[X] My Assistant

I am thinking of getting an average Mage set so that I can work on higher difficulties since I can't really deal with anything higher than hell difficulty as Melee so I have a couple of questions.

1. Should I be going for a holy set or a dark set? Which one is better and if one of them is cheaper is the increased cost worth it for the amount it's going to cost?

2. Do I need any other elemental skills or will Dark and Holy cover everything I'll really need?

3. What stats should I be looking for in Mage gear? I'd assume the proficiency and spell damage would be the main factors but I don't know much about gears.

4. How important are base proficiencies? As far as proficiency goes I have around 0 holy and dark proficiencies.

5. How do you deal with MP as a Mage? I used to mage from level 1-150 and stopped because the MP usage was insane and I couldn't get through more than 30 or so rounds (which is ironic now since it's the same deal being a melee right now currently lol) but I see people talking about how they don't need to rely on pots as a Mage.

6. Last question is about survival, another reason I stopped playing Mage was on higher difficulties after the groups got up to 6+ I would die before getting a chance to get a spell off. I guess Spark of Life would help that but I don't think I could reasonable sustain the spirit for spark of life proccing every round.

Thanks!

Switching to mage is something you do for kill speed, not higher difficulties. You see that Niflheim set in my signature? That basically tops out at . . . Hell T&T (it would go higher with forging, but Phazons are silly expensive and I won't forge any of it until I've got at least a few Leg pieces in there since that would be more cost-effective). I could do Nintendo before the monster PL scaling got changed to add effective levels at high difficulties (HTTP, Y UR WAIFUS RAEP SO HARD?!?)

Holy and Dark are roughly even. The difference is in the proc, and that Holy gets T2 while Dark gets T4. Holy gets raped in the ass by Celestia Lindwurm and Raging Hardon, Dark gets eaten by Sherlock, and a few Undead, and Cold gets fucked by all of the above, and Elementals for good measure. Pick which mobs you would rather swear at, and who you would rather have on your side when you argue about which gets raped harder by the local wildlife is better, ChosenUno or Danixxx. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Getting Shocking or Tempestuous on your stick isn't terrible, since they deal with Mechs and Konata, respectively. More power in your core element is however, always better.

You want EDB/Prof, INT, Evade, WIS, AGI, DEX in that order (and Evade/WIS is very close, with AGI and DEX trailing way out over there). If a piece doesn't have INT and WIS, it's troll phase, AGI/DEX just add more avoidance. Gossamer is great at first, but long term you really don't want more than 1 piece of Gossamer, as it suffers rapidly diminishing returns from your base profs and has worse Evade/PABs than Phase.

Base profs come with time. They are damn important now (not sure how much so they will be after The Mage Patch ™). But yeah, 200 prof is 100% damage, which is kind of a lot.

For MP, yeah you pretty much just guzzle Godlies. 13 battle item slots and all that. Economizer on your stick really, really helps (yeah, even the first level is noticeable, it's that good). Base Regen is nice, but not really that significant until you get a decent chunk of IA (not particularly great with my IA 1 even with Star bonus, but that did do massive things for my melee set). Imperil is also a necessity for conserving MP against certain mobs since it can dramatically increase damage (20-25 MP for Imperil is a savings if it saves even 1 40-50 MP T3 cast).

Survival. We are glass cannons of the highest order. I don't start any fight with more than 3 enemies without having Haste, Shadow Veil, Spark and AF up, and any Arena sequence I'll put up Regen II and Protection as well. SS as well in many cases. New Protection helps a lot, you'll be able to tell when Protection or SV drop because you'll start dying even more horribly. With it up, we're at least Pyrex Cannons. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

This post has been edited by PK678353: Apr 16 2013, 23:47

Well that kind of gives me mixed feelings about maging now since I can handle hell difficulty as a Melee so switching to Mage just to do Hell difficulty as well doesn't really help.

