I haven't gotten there on Pro, so I wouldn't know. However if you're at the endgame, you better have endgame gear with some good enchants-or that's on you.
As someone who IS at end game I can guarantee you that everything you said before this sentence makes it apparent that you are nowhere near end game. Everything you said in rebuttal is some form of wrong or at the very least misguided.
1 Fireball deals 10-20k damage against endgame clearing all rooms in normal content
3 Your party always makes opportunities for you to charge since its end game and if you're challenging the content without comms or understanding you're going to fail regardless of party composition
4 try archery and then read your statement again, you have no clue how it works, so from someone with 1.5k levels in it i can tell you this line is complete bullshit
5 mana shield scales with mana, and the only skills that grant mana are magic skills. Sure anyone can get it, but explain how you can get 700+ mana without ranking magic skills and i'll retract the statement. Until then it stands
6 thunder is the main tool for clusters, ice spear works for lines of monsters, fusion ice lightning can stun area of effect temporarily for party members, ice bolt spam can hold 4 monsters with cc+3 wand, etc etc. If you cant juggle aggro it means you're not playing the class correctly.
7 Ignoring AR since that skill deals absolutely no damage, 3 mags means on average 1 will miss on average which nets you around 2.5k damage, then during the duration you can maybe get off 4 more so lets say you hit 6/7. You have a chance of dying 1 time during that and deal around 6-9k total damage. During that time the mage has hit 10 separate hail storms 5 charge with 0% miss chance dealing average of 15k damage with no chance of death since knock back and stun time allow the skill to waste any monster without blue ping. These are actual numbers from end game with similar levels of investment weighted cost-wise if anything to the archer.
8 the only "difficult" thing in this game is the grind. Weaving, refining, tailoring, handicraft. if you don't have these ranked up your damage will be SEVERELY hindered on archery (80-90%). Mages can easily rank all the music skills and a few magic skills for a free 500 int and from there its a matter of getting an extra 40-50% (or 30-50% to compare to the archery number) of your damage more damage from the harder books to acquire and smithing.
9 All I'm saying is that AR is complete trash so don't even compare it to anything except maybe wind blast. ice bolt cc with 200 int deals more damage, charges faster, and doesn't miss. The only damaging skills archery has outside of uladh normal mode dungeons is crash shot and magnum shot.
If you want to continue this conversation post from your main account so I can tell what portion of the game you're in, otherwise this conversation is over. If you're trying to extend the worst part of magic to the whole and compare it to the most powerful parts of every other class since you haven't experienced endgame yet then there's no point in explaining something you'll experience first hand in a few months.
I said I wasn't endgame on Pro, I AM however endgame on live-aside from the new chain skill since I haven't bothered to do much else. Have been playing since just after it came out of beta as well. So, I do know what I'm talking about. Also am pure archer on my pro account, so thanks for telling me to try out something I already invested most of my AP into
.
1: So fireball clears most normal content? So does CS.
3: Your party isn't always going to be able to cover your ass at all times, some situations make that impossible.
4:My small post above this
5:Mages have less HP than ranged or melee counterparts, their mana and MS compensate for that. Also, it costs MP just to support having MS on, and mana takes a lot more effort to regenerate. You have to make MP pots or get them from mobs, unlike going to literally any NPC shop and spam buying 30's. When you account for a mages lower average HP to that of a melee or archer with their MS, it comes out to about the same.
6:Thunder is a main tool for clusters-and is also the weakest damage dealer compared to IS and FB. Thunder is also notorious for sending mobs in any direction, so those mobs that were all able to be hit probably won't be able to get hit with a single charge anymore. Also, you'll once you run out of IL fusions and have to charge again, you're back to 1 mob, and like I said, your party won't always be able to cover you. Also, AR does the same as ice bolt, that's what the skill is based off of.
7&8:AR deals no damage? I beg to differ. Also, "on average" if a mob is running at you, it takes 5 shots to miss, not 3- because basic math. You also completely glossed over the long load time of hailstorm, and unless you're at the very edge of your bows range, no mage is going to get off 10 full hailstorm charges. Take it from someone that actually mained magic on live with a speed based setup. As for the difficulty, yes, it takes longer to rank up life skills. But guess what, can ice mastery make armor? Can firebolt make clothes? Can IS make ghost swords? No. The reason for life skills being "harder" to rank is because they have other purposes than giving pure damage. So it's going to be a longer rank to time ratio. Life skills give dex sure, but they also allow you to do literally everything else. Dan 3 dustin armour doesn't come out of thin air.
9:See post 7/8 first sentence.
Also to add, magic takes much more AP to get to the same level that would be considered end game, MUCH more. The only AP sinks archery has is AR and CS. Life skills are cheap as can be to rank. You also apparently skimmed over where I said magic and archery deliver damage in two different ways. Does magic do more damage PER SHOT? Yes. But archery compensates by being much faster on load times. Also if you played during the old days, you would also know that until puppetry came out, archery was the meta. Why? It did the most damage in the same amount of time compared to any other skillset.