Artifice Discussion

Since there's no real gigantic topic about Artificing to match the rather popular Knight threads, I'll make one!

My initial analysis is that playing an Artifice mage is like playing Tristana bottom lane. Your early game (pre-prep) is absolutely horrid. I find that, more often than not, if you can't get your prep in quickly, you're more than likely to just die if your opponent pressures you hard and fast. Below are two sample spars I had with a Serpent (Cresil). Granted, my curing might not have been completely optimal, but I did try.

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/10ea40c4
https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/3d188bbd

That being said, once you do get your opponent prepped, and you begin your breaking (assuming they don't whore tumble), Magi have amazing salve pressure, especially with Timeflux. Depending on their priorities (and if they don't have passive hinderance), once you start scorching/freezing someone, you force them to either remain prone (prioritising the burns/freeze) or get a kill if you don't mess up your execution (prioritising legs). I'm still working on my technique, but here's a log of me killing someone with sub-optimal priorities against scorching:

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/c57e887f

A few things I believe could be fixed:

1) We have very little hinderance before we go for breaks, making Magi extremely bad against several momentum classes (Apostate, Priest, Serpent, Occultist, etc). It would be nice to have some breathing room against these classes. 

2) The margin for error with this class is -very- small. If you screw up your execution, you have to start from square 1, and in cases where you're fighting someone who has fast, heavy aff/health pressure, that can mean disaster. I believe that the main culprit with this is the increased amount of hits a Magi needs to break limbs. Yes, the balance got decreased, but in a lot of cases, especially for Magi, you hit for prep once, then have to mitigate affs/go on defence, so while it seems that the lowered balance time makes up for the increased prep hits on paper, in practice it's just adding -more- time to a magi's kill setup, and creating a bigger window to punish the mage for screwing up.

That's all I have for now. I will definitely do more testing, and if anyone has any suggestions on how to improve, please let me know. This is just my opinion on this, and I know I'm not the best at analysing the myriad options available in combat. If I'm missing something critical, feel free to point it out!

(Also, obligatory @Makarios, @Tecton tags)
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Comments

  • edited January 2015
    Your curing needs some work, definitely. Restoring automatically isn't a good thing imo. Better to manual that. Your offense is lacking by not using the queue as well. Any class that sticks you with stupidity will ruin your golem stuff. Better off using the queue and doing them in a single prompt. Your timing is off because of this too. What is your balance on a staffstrike/golem order? 2s? From my perspective you should be able to prep both legs, break leg on an efreeti proc for leg/blaze. They will apply to leg, break other leg/golem blaze so they are at 2 broken legs and 3 levels of blaze. If they apply to reduce blaze then you can start damaging out. If they apply to leg then stack blaze into kill. I saw a log where prioing blaze left them prone for 15s or more. Not discounting tumbling around obstacles, but that is another issue entirely. Let me know if I'm missing something. Edit: holy crap mobile posting line spacing is terrible




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • Unsorted reactions to Magi/your post:

    There's no reason to golem sear without dehydrate up, especially if you're using efreeti. Break arms instead and hope they fix the staffstrike bug where it'll try to break limbs that are already broken. That way you will at least get some semblance of hindering to slow them down just a touch. 

    Destabilise is an amazing concept but too much of a double-edged sword in retardation, and some of them are just weak. I haven't yet thought of a reason to use the double-edged aff ones. Maybe tumble cancel? But spreading retardation is easier and less risky. Will experiment.

    Kind of wish destabilise didn't have the windup of having to focus vibes first in group fighting, as it's entirely possible Magi will die in that time. 

    My main concern with the class is that there's no way I've found to transfix outside of retardation (and even inside of ret it's unlikely vs good curing). I think having some way to transfix would really pull the class together, as Magi's only real hindering comes at the cost of prep (leg break + prone). Spamming reflection to stay alive is frustrating for everyone

    No way to bypass parry at all. Transfix would fix (lol) this, but as is, it's a frustrating wall. 

    Prep time is a concern in today's fighting scene where kills are so fast, especially considering Magi's lack of hindering. 

