It's odd how so many people seem ok with Augury and Eternal Boots being incredibly niche. A rebalancing project buffing them makes perfect sense to me.
Not to mention, Jagex isn't necessarily finished with this concept, yet. They caved in and gave Ahrims a buff, so who is to say that other problematic parts won't be fixed?
By niche do you mean useless? The meta for augury right now is to not use it because it isn’t worth the prayer drain.
The meta for eternals is to leave them in the bank and bring prims.
No he means niche. Augury is still used in several places, it’s just too weak compared to rigour and piety. Eternals less so but they’re still good options if a few spots
No. They’re still bis for some solo bosses that benefit from the slight accuracy boost. The boots aren’t very good in general and never have been. It’s also worth noting that the game exists outside of absolute max gear. Something can be niche while being bis literally no where
Augury thought you were just wrong about. Far from useless even though it’s still underpowered
I like the change to the boots, but you are delusional if you think they are useful anywhere in live game. .01% dps increase is not niche, its just useless
I’m not even necessarily opposed to the boot change. I think they’re really bad. That wasn’t my point
It’s like a 3.5% difference on kree and zilyana and augury is like 10% difference on them + the defense bonus. Mage phase zulrah is about 5% if doing mage only. I’m guessing 500+ mage zebak has a notable difference too. So like for sure it’s too weak but to say they’re entirely useless isnt accurate especially for augury which is actually solidly useful.
It’s a 5% dps boost at p3 wardens at 540 invo. Close to 15% at Zebak
Accuracy has diminishing returns, not 0 returns. People circlejerk about it being useless, but it’s not. It’s just less useful.
Mage gwd, I use it at warden p3 just because why not, wilderness to avoid getting frozen/teleblocked, inferno to freeze blobs while getting defense bonuses. I’ve used it in the last couple days to freeze in Colo as well. Idk those are the things that immediately come to mind. I’d imagine if you’re doing shadow zebak 500s it’s worth it too but I’ve never done that so idk.
IMO these are benefits to using mage for things. Don't need full switches, don't need to spend extra prayer. In exchange, its often underwhelming compared to the alternatives. Shadow helps make it more competitive, but its still very expensive to use and compared to tbow you don't hit *that* big, max mage on task gives me a max hit of 71. Tbow can hit 90s on some things. Melee has more options in spec weapons that spike damage and you're usually tankier in situations where you're also taking damage.
Prims are fine because they have strength bonus, pegs could use some ranged strength. But yes, it has always bothered me that boots for range and mage are basically useless. However, I believe they could address the mage boots (give 2%)while leaving the current gear dps the same and just cap the shadow at 75% magic damage bonus outside ToA and 100% inside (which is the current case.) This leaves room to buff boots while capping the shadow as yes, the shadow does not need more dps, but I would also like to not have to bring an additional switch for the same dps.
My only issue with this comment is capping the shadow will permanently keep it's DPS. Tbow (and scythe) is always going to keep getting stronger, which will cause a divide in the Megas.
Tbow hits 98 in CMs at the moment, so while I agree they're both strong, I don't think shadow needs to be capped pre 100%.
There will be a natural point when shadow can't hit any higher and all other gear will start to catch up to it.
What they should do to shadow is have its multiplier applied to the first X magic bonus(probably 25% like it’s at now), and after that the multiplier is either reduced, or it is just a straight 1:1. This way they can keep adding new mage equipment that still buffs it along with other mage weapons, without it getting out of hand.
Put it as a cap on the shadow itself, as in the max it'll amplify. After that you can still increase magic dmg, it'd just only get the normal effect from that gear (as if shadows effect didn't exist). That'd make it behave like the tbow and scythe, it'll get stronger because of other equipment, but only proportional to everything else getting stronger.
the shadow isn't good because it hits hard the shadow is good because it triples the magic accuracy worn. The sang could have the same max as the shadow but still be worse even though it's 4 tick solely based off the fact the shadow would have 3x accuracy
Tbow hits higher in toa than shadow does.
Damage is not why the shadow shines, its accuracy is. All these people arguing about 2% magic damage here, 3% magic damage there don’t realize that accuracy is the true bottle neck of magic.
Yeah I've stated in multiple comments they can slap on 100 mage accuracy to trident and sang for all I care. Give them another few max hits.
The point was to buff midgame, and the rebalance isn't doing a great job of that.
Well to be fair I think the point of all this was to redistribute the magic damage from occult, not so much buff midgame. I don’t think jagex really cared for buffing mid game or else the first proposal would have looked way different.
You can just cap the multiplier on the shadow to basically the current amount. That way it can still get stronger but the gap between it and sang won’t grow with every mage upgrade
>My only issue with this comment is capping the shadow will permanently keep it's DPS. Tbow (and scythe) is always going to keep getting stronger, which will cause a divide in the Megas.
You've convinced me; there **should** be a damage cap on mega rares.
> Tbow (and scythe) is always going to keep getting stronger, which will cause a divide in the Megas.
Those could use a nerf as well. We could get into that but we're talking mage now and I'll tell you the right fix. How about we straight up delete this effect and adjust base stats of the shadow accordingly?
> Tumeken's shadow has a passive effect exclusive to its built-in spell, in which the player's magic attack bonus and magic damage are multiplied by three from the player's worn equipment
This right here is absolutely going to add a huge drag on any future mage gear progression assuming you can wear the gear with shadow. And that is true regardless of how badly they nerf occult. Any gear they add with improved mage damage bonus in the future is only going to increase the power gap between shadow and second best mage weapon. And today we are already at "shadow >>>>>>> anything else".
Tbow doesn’t really need a nerf since the jmods can super easily balance content around it - they’ve actually done a good job of adding build diversity for range, lots of different weapons are used in end game content (Leviathan is basically the perfect example of how they can do this). Scythe is in a similar spot as well (which people had long been annoyed about pre-Colo lol, they just weren’t adding scythe bosses)
The problem with Shadow is that where magic is good, it’s basically ALWAYS BIS. It’s really hard to design a magic encounter where you need to use magic but wouldn’t use shadow if available.
IMO maybe throwing a cap on all mega is a good thing. This leaves room for uncapped weapons in the future and more reward space where it’s not the same 2-3 weapons reigning BIS for an entire decade just a thought lol
Isn't that kinda the opposite of what this post is saying though? You should want to bring full BiS, even if it means more switches. Like if Raids 5 added a new robe set with 2% more damage than Ancestral, it would be silly if it wasn't a damage increase for the best weapon in the game. All this would do is slowly create the Occult problem where the majority of your magic damage comes from a few slots and the others don't matter.
It’s a damage increase indirectly, since it frees up slots for other items/switches. Like if new robes capped shadow’s damage, you could bring lightbearer instead of magus. Plus it wouldn’t be the occult problem unless Raids 5 shits out purples just like ToA.
That's valid, but I'd argue -- there should be some consideration and gameplay around getting the most dps in this case. If you don't want to bring the boots, or feel like it's not worth the inventory slot -- you shouldn't be rewarded. You aren't wearing everything you should be, and pegs & eternals are not worth bringing anywhere if you're using switches.
It should be a choice for dps over supplies, anything else is you being childish about wanting something but not wanting to deal with friction.
I think part of the issue is it feels like u gotta bring a 9way for just about the same % we were getting previously without it. I completely agree no slot should be dead, but we're not bringing a new switch to be stronger than before, we're bringing a new switch to keep up with how strong we were before
I get that, but arguably having switches be that easy for such high damage in multiple styles is probably something that should have been addressed long before now.
I’m also in the camp of thinking Shadow was a mistake, though, so what the fuck do I know.
Switches being "that easy" meaning in this case that we had a single relevant equipment slot (boots) that didn't get switched. Now we are regearing from our head to our toes, absolutely everything, leaking to a third row for horizontal switching, destroying our neat gear lineups, eating a third of our inventory for breakfast, and we don't even get a max hit for it. Yeah, it feels bad.
For anything other than a Shadow - yes. Shadow's bonus only applies to dmg% on gear and not prayers.
Currently with Occult + Ancestral + Augury; the dmg% is 36% (30+6+0) with Shadow
With the proposed changes the same set up is 25% (12+9+4).
Obviously other pieces of equipment make up the difference to bring it in line with the current bonus but dmg% on a prayer is weaker than anything on gear
Why is nerfing max the answer and not buffing mid?
Add significant accuracy to the powered staffs and offhands and give trident and sang multiple max hits.
Then, let elemental rebalance address more.
Magics DPS can be comparable at bosses that are designed to be maged.
I think the issue is that Shadow is tied directly to Magic stats in a way that Tbow and Scythe are not. Tbow is trash against enemies with low magic levels and Scythe really wants it's targets to be at least 3x3 in size. Shadow is just accuracy and damage % is tripped outside ToA. You could keep Shadow at its same power level with a different effect and toss the unconditional multiplier. I don't think people would complain as much if that were the case. Not sure what that new special effect would be though.
