Mages and ranged weapons

[Valdaglerion]

Seriously, mages should be able to use a crossbow, short bow or throwing knives.

[Aera]

Why?

[Brinelan]

Why?  If I am using all my spells on a mob, I dont have time to go and shoot a bow too..  If you want a bow.. rangers are --> 

that way

[Sprin]

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

Seriously, mages should be able to use a crossbow, short bow or throwing knives.

I must say, not quite sure why you would want / need that... maybe Tier 2 you dont have enough spells to fill your time with, but once you get higher tiers, you have enough spells that you will be spamming them all the time, with them up for reuse before your done with your arsenal...  there are plenty of secondary and ranged symbols out there that proc damage with attacks, which is more beneficial to mages then a bow that does very low damage and would never really be used...

[Generic123]

Sprinng@Nagafen wrote:

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

Seriously, mages should be able to use a crossbow, short bow or throwing knives.

I must say, not quite sure why you would want / need that... maybe Tier 2 you dont have enough spells to fill your time with, but once you get higher tiers, you have enough spells that you will be spamming them all the time, with them up for reuse before your done with your arsenal...  there are plenty of secondary and ranged symbols out there that proc damage with attacks, which is more beneficial to mages then a bow that does very low damage and would never really be used...

Melee classes get to use their combat arts and still get a ton of damage from their auto attack, mages only get spells which in most cases have longer cast times relative to their damage.  Procs, don’t narrow the gap either because they favor cast times under 1 second, which means most combat arts benefit greatly from procs but the DPS mage classes are looking at base cast times in the 3-4 second range and get far fewer procs. 

[Sprin]

Generic123 wrote:

Sprinng@Nagafen wrote:

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

Seriously, mages should be able to use a crossbow, short bow or throwing knives.

I must say, not quite sure why you would want / need that... maybe Tier 2 you dont have enough spells to fill your time with, but once you get higher tiers, you have enough spells that you will be spamming them all the time, with them up for reuse before your done with your arsenal...  there are plenty of secondary and ranged symbols out there that proc damage with attacks, which is more beneficial to mages then a bow that does very low damage and would never really be used...

Melee classes get to use their combat arts and still get a ton of damage from their auto attack, mages only get spells which in most cases have longer cast times relative to their damage.  Procs, don’t narrow the gap either because they favor cast times under 1 second, which means most combat arts benefit greatly from procs but the DPS mage classes are looking at base cast times in the 3-4 second range and get far fewer procs. 

Well melee artists do have faster cast times, and they have auto attacks, to activate their weapons 'procs" but their ranged weapon wont proc at all unless they are using ranged attacks... Mages have 1 handed and 2 symbols, all with procs based off of "successfull attack" which give them 3 chances to proc vs the melee artists 2 weapon's procs... so your looking at 3 chances of procing off slower cast times vs 2 chace to proc off faster cast times and auto attack, then again, you can always go up on the mob, especially if your not tanking and go melee which then gives you auto attack damage plus more chances for your procs to proc

[Generic123]

Mage procs only proc on their spell damage.  Melee/range procs can occur on both auto-attack or a CA of the correct type.  This means a melee proc on a class that used only melee attacks will go off twice as often as a mage spell proc.  Classes like Ranger that have a mix of range and melee procs don’t have it as nice but can still trigger procs of their combat arts and auto attack so they still have it better then mages. 

[Wingrider01]

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

Seriously, mages should be able to use a crossbow, short bow or throwing knives.

No thanks, my mage would probably shoot himself in the foot. Seriously, why? I play a ranger when I want to use a bow

[LygerT]

you can have a ranged weapon and i get some of your spells as compensation.

[Nadr]

Vote no for ranged weapon and let us keep our spells.

[Giland]

Just about across the board auto attack damage is higher than CA damage.

So melee have to "weave" their combat arts around the auto attack which is really a PITA IMO.

[Evette23]

Any class should be able to use throwing items such as pebbles and darts just from a common sense perspective.

Anyone should be able to drop a sack of level 1 pebbles in the ammo slot and toss them at mobs without the need for a satchel in ranged weapon slot. Maybe put a sling in ranged weapon slot for extra damage. If you have time to swing a great staff in between splitting atoms and summoning plagues, you can surely toss a pebble at a mob.