    Inferno should be visible on LOOK for coolness.

     i'm a rebel

  • edited January 2015
    Queueing doesn't really work for this. I ight be doing the queue incorrectly (I have it as: clearqueue all;queue add eqbal staffstrike " ..target.. " with fire left leg;queue add eq golem scorch " ..target).. but this is what happens: 

    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/37693d83
  • edited January 2015
    Make a mudlet alias that keeps creating an IG alias.

    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/7f4343a3

    Log is against not optimal curing and with my less than optimal combinations that I have since changed.

    It is also worth noting you can combo golem destroy with staffstrike or other stuff, too.

  • Would there be a time you wanted to combo golem destroy with anything balance-wise, though? Staffstrike fire doesn't add to scorch count.

     i'm a rebel

  • Not really. Could jab para or something, or work towards breaking a leg or whatever. No reason not to outside of ret or something. But I do agree it's not really necessary.

  • Magi isn't the best at hindering. However, it does have staff strike earth/golem break arm for sometimes double arm breaks. You can also restoration break arm/golem break other arm on salve apply or golem destabilize plague on salve apply to bypass parry. The main thing magi seems to lack is a good tumble counter. Would -hate- fighting someone with piety/etc who tumbled to mono. A tumble cancel might be warranted. Or a destabilize that destroys adjacent monoliths. Or something that allows a magi to chase quickly into an adjacent room despite room hindrance.
  • Aegoth said:
    Queueing doesn't really work for this. I ight be doing the queue incorrectly (I have it as: clearqueue all;queue add eqbal staffstrike " ..target.. " with fire left leg;queue add eq golem scorch " ..target).. but this is what happens: 

    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/37693d83
    Works better when you use the in game targeting send ("clearqueue all;setalias x1 staffstrike &tar with fire left leg/golem scorch &tar; queue add eqbal x1")




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • Oh god tumbling out of piety with level 4/5 burn level needed made me want to die. If we go with destabilise destroying adjacent monoliths, could just put that in destabilise reverb.

    I still need a lot more practice with the class to be able to judge balance related things with enough experience, but all in all, I think Magi's in a good spot. Could use a little love with transfix and dealing with tumble, but as far as core mechanics go, Magi seems solid.

    Re: restoration break arm/golem smash arm, I think that would be fine to do if survivability wasn't a concern. It would require prepping arms 4 times in order to slowly bypass parry, on top of prepping the other limb(s) you want to break. I don't think that's realistic, classes are too powerful to expect to survive while doing that. Maybe I cure suboptimally and Priest's hindering spoiled me, but I feel like Magi is an ideal opponent for locking classes. Except when the Magi is a jerk and just spams reflection, but who wants to fight like that?

     i'm a rebel

  • Just walk away versus afflictions. Magi is a prep class now with salve pressure.




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • edited January 2015
    No, I don't really like basing survival on just walking away. Hit/run with slow prep is even worse than spamming reflection. Running every 10 seconds is lame, nobody wants to fight against that. I'd rather just have some way to transfix every now and then.

     i'm a rebel

  • edited January 2015
    Dry spinning ret is lame to some people of course. Or vibe stacking to health pressure. Different play styles I guess! Survivability > cool points, imo




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • The difference is every class is strong in retardation, and many are much stronger than Magi. Walking away and running is just frustrating for everyone. At that point it isn't about cool points, it's just not fun to fight against and nobody would fight against you if you made it a habit, due to the fact that it's not fun to fight against.

