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View Full Version : My Thoughts On Archmage Enhancement Tree



Trufire
10-14-2013, 05:34 PM
The enhancements have been out for awhile now and for the most part I enjoy them. Except on my wizard.

My wizard is an archmage. With the new enhancement pass, you pick a particular school of magic to specialize in for your core abilities and gain a spell-like ability related to that school at each tier. At the top tier you get the archmage capstone which gives you the all important +2 int. Also, near the top of the tree you have a couple spell focus enhancements you can take. You can get +2 DC to the spell school that you chose in your core abilities and a +1 DC to a different school of your choice.

Prior to the enhancement pass, the archmage was significantly more customizable. You could grab SLAs from different schools and invest in them as little or as much as you wanted and still get the wizard capstone. They were based off of spell focus feats. You could grab the first couple tiers of SLAs if you had spell focus in that school and the last few tiers if you had greater spell focus (you still had to grab the SLAs in order). On top of that, the bonus DCs were also related to your spell focus feats, so you could grab DCs for completely different school than you were grabbing SLAs for.

The previous enhancement system allowed me to take spell focus: evocation and take just the magic missile SLA for Shriadi, then take spell focus: necromancy and greater spell focus: necromancy and take the +2 DC enhancements for necromancy and +1 to evocation DCs if I wanted. This is no longer possible. Back when House Cannith was the end game something similar was done with conjuration and the web SLA. In fact, you could combine getting web and magic missile and the bonus to necromancy DCs if you were willing to spend the feats and enhancements points.

I think it would be neat to get this ability to mix and match back. Perhaps something like the following could work: when choosing the first core ability, you can pick anything as your first SLA. When choosing the second, you choose the same school as you picked for the first core ability or any school that you have spell focus in. Likewise, for the next three core abilities you can choose either the school you picked for the first tier or any school you have greater spell focus in. Similarly with the DC enhancements, you should be able to grab the +2 DC for anything you have spell focus and greater spell focus in, or whatever school you chose for your first core ability. In effect this allows you to pick only the most useful SLA for you for each core ability and the most useful DC enhancements.

Is anyone else disappointed in the enhancement tree for archmage?

Lanhelin
10-15-2013, 08:26 AM
Is anyone else disappointed in the enhancement tree for archmage?

While I'm not disappointed about the AM tree, because I took the Enchantment line and there's a good synergy with Vampire in the PM tree, your suggestions are interesting. It would allow more variety regarding taken SLAs, and more variety is better than being limited to a certain school only.

bsquishwizzy
10-15-2013, 12:41 PM
I was never really a fan of the SLAs in the old system, and I still am not a fan in the new system. Something about the term "spell-like ability" says to me "spell without the SP cost" which is only partially true.

PM SLAs worked off of HP, which you could recover with Auras. The AM SLAs still consume SP. yeah, you get SP boosts, but I'm not wholly convinced that the tradeoff is worth it.

I agree with the point about the synergy between PM Vampire form and the Enchantment line.

I think if they reduced the SP cost for the SLAs in AM, and either gave them a long cool-down or some cost OTHER than consuming SP, I'd be happier with them.

othernametaken
01-12-2014, 11:04 PM
While I am a bit late, I was really happy to see this post. I absolutely felt the same when I saw the enhancement changes. I like the ideas and most of the changes that happened with the new enhancement pass. But I really felt like Archmage prestige got a unneeded nerf by limiting its SLA capabilities. It was a nice balance Palemasters could get better necro stuff but Archmages were more balanced with the setup of their enhancements. By limiting their SLA's though, it somewhat limited the versatility of Archmage and shifted the balance from being balanced back to palemaster, control.

This is great if you want to balance Archmage school with necro, but if not you're very limited. It really feels like 1 school or 1 school + necro.

HatsuharuZ
01-12-2014, 11:20 PM
For me, the issue with the archmage core abilities is that the choices themselves are limited. The force spells in the evocation line don't even have DCs, and they are not very damaging.

Ancient
01-13-2014, 12:52 AM
Disclaimer: I have a blast playing shiradi pew pew.

I think it is great: I can be in wraith form with evocation SLAs and arcane mastery. It is silly fun when combined with energy burst and boulder toss.