Mage Is Inferior To Shaman

The most recent nerf is actually 120% -> 80%. From item team thread:

 

Much like me, Nighthawk was clearly a mistake.

 

Relatable

 

Literally, nothing stopping a mage from building a 3x Tier VI Water Powder wand with water damage bonuses along with mana regeneration/steal and throwing everything into Intelligence. Even without it, at the most basic levels with the simplest items, Mage does it's job well. Just because it doesn't provide a damage bonus doesn't make it inferior. Different classes provide different things. What Mage provides is spammability if you just simply build basic items. No Mythics or Fabled, hardly any Legendaries.

Even if you throw 1/2-3/4 of your skill points into other stuff, the low mana cost and ability to reset means spamming for days. Your argument is a Level 97 Mythic Relik and a Level 95 Fabled Chestplate. With Mage, you don't even need high-level legendary items to provide decent healing. Secondly, I don't understand the supposed "change in gameplay". There is no change, you TP near them, heal, and go back to whatever you were doing. Your most damaging ability will go off even if you teleport across the map. See Ally -> Meteor -> Teleport -> Heal -> Teleport Back -> Meteor. Still, mana to spare, and of course, Mana Regeneration.

Also, I don't remember the last time I purchased a Health Potion. I don't know if the other classes can say the same thing. That's a huge thing, both economically and as evidence that it can do something beyond a purchasable item.

The thing I don't understand is why you are trying to make it so that Mage is like another class, specifically Shaman. If something is busted, you don't make everything else busted, you nerf it, so all classes still have reasonable ability outputs with their unique traits still intact. I don't want Mage to be more like Shaman, otherwise, I'd play Shaman.

Read threads about people ranking classes and when they list Mage, they say they dislike it because it made everything so much easier. "Shaman is THE premiere crowd control class." "shaman was meant to be the best crowd control class" Yes, that is what that specific class is good for. Why does Mage need to be boosted to that level? Why have different classes to begin with? It's like comparing a runner to a swimmer.

What is the purpose of you referencing Assassin's Vanish when you never bring up the abilities of literally any other class throughout your thread. The argument is Shaman vs Mage. It's like me saying, "Aura does damage, more than Ice Snake (I'd argue Arrow Storm is better)" - that's called a red herring, and those aren't a viable form of argument. "I don’t think this is very relevant to being a support class since mobility mainly benefits the user." Then allow me to politely disagree; it means you are able to zoom across the area of battle instantly to provide help whenever needed. You are able to bend to your team's needs based upon their positions, not the other way around for Shaman. "having something that is always there" Unless the Mage dies, they too are always there as well. And as you said, the heal works really well selfishly, so it's not likely to happen.

I've already stated that by itself, Mage gets by pretty well considering how much less damage it does. Most things don't live past 1-2 Meteor spells as long as you continue to upgrade your wand. I've carried sub-60 wands against CoW and I've carried wands 20 levels below the mobs I'm fighting and have made it out without any issue. Just build the right item, it doesn't even need to be a Legendary.

"While mage is meant to be a support class and not a damage class, damage, whether it be a buff or damage dealt by the user is useful to the team" It's a support class with better heal potential than a Shaman, which is why Shaman shines brighter via damage. Again, no need to throw Mage upwards if Shaman needs to get a high level Mythic or Fabled item to compared to Mage being able to heal decently from Rares and Uniques.


In general, Mage is Mage and Shaman is Shaman. Mages with non-Mythic/Fabled items can heal pretty well and hold the opportunity for insane spammability and mobility to get around to a large team spread across the map. By itself, Mage is a very comfortable class. If you genuinely want something to fix, let it be Ice Snake, because it can sometimes go inside or under blocks when you use it, making it useless in that instance alone.

 

Can definitely testify to this. Mage compensates for it's somewhat low left click damage with the ludicrous amounts of damage meteor deals

 

As a mage main myself, I'd argue as other people have stated in this thread that Shaman is just too strong in pretty much all respects (except for its glassiness without abso), rather than mage being too weak. It's that Shaman's ridiculous strengths make Mage's pre-shaman strengths more obsolete. I would even argue that shaman is equal to or stronger than archer to a small extent because of its buffing, healing, and CC options. In my opinion, mage in its current state is fine and relatively balanced, despite it providing the least DPS out of any class. Mages' strength comes from its excellent utility, survivability, and inherently small spell costs, which allows it to excel in any situation given a strong investment in mana sustain and spell damage (it also benefits the most out of raw spell damage of any class). Its only real issue is that the hitboxes for teleport and ice snake are inconsistent and at times unreliable, so either fixing or slightly increasing their AoE will give mage a better leg up against Shaman in particular.

 

Shaman may have comparable healing for allies (although even then, it heavily depends on the specific party setup - mage is easily the best healer for a two-person party), but mage definitely has better healing for itself. I personally think Shaman is really overrated here, arguably only a middling class.

 

Relative to other classes's spell DPS meteor is weak. By the time a mage can land a meteor other classes will have dealt more overall dps. I'd say it is great for clearing weaker mobs since it is just a set and forget and deals more damage in one hit making it more likely to 1 shot, but clearing weaker mobs hasn't really been an issue where mage dps matters. In bossfights and against tougher mobs you really can see where mage falls behind in dps. There's nothing more satisfying than deleting a crowd of mobs in one hit but I'd like to see mage preform better with a team against a boss.

 

You definitely have a point. Mage does struggle against bosses, as I've played assassin before and I've never actually had to worry about bosses until I started playing Mage.

 

i just go brrr on meteor with pure and we good

 

Agreed, I love the balance, it’s built to be a single target dps class, and meant to struggle against groups. This is perfect for me