Direction of Mage Class

There's a fundamental thing Mage is missing to make me happy - recursion.

By "recursion" I mean spells such as Drain (steal enemy HP to restore your own) and Aspir (same for MP). I personally like the way FFXI balances this - these spells are cheap and have fairly quick casting times, but very long cooldowns, relative to the game's APM (about a minute, which is a long time in an FFXI fight).

A spell like Drain is important because it lets a Mage maintain their momentum while sustaining their health and MP. It means you aren't as dependent on items or other classes to help sustain you, while at the same time not overtaking those roles at all - a Healer is still going to far exceed the output of Drain in this regard as long as it's balanced right.

As for Aspir, what I actually rather like the idea of is an FFXI 'Weapon Skill' for staves called Spirit Taker - instead of stealing enemy MP (which means it's ineffective on enemies that don't have any MP), Spirit Taker deals physical damage (but with Intelligence and 'Wisdom' modifiers), and then converts the damage done to your own MP pool. As with Drain and Aspir, this is balanced by being an ability you can't simply spam.

I understand that weapon types are technically outside the scope of the question to an extent, but any weapon or similar that grants an ability like Spirit Taker is most probably going to be my default pick - in FFXI, I use this ability to sustain myself in long fights, and I can plan my entire MP and ability flow around it rather than just using abilities whenever they cool down. Drain, for example, allows the caster to plan around its use by hitting harder and pulling some hate on purpose - when the enemy gets off you and you're hurt, you know you can use Drain to quickly restore yourself. The long cooldown of these abilities means they are aspects of the build you can structure your playstyle around, and it's a foundational aspect of the 'offensive Mage' ability flow that I feel Ashes is currently missing.

EDIT: Since I didn't mention visuals at all... honestly, I'm not picky (I play Skyrim without sweeping visual overhauls, for God's sake), so I'm not really the best person to comment on that, but I have no complaints with the direction they're taking. Looks good so far.

MAYBE something like, "enough Fire effects on the enemy turns the flames blue" to be like, "damn, you REALLY fucked their shit up". That sounds pretty cathartic!

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No because those are just two/three extremely small abilities added to the Mage core. They're literally the only things about the class as presented I'd change; I'm not interested in summoning or whatnot

For the class to feel complete, I'd need some small utility stuff like that. Mages need options aside from just "hit stuff hard" and "enfeeble", even if those options are limited compared to a more dedicated class like Healers or Necromancers

Just a bit of sustain, you know?

@Pyrolol - as it currently stands, saying Mages should be limited to big boomy stuff and giving them Drain abilities would step on the toes of Necromancer seems like an overinterpretation. As it stands, classes (never mind the game as a whole) are incomplete, and the idea here is to discuss the direction we want things to go in.

I come from Final Fantasy XI, where Black Mages (the direct analogue to AoCr Mage) have various tiers of elemental nukes, but also have some supplementary debuffs, and Drain-enemy-HP/MP spells that are balanced by long cooldowns. HOWEVER, Black Mage is still way worse at debuffs and sustain than other classes. It's just a bit of versatility - it lets Black Mage players solo more easily if they want, and in a party situation, a Black Mage can manage less-critical debuffs. I.e. the Ninja might handle most debuffs in their ability cycles (Slow, Paralyze, etc), while a Black Mage might maintain some secondaries to keep the Ninja from being overburdened.

A bit of extra flexibility like this is a feature of most classes in FFXI, and in practice it allows solo'ing and especially duo'ing or small parties to have a much wider array of actions with which to strategize and approach situations. Black Mage IS not and SHOULD not as good at utility stuff as other classes - hell, it's not even the best at casting Drain spells, that'd be Dark Knight - but HAVING some of it, imo, is important for class to feel complete.