The new spellweaver.

[11Bravo]

I see a lot of people whining about looks..who cares about looks when the functionality of the class is screwed up. Whichever DEV decided in their infinite wisdom, to have SW gear with only HP added, should be fired. WE ARE NOT TANKS! Anyone who has played a caster in a real MMO for more than 5 minutes knows that, for a caster, MANA(regen falling under mana category), spell dmg and crit are all that matters!
We DO NOT NEED armor that gives 0 dmg, 0 crit, but a crapload of HP..again, we are NOT tanks.
I look at the armor you can buy with real cash and can only shake my head...some has 1-5 armor pts and 110HP..WTH? No spell dmg, no crit...nothing at all worth spending money to buy.
And speaking of money..in-game coin is practically worthless..the only things worth spending gold on are repairs and teleporting, other than that, you may as well remove it all together from the game since EVERYTHING else is in handout mode, meaning the company with it's hand out, wanting you to pay real cash for things like weapon upgrades..that should be bought with gold..NOT paying up to 700+ andermant for +1 to max weapon dmg..what a pathetic joke. MAKE GOLD USEFUL in the game or you will fade away just as MANY other greedy F2P games have before you.
I've already seen posts and polls showing that what I'm saying is right..if you don't make a game that players WANT to play or feel they aren't being ripped off by such high cash demands, they will leave..it happens a lot with real MMOs and much more so with these little F2P games. You've got to realize that it's a player's market.
I know a lot of you will take all of this personally, but that doesn't bother me..it's criticism like this that opens the eyes of those who can make positive change in a game, and I hope this post does just that.

[MetalValkyrie]

this doesnt really have to do with anything on this thread. I know the SW are not tanks but they shure die a bit too quickely. SOmethings about the update are not bad. But the mana pool is a trickey problem. SInce i belive the higher the charter is the more awesome spells it can blast =P

[FluidUK]

I've not been playing that long and therefore don't know what I'm missing, of the old SW class.

I love the class so far and i find it quite easy to kill swarms of mobs coming at me, if i need to i run and gun just like mages are supposed too. I use strategy with the field of vision to dodge attacks etc.

What I'm getting at is it sounds like the SW were overpowered judging from the past posts in this thread. By the way some people were commenting they sounded godlike, spammer of powerful spells and an unlimited pool of mana.

So new players reading this thread don't be put off by the complainers and anyway dev's already said it's work in progress expect more changes to come.

[MetalValkyrie]

now the other two classes are over powered. The Older SW had its diffcultys like relying too much on mana potions. But the damage and the mana pool size makes more sence for a class with so little hp and armor. I think it needs another tune up.

[Chad8504]

Originally Posted by FluidUK

anyway dev's already said it's work in progress expect more changes to come.

They said that awhile ago. Haven't seen any changes yet.

[jcdenton01]

/newly-added wall o text

I've gotta add my piece. SW as a class got horribly gimped in this 'new' update. Having fast-recharging mana does nothing when you nerfed both the damage output of our basic spells (in order to get them back to normal with talents later) AND have us defenseless for a few seconds while our mana refills.

They seriously need to reduce mana cost of a lot of spells now, either that or let us gain mana every level like we used to do. Let us have the OPTION of buying mana elixirs from the vendor for copper/silver/gold that recover mana over time.

I can understand why they gimped SW's, mainly cause both the other classes kept whining about it. Honestly it wouldn't hurt to have a separate tab JUST for pots and buffer-items, even if its for cash-shop-only items.

I was hoping after a year off, I could come back and things would be drastically improved. The only decent thing I've seen as far as updates has been the gem-removal feature that doesn't destroy the gems once you remove em. I do expect them to add in the 'destruction' feature for gem removal soon, once the gem sales drop drastically. Then they'll sell a cash shop item that 'prevents' destruction, and add in a random chance of success (maybe 10%) and another cash shop item that we have to buy stacks of in order to get a max of 25% success.

This 'update' and major change to the primary core game mechanic of 1/3 of the classes in your game is going to cause issues, naturally. Unfortunately, I feel the devs lack the basic knowledge in developing virtual worlds (hint hint) that they might need to go check out some books from the library and read up a bit.
Lemme put this in words they can understand.

Devs, you altered the fundamental play dynamics of our core compulsion to play a mage class. That core compulsion consists of the 'glass cannon' aspect; big damage with low survivability compared to the other classes. By severely altering these dynamics you have created a severe cognitive dissonance within your players. This results in comments like 'gimped/nerfed' or 'I can't play it like this'. We're taken out of the world and constantly hit over the head with 'OUT OF MANA SUCKER' over and over and over and over again.

The current mages feel severely underpowered because their core play aesthetics revolved around being able to be stationary while dealing out tons of damage (aka the 'glass cannon'). This new change would also require a fundamental worldwide change in mob hp, damage output, and so on. You can't change just one variable and expect everything to run smoothly. Doesn't work that way.

