My Issues with Elemental Weakness (OSRS)

[@Solrex_the_Sun_King]

Note that each ancient spellbook element also corresponded to a type, according to the December 7th 2023 blog, it's the following: in the form of Air/Smoke, Water/Ice, Earth/Shadow and Fire/Blood. So anything weak to air would also be weak to smoke, anything weak to earth would be weak to shadow, etc. not sure if they dropped that idea or not.

[@iloverufio200]

I don't understand the hate with elemental weaknesses. Even though it is a damage buff, there is a real cost to taking advantage of the elemental weakness. You have to be on the normal spell book which means you can't use the other utility spells like thralls or blood spells, pot share..etc. Right now magic is stale with us only using powered staffs. Bringing the right spell/weapon for the job is not only fun but rewarding.

[@fraud291]

people are afraid of change mostly

[@Metallikatzz]

Yeah you got to understand. Most people who play osrs are older. And fear change in everything, not just in games. And most people who play this game have a negative IQ. So If they HAD to do something one way. You MUST do it as well. It cant be changed, or made slightly easier or better, or else it "devalues" Their time???

[@BigDaddyWes]

Be honest, did you actually watch the video before commenting? It's not difficult to understand. He literally explains why he doesn't like it. These comments are confusing.

[@UnknownVir]

Just because something is explained doesn't make it understood or mean that it was persuasive to people who are undecided or like the change ​@@BigDaddyWes

[@aliengod3129]

watch the video he explains in detail why lmfao

[@J3dotgg]

"However that is the reward for levelling your magic level" I feel like you glanced over the way they are proposing on scaling damage. You still unlock your max hits when you hit the level for the fire spell, that is not getting changed. The argument for making the other spells more useful is reward space, something jagex is struggling with as for the sake of longevity they do not want to keep creeping power linearly. I do like your concept of giving the spells more identity though. There also IS precedent for elemental weaknesses in runescape (the desert treasure bosses), so I don't really see the issue with making that an intuitive core part of the game beyond "It was never like this before". And sure, monster examine is on the lunar spellbook but there is literally a wiki button underneath your minimap. The point you're making at 21:00 bringing up that magic does not currently have specialized weapons is literally the point of this update. Jagex wants room for that reward space to exist. The Iban's staff example falls apart if you take into consideration that the tome of fire already exists and the playerbase would not swallow a nerf without some compensation (the elemental weaknesses would give this compensation).

[@Zotk7]

He didn't glance over it, he acknowledge it and said it exacerbates the problem. Now you don't even get rewarded for unlocking new elemental spells. You can hold on air strike from level 1 to level 13 and your damage will scale whilst casting the same spell the entire time. Reducing variety, not increasing (outside of the 30 mobs getting weaknesses, which is a very small amount)

[@bumfricker2487]

@@jurgnobs1308 i mean red swords are better than blue swords. The current system of "Higher level spell = more damage" isn't a lack of variety - with each tier of spells you use the best one you have unlocked. Sure fire spells are most optimal since each tier uses the same catalytic rune, but saying "earth bolt is useless because of fire bolt" is like saying Low Alch is useless - technically true if you've unlocked the upgrade, but the whole point of levelling in runescape is unlocking meaningful upgrades.

[@bumfricker2487]

I believe his point about "it was never like this before" is that e.g. Pokemon was developed from the ground up where each 'mon was added to the game with an element type in mind. Even if they did give every osrs monster a element weakness it would feel tacked on from a flavor perspective (fire giant is obvious, but what should a goblin be weak to? a bird? an ooze? a skeleton? then answer this question for 400 more weird mobs often not designed to be 'elemental') and probably also mess with gameplay/balance (e.g. if all 'plain creatures' like cows are just weak to fire, does fire remain the best spell? if skeletons have an elemental weakness, how does that damage compare to crumble undead?) that is, if you wanted this system to be intuitive, you'd have to change every attackable NPC into some kind of elemental (or just put their weakness next to their hp like rs3, though even rs3 only shows their single 'greatests weakness' across the combat triangle) - otherwise it becomes a constant wiki check lest you sacrifice a massive amount of dps

[@AlmalekeLoL]

I'll be honest I don't think you made that strong of an argument here. In my opinion the intuitive aspect and asthetic of using lets say a water spell on a fire giant is already a strong enough reason on it's own. Like sure, the game askes you to suspend your disbelief at some points when necessary. But saying "It was never like this" isn't a case for "it shouldn't be like this". In the current state of the game it wouldn't be that significant of a change and I don't think it has to be. A big part of the game has always been bringing the right tool for the job and I don't see why that can't extend to spells. It might not be THE most interesting solution but it allows for better funetuning than straight buffs and is more engaging than just using whatever is the highest spell in your book.

[@paulburris5216]

Agree. To pile on... you are bringing different gear to cast these spells in the form of runes. Just like changing your weapon to get a better style bonus, you are swapping your loadout to take different spells.

[@marshallc6215]

I disagree. I think the solution is to get away from the idea that fire is the strongest and air is the weakest. If you want to feel like you're bringing the right tool for the job, make all strike spells equal, but different monsters have special attacks that you can mechanically interact with differently with different elements. For example, maybe this mob creates temporary armor after you hit it X times, so you should use slower powerful spells, so maybe that's earth, or maybe you want to burn it with fire so when it gets its armor, your decreased accuracy won't be an issue. Or maybe a mob has negative flat magic armor so you want a faster spell. All of this is so much more interesting than "go check the wiki to find if this monster gives 80% dps bonus to blue spells or green ones" because elemental weaknesses will make using offstyle spells, or magic anywhere that it's not explicitly the best, SO much weaker. If they're balancing around mobs that are 80% weaker to water spells, why would you ever use water spells anywhere that you don't get that buff? It locks in the idea that you only have one combat option per mob.

[@AlmalekeLoL]

​@@marshallc6215 I'd rather for example have a fire giant just take more damage from water spells than some contrived mechanic that ultimately ends up in you checking the wiki anyway. It's easy to implement and intuitive to the point where most new players already assume it's how the game works.

