Blaze Wizard has gotten to much away from the initial appeal and fun which was about the Orbital Flames and Flames Gears, but from a gameplay standpoint the Orbital Flames are the most important part about this.
So let's properly rework Blaze Wizard into bring them back to their main core identity, including bring Fox Mode Orbital Flames to Orbit once again instead of firing in a straight line and not returning...
...also, more flame gears because flame gears are cool!
And we can utilize orbital flames and flame gears in such a way into this super fun and mobile gameplay so that Blaze Wizard themselves almost act like an orbital flame. Let's have some fun in this mushroom game for once!
The direction Blaze Wizard has been going in is something I absolutely despise and has turned and is turning Blaze Wizard into an unrecognizable monstrousity with a radically different playstyle that I never signed up for.
Job 1:
Orbital Flame:
New Function: Orbital Flames can be sent off in all 8-directions rather than only 4-directions to have more fun with a more circular fireball juggling.
(Applies to all versions of Orbital Flames.)
Flame Gear:
Remade Flame Bite:
Blaze Wizard shoots out flames a set distance forward and then forms a flame gear at that location that lasts for up to 60 seconds.
Only one flame gear can be in play at a time.
This can be used while in the air.
If Blaze Wizard shoots an Orbital Flame into a Flame Gear then it will be stopped and immediately return, traveling twice as far as it normally would.
Right-click this skill in the skill window to disable Orbital Flames from interacting with Flame Gears.
Job 2:
Flame Vortex:
Remake:
If at least one Flame Gear is in play, Blaze Wizard can quickly dash to the closest Flame Gear in the selected direction with a vortex of swirling flames orbiting Blaze Wizard, dealing damage to struck monsters, and then bounce off of the gear and somersault upwards in the opposite direction at a slower speed while being surrounded in a vortex of flames.
Orbital Flame, Flashfire, and Flame Vortex can be used while using Flame Vortex.
Blaze Wizard creates 1 charge of Flame Vortex every 3 seconds, up to a maximum of 2 charges held at a time.
No cooldown.
Orbital Explosion:
Remake:
Passive:
Lion Mode / Default: 4 miniature orbital flames encircle and orbit around each Orbital Flame, dealing 5% of Orbital Flame's damage every time they strike a monster. For when Lion Mode is acquired, the miniature orbital flames move faster and faster as the Orbital Flame grows in size.
Fox Mode: 4 miniature orbital flames closely follow each Orbital Flame in a line (like a tail), dealing 5% of Orbital Flame's damage.
Flashfire:
Function Revert: Skill change back to no longer having any down+cast function and instead just use to place down the teleportation pad and use again to teleport to the pad and consume it, requiring the user to place down a new one after each use.
(It was a smoother and more zen mobbing experience this way.)
New Fox Mode Function: Blaze Wizard teleports a set distance in one-of-four directions. While in the air Blaze Wizard can teleport once without requiring a platform to teleport to.
Right-click this skill in the skill window to always lock the skill to the current form regardless if you are in Default/Lion Mode or Fox Mode. (So lock in Fox Mode if you always want a normal teleport even in Lion Mode or lock in Lion Mode if you always want the teleporter pad teleport even in Fox Mode.)
Controlled Burn:
Rework and Modified:
Passive Unchanged:
New Active: Restore the HP and MP of yourself and nearby party members equal to 40% of Blaze Wizard's MP, this ignores anti-healing effects.
Cooldown: 5 seconds.
Job 3:
Flame Gear II:
Remade Flame Tempest:
Turned into a Passive that modifies Flame Gear:
Shoot out flames on both sides of you a set distance, then create Flame Gears, one at each side, for 120 seconds. Up to 2 Flame Gears can be in play at a time.
(Only going out Orbital Flames can bounce off of a Flame Gear.)
Cinder Maelstrom:
Remake:
Blaze Wizard swirls the power of the phoenix around as it soars upwards over the next 20 seconds, dealing damage to struck monsters.
If this collides with returning Orbital Flames, then it sends them back out and cause them to return once again, this process can repeat against the same Orbital Flame. Every time an Orbital Flame interacts with Cinder Maelstrom, its final damage increases by 20%.
