The Mage's current damage potential deserves another look, especially when compared with classes that receive the same 4.5/5 damage rating in Warspear Online.
The issue isn't that Mage lacks utility. The issue is that its actual damage output does not appear to match the damage rating the game itself assigns to the class.
1. Mage and Chief are both rated 4.5/5 for damage
According to the game's class damage rating:
Mage: 4.5/5 damage
Chief: 4.5/5 damage
Barbarian: 3/5 damage
If these ratings are intended to give players a meaningful indication of offensive potential, the actual numbers should at least be reasonably comparable.
But when we look at the stats required to reach +10 equipment, the picture becomes very different.
2. The raw damage gap is already huge
Consider a typical +10 character:
Mage: ~1,080 Magic Damage
Chief: ~2,000 Physical Damage
That means the Mage starts with only:
1,080 / 2,000 = 54%
of the Chief's displayed damage.
So before considering skills, defensive stats, penetration, Ferocity, or class mechanics, the Mage is already starting from roughly 46% less raw damage.
And this is especially important because the Mage is primarily dependent on Magic Damage.
3. Ferocity makes the absolute gap even more obvious
If we apply approximately 50% Ferocity:
Mage
1,080 × 1.50 = 1,620 effective damage
Chief
2,000 × 1.50 = 3,000 effective damage
So the comparison becomes:
Mage: ~1,620
Chief: ~3,000
The Chief therefore has roughly 1.85× the damage of the Mage before we even start accounting for the target's defenses.
Another way to look at it:
That is a very substantial gap for two classes that are both officially rated 4.5/5 in damage.
4. The defensive environment makes the gap worse
This is where the situation becomes particularly problematic for Mages.
Players naturally accumulate more Magic Defense than Physical Defense because Magic Defense is commonly present on accessories/equipment.
A typical opponent can therefore have approximately 5,000 more Magic Defense than Physical Defense.
If that additional Magic Defense translates to approximately 15% additional damage reduction under the relevant combat conditions, the Mage is effectively dealing with another layer of disadvantage.
For example, using the simplified numbers above:
Mage
1,620 × 0.85 ≈ 1,377
Chief
3,000 × 1.00 = 3,000
This isn't intended to be an exact in-game damage calculation because the actual Warspear damage formula and the attacker's penetration/target's defensive stats need to be included.
The important point is the direction of the effect:
Lower starting damage + stronger opposing defensive stat = compounded disadvantage.
The Mage isn't merely starting with less damage.
It is starting with less damage while frequently attacking into an environment where opponents naturally have more Magic Defense.
5. This creates a double disadvantage
The problem can therefore be summarized as:
Mage
Lower base damage
↓
Lower Ferocity-adjusted damage
↓
Magic Defense is commonly higher on opponents
↓
Additional damage reduction
↓
Even smaller effective damage output
Meanwhile, a physical DPS class can start with substantially higher raw damage and often encounters less of this defensive disadvantage.
This means comparing only the character-sheet damage numbers actually understates the problem.
6. The Barbarian comparison makes the rating even harder to understand
The Barbarian is another interesting comparison.
Warspear rates Barbarian at only 3/5 damage, while Mage receives 4.5/5.
Yet players regularly experience Barbarians as capable of producing extremely high physical damage.
That raises an obvious question:
The issue isn't necessarily that Barbarians or Chiefs deal “too much” damage.
The more useful question is whether Mage's damage rating accurately represents its real damage output against actual geared players.
7. The important distinction: theoretical damage vs practical damage
Damage rating should ultimately be evaluated against real combat output, not simply the theoretical maximum of individual skills.
A class can have:
strong individual abilities,
good utility,
crowd control,
defensive mechanics,
and still have an underwhelming overall damage output.
Therefore, simply saying:
doesn't address the numerical comparison.
The question should instead be:
How much damage does a reasonably geared Mage actually produce over a comparable combat window against a reasonably geared opponent, compared with classes rated similarly for damage?
That is the statistic worth measuring.
What could be buffed?
The goal doesn't necessarily have to be making Mage stronger than every physical DPS class.
A reasonable objective would simply be to bring Mage's actual damage output closer to what a 4.5/5 damage rating implies.
Possible approaches could include:
Increasing Mage's Magic Damage scaling.
Improving the damage coefficients of key offensive skills.
Giving Mage better interaction with Magic Penetration.
Reducing the impact of the naturally higher Magic Defense that opponents tend to have.
Increasing sustained DPS rather than simply increasing burst.
Improving the damage contribution of Mage's core rotation.
The important thing is that the buff should address the actual damage deficit, rather than simply adding another utility or defensive mechanic.
Bottom line is that if mage is intended to be a DPS then it should act like one or have some specific role that it can fill in pvp game modes because right now its underwhelming at best
By
shootercel ·