[@marshallc6215]

@@AlmalekeLoL I think that's better thematically but it undercuts the stated mechanical goals of broadening choice, and if theme and mechanics are at odds, I'll go with the one that's better for the long term health of the game. I don't think explicit mechanics would require a wiki lookup any more than you're required to look up how drake dragonfire works. You've seen dragon fire on other mobs so you immediately intuit how to mitigate it, and once you try dodging it, you'll find that you can. How am i going to intuit that I should bring earth spells to wyrms? So that means I'm bringing every style to every monster. And if I do that, my exploration of the space is to use each style until I get a max hit and see which one is biggest. I'm not engaging with the monster in any way. I'm engaging with the game engine. If I see this monster has some armor thing, then I can think about what special effect I want to use. I'm still bringing every style, but now I can choose how to counter their mechanics, rather than asking which one is head and shoulders the objectively superior choice

[@AlmalekeLoL]

@@marshallc6215 When I say it's intuitive I don't mean you'll know the elemental weakness of every monster on sight. But that the idea of a monster having an elemental weakness is easy to understand. Theoretically we can give moss giants a vine buff that stacks up to 5 times that gives them a 3% magic resist and you need to do damage to remove them and give fire spells a new effect that applies a burn that's really effective at removing the vine stacks. Or we can just have fire spells do more damage because they're made of moss. Having a pyre fiend being weak to water doesn't need more mechanical justification than a gargoyle being weak to crush.

[@sleepyzeph]

i feel like the thing that should set the standard spellbook apart from the others is that it has curses in it. like, entangle is good, that's nice, but nobody ever, EVER using the other debuffing curses seems like missed potential. i think it'd be cool if we had more reasons to debuff enemies with curses rather than just using ice barrage for everything.

[@crasyrob]

One of the reasons I like the elemental weaknesses, is it makes some slayer mobs a little more manageable at low levels. Looking at you metal dragons. Rather than making them just weak to earth, maybe they are weak to curses, and can be debuffed multiple times. Then you can really whittle them down and then demolish them. At higher levels, you wouldn't need to bother weakening them, or at least not as much.

[@sirgarde2293]

Curses are always going to be bad because they're A) more inventory slots than other defense reduction because of runes (nobody is ever gonna use attack reduction in this game, don't even bother trying to make it work). B) Weaker than those other, less inventory intensive options in the first place (BGS/DWH having better individual reduction *and* stacking). This is a nearly unsolvable problem without just making the other defense lowering options completely outclassed by a level 66 spell, and/or completely changing how the rune pouch works. Neither of which are ever going to happen.

[@sleepyzeph]

@@sirgarde2293 there are loads of ways to make curses useful without overshadowing existing options. just have to find new things to tweak so they can have their niche. examples: they could stack they could have a shorter duration they could be set to automatically cast while you use standard offensive spells they already are a debuff that's not tied to spec bar, which is a niche that can be expanded on

[@WeeklyMusicalShitposts]

By this logic, any time they add a good crush weapon to account progression, you should be like "this is stupid because it only is useful against certain mobs"

[@fraud291]

I definitely like the idea of bring what npcs are weak to. that sort of world building is great bringing the right tools for the job and not having the tools being the best at everything is a good thing in my opinion. people complain about content/certain items being dead/nearly useless but this could fix it

[@funrsguysandmore]

I'll all over this update. Interested to see what you think the flaws are, just keep away from these goofy kids talking about eoc and I'll watch.

[@funrsguysandmore]

Respectfully. I lost all interest when you said fire giants shouldn't be weak to water spells..you even said it " can't compare games" yet it's partially (I'd argue your main argument)..

[@charlesdortch4213]

the biggest flaw i see with this argument is that no one seems to care that this is how melee works this is not new they are just taking the melee formula that has for the most part worked and spreading it to the other combat styles, i mean you already bring a stab weapon to fight dragons this is the same thing but for mage

[@kingjames1831]

I feel like you didn’t read the blog you just skimmed it. Personally I’m VERY EXCITED for this change and think it makes complete sense. I’m excited to fuck shit up with the standard spell book on my maxed main and also use it to progress my mid level iron. This is going one of the best updates in my opinion.

[@the1stcalling]

To be fair, the wyrms are reproductions of the real thing that used to live on land. And I think the logic for having an earth weakness is that the wyrms chuck lightning balls at you while having sparks surrounding them as they float, and lightning or electric has usually been weak to earth like it is in Pokemon and Final Fantasy. So to me, it makes a ton of sense.

[@F0RB]

them being electric was the first thing i thought too

[@mainmith22]

I think you missed the fact that they’re doing the same thing for ranged where certain monsters will have certain weaknesses to different ammo types. Buffing low leveled range as well.

[@bumfricker2487]

you mean like the three types of ranged damage (cbow vs bow vs thrown or w/e) or is there something else for enchanted bolts or something? if you're talking about the former he kinda brought it up and said he liked it

[@AndrewWCarson]

I don't think he missed it. He mentioned that the ranged changes are different because they're based on ammo type/weapon type and not rune type. It requires different items and gear which helps it fit in the existing game.

[@KeytarArgonian]

Honestly I’m up for anything that makes getting a karils, bolt racks, a comp bow, or a ballista piece exciting rather than depressing.

[@stretchymc5126]

the blue moon set actually did have a hidden synergy with those grasp spells in that the sets chance at proccing is heavily increased when using grasp spells on the arceuus spellbook

[@rootKLM]

I think you've brought up some valid points here. Your point about the magic changes being similar to barb assault arrows and unlike the range changes (which genuinely make the game more interesting and brings ranged inline with melee) makes the issue pretty clear. I think many of jagexes suggestions are decent, but we'd have a better thought-out combat system if they work on magic more.

[@MegaChickenfish]

I mean you say that about the "weakness to 2hs" but they just added Perilous Moons which has enemies which have increased and decreased effectiveness vs double hit weapons and I think that turned out fantastic. It may be the only place in the game where the torag's hammers and necklace set effect are valuable (if not BIS, certainly a respectable cheap option for new players) and also really helps guthans and dharoks shine depending on the boss and phase. I'm hoping down the line we can find or get more situations where we use those new armors as well, particularly bosses where melee/magic and melee/ranged hybridding is valued. That's how you create good content diversity without just having X weapon be Old n' Busted and Y new weapon be New Hotness. On that note has anyone experimented with the blue moon set with grasp spells? The grasp spells dps isn't great, but it apparently has a *massive* proc rate of 50% for the free spear stabs. Throw thralls on top of that and I'd be interested to see the dps it can pull out. edit: Or you also dismissively bring up "just making something weak to grasp spells" as if Muspah doesn't exist, a boss which has a massive, unique weakness to otherwise pvm-pointless sapphire bolts(E) and the prayer draining arceuus spell.

