I simply assumed that on Cradle, "magic" is already explicitly part of the techbase much the way electromagnetism and petroleum-based plastic are a part of ours. As pointed out, we have plenty of clear indication of this such as guns called "Alchemers." The way I see it, having a "Magic" class here would be like another game having weapon classes such as Shotgun, Pistol, Automatic Rifle, and Gunpowder-driven. Magic cloak is analogous to woven kevlar armor, metal-ceramic scale armor, reactive ablative armor, etc.

I think I get what you mean about it suggesting a particular cliché associated with something called "magic," though, and agree that a thematically matched weapon class might be nice; I would probably like to see a whole new class in addition to swords, guns and bombs, but you didn't give any kind of clue as to what kind of behaviour you have in mind for it, if any. We already have melee weapons, projectile weapons, and exploding bombs. (though some swords throw projectiles, some swords and guns make AoE explosions, and crystal bombs throw shards farther than any gun I have used) What should the staff do, in general, that does not feel redundant?

Swords are best for focused DPS but require you to get close. Bombs shine against huge mobs and the current bombs also for status effect infliction and pushing/pulling, but require some breathing room to charge up. Guns are safe and easy to use but most have low DPS and some monsters are good at dodging most projectiles. The Staff class could then be more status effect-oriented than current projectile weapons are, or at least have some weapons that are that way, yet otherwise be ranged and focused like a gun. The first example to come to my mind is a fire-inflicting ranged attack with low base damage, like the Gremlin Flamethrower. It would be less powerful against a huge mob than a firebomb, but be easier to hit a few monsters with or hit on short notice. Of course, not all bombs are status-oriented, so w/e.

I am a sucker for beam weapons, and we do not yet have instant-hit ranged attacks, so I suggest that. (I might even count a continuous projectile, (like a stream of water) even though it would have a travel time, just because it would be fun.) There are a lot of possibilities for variation within the class in addition to the assumed damage type and status effect variables: smooth sustained streams, rapid pulses, bursts of about a half-second, big instantaneous flashes with a long cooldown, big bursts of rapid instantaneous pulses, beams that split into fans, beams that reflect, beams that overpenetrate, beams that explode, user-healing vampire beams, target-healing medic beams, beams that call down stuff from the sky, (such as bigger beams!) Jim Beams, multiple lock-on thermal beams, etc. etc. etc.