Azarael wrote:Increasing the armor class is a defensive buff, and given these classes' lackluster offense, I'd prefer it if we started with more offensive-related propositions.
One thing to ask would be which offensive direction to go in - increasing their sustained DPS, giving them burst, a combination of the two (possibly based on mastery path), or something else entirely?
Look, increasing their sustained dps is complicated.
First, we have engi with Unashakable focus while Magus doesnt have it, that means that every Engi dot has to be balanced around the posiblity of doing 100% damage more for 7 seconds, while magus one doesnt. However if we are talking around single target cast times both have focused mind (this has troubled me for years, just why?) so if we are going to buff their dots across the board, unshakable focus needs to be in both or in none of them.
So the trees are Single target, Aoe pressure and close ranged damage/support, this can be argued to an extent but i think more or less it defines each of them.
Single target wise, Engi gets gutted by armor, Magus gets gutted by cast times and no autoattack, the magus issue is to an extent present on Bw/Sorc, their single target path per se, are real bad, like holy **** this doesnt kill anything but idiots bad but they are also unbuffable because doing so directly buffs their dot (which in their case is not pressure, is burst) spec, which is already great.
So a band aid would be giving magus a ranged autoattack (which also gives them a ranged snare thanks to Doks) and reduced cast times while engi needs to ingore armor somehow and also would love less cast time, however this is nothing more than a band aid.
The aoe pressure tree has the already mentioned issues of being well, pressure, whhich can be easily outhealed and frankly, i dont think buffing pressure is a good idea, thhere is nothing fun to die vs sustained damage you cant do **** about just like the opposite is true.
Their close range tree would imo be a good place to put defenses in, it actually does good damage iirc, problem is you last as much as a cheap purple medallion on the order Auction house if you ever decide to go to that range.
TL:DR Their single target path needs burst, their aoe pressure path its a mess than cannot be fixed and defenses on theh close range path wouldnt be a bad idea to try.