So for now, this career is mostly seen as the inferior choice vs the pyromancer, while unleashed is her own singular thing (and quite pleasant to play, I may add)
So this thread is to discuss which changes would make her both viable and different enough from the second Sienna profession.
From my little experience, I’d say she’s supposed to be the controlled magic variant while pyromancer is more about raw damage. The spell charge talents seems to maker more suited with the slower staves (whose animations I really like) and large scale spells vs the flurry of attacks of the pyromancers. Her passsive hints at more control but unfortunately is completely overshadowed by other heatsinks techniques in the game.
Finally her ult can work as an escape, but people re used to rely on raw damage output and teammates protections rather than have to count on this one. Without the heat dissipation talents, I’ve felt like using it was very rare.
Possible avenues of change :
go on with talents that reinforced charged shots. For instance less heat generation on fully charged?
this is long overdue, but make her a better heat controller than the pyromancer
I feel she could do away with her teleport and instead get something thats either for large area damage/massive damage but slower to cast and without homing properties. A good exemple would be convoking a large fiery ball that just goes into a straight line burning stuff. Ideally, Pyro’s ult should be the crutch anti elite/special and this one a pack deleter/boss wounder with more of a setup.
TL;DR : keep pyro as the fast and reactive damage dealer, and make her more of the large scale, slower spellcaster.
Of course this is only one possible direction. What’s yours?
I find unleashed very fun indeed, mostly playing her so far in champions (not tried in legend) Her kit makes her alternate her fighting style and keeping in mind both health and heat is very interesting. Plus the heat dissipation on block is very neat and makes boss fights very intense. I won’t say she’s as effective as the pyro but I feel she’s a very well designed class.
TP is certainly more situationnal than the fast recharging auto aiming fireball. But I find it a clunky to use (every ground target skill is) and tend to cling to it until a desperate need arises, which is not that interesting.
Teleporting is cool and all, but I actually think her ult just needs to be scrapped and her given a new one that fits her bill. She’s meant to be the ‘balanced’ class, yes?
Give her a team buff that promotes melee fighting - Flaming Sword of Rhuin. A damage boost to her and nearby allies, while inflicting a fire DoT on all enemies (maybe not the latter part if it is visually obstructive). It would be useful for tough spots like bad hordes or bosses, and make her melee viable while not giving her the tankiness or more common high-damage potential of Unchained.
I love Battle Mage, the teleport is fun (and with 25 level talent complitly remove all overheat as well as pyromancers skull). She is so cool at make quick and strong magic burst. With increased charge speed talent at lvl 5 and improoved tranquility at 15 she can charge two full conflagration staff spell in the row in 1 second (same with flamestorm sraff).
Also tranqulity is nice heat control.
I think the problem is that people usualy prefer to pick cariers that can kill CW once in ~20 seconds. Thats sad So i’d rather nerf pyromanser ult AND remove 25 level talent that remove overheat on both Battle Wizard and Pyromancer. I think that this is an overkill and such heat managment mechanic should be only applied on Unchained.
I agree that half the battle is stuff that makes the pyro handles heat as well as her. Venting temporary health, heat removal on ult and heat removal on crits makes tranquillity something that’s uneeded.
Of course if the heat removal on screming skull was removed it would directly make her more viable and the more safe pick. Though that leaves the pyro even more dependant on heat sink oriented staves.
Another easy fix is looking at screaming skull damage. This ult is very dependable for hidden/far special removal. That is deletes big chunks of bosses is kinda overkill imho.
A more buff oriented mage could be quite neat for the battle mage. Though I really dig the idea of her having more slower but damage packing casts in the general vs the faster/constant dps of the pyro.
EDIT : do you envision flaming sword of Rhuin as her active? It could be way more fun than just a talent based aura. Makes her a bit like the witchhunter.
Though I like your idea about team based talents and ult, but I’d prefer that would be new carier (if they ever be), rather than battle mage overthinking.
Actually B.Wizard is currently viable, I used her on legend run so many times after 1.0.6
Pyromancer just good at playing with random guys more than B.Wizard
I use mace/conflagration staff on B.Wizard
current conflag staff is a beast, it has high stagger power to the point that you can stun lock entire chaos patrol with charge attack spam
She’s very viable but unlike to pyroamancer, you need to play with different meta team composition
I actually really like how Battle Mage plays. I go with a 2-1-1-2-1 build and alternate between staff and melee.
