Yeah I know the game just released but guess what, I have complaints for the manager
The Battle Wizard is pretty much completely outclassed by the Pyromancer. I don’t mean this in that the game favors the Pyromancer’s style, I mean that the pyromancer can do what the battle wizard can do, just better.
For instance, once you have a grimoire, the Pyromancer has equilibrium up all the time. The Pyromancer can vent heat by using The Burning Head, which is a much much faster cooldown than Fire Walk. The Pyromancer can block at only 32% heat for the stamina reduction the Battle Wizard gets, and 32 ain’t 100. About the only thing Battle Wizards can claim is that they charge spells faster and can have one more shield.
But those two things don’t help the playstyle, which is huge amounts of casting and then fighting when you’re too hot. The pyromancer might actually be better at this, because once they are at very high overcharge they have a greatly reduced block cost. They can also use the quick-recharge Burning Head to pick off specials even if they’re too hot to cast, and that can even reset their heat.
Let alone the thing I dropped in passing, that the class gets better with a grim. That makes it the “u good?” class, since it rewards a risk taken by the team. Since a part of the challenge is finding and taking as many grims and tomes as you can, not playing the pyromancer when you’re sure you’ll probably be taking that evil book is a bad choice.
My suggestion is to really look at the Battle Wizard again, and try and make it shine in its role. Maybe make equilibrium come faster, maybe make talents that increase the AoE of spells, maybe give it talents that reward taking tomes. I don’t know, you guys are the experts. But the pyromancer outclasses the battle wizard in the playstyle the battle wizard was supposed to excel at, and that’s a problem.
good game by the way
Unchained still needs a bit more love too. Please put the pushing discount and costs overcharge at high overcharge back in. Just make it not consume overcharge unless you actually push something.
I always thought the Battle Wizard was supposed to have more of a melee element than it does - at least that’s what I assumed from the lore/fluff.
Something along the lines of melee strikes reducing overheat… or increasing spell crit/damage so you’d be encouraged to cycle between melee and casting more regularly rather than just relying on the staff until you max out heat. Pyromancer would be the pure casting class, Unchained the more dedicated melee.
Honestly baffled they didn’t reduce the cooldown with grim talent. Other talents with grim were nerfed from +25% to +15%, yet the Pyromancer still gets 100% cooldown speed. I’d not complain if it was 50%, maybe 33% + 33% if you carry one yourself.
I’ve no complaints about Unchained at all, fun class - just don’t try to actually melee with it unless you have to.
Regarding the OP, I’m bound to agree. It’s just not any good at what it’s supposed to do. Whatever that is.
Unchained still have her self-damage issue that can kill her after she get revived.
I honestly find no place for battle wizard anywhere. Charging? charging is not a huge issue when only spell you charge is fireball. Rest of them are pretty fast.
Tranquility? garbage passive to be honest, by the time it activates it already vented a level. It takes WAY to long for it to activate and using 1 spell every 8 sec with no benefit then faster charge? useless.
The only staff that really benefits from charging is flamestorm.
It loads up the heat you take during the charge, so you get a significantly less amount of heat by having faster charging on it. The other staffs give heat after the cast, not during the charge like flamestorm does.
It also allows you to charge a long cast of the flamestorm very quickly.
The problem with this is that you limit yourself to no long range option to kill specials and you don’t really kill rat packs any better than any of the other staffs. (Notable exception is the conflag staff which needs to be thrown in the garbage)
All of the other staffs give you ranged special kill options as well as pack clears. So why use flamestorm?
Ideally, Battle Wizard should have either a very short cooldown on their ultimate, or they should have the fireball ultimate and Pyro would have the blink.
If they ever get Reckless Haste working, Battle Wizard will be in a good spot regardless.
I’m actually thinking the cooldowns should’ve been reversed a while ago. Remember when they shortened the cooldown on dashes, and the burning head got shortened too?
It’s way faster than trueflight volley, which is odd. I could see it a little faster, but much? Seems off.
I don’t think charging faster while hot would change much. It’d still be worse at the thing it was supposed to do. It DOES have that stacking damage buff in melee, but considering the pyromancer gets attack speed and crit rate/or chance when hot… I donno man. I think it’s just better. They gotta take a good look at the two.
Still, I have a fun time with battle wizard. The nerf to Waystalker has hit me hard though, I was using her party regen along with the regen necklace along with the increased healing talent. (did that get nerfed? thought it was 30% before launch)
The above setup gave me the survival mechanics I needed. Now my elf doesn’t use party regen anymore.
I also switched my staff trait to reduced cooldown. It works well even post nerf and I can get a blink fast. With increased charge time on overcharge, it would open up my last talent and build ultimate quicker.
And what the hell does “Centered” do? It simply states it improves tranquility. As far as I can tell it changes nothing.
Edit: Just noticed they did do some work on Battle Wizard with todays patch. They fixed the buff in the UI. It now properly resets after each cast even if done mid cooldown. Much better this way. I wish the cooldown started at the beginning of a cast though instead of at the end.
Well, yes, it’s limiting, but I think it’s also really fun. And quite engaging, having to judge the correct time to start charging against a horde to get the full charge ready.
I think it justifies it’s shortcomings, provided the team already has a dedicated sniper, or everyone else has long range. Well, or indoor maps. Being able to hold up en entire wave alone is a strength. Not a particularly useful one, but it is one.
I agree that it is fun and I really enjoy that staff, just relative to the others, it is drawbacks when they do not.
Battle Wizard itself suffers from a similar fate. Not that the other two specs don’t have drawbacks, but Unchained has better defense with comparable offense to BW. And Pyro has better offense with comparable defense to BW.
Plus, both of those specs have better overcharge management.
What does BW have? Well, slightly better mobility and can survive better when everyone else is dead.
Now if they made Tranquility work and give a good amount of charge speed with overcharge, than BW would have a good spot in handling the Flamestaff and have great overcharge management while using it.