Elle wrote:
1.) sorcerers dont really have sources of physical damage, AND quad immunities are horrendous.
2.) Fire and lightning have amazing damaging skills, fireball, chain lightning, and the two walls. And the guardian. But ice and magic elements do not have such an equavilent.
3.) If you decide to change the Mind Mace to physical then its damage probably does not need to be nerfed at all.
1.) Nothing is stopping you from collecting and using a good set of "offset" gear for melee (bow? if that's your kind of thing) With decent enough gear for your level, and the spells at your disposal such as mana shield, you can make an effective battlemage. In late normal and early nightmare I found this to be the easiest alternative. Late nightmare it was a much more uncommon problem due to the better negative resistance gear as well as the usability of my spells increasing.
2.) While I constantly wish there was a "Cold Wall" or whatever spell when I run into a behemoth that is immune to everything but cold AFTER elemental drain, I think I would ultimately not like something like that actually introduced. Cold spells "Chill" as well, they can not have the damage output or utility of fire and lightning spells with this added benefit.
I find that with sentinel, blizzard and iceblast I am capable enough to do cold damage the few times I feel the need.
3.) If mind mace WAS changed to physical, the damage would most certainly have to be nerfed. Otherwise I would likely rarely use any other spell... And that's a problem.
In my opinion, the only option for mindmace to be physical damage was in the vein I had suggested when I originally brought up the topic. If it was a relatively low damage spell (less damaging per mana/level than cold) and something along the lines of a single projectile.
Baldur's Gate had the spell "Magical Stone." This spell would do 1-4 physical damage and was a level 1 spell for priests. Comparable magic damage spells of the same level did more damage (Ex: magic missile starts at 2-5 damage, burning hands 2-5, shocking grasp 1-10) The magic damage spells also grew greatly in power and utility whereas the physical damage spell did not.
There would need to be a significant drawback to physical damage based spells to keep them from being overpowered. I just logically can't imagine that a level 50 sorcerer who can hurl meteors and lightning from his fingertips would be too stupid to at the very least use telekinesis to fling rocks at the enemy at high speed if nothing else would hurt it...
