WARNING - This thread isn’t made for new players or those that seek guidance on how to use said class, please look for proper threads regarding it such as class overviews and build guides. Design Breakdown is a design discussion thread only and has no purpose to help players on practical aspects of the game.
Starting an updated Design Breakdown Re:Build with the only class that has no real role competition as everybody gets physical, Wizard. As a base class you can’t avoid to take it and so they need to have roaster of skills useful for all sorts of builds. If you haven’t checked already the other basic class entries were also updated to the current game state.
This short description says more about the wizard tree than the class itself, tho it is fairly accurate for it. Wizard is about dealing with multiple enemies using skills and this is seen only in Swordsman on the physical side, however the big difference is how they can’t hit multiple enemies with basic attacks and don’t have the endurance require to try go melee.
Wizard theme is quite broad as the supernatural is present all over the world, in fact it was often tied to religion and that can be an issue to define a magician theme, that can be done by embracing nature, evil beings and/or the unknown. By taking that aspect in mind Wizard has to oppose Cleric in theme, there’s a counterpart this clash of ideas that is present on science and religion. Both seek to answers day to day phenomenons and questions that haunt mankind from its dawn, religion does it through the divine and is sustained by belief while science explains the world by itself and has to be experimented to valid itself as Wizard can connect with natural forces through knowledge.
We can see that the male wizard costume resembles a lab coat unlike the usual robes that the theme is known for, the female counterpart seems to pay homage to stage magicians as it shares similarities with assistant outfits. Another interesting point is that both costumes have more complexity than Cleric’s and that may be a counterpoint their humblety, as such Wizard looks more aristocratic and that is even more evident on its special costume that seems to carry along the stage performance visuals. The Wizard thematic we get here is to manifest the inner energy and apply it on surroundings, in fact nothing it does changes fundamentally any aspect of thirds, the only major change is based on the self or manifestation of the own magic.
Earthquake (B) - Lead
The first and only skill that takes nature in a pure and direct state, instead of creating or modify elements it just shakes the earth by forcing energy into it. The only missing point on it is how it doesn’t translate the shockwave nature of it as it gets weaker on edges but that isn’t really an issue.
Back in the old days this skill had a moderate execution time that was removed due the low power output it had, however that also had a role as some higher rank skills don’t have instant effect which also made the animation clunky as it skips the whole execution motion. Earthquake explores the nature of terrain based skills in the minimum and also teaches new players that some skills will use the character direction to be executed in this tree, on top of that it also serves as a protective skill to be used once in a while as it has some large range knockdown.
Energy Bolt (D) - Midground
Shooting energy balls is something fairly common on games and anime, and ToS fits both ironically, as the mechanics of the ability are simple, condense the energy or magical power and release it at a single direction.
Energy Bolt received so many changes over time and still managed to be fairly the same but at the current state it is a questionable skill, it does serve to introduce the concept of casting and splash damage to new players but having it on a skill that is spammable, pushes enemies, has no overheats and is single target oriented feels wrong for the intended design.
On on side it feels like the main goal is to grant Wizard the ability to protect itself while dealing damage when enemies get into attack range as the AoE aspect of it is in splash to enemies near the target and this mechanic is effect works better on short distance, however with damage being the increment used on an already frequently available skill it is hard to let it slide.
When considering the short cast time and quick reload it is hard to ignore it at all specially being one of the few single target skills the tree has, in fact Energy Bolt can be the ultimate rotation filler as it is likely to be available through few skills overheats and helps to have the damage going as other skills refresh. It may be possible that Energy Bolt is the most reliable skill in the Wizard tree as it offers everything - short cooldown, AoE utility, consistent damage, knockback, free mobility cast, direct targeting, short cast and conditional extra damage.
Being that overloaded the ideal approach is to focus on a single direction as and dispose or reduce the other components. If the idea is to have it casted all time then the knockback component can be removed completely and have the skill focused on offense, if the goal is to give it a reliable single target skill splash can sacrificed instead, tho if the real goal is to be used as a reliable and consistent damage output to level early on it can be adjusted around cooldowns and overheats.
On the verge of teaching mechanics this same concept could easily be applied into wizard Z as a charge variation with some extra damage and splash damage instead of having a dedicated skill to do so, in fact this can promote cast time reduction as a helpful stat for everybody instead of being limited to certain class choices and open up the possibility to have a brand new skill replacing Energy Bolt tho that is a more extreme approach to it.
Lethargy (C) - Complement
A magic that makes enemies tired, or rather lethargic. This isn’t anything new but is a funny idea to work with as it can be seen almost as a prank in the magic spectrum, it isn’t glamorous but is fitting for a base class. It’s interesting to see that the particle effects try to sell the idea that the air around became heavier as this is often how people describe fatigue and other similar conditions. With Sleep removed from Wizard it became the only ground target skill in the class being responsible to introduce that mechanic early in the game.
