Weapons & Equip Magical Movement (Flight Spell/Mage Class Wings?)

[Aceplante]

Hmm... not a bad concept. I don't actually think it's very abusable by other classes; maximizing usefulness of this would require the Mana Flower or some upgrade of it, to avoid having to constantly remember to press the Mana Potion button. Assuming it consumes mana rapidly enough (for example, 100 mana per second), you'd need to have max mana and then some to actually get better use out of it than regular wings, and in that case most players would probably rather just use the Fishron Wings or something that doesn't consume resources and has a more lenient recharge time, since you would have to wait for your mana to refill enough before flying again. But for those willing to chug Mana Potions for infinite flight, it could be very useful indeed. You could probably make it a pre-Plantera set of wings. The only thing I'll say is that the Mana Regen Potion would make this extremely overpowered. It should probably have a built-in function that disables the potion effect while you're wearing the wings.

Yes that was about what I was thinking in terms of balance. As for mana regen, is it enough to make it never 0 even if you're using, say, the last prism for example? Or does the prism stop and you need to start it again? Thats what I imagine this would do

This I don't like at all. For starters, what is "magic flight?" Does that mean you can just fly infinitely for 30 seconds? That's far too strong. Having max mana is extremely easy to do, and 2 Arcane accessories is really cheap in exchange for infinite flight, especially if you're a class that doesn't use mana. Late pre-Hardmode is absolutely not fair for this. If anything, it should be post-Golem.

It could be shorter I suppose, maybe 10 seconds (which would still feel like a lot in most cases). Also, most other builds would not be using arcane accessories (or even bother with mana stars if you're playing melee), so I think that is enough of a restriction? Perhaps we could leave the time at 30 seconds but make it 300 or something, likely requiring mage armor... but I suppose unlike the previous idea, loadouts allow you to switch to this armor for a few seconds just to use this spell then switch back?

I'm assuming this is a Mage item as well? How much does this cost to use? Is there a cooldown on it? Why should a player use this over a Horseshoe Balloon?

20? Maybe a second or two, enough so you cant use it for flight? or there could be no cooldown, just the requirement of you being on the ground. According to the wiki, horseshoe balloon seems slow. The ascent time of this jump would be much quicker

 

[chewythebigblackdog]

As much as I like this idea in concept (casting spells to fly is cool), I just don't think there is a good way to make this work with terraria's mechanics. Mage would never want to use this, as lowering damage output (by quite a bit too, since this will effectively force you into the 25-50% mana sickness range) for better flight capability just doesn't seem worth it. For every other class, they don't spend mana on anything else so using this is a no-brainer. While other classes might not use a mana flower normally, these wings would basically turn a mana flower into a soaring insignia (or you could use the potions via hotkey for similar effect) so it would be pretty good (though it depends on how maneuverable the wings are). Keep in mind that mana sickness currently only lowers magic damage so other classes are unaffected by mana potion spam. Additionally, adding a requirement to equip them just doesn't fit with terraria's current design.

The third idea (the book) is pretty cool and seems like it could be balanced (though there still is the issue that other classes get more use out of it due to not needing to use mana for anything else)

 

[Noobiescrubpleb]

I like the idea, but I am strongly against the requirements to equip the wings. This isn't a class based game, items should not be locked behind a class.
If your way to balance it is to restrict people from using it, you need a new balance method.

 

[monolithh]

oo yeah thats cool, also flight potion crafted with souls of flight, not very fast flight but you get another item slot for boss fights

 

[IndigoGollum]

Ðe biggest problem I see wiþ mage wings is accidentally activating ðem and consuming mana by jumping during a fight. Having it only activate on a second jump mid air like a bottle accessory should help wiþ ðis.

 

[IgnisCervus]

I think the best way to balance out the problem regarding mage wings (abusability by other classes) is that they get a direct buff from the mage class when in use, which specifically allows them to be used.
I had an idea regarding this: the beginning of flight time for these wings costs mana, but the timer can be extended by dealing exclusively magic damage. Perhaps some kind of (damage dealt)/(modifier) = (seconds added to flight time) equation.
I'm not sure how feasible this is regarding theme compared to the current state of the game, but it's theoretically quite simple to implement.

This way, other classes would get the initial flight time of the wings balanced to their tier of progression (albeit still paying the initial mana cost), and only mage class would be able to utilise it to its full potential.
I imagine there would be an upper limit to how long you can extend it, though this might not be necessary due to the fact that you will eventually kill all enemies on screen. Statue enemies should not contribute to the timer to avoid cheesing.

Thoughts?

(Anything after this point is an edit to my original post.)
I also like the idea of giving mages more of a glass cannon playstyle, with high manoeuvrability. Different spellbooks for movement along with mana-based movement accessories could easily make the mage class feel more unique compared to Ranger (imo), and I feel that could be a change for the better. The leap and magic wing books don't sound too bad, they're a good start; perhaps a variety of teleportation-based spellbooks could also be implemented, which can have varying distances? Could be an alternative to the RoD, instead costing mana and resulting in mana sickness on use.
Just some ideas, is all.

 

[Aceplante]

I think the best way to balance out the problem regarding mage wings (abusability by other classes) is that they get a direct buff from the mage class when in use, which specifically allows them to be used.
I had an idea regarding this: the beginning of flight time for these wings costs mana, but the timer can be extended by dealing exclusively magic damage. Perhaps some kind of (damage dealt)/(modifier) = (seconds added to flight time) equation.
I'm not sure how feasible this is regarding theme compared to the current state of the game, but it's theoretically quite simple to implement.

This way, other classes would get the initial flight time of the wings balanced to their tier of progression (albeit still paying the initial mana cost), and only mage class would be able to utilise it to its full potential.
I imagine there would be an upper limit to how long you can extend it, though this might not be necessary due to the fact that you will eventually kill all enemies on screen. Statue enemies should not contribute to the timer to avoid cheesing.

Thoughts?

(Anything after this point is an edit to my original post.)
I also like the idea of giving mages more of a glass cannon playstyle, with high manoeuvrability. Different spellbooks for movement along with mana-based movement accessories could easily make the mage class feel more unique compared to Ranger (imo), and I feel that could be a change for the better. The leap and magic wing books don't sound too bad, they're a good start; perhaps a variety of teleportation-based spellbooks could also be implemented, which can have varying distances? Could be an alternative to the RoD, instead costing mana and resulting in mana sickness on use.
Just some ideas, is all.

I also support a glass cannon playstyle, and yea magical movement items would definitely contribute to that...

Speaking of magical teleportation, I think you'll like the new idea I just added.