Mysticism Question of A Different Flavor

[HippieMagic]

This isn't the usual "WHERE IZ MAH SCROLLS!?!" thread. This topic is seriously bugging me. I have wasted my free game time the past few days and seriously got into training it today and got it up to 80 before deciding to give it a chance on a character to gauge it's effectiveness.

I moved skills around and created the following template with my leftover skills:

110 Fencing
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
100 Chivalry
100 Healing
100 Eval
80 Mysticism

In theory this seemed to be a doable template. Eval is used to increase power of some spells and Anat and Tactics are supposed to increase the power of the Animated Weapon(a 4 slot summon) and while I know I lacked imbuing I didn't really factor it in as overall damage output or healing ability. I sort of ignored those spells and chalked their ineffectiveness up to just lacking those skills.

So I set out to do the gargoyle quest into the abyss. I was an elf... like that matters. So my suit was very well equipped... It contained artifacts and everything. My weapons were even decent. I decided to start off killing things my other characters dispose of in their sleep using both chivalry and mysticism. So I headed into the Tomb of Kings. I hit gargoyle shades... started doing ok at first but when I attempted to use Stone Form I was literally destoryed... I had to run. This is my basic experience with the skill:

Nether Bolt - USELESS it did maybe 2-3 damage to everything. *Further testing averages 10 points per hit with a maximum of 17 so far*
Healing Stone - 13 hp healed and still has a timer(potions are better)
Purge Magic - Kinda pointless unless you are PvPing even then not very useful.
Enchant - When it hits it is nice but generally a pretty useless spell. It rarely hit but when it did it seemed to hit 3-4 times in a row. Same as the hit spell on a weapon so moderately useful for it's mana usage. *Useful if you have 80 imbue decent to use whenever if you have a weapon*
Sleep - It works well to slow a target down and seems to cause it to lose target but also stopped me from attacking sometimes and put me out of war mode... it was almost like I was getting invised.
Eagle Strike - Seems nice... it hit for around 20-30 on most everything.
Animated Weapon - With GM tactics and anatomy it took up 4 slots and was COMPLETELY useless. I would have done a LOT better with a Vollem... or a pet chicken... it did anywhere from 2-11 damage. This does well under what a single EV does yet takes up 4 slots? Come on now with as much of a skill sink as Mysticism is this should be a damn good spell.
Stone Form - Did far more harm than good... it made me slower all around and while sometimes it felt like things were missing me for the most part it seemed like I was getting literally destroyed.
Spell Trigger - Without imbuing it let me store Healing Stone and Nether Bolt... Completely useless...
Mass Sleep - Seemed to work well on multiple mobs... it generally slowed down 2 enemies and caused them to stop attacking me.
Cleansing Winds - Useful. It healed for 26, removed all the debuffs I had on me, and when I was poisoned it cured... VERY nice... it seems to be an all around fix-me-up.
Bombard - It didn't do much for me... It did less damage than Eagle Strike and really didn't impress me.

I guess my question is... has anyone else had a better experience with this? I am starting to think this is a complete waste of time. It doesn't really feel worth the skill points put into it right now. Has anyone tried it with better results?

 

[Ender]

Most (almost all?) spells are better with imbuing/evaluating intelligence.

 

[HippieMagic]

Most (almost all?) spells are better with imbuing/evaluating intelligence.

I swapped it back over to a mage and I am currently working it again. I am going to work on it till it stops gaining and start working on Imbuing to gm+ that and give it another shot to see how that goes. It isn't very template friendly at all.

 

[Konge]

Most (almost all?) spells are better with imbuing/evaluating intelligence.

You're just stating what the OP already knows. I personally haven't expiremented with Mysticism because i figured it'd be like this. I thought Imbuing was supposed to be like Mysticism's inscribe... just minor SDI

 

[Ender]

Good luck on GMing imbuing, seriously. I hate it so much. :/

 

[Taylor]

Good post, HM. I appreciate your thoughtful feedback.

