Quote Originally Posted by burntoutdex View Post
To add to this, a 30/30 amulet just increases the amount of time you can throw paper balls at mages before you inevitably die to a drain/lightning/fire critical (they all one shot, lol.)

With a 55+ damage amulet you barely have enough damage to dps a mage down in 4 arrows, assuming you get atleast 2crits (break>blind>rep>blast.) However, this is only after the first 12 seconds of a fight, in which Blessing of Vitality wears off for i think 6 seconds. However, in this time, a mage is still able to quickly kill you with drain>fire before you can use 4 arrows, due to the seemingly faster gcd on mage skills (if not faster gcd, arrows have travel time, fire does not.)

The only viable way to kill mages now is to kite with 4+ repulse (3 if you have lower ping) and then nuke after BoV wears off. However, this is risky as any of the mages 3 main damage skills (drain>fire/light) will one shot you almost instantly. Drain may take longer to kill due to the .4-.6 delay, but by the time you see/hear the drain animation or sound, you're already dead because of fire

I don't even use Shattering Scream anymore, because the instant you step into 8m to combo, lightning will inevitably crit you and you will die. Plus, it's just an extra button and even more time waiting for gcd before you can do extra damage. Cruel Blast damage is also only ~200 with a critical, hardly worth it when you could have pressed repulse instead.

Didn't mean to ramble, but Rescind is right, 30/30 is the equivalent of throwing sand at a mage

People have suggested giving birds a health buff, however, i think personally that this just prolongs the time you get to throw wool at a mage. Vs other classes excluding mage, the health buff would be a bit overpowered, as birds are just as good as the other classes.

Not sure what the best solution is at this point.

tl;dr: don't throw paper balls at mages when you could throw wool instead, use a +60damage amulet! then simply wait 12seconds and then pray you dodge everything and spam break>blind>repulse>blast (you'll be dead by blind, but you tried your best.)

PS - nerfbaconstamp
Give bird damage buff like the rest of the classes but scale down the damage on skills so it doesn't get out of hand in endgame? Really hard to balance bird because damage buff can throw endgame into a worse pit of despair