Pure Mage Advice Please

Hi,

I am wondering if there are any other mages out there that could give me some advice on playing a pure mage class. Here is a summary of where I am at now:

Adv Lvl: 54
Health 368, Focus 442, Str 40 Dex 30 Int 34 Resist 12.3 Avoid 1%
Lightning (80), Chain Lightning (63), Searing Ray (80), Obsidian Arrow (75), Earthquake (13 just started it)
Air Elemental (46), Swiftness (48), Acrobatics (61), Sympathy of Stone (50), Bulwark of Earth (41), Heightened Awareness (51), Train Int (49), Inner Calm (55), Enlightenment (45), Air's Embrace (49), Str of Earth (24)
Just crafted a full set of Epic Cloth
2 Wands: one has 2.5% crit, the other 5% spell dmg
Ring and Amulet but with no stats/gem yet.

No enchants or enhancements at all due to the Enchanting bug. I plan on enchanting as soon as the bug is fixed +int/str/dex wherever I can I guess?

When I go to Serpent's Spine Foothills I can handle 2 bandits (Yellow to me) and then my focus is depleted. If I get 4+ I have to kite for 3 mins waiting for focus to regen and typically wait for Chain Lightning to come up so I can aoe them down. My bro is a warrior and can handle 8-10 pulls np just standing there, same adventurer level. Sigh.

Now that I can cast while running that's how I play, always backing up (thx to swiftness they never get to me) and casting.

Any advice on what to focus on? What am I missing? Enchants? Specific skills?

Greatly appreciate some help since I am seeing on the forums how Mage's are really powerful later in the game...

Thanks,

-Kutas

 

Deck building based on stacking glyph's. Requirement for any mage that is trying to take on as many enemies. The dmg from spells are not enough if casting unstacked to take on more than a few before drained completely. Think there are lots of posts that explain efficient decks builds for stacking to lower focus cost.

If using AOE spells, you can take on 2 just like 8 because each spell hits all 8. I run around in a circle around 10 of them casting chain and discharge, and a pole arm multi attack. They done right about when focus out.

 

There's an enchanting bug?

Anyway, if you plan on using lightning/chain lightning as your main damage, stack as much Dexterity as you can. The effect of Dex is much higher than Int on air magic. As long as you don't have a lot of focus (<6-800), I recommend Fustian cloth for the extra focus. Once you're high on sustainability (Aetheric Feedback helps a ton, in the focus tree), you can switch to Carapacian cloth gear for spell crit%. Turret mode is also a must-have for casters (spellbinder's stance ).

 

The enchanting bug is for people with less than 30 Enchanting skill like me (just starting):

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/enchanting-is-broken.72318/#post-717775

 

Wow that sucks.

I would recommend you check player vendors for decent cloth gear though. You can probably get some great pieces for a tiny fraction of the price you'd pay to craft it yourself.

 

Aren't Earth and Air diamtetral and have negative effects on each other?

edit: I have equal stats to you, i can pull the whole Bandit Bunch and kill them in 2 Minutes.

Moonbeams, drink a cup of tea, Icefield, yawn, blink away, chainlightning, discharge while running around them while they are sliding over the icefield, begin from start!

 

Not anymore. That was removed a few releases ago.

 

Ok wrong thread, but do they plan to redo it or limit Magic Schools in any way?

Its a little bit anoying if you can be all in one person.
Including Heavy Armor Mages etc.

 

If you stand still long enough the casting cost of your spells will drop by 25% (stationary bonus). If survive-ability is an issue try using a shield and defensive stance (although this might not fit your idea of a pure mage)

In addition

• Train and use "Discharge" its a great AOE air spell and doesn't cost any reagents to use.
  
• Stacking glyphs will also help lower your casting cost
  
• Using aetheric feeback after a spell crits gives you a great focus regen boost for the next 60 seconds

 

Although you can raise all the skills you want, you're still limited by the number of glyphs you can reasonably put in a deck. More armor makes a lot of spells significantly harder to cast as well so it's a tradeoff. Same thing with weapons/dual wands/or wand+shield/etc. I love the versatility and the fact that there's no "hard line" that says this playstyle starts HERE and this one ends THERE.

