Settled Dust: Ascendril, Sciomancer, Parity, and Misconceptions

Rijetta · May 2020

Hey friends, I want to keep this simple. It has come to my attention that there is a lot of misinformation, unhappiness, and general salt regarding the new mage classes on both sides - and some of that salt is perfectly mirrored. Shadow PKers think Ascendril came out ahead in the revamp, and Spirit players think Sciomancer did. Now, we can't both be right, but instead of arguing about who is right, I'd rather start an open discussion.

This thread might devolve into mud-flinging and hurt feelings, but I would really like to try and approach this as a mature discussion, so we can all laugh about how silly we were getting salty about what other people had in their bowl.

To that end, I'd like to ask for a little structure to this: I want to hear from both Shadow and Spirit, both mage and non-mage - I want to hear your genuine thoughts (preferably without insults to others, passive-aggressive or otherwise) and I, for one, promise to engage with those thoughts honestly and without prejudice. I might disagree with you, but I won't do it without explaining myself, and I expect the same from anyone else. We're all adults.

So, as an example, I'll start. I am a Sciomancer PKer - one of the very few. One of the first, even. I haven't been on very much for a few months because of how awful my job is, but even so, I consider my Scio routes to be a frontrunner for the class. It's still a work in progress, so I haven't hit an incredible winning streak yet, but I haven't seen many others do so, either.

As such, I have some thoughts about Scio, and where I think its strengths and weaknesses are. I think it is a landslide class - if you let it get rolling, or cure poorly, it will roll HARD, and you will find yourself dead from one of two kill routes very suddenly. On the flip side, if you know how to stall it, it takes a lot of time to get rolling, and suddenly starts to have what I feel are razor thin timing windows to get anything done - and what I believe to be its primary kill route, Collapse, requires multiple affs that are at the top of their cure trees, making those windows even slimmer. Meanwhile, its other kill route, Consume, requires a specific set of conditions... one of which you cannot effectively track. Nyctophobia is very high in anyone's Sciomancer cureset, and we can bury it with Gloom.. but we can't see what affs gloom gives, and gloom doesn't always give an aff if you focus! So, it's very possible for us to think you have nyctophobia when you don't, and hit ourselves with Consume. It's not as dangerous as it used to be, thank goodness, but it's still a death sentence against many classes. Risky, but rewarding!

I think in groups, it doesn't bring all that much that you can't find elsewhere. It is the Shadow source of aegises, which is extremely important, and it has Labyrinth, which can be used to pretty devastating effectiveness. However, Cannon is a bit of a limp noodle with slow speed, inability to use in the same room, and precluding you from performing singularity shenanigans, since you need to have it with you. A Sciomancer in the room with the enemies looks scary with Spectre, but I find that the damage from it is low enough that only unprotected younglings, below level 100, are at any risk from being spectre-bashed. The damage from their spells is not very impressive unless you are heavily artifacted, and even then I just don't see them being all that powerful, even Falter's nyctophobia damage effect. Thus, a Sciomancer staying in the room after their Aegis goes off is a fool, and they should immediately leave and desperately try to support from outside with cannon, in most cases, unless they are just acting as a transfix-bot.

With those on the table, I'd love to hear the thoughts of my companions in Spirit - whether you feel like you know the class or not.

Next, my thoughts on Ascendril, and why for a long time I thought they were absolutely ludicrous:

Shatter, to me, is a braindead easy kill route. Ascendril has access to EXCELLENT passive affs from the Fulcrum (Epilepsy! Impatience!!), and multiple easy methods of applying shivering/frozen which, at some points, are rolling passively. Hypothermia is a "gotcha" gimmick, and one that is not as dangerous as it seems when you know what you're looking for, but still a very powerful tool. Meanwhile, they hit hard with Firelash (a little more damage than the Sciomancer bread and butter spell, Ruin - with my 18 int and potence 1, I was hitting for about 200 more damage per Firelash than Ruin, without a Clarity glyph. With Clarity, the gap gets much bigger.), apply limb damage, and have access to a wider range of affs than Sciomancer, although I'll fully admit this, straight up: they SHOULD, theoretically, be able to lock off salve bal the way Wayfarer can. I haven't seen it done, and I suspect some numbers need tweaking to make it possible. I'd love to see that route come into play, because it seems a far sight more interesting to me than Shatter.