[@Salsmachev]

Torvesta did a video recently on that Blue Moon grasp combo

[@sirgarde2293]

Eclipse moon also 100% has a weakness to "2h" weapons in the sense that slow high str bonus weapons are insane against it's mirage phase, and in general heavy hitting weapons do better dps than fast weapons against it's armor (though, there's not really a slow heavy hitting stab weapon in the game to take advantage of this). Torag's aren't even close to BIS at blue moon but they're a solid budget option. Macuahitl and Scythe are by and far the no. 2 and no. 1 options.

[@reverb2516]

this is a great video, really well formatted as well, and i agree with the majority of it. great work!

[@lolrw8]

I really like the idea of unique effects to spells and i agree with your point about same spell different colour. Regarding the suspension of disbelief, i feel like the point people are missing is that even though it makes sense intuitively for fire giants to be weak to water, the game system wasnt fundamentally balanced around this philosophy and would have to be hugely overhauled to compensate for it now to be consistent

[@jackb00ty]

"When's the last time you cast smoke blitz" Abby demon slayer tasks because freeze isn't as useful with their tele and you can save on runes that way.

[@ecljpse]

I like the proposed changes because it would be ground work to expand on the weakness and reward space. You said you liked the idea of range having variety but then miss that this is what could start to make that a possibility for magic. This could be the ground work for future rewards like Elemental based gear. Maybe add Earth damage to say swamp bark? The elemental weakness change is needed prior to opening the reward space. You seem to just want to open the magic reward space which would just default to that new gear falling into a linear progression slot. I had a lot of fun with magic in the Beta I started as a lvl 3 and did some slayer. Being able to boost for a damage increase without having to swap spells on autocast was actually my favorite part.

[@robodemon9594]

I do agree with your points on other combat spells being worked on, not just elemental spells on the standard spell book. However everything else in regards to your points against the changes. Honestly you just didn't think through your points, other comments here get into that so I won't nag on them more. What they should have done was just update all the spells that aren't used along with the elemental weaknesses (for pvp balance). That line of reasoning though, they could still do that. Just because they haven't yet doesn't mean they won't.

[@Crashh965]

I agree with you I think there could be some changes to make the weaknesses more intuitive, like maybe they do need to make a larger sweeping change instead of a few monsters. Also maybe the 50% buff is a little too much. However I disagree with a few of your points about it just being a different color choice. You can boil down a lot of choices to basically a stat stick with a new skin and I think if they take a better approach to making it intuitive or more interesting then I think it would alleviate some issues you have with the current proposal. Thanks for the video, good for discussion

[@sinax2]

Maybe you make this point, but Maybe connect the weakness with magic weapons to make it more like ranged and melee. You only get bonus damage if you use a weapon made for the correct element.

[@NotTheAverageBurner]

Why is diversity in combat and allowing more than just 5 items being viable a bad thing? Also the way the spells are going to be is air strike doesnt do 8 damage off the rip. It levels up. Till max damage

[@bumfricker2487]

he explicitly acknowledged that last part several times

[@BTChanOSRS]

Nah spellbooks are fine. Their aproach aims to raise low resources optionality , mostly for irons, to have low req decent dps options without any big ticket items yet. Vulnerabilities are pretty harmless. All the harm is buffing botfarms at lava drags (1.6x) or mole

[@cxsss]

Love the video, related to one topic but unrelated to the argument in general, you raise one point that I took a little "Well, actually..." Enemies having elemental resistances were definitely a thing for a lot of WoW's early life, to the point where there are still active threads on WoW's season on ClassicWoW reddit asking if they can remove this feature.

[@lampisfun1139]

The main point I feel your missing or not really addressing is that the changes open design space in the future, so if right now the changes don’t amount to much, in the future they can add for instance a new weapon that has different magic element cycles and a boss that takes extra damage or something from some of the elements, which would make a design space for needing to swap your gear only during that elemental cycle. Things like this are the main reason they’re doing this. It’s not to “balance” the spell book, it’s to give room for new and interesting mechanics for future encounters and gear.

[@keris3920]

He literally addressed this in his sixth point. There was an entire segment of the video dedicated this. Please watch before commenting.

[@tani8799]

Interesting bit about the wow comparison: wow actually did have a sort of elemental resistance system, way back in the day. Mages were forced to not play fire mage in molten core, and most played frost. the system made some playstyles just nonviable, so they completely divorced from the idea around cata, I believe, with it being less and less important up until then.

[@tousawa808]

I like the weakness formula because then you have variety to use, weapons and spells will be used that were dead content.

[@kampp322]

I wanna say that I completely agree with just about anything you said, streamlining all the spells are just matching colors with ekstra steps. However the incouragement of using the standard spells are important for the economy, hereby making runes and rune crafting profitable in more ways. I think that a lot of skills in general has become completely redundant as more bosses with “supply” and resource drops gets added and finding more ways to utilize and make them relevant is what this game is in heavy need of!

[@HavocParadox]

As long as they stay far away from the negative accuracy system that rs3 has with the combat triangle i will be okay.

[@thenapalmgiraffe]

Honestly disagree with a lot of these takes. Some points are logical, but others like the “different color fire strike” don’t make sense. You try to purposefully muddle the clear delineation they want to make by categorizing them into different elemental classes, by reducing it to its visuals instead of the logic behind it. Earth strike isn’t a “green fire strike” it’s earth strike, which against certain targets would be better than fire strike. Also, when you do lunar diplomacy and dream mentor they stress that the lunar spells are mainly a utility based magicks, so even bringing that up when comparing the combat books was silly. You are better off only comparing the ones more combat focused. I’m about 17 minutes in and I probably disagree with half of the points made, and I usually agree with most things you’ve posted recently. Remember that this game will only thrive if there’s new people playing, and magic is extremely flat and not as satisfying until you get new spell books to play with, in my opinion. And I always start out my characters in any game as a mage if possible

[@F0RB]

put all my thoughts into words, thank you!

[@bumfricker2487]

for me the strongest argument against this specific change is "readability" - that is, the use of different elemental spells in the current system is intuitive even without using the wiki: they do damage which scales with their level requirement, so it's best to use the highest level you have unlocked for damage purposes which aligns with a player's natural expectation for "higher level = better". It also doesn't take long to figure out that catalytic runes are priced (by gold and RC level req) according to tier, so Fire spells are a sort of milestone with the most optimal damage per GP. Under the proposed system all four spells of a given tier do exactly identical damage and by unlocking the other 3 spells of the same tier you're only unlocking a faster training method. Yes your damage will still scale from say magic levels 41 to 59, but I find it a bit of a sore spot that this increased damage is not tied to an explicit level-locked upgrade. It would be like if all tiers of metal armor (bronze-rune) scaled their stats with the level of their wearer...not quite that bad, but the point about this change making the four elements feel "cosmetic" or samey holds some water. However the bigger problem, for me, is that monster elemental weaknesses are not necessarily intuitive so in order to grasp the DPS upgrade a player actually has unlocked by being able to cast Fire blast, there's a reasonable chance they'll have to consult the wiki. Certainly if every monster gets an elemental weakness, but if not one would still be better off checking if they didn't have every monster with one memorized. Then again they'll be a Runelite plugin akin to the RS3 display the day the update drops so maybe the average veteran player doesn't care about something like this.