I used to be able to handle 80 rounds of Battletoads or so as a Melee but ever since one of the patches I can barely do 20 now and with spirit shield on I still randomly get KO'd on Nintendo so I can really only do Hell difficulty now.

I guess I want to just pick one style that would be most beneficial in the long run and stick with it since constantly switching styles is just hurting my proficiency grinding.

It could also be that the entire situation is gear based and it doesn't really matter which style I choose to go with.

Well, you said an average set. That Nif set definitely isn't average. The Fenrir set is, but I can't really tell you how effective it is at high difficulty since I don't use it outside Schoolgirl Marathons much for prof grinding and I need to IW up the Staff before it's particularly much use (seriously, Economizer FTW).

You could rent Lement's set for a few days, it's very comparable to that Nif set. It's still Fire as opposed to Holy/Dark, but you can extrapolate (H/D has fewer enemies that MUST be Imperiled to not die horribly, but Imperil does less for them). In fact, that's what I would suggest if you want to give maging a quick go with solid equipment as opposed to whatever crappy stuff you can dig up for cheap.

This post has been edited by PK678353: Apr 17 2013, 00:14

Well that kind of gives me mixed feelings about maging now since I can handle hell difficulty as a Melee so switching to Mage just to do Hell difficulty as well doesn't really help.

I used to be able to handle 80 rounds of Battletoads or so as a Melee but ever since one of the patches I can barely do 20 now and with spirit shield on I still randomly get KO'd on Nintendo so I can really only do Hell difficulty now.

I guess I want to just pick one style that would be most beneficial in the long run and stick with it since constantly switching styles is just hurting my proficiency grinding.

It could also be that the entire situation is gear based and it doesn't really matter which style I choose to go with.

You can do 20 Battletoad rounds with the last few patches! DAAAANGG.

Lucky. I get into around round 5 and I die....

with my cheap holy mage i can clear all the arenas up to endgame at BT, sparking from time to time XD, and the rest up to the trio and the tree at nintendo.
i can actually clear up to dark skies at IWBTH but i risk to spark every other round...

it's not "that" hard even if it's kinda a pain in the ass.

The difference is in the proc, and that Holy gets T2 while Dark gets T4.

you mean it's better to cast T2 holy instead of T3?

You can do 20 Battletoad rounds with the last few patches! DAAAANGG.

Lucky. I get into around round 5 and I die....

That's... strange. Just what are you doing anyways? Judging from your training you're obviously more wealthy than me but I can clear up to 15ish IWBTH rounds maybe more.

Seriously, what are you doing?

That's... strange. Just what are you doing anyways? Judging from your training you're obviously more wealthy than me but I can clear up to 15ish IWBTH rounds maybe more.

Seriously, what are you doing?

Haste, Regen II, Protection, SoL

Then get quintuple shotted after getting evaded and parried several times.

One of my hourlys on just Hell got me ONE shoted from ~9,000 health, from a single monster and I had everything but SoL active, since it was just Hell and only 3 monsters to start. I used to be able to IWBTH up to the 25 round arena and about 30-35 rounds in Grindfest. Now I can't make it past 5-6 rounds in Arena; and I tried to IW only to get blasted on round 5 of a fine item world.

This post has been edited by Nightwishman: Apr 17 2013, 00:50

Regarding mage profs: Spellcasting is pretty likely to give prof. IW an exquisite to level 6, do your arenas and you're most of the way done.

And seriously, if you want high difficulties melee is nearly your only option. To do IWBTH arenas on great stam with mage you need close to fully forged legendary staff(with econ 5 ofc), ditto for phases, with IA5, all shards, star and rainbow and even then it can be somewhat inconsistent if you don't have levels of daemon duality.

Which one is better can depend on your ping though.

IA5 is not that important as a mage, because a) You cast a ton of spells so you'll get channeling before they run out, b) You spend more than a magnitude more on your regular attacks than on IA. However, getting at least spark on there helps a ton. Not spirit shield, as you're prone to die to evade failing, not monsters getting enough mana that they can skill you(though this can still happen).