Anyway, back on track, Shatter seems braindead easy, VERY quick to achieve, and much harder to stall than the Collapse kill route. I see where people complain about lack of variety - you only need a handful of spells and Fulcrum effects to achieve Shatter, which can seem boring. Meanwhile, in group combat, I feel like Ascendril really shines compared to Sciomancer - Fireball is, flat out, a better ranged spell than Cannon. It is faster (by less, since I got Cannon buffed, but still faster), does more damage, can be buffed by Clarity, and can be AoE with Prism procs. Moreover, it can be used in the same room as the target, so if they rush you, you're still applying damage - though, after a bug fix, Cannon does destroy the corpse of anything it kills. That's pretty useful, when there aren't any salvage rings in play.

Moreover, Ascendril can access its insta in a group - and can even be supported in achieving that insta very effectively by Templar, Sentinel, and a few others. Collapse CAN be achieved in a group, but requires too many steps to be effective, and either destroys the singularity (without stability) or randomly removes one of its effects each time (with stability). They have Gorge, which gosh, I'm SO happy (genuinely) they kept that from the old Ascendril, because it is such a cool and flavorful spell and, when the aff route is fixed, should be the lynchpin of the route. In groups, it's an absolute death sentence, and an extremely powerful tool. They do more up-front damage than Sciomancer, while Sciomancer makes up the difference with Shaderot, which is too slow to be applicable in group combat.

So, to sum up my thoughts, I thought for a long time that Ascendril came out streets ahead of Sciomancer in both 1v1 and group - better up-front damage, good utility (but lacking Labyrinth, which is a big point in scio's favor but kind of a one trick pony), easy and effective kill route, and here's the big one for me: perfect tracking. Every attempt to ask for better tracking for, say, Gloom affs, has been met with rejection. I don't think there are many classes that can't track such a major part of their offense, but please correct me if I'm wrong - I know Wheel can't track its cure, but I have opinions about THAT too that I can put in ANOTHER giant post if you like (spoiler: i think it's fine).

That being said, it's important to note that the two mage classes are not supposed to be the same anymore. Even with that in mind, though, it's interesting to see that both sides felt like they got shorted, when in reality, neither of them did.

This post has become entirely too long, but I wanted to put everything up front, and I strongly recommend that others do too. Please, join me in this dialogue and let's figure this out before the next classlead round, so we can approach this more harmonically. Also, feel free to tear my opinions and thoughts apart - just do it honestly and openly, so we can discuss instead of argue. Thanks.

Hawa · May 2020

(in most matchups, indo not tracking the wheel cure isn't that big of a deal. in the matchups where it seems like a big deal, it's probably more of an issue with the tools available given the matchup - fitness/shrugging, in particular. so... i'll let this throwaway comment about my baby slide.)

Czcienn · May 2020

Ascendril >>>>>> Sciomancer in 1v1 even against someone without decent prios/parrying. Shatter is one of the easiest/cheesiest instakills against people who aren't prepared for it.

Ascendril >> Sciomancer in 1v1 against someone decent. Ascendril takes longer to ramp up but is generally more deadly (mostly because of Shatter cheese). Parrying torso, keeping torso cured, having frozen high in prios will slow down Ascendril significantly. I still think Ascendril 1v1 is better though, because there are ways around it although they are much slower and some matchups are just impossible because they are so much faster.

Sciomancer >>>> Ascendril in groups. Ascendril does more single target damage. I wanted to nerf this a bit (not necessarily because I think it's better than a couple of other single target damage spam classes, but because it's very boring and doesn't really fit the kit).

Ascendril used to have AoE Flare but it was removed for reasons.

I think Attunement and Dissonance are on a similar level on their own, but since they work better for the Sciomancer kit in general right now.

Sciomancers have much more crowd control. Labyrinth is very strong. At best it can win fights and at worse it acts as a deterrent that slows down enemy groups significantly. Grip basically means people can't escape if the Scio focuses on keeping them in the room, especially when you add Retardation on top of it. Room-wide passive disrupt is amazing. Ascendril has 2 active crowd control skills in River and Eruption, but they are both really unreliable, and with the nerf to Eruption to make it take 4 seconds to go off it's really not usable since there are many ways to counter it in that time without taking into account the RNG roll. Whirlwind/Blizzard/Firewhirl all affect allies as well and are generally not worth using other than when the game lags to the point that everyone is just trying to do as much passive damage as possible.

