There were no mage posts yet so I figured I would make one.

My first character was a ranger, but by level 11 I had found the bow to be somewhat useless due to the short range. I could only get off one shot before I had to switch back to melee. I'm sure it gets better but that was enough to make me reroll something else.

So I then made a Herald of Xolti (which i just call the Herald of X). This thing is rocking hard!

Basically the HoX is a battle mage. It uses magic, but has no range spells what so ever.

Limited to cloth armor, but has stronge buffs which add to survivability. Suvivability still being the weakness of this class.

The spell "hellfire breath" is the bread and butter. It is also the first spell you get, and the one you'll probubly use the most. It's a short range AOE spell that does great dmg at low costs. Talents make the cast time almost instant.

From the very biggening I felt very strong in melee but the spells just make this class amazing. I have a charge that also creates a AoE DoT. Demon form which increase health and dmg for a short peroid of time, and the most amazing nukes. The HoX is very good for farming groups of mobs. The fire spells literally spread from one mob to another, and with all the DoTs and blast of fire, nothing stands longer than 10 secs.

Once again though, the weakness is in the survivability. It's not easy to be a melee class that wears cloth. HoX also has a low health pool. Fights end in 10secs no matter what... either you blast everything around you to a crisp, or you die.

Demon form uses no stamina, so among other uses, it's great for running. If done correctly, you can sprint around for an entire fight, running in for blasts of fire, and running out before your target has time to swing. (PVP only) The charge and root help with this tactic.

So as of right now, i'm level 45. Itemization could be better at this level, seems like only heavy armor drops and I'm still wearing pants form Tortage.

That's all for now, I hope this information can be of use to someone. Other HoX's please feel free to add your findings.

nice post please keep us updated. are you on bloodspire?

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Wow, a mage class with no ranged spells. Sounds pretty cool. Is survivablity a problem in pvp yet? Can you take a few hits?

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survivbablitiy is a problem.. if someone gets the jump on me, i'll usually have to run away and regen before having a chance at winning.

HoX has a 5min buff, which is annoying to recast all the time, but it practically doubles my deffences. It absorbs about 60 points of dmg from every hit. If i forget to keep it up though, im doomed. Really hoping the devs increase the duration soon.

Demonologist is the most one-dimensional class I've yet seen.

It would appear that no matter what spec you go (fire or electricity) you still basically just spam one button over and over. In my case I am speccing into fire currently so I just spam my 1 key for Fires of Gehenna and watch things die. Personally I have specced all my points as much as possible into pure damage output because it appears that is all I am suited for, only in a very dull way.

Root is actually pretty good if you turn off pet assist when you cast it. It isn't guaranteed to break on damage, and I've gotten a couple nukes off before it broke. Otherwise it has a max time of 14 seconds at my current rank and when I'm attacking a group of mobs I find it immensely useful as it does tend to last a while. I can almost always kill a mob on me before the root breaks on the other mob.

In pvp I find root to be a key necessity. The weak point that has been noted about being one-dimensional really, really, REALLY shines through in pvp because a melee character will RAPE you if you can't move effectively. Root being on a 20+ second cooldown will kill you if you do not use it correctly. I fought a 28 and a 21 last night at the same time, both melees who could do that gay knockdown effect, and I lived with about 75 health after killing them. This was at level 37.

Why? Because I have no other means of escape except root which is on cooldown. And against a melee that can do knockback you need to be saving the root until after they blow the stun effect on you, otherwise you're liable to get interrupted while trying to root. The only other way to build distance is to get the other class to blow stamina so that I can sprint away a little bit here and there so they can't catch up right away.

If it's a ranger then good fucking game. Can't stop that shit. They snare from a distance and all I can do is literally spam Fires of Gehenna and hope I can kill them before they kill me because it becomes impossible to kite. Demonologists have NO way of breaking snares of any sort, no way of breaking roots, and the ONLY spell we have to create distance from hand-to-hand classes is on a 24 second cooldown.

AOE damage is good because you can rotate fire and electrical aoe's (they are on separate cooldowns) and if you do that you can pretty much spam AOE. I do this a lot against groups of "Minion" mobs, as well as when I am doing green or grey quests that are kill quests I will just round up mobs and AOE spam them which is highly efficient.

I have heard Necromancers have even worse survivability than Demonologists, though. Casters in general seem incredibly one-dimensional, but they don't succeed at what they are supposed to do even so. I got 4 shotted in a matter of seconds by a ranger yesterday 5 levels below me. My main damage nuke is on a 2 second cast timer and does a relatively similar amount of damage as melee DPS classes do to me, only at a slightly slower rate and also the melee DPS'ers have a lot more health than I do. I sit at 930 or so health at lvl 37. That may partly be due to the fact that I have not bought any gear from vendors or anything, but I don't know. I'm still too new to the game to know for sure.

