A Meteor Change.

Now mage's meteor is meant to be mage's most powerful spell, however it has a downside to it that in my opinion just becomes way too annoying when in use. That would be the auto-aim. This is also the only spell where an auto aim actually exists and I think it should be removed.
Because honestly it's just causing more problems when you're trying to target a specific mob but the meteor goes on to a mob too far away to actually deal damage to your target. This becomes apparent when the auto aim appears to bug and attack a mob far away. So the best notion is just remove the auto aim to make meteor less awkward to use, especially since it's an AoE attack so it's not that hard to hit your target.

So Instead of autoaim it should go wherever your cursor is until it either, A hits the max range at which point meteor will just fire at that max range. B hits a mob which will cause the flame target to appear on that mob but not move with the mob, or C hits a block where it will just target that block

 

I dont whink that would be less annoying... its really useful

 

I would disagree, Auto aim on the meteor has caused a lot of problems for me due to the fact it seems to lock on to any mob that just happens to be in your fov, which in a boss fight isn't the most useful thing since meteor could just decide to never lock on to the boss but instead all of the minions. And since the meteor has a large AoE I don't think auto-aim really needed.

 

Maybe a thing we can toggle, so ? Like the teleport bump.

 

Maybe, it should either be an option or removed cause it's just annoying to be forced to combat auto-aim as well

 

I personaly like it because it means I can hit stuff at a greater distance when I'm rushed. I would not want to try Orange Wybel without that, because I'd probably land like 3 meteors in 5 minutes due to frantic "trying not to die" movements.

 

Thing is the auto aim is just too situational though. And due to you not having to aim right at a mob to hit it, it makes it even less useful. All you have to do is aim close to the mob without auto aim and you're most likely going to hit. And isn't Wybel a lone mob? Horde places show the problems with auto aim (for some reason auto aim will aim at mobs 8 blocks away from where you looked even if you were looking at another mob.)
Also I find the distance not really mattering since i just do a teleport or ice snake and just meteor them. A lack of auto aim will also help with killing multiple mobs at once as you get the ability to aim in the middle of them instead of hoping the meteor locks on the middle mob..

 

When you shift while casting meteor, the spell should change into a slow fireball being launched in the direction you are looking in (similar to the meteor spell on mobs), instead of the autoaim meteor. I always thought that a spell based class should have more spell variety, rather than just one strong auto-aim attack.

 

That'd be too weak honestly. And just make it completely useless in any horde based area.

 

One problem with relying on the AoE to fill in "near misses" is you might miss by a lot further than you think.

Unless you take care and aim at the ground where your enemies are standing (which could be quite awkward having to always be looking down, idk I don't play like this), if you look straight horizontally at your opponent (which, I think, is what most normal people do) and miss the opponent's hitbox -- even by just a tiny bit -- your meteor is going straight for the opposite arena wall. Which is usually outside the AoE.

You could do something like archer's arrow having a wider beam when you raytrace to the target, but that just replicates the auto-aim problem in a slightly different way. (It might unexpectedly "hit" a mob that's a block to the side but intercepts the wider beam.)

After playing enough mage you learn to work around the auto-aim. For example, back in the day (before powder update, Waaay back when Qira was darned strong and attack tier was used in every self-respecting spell build), I had trouble trying to solo Qira because my meteore would always lock on to the spiders that swarmed me (I was lv88 mage trying to solo qira with bob's mythic wand, don't ask). But with enough experimentation I learned that if you look high up and aim at the wall, auto-aim will ignore all the mobs right next to me and shoot straight for the farthest one near the wall (I.E. Qira herself).

So yeah I don't think its a bad thing, you learn to play around it and use it to your advantage; there are scenarios where it might get in your way but overall I think its better to have auto-aim than not.

 

My main save file is a mage, and I find the auto aim really useful. It usually aims at what you're going for and gets a direct hit, and sometimes you can hit things through walls. But it should have a toggle feature.

 

The thing is though that's just enforcing why it should be a toggle. I shouldn't have to look at a perfect place to make auto aim work with me and not against me. And honestly unless you're dealing with a mob that knows charge it should be hard to miss the mob (even then auto aim can't deal with charge mobs either) Remember mage has the second longest range out of all the classes. If you're unsure if you'll land the meteor you can get close enough where you feel more confident while also staying safe. Also you wouldn't have to aim at a mob to use meteor. And honestly if a mob is closer and a block to the side i'll probably just focus that mob then deal with the one behind, or if im at the level, immobilise them.

And honestly i've found more scenarios where auto aim just makes killing mobs more awkward than actually helpful, i've been denied so many opportunities at damaging all of the mobs close together because it aimed at the furthest one to the right or left and not the middle one

Somehow auto aim for me refuses to aim what im going for and will just aim for whatever happens to be nearby. Also if a mob is through a wall you could just target the wall and hit them. I do agree though it needs an optional feature since people still want auto aim.

 

Sometimes it does this for me, but not usually.

 

Auto aim has never really been been a problem for me. I can see how sometimes it can be an issue, but always hitting something is better then having a chance to miss. Even if you target something other than the boss, you still targeted and most likely killed that thing, leaving the boss defenseless. Sometimes it is good to remember that mage is not all about range. You will sometimes need to get closer in order to attack, and if things go ring, then you have the second best movement spell in the game to get you out of there.

 

Sadly that idea doesn't work with bosses like bob. Due to his minions spacing themselves out and being the worst things in the world to even bother attacking it just ends up with mage more wasting their spells. And due to some arena's being compact teleport isn't as useful as it could be due to the problem of minions being where you just went to. The range thing. I feel like range shouldn't matter with meteor. It should just matter where you're aiming (still even at close range auto aim is very questionable) And honestly i'd rather have a chance to miss but it be solely dependent on my aim if i hit or miss. It would be a lot more satisfying to me and a lot less worrisome of if meteor will go wrong due to suddenly missing without any control. Why my suggestion is now auto aim should be toggle-able instead of removed since people still want it.

 

You don't have to constantly look down. If you realize that mage's auto-aim can miss when you look straight at a boss, then you can just lower your head to cast meteor and then raise it again. Sure, this may seem inconvenient, but I'm just saying that auto-aim is still usable if you know how to use it.

 

It sounds like we're arguing for the same side? (auto aim is good, the whole "looking down" thing is something you'd have to do if there wasn't auto-aim)

That aside I agree that it is something you could get used to.

 

Isn't this just highlighting why auto aim is a problem and should just be turned in to a toggle? The way auto aim should work is it should be convenient to use and you should have control over how it works? How meteor's auto aim currently works is just close to pure rng if there are multiple mobs near each other. Meteor's the only spell where no matter how good you are at aiming at mobs it doesn't matter due to auto aim being able to mess up spectacularly.

 

Isn't that what the blindness thing is used for?
Also just want to point out that mage just got a HUUUGE buff meteor wise, and is potentially the most damaging spell in-game. If what you say about the auto-aim is true, that it is a hindrance, then it seems to help balance the strongest spell in game.
(The strongest before the nerfs was arrow storm with Grandmother, with smoke bomb in second with Cataclysm.)

 

Blindness got nerfed to a point teleport's better for damage due to blindness lasting about 1 second. And meteor is a strong spell but it's no where near the strongest. Meteor yes did get buffed but it already has a downside of taking a second to actually activate which combined with the auto aim means meteor's one downside gets worse. This also means meteor can't be spammed unlike other spells.
Auto aim being a hindrance is literally just making a downside worse than it needs to be. (Side note if you want to follow the dps route arrow bomb is still much stronger) Auto aim is just basically making meteor more of a hassle to use instead of balancing it due to the already existing downside.