For example, if i'm in an area where i'm relatively safe i'll put on my full carapacian cloth/dual wand set. If I know things are going to get tough, I adjust my deck and wear some more armor, maybe a shield, but only up to a point where I don't fizzle too much. Plus I lose raw damage and focus. All about tradeoffs.

 

I am similar level to you. Here is what I do.

• I make sure I am scene master. Enterign the zone first in Friends only mode helps greatly. That reduces the lag of monsters significantly.
• I eat some of the food increasing focus regen.
• I run in circles around bandits, trying to use discharge mostly, though soemtimes I cast fireball for the dot.
• When I run out of focus, I do not use another spell for a while. Fireball is great as it gives dot on those bandits so they cannot regenerate their health.
• Your focus regenerates faster in non combat mode and it regenerates only when yo uare not using any abilities, Give it time to replenish as much as you can before attacking again.
• Use the +Int buff in Sun tree.

 

Where are your healing spells? What are your healing inmate levels?

You may also want to try out the Mind Lock and Mind Wipe skills. One of those might suit your style of magery.

Use as few locked glyphs as possible. Try not to go more than 23 glyphs in the deck.

Fizzle is actually not that bad in full chain mail suit or leather armor. So you aren't obligated to be a mage in full cloth.

I use chain mail chest piece and all else cloth. I very rarely fizzle earthquake or chain lightning. I try to consistently cast those spells at 4 or 5 stacks. The chest piece is what determines the armor skill tree you can use. So, this allows me to also cast the Body Slam skill which is in the heavy armor tree. It also gives me the heavy armor tree inmate buffs.

I would start with a halberd (pole arm) for the AOE it provides. Then when you get more tanky and want to pull mobs faster and in larger numbers switch to a bow for its range.

If you want to wear chain or leather and find fizzle to still be a problem then use enchanted staff or duel wield wands. They have a buff which decreases fizzle chance. Some shields also have this buff so you could do one wand with one shield. Unfortunately staff and wands are presently considered bludgeon weapons so they have no range. Hopefully, Port will fix that.

 

Focus on raising your train str/dex/int to at least 60, you will be them all. Train and use glyphs that buff up your stats before engaging into combat. Focus on raising attunement, not the skill levels as they will take more focus per cast.

Also most of the lower tier spells allow you to move as the casting starts, so use that to your advantage.

 

Did you remember to eat? Spellcasting is hungry work. (good to scarf down some kind of focus-regenerating food before going out to hunt & gather).

If nothing else, have an apple or something while you learn to make something richer.

 

Aestheric feedback in the focus tree. When you cast it right after you land a spell crit in combat, it gives you a +20 focus regen buff. You just have to stop using abilities/spells for a few seconds to get it to kick in, but it works wonders.

 

I have Healing Touch (48) Healing Ray (50) but I rarely ever need to heal. With Swiftness I can kite really well without ever getting hit. And if I do get trapped I use Dash to peace out. I haven't died in quite a long time.

 

Thanks for the advice so far everyone, really really appreciate it.

Some things I'll be focusing on:

• Stacking glyphs more to reduce focus cost (rarely do this since the dmg wasn't that much greater) [Thx Toadster!]
  I used this thread to learn a few new things: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...od-and-how-to-modify-it-for-your-needs.58341/
  Including being able to right click on a glyph (or CTRL + #) to immediately get rid of the card to get another (Mind Wipe useless now?), amazing! I feel like a fool for not knowing that, very counter intuitive for the deck system. I feel like I should be forced to use the card I was dealt or wait for it to go away. I was stacking cards to clear slots to try and get CL up again... I've also reduced my cards to 19 in my deck. Also holding a number key and pushing on another to stack is cool.
  
  
• Going to work towards getting Spellbinders Stance and Aetheric Feedback in the Focus Tree as well as making Fustian Epic Cloth set. [Thx Zapatos80!]
  
  
• Working up other skills in Air/Earth to raise attunement. [Thx Roycestein Kaelstrom!]