Spell scaling vs Physical scaling: Making caster weapons more important + fixing caster staffs

STAFFS THE TRUE COMPANIONS OF POWER

First to address Physical vs Spell scaling, i simply suggest to make the wand responsible for a greater amount of your spell damage. I suggest to make wands and shields roll more spell damage mods instead of increased mods. Leave the implicit bonus as increased.

I also suggest that elemental penetration becomes a mod for wands and staffs, making them matter even more. Elemental penetration battles the serious amount of monsters that take significantly less elemental damage, to balance it vs physical builds.

Then weapons will be more important to spell damage, similar to how it is to physical, and spells can now scale better in the far end-game, like usually only physical does due to extreme costs of perfect items and that both have to work mid game.

It could also make sense to give gloves and rings increased spell damage and cast speed mods. Simply because it makes sense but more because it makes scaling of spells more satisfying as you gear up.


Staffs have always been the true weapons of great magicians. Wands are lesser channeling rods, and a shield is certainly not something i can imagine Gandalf wearing together with a tiny twig. A staff is the übermost object of a caster's desire, outside of raw power.

To make Staffs on level with other options, you need to overhaul their properties so they roll from a completely different list, exclusively. Simple as that nothing special to it. The last overhaul that was done was a joke of a half-measure, no offense.

I also suggest to remove block bonus with Dual wands. Wands are finely tuned channeling instruments, not to be used by ogres, fragile sticks that break if you use it to block maces, axes, hit the wall and so forth.

With these changes, the overall damage level of spells has to be adjusted so the balance is right, just around mid game, which will give spells a lategame boost compared to now, as wands/staffs now provide greater damage increases than before.


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Assuming more damage coming from two affixes on same item will stack into one "more" multiplier, this is my suggested change to values of the most desirable properties. Anything that is more than a tiny variation will simple leave staffs neglected as usual.



More spell damage pure (56%) (prefix)

More spell damage + Mana (19% + 45) (prefix)

Additional Gem level (1-2) (prefix)



Spell Elemental Penetration (31%) (suffix)

Spell Critical strike chance (145%) (suffix)

Faster cast speed (31%) (suffix)

Mana regeneration rate (98%) (suffix)

Increased single element damage (46%) (suffix)



Wand:

(inherent up to 20% increased spell damage)

More spell damage pure (34%) (prefix)

More spell damage + Mana (18%+ 25) (prefix)



Spell Elemental Penetration (11%) (suffix)

Spell critical chance (109%) (suffix)

Mana regeneration rate (69%) (suffix)

Faster cast speed (22%) (suffix)

Increased single element damage (30%) (suffix)



Shield:

(inherent up to 15% increased spell damage)


More spell damage pure (23%) (prefix)


Spell critical chance (109%) (suffix)

Mana regeneration rate (59%) (suffix)



Other Changes

Remove dual wield wand block



The Result:

Staffs and duel-wielded wands are more or less equal for power until exceptionally late-game.

Wand + Shield is best for the balanced up-and-coming caster, or the highly defensive one.

Dual wield does better damage than staffs with perfect items, but only slightly and more expensive.

"

TL;DR

Make staffs/wands have "more" multipliers for affixes, to make weapon matter more akin to physical scaling. That is to balance scaling endgame.

Overhaul values of spell properties for staffs to make them on level with wand/shield. Choose staff for power, shield for defense.

Give staffs and wands spell penetration.

Just a real quick clarification

For example according to these numbers, staff can get 89% more damage and wands 46% more. That does not mean wands are just slightly better on that account, due to the nature of more damage. Wands are then:

1.46*1.46 = 2.13

which is equivalent to a 115% increase compared to the 89% of a staff.

Staffs then pull ahead due to gem +lvl affix, i estimate that as a 20% more base damage for your average spell.

Wands can stack more crit%, more regen, more cast speed, more single elemental damage and have an innate up to 20% increased spell damage each, which with perfect gear means dual wands will pull ahead.