 

[Storm]

exactly right mysticism needs ei and imbuing the best temp for this skill as i have seen so far is
magery
ei
med
imbu
weave
and then 2 other skills or drop weave and bard 3 skills (music,provo,peace or disco depending on your style)
some combo of these combined can be pretty cool

 

[Ender]

exactly right mysticism needs ei and imbuing the best temp for this skill as i have seen so far is
magery
ei
med
imbu
weave
and then 2 other skills or drop weave and bard 3 skills (music,provo,peace or disco depending on your style)
some combo of these combined can be pretty cool

You forgot mysticism, lol. So 1 other skill if you don't take all the others to 120.

 

[HippieMagic]

I can't imagine Imbuing adding a massive bonus... nor can I imagine more skill points in Mysticism causing any significant change. I would imagine if this skill is really that useful it would be better at 80...

I mean look at chivalry. At 75-80 chiv and no additional skills you can easily do a lot more damage and heal/cure/remove curse... basically everything. I shouldn't need Anatomy, Tactics, Eval, Mysticism, and Imbuing on a template to hit or heal for 20 points...

 

[HippieMagic]

You forgot mysticism, lol. So 1 other skill if you don't take all the others to 120.

Bard skills are pretty useless below 120... I have a Music/Provo/Discord char at 120 and don't even use it that much. I thought about putting it on an archer. I am unsure at this point I am trying to figure it out because I really do want to like the skill. I am beginning to think SA introduced a series of incredibly underpowered things and overpowered monsters...

 

[Storm]

You forgot mysticism, lol. So 1 other skill if you don't take all the others to 120.

lol my bad

 

[Storm]

actually you could throw alchemy or inscription on there and be a spell casting pot throwing fool the problem would be getting the right spells going for the right mobs and such

 

[Storm]

oh and lets not forget you can imbu jewels and add alot of skill points if you wanted and be a gargoyle and have a ogre lord for a meat shield and still move fast and cast evs also

 

[HippieMagic]

actually you could throw alchemy or inscription on there and be a spell casting pot throwing fool the problem would be getting the right spells going for the right mobs and such

Alchemy and all would be fine but then you are cramping an even more cramped template and that still doesn't fix Mysticism's weakness... just masks it with potions.

 

[Storm]

yes well thats why i said it was the best i could figure for the skill !personaly atm i will max it out then stone it for the time being !! just so I have it ;-)

 

[Kiminality]

Thinking about it, overall things like the animated weapon would never be able to be better than, say, a Cu Sidhe.
Regardless of how many skill points it requires invested for maximum effect, if it's too powerful, it'll be marked for nerfing.

So, considering that, at its full potential, Mysticism cannot be more powerful than anything that already exists, in the long run. You have to consider whether literal mediocrity is worth the investment of required points.

My experiences, with Nether Bolt, at least.
It's replaces Energy Bolt as my all-purpose offensive spell. It usually does something like 10-15, with a pretty quick cast, and low mana use.
I think that was with about 60/60/115 Myst/Imb/Eval.

 

[King Frankie]

Does anyone of you really read the patch notes?

100 mystic 80 imbue in combination of enchant weapon gives you spellchanneling on ANY weapon hence you should use mystic on a mage not a dexxer.

You are all gonna see the brute force of a real mage combined with a mage weapon and spelltrigger. Imo thats gonna be really leathal both in pvm and pvp but thats my 5 cent.

 

[HippieMagic]

Thinking about it, overall things like the animated weapon would never be able to be better than, say, a Cu Sidhe.
Regardless of how many skill points it requires invested for maximum effect, if it's too powerful, it'll be marked for nerfing.

So, considering that, at its full potential, Mysticism cannot be more powerful than anything that already exists, in the long run. You have to consider whether literal mediocrity is worth the investment of required points.

My experiences, with Nether Bolt, at least.
It's replaces Energy Bolt as my all-purpose offensive spell. It usually does something like 10-15, with a pretty quick cast, and low mana use.
I think that was with about 60/60/115 Myst/Imb/Eval.