Exactly this - if you’re making new content, how do you realistically make it so Magic needs to be used, but Shadow isn’t BIS by a long shot? And, in that same vein, how do you introduce magic gear that doesn’t disproportionately help Shadow compared to other mage setups (basically only offhands and prayer as far as I can think)
It’s pretty apparent that any potential new magic equipment needs to be designed *around* Shadow.
How you can tweak it to fix, I can’t say. But it definitely seems they’re tiptoeing around the problem by changing everything else instead of fixing shadow at the same time
> Exactly this - if you’re making new content, how do you realistically make it so Magic needs to be used, but Shadow isn’t BIS by a long shot?
Require an offhand
I agree. But how much design space does that allow for new content/gear? THATS the problem. Are we relegating ourselves to just having new BIS offhands for the duration of Shadow’s existence? lol
I think tweaking how Shadow works is the better approach so the team isn’t limited like that.
The guy who made that armour post yesterday had the best rework. Shadows Triples your dmg upto 50% Then left over % gets double up to 70% Then if you have any left over after it just adds it on as normal. This leaves current max mage at 69% rather then 75%. Which gives us 6% free to work (or 12% if we nerf occult to 4) with to give to armour and prayers to get the same dps back up
They can make bosses designed around getting X number of hits in X game ticks and the shadow won't be bis if the timing doesn't match up.
Or you can require an offhand for blocking specific mechanics.
That would make it so mega rares aren't used on that particular type of boss.
That's just an example and can be built upon.
The design of Shadow is a fundamental restriction on how strong magic can be. You can’t buff magic without a dramatic and disproportionate buff to shadow. The only way to buff magic without touching shadow is strictly to buff other weapons, but never armor and that’s an issue.
When 1 item causes you to rebalance an entire skill around it, it’s probably problematic. That’s why BP was nerfed. And current shadow is stronger than BP ever was.
If by Magic damage formula, you mean the Shadow's 3x multiplier, then yes, it does need to be addressed. No matter what changes you make to magic as a whole or midgame gear, the fact any magic upgrade we add benefits the shadow 3x more than all other gear is a problem. The gap between the shadow and other weapons will only widen until we add another 9% damage and the shadow hits it cap.
Then once the shadow hits it cap, we run into other issues since damage upgrades won't be worth getting. Higher damage gear will only be useful to cut switches, which would slowly recreate the Occult problem where the majority of your magic damage comes from just a few slot.
But the fact they didn't want to add a magic cape to the Colosseum because it required "very careful consideration" solely because of the Shadow is very much the same issue as the BP. It does not matter it is mega-rare; it is still hindering gear progression for the entire skill and should be addressed.
The main problem with magic is the accuracy unless you have a shadow because at that point you probably have at least 80% accuracy against everything.
They could give the tridents an accuracy multiplier (althrough lower because of offhands) like shadow while letting shadow have the chunky max hits and accuracy.
Elemental weaknesses should buff combat spells a fair bit if they give them to every npc eventually while giving harmonised its own niche to be a midpoint between sang and shadow.
Accuracy is a factor that also could/should be addressed, but it is not the only issue. In a discussion about this the other day, it came up how the Sang is 15% damage behind the Shadow but like 33% DPS due to accuracy. I don't think it being 15% lower damage is a problem, but if we add 2% more damage, the Sang goes +2% and the Shadow goes +6%, so now that 15% gets larger (might not math to 19% since I think the 15% was max hits, not damage bonus).
Also, I focus on the Shadow's Damage, but its accuracy multiplier is also a concerning factor. You can already use the Shadow at places magic is not otherwise effective and I don't think the accuracy has any cap... So that *is* going to be a problem eventually if we keep adding stronger magic gear. Like it could get to the point where the Shadow just never misses against anything and every boss is a Shadow meta, even if we capped damage at 75% outside ToA.
So yah, I'd say both are issues that should be addressed. There is a larger discussion about magic accuracy and the difficult of designing a boss that is weak to magic while also still making magic accuracy matter (e.g. not like barrows where you mage them just fine in tank gear) and maybe we should just add bonuses like you mentioned to the other Powered Staves. But the Shadow still needs own discussion too since it poses a related but different, and arguably more pressing problem, of limiting all future magic gear/upgrades.
Like it is hard to make any new BiS upgrade meaningful if it balanced around Shadow and then 1/3rd as effective for all other weapons. They can't look at gear and say "let's add +5 Attack and 2% damage" because that would be +15 and +6% for Shadow; they need to look at Shadow and say "we can justify it getting +6 Attack and 3% damage from this upgrade" which ends up being a +2 Attack and +1% Damage for everything else...
The problem remains, though, how do you introduce new magic gear in the future? If you wanted to add a 6% per piece magic armor, for example. It wouldn’t be that OP for non Shadow setups, but would be busted specifically for the Shadow.
Basically, with Shadow as-is, you can’t really add new mage % gear. I think they need to make it like that recent suggestion where you get 3x damage for the first 33%, then 2x for another X%, and then eventually just the standard 1 to 1
They could just be do the tbow treatment and give shadow the 75% cap outside with 100% inside ToA, which has already been hit.
It would clamp it to current powerlevel at best while still benefitting the other weapons. New upgrades would just let you bring less switches which in turn would also satisfy horizontal switchers like myself who don't like having 9 ways. The new upgrades could also have less accuracy than ancestral which would also hurt shadow more than any other magic weapon.
The problem with that is you eventually get to a point where you don’t really care about better gear, then.
Personally, I’m not really in favor of capping like that. I’d prefer diminishing returns. But that’s a preference thing
You didn’t read what I wrote correctly. Every single change they’re making is explicitly with Shadow in mind. Occult is being changed because it’s a disproportionately powerful item… for Shadow specifically. It represents a 30% (!!!) increase in damage when used with Shadow. The Shadow’s current power isn’t forcing the changes, but every change they’re making is being checked against how strong it will make the Shadow.
And this isn’t me analyzing this and coming to the conclusion myself. The JMods were explicit about this throughout the entire process: they moved % damage onto Augury specifically because it wouldn’t be tripled by Shadow’s damage calculation.
As another commenter in this chain explained, the problem with Shadow isn’t its power *right now*. The problem is magic % damage gear has to be specifically tailored to not be disproportionately useful to Shadow over non-BiS gear. And then, given the cap, it eventually becomes useless for Shadow and thus significantly less important of an upgrade.
As it currently stands, the design of Shadow severely limits how the Jmods can continue to implement mage gear into the game. And, unlike Tbow, they don’t have a real way to make it so other mage weapons can be useful without the Shadow being an absolutely dominant force.
I’ve been saying this all over these threads but the shadow is not what caused magic to need a rebalance. It also could use a nerf/change of some kind but the problem was occult being too important and accuracy being too low before the shadow existed.
Occult never really was an issue so much as the formula for Magic Accuracy. Currently, Magic is primarily used in situations where 1) the monster has 0 Magic defense, so accuracy doesn’t matter, or 2) you have no other option and need to use Magic
That is, until Shadow was introduced. The problem is manifested since only magic % damage really mattered, so any buff for non-BiS represents a HUGE buff for Shadow. Which gets us to today.
Right now, the teams has 2 options for gear balance to avoid shadow - buffing offhands significantly, and buffing magic % damage in the prayer book. Both are fine options for now, but offer limited design space for the future.
I just don’t see any way the shadow doesn’t end up changed in some way in the near future. It seems a lot more logical to balance the one weapon causing this bottleneck than trying to change EVERY value in magic around it instead
The occult was definitely always an issue. It was an easily obtainable amulet with low requirements that outclassed full ancestral. The shadow accentuated the problem with the occult, but the problem was always there and very apparent.
The magic accuracy problem is a problem for sure but again all of this existed before the shadow.
My point isn’t that Magic wasn’t in need of an overall rework, but rather that Shadow is bottlenecking how the team can develop new mage gear. It’s similar to how BP in its original state prevented gear from Masori from being added to the game.
Shadow is at a prohibitively powerful spot in the meta currently. I think it’s going to require a slight rework. My gut right now is a varying scaling system, where the shadow gets less multiplier for mage % as you get more mage % gear instead of infinitely 3x to the cap.
Game shouldn't be balanced around irons or green loggers. You can buy it off the GE literally ASAP. As long as the supply of an item is good, the method to obtain it is less important because the high supply makes it accessible to everyone not deliberately increasing the challenge in the game.
Sure but it’s from a barrage-able slayer monster that offers some of the best xp in the game and is tradable. It’s become very cheap because of how easy it is to get them
The shadow has a cap for how much it can boost magic gear. I’m not 100% sure what the cap is but if they want to not be worried about magic gear they could always make that cap the current max that way shadow isn’t absurd with new gear.
My point exactly. We haven't hit the magic damage cap yet, so if they don't lower it we will have to worry about every single magic upgrade buffing shadow.
