Are I/L Arch Mages Still Good?
Hey guys! So you may have noticed that I already made a thread like this before. I am making a thread like this again to see if people have different things to say about the changes made to I/L Mages since now you guys have had more time to compare your performances in game. So what are your opinions on them? Have we been nerfed?
I personally say we have gotten nerfed in terms of our mobbing damage output. The extra line simply doesn't compensate for the damage reduction to chain lightning itself, and chain lightning reinforced. I am personally really mad at this because I/L Arch mages were never really OP. I think the changes were unnecessary, and now compared to other classes, we are even weaker. Although lightning orb got a nice buff, it's not really a skill that can be used for training often due to its long cool down.
Considering I/L Arch mages are already underplayed, I really don't see why there was any reason to make the changes made to chain lightning. There are other classes so much stronger, I feel that I/Ls shouldn't have had such a drastic damage reduction.
7 Comments • Newest first
Honestly, I think the nerfs to Chain Lightning are unnecessary. Like you said, this skill is where we get all our power from.
@asianboii59:
I don't remember exactly how much %int I have (and i really am too lazy to check) but i do remember having over 100% with a total of 5500 int when buffed.
@king2123:
I am positive i saw somewhere on KMS changes that chain lightning is getting another line added for a total of 9.
Found it: http://orangemushroom.net/2015/12/02/kms-ver-1-2-249-heroes-of-maple-unveil/#more-14662
"Chain Lightning: damage has been decreased from 255% to 230%, number of hits has been increased from 7 to 8"
The nerf looks a lot worse if you don't know how the 'Reinforce' hyper skills work; 'Reinforce - Chain Lightning' is actually '+20% Total Damage (which stacks with Boss Damage, as well) when using Chain Lightning', instead of a x1.2 multiplier or increasing the % itself by 20, that's also why pretty much every 'reinforce' hyper in the game is 20%, even on skills that already have high %.
Anyways, Chain Lightning itself was changed from 6x300% (1800% total) to 7*255% (1785%), a little less damage but an extra line; -10% less Total/Boss Damage when using Chain Lighting isn't that bad either since a lot of damage comes from Frozen Orb and the Blizzard FA, the hardest nerf would be the -10% max crit damage from the freeze stacks. But with the new Lightning Orb, I'm not sure if I/L was really nerfed that much.
Either way, I/L is [ur=https://itzdarkvoid.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/kms-v-1-2-240-boss-dpm-chart/]supposedly[/url] among the top 5 bossers in Reboot (versus bosses with elemental resistances/high defenses, at least)
@antisora99: Wait, two more lines? I thought we only got one more addition line added to chain lightning. And we lost much more than 20% of our damage with the chain lightning and chain lightning reinforced nerfs. Approximately 55% damage I believe.
@Baconmmm: I see what you mean. However, the reason why I am still not so happy is because the cool down on lightning orb is just huge. The nerf of a skill like chain lightning that we so commonly used, isn't compensated by the buff of a skill with a 90 second cool down. It's a nice burst of damage while you have it on, but it's not that long. The damage on chain lightning is our main source of damage output for training. Having that nerfed is huge.
I'd say overall it was no gain / no loss in the Reboot patch.
Unless you were capping damage, then it was a huge buff with the additional line of damage.
The loss of some damage isn't great, but the Lightning Orb ultimate is very satisfying.
@antisora99: Can i know how much % int total you have?
We definitely got nerfed, but we did get buffed in some areas.
For my i/l, I have a range of about 700k, 1m when I get all my buffs and maximum Arcane Aim.
My usual CL dmg with 5 ice stacks is around 12~15m per line with 170% boss.
We are still pretty decent in damage output and we also got a huge buff for our hyper. It now hits way more, hits more times, and doesn't kill you during DR.
Now while we did lose about 20% of our damage, we are going to gain 2 more lines on Chain lightning. Overall, Still proud of being a i/l. Very fun, very satisfying.