Post by Gaius Stonewall on May 15, 2020 1:05:18 GMT -5
Tier 1:
Tier 2:
Tier 3:
Tier 4:
Tier 5:
- Darkness - The best "one shop stop" element, it can use Durability to annihilate defenses and attacks alike, so no need to ever take Power with it! The weakness on its movement can easily be overcome by focusing on melee or utilizing positioning, which makes it something to play around rather than an outright limitation.
- Beast Aura - Forces the physical playstyle hard, but gives you nice boons to offset the downsides of no range. It has a lot going for it with being able to grab a potential 7 Physical Perks if you take PR and being an absolute, well, beast on the battlefield.
Tier 2:
- Wraith - A strong golem build that lets you take on other plats, which makes it super strong. Of course you've only got golems, but that's alright given the golems make up for what you lack. No affinity bonus, but that isn't so bad given you won't be using most of your stats yourself.
- Light - Speed and Power, perfect for an evasion tank that wants to go full Power and PR to attack from afar with quicker shots and outrun other attacks. Dark's natural counterpart that has an alternative playstyle that isn't worse, better if you're not into the bulldozer life. While it can compete with T1, it doesn't have features that redefines a normal playstyle, instead just giving your normal style more speed and power. Simple but strong.
Tier 3:
- Spatial - Perfectly balanced as all things should be, this has absolutely top utility and defense at the cost of most else. It can't Attack, Golem, or Hex which limits things a decent bit, meaning you have to be creative with using it. On the plus side, you get a strong and reliable redirection ability as defense. It's the best at what it does.
- Void - I was conflicted with putting this in T3, thinking it might fit better in T4. The reason for this is that its main appeal is the instant-like attacks and the higher Power output, but that's counteracted by sensory. That said, the Sensory restriction isn't so bad since you're just going to be levelling Control and few people will have more Sensory than your Control at any time. Focus on a super-offensive playstyle as a sniper. The one big downer is that you need visual to attack and markers are much harder to use with Void than Spatial. Edit: In retrospect of this list, while I think it still fits as a T3, it definitely is borderline T2 with its aggressive offensive style.
- Ethereal - Now I'm honestly mixed on this one, but I think it deserves at least T3. It has mana drain, though less than World Tree, and has a more reliable defense-bypassing that weakens your spell's rank in exchange, making it a strong bunker-buster. The only thing is that it gives Sensory Stat while compelling you to go full Power to get that sweet bypass. If you build right, you can make full use of its defense-piercing and win most fights, but you better min-max your Power stat. It's a good, yet mild, element that doesn't have any weaknesses that are too bad.
- Storm - Honestly a very cool element. You can easily find countless and interesting ways to use its growing AoE and speed mechanics, and creative functions for each element in its arsenal. The growing stats gives a +10 after 5 posts, which may be difficult to get up to, thus needing to work your spells around it. All around a strong element that really fits its themes.
Tier 4:
- Summoner - Due to requiring another person to create a Plat Golem, it falls short. If not for that restriction, this could easily be T3. Unfortunately it loses to Wraith due to not being able to use spells through its golems, restricting it pretty heavily in what it can really do. Otherwise good element that has stronger golems than normal and could get creative with how it uses them.
- Imitation - Similar to Summoner, it's good but you have to rely on the spells of others, meaning you can't build a good and meaningful strategy from it. Similarly, you may not even have the Spec Perks for the spells you're copying, which makes it all the more troublesome and may leave you with a weaker version of the spell, unless I've misunderstood something. That said, if you make the right friends with Platinum Users, you can quite easily compete with the T1 in your versatility. Element best used with a strong group.
- Sword - Honestly, I'd like to put it into T5, but it honestly isn't 'bad'. It lacks unique strengths that would provide it a niche playstyle and feels like the only thing going for it is more stats, which shouldn't be the goal of Plats. Its weaknesses aren't that bad either. Basically, it's just a better basic element.
- Permeation - Now, sure, it is pretty limited in its best parts being only twice per thread. The upside is that you can typically land either 2 spells in an equal fight, assuming you rightly invest in Control, or you can go physical and outright punch or ignore damage for two posts. They're sizeable advantages that could give you the edge to win a fight, and making you a pretty decent bunker-buster. Beyond that, it's fairly powerful utility. On the downside, Permeation suffers from the same fixed Sensory limits that Gravity does which render its invisibility useless, pulling it down to T4.