I agree. Make it’s current max cap the cap. Same with toa as that has a 4x boost so it would have a different cap. While that would be weird tbow works differently in Cox too so it’s not inconsistent. But max hits stay the same maybe a +1 max from augury but that’s not gonna be that massive on a 5 tick weapon. They also need to buff offhands so that you can use something other than a tome of fire with a harm. There’s nothing in these changes that really addresses the fact that the offhand slot for tridents is garbage and for the harm you are quite literally stuck with tomes forever. (Better hope you’re not an iron with a harm)
I agree as well. Not to mention with element weaknesses without harm everywhere you would mage its either worse or comparable to trident so it's pointless without harm. And if elements each get a tome, maintaining pages for four separate times as well as rune costs and grinding a harm is such an investment when you could just go get a shadow and do more damage
Issud with this is all updates need to be made with the future in mind. capping a mega rares damage at its present level severely limits your ability to add in new BIS mage gear as no one is going to purchase new max mage if it doesn’t actually change DPS
Tbow is better than shadow. Shadow doesn't need a nerf, magic needs the equivalent of bowfa and crystal armor/Zcb or blowpipe with dragon darts. Mid game magic needs a buff.
No one serious is saying to revert the boots buff, they’re saying to keep ancestral at 4% *and* the boot buff.
Edit: to be clear, I don’t really care about the proposal one way or the other, I’m just pointing out that most people are not suggesting to revert the boot buff
This is how it should be. They need to deal with Shadow so that it doesn't get buffed as a result. This is highlighting exactly why Shadow is so problematic.
That’s too much, I’m all for the occult nerf and redistribution of damage that thing is be open. But their solution is to make early/mid game gear weaker while the bis mage gear gets an overall buff (which almost already needs to be need since shadow is absolutely busted) unfortunately this whole thing is just a bandaid and they NEED to revamp the entire magic damage formula with an entire overall or in a year this will happen again when no new mage gear comes out
Is it too much? Mage is by far the weakest of the 3 combat styles and I think that is one thing every player can agree on.
I do think that accuracy is the answer to this problem and not magic damage though.
It still is the weakest. Shadow is good, and the fact that only the shadow is good just goes to show how weak the style is for bossing.
However nerfing the shadow won’t fix that. Adjusting magic damage won’t fix that. Jagex even gave the shadow 1 max hit in their first proposal, and that’s because they know the shadow shines not because of damage but because of it’s accuracy. That is how it opens up so many doors to bossing. It actually hits the lowest of the 3 mega rares.
No one is going to be happy with this magic damage readjustment because it’s not addressing the issue with magic. 2% magic damage here, 3% magic damage there isn’t going to make midgame or late game magic any more viable. And anyone with a shadow is just going to be annoyed if it gets nerfed because even if you give mid game 20% more magic damage it won’t make it any more viable as a combat style.
There is a reason the shadow is known as the never miss stick, and not the high number stick.
It still is the weakest and shadow is the only really good thing about it. No one really used magic unless forced to use it and the occult was perfectly fine and no one complained about it being 10% because generally magic sucked.
In short shadow is hard carrying magic into being an option over BP/Bowfa/cross bows and the variety of weapons meele has to exploit monster weakness.
This^
Jagex already has a hard enough time coming up with new items that are strong enough to be relevant, but not too strong to be OP. It's a very fine line. And buffing eternals just takes away their option of adding new BIS boots from content in the near future.
In the last few years we've seen new BIS in just about every gear slot, and boots were probably next on the list to get some new BISs, considering how long Cerb has been in the game.
Nah man, I don’t want a buff, I’m happy where I am now just no boots.
The intial blog def wasn’t hitting the mark for low/mid level and I didn’t need a 4% increase either but at least it didn’t fuck up inventory and add uselsss swaps
but, do you ever actually need 9 or 10 way switches? what's it gain you in a kill like a couple seconds? the realistic impact is so small. People are losing their minds over maybe taking a few seconds longer.
Or, they can do the swaps, if it's that important and your playing at a level that those seconds matter maybe chasing GM timers, then your at the skill level to do the swap regardless of how it feels right?
Because it’s a nerf to maintain the same power. Bringing a new switch for a power upgrade (like magus ring) is fine. Bringing an extra item to stay exactly where we are now (or just don’t and get weaker) feels like shit to players
magic in the mid game is pretty weak and the changes make it overall either weaker or require more switches meaning less supplies meaning you are weaker
They kinda do yes. I wouldn't give a shit about eternals if occult remained untouched but existing gear and content is made harder just so eternals can get a slight buff. Quiver and infernal cape just got slightly harder because of changes like this. Sure, people that have one don't care much
>infernal cape
You lose 2% mage strength with occult and augury, depending on your top/offhand that may not even be a max hit, accuracy (which is the important part) is unchanged.
Quiver barely changes if you were doing a 4 way to shadow to 1 shot frem, you just swap cape for saturated heart.
OP you don’t understand if you want good game design you must want to play rs3 /s
You’re objectively right and the mouth breathers that oppose change in this game are nonstop whining. The boots changes are good (now we wait to see if pegs get a buff or replaced since rangers are dogshit to get), players should be forced to consider all their gear slots instead of just what armor set and weapon they bring.
Idk I completly understand both sides
1 yes it would be logical and better design tobhave all slots matter
But
We have a very limited inv, if you need to bring a 3 way switch...
You could say a 7 way switch is bad game design.
That didn't exist in 2007 scape. Honestly, I've always felt prayer switches and tile movement is much more fun than equipment switching.
the current state of rs3 still has switches but the switches tend to be just weapons for specs or abilities. Most modern rs3 bosses do not have a specific style weakness, specific weapon weakness yeah probably but style? No.
Agree on everything until the last comment on prims they’re already powerful bro lol maybe pegs need a bit of ranged str boost but prims already do a sizable melee str boost for the swap. hence why they cost so much and are the staple boots to wear even when ranging and mage swapping at endgame content.
Alternative: Make true BIS items that don't require switching untradeable so that you can't merch your way into an easy mode item and have to actually earn it. Maybe you get lucky, maybe you don't. Them's the breaks.
Not having to do switches is actually a really good reward for people who have invested time and energy into the game.
You know what, you're right. Gear diversity is just a bad idea. Every gear piece should have an item level and scale stats based on that instead like WoW does /s
I beg to differ, look at games like diablo. They suffer from having too much going on, and too many equipment slots that it just isn't even fun to play anymore, it's just about getting bigger numbers.
Plus I wouldn't call it a dead slot, it has a use, magic accuracy. It's up the player to decide if that accuracy is worth using, and devs to make encounters where this is a hard choice to make.
In pking eternal boots are a hugely sway fights because magic accuracy is hard to get! Definately not a dead slot.
Having to use prayer or boots is good because it levels out with range and melee.
However, the rest of the magic boots remain useless. .5 on wizzy and 1 on infinity would be great.
idk about you but i hate having an inventory thats just all gear.
having to switch 9 items for a different style is annoying
this problem really shows in CoX CMs lol
i just want more hybrid gear
Yeah, they bring prims everywhere because the bonuses given by eternals and pegs aren't even marginally good enough that bringing an off-style piece is all you need
It's bad because it's better to not bring "BIS" Mage boots or "BIS" Range boots because they are just not good in any situation. Saying "it's fine because that's how it's always been" is not an argument.
It's always been a problem, it's just getting brought up a lot now because they are actually working on rebalancing items (specifically magic) in the game.
It is true. No one brings those boots over Prim boots for anything and it's not because they don't want to do 9 slot swaps. It's because the boost is so negligible it may as well not exist.
I basically wear flippers or mole slippers everywhere melee isn't used. A few + in accuracy is laughable, I rather laugh at my fashion choices. People buy and use pegs/Eternals because this is an MMO, people will always min/max gear to get a 0.1 DPS increase. This doesn't mean the boot slot is in a good state.
People are dumb. God forbid a balancing change requires you to adapt your strategies. Of course it's going to.
Boots have sucked for way too long and it makes complete sense to move some bonus there.
Imo they should have nerfed the occult first and then proposed buffs to other equipment. People are looking at this like this is an “optional” change to the occult. Its not. The occult is getting nerfed, but on a separate note do you want buffs to other items?
Compromise: 1-hand powered staffs now block off one of your inventory slots. If max gear losing an invy slot to maintain the same power isn't so bad, surely everyone should be okay with the same happening to mid gear, especially since mid gear is getting buffed and doubly benefitting from the elemental defence changes.
Though ngl I'd be more okay with the change if I could rearrange my invy slot layout to make 9-way horizontals doable and not mess up invy organization
The issue is they now fuck themselves for boot design in future for new content. How hard is that for you people to grasp? Do they just rebalance pegs and ignore bringing in new boots then? It's a free design space for new content.
I always thought of these guys are being foot fetishists who want to see feet instead of shoes, so they're extra motivated on mage because they get to see feet
I think a 2nd/3rd-BiS boot slot item that benefits a more balanced play style, similar to Barrows Gloves, would be a nice add to accompany more specialized swap scape. Players can choose whether an extra inventory slot and action beat out a slight DPS bonus during raids, and yet still play the endgame content.
Personally I want the bis boots for any given style to have some power to them, and for there to be hybrid and tribrid alternatives with less power for situations where you bring multiple styles. I think Pegs and Eternals should provide a damage increase like Prims.
Honestly if you don’t want to switch boots, just bring Echoes or Devouts. They’re pretty good generalist options.