I was getting 30 damage with Eagle Strike with low mana usage. It is pretty decent damage. See I understand that an animated weapon shouldn't be as powerful as a Cu... However not even a Cu uses 4(wait yes it does... I have a tamer isn't that sad... anyway!) slots. We are talking about a summon that has incredibly low HP and even lower damage output. With my experience this should be the unmodified damage since it only did 11 damage max. However if someone invests the skill points in Mysticism, Tactics, and Anatomy then honestly that animated weapon should, at the very least, have about 1.5x the damage output of a single EV. For 4 control slots and 300+ skill points invested it should be doing no less than 20-30 per hit. Considering it dies if you blow on it I think it needs a slight damage increase.

 

[Norrar]

Actually...A Cu Sidhe does use four slots...

 

[HippieMagic]

Actually...A Cu Sidhe does use four slots...

Yeah I know... I don't know what I was thinking I do actually have a tamer lol. I didn't get much sleep we can blame it on that. Regardless 10 damage per hit on something that is using 300 skill points and 4 control slots is totally stupid.

Does anyone of you really read the patch notes?

100 mystic 80 imbue in combination of enchant weapon gives you spellchanneling on ANY weapon hence you should use mystic on a mage not a dexxer.

You are all gonna see the brute force of a real mage combined with a mage weapon and spelltrigger. Imo thats gonna be really leathal both in pvm and pvp but thats my 5 cent.

Mysticism itself causes you to drop the weapon. It would be a pointless spell if it didn't allow SC. Mysticism may work on a hybrid... It will most likely cross my radar while playing with these templates. I WILL find a use for it... Cleansing winds is a REALLY nice spell. It removes EVERY curse, Cures you, heals you, and only uses 20 mana... that is nuts...

 

[Norrar]

Dont forget to look at these two numbers..

The damage type that the weapon deals.

The targets resists.

Could compare it to trying to kill an ogre lord with a gm crafter normal iron katana with no chiv or bushido, if the numbers are right.

 

[HippieMagic]

Dont forget to look at these two numbers..

The damage type that the weapon deals.

The targets resists.

Could compare it to trying to kill an ogre lord with a gm crafter normal iron katana with no chiv or bushido, if the numbers are right.

This fails to explain one thing though... Why one blade spirit does twice as much damage as the Animated Weapon and lasts twice as long. Yet only Mage/Eval are used while AW is using Myst/Tact/Anat an 2x the space. I would even settle on the Animated Weapon doing as good as one blade spirit. I am just not seeing a real purpose. It appears Tactics/Anat caused a minimal increase of damage at best... possibly as low as 2 or 3 points. Without it I seem to do 3-5 with it I did 5-7 with the very occasional 10. This is to a lowland boura by the way... without tact/anat it did 14 to a slith. The casting speed is a lot faster however it doesn't do much good and I did test Nether Bolt on my mage I do around 12-14 per hit and it casts about like magic arrow... ebolt does more but uses more mana... not that bad of a spell if you are spamming it.

EDIT: Nether Bolt seems more comparable to Fireball... Not bad if you spam it but not the greatest either. It does seem like more of a "hit as much as you can as fast as you can" type spell but still unsure where it would be useful unless you were low on mana in which case it would be great. I still do more damage with Eagle Strike with about the same cast time. Eagle did 21 at least with Nether doing 17 at most.

 

[Norrar]

Plus...Eagle Strike is cooler. You get to give someone the bird...

 

[HippieMagic]

Plus...Eagle Strike is cooler. You get to give someone the bird...

Yeah I am not really bashing the skill because it does have some very obvious perks... I mean it gives you a Duct Tape spell that fixes any problem that seems to heal for 26(that's the most I could get) as well as cures and removes curse... that was nice but I am afraid it is somewhat overpowered.

I think with a few very minor tweaks the skill could be great. I would really like to see it have the potential to replace Chivalry in a PvM situation. I hate depending so much on that skill as a warrior/archer because my other toons just can't compete without it. A slight Stone Form and Animated Weapon buff would be nice. When the other spells start dropping on Atlantic I will hop on and play with those a bit to see if there really is potential in it on anything but a casting template or not.

 

[Storm]

Plus...Eagle Strike is cooler. You get to give someone the bird...

rofl