Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Feedback relating to the Classes, Spells and General Mechanics of Arelith.


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perseid
Posts: 493
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 7:01 am

Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Post by perseid »

This is something that I've seen come up on discord once in awhile but less so on the forums. I'm doing it as a feedback thread and not a suggestion thread because even though I have opinions I thought it would be more interesting to get the community's opinions as well since mine are often wrong. From a labor perspective, I don't know how much extra work maintaining/balancing a class like Weavemaster is if it's left mostly alone so I'll let a staff member chime in on that front if they feel it's worth discussing.

From a player perspective, I'm of the belief that Weavemaster could probably be reintroduced into the current environment and be okay but not great. Blastlocks are cracked compared to the Demon/Devil/Fey days, infinicasting Invokers are far more versatile I'd argue than the Trueflames of old that they replaced for the most part, and even many of the vancians now have refund mechanics that mix up their pve resource management in ways that just didn't exist back in the time of Weavemasters (and that's before touching on other resource augments like Spellbound Wands). On top of this, the minion nerfs have left minions produced via spells (as opposed to epic feats) in... Well they're just not the same concern they were back when undead spam was able to chew through the server with ease (I'm aware some are still fine but the ac alone is a shadow of what it once was). I think if anything they'd be sort of middle of the pack or even slightly lackluster on most fronts besides maybe providing party buffs and so in my opinion they wouldn't be overly disruptive to reintroduce as an option in the way that Kensai managed to be even after it was locked.

-XXX-
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Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:49 am

Re: Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Post by -XXX- »

I've been playing a weave master for a while now and what can I say... it's really fun, despite being weak.
It's basically a sorcerer that gets to infinicast lvl 1-3 spells at a massive tradeoff - that's pretty much it.

Higher level spells can still be infinicast, but doing so shuts down the character's ability to cast all spells entirely for a period of time (ranging from 7 to 45 seconds depending on the spell level used) - this is very punishing especially in PvP, seeing how a sorcerer doesn't have much to fall back on other than consumables or a gonne.
^ this is also concerns spellbound wands and sequencers that are subject to spellcasting cooldowns and are therefore virtually useless for weave masters.

The class was mainly discontinued because of its ability to cast mass haste every 15 seconds that caused some PvE balance concerns at the time (which would seem kinda silly today) & IMO it could be easily reintroduced to the module with 0 issues.

Since then we've seen infinicasting fully embraced through invokers and warlocks, including low level spells that can be really strong in PvE when spammed - stuff like darkness, AoE damage spells like gedlee, frost nova or sound lance, or AoE CC like stinking cloud, cloud of bewielderment, grease... so this clearly isn't a balance problem.

My biggest pipe dream is to see all of this overhauled someday and united back where it all started - Sorcerer

  • Sorcerer is one of the most unpopular classes right now and invoker apparently struggles as well - viewtopic.php?p=352958#p352958
  • Focus is clearly a better way to manage infinicasting than hard cooldowns
  • IDK why there needs to be an exclusive class for every gimmick - choosing flavor through paths/pacts as implemented with cleric/warlock seems to be better
  • we should have plenty of evidence that infinicasting as a concept is more of a QoL issue than a balance concern by now (that can be easily addressed on spell by spell basis if needed)
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Dreams
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Re: Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Post by Dreams »

I think Weavemasters should be treated like True Flames or Hexblades and automatically adjusted into the new class meant to represent their playstyle m: Invoker.

RP only starts at 30 if you're a coward.

Guide to RP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZK2325DLsE

AstralUniverse
Posts: 3107
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2019 2:54 pm

Re: Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Post by AstralUniverse »

Dreams wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 9:39 am

I think Weavemasters should be treated like True Flames or Hexblades and automatically adjusted into the new class meant to represent their playstyle m: Invoker.

I can imagine XXX's face reading this.

Anyway,
I kinda dont really care, but I would like to just point out that sorc's spellbook is much wider than invoker's and there could be issues with implementing the class back in. I'm not worried about high lvl spells with big cooldown, but if we take this suggestion and seriously consider implementing this class back in, we should go spell by spell and make sure there arent problematic outliers. Also in this day and age, it should probably be a stand alone class rather than a sorc path but that's technicalities at this point.

KriegEternal wrote:

Their really missing mords and some minor flavor things.

-XXX-
Posts: 2359
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:49 am

Re: Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Post by -XXX- »

I wouldn't mind a free remake, lol

To clarify: Dreams isn't wrong in that the Weave Master class has been rendered obsolete without much effort from the team to streamline this state.
On the mechanical aspect: there are several ways of how to build a Weave Master, but we've gotten multiple classes since that can play into these gimmicks but better - for example, my own character plays very much like a deathlock, but worse.
On a personal note: the reason why I stuck with my character for so long wasn't really the way it plays on mechanical level, but stems more from the sequence of IG events, my involvement with factions and overall RP.

AstralUniverse
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Re: Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Post by AstralUniverse »

Not that I judge you or anything but what stops you from remaking into a modern class? preserving the identity and all that. You've been on this one for so long that I would assume it would be a minor obsticle.

KriegEternal wrote:

Their really missing mords and some minor flavor things.

-XXX-
Posts: 2359
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:49 am

Re: Weavemasters? How are they? Could they be unlocked?

Post by -XXX- »

AstralUniverse wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 9:05 pm

Not that I judge you or anything but what stops you from remaking into a modern class? preserving the identity and all that. You've been on this one for so long that I would assume it would be a minor obsticle.

To be perfectly honest with you, I'd rather start a fresh character than do a -remake - I'm not really married to the character even if an 8 year long runtime might suggest otherwise.

The actual reasons are more practical than that - I can't even recall a moment when the character didn't have a piece of property tied to it that kept an entire faction ball rolling. Went from owning a theatre to owning a castle to owning a ship. For example me -remaking/rolling right now would have had an immediate effect on 60 other players & it's always been that way. I also don't like running multiple characters while I'm actively involved in faction gameplay.

As for the mechanical aspect - Weave Masters are hardly dysfunctional. They are a very nice QoL package that still outperforms even some modern builds in PvE. They are just bad for PvP & never could be really optimized for it* , but that has always been the deal & because PvP represents such a small part of day-to-day Arelith experience it's never been an issue for me. That being said, I wouldn't even mind getting reverted into vanilla sorcerer should the team decide to review the policy on legacy mechanics.


*if I showed you my character sheet, it'd likely make you flinch :lol:

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