Spectre used to be insane but now is ok. It's about the same damage as Prism Fireball but procs more often so doesn't feel as bursty.

Both have Ensorcell and honestly both should be nerfed. I think it's super lame but too effective to not use.

Shatter is cheese in groups but disperse is basically a hard counter.

Gorge being a salve cure that inhibits pill use is really not amazing because in most situations you aren't going for both at the same time. In groups you either go hard on one or the other, or you actually just have a critical mass to spam fireball. I only use it to cheese gorged anabiotic on squishier targets.

Collapse >>>>> Calamity. The only advantage of calamity is getting nerfed. After that it'll actually just be a slower and lower damage collapse.

Fezzix · May 2020

Labyrinth is the Scio glyph that rewards proper set up prior to group combat. River is much the same, but arguably more effective. Set a room up with the clarity glyph and River is far more usable than Labyrinth.

The "chance to bypass density" never made much sense to me as an argument against River + Clarity. I'd argue it's something in its favor, because it splits up a group instead of moving them all and keeping them together.

Czcienn · May 2020

And how do you propose an Ascendril walk into a group of enemies to cast River and not get killed?

Iazamat · May 2020

River has a 5 room line-of-sight, doesn't it?

Rijetta · May 2020

@Czcibor Hey, thank you for your thoughts! I was actually workshopping some Labyrinth nerfs for next round myself, because I think it's an AMAZING skill and I'd hate to lose it, but I think it needs a couple checks and balances. It's interesting to me that you gloss over River so quickly, because we definitely find it very aggravating to deal with on our side! I've definitely gotten frustrated at that skill more than once, so maybe there's a little more to it.

It's also amazing to me that we have such different opinions on Scio in group - I agree that LAbyrinth is great, but i feel like once that load is blown, Scio has so very little to offer. I was never able to get my Spectre damage very high, either, certainly not able to hit as hard as Fireball -- and not able to go through shield with its splash damage. Could you elaborate on that point a little more for me?

Honestly, the thing I'm most jealous of, as a Sciomancer, is Clarity - it's so strong! It makes so many spells hit so much harder and really makes the entrenched Ascendril a force of destruction. What do you think of Clarity?

---

@Hawa Thanks for your insight. I think when going for a real lock, Wheel curing a random aff is a pain, but when just going for aff count for a Deform, it's less detrimental overall. The reason I think it's not as bad as us not being able to track Gloom is largely because Gloom is our only way to bury Nyctophobia.. and not knowing if Nyctophobia is on the enemy could be a death sentence for the Sciomancer, way more than an inconvenience.

Hawa · May 2020

@Rijetta tbc (for the people following along at home) i think we're on the same page. i was mostly just being silly. wheel's cure is maybe an annoyance. trying to lock as indo is a fool's errand, anyways, until you're basically at the point of killing - at which point, it's usually a waste of time.

Czcienn · May 2020

Iazamat said:
River has a 5 room line-of-sight, doesn't it?

Yes, but given how areas are generally laid out you don't often get a favorable layout. It's also not nearly as debilitating to be hit by river as Labyrinth. Unless the Ascendril has moved away from their group and behind the enemy line they can't move any of them into the main group. Being split up in the other direction can be annoying, but it's not like it's going to lose you the fight just like that. There are ways to counter it, like just putting an icewall down in the other direction. Even if everything goes as planned, the defending group would still need to choose when to advance to take advantage of the split group. If they move too early then they put themselves at risk of being split up a bit too. If they move too late, they might just end up giving up their defensive advantage for no benefit since the enemy group might have regrouped already. Labyrinth is low risk, massive reward. River has significantly more risk and also significantly less reward.

Rijetta said:

It's also amazing to me that we have such different opinions on Scio in group - I agree that LAbyrinth is great, but i feel like once that load is blown, Scio has so very little to offer. I was never able to get my Spectre damage very high, either, certainly not able to hit as hard as Fireball -- and not able to go through shield with its splash damage. Could you elaborate on that point a little more for me?

