#The Eye of Ayak is over-tuned and needs to be nerfed sooner rather than later

71 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

arctic dust
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It was proposed to fill the gap between Sanguinesti staff and Tumeken's Shadow.
Instead it's basically the same as having a shadow, and in some places, actually better than the shadow.
With talks of a potential change to the shadow in the future, this is likely to to make the Eye the go-to for all maging content. This is shown in the current price of the shadow

The harder-to-obtain items that come from raids shouldn't really be so easily out-done by an item that's 1/10th the price.

I propose bringing the dps of the Eye down to match (or be slightly below) the Sanguinesti staff.
This will then create the dynamic where you can choose which to use.
The Eye is cheaper to use, and the clear winner for crowd-clearing (e.g. Nylo waves)
The Sang is way more expensive to use, but you get the ability to heal.

This will allow the Shadow to continue to be best-in-slot (which it should be, considering where you get it), keeps the Sang relevant (which it should be, considering where you get it), and avoids the eye of ayak creating a problem akin to the old blowpipe

woeful forge
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Thing is we need to know how shadow will be adjusted before being able to talk about eye really. As it stands right now shadow will scale better than eye and become more relevant again, its still bis in most places anyways fwiw. And i do not agree with bringing eye down to sang staff levels, sang is underpowered enough as it is, +1 max hit for a ToB item versus a toxic trident is laughable. Psure you would entirely nuke eyes usecase if that were to happen except maybe nylos. But yeah for now a no from me, we really need to see their plans with shadow first

arctic dust
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But why should a farmable boss be dropping something that competes with a raid megarare in the first place? It's doing way more dps than they suggested in their proposal. That's before even getting to the fact it's half the cost per cast.
With the speed they've been coming into the game, the eye of ayak is likely to become as cheap as a sang is. It has no right being so much better than raids items

woeful forge
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Well 1) The problem is sang not eye in my opinion
2) Raid items will get powercrept as will any other piece of gear in the short or long term, there is no way around that

Something i would be on board with would be buffing sang by a maxhit or two (havent done any calcs just spitballing) and maybe increasing eyes cost of use. Bringing Eye down to sang is very much the wrong way to go imo, it completely kills it

arctic dust
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Everything talking about the Shadow's adjustments have been implying a nerf. Which is just going to make the Eye of Ayak the best magic weapon in the game

woeful forge
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Now that eye is in the game i am sure they will consider the impact of their shadow tuning. I am more expecting an adjustment where shadow stays where it is currently but doesnt scale as ridiculously in the future and allows them to design future mage upgrades more easily. A flat out nerf seems unlikely to me

arctic dust
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When they release an item that is specifically designed to not work fully with the Shadow is showing they don't like the power of the Shadow.
As it currently stands the Shadow requires all mage switches to be as good as it is. When you reduce those switches, or swap to lower-quality switches, then the Eye of Ayak's power is highlighted, because it's not as dependant on the rest of your gear

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So when you have this item that's
A) Easier to get
B) Cheaper to buy
C) Cheaper to use
and D) As powerful as one of the rarer items to obtain
You have a problem, and that problem needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later

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It's better to nerf 1 item than to buff others, cause buffs exacerbate power-creep
And it's better to nerf early before you end up with a problem like the blowpipe caused

light crow
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100% yes

mental hemlock
arctic dust
true pine
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Tumekans shadow doesn’t need to be the bis mage weapon for every single monster where magic is used. That’s contrary to the other two styles.

The twisted bow, for example, can be outdone by the bowfa and toxic blowpipe, depending on what monster you’re fighting.

arctic dust
mental hemlock
true pine
arctic dust
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Dps calcs that say that the Eye is either stronger than the shadow (on things with lower defences) or is marginally worse than the shadow... But becomes better by it being a fraction of the cost to use, so it's better long-term profits to use it over the shadow
Yama is not a relevant bit of content in this context, because demonbane weapons will always win

woeful forge
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on what bosses is eye actually better

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and i think you are forgetting that eye is 3t and has shorter range, that makes it a lot harder to use in the real world

true pine
arctic dust
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We've gotten away from the real argument, which is the comparison to the Sang staff
The Eye's damage is comparitive to the Shadow, but the Sang is way more expensive to use and comes from harder content. The eye shouldn't have ever been this much better than the Sang

woeful forge
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im all for buffing sang, not nerfing eye

arctic dust
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It's better to nerf than to buff for the health of the game

true pine
woeful forge
# arctic dust It's better to nerf than to buff for the health of the game

is it though... sang barely saw any use anywhere. nerfing eye down to it just puts two cool mage weapons from very hard content in the "never use except in maybe one niche fight" category. Shadow is still BiS in most places and they will have to consider Eyes power in their shadow tuning, its better to wait for that than to make rash decisions

arctic dust
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Sang's lack of use was down to content not being good to mage (unless shadow)
Ideally I'd like to see the Sang's cost per charge reduced to 2 blood runes, and the Eye of Ayak's max hit to be reduced a little

true pine
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2 blood runes per cast would be nice.

valid fjord
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even at 0 defence shadow beats eye (in max) and the difference only gets biggers as defence goes up

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the only places eye is really better is zulrah and barrows

violet kernel
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The eye is a fantastic edition to the mage weapon progression.

Sang should be buffed in when it's healing procs

The downside of eye is the range/ if you lose tics.

I think the eye is rare enough that it warrants the power it has.

Your claim that eye is better than shadow most places is bogas and needs examples

flint sail
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I don't think eye should be nerfed quite so hard as this proposes, but I like that this highlights the very clear problem with eye: we've once again been given an item that was described one way but feels like it's something else.

