I feel like wizards primary are now split into 3 main categories.
Fire/Ice/Lightning Trio (Elemental Builds)
- Obvious classes for this Trio would be Pyromancer, Cryomancer and Taoist. Taoist in the Elemental builds are very strong because it has good single target DPS (Creeping Death Charm, even after nerf stll looks good but not OP) and Tri Disaster Charm that boosts Fire/Ice/Lightning. Both Pyromancer and Cryomancer greatly benefit from this. Another wizard that fit into this is Elementalist. However, Elementalist only have strong synergy with Pyromancer and almost none with Cryomancer. The bonus of Electrocute doing more damage on frozen enemies is removed. Hail is very weak and not worth more than 1 point. It would be great to see them try to improve the synergy between Cryomancer and Elementalist so that Pyro+Ele isn’t the only popular option. One way would be to bring back the higher damage of Electrocute on frozen enemies and make Electrocute stronger maybe by scaling the damage to increase with level. Hail would be a good bossing skill if it was stronger, so people can choose between having Hail as a stronger bossing skill or Meteor/Storm Dust as a stronger AOE skill. Also, since Elementalist is suppose to be good with the 4 basic elements, I have this idea of actually changing Storm Dust to fit the element of your choice depending on the attribute you get. Storm Dust can have a “Fire Storm” attribute that maybe does more damage on burned enemies, and maybe a “Ice Storm” attribute that does more damage on frozen enemies. Just theory crafting here but increasing synergy between Cryomancer and Elementalist would maybe make Cryomancer more viable. Also Elemental Essence just lasts too short.
- Psychokino and Onmyoji might not really have direct synergy with the Elemental classes in terms of “Elemental Property Attacks”, but they synergizes well due to specific skill synergy. Psychokino does well with Pyromancer and Cryomancer. Onmyoji does well with Pyromancer and Psychokino.
Dark Build
- The past 2 patches are obviously trying to make dark wizards more viable. If you look at the top 100 builds there is not a single Warlock/Featherfoot/Shadowmancer because they are that bad. The changes to improve synergy and power in the dark classes are nice but whether is it enough to surpass the Elemental Builds we are not sure yet. Right now Dark Builds can choose 3 out of the 4 main classes which are
- Warlock: Masterma Curse. Better AOE damage than the rest. Invocation spirits. DoT damage
- Featherfoot: 3 Curses. More focused with debuffing and Kundela Slash burst. Blood Curse back for more AOE. Self Heal. Boost dark damage with passive attribute.
- Shadowmancer: Focused on single target. Good for bossing with Infernal Shadow
- Bokor: Hexing debuff. Short CD Effigy spam. Damballa AOE burst. Zombies!!!
- Necromancer is also a notable inclusion because “Corruption” boosts poison damage now I think? This makes it good for Featherfoot. Onmyoji also because of the Yin Yang attribute, but Onmyoji ultimately does seem to fit the Elemental Builds better because of specific skill synergies.
Summoner Build
- A lot of people see it as an AFK build with Bokor-Sorcerer-Necromancer being one of the top 5 popular builds in the game. However, a summoner build does not necessarily only compromises of 3 pure summon based classes. With the changes, it now seems viable to include those classes with other classes mainly with Dark Classes. Bokor with Warlock/Shadowmancer/Featherfoot, Necromancer with Featherfoot etc. Sorcerer here however does seem to be the odd one out that only does well with summon based classes. With all the changes, nothing has been done to make Sorcerer stronger even though it does not actually do that well now. Also, Sorcerer can tend to get “boring” in a sense that all Sorcerer builds revolves around the same summons, mainly Marnox and Frosterlord. One way I would like to make Sorcerer viable in the meta is to increase Sorcerer’s summoning damage, and also make summons have Elemental attacks. For instance, Marnox could be “Fire Based” and Fire based builds could include Marnox for extra firepower (no pun intended). Froster Lord could be a “Ice Based”, while other demons can be “Dark” or “Poison” based. This could make Sorcerer more welcomed when making builds.
I’m not sure about other classes but for wizards, it is kinda hard to have a “huge diversity” in mixing the Elemental and the Dark builds together. Ultimately it does seem like wizards are chosen to split into these 2 paths and trying to mix and match would just make their builds sub-optimal. It is also hard for IMC to try and actually increase this diversity but then too many options could also pose a problem. Like one way they could do it is to make “cursed” enemies take more damage to Fire/Ice/Lightning attacks but then again it just does not seem right for them to do it.
Then we have the remaining classes. Chronomancer is in a good spot with Pass at least. Sage changes just make it worse in damage and no improvement in support. What they should do is improve the “support” aspect of the class now that it is “Green Icon”, and not just make it a taxi class. Alchemist ultimately is more of a merchant class with “Yellow Icon”. If reworks were to be done to Alchemist is maybe to allow Alchemists to craft their other misc potions (not HP/SP) and allow them to register them in their Alchemy window and have a skill like “Sprinkle Potion A” and “Sprinkle Potion B” for the party. Of course it can’t be too strong but a small boost would be nice as a support.
One of my concerns is Runecaster. It seems like they are trying to make Runecaster a “scroll making” class which honestly is something I really hate. To me Runecasters should be the class that takes a long time to cast a Rune, but that skill would be a very powerful one. Right now Rune of Rock is an inferior Meteor, Rune of Justice is an inferior Eradication (Eradication has 3 overheat), Rune of Ice is a single target skill that freezes for a very short amount of time. Rune of Destruction is the only one that shines to me not just for the damage but for the magic defense break. It would be nice if Rune of Justice is a skill that channels a laser, but then it would be too similar to that Rubric (Exorcist). Rune of Destruction could use more AOE and Rune of Ice could use a longer freeze time. Also, it would be amazing if Rune of Protection is a party skill. For a class that requires HOURS TO UNLOCK, it does not really shine that much other than the amazingly cool class costume.