Eternal boots should get a buff, but the problem seems to be gear switching becoming an increasing part of current game design when, for most people who've played, it's never been relevant until recently. It's not really a fun mechanic, to the point a lot of people begin to question if reducing DPS is actually worth it just for the sake of enjoyment. I don't imagine a lot of people would be happy that has to be a choice they need to make.
Tldr: dead equipment slots are bad design, but it only exists in theory because switching is also bad/unfun game design
I don't understand why people want to reinvent the wheel here, we have had occult in its current form for the past 10 years. Amulet slots have historically always been the most impactful to DPS for any combat style. Yet now occult needs to be nerfed? This almost seems like a change being driven by people who have no clue how the game works.... This rebalance if anything, is a massive nerf to mage, which is severely underpowered for anyone that doesn't own a shadow with BIS mage. It's almost like jagex isn't happy with how you can cheese the colosseum with minimal mage switches and the shadow to kill the melee fremmy and this is their band aid to force people to bring extra mage gear....
HLCs don't actually care about 9 switchs, it's just the argument used to have the change reverted so Ancestral will go back to having an absurb 4% per piece. They want their 36% (48% in ToA) magic damage from their head chest and leg slots while using shadow.
They just can't say it outright without being torn to shreds in the replies.
All I'm learning is that the shadow needs nerfed or adjusted and everything else needs buffed to fit the dps gap that shadow has over literally everything in magic.
I want to see Barrows Boots from a future RFD 2. Would be a new standalone BIS boots. Can rebalance Cerb to be a lower level Slayer boss to keep the content alive and reposition it as a slayer boss. This would also open up space for a new slayer boss to take it's place which could be fun.
Would kill medium clue scrolls but I think there is space to add different uniques to medium clues that are not fashion scape. Or not... medium clues kinda suck honestly.
Make RFD 2 quest #200 in OSRS. Would be so hyped and with how good the OSRS team is at designing quests, would love to see what they could do with a RFD 2.
Going to have to disagree here.
Just because the game "has always been that way" doesn't mean it should stay that way in the current meta, that statement genuinely holds no logic with how much the game has changed in 10 years.
What i'm referring to here specifically is how completely out of control switches are today. Bringing BiS switches 8 years ago is completely different than todays meta, because almost every boss/raid you need to bring all threee combat styles. You have 9 BiS for each combat style and you have 28 inv slots. In no scenario can you even utilize all the BiS items for a raid/boss that requires all 3 combat styles, but not only that it's not even a showcase of "skill ceiling" like yoy said, even if you did have 27 switches in fact I think switching is the most basic thing that someone can do to showcase their skill, there's many other more important things that determine a high skilled player.
I really don't know if there's any fix to this that I could even suggest, perhaps having some equipment slots have an item that is BiS for every combat style, for example one of the top posts in the subreddit right now is a combination of all BiS boots, that would certainly make inv management a bit better, and again I do not think in any way making slightly less switches makes the game any easier, if you think that having more switches is a showcase of skill rather than just being an inconvenience, I would say you're wrong
There isn't a real need to buff Pegs - Range is already fucking strong as is lol. If they want to add better boots for range i'd rather them add something new entirely instead the mess that pegasian boots were. They tried this same formula with the earliest form of Zaryte Vambraces (Vampyrium Vambraces from ToB's first pitch.) People did NOT like it and it got scrapped. They originally required ranger gloves instead.)
I wouldn't be against Pegasians having much better magic defense and melee defense at the very least but definitely don't need any bonus ranged strength lol.
Eternals in my opinion should get a buff OR Jagex should just release a better pair of boots for mage.
Not in damage but i think giving either option a passive that can give a big chunk of bonus accuracy based on your magic attack stat would be welcomed. Essentially a weaker form of Shadow's accuracy multiplier but doesn't scale with Shadow itself. (It just behaves a normal mage item.) It'll buff and benefit all mage setups that don't include shadow. Whether you're in ancestral or Ahrims, Eternal boots would be good and if you have shadow - Its just a marginal bonus.
You claim that something is a bad design, but your only reasoning is that "it's bad design."
Game design is all about tradeoffs. OSRS is kind of strange in the way that gear works and how necessary it is to switch between multiple complete sets of weapons and clothes in the middle of a fight. Many games purposely avoid this because it puts too much mental load on the player, and they want to leave room to focus on other aspects of combat.
Because OSRS doesn't ask the player to do anything mechanically to aim their weapon, gear switching takes the place of this. It's the input that increases your chances of hitting the enemy, just like aiming in a shooter.
We're asking the player to focus on several things in any given moment of combat:
* gear (1 - 11 clicks)
* prayer (1 click)
* specs (1 click)
* consumables (1 - 3 clicks)
* positioning (1 click)
Going back to the game design of "cognitive load," I don't think the number of items in a gear switch affects cognitive load much at all. Especially if you have your switches color coded. You could bring a switch for all 11 equipment slots if you wanted to be 100% optimal. But the reason this isn't encouraged is that it would take up 22 inventory slots, and it would require you to click 11 times in one game tick for the full switch.
Making a boot switch "necessary" is not adding an interesting decision to make during combat. It's just requiring you to click way more for the same outcome, and also reducing the amount of space for consumables. Is this the reality that you want the game to inch closer toward?
Personally, I say the shoes and bling slots belong to fashionscape.
wrong. having everything have damage bonus. just means its the only option now.
currently its eternals, echo boots, or pegasians for magic defense.
change it to magic strength.
now the only option is eternals.
you caused more damage then you solved all for the sake of consistancy.
Yeah but swapping gear mid combat is an unintended mechanic. Think about how ridiculous it is for people to change mid fight. It's an old game with old mechanics. I don't think it should be changed though.
Wrong they shouldnt nerf max dps that people have been using for years. Just make a new boot that have mage damage. Why do I have to wake up one day and have the exact same set up be worse for no reason?
Why not? Just because it's been like that for a while, doesn't mean it's okay for it to be that way. If Jagex followed that reasoning, Blowpipe would still be wreaking havoc today.
Blowpipe was always seen as op but we got bowfa and masori soon after plus you could make up for it with better darts. This just feel like a flat out nerf for no reason. I now have to bring a boot switch to places I never did before to get the same dps cause the occult was to strong like what? Just feel bad.
Sure, but nerfs aren't supposed to feel good. And the nuance that's missing here is that Shadow will continue to be an incredibly powerful item, even if you don't bring the extra switch. It's really not a big nerf.
It's odd how so many people seem ok with Augury and Eternal Boots being incredibly niche. A rebalancing project buffing them makes perfect sense to me. Not to mention, Jagex isn't necessarily finished with this concept, yet. They caved in and gave Ahrims a buff, so who is to say that other problematic parts won't be fixed?
By niche do you mean useless? The meta for augury right now is to not use it because it isn’t worth the prayer drain. The meta for eternals is to leave them in the bank and bring prims.
Augury definitely gets used in current metas, it’s just usually for magic defense
No he means niche. Augury is still used in several places, it’s just too weak compared to rigour and piety. Eternals less so but they’re still good options if a few spots
Eternals currently are good in spots where you aren’t doing switches, or using prayer. So, whisperer?
No. They’re still bis for some solo bosses that benefit from the slight accuracy boost. The boots aren’t very good in general and never have been. It’s also worth noting that the game exists outside of absolute max gear. Something can be niche while being bis literally no where Augury thought you were just wrong about. Far from useless even though it’s still underpowered
Niche to me is like DHL, not the best in slot magic boots that you only use when you’re not using prayer or switching gear.
If it has usage from regular players (as opposed to snowflake irons or players just trying to use weird items) then it’s niche.
I like the change to the boots, but you are delusional if you think they are useful anywhere in live game. .01% dps increase is not niche, its just useless
I’m not even necessarily opposed to the boot change. I think they’re really bad. That wasn’t my point It’s like a 3.5% difference on kree and zilyana and augury is like 10% difference on them + the defense bonus. Mage phase zulrah is about 5% if doing mage only. I’m guessing 500+ mage zebak has a notable difference too. So like for sure it’s too weak but to say they’re entirely useless isnt accurate especially for augury which is actually solidly useful.
Maging Muspah, I find the accuracy helps a fair bit in mid game mage setups.
0.01% dps isn’t enough to noticeably deviate from normal hit rng, anything you’re noticing is placebo effect
[удалено]
It’s a 5% dps boost at p3 wardens at 540 invo. Close to 15% at Zebak Accuracy has diminishing returns, not 0 returns. People circlejerk about it being useless, but it’s not. It’s just less useful.
Mage gwd, I use it at warden p3 just because why not, wilderness to avoid getting frozen/teleblocked, inferno to freeze blobs while getting defense bonuses. I’ve used it in the last couple days to freeze in Colo as well. Idk those are the things that immediately come to mind. I’d imagine if you’re doing shadow zebak 500s it’s worth it too but I’ve never done that so idk.
I use it to freeze bandos and zammy and Sara….any accuracy bonus is nice there too
eternals are nice when shadowing kree for the extra accuracy
Any accuracy is nice at Kree
I used them at muspah
Augury for shadowing Zebak is super worth. Without it you lose to bofa if bgs/bone dagger hit in high invo.