I'm not going to re-roll because I still love casters, but I'm almost halfway through leveling to the level cap and I have used the same spells from lvl 1 until now. I don't see it changing any time soon. There are some feat spells for damage, but not much utility. Utility spells are what make casters great. You can't have a caster DPS class that does just one thing. The balance will never be there if you take that route, and that's exactly what I'm seeing. The damage isn't so ridiculous that you 1 or 2 shot people, but you are paper-thin and die almost instantly when someone gets on you with almost no way of getting away from them.

In a group situation things may change. The times we were pvping as a group, people would target me first because everyone knows my class has 0 survivability, and I just ran around kiting and not even attempting to cast anything (that's the only way you can really truly kite with the class), while everyone I was grouped with killed people, lol. Healers just kept me up while the other dps burned down whoever was attacking me. So because I rolled a nigger I can run really fast I guess and maybe that will be my purpose in the game.

I'm also still looking to see what synergies can be created between classes at level 80. It may turn out that there are some good ways to keep dps casters alive and able to keep nuking when combined with abilities of other classes, who knows.

But right now I see horrendous balance issues in even the most basic of pvp situations against any sort of melee class. Then again, another trend I have seen is that whoever gets the first hit seems to almost always win. By the time you get your bearings to retaliate, it's too late. You're too far behind on health to do enough damage before you die. I've killed people that would normally wreck me simply because I nuked them from behind at 30 yard range and they were half health before they got 1 hit on me. The same has happened to me. I have died to people far lower level who just so happen to get me from behind.

Also note that the worst part about the class balance issue is definitely rooted in the base classes, not the archetypes. It's a fundamental problem of mage vs. warrior, not so much ranger vs. demonologist. This to me is a bigger issue because it means that the base concepts behind your character types are way off balance, rather than a few specialized lines of that character type.

I think most classes have problems with rangers. Although I hear they're not as great end game.

I'm only 20 atm but I have to say casters are pretty easy for me to take. If i can get a charge off and knock down right after, I'm already half-way though my worst combo before their up. After that I spam a few hacks and run in circles until I get the last blow in.

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at first i made a conq on doomsayer to lvl 5, then couldnt play for a few days and decided to roll a hox on bloodspire, and man am i lovin it right now

im only lvl 22 but my aoe dmg is amazing and i can take on 3or 4 mobs around lvl 20 really easy with a combo and 2 hellfire breaths

Quik and i were questing in the underhalls today and we were just tearing every lvl 15-20 to pieces

i cant wait to see how it is end game, the only thing that im worried about is the squishyness

I'm not as high lvl as you are, but it seems to me.. after the 20 barrier the one-button-smashing was over. Now with an instant shock and a really good (but long) lightning nuke, I end up doing alot of different spells. Usaully start off with my Shockstrike, followed right behind with my shock. Root, and get some distance. At this point, i'm fire spec, so I hit him with hellfire and a fire of gehenna. By this time my instant shock should be back, and you can finish him off with another hellfire. Works around most of the cooldowns.. if your still fighting after this, your root should be up again

I agree, Root is the best thing we have going for us. I'm just afriend they will have some crazy immunity to hit in the future or a clickable get out-of-root ability. This would be the end of us, cause we do fall way too fast

pet assist? Bahhh I hate my pet


Knockback is getting pretty stupid. I sure hope our higher lvl gear gets a large percentage vs. resisting knockbacks.... just sucks if someone can charge you den knock you down.. by the time ur up, you can't even get ur 2 second cast root off before ur dead.

From everything I read before this game launched, everyone said the pvp was going to be largely group oriented. The thing is ur talking mostly about 1v1 as far as imbalances go. As for being the first to be killed.... that is why hide is soo amazing for us.

Orinten (who is HoX) and I grouped up and had the time of our lives. A lot of the inbalances varried with the different groups we faught. All in all tho, it seems like the stupid groups who couldn't work together died the most. Class wasn't the most important factor

in the end tho, great post, you really hit on alot of key issues with the demonologist which I couldn't have said better myself... too bad you posted it in the herald of xotli forums tho lol

Well, i have a lvl 80 hox now.

The class seems as strong as ever. With my spec, i have 2 different demon forms. The regular is on a 2min cooldown, and the Avatar (which requires feats) on a 5 min cooldown.

The Avatar form gives around +1000 health, and +500 or so fire damage. I can easily take on 8+ mobs my level, with preparation and cc. Normal mobs will usually be dead withen 3-4 seconds after the charge.

Being in demon form no longer gives unlimited stamina, which is sad becuase it was very useful. However, shapeshifting causes a 5 sec aoe stun, which is amazing. I also like the revamped instant cast root, which no longer breaks on damage and causes a short dot. Both are perfect CC which allow me to land 4 step combos uninterrupted.

Priests can still own my face, but everything else is relatively easy 1v1.

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