Cooldown: 120 seconds.
Job 4:
Orbital Flame:
Lion Mode:
~ New Mechanic: Flames grow in size the farther they travel, continuing their growth even as they begin to return back to Blaze Wizard.
~ By Orbital Flame IV, the cap of how many flames can be in play at a time is set to 4 (as this is important to feel like you are juggling fireballs).
Fox Mode:
~ Flames are half the size of Lion Mode's Flames and do not grow in size as they travel.
~ Flames travel significantly faster than Lion Mode's flames allowing Blaze Wizard to get out more fireballs in the same period of time.
~ Flames are restored to once again going out, and upon reaching their max distance, will begin to return to Blaze Wizard - dealing damage to the same monster once for going out and again for coming back in.
Blazing Extinction:
Buffed: Duration increase to 60 seconds.
Change: Cooldown is 5 seconds for both Lion Mode and Fox Mode.
Change: No longer has a limited attack count against the same target, just periodically attacks monsters near it.
Lion Mode:
~ New Function Added: Shooting Orbital Flames into Blazing Extinction will cause Orbital Flames to continually orbit around Blazing Extinction and cause Blazing Extinction to move 25% faster, up to 100% faster. Orbital Flames cannot grow in size while orbiting Blazing Extinction.
A 5th Orbital Flame can be used while 4 Orbital Flames are orbiting Blazing Extinction, upon doing so will destroy the oldest Orbital Flame so only 4 Orbital Flames are in play at a time.
Fox Mode:
~ Remake: Can be used while in the air, creates a Blazing Extinction that remains in place for 60 seconds, periodically attacking monsters near it. If an Orbital Flame is going out and is near Blazing Extinction, then Blazing Extinction will slightly drift towards the Orbital Flame.
As satisfying as burst Fox Mode Blazing Extinction can be, it was more fun when it was just a massive sun you summon and then it feels like you and the power of the sun are working together to attack monsters.
With a 60 seconds duration so that the player can decide whether or not they want to constantly resummon Blazing Extinction or not, rather than have to constantly resummon it.
Towering Inferno:
Rework:
Change: Cooldown is now 60 seconds for both Fox Mode and Lion Mode.
Lion Mode:
~ Erupt a roar of flames like a powerful lion, dealing massive damage to struck monsters, and creating an inferno tower for up to 30 seconds.
Shooting outgoing Orbital Flames into the tower will cause them to orbit around it and quickly ascend upwards, once at the top the Orbital Flames will return back towards Blaze Wizard's location.
Fox Mode:
~ Erupt forth a playful flame forward like it was a fox, leaping up and down up to 3 times before doing a massive backflip back to Blaze Wizard's location creating a flame path and tower for up to 30 seconds.
Shooting outgoing Orbital Flames into this path of flames will cause them to orbit it at even faster speeds, following the path.
Fires of Creation:
Clarify Change:
Duration: Infinite
Function: Use to activate and enter Lion Mode. Every use after that swaps to Fox Mode and back to Lion Mode, no more down+cast function as a result.
Hyper Skills:
Phoenix Drive:
Adjusted:
Adjustment: Cooldown increase to 120 seconds, damage increased accordingly.
~ Follows the new rules to Lion Mode and Fox Mode.
Lion Mode: Duration increase to 30 seconds, damage is a lot lower than Fox Mode's damage.
Fox Mode: Duration decrease to 10 seconds, damage is significantly higher than Lion Mode's damage.
This is a fun skill to use, but it is not fun to use it frequently so treating it like a 120 seconds cooldown burst skill is the best thing for it.
For this, the longer duration is more satisfying and fun while mobbing to make use of all the fireballs going off at once is better.
While for Fox Mode its purpose is best served as a burst skill with a shorter duration, especially with my ideas for the new Fox Towering Inferno and new Cinder Maelstrom all working together for a very fun and satisfying burst moment (should look like a super fast roller coaster of fireballs)!
Job 5:
Inferno Sphere:
Adjusted:
Adjustment: Recharge time reduce to 6 seconds from 12 seconds.