- Spectra - Honestly not the worst spec, but it 100% requires you to have a healing mage on your side. It's a mixed bag that you have to balance with. On one hand, it wants you on the frontline and taking hits, but on the other hand it gives you a very nice and flat +20 Power. It's clearly built for the frontline, but being hit is risky and your mana regen is negative so you have to rely on your Mana Leech to survive, thus why a support ally is so necessary. With an ally, this can become T3 or possibly T2 stuff.
- Compass - Honestly... I wanted to put it in T3, but it has that same 3 post cooldown as Gravity. Honestly it's a pretty decent element with good bonuses and weaknesses that aren't that bad. Given its loss in Power, though, I can't see it utilizing the Attack spec well and therefore is essentially losing out on Golem, Healing, and Attack magic, which is the same amount of specs that Void and Spatial lose out on without taking that darn cooldown on abilities. All-Seeing is nice, but not super useful in most situations where you won't be needing to see so far.
- Air Pressure - It's an interesting element, but as you know that fixed Sensory requisite on its invisibility is a bummer and its lower HP pool wasn't necessary. The extra Knockback and affinity-specific Power bonus are interesting mechanics that can create a cool playstyle, and the affinity-specific weakness makes sense too. That said, the affinity weakness nerfs your Power AND Durability while the strength only buffs your Power, which is why I think the HP weakness isn't necessary. Also, no Affinity Bonus.
- Angelic - Wanted to put this in T3, but unfortunately its strengths aren't so great that they warrant it. I would have honestly preferred if they said "no Hex" to give this element some extra stuff. Besides being very specialized for healing, it's niche strength of being able to resurrect people faster and at Senior is offset by an increased stat penalty, which kinda offsets things. Sure, they can get back in the fight faster if you revive them faster, but if they died at 100% stats they'll just die faster again with lower stats. I hope that they can make this more specialized like Spatial to buff its niche functions. Nice AoE healer with solid bonus stats, though, but could do with something more.
- World Tree - Honestly I forgot about this gem, but it's strong. Free AoE increase and mana drain? Makes it probably the best 1vMany element. I've got a feeling if you combine it with Sapping Bonds and/or World Binding from Restraint Spec, you can win any battle of attrition just by removing 20 Mana per post and screwing up their mana regen. It has sizeable but fair limits, but only one real weakness that can be overcome if you focus on Durability and survivability. Edit: Well, I've moved this one down. It's siphoning of magic is objectively worse than Vampiric Magic perk's, which it prevents you from grabbing, making its primary appeal being its AoE, which Storm just does better. Thus, it has moved from T2 to T4 in one hop, skip, and leap.
Tier 5:
- Gravity - It seems pretty standard-good at first glance, but... its downsides are pretty annoying. Firstly the weight ability doesn't do anything mechanically in a fight, but then there's that its redirection ability is near identical to Spatial's mechanics but has a cooldown of 3 posts, which I suppose is how they balance it not having the same spec restrictions. Its Speed and AoE are also debuffed for some reason, which would make sense if the redirection wasn't so limited. Its ability to ignore 5/10 durability is nice, but that's basically just a +5/10 Power, which isn't that good if you couple it with the fact Gravity doesn't have affinity stats and that it won't benefit you in clashes against Offensive Spells. The weakest point is probably the fixed amount of Sensory needed to see through Gravity, unlike the Spatial/Void's "need +5 Sensory than the Mage's Control". In this way there's no way you can build where your Gravity will keep its invisibility bonus in fights against equal opponents 9/10 times. Thus, all four of its strengths either don't give you much to anything to compensate for its weaknesses. Honestly did not expect to put it this low, but it has so many weaknesses with so few standing strengths that it can't not be T5.
- Decay - Yes, well... it's not that great. Honestly a debuff magic is nice, but its weaknesses and the low amount of increased strength that it has honestly don't make it that much more appealing. You gain +1/2/3 to your debuffs, which is fine but isn't going to change your gameplay that much, and this strength is restricted to single-spec hex spells which limits what you can do here. Your spells are also slower, like Darkness, but without the insane advantages that Darkness has. Similarly, it has lower Durability, making you more vulnerable. Simply put, it's not a spec that's easy to use in a team or alone and honestly I think it needs a rework to buff its debuffing ability or change it entirely.