Darts might require a ranged weapon to be on par with throwing knives and axes, but they could have mage stats.

And crossbows and gnomish guns would be cool for other ranged attacks.

[Windowlicker]

A mage is already 100% ranged, what is the point?  I don't want to see my caster pulling out a bow when his spells aren't up just for the sake of having something to do.

I'd rather see my spells up to keep me active and doing something then to sit there plink-plink-plinking with a bow.

[Grong]

Flinging a long piece of cellulose or a 1000 degree Fireball?  I'll chose the fireball.

[Fendaria]

I don't think the point of the thread was to truly have mages using bows to ranged attack but attempting to get mages some sort of auto-attack to balance damage with scouts (and not just DPS but damage sources, etc).  Instead of calling it a 'bow' let mages stick 'wands' in their ranged slots and they can auto attack with them inbetween casting spells.  Give them a really short timer so they can actually fit and work during that .5 sec spell cooldown time.  Big fight, pull out that 20 charged wand of fiery death.  Wimpy trash mobs pull out that 200 charged wand of wimpy magic missles.  And now look, mages can get use from +DA items, +DPS items, etc.

Also, why not look at poisons?  Just don't call them poisons, but something like 'spell focuses'.  Let Sages craft scrolls which empower a mages weapon causing it to have a temporary chance to proc with each spell cast.

There are lots of things that can be done if you just reword them.

Fendaria

[liveja]

Fendaria wrote:

Let Sages craft scrolls which empower a mages weapon causing it to have a temporary chance to proc with each spell cast.

I think this is a much better idea than ranged weapons for mages, or even "wands" that auto-fire ala' WoW. When I play my Wizzie, I'm casting so often that I doubt I'd get much time for auto-attacks between spells, so I would far rather have things that increase my chance of spell procs &/or crits.

[Lethe5683]

No.  That would imbalance mages vs melee dps.  And don't start with the "but melee classses have autoattack" argument.  Mages (at least sorcerers)  have spells which in general do far more damage than melee CAs and if they are resisted you get a very short recast time.  If a CA misses it takes just as long for the recast as if we hit.

[liveja]

Lethe5683 wrote:

And don't start with the "but melee classses have autoattack" argument. Mages (at least sorcerers)  have spells which in general do far more damage than melee CAs and if they are resisted you get a very short recast time.  If a CA misses it takes just as long for the recast as if we hit.

I play both a Swashy & a Wizzie, & IMO the current situation is unbalanced in favor of melee, largely because auto attack damage is so high. The only advantage the caster has is the near-immediate reuse of a spell that is resisted.

[Xethren]

A ranged weapon for a mage? What the heck for?

Last time I checked our spells had pretty decent range themself.

[Nadr]

Fendaria wrote:

I don't think the point of the thread was to truly have mages using bows to ranged attack but attempting to get mages some sort of auto-attack to balance damage with scouts (and not just DPS but damage sources, etc).  Instead of calling it a 'bow' let mages stick 'wands' in their ranged slots and they can auto attack with them inbetween casting spells.  Give them a really short timer so they can actually fit and work during that .5 sec spell cooldown time.  Big fight, pull out that 20 charged wand of fiery death.  Wimpy trash mobs pull out that 200 charged wand of wimpy magic missles.  And now look, mages can get use from +DA items, +DPS items, etc.

Also, why not look at poisons?  Just don't call them poisons, but something like 'spell focuses'.  Let Sages craft scrolls which empower a mages weapon causing it to have a temporary chance to proc with each spell cast.

There are lots of things that can be done if you just reword them.

Fendaria

Now this I could agree with.  My Defiler runs up and sticks a spear in things between casts. My Brawler weaves CA around the autoattacks.  My mage stands there and says come on ...let me cast already.

[LygerT]

this really is just a rediculous request...

you don't fix classes with bandaids.

the sorcerer issue can be as simply fixed as reducing the cast times of some spells and reuse and leaving some alone(preferably the biggest nukes because of how much spike DPS affects aggro). that wasn't so hard was it? it also helps the issue of sorcerers in heroic zones where mobs only live for a few seconds at a time.

