I wouldn't be suprised if AM's/shamans will see a (slight) buff to their dual nature. As for the current situation, I believe it's not something to cheer for?
The current situation is, in a word, horrible outside soloing - unless you like being a healbot. WARNING: MASSIVE WHINE POST INCOMING.
I was reminded recently of
this video from 2006 describing character classes - and can only say that the AM and (to a lesser degree) Shaman classes fail completely to be in accord with what was the intention at the time: they (and the rune priest/zealot classes) ARE namby-pampy healer classes that "heal and heal and heal" from the back lines and none of them can make a "significant attempt at beating the living snot out of somebody". They can make a significant attempt at DOTting up a lot of people so long as they are willing to let their own side die (ending up with a large damage score on the damage graph without accomplishing much but forcing an enemy healer to HOT up a lot of people gaining a lot of credit on the healing side) with a net negative contribution to a group/warband effort as an alternative to healing and healing and healing, but making a significant attempt at beating the living snot out of a single target of the same level and gear? Not hardly.
That said, with respect to the AM class, the biggest failure of them all is that the class' specific gimmick (every class has one), the thing intended to make them fun and iconic... can mostly be ignored and
is not fun. Play a Warrior Priest - your gimmick of building up faith through melee to power your heals is felt from the get go - it becomes central to your playing style. You cannot play a WP effectively without trying to take advantage of it. It encourages you to find ways to master it. A Sword Masters stance changing likewise. You cannot play a Sword Master anything close to effectively without paying a constant close attention to your current stance. An AM (or Shaman), on the other hand?
Who the hell cares about High Magic? Your choice of casting damagedealing or healing spells will usually be determined solely by the situation you are in, not by the HM you've build up or any plan you have to utilize the HM, and there's no particular benefit to trying to build HM in one path in order to cast "something powerful in the other path". You are in the process of DoTting people up when a party member takes heavy damage => you cast him a heal. It may be a stronger heal if you've been DoTting a lot, but that does not in any way factor into the decision and you are unlikely to be thinking much about it. If you try to think much about it and pretend the HM mechanic really has meaning and that it is beneficial to to attempt to use it consciously and choose to build more destruction side magic in order to, for instance, cast an instant big heal, your target will most likely be dead before you cast the heal. Since just the GCD alone for a spell is greater than the time saved, it is
guaranteed that waiting to build HM will perform worse - and that's before even considering that you might not have the AP to do both.
Moreover, attempting
anything like what the class description suggests that the class is all about (see
the class description, parts of which quoted below) results in poor performance since the mechanic does not in any way, shape, or form do what it is described as being designed to do.
Archmage Specialty
The Loremasters of Hoeth are capable of manipulating the winds of magic with a grace and subtlety that only comes with centuries of study. An Archmage does not waste the power he draws upon; instead they efficiently weave the winds of magic into destructive spells conserving a small amount of arcane energy with each spell they cast. The Archmage can then draw upon this reserve of power to weave the most difficult spells of High Magic capable of leaving even the most terribly wounded warrior hale and hardy with nary a scar to show for it.
Playing as a Archmage
An Archmage is a powerful caster both offensively and defensively. However they must strive to keep a balance between the powers they manipulate. Weaving only powerful healing or destructive spells will leave the Archmage tired and unable to assist his allies in their darkest hour. However by carefully applying force in critical places the Archmage can reserve a wellspring of magical energy that allows him to aid his allies when a normal mage would be all but spent.
The greatest joke remains the statement about how sticking to only one of the sides will leave us tired and unable to assist our allies in their darkest hour - not so, that happens when we do attempt to use both sides and hence are left without energy to help.
The current state of the archmage outside soloing is that it is a damn good ranged healbot/debuffer who belongs in the back healing and healing and healing when not debuffing - at least if you want to be of most aid to your group, since that's the part of it that the game mechanics, abilities, and tactics support.