Like when burning claw was billed as between dds and dragon claws but is actually just as good or better than dragon claws at a wide variety of content

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Eye is too good for its price point/rarity. It's too close to shadow's power everywhere for a tenth of the price, and exceeds shadow in many cases.

ornate schooner
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The item isn’t even that good? Why does it need a nerf lol

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Shadow has crashed because of a lot of different things, mainly due to Toa being made easier than before
Everyone dumping it to buy tbow
And that the cost to use the shadow is so expensive, not many people actually wanna use it.

true pine
ornate schooner
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Probably will just buff shadow instead knowing Jagex but we shall see

stuck siren
jagged shell
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The stats has been known since its proposal though. People have known the dps calcs for eye on mage relevant bosses for months. It's not surprising that it is good. Why is this critique first appearing now?

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Magic having actual options other than shadow is not a bad thing either. Shadow not being the best on everything is a good for variability. You already have this in range. BP beats out tbow in a ton of places, many more than where eye beats shadow. It is also a lot easier to obtain than a tbow. Both as an iron and a main.

ornate schooner
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I mean it’s doing the exact same as other weps?
You don’t use scythe everywhere and soul reaper axe or fang is better

Similar to twisted bow where bowfa or even a crossbow is better

mellow anvil
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The eye is definitely too powerful it beats out shadow in some places and is very good if you are missing items for max mage ( ironman )

ornate schooner
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I don’t see the reasoning for requesting a nerf on the item though? What’s the exact reason? Because of the shadow price?

mellow anvil
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It does have shit attack range and its 3 tick so much harder to use.

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Honestly the issue is more so with the gauntlets making eye too powerful for people without almost max mage

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Maybe make the gauntlets passive effect only work on 1 handed 4 tick and slower attacks ?

ornate schooner
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See the thing is the gauntlets are great but you hardly miss with eye I’ve noticed

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Nerfing the eye will make it go below 30m if that I reckon.
Changing the gauntlets will also do similar as it’s pretty much just a small upgrade over Torm

And once then changes are made, delve boss won’t be worth doing due to the normal loot being so bad

mellow anvil
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That's just not true

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Basically make the gauntlets work the same for shadow and eye and I think its better to make it not work the eye instead of making it work for shadow. Yes the gauntlets would do a lot more for eye then shadow if this was the case and yes it would keep the gap more appropriate but it would make shadow incredibly strong as some places it probably shouldn't like nex.

ornate schooner
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I mean that’s just my opinion, I’ve used the eye a few times at a few different places and didn’t think it was that great

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Yeah I feel that changing it to work for 2hs will break the meta for most bosses that’s for sure and may effect the prices of melee/range gears too

mellow anvil
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Might be more of a perception and the on paper numbers may be hard to achieve for example at pnm where eye is bis i think it would be much easier to get more dps from shadow then eye

placid lintel
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Yeah whenever I get a heart and start doing nm I will probably still bring the shadow as well for flower phases and taking advantage of more range when switching pillars

jagged shell
mellow anvil
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I'm probably not on the majority here but personally I dont think shadow needs a rebalanc but I do agree weird restrictions kinda suck

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But they can just make it work for the eye once shadow gets rebalanced and keep it off for both weapons in the mean time.

ornate schooner
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I mean shadow is fine how it is, for the price it does what it’s intended to do
I mean any damage boosting items is going to cause a major balance issue between styles but not much changes
Once they change it to suit 2h if they ever do price of shadow will shoot up depending if they haven’t nerfed if by that point

jagged shell
# mellow anvil I'm probably not on the majority here but personally I dont think shadow needs a...

The shadow scaling 3X as hard with magic dmg makes it hard to balance magic gear as any actual upgrade in gear that affects the tridents/spells will inevitably catapult the shadow to unreasonable levels. Also the fact that it caps at 100%. Once that cap is reached you just stop bringing magic gear that puts you above it. Meaning that some gear slots will be useless for BIS mage in the future (already the case in ToA)

mellow anvil
ornate schooner
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They have to make it so it doesn’t mess up the economy in a way too, no idea how they will do as any changes to magic now will cause an uproar lol

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Don’t know why people who want nerfs on weps though, it benefits players 👀
Only way to fix it is the make it similar to blowpipe and slow it down or make it weaker
It have demon tears types
Making the staff rely on different demon tear types

jagged shell
mellow anvil
jagged shell
# mellow anvil Oh wtf? No way im learning somthing new in 2025 how does it work?

spells and tridents have base max hits. The magic dmg% enhances those. For example the eye has a base max (at lvl 99) of 27. Meaning you need ~4% magic dmg for every new max hit. The shadow in turn has a base max of 34 (at lvl 99) meaning you only need ~3% magic dmg for a new max hit.

How base max hits are calculated is different for spells and powered staves (magic levels are much more important for powered staves than for spells). But after the base max is calculated the way dmg% affects them is the same.

placid lintel
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Also is why it’s referred to as magic damage % and not str

left blaze
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also worth noting that shadow's damage scaling has a hard cap (that we have already gone past in toa)

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on a long enough timeframe, ayak actually will scale better than shadow because its not capped

visual prairie
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eye is really strong and its also given more usecases to sang, since sang also benefits from gauntlet passive and u can just switch to sang for healing (its proportionally more healing than blood fury) and then swap back to eye when ur done healing

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tho its hard to beat the healing of blood spells

cunning basin
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Eye of ayak is very balanced as the BP of mage, with % mage damage avoiding the slow vs fast weapon scaling problem in the other styles.

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It's just that Jagex has a habit of adding new stuff to fix mage rather than improving existing systems first (ie: first adding trident and sang instead of buff spell casting)