5 hours ago
To put my point up front, I feel like Evoker (and to a slight extent the Mage base class) is lacking in comparison to most of its Mage Advanced Promotion alternatives.
Evoker used to be a major powerhouse, and while it isn't a deadweight class in any regards in its current state, it's definitely lost the majority of its bite with a number of nerfs that have been applied to it over time. Between the nerf to Impure Element, cutting down on the ability to gouge a singular element, and the change of Charge Mind to be Excel effects and no longer affecting Invocations, Evoker is really starting to show some cracks.
Addressing the Mage base class issue I had brought up initially first, both Evoker and Mage are heavily tied to a singular element based off their enchant. While there are many other skills that have certain benefits when running different enchants, these are often more of useful utility than a major component of the ability. There are exceptions of course, but in general, Shinken always works as Shinken, being a 10 tile ranged projectile attack. Adding an enchant simply makes it create certain tile effects, makes the projectile larger, or adds additional projectiles, or makes it homing. But Shinken functions is largely the same way no matter which enchant you apply to it, and simply gets an additional bonus.
This is not how it works for Mage and Evoker spells. You MUST have the appropriate enchant or else the spell in question often functions at some form of reduced effectiveness. Fir loses its explosion AoE, Lightning spells no longer apply interference or apply lightning crits, earth spells don't apply magnetize, and so on. You get nothing at all from having the wrong enchant, and quite often this makes many of these spells a lot less effective. This makes Mage/Evoker often feel like you're playing an elementalist instead, as you're very often locked into a single element instead of being freely able to choose whichever spell applies for a given scenario, because without the enchant, a lot of them lose much of their utility.
Let's compare this to two of Evoker's competitors in the Mage Advanced Classes, Hexer and Rune Mage. Both are considered extremely powerful classes in their own right, and both can be often played in ways that not only outstrip Evoker in terms of damage, but also do not have the same restrictions when it comes to enchants for utility. Rune Mage, even without building their rune arrays, have a massive amount of buff/debuff potential from their runes which require no enchant at all to function. Meanwhile, Hexer gets its entire array of extremely debilitating buffs combined with the damage that comes from casting the spell in the first place, without the requirement for any enchant either. Playing them with an enchant certainly helps, but it is by no means a requirement like it is for Evoker.
The loss of Charge Mind was also another major hit to Evoker, as it (maybe arguably) hits probably the primary class fantasy of Evoker. That being Invocations. Evoker is the singular class in the game with the most invocations available to it. However... With both Impure Element and Charge Mind now gone for invokes, there's very little reason to run half of the invokes provided. For the majority of invocations out of Evoker, you are not getting damage output comparable to momentum spent casting, even with High-Speed Divine Words sometimes. An Exgalfa often times loses out in damage compared to simply spamming Sear for the same amount of momentum spent. There is some value to be had in terms of "storing" damage through invoking for some turns when it's inadvisable to close in or you are being kited, but there are a variety of other buffs/buttons that an Evoker has competing for that time, like Charge Mind which directly amps up the generally more efficient option of simply hitting your primary damage spells to begin with.
Most invocations out of Evoker used now are for the utility, and you primarily see Vydel (for the reposition, KD, and long range) or Intensify Cold (50% ice weakness is pretty solid no matter what). Exgalfa and Overload are nearly never used at all as they're single target spells that just do not match up to the momentum spent casting them often, even with the proper enchant on. I understand there's a certain amount of give and take when it comes to balancing, trying to keep these spells from becoming OHKOs like they sometimes were in their heyday, but now the invocations out of Evoker are either basically not used at all, or only used in niche situations, which heavily detracts from it being the "invocation class". The (generally agreed upon) most powerful invokes in the game aren't even in the Evoker class, like Divine Shower or Enma's Summons.
Evoker as it is functions very well as a class that pads out the weakness or serving as support to another class. Lazarus Wind and Greaper combined means it can help buff up invokes from other classes very nicely, and Absorb Power means you will nearly never run out of FP if you run Evoker as a main class, but you're not often running Evoker to play Evoker, and instead because it synergizes well with another concept instead.
To summarize, Evoker lacks damage and is relatively restrictive to play compared to other higher hitting Mage Advanced Classes without anything in return like defensive options or other utility, and does not play into its class fantasy very well, often being relegated as a support for another class or build idea instead.
I think Evoker deserves its own pass through to help bring it up to speed, but a couple of "quick fixes" I'd like to bring up would be to remove or at least loosen up the enchantment restrictions placed upon spells in both Mage and Evoker. Maybe something similar to how it works with other abilities where having ANY enchant would provide a bonus of some sort to whichever spell you cast, or getting creative with the elements. Like casting Sear with Redgull creating plasma tiles instead of cinder tiles, or other interesting combinations like that. Alternatively, provide a way to easily swap between enchants, even at a momentum expenditure, so you have some way to move between elements as required.
Another "quick fix" would be to finally give the invocations within Evoker Charge Mind/Excel effects like had been stated previously to help bring them at least somewhat on par with other highly competitive abilities so they can see more usage rather than nearly never being used at all.
