Archmage Support

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

but it doesnt bring diversity, its a way of scaling damage that also forces a defence mechanism on the character which together dictate the characters gearing.

its an extremely limiting setup in almost every way.

if something can be used with archmage its either an inferior or superior way to use the skill. the idea that it can e perfectly balanced so its exactly the same power is a fantasy.


if its inferior then we still have this post, if its superior then not only do you destroy all other support setups you also destroy armour, evasion, ci, hybirds, low life, life stacking, blockers, essentially every other way of building a casters defences and you make almost all casters use archmage with mom and it is the worst thing ever added to the game in terms of destroying effective build diversity.


the only reason archmage wasnt the most harmful thing ever added to poe in terms of obliterating freedom of choice for effective builds regarding trees, gems and items was that it only worked with lightning spells, so non lightning casters were still able to use a diverse range of ascendancies, items etc.

lightning spells happened to be fairly unpopular leading up to its introduction, they probably accounted for about 1/10 of spell casters being made, maybe less. so when archmage landed it only annihilated all character choice diversity from 10% or less of the current caster meta. if it worked with all spells it would have destroyed the game, it would be a total disaster.



i just dont see how you balance it, when do we ever see multiple ways of doing a thing in the game and theyre all balanced? equally effective? its a dangerous mechanic because its so destructive to character diversity by forcing an all out mana stack that if you miss by a fraction and it becomes the superior choice then youve just nuked the build diversity for every skill archmage works with.