[@awsomeman350]

I feel like this is an important QOL change. A lot of people me included assumed when we first started playing that there was elemental weaknesses in the game. It makes sense, it’s thematic. Idc if it’s good or not, it’s more of the feeling that fire giants SHOULD be weaker to water spells regardless of magic even being effective to fight them

[@BaconBitsJuice]

I don’t even understand what points you are making or trying to make here. Elemental weaknesses make certain monsters more interesting and allow for more bis items to chase in the future.

[@pistolpete7422]

I’m so on the fence about these changes. Elemental weaknesses being “odd choices” for certain monsters already feels the same as current melee weaknesses. 50% buffs might be a bit steep, I think you should be rewarded for progressing late and getting the BIS gear. Perhaps they add even MORE specialized gear setups like the tomes, make niche items as you said like Slayer Staff more viable in certain encounters, and overall give a reason for runes like Body or Combo runes to exist.

[@vwabi]

My main worry is it's so limited to the standard spellbook. Imagine they release raids 4, and they have a choice: either none of the bosses are weak to elemental, making the system pointless, or the bosses are weak to elemental, but now people have to give up the choice of which spellbook to bring for e.g. thralls, freezes, whatever, because you *have* to use standard to get the 50% buff. If anything, this feels like it reduces the potential reward space, rather than increase the reward space like was the goal for ranged.

[@AltmerSupremacy]

Is that any different than now where you take arceuus in 99% of circumstances because of thralls? It doesn't have to be 50% either, this just gives them more levers to pull so that standard spellbook CAN be a good choice. Cox is a perfect example of this, standard can be good for icedemon and fire walls, ancients is good for mutta and fire walls, lunar has utility and fire wall, arceuss has the most damage but cant put out fires so you need to bring a watering can and use up two inventory slots. Ice demons elemental weakness is just a piece of that, but without it noone would ever even consider standard.

[@mostrarename]

Not bringing thralls = sad, sure, but have you considered if the weakness is impactful enough being on standard would out DPS thralls anyway?

[@colekoger]

I can imagine a new raid where multiple mage combat styles required could be pretty cool. For example, someone runs freezes and another player runs elemental dps. Perhaps even elemental based mechanics. The way i see it the mage part of the rebalance has potential for more interesting gameplay in more ways than just dps

[@hackmcgraw]

I'm sold. Adding weapons to buff different elemental spells is far more in the spirit of how progression in osrs works than this elemental weakness system.

[@Asian_Caleb]

Gonna be honest, I didn’t even know the demonbane spells existed lmao

[@Gamesplaytoday]

20:35 ok so make it so you only get the elemental damage bonus when holding the relevant elemental staves. coiuld expand on it and make it 30% for base staff, 50% for battlestaffs etc, double alch with nature staff etc etc

[@CaptainHandsome]

There's this weird contingent among the community (mostly on reddit) where their ideal vision for the game is something close to 100% NicheScape, where there is no single "best weapon/equipment/spell" but instead every item is BIS at certain content. A boss being arbitrarily weak to, like, Longbows and maces would be seen as a good thing because it "encourages equipment diversity" and "makes you think about what gear you're bringing" (which is wrong because I'm still clicking the best in slot, it's just different from the thing I click for other bosses)

[@jimbob929]

I agree that more of the damage from elemental spells should be baseline and less of it should come from weaknesses. As it stands you'll only consider using them when the weakness is present which isn't that interesting. I think an across the board buff but lowering the weaknesses to like 25% could be fine. It would also mean there would be less pressure to stick a weakness on every new monster to keep these elemental spells relevant (I'd rather they stick to mostly adding weaknesses in cases where it's obvious). This way you could add gear that modifies elemental spells (by adding interesting passives, not just more damage) and the spells could potentially be useful in places where you want that passive, not just when there's a weakness.

[@TheFridayNightRitual]

i think its a good change, but it does feel like they randomly started giving earth weaknesses to random things because pretty much everything was weak to water/fire. i feel like some things should have an air weakness, just less than the others (like dust devils). This also feels like a first draft where theyve only listed 10 mobs + every type of dragon in the game, would be good for them to roll this out across more monsters.

[@nomxnomsays2263]

As a new player to osrs and playing an iron, magic felt bad in slayer outside of bursting recently. Having an option to mage slayer tasks was a nice option for me. Probably a noob take but having a few more options when playing an iron is really nice. I think they won’t buff standard just because of pvp balancing.

[@LarLakFarStrider]

Damage progression in the standard spellbook is baked in a little. Fire tier 1 does less damage than any tier 2. I think a secondary goal to the spell damage rework is giving more value to worthless elemental runes since most powered staves and utility spells that get used take fire runes. Of note i also dont see them giving more use to the standard spells in comparison to other spell books. The main goal is to give magic more options along the path to 99. Most of the time players convert to using iban's blast or powered staves as soon as they are available and ditch combat spells entirely outside of needing binds or specific mechanics for bosses. To end, im not sure the buffs will be as massive as the very few examples theyve given and as Ayiza said on the recent stream: this gives devs another lever to balance combat encounters. Edit for clarification: Not all monsters will get an elemental weakness, and not all elemental weaknesses will be 50%. These are important things to remember on this topic.

[@cjsmith5482]

Love your content, way off base on this IMO keep up The good work!

[@Salsmachev]

We currently have people doing three way switches like it's nothing. I for one am excited to see what will happen when those players have to make nine way switches (three melee styles, three ranged styles, and three elements) against some new endgame boss. Imagine a modern pass at Daganoth mother, with modern boss design sensibilities, but the same kind of rotating immunities/vulnerabilities to different elements and styles. The design space this opens up is pretty crazy.

[@tombtw1698]

I'd love to see more items that buff a specific style, like bellator ring buffs slash -> scythe gets better. They should just do more of this with mage and scrap the weakness system. I personally hated doing slayer in rs3 since I had to change my entire loadout or I'd do noticeably less dps. In the current beta, with the "mid game" setup, cudgel beats whip at gargoyles by around 19% more dps. If they are going to add more weaknesses to more monsters, I wish they made specific mobs equally weak to more than just 1 or 2 styles.

