Game Mechanics Mage melee can be saved

Hi folks! I guess I’ll just get right into it.

The Problem
Mage melee, as it stands, is absolutely awful. The dps is absurdly low, in some cases half of the normal dps (or even less!), and Mage’s 80% base defence doesn’t work the ehp any favours.
Sure, Mage has Heal, but in a non-spell build which is likely to not have any intelligence, how useful is it, really? Even if you have Orphion’s Pulse, you won’t be able to cast Heal frequently enough for it to make up in any way for the absurd lack of damage.

There are two big reasons for Mage Melee being as awful as it is.

1. The base DPS of its weapons
Different classes’ weapons have different amounts of base DPS - you can go on Wynnbuilder and check. Mage’s mythics are doing - and, keep in mind, these are the mythics - less damage than almost all bows and reliks at level 100, mythic or not.
This is because Mage’s spells have very large damage multipliers, where other classes (like Shaman) have much lower damage multipliers, but much higher base DPSs.

This is completely unnecessary. There is no reason that one class’s weapons should have lower DPS than another - as it stands, it serves to do nothing but nerf melees of classes like Mage and Warrior.
I argue we abolish this classist system and give all weapons similar dps, while decreasing the spell multipliers of classes like Mage and Warrior.

Were this to be the case, one of Mage melee’s two problems would be fixed. There would still, however, be one more.

2. Lack of a Melee Archetype
Frankly, I’m just gonna cut to the chase here: any class with good melee has an archetype that buffs its melee damage, and I think that Riftwalker should do the same, buffing Melee damage as part of its original ability.

tl;dr buff mage base dps and give riftwalker melee dmg

Thanks for reading

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Oh and maybe fixing class unbalances in base DPS would help fix the Pandemonium problem and we could get our fabulous item back

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, why is a mage better at casting spells, there is no intricacy in the plot and the concept of mage. This doesn't make any sense!!1!

 

The fact of the matter is that melee exists in the game and a “non-melee class” just nixes what should be an entirely valid (and, frankly, fun) playstyle.

 

shadow wizard money gang we love casting spells

 

To counter the "but it's the spell class" once and for all there are numerous mage weapons that are clearly designed as melee weapons with +melee and -spell stats. If those aren't meant to be used, why are they in the game?

 

Because Garwick is an ass and fucked up the production line on those wands!


In all honesty it might be to give people the option to attempt melee mage, however it’s really hard to expand on, and even melee mage, sadly rely on spells

 

In my experience (because Melee Mage was one of the many builds I have spent quite a while with), Melee Mage uses Heal and Teleport (and Ice Snake with Gaia), but doesn’t ‘rely on spells’.

 

More comically inflated spell multipliers allow for Mage and Warrior to get more mileage out of raw spell and powders.

 

As a mage main I disagree with simply just increasing the base dps of all weapons and tuning the spell multipliers to reflect that. Not only is that a ridiculous amount of work for the item team, it also harms a bit of mages overall identity in class building, such as boosting the viability of high raw spell items. It’d be boring if every class used the exact same items for each build archetype.

However, I do agree that there needs to be more support for mage melee on the ability tree along with better melee mage wands. Pyrokinesis and applying winded are nowhere near enough especially since other classes like archer and warrior can get much further mileage with melee builds. Something such as giving a much stronger melee multiplier through pyrokinesis or a melee damage boost from winded from a side perk could go a long way in boosting its viability, and these are only a few ideas I’ve had.

 

I feel the same way.

I do have to say though that pure/mostly melee in general is just… meh. Not strictly in the sense of having poor damage (especially on other classes), but just conceptually it isn’t good. What makes Wynncraft’s combat unique and fun are its spells, especially since 2.0. Without spells, Wynncraft’s combat becomes even more barebones than the base game’s because shields don’t exist in Wynncraft. I guess melee-focus builds could still use movement spells and all, but still. To me it’s like going to a steakhouse just to eat the appetizer bread. So I don’t entirely fault the IM team for not giving melee as much attention as spells.