...Not that I play it like that in scenarios, with the obvious result that my side performs worse in scenarios than it would otherwise, but that's because I'm an egotistical git who' often prefer to DoT somebody rather than HoTting somebody, who is not directly looking out for
my life. And, of course, it is still a pretty fun class to solo with.
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Then again, perhaps the Archmage will receive an overhaul some day instead of staying a primary healbot, but it will require significantly more attention than it got in the beta, according to those who were in it (namely, approximately zero after it was cloned from the Shaman) - as a relic of which there is a funny bug (feature!) in the game right now which was reported many months ago in the beta, repeatedly raised together with the other issues, none of the issues ever acknowledged (and funnily enough, mostly being along the lines of what those who feel hoodwinkled with the AM complain about) - I present to you three screenshots that show without shadow of doubt the deep attention Mythic paid to making every class really unique and with a gimmick to give them iconic status:
EDIT: The forum software appears to screw up the thumbnail links by replacing the URL links with the IMG links for some/all people. Here are the direct URL links:
Archmage HM 3Archmage HM 5Shaman HM 5Mythic was so busy solving all the important problems in the game that
nobody found time to replace the orc faces when showing High Magic - and this was not acknowledged as a bug (probably due to nobody reading the AM bug reports).
...As if that was really needed to rub in that the Masters of the Winds of Magic were inferior to drugged out goblin shamans - we knew that the moment we read the spell and tactic lists for each.
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Aaaaaand, finally, my verdict on the path of Asuryan:
...It goes without saying that the tactics and spells in the Asuryan tree are overall pretty worthless.
At 3: Forked Lancing Talent. Equipped fully with damagedealing equipment (+INT), the total damage dealt in 2s with this at the level you get it by casting Radiant Lance and hitting two extra targets... is only slightly higher than the damage dealt by using Searing Touch for 2s (and Searing Touch is cheaper in AP too and isn't set back if you get hit). (And of course, if you use it while you have only one talent slot available, using it instead of Divine Fury means that your total damageoutput
falls sigificantly since the majority of damage you deal comes through HoTs, even if you do hit three targets with each cast.) Radiant Lance scales better with +INT than Searing Touch so at high levels it can make sense - but this is the first thing you get in the Asuryan tree, and taking it is a huge mistake until very late levels.
At 5: Fury of Asuryan. Sounds awesome until you realize it is an instant attack at range 65 that deals low damage on a 30s cooldown. Pass.
At 7: Dispel Magic - a nice tactic removing enemy buffs in the socalled damage tree. Useful for a full debuffing Vaul build the dips into Asuryan.
At 9: Feel the Winds - a nice debuffing spell in the socalled damage tree. (However, since much of an AMs damage is through spirit, this will increase his damage if used properly). But... it is a slightly improved single-target version of the debuff that is automatically applied in a cone by the Storm of Chronos spell that is baseline, so... pass.
At 11: Increased Conductivity: a 20% damage buff!!! that carefully applies only to the weakest damagedealing spells the AM has (carefully including the others you can spec for, but none of the high dps spells). Pass. What possible generic damagedealing tactic could be worth swapping for this one?
At 13: Cleansing Flare. A ranged AOE attack doing negligible damage (no, 300-400 points at level 40 fully specced Asuryan with high INT
is not impressive) BUT with an AOE knockback. This one is definitely worth taking - for the knockback.
At 15: Morale 4 channeled AOE ability. As other morale 4 abilities this is mostly for jokes and giggles. A channeled spell for a high priority target that breaks on any damage only increases the fun. Probably awesome when it does work, though. Who knows, it might do
several hundred damage to those in the 30' AOE range!!!!- In the end, the absurdity of the Archmage design has resulted in the weird situation that the single best way to increase Archmage damagedealing in multitarget fights at higher levels is to spec Vaul rather than Asuryan, since Vaul, at 11, gives Golden Aura tactic (Radiant Gaze, the highest dps DOT an Archmage has, gets AOE effect) - while, ironically, Asuryan has some of the better debuffing tactics).