[@ryanw1902]

True, elemental weakness should apply to all spell books

[@Majoris239]

It seems like unifying strikes/bolts/etc. is okay, but you have a problem with the scale of the dps buffs. Would you be happier if they changed this system to still include elemental weakness, but make them more in-line with the different melee styles (stab, crush, slash)? For example, Wyrms would have -20 earth resistance, +20 fire/water resistance. This would incentivize you to use earth still, but not giving you that massive damage increase. I'm personally pretty neutral to these changes, so this discussion is pretty fun to follow! Thanks for the great content and opening the floor for discussion doubleshine! :D

[@FuzevSponge]

I think the elemental weakness is a very intuitive and great idea... only thing I don't think is correct based on the dps charts is just the % scaling. I feel like 0.5% scaling per % weakness would be better. It just seems too strong right now. Overall like the idea tho

[@aTypicalGabriel]

I believe one key point most people miss is the fact that non max combat players do play the game! for example, a mid level acc might have 80 melee's with a fang, 90 ranged with a blowpipe and then 80 mage with a trident and an ancient scepter, to this guy, when he gets an addy dragon task he goes "i dont have enough mnoney for a dhl but using earth spells is a bit more damage than using my fang here" and this thought process alone adds a massive layer of depth to combat i do get that the community does not want like raids to have their meta completely shattered cuz now akkah is weak to air spells, but for the bulk of players who can't afford to buy a harm staff to do cast elemental spells this is quite a big deal on top of that, on RS3 the enemy weakness only affects the affinity, which is basically the accuracy and NOT the damage and this is a massive difference and i believe these magic changes should take a similar path, at least to some extent plain acc buffs are a bit boring, but +50% dmg is a bit much too, i think that we should get only one of them or both but tuned way down OR (and i think this is a much better option) have a visual effect with an added gameplay effect, say, a stagger, so when you hit the fire giant with the water spell the chat reads "your water spell weakens the target" , the monster gets some visual effect reflecting this, and then the monster hits 1 tick slower, or gets its max hit lowered, or maybe gets flat out stunned like the leviathan I think that this update working does hinge on those 2 aspects, it being clear to see that what you are doing is having an added effect, and that added effect being slighly more meaningful than just damage, and if it is just a dps increase it should feel meaninful but not overpowered for late game gear

[@alsoyes3287]

"Same spell different colour" Blade of Saeldor is just a Rapier that is arbitrarily better vs slash weak targets than rapier's stab weak targets. The mace, sword, scim example doesn't really hold since, there's a clear outlier, the scim just has better stats. This is even after maces got buffed with 20% faster attack speed.

[@TW-fs3fj]

Another +2,000 hr player gives an L take. We want more noobs, they are why games thrive

[@bumfricker2487]

is spreadsheet/wiki sim more noob friendly? Some, but not all weaknesses are intuitive, and not every monster even has them

[@TW-fs3fj]

@@bumfricker2487 Is mage being almost 2-3dps behind mid level melee gear noob friendly?

[@chriswarr641]

I like magic, I think it is a great skill and i have a lot of fun using it, however i rarely use it because it is simply too expensive to use for most things. Sure demonbane spells might be a good for a black demon task, but even with max mage gear with the spell a ghrazi rapier is just as good with only bandos armour and also does not cost 400gp each time you attack.

[@lbit1249]

Hit the nail on the head with the magic damage formula being the root issue, doesn't even really make sense to consider reworking spells/weaknesses before addressing that

[@alsoyes3287]

Making earth spells hit twice is interesting, it would synergize with the new flat armour stat introduced by Varlamore. Very accurate Water spells, 1 tick faster air spells are interesting ideas.

[@Gildarras]

imho a 50% damage / accuracy buff to addy dragons is insane. I'm max combat and those fuckers still slap hard making them 50% stronger is wiiiiiiild. I agree with your statements, I don't think elemental weakness will really help balance anything.

[@ramonruijgt4532]

think lunars lost some value with ironmans. sins you cant use it with them. now its more for alt scape. not saying ironman is bad but it spit the potential player pool using it. might like to see a 50% energy transfer to lunars sins 100% is a bit long or waisting spec some times. the god spells have it require you need that staff. do that with elemental spells to get the damage boost. if you dont have right staff you dont get that bonus,but can cast the spell still

[@MegaChickenfish]

16:45 I proposed that rs3 approach of having the weakness be directly visible on the hp meter and it was booed immediately, so I guess people just prefer referring to the wiki constantly.

[@andrewprahst2529]

Yeah, people can be really unreasonable with suggestions. I guess I do have a bit of an aversion to adding too many unnecessary things to the screen like RS3 has, and it does seem more handholdy than old school generally is. I actually do feel annoyed by how you have to wiki every bug in a raid to find out what to pray against it or if you even should, but I think these things should just be choreographed better in natural gameplay. I think for elemental weaknesses, having slayer masters tell you what monsters are weak to when you ask them for tips is enough. If you're killing a specific monster on your own, I think it's reasonable to expect the player to do their own research through monster examine or wiki, but I do still think it should be as intuitive as they can make it. Make it not feel arbitrary when enemies are weak to things. Maybe have a slightly different visual effect if you attack with a strong vs weak element, that kind of thing.

[@WhatEvaVIdeos]

You missed how melee and range already both have the variety in their use due to crush/stab/slash for melee and the needed accuracy for ranged. That in itself adds variety in the micro sense. Magic doesnt have that and this is a step into giving people that. Also, the spell tiers only scale to your highest unlocked one. So if you have all but fire strike unlocked, then your max hit for the other will be like earth strike.

[@keris3920]

It's like you didn't watch the video

[@narutocrazy91]

Point 5 in my opinion doesnt have any weight. You are free to choose to use whatever weapon you want as much as choosing any spells you want to kill a mob. Weapon choice for magic especially in most games don't have great variety. Its all staves and wands. You can't expect there to be great weapon variety for magic weapons. On top of that the weapon for a magic user IS the spell. Not the weapon. You can literally cast these spells WITHOUT THE WEAPON if you want to. They just added the blue moon spear which is a meele weapon and magic weapon. If you have an issue with monster examine why can't jagex just add that as an inherent feature instead of a random spell in lunars. overall it just seems like a random gimic to have in a spellbook.