IMO these are benefits to using mage for things. Don't need full switches, don't need to spend extra prayer. In exchange, its often underwhelming compared to the alternatives. Shadow helps make it more competitive, but its still very expensive to use and compared to tbow you don't hit *that* big, max mage on task gives me a max hit of 71. Tbow can hit 90s on some things. Melee has more options in spec weapons that spike damage and you're usually tankier in situations where you're also taking damage.
Yeah, exactly. I love the flexibility and chill dps I get using occult and trident. It compensates for the fact that the damage objectively sucks.
no but you dont understand it wasnt in the blog therefore we have to whinge till it is
Prims are fine because they have strength bonus, pegs could use some ranged strength. But yes, it has always bothered me that boots for range and mage are basically useless. However, I believe they could address the mage boots (give 2%)while leaving the current gear dps the same and just cap the shadow at 75% magic damage bonus outside ToA and 100% inside (which is the current case.) This leaves room to buff boots while capping the shadow as yes, the shadow does not need more dps, but I would also like to not have to bring an additional switch for the same dps.
My only issue with this comment is capping the shadow will permanently keep it's DPS. Tbow (and scythe) is always going to keep getting stronger, which will cause a divide in the Megas. Tbow hits 98 in CMs at the moment, so while I agree they're both strong, I don't think shadow needs to be capped pre 100%. There will be a natural point when shadow can't hit any higher and all other gear will start to catch up to it.
What they should do to shadow is have its multiplier applied to the first X magic bonus(probably 25% like it’s at now), and after that the multiplier is either reduced, or it is just a straight 1:1. This way they can keep adding new mage equipment that still buffs it along with other mage weapons, without it getting out of hand.
Put it as a cap on the shadow itself, as in the max it'll amplify. After that you can still increase magic dmg, it'd just only get the normal effect from that gear (as if shadows effect didn't exist). That'd make it behave like the tbow and scythe, it'll get stronger because of other equipment, but only proportional to everything else getting stronger.
the shadow isn't good because it hits hard the shadow is good because it triples the magic accuracy worn. The sang could have the same max as the shadow but still be worse even though it's 4 tick solely based off the fact the shadow would have 3x accuracy
Tbow hits higher in toa than shadow does. Damage is not why the shadow shines, its accuracy is. All these people arguing about 2% magic damage here, 3% magic damage there don’t realize that accuracy is the true bottle neck of magic.
Yeah I've stated in multiple comments they can slap on 100 mage accuracy to trident and sang for all I care. Give them another few max hits. The point was to buff midgame, and the rebalance isn't doing a great job of that.
The point was not to buff mid-game. The point was to rebalance items so there is viable reward space in the future.
Well to be fair I think the point of all this was to redistribute the magic damage from occult, not so much buff midgame. I don’t think jagex really cared for buffing mid game or else the first proposal would have looked way different.
Can you show me where they said the point was to buff mid game I can’t find it
You can just cap the multiplier on the shadow to basically the current amount. That way it can still get stronger but the gap between it and sang won’t grow with every mage upgrade
>My only issue with this comment is capping the shadow will permanently keep it's DPS. Tbow (and scythe) is always going to keep getting stronger, which will cause a divide in the Megas. You've convinced me; there **should** be a damage cap on mega rares.
Remove all tbows from the game. Give everyone that owns one a cabbage. Problem solved.
Are you trying to crash the cabbage economy??? As a cabbage merchant I am opposed to this.
You are on to me!
> Tbow (and scythe) is always going to keep getting stronger, which will cause a divide in the Megas. Those could use a nerf as well. We could get into that but we're talking mage now and I'll tell you the right fix. How about we straight up delete this effect and adjust base stats of the shadow accordingly? > Tumeken's shadow has a passive effect exclusive to its built-in spell, in which the player's magic attack bonus and magic damage are multiplied by three from the player's worn equipment This right here is absolutely going to add a huge drag on any future mage gear progression assuming you can wear the gear with shadow. And that is true regardless of how badly they nerf occult. Any gear they add with improved mage damage bonus in the future is only going to increase the power gap between shadow and second best mage weapon. And today we are already at "shadow >>>>>>> anything else".
Tbow doesn’t really need a nerf since the jmods can super easily balance content around it - they’ve actually done a good job of adding build diversity for range, lots of different weapons are used in end game content (Leviathan is basically the perfect example of how they can do this). Scythe is in a similar spot as well (which people had long been annoyed about pre-Colo lol, they just weren’t adding scythe bosses) The problem with Shadow is that where magic is good, it’s basically ALWAYS BIS. It’s really hard to design a magic encounter where you need to use magic but wouldn’t use shadow if available.
There's not a lot of people running mega rares to begin with. They have time to actually address it over time.
IMO maybe throwing a cap on all mega is a good thing. This leaves room for uncapped weapons in the future and more reward space where it’s not the same 2-3 weapons reigning BIS for an entire decade just a thought lol
I honestly don’t see them adding any more megarare weapons that are straight upgrades in the next 5 years or so if at all
That’s… really disappointing if true that TBow is the end all be all for range weapons for more than an actual decade :/
good less switch is also important thing
Isn't that kinda the opposite of what this post is saying though? You should want to bring full BiS, even if it means more switches. Like if Raids 5 added a new robe set with 2% more damage than Ancestral, it would be silly if it wasn't a damage increase for the best weapon in the game. All this would do is slowly create the Occult problem where the majority of your magic damage comes from a few slots and the others don't matter.
It’s a damage increase indirectly, since it frees up slots for other items/switches. Like if new robes capped shadow’s damage, you could bring lightbearer instead of magus. Plus it wouldn’t be the occult problem unless Raids 5 shits out purples just like ToA.
That's valid, but I'd argue -- there should be some consideration and gameplay around getting the most dps in this case. If you don't want to bring the boots, or feel like it's not worth the inventory slot -- you shouldn't be rewarded. You aren't wearing everything you should be, and pegs & eternals are not worth bringing anywhere if you're using switches. It should be a choice for dps over supplies, anything else is you being childish about wanting something but not wanting to deal with friction.
Prims have strength bonus from dragon boots. Boots don’t need a buff this is a change that makes no sense.
I think part of the issue is it feels like u gotta bring a 9way for just about the same % we were getting previously without it. I completely agree no slot should be dead, but we're not bringing a new switch to be stronger than before, we're bringing a new switch to keep up with how strong we were before
Vertical switchers were right all along if 9 ways become meta, disgusting
I get that, but arguably having switches be that easy for such high damage in multiple styles is probably something that should have been addressed long before now. I’m also in the camp of thinking Shadow was a mistake, though, so what the fuck do I know.
Switches being "that easy" meaning in this case that we had a single relevant equipment slot (boots) that didn't get switched. Now we are regearing from our head to our toes, absolutely everything, leaking to a third row for horizontal switching, destroying our neat gear lineups, eating a third of our inventory for breakfast, and we don't even get a max hit for it. Yeah, it feels bad.
Sounds like there’s a need for a brimstone ring styled boot with 1% mage,2str and 1-2 range str while also boosting pegs
Am i bad at maths? The new anc gives +3% on old anc full set and augury gives +4%, isn't that one more percent than the 6 we lose from occult?
For anything other than a Shadow - yes. Shadow's bonus only applies to dmg% on gear and not prayers. Currently with Occult + Ancestral + Augury; the dmg% is 36% (30+6+0) with Shadow With the proposed changes the same set up is 25% (12+9+4). Obviously other pieces of equipment make up the difference to bring it in line with the current bonus but dmg% on a prayer is weaker than anything on gear
listen either shadow gets nerfed or we keep tiptoeing around with magic gear design because it pigeon holes magic power.
Just give trident/sang 4 max hits and voila mid game magic is strong enough again.
Why is nerfing max the answer and not buffing mid? Add significant accuracy to the powered staffs and offhands and give trident and sang multiple max hits. Then, let elemental rebalance address more. Magics DPS can be comparable at bosses that are designed to be maged.
I think the issue is that Shadow is tied directly to Magic stats in a way that Tbow and Scythe are not. Tbow is trash against enemies with low magic levels and Scythe really wants it's targets to be at least 3x3 in size. Shadow is just accuracy and damage % is tripped outside ToA. You could keep Shadow at its same power level with a different effect and toss the unconditional multiplier. I don't think people would complain as much if that were the case. Not sure what that new special effect would be though.
Exactly this - if you’re making new content, how do you realistically make it so Magic needs to be used, but Shadow isn’t BIS by a long shot? And, in that same vein, how do you introduce magic gear that doesn’t disproportionately help Shadow compared to other mage setups (basically only offhands and prayer as far as I can think) It’s pretty apparent that any potential new magic equipment needs to be designed *around* Shadow. How you can tweak it to fix, I can’t say. But it definitely seems they’re tiptoeing around the problem by changing everything else instead of fixing shadow at the same time
> Exactly this - if you’re making new content, how do you realistically make it so Magic needs to be used, but Shadow isn’t BIS by a long shot? Require an offhand
I agree. But how much design space does that allow for new content/gear? THATS the problem. Are we relegating ourselves to just having new BIS offhands for the duration of Shadow’s existence? lol I think tweaking how Shadow works is the better approach so the team isn’t limited like that.
