction buff that scales based on pet level. The pre-relic pet caps at 7% spell reduction. The intention here is that between interrupting spells with their stun and the spell damage reduction buff, air pets will be good against spell damage.

  • Earth pets now get an armor class buff that scales based on pet level. It provides 4 AC per pet level (not affected by the Buff AC penalty), capping at 210 armor on the level 63 pet. We also buffed the amount of bonus threat their ability generates. The intent here is for the earth pet to function better as a tank against physical damage.

  • Fire pet is unchanged, remaining the highest DPS pet. It has a self-buff damage shield.

  • Water pet’s ability is now a small group heal, and their self-buff provides them with extra HP regen. The heal provides 3 health per pet level to your group. The level 63 pet provides a 165 point group heal. This pet previously had a slow which has been removed, since it filled a similar role to both the stun from air and the new armor bonus for earth.

  • The relic pet now gets all of the self buffs that the pre-relic pets have.

  • Previously, all the runic pets except air had the same melee damage. Air randomly had 20% more melee damage. All runic pet melee damage been normalized to be between where air was and where the other pets were.

  • The runic pet abilities now have the same cooldown as the non-runic abilities. The runic abilities previously had 33% longer cooldowns.

  • The runic pet abilities are now uniformly upgrades to the abilities the pre-relic pets had. Before, they often had multiple abilities cobbled together.

  • The runic pets now have self-buffs that are stronger versions of the pre-relic pet’s self-buffs.

AA Changes

As previously stated, several mage AA’s were changed, and in addition, one was fixed.

Elemental Mastery had been broken since the 2.5 transition, only allowing the magician’s pet to benefit from Spellcasting Fury without providing the other intended effects. This AA has now been fixed to properly grant the listed bonuses, including those from Fury of Magic, Combat Ferocity, and Combat Agility, ensuring the pet receives all the benefits it was supposed to.

Elemental Embodiment previously created a feast-or-famine situation with mana. In encounters where enemies cast frequent nukes, magicians had virtually unlimited mana. However, in situations with less enemy spellcasting, the AA offered no benefit. Additionally, its bonus spell damage reduction was overly powerful.

Elemental Attunement has replaced Elemental Embodiment. This new AA reduces the mana cost of spells that match your elemental form by 5% per rank. This change allows for more strategic mana management based on the types of spells being cast, and Elemental Burst will benefit from the cost reduction in any form. There’s also a new cold rain spell available at the runic level.

With the changes to area of effect critical strike chance, Empowering Storm would have become less useful, so it has been replaced by Gathering Storm. This new AA increases the damage of the second and third waves of your rains by 2.5% and 5% per rank, respectively, providing a straightforward damage boost with minor gameplay implications.

The elemental forms have been adjusted to offer more choice and utility rather than being focused on DPS. Previously, the Air Elemental Form was often the default choice due to the Shiritri’s Favor proc. To ensure the forms provide meaningful but balanced choices, we’ve disconnected DPS from the baseline forms, and the benefits have been rebalanced:

  • Air Elemental Form now provides:

  • Magic resistance

  • 30% movement speed

  • 1/2/3% spell damage reduction based on rank

  • Earth Elemental Form offers:

  • Disease resistance

  • 10% death save

  • 100/200/400 bonus armor based on rank

  • Fire Elemental Form grants:

  • Fire resistance

  • Ultravision

  • Damage shield

  • Water Elemental Form provides:

  • Cold resistance

  • Enduring breath

  • HP regen

The goal here is that none of these be so impactful that you feel like you are locked into a single elemental form and cannot change to benefit from Elemental Attunement and Elemental Burst, but there is some tension in what you are selecting.

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