[@DoctorSockrates]

Numbers and weaknesses can be tuned and I personally think the concept is still great, the execution is still currently underbaked and cooking. If someone tells me they don't want the game turning into wikiscape, my brother in Saradomin it's already been wikiscape since the button was added in-game. /s Jokes aside, that's why we have a beta and that there's time for this. I think it does suck now but the way they're iterating on it and using beta worlds gives them plenty of room to refine it while adding on even better ideas like the ones you had here, before it just gets dumped in the polls. Also, I'll have you know that I had my fun with demonbane spells in Leagues IV when I went Kourend/Fremmy/Desert for a complete spellbook set. The animation smoothing for those made my character look like it was having a seizure while utterly destroying some abyssal demons in the catacombs. I wonder if a staff could make them AoE spells...

[@noThankyou-g5c]

14:39 electricity gets grounded by earth 🙂 (for the record i agree the weaknesses dont make a lot of sense for a lot of mobs)

[@fsgajdfgasdfasdf230]

There are so many bad takes in here it’s hard to even start. You clearly missed the point where they said magic damage WILL scale with level, just not by spell anymore. You also make the point a few times that elemental spells will now be just different colored versions of one another. That’s the exact opposite of what’s happening. What you’re saying is true now, but these changes will make them more than just recolors. Jagex can work through the intuitive part and make things consistent - that’s easy enough. Highly encourage you to rethink this…

[@Cruxisism]

No, he's right about elemental spells being recolors of each other. With the proposed changes, they would all be identical and you just choose whichever color the game tells you to. Just like the arrows in barb assault.

[@fsgajdfgasdfasdf230]

@@Cruxisism that’s exactly what you do already except you never chose, you just always use fire. Not to mention, what you just explained is how the whole game works, not just barb assault.

[@jaydonloar6293]

I'd rather just have them buff the standard spells and nerf tome of fire/water. I do really like the ranged defense being split up though. They could also consider making monsters/bosses weak to elemental spells in general.

[@wilk_ipedia]

If these are your best arguments it’s a 100% yes vote from me

[@alexgillespie3402]

2nd point. They already are just cosmetic differences. Sure, they do different damage, but that's negligible; giving them elemental weakness does provide the spells with other than fire strike a use. 3rd point. I have wondered exactly the question you proposed "Why can't I use water on a fire giant for bonus damage." and no, that's not somehow a cute noob question. Elemental weaknesses are not exclusive to Pokemon. They are intuitive to life. Water puts out a fire. Arguing against that is just wild to me. its not about color coding. But you are right. Not all creatures would have an elemental weakness, which, if they did, would be forcing the issue, but they have already stated weakness would only go on monsters that made sense. For your suspension of disbelief argument, that is basically just immersion in the game. When people make immersion-breaking realizations, it can be because of things like, hey, why is water not hurting fire? Breaking the immersion is essentially like a hiccup in fun. If enough hiccups happen, people play a different game. But let's be honest here: we are talking about fantasy monsters, so to argue they can or can't be something is also a bit silly. I agree the Trident of the Seas is a water weapon, but I think weapons working differently in PVP are a massive mistake. Jagex disagrees because of game balance. And game balance is essentially the be-all-end-all point for this. Regardless of flavor or feel, is it better for balance? If the answer is yes, then it should happen. 5th point. I don't honestly see your point. Weapons stats are on a spectrum for which if they weren't and they were the way you described, that would suck. But arguing against the change that would bring similar staffs to be on a spectrum like the melee weapons is also undermining your own point for point 5. your 6th point should absolutely happen in addition to the elemental weakness changes not instead of them. but my final point love your content and keep making the videos!! even if I disagree with ya on this one.

[@LoopOfHorror]

Regarding monster examine and weakness in rs3 in UI. Maybe set a particular amount of npcs killed to "get to know" what is it weak to mechanic would be good.

[@thomas-jt5uy]

it could be interesting if water was highest accuracy fire highest damage air fastest for low def and earth to reduce mobility, yet all these extra effects should only come from the tombs of air,water,earth and fire. pritty simple and unique especially in pvp it would be fun if a earth spell would put run to walk or reduce energy.

[@BlaBla-jl6ji]

I like the idea to add weapons and equipment wich buff elemental spells. The easiest way to add reward space is enemies with armor wich absorbs a fixed amount of damage of each hit to encourage slower weapons. Also something like duke who encourages 5 tick weapons due to the attack cycle.

[@RenshoYT]

Reasonable points, but I do generally think these are fine changes. Ancient is still going to be the premier style because barraging/bursting are so much better for mage training and are the go-to style for slayer tasks that support it. All this really does is make early mage training less painful and make mage a more interesting alternative for slayer tasks where barrage and burst arent available, so you otherwise may have defaulted to range or melee. I will agree that each elemental version of a given spell being effectively the same isnt the most creative solution, however the alternative is that the non fire versions just literally never get used and are a waste of space outside of the handful of quests that randomly require them. Would like to see a more creative way to differentiate the elemental spells, but I still think this is an improvement from the current system. To be honest, the range changes with ammo classes is the more interesting change in this proposal to me and I think stands to make a much larger difference to the game.

[@IronbornBTW]

The main problem is there aren’t many monsters outside of a few ice and fire mobs where the elemental weaknesses actually make sense. So it just becomes either mostly useless or they force the weaknesses and it becomes confusing.

[@jawstrock2215]

It opens room to create new elemental monsters/boss. + potential gear for it all.

[@wados3579]

@@jawstrock2215 so they should just make the new boss weak to the certain style? why change all the other monsters?

[@jawstrock2215]

@@wados3579 why not? you could change nothing in all your play style, and still kill stuff the same, or maybe a tiny bit faster.

[@heyson360]

Agreed, these were my EXACT thoughts when I first read about these elemental changes. This is too much of a change for OSRS imo.

[@GoDSkRiLLa69]

I liked the idea you had here of the 4 elements living together in harmony, until everything changed when the fire nation attacked.

[@RubberDuckyDude1]

Having to switch gear for every type of monster sounds like a nightmare to me...

[@nixeduswavebreak]

I'd say well explained, and thought out criticism. It has decidedly changed my stance on this vote. To add, one consideration that would address the issues you have raised. Move Monster Examine to the standard spellbook, to allow that to be the intuitive way to check and allow people to make informed decisions, without the need for a wiki. Make combination runes more accessible, and part of the cost of now moved Monster Examine, to encourage people to play with all elemental spells and to have a low inventory cost. Id say that would be a low intrusive way. Noobs would need to check the wiki, whereas we can search on the fly for the weakness of all creatures. It is then also a closed ecosystem without a need to needlessly be checking the wiki, just bring magic weapon for magic monster, and hit it with the good elemental spell for increased damage for paying attention.