I highly suggest a return to the old method and a simple update that allows potions to stack to 100 (either mana-only potions or both health and mana potions). Alter their regen and cooldown, whatever. The mere fact we're allowed to use potions in arena can be considered imbalanced. One minute is all you need to run away and survive forever.

This ties into the removal of health potion drops in general (replaced with those health orbs). Again resulted in a severe gimp to most players but instead of altering the cooldown of the potions (increasing cooldowns) or making them restore less at a time, they were just removed except from the cash shop. Now we're lucky if we get any as drops from mobs. Again in this case the devs made a fundamental drastic change to the core play aesthetics of your game and got a vicious backlash from the playerbase. Fortunately for the devs, they DID take the time to alter the entire game world to accommodate this change. They even made the cash-shop-only health potions be farmable from mobs.

Unfortunately for mages, mana potions are incredibly rare to come by, can't be purchased from vendors, and are only available from the shop. Even more unfortunately, the new mana mechanic makes using such potions a bit pointless since regen is so fast. My issue isn't with the regen but with the drastic shifts in play dynamics forced upon the players without proper testing/feedback first. I've noticed the devs play a ranger (and always ALWAYS playing with those essences) judging by the screenshots on the site.

My advice to you as game designers and developers of DSO is 'play like a free player', from level 1, no boosts or anything whatsoever that can't be purchased with silver or that you haven't earned from mobs. Don't have several cash-shop-only boosts in your hotbar and expect us to believe you're playing the way most of your players do. Do it the 'free' way and then you will understand much more by being in a similar mindset to your players.

Being too close to the game makes you the worst possible playtester anyways, but using overpowered cash-shop-only items constantly even when playing your characters just makes things even more imbalanced than they need to be.

I highly recommend the series 'Extra Credits' to the devs. There's several episodes that go over (in better detail) some of the issues I've presented here.

\wall of text CRITS for over 9000!

TLDR added by request:
You turned our mages into wannabe-rangers. Current game mechanics don't support that change and end up gimping us instead. WE ARE NOT RANGERS OR WARRIORS, so we need to have our own original mechanic as it was before. Lower the regen of the mana pots if you feel they were too powerful. Increase their drops or lower their vendor cost if newbies are having trouble with aquiring enough mana pots. Removing them completely and turning us into rangers doesn't cut it.
Several play sessions with this change and it is still terribad.

[steebs]

Hi all, in particular teh Devs.

Its been quite some time now since I last posted. I figured that I had done enough whinging about the wekness of teh spellweaver, and I would let teh Devs get along with their promise of 'a SW that will no longer rely on Mana'

I see that this promise has still not come true. I've actually been off playing another game, one that was claimed to be rubbish, or rather have had sever server issues, particularly immediately after its long awaited launch.

Server issues aside ( and honestly, I have not yet experienced ny) this game is actually enjoyable and very playable. Witches and other mana reliant characters actually hve sufficient to perform complex attacks, and as teh character levels, so does teh amount of mana. Added to this, items collected along the way actually increase mana, meaning even more mana reliant attacks can easily be launched. I can easily take on level bosses with no significant problems.

It has been a very long time since the alterations were made to the SW character, and so far not a lot has been seen to compensate for their inability to launch sustained attacks. For a very long time I really did enjoy the game, so much so, that I did spend what money I could spare on upgrade packs etc. I feel that you guys, the devs have really let we SW lovers down, and that feels quite wrong to me.

I cannot say that I enjoy the game anywhere near as much as I used to. Sure I attend each day, but realistically, that is just to collect the bonuses, with me playing the game becoming less and less attractive.

I;d really like to see something done very soon, because I really am enjoying that other game much more, even though DSO is free, and the other I had to buy.

Please Devs, read this post, and please act on it quickly, so avid SW fans like myself can once again return to your once wonderful game

[_Rage_]

was great change for the game.remembering times when SW ruled in pvp and ranger had nothing to defend with was awful. now along with marking bird or net,adrenaline and wolves bit evened it out.. you say SW is weak now eh? don't think so.its just more balanced in pvp aganist other classes now. i will take the ranger example.yes it deals bit more base damage than spellweaver with precision shot. however its only class vulnerable to armor that weakens your damage done to others by 30-40% and if opponnent blocks.. well you barely deal anything at all.

spellweavers ignore armor and deal their spells with full power,also they have plenty powerful AoE spells.and ranger got just lame scatter shot dealing 40% base damage.
Also lets take example of the most basic attacks the hunting arrow and magic missle. hunting arrow deals 50% base damage and costs 5concentration for each shot while magic missle deals 60% base damage [+25% after lv 10 talent],doesn't cost any mana to use,oppossitely it gives you 5 mana for each hit made by it.