Evoker used to be a major powerhouse, and while it isn't a deadweight class in any regards in its current state, it's definitely lost the majority of its bite with a number of nerfs that have been applied to it over time. Between the nerf to Impure Element, cutting down on the ability to gouge a singular element, and the change of Charge Mind to be Excel effects and no longer affecting Invocations, Evoker is really starting to show some cracks.
Addressing the Mage base class issue I had brought up initially first, both Evoker and Mage are heavily tied to a singular element based off their enchant. While there are many other skills that have certain benefits when running different enchants, these are often more of useful utility than a major component of the ability. There are exceptions of course, but in general, Shinken always works as Shinken, being a 10 tile ranged projectile attack. Adding an enchant simply makes it create certain tile effects, makes the projectile larger, or adds additional projectiles, or makes it homing. But Shinken functions is largely the same way no matter which enchant you apply to it, and simply gets an additional bonus.
This is not how it works for Mage and Evoker spells. You MUST have the appropriate enchant or else the spell in question often functions at some form of reduced effectiveness. Fir loses its explosion AoE, Lightning spells no longer apply interference or apply lightning crits, earth spells don't apply magnetize, and so on. You get nothing at all from having the wrong enchant, and quite often this makes many of these spells a lot less effective. This makes Mage/Evoker often feel like you're playing an elementalist instead, as you're very often locked into a single element instead of being freely able to choose whichever spell applies for a given scenario, because without the enchant, a lot of them lose much of their utility.
Let's compare this to two of Evoker's competitors in the Mage Advanced Classes, Hexer and Rune Mage. Both are considered extremely powerful classes in their own right, and both can be often played in ways that not only outstrip Evoker in terms of damage, but also do not have the same restrictions when it comes to enchants for utility. Rune Mage, even without building their rune arrays, have a massive amount of buff/debuff potential from their runes which require no enchant at all to function. Meanwhile, Hexer gets its entire array of extremely debilitating buffs combined with the damage that comes from casting the spell in the first place, without the requirement for any enchant either. Playing them with an enchant certainly helps, but it is by no means a requirement like it is for Evoker.
The loss of Charge Mind was also another major hit to Evoker, as it (maybe arguably) hits probably the primary class fantasy of Evoker. That being Invocations. Evoker is the singular class in the game with the most invocations available to it. However... With both Impure Element and Charge Mind now gone for invokes, there's very little reason to run half of the invokes provided. For the majority of invocations out of Evoker, you are not getting damage output comparable to momentum spent casting, even with High-Speed Divine Words sometimes. An Exgalfa often times loses out in damage compared to simply spamming Sear for the same amount of momentum spent. There is some value to be had in terms of "storing" damage through invoking for some turns when it's inadvisable to close in or you are being kited, but there are a variety of other buffs/buttons that an Evoker has competing for that time, like Charge Mind which directly amps up the generally more efficient option of simply hitting your primary damage spells to begin with.
Most invocations out of Evoker used now are for the utility, and you primarily see Vydel (for the reposition, KD, and long range) or Intensify Cold (50% ice weakness is pretty solid no matter what). Exgalfa and Overload are nearly never used at all as they're single target spells that just do not match up to the momentum spent casting them often, even with the proper enchant on. I understand there's a certain amount of give and take when it comes to balancing, trying to keep these spells from becoming OHKOs like they sometimes were in their heyday, but now the invocations out of Evoker are either basically not used at all, or only used in niche situations, which heavily detracts from it being the "invocation class". The (generally agreed upon) most powerful invokes in the game aren't even in the Evoker class, like Divine Shower or Enma's Summons.
Evoker as it is functions very well as a class that pads out the weakness or serving as support to another class. Lazarus Wind and Greaper combined means it can help buff up invokes from other classes very nicely, and Absorb Power means you will nearly never run out of FP if you run Evoker as a main class, but you're not often running Evoker to play Evoker, and instead because it synergizes well with another concept instead.
To summarize, Evoker lacks damage and is relatively restrictive to play compared to other higher hitting Mage Advanced Classes without anything in return like defensive options or other utility, and does not play into its class fantasy very well, often being relegated as a support for another class or build idea instead.
I think Evoker deserves its own pass through to help bring it up to speed, but a couple of "quick fixes" I'd like to bring up would be to remove or at least loosen up the enchantment restrictions placed upon spells in both Mage and Evoker. Maybe something similar to how it works with other abilities where having ANY enchant would provide a bonus of some sort to whichever spell you cast, or getting creative with the elements. Like casting Sear with Redgull creating plasma tiles instead of cinder tiles, or other interesting combinations like that. Alternatively, provide a way to easily swap between enchants, even at a momentum expenditure, so you have some way to move between elements as required.
Another "quick fix" would be to finally give the invocations within Evoker Charge Mind/Excel effects like had been stated previously to help bring them at least somewhat on par with other highly competitive abilities so they can see more usage rather than nearly never being used at all.
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