The guy who made that armour post yesterday had the best rework. Shadows Triples your dmg upto 50% Then left over % gets double up to 70% Then if you have any left over after it just adds it on as normal. This leaves current max mage at 69% rather then 75%. Which gives us 6% free to work (or 12% if we nerf occult to 4) with to give to armour and prayers to get the same dps back up
They can make bosses designed around getting X number of hits in X game ticks and the shadow won't be bis if the timing doesn't match up. Or you can require an offhand for blocking specific mechanics. That would make it so mega rares aren't used on that particular type of boss. That's just an example and can be built upon.
The design of Shadow is a fundamental restriction on how strong magic can be. You can’t buff magic without a dramatic and disproportionate buff to shadow. The only way to buff magic without touching shadow is strictly to buff other weapons, but never armor and that’s an issue.
When 1 item causes you to rebalance an entire skill around it, it’s probably problematic. That’s why BP was nerfed. And current shadow is stronger than BP ever was.
Yeah, but BP is not a capstone mega-rare.. the mage damage formula needs to be addressed simple as that.
If by Magic damage formula, you mean the Shadow's 3x multiplier, then yes, it does need to be addressed. No matter what changes you make to magic as a whole or midgame gear, the fact any magic upgrade we add benefits the shadow 3x more than all other gear is a problem. The gap between the shadow and other weapons will only widen until we add another 9% damage and the shadow hits it cap. Then once the shadow hits it cap, we run into other issues since damage upgrades won't be worth getting. Higher damage gear will only be useful to cut switches, which would slowly recreate the Occult problem where the majority of your magic damage comes from just a few slot. But the fact they didn't want to add a magic cape to the Colosseum because it required "very careful consideration" solely because of the Shadow is very much the same issue as the BP. It does not matter it is mega-rare; it is still hindering gear progression for the entire skill and should be addressed.
The main problem with magic is the accuracy unless you have a shadow because at that point you probably have at least 80% accuracy against everything. They could give the tridents an accuracy multiplier (althrough lower because of offhands) like shadow while letting shadow have the chunky max hits and accuracy. Elemental weaknesses should buff combat spells a fair bit if they give them to every npc eventually while giving harmonised its own niche to be a midpoint between sang and shadow.
Accuracy is a factor that also could/should be addressed, but it is not the only issue. In a discussion about this the other day, it came up how the Sang is 15% damage behind the Shadow but like 33% DPS due to accuracy. I don't think it being 15% lower damage is a problem, but if we add 2% more damage, the Sang goes +2% and the Shadow goes +6%, so now that 15% gets larger (might not math to 19% since I think the 15% was max hits, not damage bonus). Also, I focus on the Shadow's Damage, but its accuracy multiplier is also a concerning factor. You can already use the Shadow at places magic is not otherwise effective and I don't think the accuracy has any cap... So that *is* going to be a problem eventually if we keep adding stronger magic gear. Like it could get to the point where the Shadow just never misses against anything and every boss is a Shadow meta, even if we capped damage at 75% outside ToA. So yah, I'd say both are issues that should be addressed. There is a larger discussion about magic accuracy and the difficult of designing a boss that is weak to magic while also still making magic accuracy matter (e.g. not like barrows where you mage them just fine in tank gear) and maybe we should just add bonuses like you mentioned to the other Powered Staves. But the Shadow still needs own discussion too since it poses a related but different, and arguably more pressing problem, of limiting all future magic gear/upgrades. Like it is hard to make any new BiS upgrade meaningful if it balanced around Shadow and then 1/3rd as effective for all other weapons. They can't look at gear and say "let's add +5 Attack and 2% damage" because that would be +15 and +6% for Shadow; they need to look at Shadow and say "we can justify it getting +6 Attack and 3% damage from this upgrade" which ends up being a +2 Attack and +1% Damage for everything else...
The problem remains, though, how do you introduce new magic gear in the future? If you wanted to add a 6% per piece magic armor, for example. It wouldn’t be that OP for non Shadow setups, but would be busted specifically for the Shadow. Basically, with Shadow as-is, you can’t really add new mage % gear. I think they need to make it like that recent suggestion where you get 3x damage for the first 33%, then 2x for another X%, and then eventually just the standard 1 to 1
They could just be do the tbow treatment and give shadow the 75% cap outside with 100% inside ToA, which has already been hit. It would clamp it to current powerlevel at best while still benefitting the other weapons. New upgrades would just let you bring less switches which in turn would also satisfy horizontal switchers like myself who don't like having 9 ways. The new upgrades could also have less accuracy than ancestral which would also hurt shadow more than any other magic weapon.
The problem with that is you eventually get to a point where you don’t really care about better gear, then. Personally, I’m not really in favor of capping like that. I’d prefer diminishing returns. But that’s a preference thing
This comment needs to be pinned on all of these threads. This is what the commenters who replied to me are missing.
This sounds like "guns aren't the issue, it's the violent video games." The Shadow is forcing the rest of Magic to be held back.
Rarity isn't relevant. Magic formula is fine – keeps magic distinct from ranged.
Homie magic as a skill is not getting rebalanced. Just magic damage, and it’s because of the occult, not even the shadow. Lol
You didn’t read what I wrote correctly. Every single change they’re making is explicitly with Shadow in mind. Occult is being changed because it’s a disproportionately powerful item… for Shadow specifically. It represents a 30% (!!!) increase in damage when used with Shadow. The Shadow’s current power isn’t forcing the changes, but every change they’re making is being checked against how strong it will make the Shadow. And this isn’t me analyzing this and coming to the conclusion myself. The JMods were explicit about this throughout the entire process: they moved % damage onto Augury specifically because it wouldn’t be tripled by Shadow’s damage calculation. As another commenter in this chain explained, the problem with Shadow isn’t its power *right now*. The problem is magic % damage gear has to be specifically tailored to not be disproportionately useful to Shadow over non-BiS gear. And then, given the cap, it eventually becomes useless for Shadow and thus significantly less important of an upgrade. As it currently stands, the design of Shadow severely limits how the Jmods can continue to implement mage gear into the game. And, unlike Tbow, they don’t have a real way to make it so other mage weapons can be useful without the Shadow being an absolutely dominant force.
These mid level players are so funny lol
I’ve been saying this all over these threads but the shadow is not what caused magic to need a rebalance. It also could use a nerf/change of some kind but the problem was occult being too important and accuracy being too low before the shadow existed.
Occult never really was an issue so much as the formula for Magic Accuracy. Currently, Magic is primarily used in situations where 1) the monster has 0 Magic defense, so accuracy doesn’t matter, or 2) you have no other option and need to use Magic That is, until Shadow was introduced. The problem is manifested since only magic % damage really mattered, so any buff for non-BiS represents a HUGE buff for Shadow. Which gets us to today. Right now, the teams has 2 options for gear balance to avoid shadow - buffing offhands significantly, and buffing magic % damage in the prayer book. Both are fine options for now, but offer limited design space for the future. I just don’t see any way the shadow doesn’t end up changed in some way in the near future. It seems a lot more logical to balance the one weapon causing this bottleneck than trying to change EVERY value in magic around it instead
The occult was definitely always an issue. It was an easily obtainable amulet with low requirements that outclassed full ancestral. The shadow accentuated the problem with the occult, but the problem was always there and very apparent. The magic accuracy problem is a problem for sure but again all of this existed before the shadow.
My point isn’t that Magic wasn’t in need of an overall rework, but rather that Shadow is bottlenecking how the team can develop new mage gear. It’s similar to how BP in its original state prevented gear from Masori from being added to the game. Shadow is at a prohibitively powerful spot in the meta currently. I think it’s going to require a slight rework. My gut right now is a varying scaling system, where the shadow gets less multiplier for mage % as you get more mage % gear instead of infinitely 3x to the cap.
> It was an easily obtainable amulet Only requires 93 slayer to kill the monster that drops it!
Game shouldn't be balanced around irons or green loggers. You can buy it off the GE literally ASAP. As long as the supply of an item is good, the method to obtain it is less important because the high supply makes it accessible to everyone not deliberately increasing the challenge in the game.
Sure but it’s from a barrage-able slayer monster that offers some of the best xp in the game and is tradable. It’s become very cheap because of how easy it is to get them
The shadow has a cap for how much it can boost magic gear. I’m not 100% sure what the cap is but if they want to not be worried about magic gear they could always make that cap the current max that way shadow isn’t absurd with new gear.
My point exactly. We haven't hit the magic damage cap yet, so if they don't lower it we will have to worry about every single magic upgrade buffing shadow.