Opportunistic ETs(whacking a mob to death) can save some mana, plus they give OC to spirit stance with. Still, biggest advantage after equipment and shard ones on low difficulties is using tier 2 when there is less than 2 mobs that are resistant to your element present. When going all-out with proper conversation you'll get most of your mana from riddlemasters and gems.

Holy and Dark...While the chart difference between them isn't all that different, generally, holy is more popular and thus expensive(partly due FSM), and has generally better perks(cure versus poison), not to mention because of rotation being an option for these 2 elements, the tier 4 damage advantage is kind of moot since majority of monsters that are strong against holy are weak against dark or vice-versa. Strong means "do third of the damage" while weak means "do twice damage". The MP efficiency is 30% or so lower on each tier. And as it is, dark needs to rotate anyway on high levels due holy proc reducing MMI. Although MMI is scheduled to change dark still wont get the mana conversation from opportunistic tier 2 spells.

I'd also argue that WIS is more important than evade in some theoretical alternate world where mage scores script didn't exist. Use it, mage's sword is his shield and it objectively tells you how much your damage will increase.


@Nightwishman: Get Shadow Veil, Heartseeker and Spirit Shield. Useful spells for melee.

This post has been edited by Lement: Apr 17 2013, 00:57

i'm not a big fan of the T2 spells since i already find annoying when T3 spells don't proc their effect. also i don't think the holy spells are so hard on your mana pool. when i do normfest i often manage to reach round 200 without drinking a single potion (depends on luck on gems and keeping a double 4 turn ET active a lot).

I was catching up on the patches since I guess I was 2 patches behind since I last checked but with the change in agility not affecting action speed anymore does that mean I don't have to pump agility as much anymore? I mean my Evade is garbage as it is so I'm guessing it's not going to help much when I only have 18% chance to evade anyways.

I was catching up on the patches since I guess I was 2 patches behind since I last checked but with the change in agility not affecting action speed anymore does that mean I don't have to pump agility as much anymore? I mean my Evade is garbage as it is so I'm guessing it's not going to help much when I only have 18% chance to evade anyways.

if you are going with heavy armor your evade is going to be eaten up by the burden so agi is not a priority.
if you are using light armor then evade is important and you should get armor with decent evade and invest into agi as well.

That said, AGI is still less important. Light armor can just get the evade at least. Beforehand, getting 500 agility was quite helpful(for action speed cap) and it was major advantage of elemental over holy/dark.

If you have 75 burden, all you get from AGI is crit.

Haste, Regen II, Protection, SoL

Then get quintuple shotted after getting evaded and parried several times.

One of my hourlys on just Hell got me ONE shoted from ~9,000 health, from a single monster and I had everything but SoL active, since it was just Hell and only 3 monsters to start. I used to be able to IWBTH up to the 25 round arena and about 30-35 rounds in Grindfest. Now I can't make it past 5-6 rounds in Arena; and I tried to IW only to get blasted on round 5 of a fine item world.

Where's your Spirit Shield? That prevents exactly what you just mentioned. Considering you just made 190 you should have it. Recently I've stopped using SoL in favor of SS because SoL rarely procs for me and when it does I'm going to die anyways. Though its always a good habit to start off with SoL in IWBTH random encounters.

Shadow Veil could help you as well but then again that's another mana sink and I don't use it that much.

What are you wearing? Dying in a fine item world on round 5 sounds strange. I have Exquisite power armor with some mag heavy mixed in. Cost me about 400k so its relatively inexpensive. You definitely have more than that, so get some better items if you don't have at least that. I mean if even poor ass me can afford it surely you can.

Also why are you leveling so slowly? I remember being behind you about 100 levels before. I don't even play that often. Hourlies on IWBTH and a few arenas on Nightmare.

That said, AGI is still less important. Light armor can just get the evade at least. Beforehand, getting 500 agility was quite helpful(for action speed cap) and it was major advantage of elemental over holy/dark.