Honestly, the thing I'm most jealous of, as a Sciomancer, is Clarity - it's so strong! It makes so many spells hit so much harder and really makes the entrenched Ascendril a force of destruction. What do you think of Clarity?

As I said, a lot of it is just how effective Scio can support other classes. In team fights, once an engagement is made there are generally only a few things that matter. Damage if you reach critical mass, and keeping targets in the room. My point is that Scio is much stronger at the latter through better affs in general and a combination of Retardation and Grip. And again, passive room-wide disrupt is incredibly strong.

Spectre is nowhere near as strong as it used to be, but that's just because of how ridiculous it was. Before the nerfs a few of us had logs of having our curing be outpaced and getting close to death by Spectre procs from just 2 Scios while not being targeted. Now, the damage is decent without being overbearing. It being shadow damage means audits are generally very low, especially on spirit side. Looking back at one of the logs I found from pre-nerf, it was doing 640 shadow damage to me, and another log that I think Benedicto had shows 626 shadow damage. As far as I know the damage of it has not been nerfed since then (there was a shadow -> magic nerf that was later reverted). Even with it proccing roughly once every 2 casts with the 3-4 second cooldown it is still pretty good and definitely on par if not stronger than the fire-based Prism Fireball that can fire roughly every ~9. For comparison, my 21 int Fireball with Clarity up is doing 1398 damage to me with 47% fire audit.

It hasn't been seen very often because right after the Spectre nerf the people who had been spamming it generally all switched off Scio. The more recent Scio pkers generally don't sit in the room and fight with Spectre up. (Sidenote: A report to nerf Spectre was originally rejected even though that was much more egregious than any of the "stack x class" that we seem so wary of now).

I think Clarity is very boring because it's just a 15% damage increase and I already explained why River is still not very good with it. I'd be happy to trade away the pure damage aspects of it for something more interesting. Often I don't even run clarity these days because I feel like dropping a couple more glyphs to run with Ensorcell is more effective for my group in general, especially if I'm going to end up dying early anyway. In 1v1 I've killed some squishier people with damage spam using it, but in other matchups it's actually just a "you lose" button because you end up with no mana very quickly.

As a bonus, since some people are doubting how much stronger Collapse is compared to Calamity, I did some testing with Stine. On 47% cold audit, my 21 int cold-enriched, fully-stacked Calamity did 3647 damage to him. My 21 Int Collapse did 5557 damage.

Nisavi · May 2020

Ensorcell is fine.

The fact that Spirit isn't making use of Metawake and Flame Tattoo is why it's so effective on you guys. I've watched an entire group of fourteen Spirit folks run right into it and not a single person had Metawake up. That's why you died.

For those of us from other games that are used to totems, they function pretty much the same (albeit weaker by comparison to what totems offer) and require the same counter. You should always have Metawake up when you expect to go against Aegis. Flame will also protect against Entrapment. Shadow, myself included, routinely reminds people to put these defenses up when we suspect a Mage with Aegis is with your group.

I've had a discussion on Clarity vs. Labyrinth with others and I will state that Clarity is more universally useful while Labyrinth is more situationally useful. Yes, Labyrinth can prevent a rush, but there are a number of tactics that can be used in advance if you see it coming. However, Spirit has gotten better about expecting Labyrinth, so much of its effectiveness has been curtailed despite it being my Transcendent skill. Whereas, in most applicable combat situations, Clarity remains a more universally applicable skill as there is rarely a situation that you'd want to say "no" to more damage.

Worth noting that I'd oppose any Labyrinth nerfs right now. As previously stated, Labyrinth is capable of stopping groups from rushing, but so does lining exits up with firewalls, thornwalls, or icewalls. Have a Syssin go in while phased and drop monoliths. Have your leader use the refining ability that turns him into a walking monolith. The glyph will only hit them and thus have no effect. Any further nerfs invalidate that the skill costs valuable gemdust and is a Transcendent skill. If I am labyrinthing the whole of an unstable area, that is a fair amount of diamond dust that I'm blowing through. On another note, I do realize that attuned Labyrinth aegis is powerful, but it rightly should be as It takes fifteen uninterrupted minutes to place it to where afflictions like paralysis, prone, or me being abducted will stop it -- as we demonstrated on Spirit when they tried to attune their own aegis at Orrery, plus it costs a very valuable amount of commodities to make an aegis in the first place. I feel like any further downgrades would already limit a situational skill, which is annoying as it is our Transcendent glyph in Sorcery. Monoliths are a required part to any dedicated PvP'ers inventory and other options exist to limit Labyrinth as is.