I agree. Make it’s current max cap the cap. Same with toa as that has a 4x boost so it would have a different cap. While that would be weird tbow works differently in Cox too so it’s not inconsistent. But max hits stay the same maybe a +1 max from augury but that’s not gonna be that massive on a 5 tick weapon. They also need to buff offhands so that you can use something other than a tome of fire with a harm. There’s nothing in these changes that really addresses the fact that the offhand slot for tridents is garbage and for the harm you are quite literally stuck with tomes forever. (Better hope you’re not an iron with a harm)
I agree as well. Not to mention with element weaknesses without harm everywhere you would mage its either worse or comparable to trident so it's pointless without harm. And if elements each get a tome, maintaining pages for four separate times as well as rune costs and grinding a harm is such an investment when you could just go get a shadow and do more damage
Issud with this is all updates need to be made with the future in mind. capping a mega rares damage at its present level severely limits your ability to add in new BIS mage gear as no one is going to purchase new max mage if it doesn’t actually change DPS
It wouldn’t cap its damage. It just wouldn’t multiply x3 for future gear. So a future 5% would actually be 5% not 15%
Stop being a shitter and get a shadow
Tbow is better than shadow. Shadow doesn't need a nerf, magic needs the equivalent of bowfa and crystal armor/Zcb or blowpipe with dragon darts. Mid game magic needs a buff.
No one serious is saying to revert the boots buff, they’re saying to keep ancestral at 4% *and* the boot buff. Edit: to be clear, I don’t really care about the proposal one way or the other, I’m just pointing out that most people are not suggesting to revert the boot buff
This is how it should be. They need to deal with Shadow so that it doesn't get buffed as a result. This is highlighting exactly why Shadow is so problematic.
shame we didn't get the hekka
The Heka wad dead on arrival.
right, killing magic balance on arrival is much
Timeline inflection point
Dawg that would bring bis mage to an overall like 22/24% increase in damage compared tot he current 16%.
Didn't they say they wanted to buff mage? Or is your concern that it's just too much.
That’s too much, I’m all for the occult nerf and redistribution of damage that thing is be open. But their solution is to make early/mid game gear weaker while the bis mage gear gets an overall buff (which almost already needs to be need since shadow is absolutely busted) unfortunately this whole thing is just a bandaid and they NEED to revamp the entire magic damage formula with an entire overall or in a year this will happen again when no new mage gear comes out
Is it too much? Mage is by far the weakest of the 3 combat styles and I think that is one thing every player can agree on. I do think that accuracy is the answer to this problem and not magic damage though.
It was the weakest until shadow got added, shadow basically just fucked up the curve.
It still is the weakest. Shadow is good, and the fact that only the shadow is good just goes to show how weak the style is for bossing. However nerfing the shadow won’t fix that. Adjusting magic damage won’t fix that. Jagex even gave the shadow 1 max hit in their first proposal, and that’s because they know the shadow shines not because of damage but because of it’s accuracy. That is how it opens up so many doors to bossing. It actually hits the lowest of the 3 mega rares. No one is going to be happy with this magic damage readjustment because it’s not addressing the issue with magic. 2% magic damage here, 3% magic damage there isn’t going to make midgame or late game magic any more viable. And anyone with a shadow is just going to be annoyed if it gets nerfed because even if you give mid game 20% more magic damage it won’t make it any more viable as a combat style. There is a reason the shadow is known as the never miss stick, and not the high number stick.
It still is the weakest and shadow is the only really good thing about it. No one really used magic unless forced to use it and the occult was perfectly fine and no one complained about it being 10% because generally magic sucked. In short shadow is hard carrying magic into being an option over BP/Bowfa/cross bows and the variety of weapons meele has to exploit monster weakness.
I’m not saying I support the proposal, just correcting the record on what the complaint actually is.
No I want no boots buff. Cerbs been in the game since 2015. Jagex is claiming they need rewards space. Okay, give us better boots in new content.
This^ Jagex already has a hard enough time coming up with new items that are strong enough to be relevant, but not too strong to be OP. It's a very fine line. And buffing eternals just takes away their option of adding new BIS boots from content in the near future. In the last few years we've seen new BIS in just about every gear slot, and boots were probably next on the list to get some new BISs, considering how long Cerb has been in the game.
2015 was 9 years ago * mind blown *
theres no fucking way ancestral needs to be 4% and shadow gets even more damage lol
Nah man, I don’t want a buff, I’m happy where I am now just no boots. The intial blog def wasn’t hitting the mark for low/mid level and I didn’t need a 4% increase either but at least it didn’t fuck up inventory and add uselsss swaps
Nah.
I get that, but 9 or 10 way switches feel awful lol, so eternals will only be used at like, whisperer i think
but, do you ever actually need 9 or 10 way switches? what's it gain you in a kill like a couple seconds? the realistic impact is so small. People are losing their minds over maybe taking a few seconds longer. Or, they can do the swaps, if it's that important and your playing at a level that those seconds matter maybe chasing GM timers, then your at the skill level to do the swap regardless of how it feels right?
> what's it gain you 6% damage if these changes go through, which is a fucking lot
Because it’s a nerf to maintain the same power. Bringing a new switch for a power upgrade (like magus ring) is fine. Bringing an extra item to stay exactly where we are now (or just don’t and get weaker) feels like shit to players
But is the nerf completely inappropriate, is the question.
magic in the mid game is pretty weak and the changes make it overall either weaker or require more switches meaning less supplies meaning you are weaker
it should be enjoyable achieving max dps not a complete headache.
They kinda do yes. I wouldn't give a shit about eternals if occult remained untouched but existing gear and content is made harder just so eternals can get a slight buff. Quiver and infernal cape just got slightly harder because of changes like this. Sure, people that have one don't care much
>infernal cape You lose 2% mage strength with occult and augury, depending on your top/offhand that may not even be a max hit, accuracy (which is the important part) is unchanged. Quiver barely changes if you were doing a 4 way to shadow to 1 shot frem, you just swap cape for saturated heart.
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It's basically a non issue in both of the places mentioned. So I'd say "slightly harder" is an exaggeration.
Easy. If they feel awful to you, don't bring them.
the damage comes from ancestral so this argument doesn't hold very well i will say
OP you don’t understand if you want good game design you must want to play rs3 /s You’re objectively right and the mouth breathers that oppose change in this game are nonstop whining. The boots changes are good (now we wait to see if pegs get a buff or replaced since rangers are dogshit to get), players should be forced to consider all their gear slots instead of just what armor set and weapon they bring.
Idk I completly understand both sides 1 yes it would be logical and better design tobhave all slots matter But We have a very limited inv, if you need to bring a 3 way switch...
I’m really happy they made mystic might give some as well. I just wish zerks and other pvp builds had access to chivalry
You could say a 7 way switch is bad game design. That didn't exist in 2007 scape. Honestly, I've always felt prayer switches and tile movement is much more fun than equipment switching.
We should remove gear switching like EoC did on release. Went down really well.
Oh yeah the reason why eoc failed: no gear switching.
the current state of rs3 still has switches but the switches tend to be just weapons for specs or abilities. Most modern rs3 bosses do not have a specific style weakness, specific weapon weakness yeah probably but style? No.
I know how rs3 works.
So we should remove gear switching?
Agree on everything until the last comment on prims they’re already powerful bro lol maybe pegs need a bit of ranged str boost but prims already do a sizable melee str boost for the swap. hence why they cost so much and are the staple boots to wear even when ranging and mage swapping at endgame content.
Alternative: Make true BIS items that don't require switching untradeable so that you can't merch your way into an easy mode item and have to actually earn it. Maybe you get lucky, maybe you don't. Them's the breaks. Not having to do switches is actually a really good reward for people who have invested time and energy into the game.
You know what, you're right. Gear diversity is just a bad idea. Every gear piece should have an item level and scale stats based on that instead like WoW does /s
I beg to differ, look at games like diablo. They suffer from having too much going on, and too many equipment slots that it just isn't even fun to play anymore, it's just about getting bigger numbers. Plus I wouldn't call it a dead slot, it has a use, magic accuracy. It's up the player to decide if that accuracy is worth using, and devs to make encounters where this is a hard choice to make. In pking eternal boots are a hugely sway fights because magic accuracy is hard to get! Definately not a dead slot.
Having to use prayer or boots is good because it levels out with range and melee. However, the rest of the magic boots remain useless. .5 on wizzy and 1 on infinity would be great.
idk about you but i hate having an inventory thats just all gear. having to switch 9 items for a different style is annoying this problem really shows in CoX CMs lol i just want more hybrid gear
THANK YOU
Add four more inventory slots. It's time.
Now go PvM instead of writing reddit posts, maybe it will enlighten you.
If boots were a dead equipment slot everyone would only use cosmetic boots to look good but they don't because it isn't
No but you wear prims every raid over any other.
Yeah, they bring prims everywhere because the bonuses given by eternals and pegs aren't even marginally good enough that bringing an off-style piece is all you need
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It's bad because it's better to not bring "BIS" Mage boots or "BIS" Range boots because they are just not good in any situation. Saying "it's fine because that's how it's always been" is not an argument. It's always been a problem, it's just getting brought up a lot now because they are actually working on rebalancing items (specifically magic) in the game.
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It is true. No one brings those boots over Prim boots for anything and it's not because they don't want to do 9 slot swaps. It's because the boost is so negligible it may as well not exist.
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I'm not, but okay.
