First I want to say that i really want to love EvoMages. I think they are pretty cool, but done so wrong.

Since Morgana just got enhanced, and with her being a GLEX unit I was full of hope they fix her and the problems Evo Mages have. Surprisingly I've read a lot of times that she does well now and her enhancements are not that bad. However, I’ve got to tell you… she is bad and she is not even close to be competitive with any mage since like CG-Terra (yes it is that bad).

To understand why this is the case, even though if you look at some DpT calculations you’ll see high numbers, we have to dive into some math and mechanics.

1. How does Evo-Magic Work

The good thing Evo-Magic bypasses mitigation! That’s nice! However, there are not that many fights where this is relevant at all, but it is a plus!

The double-edged sword: Evo-Magic doesn't use killers. Which sucks cause you cannot push your damage higher. BUT you get Evo-Mag and Evo-Dmg for it, which both are individual multipliers. These are somewhat gated through equipment, but could theoretically give 300% dmg each and compensate for the loss of killers.

The bad thing is evo-magic is often not only MAG stat focussed but uses SPR and MAG in a ratio. For Morgana this is no problem since the ratio here is only Mag focus, but for most Evo mages this is somewhat a problem, especially if you have to mix Evo skills with normal Magic skills. Additionally, you need to use the Evo gauge as a resource and as we all know, it is not only hard to fill, but it also can only hold 10 orbs. This causes problems for mages like Morgana with quadcast and costs higher than 1 orb, since you would like to bring a dupe, but then do not have enough orbs to use all the skills. And there is no way around that.

But we want to talk about dmg won't we?

2. Math Example

Since this will be about Morgana I use her as example:

You take the build with “Wiki parameters”: https://i.imgur.com/rIjeMia.png

She would have 3163 Mag unbuffed with 60% Evo-Mag and 90% Evo-Dmg.

The Skill you would normally use is Crystallized Spikes and it has, with all mod boosts (except the one where Elena has to be present), a modifier of 12.

Usually in damage-per-turn (DpT)-calculations we would not take killers into account, but we should do so here, since she has a kind of “killer” just for all races.

So she gets the two extra Multipliers: x1.6 and x1.9 or together x3.04, which is like you have 200% Killers equipped.

Quadcasting this skill gives you 52,692,860,116 damage. That is quite a lot. Especially if you compare it with other mages: Ace has 53b, Rem 50b it is pretty much comparable. BUT you forget these can still be enhanced by killers. So you would triple their damage by 200% equipped/buffed killers and we all know (since Xon and DV is omnipresent currently) that you can also Buff much higher killer percentages.

So if you want to compare it to a “normal” killer value of 200% you would have to divide Morgana’s damage by three. This leaves her at 17b… which is bad…

This does not get better with higher gear. Like for example with more whalish gear:

https://i.imgur.com/L3gfLAn.png
A whooping 3513 Mag and 150 Evo-Mag 110 Evo Damage leading to a 525% multiplier! So this is as much as a 300% killer mage with 200% outside buffs! Sounds impressive doesn't it?

I mean this makes a burst of 81,145,320,946 damage with that Quadcasted 12 Mod skill!
Well but now apply like 200% Killers to Ace or Rem → 3x74b = 222b so more than double the damage Morgana does, and a lot of room for even more damage through killers.

​

So she just deals a lot less damage than any other mage.

3. The Good and the Bad of her Enhancements

Let’s start with the “Good”: They “fixed” some of her Evo-Orb problems. Arcane Trade now fills up half of the Evo gauge every turn, ie. with a dupe you get the full Esper bar every turn. That’s nice, since now you can cast at least use 4 Evo spells, where you were only able to cast 3 before the enhancements. They also added 100% more Mag and 100% TDW Mag. Nice!

The “Mediocre”: There are two new skills, which have an offensive or defensive break connected to an imperil and a 35 (45 if you are in a team with Elena) mod with one hit and it even fills your esper gauge by 6 (so if you use a dupe Morgana you are at 12? Or if you have used Arcane Trade before you are at 11? Which doesn't make sense at all, but overall this is a good way to fill the gauge isn't it?!!). But it is no Evo-Magic, so your Evo-Mag/Dmg does not increase it’s damage, which makes it an awkward choice for dealing damage. Being an unlock also makes her difficult to use as your breaker, since you will not have breaks turn 1.

The “Bad”: They completely “forgot” to enhance the Mods of her Evo-Damage skills. They buffed her magic damage to a forgettable Mod of 23.4 (or 27 with Elena in the team). Which is like half of what new mages have. They also did not change any frames, so she sticks with Absolute Zero and Chaos Wave frames, which are not used at all. The skill with Bolting Strike frames still has a cost of 2 Evo, making it unable to be used with two Morgana’s, and it additionally is non-elemental, so it cannot profit from any imperil.
So overall she does not get ANY help for her Evo-Magic still being at the level of her release!

4. What needed to be done?!

In the case of Morgana it would have been really simple to fix this. Just give her damage spells CWA frames, increase their mods, and lower the Evo-Cost from 2 to 1 for her high level skills. It’s not hard to calculate what these need to be to make her comparable.
Staying with the whalish build shown before ( https://i.imgur.com/L3gfLAn.png ) increasing the mod from 12 to 30 for example, would have led to a burst of 202.8b damage. Divided by 3 (if you assume other mages would have triple damage with killers), so you end up at 67.6b damage as “burst”. This would have been a reasonable number comparing it to an equally geared Ace (74b) or Rem (72b).

What would that mean for the “wiki” case:

You would have a Burst of 99.1b damage -> divided by3 -> 33b. Still a lot less than Ace or Rem, but at least somewhat usable, especially if you remind yourselves that this is a year old unit, and that you would not have to gear for killers, since she would have ”killers for all races”.

Good Evo-Mages are often just blocked by this! By the missing mod, or Gumi/Alim not being able to calculate their damage in a reasonable way, and the Esper Gauge being capped at 10. For others that have the stat-split it is even worse.

TL:DR:

Gumi just missed a chance to fix Morgana and make her usable as an Evo-Mage, by not addressing the problems with Evo-Spells.

PS: Where the fuck is the GL Enhancement Guy? I miss you! :(
PPS: Please calculate and fix Eiko's Damage before releasing her!