Neither do the first damage numbers in any picture. Those were an uncharged, spammable tap. Meaning at level 2 you can do 181 damage with a single tap. Level 6, 229.
They are not spamable. They require you to pay lots of mana.Take fireball for example. It costs 20 energy uncharged. With no EP upgrades, you can cast 5 fireballs. And uncharged it wont probably do more damage then my normal hit.
This is before factoring the talents Intelligence, Manaburn, Criticals, DoT or anything else.
Well, melee combat also has those kind of stats:
- Crit: Same as magic, but it effects not just combat skills, but also normal attacks, giving you more options to fight
- Strength: Equivalent to intelligence (10% ATK increase)
- Insult to Infury: 30% ATK increase if the enemy has any status effect. Combine that with Static Touch, Chilling Touch, Burning Weapon and Shadow Clone (or anything else that may give the enemy a status effect) and you have an guarenteed 30% damage buff all the time. Without any other requirements like under 50% EP or low health
- Last breath: Another 30% ATK buff if you manage to keep your health under 20%
- Arcane Weapon: Cast any spell (like static touch) and gain 15% ATK boost for next normal attack. If you have a silver or gold charge, you can get an increase of 30-45% with that. Works perfect with static touch, even without having any MATK
- Backhander: Heck, another 30% ATK increase when chaining attacks
- Fencer: More attackspeed is never bad
On the other side, many magic based talents only decrease EP useage. Clearly shows that melee benefits from talents much more in my opinion. Even a magic talent like arcane weapon is more beneficial for melee users.
You don't need defense or attack speed as a mage because ideally you're not getting near enemies to attack them, or be attacked by them.
Well, I played lots of arena and there are also bosses or small rooms filled with enemies. In theory, magic is great, but there are enough situations where it has to many disadvantages.
Magic provides immensely more safety than melee does, people just don't tend to value safety that much because death has no consequence and health orbs are generous.
I dont agree with this. Especially with one-hand sword I can get mobility skills (Piercing Dash). Even when cornered, I can easily get out of every situations. Its also useful in bossfights or in crowded rooms. I think this provides more survivability then any magic spell (and also does great damage in a huge AOE, even at lvl 1).
Two level 6 taps are enough to kill a boar at a distance. Three kill a Halloweed. Five kill a Pecko, which is exactly 100% off your Energy. 15-20 kill Gundam, which is about 3-4 cycles. Again, assuming no talents, crits or anything else. Intelligence would add 20 damage per fireball at level 6, Manaburn 60.
A silver charged blade furry was enough for me to kill a boar. Or 3 non-charged piercing dashs. And even if I take a hit, it wont be much damage thanks to high defense/health.
There are melee builds that could out-DPS this, but... why would you want magic to be on par with them in every way? If magic does the exact same DPS as melee, there's no reason to melee - melee means getting near enemies, shielding them, getting hit. Magic is the safer option.
Well, I think both types should be on par in many things, or magic should have real advantages over melee and melee over magic in some aspects. But right now, I see the advantage in nearly every aspect for melee
- Damage: Thanks to the normal attacks + high damage from combat skills, you are at least on paar with magic when it comes to damage. Not to mention all those talents.
- Survivability: Most ATK equipment also provides Defense and/or Health. So you can deal lots of damage, but still can tank quite a bit
- Mobility: Non existant in the magic trees, while at least one-hand offers piercing dash and dodging strike
- Range/AoE: Combat Skills have alot of range. Even bigger then most of magic spells. Piercing dash hits everything in a huge line, Spirit Slash everything in an enormous AoE, Titans Throw also everything in a line, including an AoE at impact point, Whirlslash also in an AoE around you (and being able to move on higher charge)
- Status Effects: Thanks to Burning Weapon, Chilling Touch, Static Touch and Shadow Clone, status effects are available for melee users. I only see a slight advantage for magic users here, because the probability is usually much higher to slow/freeze/stun/burn an enemy.