Magic Catalysts: Extra Specialization

[Wyqkrn]

Have you ever looked at enchanted weapons and thought, “Hey, I want to do that to my magic!”
…No? Well anyways, I introduce the ultimate mage’s weapon: Catalysts
While there’s stuff like wands on the trello it seems more like leftovers from WoM days so I’d like to expand on it a little more.
Catalysts (books, orbs, wands, etc) would be equippable as a weapon and modify your magic’s stats when equipped. They would not have a level requirement but instead a magic stat requirement, and modify your magic stats as follows:
Damage(+Strong), Magic Speed(+Swift), Casting Speed(+Nimble), Magic Size(+Bursting), Energy Recharge(+Amplified), Energy Efficiency(+Sturdy)
Energy Recharge would effect the charge rate of all energy gain, including from active and passive charging. Efficiency would increase energy consumption of all spells including Aura.
You might be looking at this and going “oh god mage would just get more overpowered” but they would just have to be balanced carefully to prevent that, of course
Rare+ catalysts could also have unique “effects” such as “+25% DMG for 2s after landing a blast attack” but reduced magic speed, for example

Here is a few example catalysts
“Large Tome” Magic Req: 80
1.05 DMG, 0.95 MSPD, 0.85 CSPD, 1.1 SIZ, 1.05 ERG, 0.9 EFF
This would come out to a total of -0.1 compared to a 1.0 Catalyst, making your magic slightly slower and more costly to use in exchange for heavier hitting and large magic.
“High Focus” Magic Req: 200
0.85 DMG, 1.2 MSPD, 1.1 CSPD, 0.9 SIZ, 0.65 ERG, 1.15 EFF
Unique Effect: +40% Energy Refund upon landing an attack
Resulting in -0.15 total stats, your magic would become much less damaging but considerably faster. Charging would be less effective but energy cost would be lower as well, significantly rewarding spell accuracy
“Immense Core” Magic Req: 350
1.35 DMG, 0.95 MSPD, 0.6 CSPD, 1.0 SIZ, 0.8 ERG, 0.6 EFF
Unique Effect: +10% DMG when under 25% Energy
For a total of -0.7, a significant DMG increase is granted with massive debuffs to casting speed and energy, requiring skilled usage of energy and careful casting of spells to prevent deadly counterattacks

I could keep going, as there are practically infinite stat combinations you could create with just as many unique effects for extra spice. The big part of this is that it could allow people who chose a magic just for its looks tune their styles for better attunement for their playstyles, like an Earth user reducing their damage and size for more speed, or a Light user reducing their speed for more damage.

[Namaii]

if they’d be classified as weapons, shouldn’t they have a basic (m1) attack? not only would this incentivize using them more, but it would fill in an area where i feel full-mage builds lack flow. something like a short-range bolt, maybe? a quick sweep of magic?
your idea could also open up to unique magic ‘weapons’ giving special spells or modifications of spells, to bring more specialization to their use, outside of just stat changes.

[Wyqkrn]

That’s a great idea - I didn’t even think of modifications to spell types
M1s for mages would probably have to be pretty weak to compensate for range and zoning capabilities

[Namaii]

yea i figured since technique scrolls are a thing, it wouldn’t be too far out of the question.
on m1s—definitely weak, but not useless. something more close-ranged, if you’re deep enough into a tussle, but still more of a selling point than equipping a weapon with 0 invested to get more value, or outright waiting on a cooldown. when you have a moment of generally nothing left to do or keep pressure or combos going, that’s what im talking about filling.

[Waping]

sounds like what arcanium weapons are supposed to be but its still cool so whatever

guess it could be the mage version of arcanium weapons, if those were locked to conjurers

[Tr0xic]

I think these are a good idea. However, if these are just stat changes to your magic, then I feel like they will be uninteresting and “weirdly balanced” I guess you could say. The early catalysts will be very boring and hardly do anything. The late game ones I feel will be unbalanced in certain situations. The immense core is theoretically balanced, but using it on metal for example would lead to insane dmg on a single hit which is not balanced at all. I think the catalysts should focus more on unique effects and maybe even unique spells, similar to how each weapon has its own abilities. Arcanium weapons already work as stat changers, we don’t need a reskinned version of it. But despite my criticisms, the idea is really cool and would work well in the game, and it would bring diversity to mage, paladin, and warlock.

[Kitty_Cushion]

I don’t like this because it would, in effect, make the stats of any given magic far less important, as you could theoretically change them to whatever you want using these.
Imagine using a large power multiplier on poison magic

[pristine]

It’s a nice suggestion, but this is pretty much already what Arcanium Weapons are going to do.

[Wyqkrn]

I would agree with you, but those appear to be optimized for conjurers, whereas “Catalysts” would be more for pure-mages
They could easily coexist, however

[pristine]

Would be fairly redundant if both were in the game, simply due to the pure conceptual overlap. You can bind spells to Arcanium Weapons as a Mage or Conjurer, and spells cast from these weapons take on additional stat bonuses or penalties depending on the type of weapon they are bound to. That’s pretty much exactly what this post is suggesting, aside from the passive effects of each Catalyst listed, which I think would be more of a liability to balance than anything.