[Gisallo]

On most encounters many of my guilds mages are in melee range and are wacking the mob with their stick in between spells.  As a matter of fact you can tell the guys and gals who do and do not do this by looking at the parse.  This is not an option?  Between this and Lyger's suggestion then I think you have a plan

[Nadr]

guess im just old school enough to remember aoe on bosses.  To this day I dont go any closer then I need to be to cast my spells .

[SnowKnight]

Mages in DnD can use xbows etc. Eq2 while not a direct rip off draws pretty heavily on many conventions established by DnD. Why not mages using xbows too?

[Gisallo]

Nadr wrote:

guess im just old school enough to remember aoe on bosses.  To this day I dont go any closer then I need to be to cast my spells .

Well on my Ranger I joust A LOT on some of those fights because even with Chain I was/am squishy as heck.  With the ranger I also have the same no cast with my ranged attacks.  On those fights where we have to joust is where the rangers really show well on the parse, even if you are not timing you Auto Attacks so I would think the same theory would apply to mages. The mages I know joust the same as rangers do

[Lethe5683]

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Lethe5683 wrote:

And don't start with the "but melee classses have autoattack" argument. Mages (at least sorcerers)  have spells which in general do far more damage than melee CAs and if they are resisted you get a very short recast time.  If a CA misses it takes just as long for the recast as if we hit.

I play both a Swashy & a Wizzie, & IMO the current situation is unbalanced in favor of melee, largely because auto attack damage is so high. The only advantage the caster has is the near-immediate reuse of a spell that is resisted.

Well autoattack is very overpowered.  But autoattack needs to be nerfed, mages don't need to get ranged attacks.

[simpwrx02]

Lethe5683 wrote:

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Lethe5683 wrote:

And don't start with the "but melee classses have autoattack" argument. Mages (at least sorcerers)  have spells which in general do far more damage than melee CAs and if they are resisted you get a very short recast time.  If a CA misses it takes just as long for the recast as if we hit.

I play both a Swashy & a Wizzie, & IMO the current situation is unbalanced in favor of melee, largely because auto attack damage is so high. The only advantage the caster has is the near-immediate reuse of a spell that is resisted.

Well autoattack is very overpowered.  But autoattack needs to be nerfed, mages don't need to get ranged attacks.

I think it would rock for mages to get the option of doing 2-4k dps without using power.

[Lethe5683]

simpwrx02 wrote:

Lethe5683 wrote:

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Lethe5683 wrote:

And don't start with the "but melee classses have autoattack" argument. Mages (at least sorcerers)  have spells which in general do far more damage than melee CAs and if they are resisted you get a very short recast time.  If a CA misses it takes just as long for the recast as if we hit.

I play both a Swashy & a Wizzie, & IMO the current situation is unbalanced in favor of melee, largely because auto attack damage is so high. The only advantage the caster has is the near-immediate reuse of a spell that is resisted.

Well autoattack is very overpowered.  But autoattack needs to be nerfed, mages don't need to get ranged attacks.

I think it would rock for mages to get the option of doing 2-4k dps without using power.

Or even 2-4k dps while gaining power from regen and procs.

[Necrotherian]

How about this:

Give mages an item they can put in the ammo slot.

Make it a mana (power) potion, make it an item that increases spell range by 1%-5% with a finite number of charges, make it something that slightly increases DPS that has a finite number of charges.  Whatever, just make it something that a) Has a finite number of charges (but that can be stacked, like current ammo items), and b) Improves a mage's abilities, but not so much that it overcompensates.

[Noaani]

Zahne@Mistmoore wrote:

A mage is already 100% ranged, what is the point? 

Not all of us are 100% ranged.

I would be all for ranged weapons for mages, but only if they were a detriment to use if I would otherwise be casting spells.

Take a crossbow for example. Place 2 abilities in a mage/priests knowledge book, one called Load Crossbow, the other called Fire Crossbow. Load Crossbow has a 2 second cast timer, and gives players a 10 second buff that allows them to use Fire Crossbow once, which is instant cast. The maximum damage potential of any crossbow in the game would need to be around 3k per hit.

This would give mages a means of dealing damage when out of power, or when against a mob that reflects heavily. The maximum DPS of using a crossbow would be 1.5k, but it would not be possible to both use a crossbow and cast a spell at the same time.