The Archmagus has meek design

Its legendary trait, gain +2 purple mana for purple gem matches, is a very meek bit of design. It’s essentially a common trait, doubled up, and not one of the more interesting ones. Yes, it can be argued that with this and three magic links and a banner, you can have 10 purple mana out of a 3 match, but that’s not quite as exciting or a hard or reliable enabler.

With the sorcerer being the flat-out weakest class, with a legendary trait weaker than some common traits, I had hoped that the Archmagus would be a better take on it, but this is a very disappointing passive.

It’s meek design.It’s not really pushing anything new or interesting. It doesn’t expand gameplay much, if at all. In contrast, we have things like the Shade of Zorn, gaining mana for getting hit. That’s an interesting new concept, as we have no other traits that actively produce mana directly to whatever creature has the trait.

Now, I don’t want to just complain, I want to also produce a few suggestions for what it could have been or what it could be changed to.

  1. Gain 2 mana when matching purple gems. This is different from the ‘+2 purple mana from purple gems’ in that it feeds it directly into the Archmagus, thus allowing him to sit all the way at the back of a team and benefit from this without having to worry about manablocking from any other purple troops in his team.

  2. Enchanted allies gain an additional 2 mana per turn. Excellent enchantment booster, hard enabler for Enchant related strategies which coincidentally also fits the Mystic troop type.

  3. Enchanted allies gain X to [Skill] per turn. Super hard enchantment booster. Very modifiable for a variety of outcomes.

  4. 50% chance for an ally to become enchanted upon casting a spell. This can help give this effect persistence, which can in turn create a strong synergy with Shentang.

  5. Gain 2 mana whenever an ally casts a spell. Same as 1, just a different condition, one that might be interesting with spell chains.

Those are just a few off the top of my head that could fit an Archmagus or Sorcerer class that would break the mold and give us a more interesting toy to play with. I love GoW, and its content output pace is amazing, but I also feel that there’s some missed opportunities here and there and I want to help out with some ideas.

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