Pure Mage Unarmed

So I'm currently working towards a pure mage build (Air and Water element for now).

While I'm using a sword right now to fill the gaps when my focus runs out (since I just started a new character) I don't want to use a weapon later.

Can you play a mage purely unarmed or should I get a wand? Would love a staff but our avatars holds the staff extremely strangely..? Like a polearm I guess?

 

yes, you can play a mage with just wands or with shield and wand

 

I am playing a pure mage build with two wands, but will use a book or artifact for offhand later when it's available.
I have to say yes it's possible, but not very easy and somewhat expensive to level skills.

If you use Cloth Armor too you have to skill Defensive Stance and use Earth Magic maybe, helps a lot and also the light armor innates are usefull to avoid damage.
Problem solo is, if you are attacked by a bunch of Mobs you cannot stand the incoming damage and kill quickly enough. But this depends on the type of mob you are fighting.

Melees (Serpent Spine Foothills. , Twins Foothills) can be kitet easily with Icefiled , I've arrow and discharge. If you go for gold, don't use the Spells that consumes reagents. I have Discharge and Ice Arrow at 80, third will be Obsidian Arrow.
I more and more let off Air spells, but chainlightning , I have it at 70 is a powerfull spell, problem is if the consume is too high you won't make a plus and need gold to skill this spells up.

If some other Tips are around please let us know .
maybe @Kara Brae has some tips for you too.

 

Don't forget that you lose allot of attunement and other stats that you could have on a weapon/shield

in my mind a mage is unarmed by default but could use a sword/wand or w.e and this is why I think sockets for gems should only be in armor not in hand equipped items

 

Once you pick the spell trees you want to work on, be sure to raise all skills in that tree since the attunement play big role in the spell effectiveness.

Also keep in mind that as you spell skills level up, they will cost more focus, so you will want to raise int and focus skills as well.

 

From reading posts about "overpowered" mages, I understand that some people are so skillful at combat, picking the right skills to train, and building effective decks that they have no problems as a mage. I wish I belonged to that group

When I started out as a mage I also needed to carry a physical weapon in auto-attack mode in order to survive. I highly recommend not going purely unarmed. Wands and Staffs don't do physical damage to speak of (yet?) but they can carry valuable buffs that are indispensable.

Later on my spells did more damage so I threw away the weapon in favor of a staff/two wands that had useful buffs. But I was still too fragile in my cloth armor to handle groups of mobs without kiting them from a distance. So I gave up one of my wands in favor of a shield and that helped a lot.

A few days ago I finally put my shield aside and took a second wand again. For protection I use Defensive Stance and Dodge.

When the focus nerf came, I had to build an alternate deck (with sword and shield) which I switched to when my focus ran out. That let me finish battles with auto-attack instead of having to flee. I haven't had to switch to that deck recently though.

I have found it impossible to specialize in only one school of magic. My original plan was to be an Air mage. I have been playing a mage since R12 and I had never used air magic, so I thought it would be fun. Also players were saying that Chain Lightning was such a great AOE spell. Well, in the end I found it impossible (and expensive!). I now have spells from all different schools of magic. In my current deck against groups of bandits I am using Immolation and Ring of Fire for DOTs, Obsidian Arrow and Searing Ray for kiting, Chain Lightning and Discharge for AOE. A few days ago I added Corpse Explosion for AOE. Depending on what area I am adventuring in, I have to change the spells I am using.

Is my strategy a good one? Probably not, because at adv level 75 I still can't solo skeletons in a 5 skull scene or kill a Lich. There are mobs in the game who are generally resistant to magic, and I avoid them, so I can't go everywhere. I keep asking people for advice myself

 

I've been playing a pure mage for years. Btw, real mages don't use wands, they use staves.

You should definitely get yourself a good staff. There's little bonus for doing that, although it's certainly possible. In the future the devs would like to allow players to create focus items like books and magical trinkets (voodoo dolls, for example) that can take the place of wands and staves.

 

I just can agree to what @Kara Brae wrote.
I feel not op (level 63) and I have problems solo in t4/5 if there are rangers and magicians to fight.
They do a lot of Damage to me, you cannot kite them, so you need to make burst damage and stand the damage try to reduce the spells and arrows that hit you.
Defensive Stance, Earth Embrace, Buffs and to try to take them down fast is what helps.
Ban Undead is very powerfull against skeleton mages and Lichs, but you have way more types of mobs as a mage that you cannot fight proper.
Melee fighters afaik have very less mobs they cannot fight and that's earth elementals who are very resistant against physical damage.
I tend to say it's not about different Mage Archetypes, in the end its all about to be an Archmage and the only decision is maybe between death or life, but you need nearly every school except Chaos to stand every foe
Moonmagic is somewhat useless atm, but I think it will be the first school what get improved to avoid fights and decrease aggro.
Unfortunately the most spells of every school won't be usefull, but you need to train one spell and one school after another to get a higher atunement.

There need to be more restrictions , also between melee and magic , we should have limited trees to skill or overworked system of diametral effects . Actually it seems that archetypes just aren't viable and a lot of people tend to train everything.
With Magic it's the same, you cannot just be a Necromancer or a pure Healer or Airmage only.
You need at least Sun, Earth and Air for the Buffs, Healing for yourself, Water is very usefull because of Icefiled and the Water Elemental is one of the best because he heals and does damage. All other summons are somewhat useless, but I stick to my Wisp ,because I am still hold on my archetype.
But it seems he will soon use the next additional school, but just to have one more costless damagespell .
Reagents costs gonna kill you because there are just 2 scenes where you can make a slight plus while skilling the t3-t6 spells.
And to begin with Chaosmagic you need to stand exactly the type of Mobs who are very hard to fight.
Archers and Casters

 

I am playing pure mage since live and it is tough, but possible. It should be much easier later when you have enough focus (and food helps quite a bit). I hate that wands are bludgeons (and staves polearms?), but better than sword. And I was able to level ignite weapon finally to get more fire skills, which bothered mee for a while.

Enemy archers and mages are my bane though, I can barely fight one at a time and not very high level at that. And Obsidian Golems, really tough creatures to take on with pure magic.

 

Source? And just because it's commonplace in books doesn't make it a fact, just a tradition (maybe).

In all honesty, I would like to use a staff. However, there is a problem here if you run around solo (which I do a lot of the time): you can't just stand still because the mobs will tear into you. Yet, you need to stand still for the stillness bonus.

My only option is to be somewhat more defensive and use a wand/shield combo. Maybe we can consider having a similar "stillness" type bonus on staves that offset the need to "kite" or be mobile when using one? Something that's not an "Easy" button, but that has to be earned by a player or crafter to apply to a staff? Just spitballing.

 

Me.

 

But, but Dumbledore...

 

What about Brooms? I know a few mages in game who surly fly around on brooms too.

 

A broom like coconut would be awesome, are the, really ingame?