Czcienn · May 2020

I want to nerf Ensorcell having seen the difference it makes when enemies rush us when I am using it vs when I don't have it up. It is an incredible skill.

Attuned aegises outside of cities are just really lame in general. No skill should be that powerful. It taking 15 minutes to set up doesn't make it better. It just makes it more obnoxious for people to enjoy pk because they're going to need to be constantly fighting over places to attune. The only reason we don't have an attuned aegis every 3 rooms is because of how long it takes.

Nisavi · May 2020

Czcibor said:
I want to nerf Ensorcell having seen the difference it makes when enemies rush us when I am using it vs when I don't have it up. It is an incredible skill.

Attuned aegises outside of cities are just really lame in general. No skill should be that powerful. It taking 15 minutes to set up doesn't make it better. It just makes it more obnoxious for people to enjoy pk because they're going to need to be constantly fighting over places to attune. The only reason we don't have an attuned aegis every 3 rooms is because of how long it takes.

Have your group put metawake up and flame tattoo up. That is literally the easiest and most effective counter to aegises. They're also quite literally a weaker variant of totems that exist in other games. Not that it really matters, but in those games: the totems straight up give Transfix and a variety of other affs. Hell, Imperian even has an artifact totem option that has eight slots on it. Aegis is quite fine and the counters are abundantly clear. Start telling Spirit to put up Metawake and Flame before proposing nerfs to it. There's a reason why Aegis doesn't impact us as much when we rush you versus when you rush us. I've reviewed our logs and I can safely say that this is Spirit's biggest Achilles heel when on the offensive right now.

Also, I'd rather not have my Sorcery skillset (which already has a lesser amount of skills by comparison to other skill sets in the game) have half of its abilities hamstringed and made even more situational because part of the game refuses to use a general skill in Survival and a tattoo that is readily available.

Edit: Or, if you really wanted to be proactive about it, have someone target the ensorcelling Mage at range while they're ensorcelling it and then move in right after. This is another counter that people do against Runewardens/Runeguards in other games that are propping totems.

Czcienn · May 2020

Again, I am saying I want to nerf Ensorcell because I've seen how effective it is against Shadow.

Nisavi · May 2020

Czcibor said:
Again, I am saying I want to nerf Ensorcell because I've seen how effective it is against Shadow.

And I'm telling you that it hasn't been. We've had Metawake up and have beaten you guys in group fights despite you having an ensorcelled aegis. What has cost us a good chunk of the group fights that I've been in is Benedicto's ability to return incredibly quickly and resume target calling because Aloli is able to resurrect him quickly OR we're just vastly outnumbered. Once we started focusing/banishing Aloli and killing Benedicto, we noticed an immediate shift. Additionally, I've literally watched Spirit waltz right into a sleep aegis multiple times without the entire group having Metawake up (except for Hawa). Hawa was also the first one who actually started doing WIELD MONOLITH, THROW MONOLITH as well when you guys kept rushing through Labyrinth multiple times.

I think my point is: you need to actually use the resources you have available to you before calling for downgrades. If there was more effort being exerted/required by comparison to me setting up an area with those glyphs, I'd be inclined to favor a downgrade -- however, it is not difficult to have monoliths on your person, nor is it difficult to have Metawake/Flame tat up.

Oonagh · May 2020

The only downfall of wield monolith and throw monolith...(this is honest and not a troll)
Constant barrage of hounds, dopplegangers, mind locking(yes I know its a neutral class), sand in rooms(easily countered with a shaman)
But hounds constantly knocking people off and dopplegangers doing doppleganger things, because we have to stop numerous times for numerous monoliths is very time consuming and allows -alot- of time to pick people off if we have to do that from the beginning of aura to the orrery/lesser location. Though I think we fixed that by having a zealot with an orbiting monolith, and honestly I keep clarity/flame up and dont really have the issue with labyrinth alot of other people do.