Burning Vigour allows her to be a blocking machine while others swing from behind you and World Aflame lets her get some solid hits in between enemy attacks. Volan’s Quickening decreases Fire Walk’s cooldown so it is ready more in line with overcharge being back down. Use Fire Walk to to spear through the hordes away from the team so the staff can be used for a little burst without friendly fire worry. Then rinse and repeat. I’ve had some decent success with that. just requires a bit of coordination.
I echo the sentiment that Battle Wizard and Unchained are in a good place and it’s Pyromancer that’s over-performing.
Honestly it seems that most people have never touched battle wizard after unlocking pyromancer at level 7. Sure pyromancer is stronger but battle wizard of nowhere near as bad as people make her out to be. Especially since beam staff nerf ans cooldown reduction for tp.
Take both cast speed talents + power from enemies nearby + overcharge reset on ult, conflag staff and melee of your choice which you can use confidently and not get hit. When tranquility is up you can cast 2 full conflag circles in less than 2 seconds and just destroy hordes, then pull out your melee and kill stuff for 8 seconds, then repeat. After about 4 casts in total your overcharge will be almost full and then you should use your tp to reset it. Usually everything is dead by then. It’s very important not to get hit while waiting for tranquility to recharge so it’s certainly not easy for beginners but if you’re good enough you can easily clutch situations where pyromancers would die instantly because you have enormous control with conflag, fast cast and tp to escape.
Thats it, I totaly agree. My friend leveling up Sienna for achivment, and I bet he does not even know what her talens do. Why read discriptions and experiment, when you can spam skull and rush levels since level 7, lol
http://verminbuilds.com/#50e1bc719c43-7690d2b6b032
here my current B.Wizard build
I choose ‘centered’ at lv 15 b’cuz I found myself use conflag staff spam quick charge attack just for CC in many situation
so I wont get full potential from ‘rechannel’ that much
The charge speed related to tranquillity is a bit puzzling. This basically translates as having one fast cast at the start of a sequence, but currently the downtime needed for tranquilitty to kick in is a bit too long. I should give it a try. Though to be honest I’ve been getting used to use conflag with unleashed so I don’t appreciate the charge speed buffs enough ^^
Btw what is your experience with fireball? I really like the conflag staff but it’s mainly because it’s so much easier to use with other players in front of you. Each time I feel like chargin fireballs, I barely avoid hitting teammates or have to launch them at weird angles and not inside the horde formation. Overall, half of my shots seems to be wasted with it.
In V1 conflag was my favourite. I never liked fireball. But in V2 things have changed. I like fireball and usualy use it on unchaned with 20% heat reduction trait on staff.
But after 1.0.6 i returned to conflag and so happy with it. And after a few games, when I take my fireball again I found it hard to use Since you need to stay in front of your teamates to shoot, while conflag lets your tank work.
But I realy like fireball too. It is les CC but more damage, while killing trash alone with quick spell charge.
Yeah, 8 seconds is a bit too much. Imo they should either remove reset on taking damage, reset on using ranged midway recharge or add instant recharge when melee killing an enemy, making it more similar to Bounty Hunter’s blessed shots. Currently it requires too much effort to avoid getting hit so I understand why most players shy away.
As for the fireball I’m not sure. Will give it a try today.
Reset or CD reduction on melee kills sounds neat. Essentially I like any perks that makes players proactive. Alternatively, tranquillity CD should be only based on not casting, full stop. Venting is debatable, since when you’re venting you’re not waiting for tranquillity anyway.
BW needs some way to decrease the cooldown of tranquility, either a lvl 15 talent that flat out decreases the cooldown to maybe 5s instead of 8 or change the way the passive ticks down as i feel it can be to harsh at the moment.
A complete reset of tranquility on a melee kill might be too much? How about -1s to cooldown for each melee kill (still starts over when taking damage) This enforces the frontline fighter mage in control of her power vs the unchained who is just crazy.
*Change her passive so it would be helpful in melee during recharge. Or give her more condition to activate her passive(like bh).
*replace her lvl 10 talents to something helpful.
*more traits and talents to boost her, intended, anti-crowd efficency without tranquility
*rework lvl15 talents so they would help while tranq is active and inactive, or let them upgarade it(like bh)
*new active that wouldnt put her in more dangerous posotion, wouldnt counteract with her specific role, while give her more options to fight against horde or bosses and keep her alive.
So i’d rather nerf pyromanser ult AND remove 25 level talent that remove overheat on both Battle Wizard and Pyromancer. I think that this is an overkill and such heat managment mechanic should be only applied on Unchained.