[WaifuApple]

I would like to reply here, considering the post in a sense feels skewed in the direction of this mainly being a problem for basic attackers, to input that, though they may be stronger, mage builds very much suffer from the same lack of variance. You're either running a basic tome for good scaling, or a custom tome because you really want that sweet, sweet custom spell.

Outside of that, it feels like most other tomes don't really see use, because compared to the literal most basic tomes and custom spells, why choose anything else unless you're trying to be a gimmick. To me, this causes an issue in the sense that, yes, these builds are super strong...

...but they're all the same. Even if you're a different element, it all comes down to casting the same pool of one, maybe two elements of spells. There's very little play-style variation, once you've played one kind you've played them all, and once you've faced one you feel like you've faced them all, too, making combat against them boring. I could scroll through the item list and look at all these options given, and you know what, I'm not going to find myself using Rose Whip, Manic Slasher... come to think of it, why are there even tomes with on-critical effects? Nobody's using them to score crit attacks, that's not what mages do.

I don't want to see this opportunity to discuss and hopefully spark change wasted on just being once again about just basic attackers, much as I know they need some love, because it's everywhere, at least from what it feels like. When it comes down to it, creativity is stifled by the fact I can look at the item list for the game and heavily rule out half, if not most of the weapons and items for any sort of build meant to go up against somebody at some point, except in rather niche situations. It's okay to have niche weapons, it's not okay for most weapons to be niche or nigh unusable.

Item balance as a whole needs very much looking at for there to be more unique builds, there's too much that stands above, and too much that stands below. Far too much of the latter, even. You could go through the list and ask people what they think of each and every item, most will be a resounding "meh" in practice, even if cool in concept.

Going to an evade user, now, it's almost always the same armor, the same boots, similar accessories, similar enchantments. There's always a definitively "best" way to do it. More ways to achieve the same results in unique ways are important, but that's not what we have here.