If you have 75 burden, all you get from AGI is crit.

I spent ages getting my agility to 500, and a couple of weeks after I got it to 500 the patch hit.....
Agility still gives a bit of damage for heavy melee though, and if you have a ethereal weapon can get some evade out of it. I get 2.4% evade with an eth weapon (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif). I would probably have 10% evade if my power set had agility and good burden rolls, but meh.

Where's your Spirit Shield? That prevents exactly what you just mentioned. Considering you just made 190 you should have it. Recently I've stopped using SoL in favor of SS because SoL rarely procs for me and when it does I'm going to die anyways. Though its always a good habit to start off with SoL in IWBTH random encounters.

Shadow Veil could help you as well but then again that's another mana sink and I don't use it that much.

What are you wearing? Dying in a fine item world on round 5 sounds strange. I have Exquisite power armor with some mag heavy mixed in. Cost me about 400k so its relatively inexpensive. You definitely have more than that, so get some better items if you don't have at least that. I mean if even poor ass me can afford it surely you can.

Also why are you leveling so slowly? I remember being behind you about 100 levels before. I don't even play that often. Hourlies on IWBTH and a few arenas on Nightmare.

I'm wearing reasonable plate of protection; and I just unlocked SS this last week, so I'll hopefully, die less.
I wish people would stop insinuating that I have any reasonable amount of HV wealth....

This post has been edited by Nightwishman: Apr 17 2013, 02:21

I'm wearing reasonable plate of protection; and I just unlocked SS this last week, so I'll hopefully, die less.
I wish people would stop insinuating that I have any reasonable amount of HV wealth....

If you were wearing "reasonable" plate of protection you wouldn't be dying as much as you say you are since I'm wearing the same exact thing. Are they at least Exquisite? That's pretty much reasonable IMHO.

And I always thought you were rich ever since you posted that thread complaining about being poor when you were richer than me by like 10x taking into account your training.

I assumed the whole thread was a joke thread and you were trolling everyone. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I'm wearing reasonable plate of protection; and I just unlocked SS this last week, so I'll hopefully, die less.
I wish people would stop insinuating that I have any reasonable amount of HV wealth....

Try casting shadow veil as well, the way the RNG works on this game only 20% evade can be surprisingly effective.

Also if you are dying that much, you should try going for more power armor. For myself my plate protection is not good enough so I can only get through by wearing full power and killing monsters before they kill me.

Wearing plate only reduces my kill speed and lets the monsters hammer me more with their skill attacks. Get your kill speed up to a level where you do not need to worry as much about the monsters skill attacks, then worry about trying to get more defense.

You are not going to take that much more damage per turn from monsters normal attacks wearing power armor as opposed to plate(unless it is high quality forged plate), you will however kill things much faster, so what mana you save on casting buffs you can spend on casting cure more often.

If you were wearing "reasonable" plate of protection you wouldn't be dying as much as you say you are since I'm wearing the same exact thing. Are they at least Exquisite? That's pretty much reasonable IMHO.

And I always thought you were rich ever since you posted that thread complaining about being poor when you were richer than me by like 10x taking into account your training.

I assumed the whole thread was a joke thread and you were trolling everyone. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I spend 99% of my credits on training and 1% on grabbing a snowflake from the shop...
I've been pumping XP and AP points for the last while.

I think I'm dying, because I'm clicking to fast. I did a "slower" run through the 10 arena on BT and managed to stay reasonably high on HP with only haste/regen II active, but also catching when I needed to heal.

I have zero paitence ..sometime and hate stoping to do other things when I'm busy killing things in games...like diablo 2...never used potions while running Meph/Andy...just spam spells to kill things everywhere/..and i died.

I'll mention this again: Use heartseeker.

I'll mention this again: Use heartseeker.

I do, when I proc Channeling (most of the time after casting Haste, Regen II - which is when it procs.)

(Which...someone said to do for heartseeker)

This post has been edited by Nightwishman: Apr 17 2013, 02:46