    In retardation, if people can't fight in it, that's more their problem than anything else, because a lot of people do enjoy fighting in retardation.

     i'm a rebel

  • Tesha said:


    My main concern with the class is that there's no way I've found to transfix outside of retardation (and even inside of ret it's unlikely vs good curing). I think having some way to transfix would really pull the class together, as Magi's only real hindering comes at the cost of prep (leg break + prone). Spamming reflection to stay alive is frustrating for everyone

    Maybe a destabilise to strip and prevent blindness for a set amount of time?
  • Transfix isn't any different than, say, an Occie spamming hangedman. Tfix is a lot harder to pull off currently as well. No, it may not be the best solution (and there's probably a better one), but it's still -a- solution
  • Transfix takes a lot longer to writhe out of, so it's a bit different.
  • edited January 2015
    Destabilise to strip and prevent blindness for a set amount of time sounds far too easy and powerful. The concern would then be just transfixing too often, leaving the opponent unable to fight back. Ideally it would look more like a window to work on transfix every 40ish(?) seconds, with some kind of warning - not just a 'transfix now' thing, don't have any ideas yet though.

     i'm a rebel

  • Tesha said:
    The difference is every class is strong in retardation, and many are much stronger than Magi. Walking away and running is just frustrating for everyone. At that point it isn't about cool points, it's just not fun to fight against and nobody would fight against you if you made it a habit, due to the fact that it's not fun to fight against.

    In retardation, if people can't fight in it, that's more their problem than anything else, because a lot of people do enjoy fighting in retardation.
    I fight Proficy all the time, and while its not enjoyable - it's a necessity.

    "You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."

     -Albert Einstein

  • Yea after testing with in game queueing, I'm having a much easier time with it. Thanks! 
  • edited January 2015

    Isn't transfix every 40 seconds kinda like breaking all four limbs with arm break/destabilize plague every 15 seconds? You can probably also still transfix off of plague. Plague herb aff hits/golem impurity paralysis, transfix, transfix. Well, with QW + diadem at least.

    Afaik curing scald requires curing blindness first, which is something of a route to transfix. But not what you're asking for.

    Technically, you can destabilize stridulation for a temporary breather, too.

  • edited January 2015
    nm
  • TharvisTharvis The Land of Beer and Chocolate!
    Anybody found a benefit to Destabilize Silence yet? Seems a bit.. worthless
    Aurora says, "Tharvis, why are you always breaking things?!"
    Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
    Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."

  • Ok, let's see.

    Scald was the intended avenue for transfix. Its a bit different to the kind of thing we usually do, so it might end up to be a failed experiment. We'll see. It works that way to try to force people to maintain salve pressure, rather than hit/shield hit/shield etc.

    As for a transfix destabilise, I'm personally not actually opposed to something that works in that way, primarily due to the inate windup of having to re-embed then re-destabilise likely making it impractical to use outside of emergencies. Not something we're planning on at the moment though I think.

    Hard to say much more than that at this point. With all the knight interest magi seems to have taken a bit of a back seat in terms of people playing around with it. Until we see some more people using it, hard to say what needs work and what's fine.

  • edited January 2015
    Hasar trying to use scald to tfix: https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/0e64c6fc

    This is with basic blindness upkeep. It's basically a choice between having scald stay on you (50% less potash) or getting tfixed once. Also note that you have to prep/break/prone to get a scald as well, so you're kind of wasting a prepped limb to have someone entangled for 4 seconds. That's not very optimal in a 1v1. The group combat applications of scald are pretty nice though.
  • @Makarios did you mean something else or literally scald? Scald's ab file says it's for potash and moss, not arsenic and bayberry.

     i'm a rebel

  • I think he was assuming you read my post, where I explained that scald requires you to cure blindness before curing it. Thus, you are choosing to either be transfixed or remain scalded.
  • you have to apply epidermal to head to cure scalding, but blindness cures first.

  • Oh I see what you mean now, yeah I read Makarios' post before Xinna's. I'm not sure about scald, it doesn't seem to mesh well with the salve offense of the rest of the class. If you're pressuring salve, you're not pressuring health, so losing half of their moss isn't very scary, so they might not even feel the need to cure it. Maybe scald could cut health sips by some percentage, too. Then again, there's the problem of them curing it when you're off eq/bal, since epidermal is only 1s. If they cure it immediately, you might not have eq/bal in time to transfix. If their salve was taken by something else, you might have to wait in order to have the opportunity to transfix. It just feels a little clunky. I like the concept of forcing them to cure blindness, but I don't think health pressure meshes with salve pressure very well.

     i'm a rebel

  • What stops instant bayberry?
    image
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