Just wanted to provide some more feedback on the Rework/Deep Dive, just gonna work through the whole kit and the provide my opinions on the Spellblade as a whole.
Arcane Infusion - It fine for a first infusion, I wish the proc it provided was more general/impactful. Honestly, +/- resists don't feel like they do a whole lot.
Arcane Spear - Decent engage ability, but that is about it. The damage is mid and the mana cost adds up quickly if you use it too often, even when in Arcane infusion. Also, having a longer 1.5 second cast, you would never want to use this in melee range because you could just be auto attacked and proccing your infusion, both of which cast you zero mana.
Telekinetic Infusion - This infusion is my biggest irk with Spellblade I think. It does physical damage, which I think doesn't fit the theme of the Class. It feels like a Tank spec, which is antithetical with out role and with what the deep dive alluded to. The proc is fine, when you're tanking, thats the only time you're going to want Agility, I guess it could reduce the evasiveness of the enemy, but there are zero reasons you'd want to swap to this infusion if you are not the enemies target.
Kinetic Ward - Great ability, again, if you are the enemies target. Does absolutely nothing for you to fullfill your primary role as a melee DPS.
Electric Infusion - It is fine I guess, the stun from the proc is okay, you might get lucky and interrupt a spell with it, but thats about it. Another proc that just feels kind of meh, It is argueably the best infusion, but that's because the other two are so lackluster.
Discharge - This is just worst Arcane Spear, it's short range so you probably wont pull with it, shorter cast time, but again you're not going to want to interrupt your auto attacks and infusion procs for something that might maybe do more damage but drain your MP much faster. It also has no other effects.
Infused Slash - This is fine, its our strike, but it is worse than every other Melee DPS Strike and probably all of the tanks too.
Phase Strike - It is better than Infused Slash, but also worse, why does this Strike cost 15 mana? The mana cost doesn't scale so I'm sure eventually it will become inconsequential, but why make it cost mana at all?
Conduit - I think the idea behind this ability is nice, it serves as a way to have Spellblades move through their Infusions instead of just sitting in a single one. The Arcane and Electric conduits feel like decent payoffs, the Telekinetic one, just feels meh. Your group is not going to like you if you're just willy nilly blasting enemies around. You would probably only use this if you needed to get an enemy off you once you've gained threat, if you gain threat, but then you've basically gotta stop what your DPS, switch to telekinetic, pop your Kinetic Ward, then hit your Conduit. That is a lot of our kit committed to something that realistically shouldn't happen. Or you could just use Seclusion.
Dispell Magic - This is fine, I'm glad we have it, it serves as part of our meager utility suite, not much else to say.
Protection Spells - These are okay I guess, I feel like Magical warriors would try and learn more offensive buffs rather than just the defensive buffs. Super situational, they don't feel impactful, but maybe I'm undervalueing them.
That is basically our core kit. I did not get past level 10 because I looked at what we gain, and after 10 it is just more of the same until you unlock:
Seclusion at 14, which I guess looks cool, but it is just another survival ability.
Implosion at 18 which looks fun, but AoEs don't seem super useful in old school MMOs IMO, also why does this do physical damage? We are Spellblades.
Flurry at 25 sounds cool, but 15 levels of meager unlocks to get to something that seems fun and useful is pretty rough.
Deflection at 30, another tanking ability, this time a cooldown, with all these tanking abilities, at this point put us in Chain and give us our taunt back.
Maelstrom at 57 - Seems like a really cool buff, can't quite determine if this is a DPS cooldown or a buff we maintain, seems like a DPS cooldown, but you're going 57 levels before you see this bad boy.
Gate at 51 cool, I'm glad they caved and gave it to us, but why no soulbind? Sense magic and Bend Gravity round out our meager utility.
Look, I love the fantasy of Spellblade, Redmage in FFXI, was one of my favorite jobs, but Spellblade in M&M just feels shallow.
We are supposed to be a Melee DPS yet most of our kit seems dedicated to protection or escape. The entire Telekinetic suite, the Protection spells, Spellshield, Seclusion, Deflection. That is a lot of ability real estate and yet you took away our taunt. As a DPS, our main strike feels weak, Phase Strike is nice but eats away our mana, which we have zero tools to manage, our CC abilities are all locked behind a two step process where nothing is on demand. If I need a stun, well I need to hit Electric infusion and then Conduit, if I need a knock back, same thing for Telekinetic. Then I'm locked out of those infusions for a while. We don't have a kick, so interrupting spells is clucky. My DPS spells don't feel impactful, and they eat away at my mana, which again, I have no way to manage without just sitting down.
A big issue with Spellblade is that we are constantly being punished by our abilities, our DPS spells have cast times which interrupt our auto attacks and stop our Infusion procs, and eat our mana. Conduit locks us out of our Infusions. Our Infusions don't work together to make each other stronger and most of the proc effects are weak. Phasing Strike eats into our mana.
I feel like we are the only class that has been reworked that still has mana issues. You've give all the healers mana management tools, Wizard has mana management tools, None of the other Melee dps have resource managment issues at all. Spellblades are the only class that has been reworked that needs to just stop using abilities and take a seat, either that or you just auto attack and spam Infused strike.
I see people on Discord talking about Spellblades being a really good dps, I'm gonna be honest, I don't care about the numbers, those can be tuned and dialed in. I care about how Spellblade feels, and IMO it feels bad, even if the numbers look good right now. I would much rather you guys dial in the feel and tune the numbers afterwards.
I think you guys really need to figure out what you want Spellblades identity to be. If you want us to be offtanks, give us taunt and move us up to Chain or increase our damage reduction tools, if you want us to be DPS, give us more DPS tools and buffs.
I'd like to see Spellblade as a DPS with a focus on killing spell caster casters, following similar approach as Inquistor. Some changes I would make to abilities to support that:
Give us a kick ability, that when used to actually stop a spell cast, rewards us with mana.
Rework our Infusion procs and types, I would remove Telekinetic and give us another element, return Fire to us or give us a different type. Our Procs should support each other, maybe we have a proc that is a stacking debuff that slows enemy casting speed, a proc that steals mana from the enemy, a stacking dot.
Give us ways to make our DPS spells instant cast so they don't interrupt our auto attacks and infusion procs.
I would like to see more abilities like Conduit that change based on the Infusion you have active but don't lock us out of our Infusions.
We should be encouraged to swap to other Infusions because we have obtained what we needed from our current Infusion and want to move to the next to build our strength futher. It shouldn't but a punishment.
Give our damage spells reasons to cast them other than I just do damage. They need to benefit the Spellblade for casting them or impair the enemy.
Infused Strike needs something. Please, it's not even infused.
I think the rework overall was a better direction, I just think it needs fine tuning. Right now the Spellblade is in a weird spot.