I also use metawake because I came from achaea....and yeah totems.
Though I would NOT be opposed to something like SOFTFOCUS here....(wishful thinking)

Thats really my only complaint with labyrinth, the rest of the stuff I kinda do disagree with Czcibor on, just because I think it isn't really a necessary change.
Having more AoE skills is cool, but like...meh, it is what it is....I would prefer if Fireball was something like...splash damage, the more enemies the less damage taken if were gonna go AoE on skills, I think that it should depreciate some of the damage overall if there are more enemies present on both sides, but like Fulcrum/Singularity be the big boom.

Also, Shatter is stupid easy. (Something something great 1v1 and easy to do limb kill route)

I would have liked better clarity, but I also see the reason why we dont really need it.

Nothing else to say really.
Frog....Out

Nisavi · May 2020

Aside from my comments on Aegis, and this is the last time I'm going to really comment on Aegis as I don't think there's anything else to say: I think my issues are that the classes feel... kind of "janky".

For example, I did tests and found out that Gravity heals off a universal 8 second timer. EVERYONE heals off of this universal 8 second timer, even if they don't have Gravity. It's always going. This means that I can Gravity Grip someone and, if I'm unlucky, the gravity stack from Grip can literally be cured right after. I have a report for next classlead on this.

Initially, I had thought that Sciomancer's damage was really lackluster after the Spectre change. After doing some testing, I found that Spectre + Falter (assuming Nycto) does more damage than a Cannon, but both Mages are generally better off being out of the room after ensorcelling the aegis. Mathematically and putting risk in as a factor, you're just better off lobbing Fireball or using Cannon as it's generally going to do more damage as a whole. Prism Fireball's splash damage also goes through barrier as well.

I would like to see more reason for the Mages to actually stay in the room with everyone else, but I don't think nerfing their range damage is the way to go on either one, but I'd like to see them just... stay with the group. Ascendril probably has more reason to remain, but I'm not going to comment on how good Shatter is in groups because frankly, I've not gone into an arena with class mod to play with it. What I can say is that Sciomancer presently has very little reason to stay in the room. Yeah, I can't range attack if I have my singularity, so my passives aren't going off, but my passives aren't going to go off if I'm dead either (and I'm generally a priority target if I'm in the room nowadays) so I've found it better to just sit at range and use Cannon. I have other range options if I chose to turn tether off and leave my passives in the room, but it's nowhere near as effective as just using Cannon and doing damage.

In short, I feel like the classes are just... incomplete, almost? We have less ABs by comparison to other classes. From what I was made to understand, Arcanism and Sorcery didn't even have aegises at first until someone realized how sparse the skills were and proposed the idea of weakened totems.

My only other issues is that I don't have any use for these many technique scrolls I have -- and this is a really minor issue: a lot of the messages for Sciomancy and other skills are just... grammatically "off". No offense to the person who designed them if English wasn't their first language or what have you, but a lot of them are just really weird in how they're presented and I've thought about typoing them to propose replacements. It's not that I think they're necessarily "wrong", I just think they're structurally off.

Aside from that, I think the classes are pretty fine. I think Sciomancer and Ascendril are both fairly well balanced, both in what they offer groups and in 1v1. Granted, I can only base success from win rate in 1v1 with Ascendril, but its win rate in Sect right now is fairly high, so it doesn't seem to be struggling. Sure, they don't have as much "raw in your face" damage like a Templar, Monk, or Teradrim -- but the classes fill a pretty good support role while doing decent damage. I disagree with Keroc's idea that we're "AoE" kings, because that's something I only really get from the class in PvE. In PvP, both classes are support/utility with decent damage.

Xavin · May 2020

In the past I would shoot for a shatter in groups. However, I found that the conditions required for it post-nerf mean that shatter pretty much isn't going to happen. That said, I would -not- want to see shatter be usable on someone else's impale. That would be nuts. At this point the most optimal use of Ascendril seems, at least to me, to be ensorcell until we are engaged then either get out of the room to toss fireballs or stay in room to set up various aoe while still chucking fireballs. That all said, I could very easily be doing something wrong and shatter could be more viable in groups. But I'm just not seeing it, not when we tend to have other classes that all look to take advantage of an impale situation.