[@demo7421]

Absolutely true

[@marshallc6215]

Regarding the logical and intuitive section, my biggest issue with elemental weaknesses is that it only applies to one spellbook, and it does so explicitly. Every ranged weapon falls into one of the categories, but that's not true for mage. It's like saying a weakness to mithril bolts. Like okay sure, but nobody is using mithril bolts and unless you make it super overtuned, nobody will care. What metal are broad bolts? Do they just not get a weakness? I like the utility route you mentioned where we have some unique effect for each element, even across spellbooks. We have some for ancients, and demonbane, too, so if we just add some to standard, then we can balance damage around your level and tier, then have you pick your actual spell based on what effect you want. That opens up mechanic space for us to play to those strengths. Maybe a mob has negative flat armor, encouraging your example wind spells. Maybe it gains temporary armor until you deal X damage, encouraging you to burn it. Maybe it does a special every X hitsplats that is annoying so dealing fewer hitsplats is better. There is no objectively right answer, but there are ways to optimize your combat organically. Early combat is already early well balanced. Mage is far and away the best for bossing (quests) because it has a very high max hit at each tier for the early levels (max hit of 8 at level 13. Ranged won't get that much damage until after dorg cbow at 28, and melee won't hit that until the 30s) but ranged is also way cheaper to use, which is big for new players (4 gp per bone bolt vs 100 gp per fire bolt.) Melee has the best general defensive stats so it fits the niche of monsters you can't safespot.

[@Gotenhanku]

Ancients might be added into the elemental weaknesses as well since in the overview blog not the most recent blog it mentioned those spells alongside the elements by saying air/smoke, water/ice, earth/shadow, and fire/blood so they still have a chance to be added in. I think right now Jagex is just going with the standard spells only and only one a select few monsters to test the waters and see how it works out and if it goes well they can expand it to more monsters and more spells.

[@marshallc6215]

@@Gotenhanku if that's the case, then we haven't actually solved the standard spellbook problem, right? If my choice is between fire and blood spells, 1) the themeing benefit is completely gone (vampires should be weak to fire spells, but not blood, right? Etc) and 2) why would I ever use fire spells over blood ones?

[@WanderingSquire]

Sorry, I don't think you made a good point here. I feel like it will be good for the game.

[@noThankyou-g5c]

4:05 i think they dont want to do that bc their whole point is to essentially build new infrastructure that lets them add rewards and buff certain things _while avoiding power creep_ a big buff across the board is just fast forwarding power creep. What are they going to do without elemental weaknesses when they need to buff magic again? just give another flat 20% dps increase? it also still makes air earth and water spells useless and is kind of against the spirit of the game which is specialized builds. No hate though. just replying as I go through bc I can’t help myself. I’m slightly worried about elemental weaknesses, or maybe I should say I’m tentatively excited? Bc I think it’s a good idea but may be such a big change that it would be so easy for it to be unbalanced/bad. In general I do trust the OSRS team but I can’t deny there isn’t potential there for this to suck. Just saying I’m not totally against critique of this proposal

[@renzuki5830]

"It's just a blue fire strike". This is where I and a lot of people would disagree. By that logic crush is the same as slash and really a ranged weapon just casts tiny projectile fire strikes. You can make that argument for just about anything. It's a huge flavour win imo. Plus not everything is about max chars, unlocking an early water spell might be pretty nice on an IM type account. Also just in general making up reasons for why changes happen and "debunking" them isn't really a fair way to argue. There might have been no intention of "buffing the standard spellbook over others" at all, yet you can book it as an argumentative win. "Creates an artificial use" -> The game does this everywhere, literally the entire combat system is designed around this. We just got a rat that is weak to "rat weapons". I don't understand why it's an issue here.

[@jawstrock2215]

With your logic, you are saying we should get rid of the 3 melee style then, and just have 1 melee stats and be done with it, cause it's all about the triangle right? also, the "flavor does not matter" is a very awful argument. LoL is worse because it doesn't follow the flavor it should have, not it doesn't matter cause it doesn't follow it so no other game should. Also, "it would like like "guessing" what it's weak too"... like you don't already do that with EVERY new monster/boss already? having to figure out if it's weak to range or melee, or which melee. I would not add ANY time to that at all, and it sounds like it's a "I'm too lazy to learn new weakness" argument. You don't have to use any of them really, as the monster are still weak to whatever they were weak to already(melee/range). I do get your differentiation between magic vs range/melee, but that's mostly due to how the game developed. Loot space is what would make more elemental focused magic weapons, which would make you bring 4 different magic weapon/gear in the end. At first, it would barely be noticeable overall. It would make early game faster for magic sure, but rune cost is still the most expensive "ammo" of the 3 styles, so it remains limiting.

[@lesnacke]

What I agree is some of these mfer monsters weaknesses make no sense. Like the giant mole weak to water, guess jagex doesnt know that bud can swim? Theres gonna be a lot of shit that shows the nonsense decisions of jagex

[@KEKW-lc4xi]

First of all thank you for actually questioning the potential changes! I disagree, but thank you! too many sheep in this community haha 8:19 looking at that diagram that seems like a good thing imo. For example: casting Water Surge on Fire Giants should be absolutely destroying them imo. I'd maybe even want higher numbers on that diagram. We can get 99 magic pretty quickly in this game especially if bursting slayer tasks so I think it is fine to just have progression on the normal spellbook just be the strikes -> waves -> surge etc. like categorically. I think it is fine to trickle in this idea and poll a few monsters at a time if the community wants such and such to be weak to this and that elemental. So I don't think we need to fully commit to this idea right away but rather get a baseline of the most obvious intuitive ones and then iteratively poll from there. It isn't always necessary but adhering to common fantasy tropes is usually a good thing in my experience, trolls being weak to fire I think could be a good idea but that should be in one of the iterative polls and not a baseline proposal. The further we stray from real life physics like water putting out fire the more tedious the polls need to become. 15:57 Exactly!! The Monster Examine isn't even on the standard spellbook and when I read that in the proposal I squinted my eyes and was like who tf uses monster examine? Then I thought do they mean like right click examine? haha If they want that then they need to move monster examine to the standard spellbook because nobody is going to go to an encounter with lunar spellbook cast monster examine and then teleport away, switch prayerbook (which if you don't have poh can be super tedious) and then run all the way back to do the fight when players can just type in google and read the wiki real quick. Needing to constantly read some 3rd party wiki sucks but it sucks less than trying to figure out monster stats through actual gameplay. I am 100% on board with having its weakness in its health bar like in rs3. 24:35 items as a buffed version of the existing spells. Ok this is a solid alternative and wouldn't be a massive change to the game. Man now that you mention it yeah wtf that blue moon magic weapon could have been used for buffed single target ice spells or something like that and that would have been way "cooler." I'm kind of indifferent about the proposal but what I want way more than anything is just make the game UI better jesus christ. Give us 1 click bank loadouts. I would much rather have bank loadouts than new content or pokemon type effects or really anything else. Return back to the basics and make the UI good before adding more continents, quests, raids, combat styles, items etc. Do we have bank loadouts? that is the only question we should be asking ourselves. if the answer is no then halt everything else until the answer is yes.

