Posted here at Armifer's request on the Discord.
Armifer said on the discord recently that they're taking a new look at barriers, but that the old work that Raesh did would not be continued. Which makes sense, given the time frame and that he's no longer on staff. But there was one spell in particular that I missed from his planned spell list, which was Aqueous Shroud.
Aqueous Shroud was originally planned by him to be a water elemental transformation (so, mutually exclusive with Aegis of Granite and Mantle of Flame), and would have provided a ward as well as buff to Wisdom and Discipline for 3 slots. Reference to his spreadsheet, if anyone cares: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eeQhyKyYJ3G_DEYYcQDBAy60BuXhC-pmoV56E6tHYJw/pubhtml
I think there's a really strong case to be made for some sort of mentals buff for WM's, given their focus on combat magic. At the higher levels this lack can be a real issue, and poses a serious constraint on WM's. We have so many amazing debilitation spells, but they all become useless if you can't affect anyone with them (which, yes, I know this is partially tied in with the stat question, which is another can of worms that I don't want to get into here). As I've plotted my post-100 stat allocation, that's become a serious constraint. In addition, Clerics have the ability to buff Wisdom and Charisma, and Moon Mages can switch IOTS to be Dis/Int, Cha/Wis, or Ref/Agi based on planet availability.
Most other guilds have some way to buff their SvS stats as well. Even Rangers and Paladins have buffs to, arguably, their most valuable mental stat. In fact, the only guilds I can really point to with the lack is Traders, which have an Intelligence buff, that's not terribly well suited to their two spells. Necromancers, perhaps, don't get their buff to be the prime stat in VS, but REI is prime for their mind spels, and Bards have to make some tough choices about which buffs they want to use, but WM's just have nothing. In fact, unless I'm missing something, WM's are the only guild in the game without any kind of mental buff. In the past, I'd chalked this up to just a WM limitation, since you can't have it all, but I've come to see it as a significant handicap. Even though Sorcery can make up for the lack, the WM guild is rather uniquely pinched here, given the large number of debilitation spells they have.
I would propose either giving WM's a simple Wisdom buff (my personal preference), even if we have to overpay for slots for it, or reviving the previously planned Aqueous Shroud spell if it's considered a requirement that WM's have to give something up to be able to use it. Giving up the +Shield, +Str, +Sta buff of AEG would be a significant loss, but I could still see a use case for doing so for the mental buffs, especially if they come with something else. And even if it doesn't come with a barrier like was planned, while it's a harder choice, I could see the case using it if it just had the mental buffs, as glass-cannoning has a long and storied history with WM's.
- Saragos