Lethargy is an interesting skill to tackle, as a debuff it applies the value on the enemy and no on the user and has this same value tied to how long the enemy exist under the effects. This means no matter how strong the effect itself is it won’t make a difference if the enemy in question gets obliterated after applying it and will go on cooldown as any other skill, this major gap with buffs is what allows it to have more components, in this case 4, that scale with level and not be truly overloaded. However this logic doesn’t apply against bosses as they are the center of attention of a fight and last long enough for Lethargy to make a difference, if it weren’t for this particular case it could be reasonable as it is.
The whole deal with multiple scaling components is the overscaling effect as the skill value increases exponentially when leveled and as Lethargy lacks floors this is amplified, tho none of the skill components interact with each other directly. Any player that notices the leveling increment will instantly be drawn to the skill yet it will be unlikely to be used anywhere aside bossing the average content monster should die easily, it’s a paradoxical state as the skill is objectively strong and overloaded but has some sort of niche application field that can make it absent for a decent part of the game experience.
A small addition that can promote the skill use more often is to reintegrate Sleep inside the skill, even if it has a single hit threshold, as it is the weakest control debuff in the game and matches the skill thematic, if this isn’t as attractive than a -1 ADR effect or short duration slow can do the job. Along that it could be interesting to review which components are taken as leveling factor since the current 4 (or 3 as it takes both types of attack) lack floor and aren’t needed to be promoted all at the same time, it is fine to have them all scaling but seeing all the numbers going higher will push players to pick more often than they need. As a matter of stat choice Evasion seems to be the real stat to look for in scaling as it allows the skill to be more flexible to be taken in intermediate levels, in addition to that the magic circle bonus feels out of the theme and doesn’t have the same former value it had back in the old class system.
Magic Missile (A) - Lead
Homing magical pellets, the way it is executed makes it look like small spirits seeking living energy. Usually a skill has to be both useful and visually appealing to be satisfying but Magic Missile can get over it with the later only, it is a skill that looks like what amazing magic would be and also feels magical as it defies the conventions and expectations.
The current version of Magic Missile is the fairest as it has the bullet count to be static, this wasn’t needed at all if the skill had a reliable floor to count with but considering the skill nature it would ramp up even if the damage was static. There are few skills which mechanics can be related to Magic Missile and it’s hard to describe how bullets behave but instead of presenting itself as something scary the skill feels natural to use and brings awe. As a last point of interest the skill can also be used to gather enemies as it will spread rather easily for cheap aggro making it as one of the few pure offensive skills that has unlock value.
Magic Shield (D) - Complement
Also taking the same thematic mechanism of condensing energy, this time around the user as a barrier. With the new changes on SP consumption this skill fell to oblivion as the one of the ways to work around the limitations is by having more SP and the skill will drain it in %.
In paper the skill should be fine with some proper SP management but as a persistent buff it can be troublesome to use, any skill that imposes a drawback on use should have the ability to be easily disabled even if it has a cooldown to do it but this is a case where toggle would be the best choice. The only argument in favor of the current SP drain formula is the fact it is easy to track down the drain cost per hit but when you take that to a class tree that struggles the most without skills.
Just by taking in mind that the skill can completely backfire against multi hit skills and/or multiple enemies and that can be worse when their damage is too low for Magic Shield to be useful. This kind of scenario should be enough to review how the skill process SP drain, ideally it should be changed to consume it based on the total damage received (before Magic Shield reduction) as that alone won’t punish SP stacking and can reward those that invest on defense.
From all starter classes Wizard is the most reasonable on skill distribution as the offensive part deals with different mechanics altogether, tho Earthquake may be on disadvantage. Both buff and debuff aspects of it are in a weird state where Magic Shield offers less benefits than the skill drawback and Lethargy isn’t the kind of skill that of skill that contributes outside specific scenarios. The expected point distribution for Wizard should have Lethargy maxed, or ignored, and Magic Shield absent leaving the choice to the active skills only which in this case can be a matter of preference or build path.
The only missing piece in Wizard for a perfect introduction class is the lack of target count as part of a skill, that can be considered present in Magic Missile but it isn’t stated nor pointed out to reach new players. Aside that and the previous mentioned skill point distribution there’s not much to be commented on the class, it does a great job on exploring the theme and still be generic but doesn’t end up being dull and boring to play with. Even the overuse of Energy Bolt ends up as a positive, not excluding the fact it should be readjusted, since it allows players to always have something to look for while playing the basic class and allows the most conservative skill point distribution to work out with a single offensive skill.
Identity - C
Theme - A
Gameplay - B
Skill Distribution - C
Overall - B
If you haven’t checked yet Cleric, Scout and Swordsman were updated as well and Archer was released along, next week will have both Priest (without Chaplain) and Doppelsoeldner updated followed by a new entry in Onmyoji.