Generally speaking, dual wands are on pair with a staff for dmg. The staff is more attractive the worse your gear is while the dual wielded wands are more attractive the better your gear is.

From my experience magic users are less durable (good) and deal less dmg (bad) then a similar level and gear 2h marauder. At least on levels 1-20. I was also thinking Buffing wands/staves is the best way to address the issue.
Nice list of suggestions. I like all of them.

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acqsen wrote:

From my experience magic users are less durable (good) and deal less dmg (bad) then a similar level and gear 2h marauder. At least on levels 1-20. I was also thinking Buffing wands/staves is the best way to address the issue.
Nice list of suggestions. I like all of them.

Level 1-20 is not anywhere close to indicative of the rest of the game whatsoever.

Suggestion for more options and diversity +1 :)

"

First to address Physical vs Spell scaling, i simply suggest to make the wand responsible for a greater amount of your spell damage. I suggest to make wands and shields roll more spell damage mods instead of increased mods. Leave the implicit bonus as increased.

This will require physical to be buffed as well. This may also require the spell damage in the passive skill tree to be nerfed, drastically.

"

I also suggest that elemental penetration becomes a mod for wands and staffs, making them matter even more.

This will remove the need of a penetration gem. Sure, more penetration will drastically increase your damage, but this will make the necessity of the gem only a desire.

"

Elemental penetration battles the serious amount of monsters that take significantly less elemental damage, to balance it vs physical builds.

Keep in mind that elemental damage has status effects that can drastically change gameplay, unlike physical. Physical almost always has to get up close while spells can stay at range. This will require a buff to physical and most likely the monsters themselves.

"

Then weapons will be more important to spell damage, similar to how it is to physical, and spells can now scale better in the far end-game, like usually only physical does due to extreme costs of perfect items and that both have to work mid game.

Since when were weapons as important to spells as they are to physical? They aren't and shouldn't be.

The advantage of physical is the ability to easily stack damage. The advantage of spells is the ability to have adequate damage from the gem itself.

"

It could also make sense to give gloves and rings increased spell damage and cast speed mods. Simply because it makes sense but more because it makes scaling of spells more satisfying as you gear up.

Gloves should have casting speed.

However, rings and amulets should be able to roll not just any mod on all other items, but mods specific to them. Since they offer no direct defenses, they should have the widest variety of attributes possible.

"

Staffs have always been the true weapons of great magicians. Wands are lesser channeling rods, and a shield is certainly not something i can imagine Gandalf wearing together with a tiny twig. A staff is the übermost object of a caster's desire, outside of raw power.

Not necessarily. Staves have always been on the fence on this matter, as they should be a good mix of physical and spellcasting.

As to shields, there are plenty of reasons for a mage to use a shield.

"

I also suggest to remove block bonus with Dual wands. Wands are finely tuned channeling instruments, not to be used by ogres, fragile sticks that break if you use it to block maces, axes, hit the wall and so forth.

Then there would never be a reason to use two wands. Either use a wand and shield-oh, you'd like them to not use that-, or use a staff. So far, here's what I'm getting:

TL;DR: Make the only desirable spellcasting setup be staves.

Wielding two weapons is meant to offer a different play style than a two-handed weapon. Two-handed weapons should do much more damage and non-two-handed weapons offer more survivability.

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One of the worst things about D3 was how weapons were equally important for everyone. You better enable diversity by allowing weapons to be much more important for attacks and less important for spellcasters.

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This is a separate issue from shield vs staff balance, something which the opening thread, but not the thread title, addresses. I say shield vs staff balance because wands aren't the problem. The way it should be is:
dual wield caster 1h > staff > caster 1h and shield
There is no problem with the "dual wield caster 1h > staff" relationship at this time. There is, however, a problem with the "staff > caster 1h and shield" relationship. Personally, I'd like to see the spell damage prefix removed from shields; the spell critical strike chance suffix and the spirit shield implicit can remain.