This was such a unique and awesome spell. The 3.0 version just pales in comparison. Whats to stop it coming back as a meta spell? Could even cost multiple slots and be scroll only.

I'm not sure if there is an ability behind the scenes to see how often a spell is utilized but I have to imagine the current MOA is barely used. From my pretty extensive testing even a max success mark doesn't really boost damage by enough to make up for the lost time that could have been spent targeting a TM spell instead.

In the current pvp meta time is of the essence. There is never really any situation I have found where it is worth the time to cast the mark. As far as PVE goes, it might as well just be a cantrip.

With the awesome change to grounding field, pathways really need some love. I've done a lot of testing on pathways and there is just nothing in the results that show that they do anything at all. Quickness is perhaps the only useful one once a TM spell is capped. And even then its only a 1 second reduction. All tests for combat pathways were tested with 10 casts with no pathway up, then 10 with it up.


Focus Damage (Fire)
Increases damage from targeted magic.
- No noticeable difference in vitality damage or physical damage.


Focus Quick (Air)
Decreases targeting time for spells.
- Reduces target time by 1 second.
- Would make more sense if the reduction was target time % based being reduced by summoning skill to a cap of course.

Focus Ease (Water)
Reduces the difficulty to cast targeted spells.
- No point when spell is capped

Focus Power (Earth)
Increases the Integrity of spells.
- No difference in damage done through a barrier. Tested with IC and tested again with just MAF

Focus Accuracy (Electricity)
Increases the accuracy of targeted magic.
- No average difference in physical or vitality damage

Focus Secrecy (Water)
Reduces the chance that your targeting matrix will be spotted.
- Does this go off stealth? Was unable to hide targeting on a at level opponent ( capped TM )

Focus Precise (Air)
Makes it easier to target specific body parts with spells.
- No difference in hitting a targeted body part with or without pathway.

Focus Defend (Earth)
Makes it harder to direct targeted magic at you.
- No difference in physical or vitality damage taken. Even tried using a 1 mana less than cap AC to see if the pathway would reduce the spell enough to trigger AC. It did not.

Focus Conserve (Fire)
Decreases minimum mana cost of targeted spells.
- No point. Spells are capped mana.

Elemental Barrage (Electricity)
Simultaneously attack with a melee weapon and a targeted spell.
- Oddly enough the weapon attack missed more often using barrage vs just using the weapon itself. When it did hit there was no noticeable physical or vitality damage boost.

Perceive Pathway (Aether)
Detects aethereal pathways in use nearby.
- No real use since the pathways themselves don't really do much. Pathways are not a threat that needs to be accounted for.

I think its pretty safe to say pathways are most likely the most useless guild ability out of all the guilds. Sure there is the summoning weapon gimmick. I've never seen a good reason to invest heavily into this. The summoned weapons are just regular old weapons. I guess it can save you some carrying weight? If you want to make better weapons you have to sacrifice more spell slots.... and invest into crafting???? All of that to make somewhat better temporary weapons that store bought.

I don't think pathways have ever been touched since they were released years and years ago.

Finally. Why after all these years does a magic primary guild still have no mental buff? Disc, Intel, Wisdom any one of them. It used to be that WM's were the definition of glass cannons. Survival/armor tert, but a potent offense to counter that. With the meta in DR for the past decade(s) that offense is not potent enough to make up for the tert defenses, specially with Iron constitution being a must have. Additionally a warrior mage is forced into sorcery if they have any chance of landing disablers post circle 150. Post circle 200 you better use all your sorcery slots for mental buffs or else all your buffs will be rended/ward broke off and your disablers will just tickle folks.

BG nerfs, and the IP nerf have definitely left the guild a bit lack luster. I'm still confused as to why IP had its stun removed. There are plenty of other disablers that knock you prone and stun you or even put you to sleep.

Bah, hit post early. Continuing here.

While Pathways are certainly not a stellar ability, claiming they're the most useless out of all the guilds is blatantly hyperbolic. Quick is good, and many of them are relevant prior to cap, even if they aren't at cap. When was the last time a Cleric used a commune in a fight? Rangers used a Beseech... at all? Glyph of Bonding has literally no use case. There's loads of languishing guild abilities with less utility than Summoning.

Warrior Mages are.. probably forced to use Sorcery. So is everyone else except maaaybe Bards, Clerics, and Moon Mages, and all of those take a pretty gnarly power cut if they do. Theoretically you could simply steal Word of the Wind to the primary stat on Tremor, Thunderclap, Frostbite, EE, Tingle, Mark of Arhat, Ice Patch, Arc Light, and Anther's Call without sorcery ranks, but it's better to just grab a Glythtide's Gift rune in Shard and grab Echoes of Aether or some sorcerous Intelligence buff. Except for the lack of guild-native mental boosters, the Warrior Mage debil suite is stacked. Seriously.

Ward Break is the best dispel in the game for cracking targets quickly. Vertigo is a pulsing balance and offense debuff that can prone. Both slam into vs. Willpower. But you know what doesn't slam into vs. Willpower? Ice Patch - which is hard CC vs Reflex, it's just an immobilize instead of a stun, and prones - Arc Light - a stun vs. Fortitude - Tremor - which can break grapples and disengage on an SVS vs Fort - Thunderclap - an AOE stun vs. Fort - or any of the stat/skill debuffs, including an evasion debuff vs. fort.

Warrior mages are utterly stacked and a late-game warmie either consistently wins or has a solid chance against *every single other guild.* There is a very real argument that they are the best guild in the game to win PvP fights with, and they have every tool they need to do so against any given opponent and more if they're willing to train enough sorcery to use a runestone of a basic spell. On a magic prime. (You can get 20% to Wisdom off a runestone without spending a scroll or tattoo slot with under 800 ranks in Sorcery and no magical feats.)

All that said...

Mark of Arhat is undertuned. Because fights in general, and especially those where a warmie is involved, end so very quickly - especially if you're capable of landing vs. Willpower contests, and thus using Ward Break to strip off all their wards and leave them vulnerable to Sudden Wombo Death Syndrome. It would be cool if there were more cause to use debil options like MOA - HP and Flouresce come to mind - but it'd either be a noted buff to one of the best PVP guilds in the game, or require a restructuring of how fights work in general. The latter appears to be at least loosely on the radar for the rednames, but I don't think the first one is.