you guys just whining because you can't spam insanely powerful spells anymore that hit not just 1-2 targets like ranger but lots.developers did great job balancing the game and deserve a medal for this.if earlier stuff would return rangers and dragon knights would be angry because they couldn't withstand their damage and would be forced to run in circles trying to avoid hits.i know this as i played before that update..ranger was completelly powerless aganist SW.marking stun and wolves somewhat evened it out however still at lv 10-29 pvps SW easily defeat rangers because they not yet have access to those abillities.

mind in this- rangers and dragonknights stuns are avoidable and not instant like SW frost wind and frost nova they immediatly congeal you not allowing to avoid that. and after you're frozen they just keep attacking you.if thats not enough usually some another guy from opposing team come and stun you 2nd time.that means only 1 thing-your character just died.

[Chad8504]

Originally Posted by _Rage_

[color=Wheat]spellweavers ignore armor and deal their spells with full power,also they have plenty powerful AoE spells.and ranger got just lame scatter shot dealing 40% base damage.
Also lets take example of the most basic attacks the hunting arrow and magic missle. hunting arrow deals 50% base damage and costs 5concentration for each shot while magic missle deals 60% base damage [+25% after lv 10 talent],doesn't cost any mana to use,oppossitely it gives you 5 mana for each hit made by it.

Spellweavers don't "ignore armor". They simply don't get the levels of armor that the other classes do. Also, spellweavers will generally have a lower base damage than rangers, so your comparison of the magic missile and hunting arrow percentages is a moot point.

The damage/armor of the ranger is helped even more by the fact that when carrying a longbow, they can also still equip a buckler OR a quiver. When carrying a staff, a spellweaver cannot carry a book or an orb. They do not get the added critical attack of the book or the added armor/block rate of the orbs.

you guys just whining because you can't spam insanely powerful spells anymore that hit not just 1-2 targets like ranger but lots.developers did great job balancing the game and deserve a medal for this.if earlier stuff would return rangers and dragon knights would be angry because they couldn't withstand their damage and would be forced to run in circles trying to avoid hits.i know this as i played before that update..ranger was completelly powerless aganist SW.marking stun and wolves somewhat evened it out however still at lv 10-29 pvps SW easily defeat rangers because they not yet have access to those abillities.

You clearly don't know what you're talking about. The game and PVP are not balanced when it comes to classes. If spellweavers have the weakest defenses (they do), then they should have the strongest offensive damage to make up for that (they usually don't). Spellweavers are a relatively weak class. I'll admit that they were too strong before, but the update went too far and made them too weak.

mind in this- rangers and dragonknights stuns are avoidable and not instant like SW frost wind and frost nova they immediatly congeal you not allowing to avoid that. and after you're frozen they just keep attacking you.if thats not enough usually some another guy from opposing team come and stun you 2nd time.that means only 1 thing-your character just died.

While I agree that spellweavers' stuns are better than rangers' (even though the rangers bird does far more damage than the frost nova), they are not unavoidable. In PVP all you have to do is get to level 25 and you are immune to successive stuns, which sucks for the spellweaver since their defenses are weak and they need to be relatively close to you to stun you.

[Katalis]

I have been playing the SW for a while now. I never got to play the original type in this game.

To the most part the skills are good. My only dislike of this class is the small mana pool. I understand that the devs need to have a balanced game but from my experience it isn't balanced.

With a ranger I can hit up to 3 opponents doing double damage to 2 of them. If my enemy is running in circles I have scatter shot to use. I also have two ranged stuns.

As a mage I can only hit 1 opponent at a time unless they are dumb enough to stand together. None of my base skills do double damage and the ones that do major damage are easy to see coming and avoid. Almost all of my gear is legendary and I have nearly 2K armor. Yet it is like paper when facing a ranger or DK. I am 1 or 2 shot by a ranger in almost every PVP match I enter.

But the biggest problem is the inability to keep attacking. When I enter the arena with my SW, I enter with the understanding that I am bait. I run through the battlefield freezing and running because I know that I can't try and fight. I might bring an opponent to half health but then I am out of mana and either stunned and killed or hit by a bird I didn't see coming and killed. Usually I don't even get the Opponent to half health before my mana runs out.

So please add a little balance back to the SW. Either increase the regen rate or allow mages to increase their mana pool. It doesn't have to be massive maybe 1 point to the level.

I am a mage that doesn't like the idea of having to teleport to get mana and I won't take that talent. I have already given up the only good thing about frostbolt, the chance to freeze an enemy, to take the mana regen that magic missile gives.

Players are suppose to be able to customize a character and have it still be equal to other players. But in this game the only way for the SW to have an equal chance is for them to take very specific talents. Any deviation and the character is only second rate.