[MegaBlues]

I've noticed that Mage and Evoker have some strange costs, notably, Rye and Ryemei.

Rank 4 Ryemei and Rank 5 Rye both have the exact same damage scaling. 100% Scaled Weapon ATK and 110% Lightning ATK. However, Ryemei costs twice as much, for some reason. The only difference is that Rye requires Redgull to critically hit, but Ryemei doesn't, and has a chance to inflict Interference when enchanted.

Could we see Evoker's damage scalings get a pass-over? They often deal less damage than their Mage counterparts, or even Hexer (70/70 Scaling is higher than 100%), have a ridiculously high FP cost, and often require enchantments for unique effects, where other skills and moves don't.

i know i've beat this topic to death and am probably infamous for it by now, but really, evoker needs a thematic change because aside from overload and isenshi it's objectively inferior to other damage-dealing magic classes

[Autumn]

It is a little odd but I'd rather see Rye's FP cost increase for that much, I think Evoker damage is more than fine at the moment.

but really, evoker needs a thematic change because aside from overload and isenshi it's objectively inferior to other damage-dealing magic classes

I really don't think so? Evoker is still the highest damaging mage and is very much a threat to anyone, the reduction to battle map sizes really helped out their grinding game too compared to lantern bearer.

[MegaBlues]

@Spoops, as far as I'm aware, Execute is the most expensive base class skill at 34 FP, and has a damage scaling of 150% SWA + 25% missing HP. Another base class skill which requires elemental attack for its bonus and is subject to unmatched casting tool penalties shouldn't approach that cost. Even Execute is too expensive for what it does and the fact that it requires and cures Knockdown.

Also, Evoker objectively does less damage than Hexer with its spells. Aside from invocations, both classes use 100% SWA, while Hexer, aside from Wretched Oil, uses 70% Dark and ETC scaling while Evoker bounces between 100% and 140% at best. However, Hexer's skills often hit in a larger AoE for comparable costs (At Rank 5. Evoker's costs both go up and down while Hexer's go down exclusively, which is dumb.) The fact that Hexer spells always use 70% Dark ATK means that it's much easier to use all of them to effect, but Evoker's single-stat scaling means that you have to exclusively build for that one stat. The flipside is that Hexers are much easier to resist, but the fact is that Hexers have nigh-guaranteed infliction chances with innate status effects, while having comparable damage to Evokers. That's a balancing issue.

And Priest has 100% SWA and 70/70% Light/Lightning for Holy Spark, and 140% Light with Shine Ray. As well as good old healing, and a method to negate Light resistance.

And for the most part, Invocations have an inferior Momentum to Damage ratio than plain spells, with the same 100% SWA with an extra 40% Elemental scaling, unless you spend SP to increase the damage.

[Ranylyn]

Isn't Lance de Lion still 54 FP? Not that I think it's relevant, personally, but anyways.

EDIT: Oh, and Wretched Oil is now 40/40 instead of 70/70. But since most of the damage comes from SWA anyways, it's not much of a nerf.

Invocations as a whole are honestly kind of dumb right now, though, and I DO think Evoker needs a relook.


Spoiler tags for a lot of math. If anyone wants to scrutinize my numbers or bitch about why I'm doing calculations based on 100 SWA and 50 elemental attack or whatnot, let me explain why I chose the numbers I did: it basically comes down to simplicity. Very easy math. Easy to follow, easy to explain.

Say your scaled weapon attack with your casting tool is 100. (An easy enough number to attain; some may think it's low but it also doesn't require intense minmaxing.) Say your Elemental Attack in a given stat is 50 (Softcap + Mancy.) And let's compare your average Mage Spell, Evoker Non Invocation, and Invocation:


Mage: At Rank 5, the spells vary from 85% Elemental Attack (Stone Dragon) to 140% Elemental Attack (Explosion and Famiuga.) They ALL have 100% Scaled Weapon Attack. And for the record, the FP costs range from 13 (Rye - 110%) to 33 (Stone Dragon - 85% But with bonus per tile travelled which can theoretically surpass the other Mage spells at range.)

This means that, using 120% as a baseline, as Explosion/Famiuga bring the average up a bit, 100 SWA + 50 Elemental attack = 160 base damage before reductions from Stats, resistances, and so on.


Evoker: At Rank 5, the non-invocation spells vary from 100% (Sear, Wind Slasher, both of which also deal other damage via cinders and the extra slash damage) to 140% (Libegrande.) They ALL have 100% SWA. The FP costs range from 22 (R5 Sear) to 33 (Libegrande.) If out of range, these spells can also be boosted 2.5x one time with Charge Mind.

This means that, using 120% as a baseline, 100 SWA + 50 Elemental Attack = 160 Base Damage before reductions from Stats, resistances, and so on. This could be boosted 2.5x if Charge Mind was used, but it's generally inefficient to do so if you can just cast anyways, as you're doing 2.5x damage in the same amount of momentum you could have done 3x damage.


Evoker Invocations: At Rank 5, the Invocations vary from 110% (Overload, which of course does bonus damage based on bonus stats your opponent has) while the other four spells have 180%. They all cost 41 FP at rank 5, and all take 9M to cast. The damage can be boosted 2.5x with Calm Mind.

This means that, using 180% as a baseline, 100 SWA + 50 Elemental Attack = 190 base damage before reductions from Stats, resistances, and so on. Um, wait, what the actual hell? Did we really just do barely 30 more damage (Before resists, which are percentage based and basically bring the difference to a smaller number) instead of casting a normal spell three times? Was there a point to this, unless we were trying to cause an Ice Weakness or send someone flying with Vydel?

Basically, what I'm getting at is...

1) Let's get real: Invocations completely SUCK. The only reasons to use them are:
- Creating an Ice Weakness with Intensify Cold
- Crowd control with Vydel
- If you have Priest equipped (Exact same scaling on Divine Shower) Divine Shower makes spacey dungeons slightly more tolerable if you don't have Hexer.

2) For the most part, Mages can hold their own decently well compared to evokers. So why go evoker when Hexer is an option, and brings a lot of utility to the table? Unless you go Mage Destiny to get an Evoker benefitting from Pure Power, Lazarus Wind, and High Speed Divine words (and also to drop cinder tiles, I guess.)

3) Honestly? Evoker is almost better as a melee subclass right now; Kraken, Enchant Shield, Elemental Augment, Elemental Overtime, Charge Mind, and Intensify Cold can, if used well, potentially add a good amount of ice damage (I mean, 2.5x of Elemental Augment's bonus ice damage on every attack for 2 turns, hitting a weakness, is actually nicer than you might expect.) Except, uh, doesn't this kind of go against Evoker's intended role as the "nuke mage?" I think we could possibly afford to see an increase in both power and FP costs to Evoker spells, as they still have access to Mage spells to cast cheaply when they need to be a bit more conservative.