Hi hey hello,
I've returned after sleep and some more playing and want do a more bite-sized: problem-solution-methodology post as my breakdown post is word dense and some points are not explained well. Again, there's a lot to like conceptually in this tree/archetype and I think it has amazing potential. But there are several blockades to this right now
that I have to stress, needs doubling back on.
For this post I have color coted sections as usual
In Green is the concept being explored and the intended goals as outlined in Steel's opening post
In Yellow is the problem/bug pertaining to the issue/ design flaw
In Red is A solution, not THE solution. I am only human and do not understand every interaction with trees, classes, races. Also I have no sweet idea what goes on in the backroom and behind the scenes with this game, so there's probably a million and one reasons why these ideas just dont work/ would take too much time to implement. I may miss the mark on something but hope the essence of the solution is heard at the very least. I may pose several "fixes" to the outlined issue but this does not mean all should be happening at once or even multiple. There needs to be actual tradeoff here so that this isn't just better than base sorc. As outlined though, I believe most if not all of the tradeoff already exists in this iteration with very very little positive return.
No purple this time: saving space, if you wish to know my feelings on certain things/ my thought process, I refer to my post on page 9
Here we go
Wild mage having support with Warlock, Bard, FvS, Chaos Domain Cleric, and sub-support for Alc and Art
Here are the current losses for multiclassing at least 4 Wild Mage into these classes so to pick up Mixed Magics
-22 enhancement points into a tree which doesn't buff non chaos spells bar for 1 node
-All Class Capstones (notable DC and Stat increases, unique abilities/spells/forms, imbue dice, Caster and Max Caster level increases
-All Class Core t5s (sizeable power boosts, spells, forms/stances and typically Caster Level and Max Caster Level increases of 1-2)
-All Scalings from these classes that scale with class level not caster level
-Fvs loses all lvl 9 spell slots and all but one lvl 8 Spell slot
-Clr and DA loses all level 9 spell slots,
-Wlk loses all but 1 level 6 spells slot, 2 pact spells, and at least 1 blast dice
-Brd and StS don't lose much bar their best Core Enhancements as per above
-Art loses all but 2 level 5 and 6 spells, a bonus feat, Rune arm scaling, dog's ability to wear legendary gear,
-Alch loses a bonus feat and only gets 2 lvl 6 spells
Here is what is gained
-Wild magic surges
-Two MCL 10 Chaos SLAs which are Cha Based, and scale only with sorc levels
-The ability to cast non Sorc spells as if they are level 20* in that respective class (this doesn't account for the 2-4 MCL lost via other caster tree's t4 cores as well as more commonly appearing t5 and 6 increases. all in all, you still lose caster levels) ((also mixed magics currently doesn't even work at all))
-100 usp through t3's "Power in Chaos"
-minor elemental spell power increases if dipping into savant trees
The real "winners" of a Wild Mage multiclass are Dark apostate's 200% sp Harm, Soul eaters "Stricken" and "Steal Life Force", and AotS's Fiendish symbiosis as it has 200% sp scaling as well. But again, you are currently losing a lot for a moderate boost to these few abilities, and directly harming everything else in your kit.
*this is assuming you only go 4 Wild Mage. Going deeper into Wild Mage may give access to t5 in sorc trees and t3&4 cores, but the losses are exponential to the gains (no lvl 8, 7, 6 spells, Class feats gone, more EB and pact dice loss, potentially loss of other t4 cores, etc)
All in all, You are sacrificing A LOT of net power for access to just wild magic surges and some spellpower (albeit, 100sp)
Possible Solutions:
There needs to be more Increases to Max caster level in the tree
- As per above, you are losing a lot of core features to other caster classes by dipping even just 4 levels into Wild Mage, There are some neat interactions possible (sorc with tact det, storm singer procs on a sonic based air savant, Alch multivial, Clr or fvs healing, fire savant with fire storm, water savant with ice flowers), but in all of these examples, core t4 t5 and t6 of their respective class trees often buff these spells by 2-4 Caster and Max caster levels to these spells, which you are missing from the multiclass. Sure a sorc casting these examples is cool, but what are they gaining besides surge and a much weaker version of these spells?
Core 4's entropic energy CL and MCL increases comes too late, put it as core 3
-personal opinion, Riches in Randomness (current core 3), is a niche gimmick tool that doesn't add anything to the multiclass prospect. This means if you're looking to multiclass WM for any reason, there's no reason to go to 6 (unless you wanna go to 12). Now the ability is cheeky and niche so I'm not saying delete it, maybe it belongs in a tier 2 or 3 node though instead of a core slot. Having the core 3 provide a caster and max caster level boost provides incentive and reason to multiclass at the cost of losing 6 levels in another caster class.
Move Mixed magics down to tier 3 or even tier 2
- making it so a caster can go 18 means across the board access to lvl 9 spells, t5 core boosts to their build theming. Currently I see little use for an alch, arti, or bard to dip deep into a chaos spellpower and crit scaling tree; and for Clr, Fvs, and druid, multiclassing is a flat out serious nerf to survivability and power. I know most trees are designed so that a lot of their power is top heavy, but if Wild Mage is supposed to be Multiclass friendly, more of its power needs to be on the bottom of the tree.
Make it so Mixed magics makes all your caster levels scale off of just character level
- I stressed this in my previous post, but a current huge problem with the tree is that the sorc side of this multiclass scenario is just ignored. Any sorc spells you take are only scaled off the sorc levels, and you are probably not even getting lvl 6 sorc spells let alone 8 and 9 so why are you dipping into wild sorc to begin with bar for just surge chance?. In short, its just sucky for the sorc end of things to do a multiclass into Wild mage.
Add a multiselector in t5 or core 4+ that allows for the selection of one or many spells from another class spell book which you have the respective levels in
- This seems like probably a hassle on the implementation end but this is a wonderful fix to the problem of dipping X many sorc levels impeding the progress and power of any other caster class. If a 12Wild Mage sorc can grab its choice of notable high level druid, alch, arti, clr spells by spending minimum 30 points in the tree and losing out on t4+ cores in the other classes, its a fair trade for what you get while still giving the Wild Mage/caster cast split some powerful spells to use.
And on a minor note:
Create an archetype that fits with the Wild Magic theme of Myth Drannor
-Honestly I think this is pretty much achieved, but just in heroics. There is currently no real epic scaling for a chaos themed caster, so all the power that a pure Wild Mage has access to quickly falls off, especially in expansion content where hp and saves of monsters are much higher. I felt like my post on page 9 goes into good detail on why that is so I will not be repeating myself here bar some key notes; There are no caster level increases or dc buffs in the Wild Mage tree, and there's no synergy with savants and WM. This it combination of the lack of higher level chaos spells and the SLA's having a hard scaling cap means they have no support in epics, especially since there's no destiny for chaos dmg. The long and short is: No epic scaling or shared power in Chaos dmg and Savant's ele dmg, please fix.
Refer to my previous post for suggestions there
All for now, Have a good day and remember to drink water regularly.