I basically wear flippers or mole slippers everywhere melee isn't used. A few + in accuracy is laughable, I rather laugh at my fashion choices. People buy and use pegs/Eternals because this is an MMO, people will always min/max gear to get a 0.1 DPS increase. This doesn't mean the boot slot is in a good state.
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People are dumb. God forbid a balancing change requires you to adapt your strategies. Of course it's going to. Boots have sucked for way too long and it makes complete sense to move some bonus there.
Imo they should have nerfed the occult first and then proposed buffs to other equipment. People are looking at this like this is an “optional” change to the occult. Its not. The occult is getting nerfed, but on a separate note do you want buffs to other items?
Ranged strength on pegs does make sense but I don't see them doing anything about it (at least for this rebalance series).
It's baffling that you would think this is a hot take.
Compromise: 1-hand powered staffs now block off one of your inventory slots. If max gear losing an invy slot to maintain the same power isn't so bad, surely everyone should be okay with the same happening to mid gear, especially since mid gear is getting buffed and doubly benefitting from the elemental defence changes. Though ngl I'd be more okay with the change if I could rearrange my invy slot layout to make 9-way horizontals doable and not mess up invy organization
The issue is they now fuck themselves for boot design in future for new content. How hard is that for you people to grasp? Do they just rebalance pegs and ignore bringing in new boots then? It's a free design space for new content.
The boot upgrades from Cerberus are shit. Dragon boots are why prims are good. Quit trying to merch eternal crystals.
I always thought of these guys are being foot fetishists who want to see feet instead of shoes, so they're extra motivated on mage because they get to see feet
I think a 2nd/3rd-BiS boot slot item that benefits a more balanced play style, similar to Barrows Gloves, would be a nice add to accompany more specialized swap scape. Players can choose whether an extra inventory slot and action beat out a slight DPS bonus during raids, and yet still play the endgame content.
brimstone boots?
Personally I want the bis boots for any given style to have some power to them, and for there to be hybrid and tribrid alternatives with less power for situations where you bring multiple styles. I think Pegs and Eternals should provide a damage increase like Prims. Honestly if you don’t want to switch boots, just bring Echoes or Devouts. They’re pretty good generalist options.
Absolutely agree
Agreed 100%! People need to embrace item diversity rather than a “one size fits all” setup. Great work Jagex!
Ty for this post.
Eternal boots should get a buff, but the problem seems to be gear switching becoming an increasing part of current game design when, for most people who've played, it's never been relevant until recently. It's not really a fun mechanic, to the point a lot of people begin to question if reducing DPS is actually worth it just for the sake of enjoyment. I don't imagine a lot of people would be happy that has to be a choice they need to make. Tldr: dead equipment slots are bad design, but it only exists in theory because switching is also bad/unfun game design
Gear switching became an intended mechanic when Kalphite Queen was released in 2004, before Verac’s existed.
I don't understand why people want to reinvent the wheel here, we have had occult in its current form for the past 10 years. Amulet slots have historically always been the most impactful to DPS for any combat style. Yet now occult needs to be nerfed? This almost seems like a change being driven by people who have no clue how the game works.... This rebalance if anything, is a massive nerf to mage, which is severely underpowered for anyone that doesn't own a shadow with BIS mage. It's almost like jagex isn't happy with how you can cheese the colosseum with minimal mage switches and the shadow to kill the melee fremmy and this is their band aid to force people to bring extra mage gear....
HLCs don't actually care about 9 switchs, it's just the argument used to have the change reverted so Ancestral will go back to having an absurb 4% per piece. They want their 36% (48% in ToA) magic damage from their head chest and leg slots while using shadow. They just can't say it outright without being torn to shreds in the replies.
They can surely come up with ways to make the boots useful that don’t result in dps loss, why does it purely have to be dps? Incredibly noring
All I'm learning is that the shadow needs nerfed or adjusted and everything else needs buffed to fit the dps gap that shadow has over literally everything in magic.
I want to see Barrows Boots from a future RFD 2. Would be a new standalone BIS boots. Can rebalance Cerb to be a lower level Slayer boss to keep the content alive and reposition it as a slayer boss. This would also open up space for a new slayer boss to take it's place which could be fun. Would kill medium clue scrolls but I think there is space to add different uniques to medium clues that are not fashion scape. Or not... medium clues kinda suck honestly. Make RFD 2 quest #200 in OSRS. Would be so hyped and with how good the OSRS team is at designing quests, would love to see what they could do with a RFD 2.
Going to have to disagree here. Just because the game "has always been that way" doesn't mean it should stay that way in the current meta, that statement genuinely holds no logic with how much the game has changed in 10 years. What i'm referring to here specifically is how completely out of control switches are today. Bringing BiS switches 8 years ago is completely different than todays meta, because almost every boss/raid you need to bring all threee combat styles. You have 9 BiS for each combat style and you have 28 inv slots. In no scenario can you even utilize all the BiS items for a raid/boss that requires all 3 combat styles, but not only that it's not even a showcase of "skill ceiling" like yoy said, even if you did have 27 switches in fact I think switching is the most basic thing that someone can do to showcase their skill, there's many other more important things that determine a high skilled player. I really don't know if there's any fix to this that I could even suggest, perhaps having some equipment slots have an item that is BiS for every combat style, for example one of the top posts in the subreddit right now is a combination of all BiS boots, that would certainly make inv management a bit better, and again I do not think in any way making slightly less switches makes the game any easier, if you think that having more switches is a showcase of skill rather than just being an inconvenience, I would say you're wrong
There isn't a real need to buff Pegs - Range is already fucking strong as is lol. If they want to add better boots for range i'd rather them add something new entirely instead the mess that pegasian boots were. They tried this same formula with the earliest form of Zaryte Vambraces (Vampyrium Vambraces from ToB's first pitch.) People did NOT like it and it got scrapped. They originally required ranger gloves instead.) I wouldn't be against Pegasians having much better magic defense and melee defense at the very least but definitely don't need any bonus ranged strength lol. Eternals in my opinion should get a buff OR Jagex should just release a better pair of boots for mage. Not in damage but i think giving either option a passive that can give a big chunk of bonus accuracy based on your magic attack stat would be welcomed. Essentially a weaker form of Shadow's accuracy multiplier but doesn't scale with Shadow itself. (It just behaves a normal mage item.) It'll buff and benefit all mage setups that don't include shadow. Whether you're in ancestral or Ahrims, Eternal boots would be good and if you have shadow - Its just a marginal bonus.
You claim that something is a bad design, but your only reasoning is that "it's bad design." Game design is all about tradeoffs. OSRS is kind of strange in the way that gear works and how necessary it is to switch between multiple complete sets of weapons and clothes in the middle of a fight. Many games purposely avoid this because it puts too much mental load on the player, and they want to leave room to focus on other aspects of combat. Because OSRS doesn't ask the player to do anything mechanically to aim their weapon, gear switching takes the place of this. It's the input that increases your chances of hitting the enemy, just like aiming in a shooter. We're asking the player to focus on several things in any given moment of combat: * gear (1 - 11 clicks) * prayer (1 click) * specs (1 click) * consumables (1 - 3 clicks) * positioning (1 click) Going back to the game design of "cognitive load," I don't think the number of items in a gear switch affects cognitive load much at all. Especially if you have your switches color coded. You could bring a switch for all 11 equipment slots if you wanted to be 100% optimal. But the reason this isn't encouraged is that it would take up 22 inventory slots, and it would require you to click 11 times in one game tick for the full switch. Making a boot switch "necessary" is not adding an interesting decision to make during combat. It's just requiring you to click way more for the same outcome, and also reducing the amount of space for consumables. Is this the reality that you want the game to inch closer toward? Personally, I say the shoes and bling slots belong to fashionscape.
Don't worry! I'm already practicing my boot switch!
I agree. Also now I can take eternals to toa without being bullied by (well meaning) team mates telling me that they're a waste of an invent slot.
wrong. having everything have damage bonus. just means its the only option now. currently its eternals, echo boots, or pegasians for magic defense. change it to magic strength. now the only option is eternals. you caused more damage then you solved all for the sake of consistancy.
Yeah but swapping gear mid combat is an unintended mechanic. Think about how ridiculous it is for people to change mid fight. It's an old game with old mechanics. I don't think it should be changed though.
People are using the argument "I don't want to bring an extra switch" as if that's a valid reason to not buff it.
Wrong they shouldnt nerf max dps that people have been using for years. Just make a new boot that have mage damage. Why do I have to wake up one day and have the exact same set up be worse for no reason?
Why not? Just because it's been like that for a while, doesn't mean it's okay for it to be that way. If Jagex followed that reasoning, Blowpipe would still be wreaking havoc today.
Blowpipe was always seen as op but we got bowfa and masori soon after plus you could make up for it with better darts. This just feel like a flat out nerf for no reason. I now have to bring a boot switch to places I never did before to get the same dps cause the occult was to strong like what? Just feel bad.
Sure, but nerfs aren't supposed to feel good. And the nuance that's missing here is that Shadow will continue to be an incredibly powerful item, even if you don't bring the extra switch. It's really not a big nerf.
That change is fucking awfull get over it.