[@Ashes94]

Sure the application to add elemental weakness to existing monsters was lazy. But think about the potential in new bosses which was the main reason it was suggested to begin with. Or even new mage gear that amplifies this concept too. The ailments you suggested could even be effects the new bosses receive apon taking damage from different elements. Theres alot of potential here with new content. I think let them cook

[@BIGBL4NC0]

hear me out what if they implemented elemental weaknesses but higher tier weapons are now able to capitalize on the different elements better. trident casts water spells fast af, sang staff is fire and steals health, shadow is air and just very accurate. But also lets not just have elemental weaknesses. Demons should not be weak to elements but only demonbane and skeleton type monsters should only be weak to crumble undead and we can have weapons that further buff those spells too.

[@masalano]

it was that or remove all melee different style by weapons

[@alsoyes3287]

I'm on board with buffing standard spellbook and adding elemental weaknesses, but i have my doubts about implementation. There has been 0 mention by jagex about removing the autocast delay, which is step 1 of making spells viable. - Remove the delay, increase the max hit of Wind, Water, Earth spells slowly, matching the max hit of the corresponding Fire spell when you unlock that. - Lower the req for Wrath runes but with a 50% successrate that scales up to 100% at 95. - Rebalance staves so elemental spell viability isn't entirely locked behind Harm orb - Rebalance NM to make its drops both more useful and more attainable.

[@TheCooderix]

*CRIES IN UIM*

[@cosmicwonderer6269]

Sick thumbnail and graphics. Haven't watched the video yet but i haven't heard anyone against it so happy to see different opinions on this. Seems like a sick change but idk repercussions

[@RuneBottle]

Absolute banger. Really laid out what’s going on. Appreciate you and your time

[@Gotenhanku]

At the 22:11 mark you say you don't think there are any weapons that have access to all 4 of accurate, aggressive, controlled, and defense but there are actually a few that do just usually 1 of them is on a secondary weaker attack type. The dual macs are the best at this though since it's stab attack is almost as high as it's crush attack so it gets all 4 at a very good bonus.

[@johansenjorious]

The dragon scimitar does all 4 styles

[@Gotenhanku]

@@johansenjorious Yeah but it's stab attack bonus is attrocious so it's controlled style is pretty bad which why I mentioned that usually 1 of them is on a secondary weaker attack which in the case of the scimitar is stab. For the dual macs their stab attack bonus is only 6 less than it's primary crush attack meaning that it's controlled stab attack option is still very good compared to it's primary crush attack options.

[@joeledlund7196]

I agree with a lot of your points. Elemental weakness sounds good on a surface level but it needs to be executed well for it to fit in the game. My proposal would be to have the spells do the same as it does in game rn but give them a special effect against mobs with that specific weakness. This would atleast make it more interesting rather than just a flat damage boost. I also think the bonuses should be rather minimal but still noticeable enough so that every spell could be useful in some instances.

[@currentcommerce4774]

im fine with these changes, theyre overall positive changes, but i wish magic would receive more effects, like earth spells giving you 10% damage soak while using or wind spells pushing a target back 1 tile.

[@razorednight]

Disagree. The changes will make mage more fun.

[@TheKaleidobros]

You raise some really good points here, as someone who's very excited for this new system. I think the biggest problem with this isn't the idea of elemental weaknesses themselves, it's the homogenization of these spells when elemental weaknesses /aren't/ being used. All versions of each spell tier being the same level and max damage just seems wrong. Early game mage is already op as fuck, running around smacking enemies for 8's with wind strike at level 3 is wild, regardless of how you look at it. I think the spells should operate the way they currently do; the same max hits and levels, but still have elemental weaknesses on top of it that make it the better spell than just fire. This way you'd use the best spell you have at the time unless there's a weakness to be exploited. If this means that water and earth need to have a higher % boost to make them the better spell in the right situations, I'm all for it. The idea of each element working slightly differently (air being faster, earth hitting twice, etc.) could be neat, but I doubt they'd go for such a large change.

[@BulletBillWow]

lol Tell a fire mage in molten core "elemental weakness are not a part of World of Warcraft." They were back when the game was good...

[@aintgonnatakeit]

good points

[@drew4252]

So far watching this video your argument is "why is this necessary?" That's not an argument. An argument would explain "why is this harmful to the game?"

[@cvbhuiop1]

This is a good argument and I appreciate that it's not just "They want to change my game, that's bad!" I think they could implement elemental weaknesses in a way that would please you. They're not perfect right now but the system is still in very early stages. If they wanted to balance out the usefulness of the spellbooks, they could buff the element spells and also add/tweak more useful spells on Arceuus. The game isn't built on pokemon-style rules where a lot of enemies have a logical typing and weakness... but it could be, if they expanded weaknesses to a lot more enemies and added more nuance. I agree slapping 50% earth weakness on addy drags is weird and arbitrary, but say if all dragons were 20% air weak and 40% water weak that would make more sense and encourage the use of more spells. The point of project rebalance is to make relevant much of the dead content in the game, and I think an elemental weakness system is a great way to broaden spell usage without overcomplicating things. There is one thing you kept saying that bugged me, that the other elements are just fire surge but a different color. Dawg. This is a video game. The entire game is just pixels on a screen. You may as well be arguing that the soulreaper axe is just a stronger slash version of the abyssal bludgeon that looks different. You yourself brought up the suspension of disbelief required by video games to function. If your opinion is that water surge is just blue fire surge, that's on you for being overcritical

[@Gotenhanku]

so at 14:50 mark you mention about the logic for wyrms and I think it's cause they use electric attacks thus the earth weakness mirroring pokemon lol.