Suggestion: Mage weapon in active mode adds magic attack bonus

[Zantetsuken]

Did the Devs intend mages to be able to regenerate MP while casting?

If yes:

• Allow MP regeneration while in active mode.

If no: (choose one or more of the following)

• Disable offensive and healing magic bonuses from stats and abilities while passive.
• Increase casting and recast times of all spells by ~30% while passive.
• Greatly increase enmity generated from casting spells while passive.

My guess is they didn't intend for mages to cast while passive. If they did, they wouldn't have made potions, songs, abilities etc.. that help restore MP.
Instead, they would likely have made spells generate more hate in order to dissuade mages from running too hot.

[Jinko]

Um ..

Weapon away = passive mp bonus
Weapon out = cool look

Now which do I choose.

Now if mages had the same mana regen with a weapon out you might have a point.

[KaplanHomahru]

I think a more appropriate reason to make us want to go active would be if they added a latent phantom/spirit dart attack to every mage weapon. I really miss being able to pull when I'm farming...Running up and hitting the mob is just kinda lame. It doesn't have to do more damage than the standard auto-attack...just make it ranged.

[Atomisk]

make spirit dart thm/blm auto-attack move.

[Firon]

I suggested they do this in another thread.


2 things they should do about this.

1. Make cnj/thm auto attack be ranged attacks.( Can they make it so the ranged attack is visible otw to the target.)

2. Make cnj/thm mp regen as the same as in passive. I'm sure mages wouldn't be OP this way cause you wont gain mp when solo cause when mobs are attacking you, you only get the 3 mp per tic regen from passives. So it works like this stand still with weapon out get mp back as long as you don't have flashing red hate.

[viion]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHpPKgi-niI

rofl, well played! WELL PLAYED SIR!

[Jinko]

Im cool with mages getting auto shot as well as archers but make it a toggle, 1 to toggle auto shot on 1 to toggle it off again.

[Duelle]

My guess is they didn't intend for mages to cast while passive. If they did, they wouldn't have made potions, songs, abilities etc.. that help restore MP.

Not necessarily. You can have MP regen and potions, songs and abilities as part of a magic system. You really just have to tweak numbers so that you can determine how long a caster should be able to go before stopping altogether. Yes, this would favor a playstyle where a caster is using magic back to back instead of "nuke once, wait, then nuke again and wait again".

That being said, I believe casters should have MP regen when in active mode. Halve spell effectiveness when in passive mode and build from there.

[SwordCoheir]

My guess is they didn't intend for mages to cast while passive. If they did, they wouldn't have made potions, songs, abilities etc.. that help restore MP.

Actually they did intend for mages to cast while in passive mode, because before they completely revamped classes and stats a few patches ago, you couldn't even cast passive spells without going into active mode. I think it was to help counter the mages mp pool which was extremely low compared to post patch, but the stat changes gave them so much mp it turned out much better in their favor than intended.

[Sol_Aureus]

Actually doing the emote /sit starts up the regeneration immediately for some reason (I'm not kidding).

As for the OP. It's not a bad idea really, using your weapon as a medium to channel your energy and enhancing your casts sounds logical and it would give mage jobs a bit more dynamic where you can cast for the bonus, or stay passive to regenerate MP between casts. You could go a bit further and make it where being in active mode gives a bonus to all mage related stats healing, magic attack, enfeebling, enhancing potency, and magic accuracy. And why limit it to just mages, BRDs and PLDs would greatly benefit from such a bonus too since they're always active during combat.

No, /sit does not give you your first resting tic of MP refresh faster. It only seems like that because of how long the /sitting animation takes. Standing or sitting, you get 2 battle tics then your first resting tic.

Video I took testing /sit's MP returns: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9qTO19hIIk&hd=1

All /sitting does is prevent you from casting and immobilizes you. Seriously, all mages really need to stop doing this.

With that out of the way, as for the original topic I agree something should be done. My biggest concern isn't really the lack of incentive for mages to go into active mode though, it's more of how quickly we can enter resting status and how potent the MP returns are. It makes stats like refresh practically worthless. After all, why stack refresh at all when I can stand in place for 15 seconds and get 200/tic? An incentive to enter active mode like a +50 or so bonus to Attack Magic Potency or Healing Magic Potency would at least give us reason to switch from passive to active mode and slow the MP returns, but depending on the fight if MP is ever an issue I have a feeling most mages will still keep their weapons away just because of the ridiculous MP refresh we get when resting.