Adjustment: Cooldown reduce to 1 second from 2.5 seconds.
Adjustment: Maximum feathers increase to 15 from 10.
Adjustment: Damage adjusted accordingly.
Revert: 1 feather = 1 second of duration, regardless of what mode you are in.
New Mechanic: Can right-click the skill in the skill window to place the skill in accelerated mode, causing the feather consumption rate and final damage to be increased by 200% (3x).
The fun to the skill is the skill always being available to use so let's embrace this side of it. Plus with the ideas up top, you can now use this skill and your burst skills at the same time.
In addition, this also supports both playstyles for those that want to always have Inferno Sphere available to use and for those that want to use as a burst skill by optionally reducing the duration and increasing the final damage.
Salamander Mischief:
Adjusted and Improved:
Improvement: Change to an infinite duration toggle with a 1 second cooldown for ON or OFF to summon the Salamander.
Adjustment: Magic attack buff is removed, Salamander no longer collects embers for increasing final damage for him, damage retuned to be higher than his base now and lower than what he would deal with max embers' final damage.
~ Salamander when active is always summoned 100% of the time.
The fun to this skill is the Salamander himself just bouncing around and doing his own thing, fighting alongside Blaze Wizard.
The annoying part to this skill is constantly needing to reactivate the little guy and an always ON toggle would completely fix this, leaving behind only the good and fun part to him.
Orbital Inferno:
Modification and Optional Improvement:
Modify: (Bigger) Miniature orbital flames now orbit around Orbital Inferno, dealing 5% of its damage to monsters they strike.
Improvement: Ability to right-click this skill in the skill window to set it to Automatic Mode.
~ In Automatic Mode, it will function like a passive skill with a cooldown, firing off when you use Orbital Flame when the skill is ready to use instead of using the skill directly with its own key bind. (This allows players to have an easier time with Blaze Wizard and use up one less key bind if they choose to do so.)
~ In Manual Mode, it will function exactly like how it does now.
Modify:
Lion Mode: Orbital Inferno grows in size as it travels.
Fox Mode: (Moves at the same speed as Lion Mode) Orbital Inferno deals 100% increased Final Damage, but can only strike a monster once per cast instead of once outgoing and once incoming.
Giving the option to place this skill into a passive mode will help make Blaze Wizard easier to play and use less buttons constantly.
The other part, by making a Lion Mode and Fox Mode version to Orbital Inferno, can make it function better for mobbing and bossing. By only needing to hit a monster once with Fox Mode makes it easier to apply all of the damage to a boss and by making it grow in Lion Mode is not only fun to see how big of a fireball you can grow, but also helps clear out monsters with its bigger size (and goes better with throw out Orbital Inferno and teleport back to your teleportation pad gameplay).
Job 6:
HEXA Orbital Flame:
Additional Skill Effect Removed: Where every 15 seconds, summon a flame wall.
New Additional Skill Effect: No cooldown. Every 6th cast of Orbital Flame or Orbital Inferno will be an Orbital Blue Flame or Orbital Blue Inferno, causing it to deal 60% increased Final Damage (+2% Final Damage per skill rank in the mastery node) and travel twice as far for its outgoing and incoming range.
Orbital Blue Flame is applied as a bonus Orbital Flame and does not count towards the max 4 Orbital Flame limit.
This effect is a lot more fitting for Blaze Wizard as a blue flame will be a nice contrast to break up all the red and orange fire of Blaze Wizard's skills, but also is an evolution of adding 1 more fireball every job advancement rather than a random flame wall that spawns.
In addition, this adds a skillful mastery element to Blaze Wizard for the hardcore Blaze Wizards can try to get good at of trying to always make their Orbital Inferno blue as this would deal the most damage, and the icons for Orbital Flame and Orbital Inferno will change to a blue colour as well to note it is available on the next cast.
To clarify, this is every cast of Orbital Flame and Orbital Inferno adds to the counter, so when you consume the 6th cast of either Orbital Flame or Orbital Inferno will consume the opportunity of summoning either a Orbital Blue Flame or Orbital Blue Inferno.
