Is war mage dead!?!?

[AradSenki]

puts on historical glasses
There are several reasons for the decline of War Mages in NA.

1. Upon release in Korea, War Mage had a bug with Energy Blast that caused it to deal two board damage ticks rather than one, making it more worthwhile than Laser Ray. This was fixed shortly after, and NA got the fixed version, dashing the dreams of some players who kept up with future content.
2. Some Pyromancer players retained Hellfire but underestimated its impact on DPS, mistakenly causing Pyromancers to rise in popularity, even though Pyromancers and War Mages perform similarly.
3. Ice Witches became an invaluable addition to raid parties, meaning they typically took the sorceress slot.
4. Every War Mage player has encountered the Laser Ray bug that causes it to not hit. Till this day, the developers have not been able to reproduce this bug in their test server, meaning that it won't ever be fixed. This becomes a problem for many players with slow computers and bad ping.
5. As a conversion class, War Mage has had to compete with other strong conversion classes. Currently, 17 of the 37 classes in NA are conversion classes, which is about 46%, or almost half. That's a hefty amount of competition. For nest parties, to maximize debuff potential, it's hard to justify playing a War Mage.
6. The release of Black Mara caused many players to switch over to her, including some War Mage mains (DD in NA, Seraphimu in SEA), so role models were lost.
7. War Mage's Class Mastery III looks gorgeous (Shock Wave), but unfortunately decreases her potential.

However, War Mage isn't weak at all. While she deserves a nice buff, either in board damage or revamping her Awakening, she can perform as well as her sisters with the right pilot. Yes, she's easy to learn, but you still have to know the nest inside and out to maximize her potential.

This guys is smart and knows his fucking game!^^^^^

[Peanut]

#4 it is technically impossible to reproduce in test servers because no lag. The game has something like a 2-step verification when you cast a spell. one on the player side and one on the server side. WM laser Ray bug occurs when something happens between the 1st and 2nd step.

eg player cast Laser Ray > you get hit/ slip on banana. the player side will be laser Ray than SA the hit/banana whereas the server receives hit/bananna(knocked back) first than player attempt cast (greyed out skill). monsters are probably generated on the server side so those registrar faster than casting.

It doesn't have to be a hit, can also be something like frame loss... etc

Server test cannot reproduce them because in essence no delay between server and player.

[Louisa ♥]

Ohh I see, thank you so much for all the info c: ^^

[Fabulous]

puts on historical glasses
There are several reasons for the decline of War Mages in NA.

1. Upon release in Korea, War Mage had a bug with Energy Blast that caused it to deal two board damage ticks rather than one, making it more worthwhile than Laser Ray. This was fixed shortly after, and NA got the fixed version, dashing the dreams of some players who kept up with future content.
2. Some Pyromancer players retained Hellfire but underestimated its impact on DPS, mistakenly causing Pyromancers to rise in popularity, even though Pyromancers and War Mages perform similarly.
3. Ice Witches became an invaluable addition to raid parties, meaning they typically took the sorceress slot.
4. Every War Mage player has encountered the Laser Ray bug that causes it to not hit. Till this day, the developers have not been able to reproduce this bug in their test server, meaning that it won't ever be fixed. This becomes a problem for many players with slow computers and bad ping.
5. As a conversion class, War Mage has had to compete with other strong conversion classes. Currently, 17 of the 37 classes in NA are conversion classes, which is about 46%, or almost half. That's a hefty amount of competition. For nest parties, to maximize debuff potential, it's hard to justify playing a War Mage.
6. The release of Black Mara caused many players to switch over to her, including some War Mage mains (DD in NA, Seraphimu in SEA), so role models were lost.
7. War Mage's Class Mastery III looks gorgeous (Shock Wave), but unfortunately decreases her potential.

However, War Mage isn't weak at all. While she deserves a nice buff, either in board damage or revamping her Awakening, she can perform as well as her sisters with the right pilot. Yes, she's easy to learn, but you still have to know the nest inside and out to maximize her potential.

[Couplord]

Black Mara is the top class and band wagoned

Elestra ( iw ) is arguably one of the best supporting types in the game

Sally ( pyro ) was the top DPS sorc for a while until Mara came out.

Most Majesties ( CM ) are pvp players on NA I believe, I could be wrong ! But I think they are just as rare as Smashers

[Louisa ♥]

Ohh i see, thank you for the replies c: Was just a bit confused since there were no actual war mages but plenty of BM, IW, Pyro and CM.. thank you for the info !!

[KaenSaiha]

Hey there ! I'm the strongest pyro NA and the strongest Warmage NA actually does more dmg then me The class is a mega scaler, so the stronger u are the more rewarding it is, especially in the late games~~

[Couplord]

i legit just realised, I haven't seen a War Mage in like forever.. Is their damage really that bad or is it just a boring class that no one wants to play q _q

Don't worry, Smasher ( War Mage ) has really good damage and I believe it's A+ or low S tier.
The thing is, NA has quite a small player base, and the class itself is pretty spammy so some may not like that.

[Zeref]

Our playerbase isn't high to begin with, in addition to the fact that people want to play mara if they were to make a sorc

shouldn't stop you from playing one though if you find the playstyle fun ~

[Louisa ♥]

i legit just realised, I haven't seen a War Mage in like forever.. Is their damage really that bad or is it just a boring class that no one wants to play q _q