Created mage after 9 years grinding as dragonknight

Hello all! After almost 9 years grinding as dragonknight I decided to create a mage (for several reasons). After CE the build for mage and other classes aswell became different. Many players have Legendary King's set now but I don't know what set I should get (also rings, weapon 1h or 2h?, belt, cloak, amulet, crystal). I also don't know what my skill tree should look like (currently I use frost abilities but I feel there's something wrong with my skill tree). I will be grateful to anyone who helps me.

 

I always felt the Legendary King's set is a bit overrated, but it's immensely popular, so eh.

Anyways, ice mage is currently the way to go. I have a guide that covers that, so I'm not going to waste my time re-typing all of it.


As for equipments:

• 1h weapon if you're new. Until you can confidently break 4.0+ attack speed in 2h, you should be 1h
• Good ring options: Balor's Ring of Chaos for damage, Mortis's Ring of Death for attack speed
• Belt: If you have an old Belt of Zeal, or 2/3 Roshan set (belt+gloves)... you can also give the Lingering Memories belt a shot if you're lucky and get it
• Cloak: Cloak of Heroes, and the Kaylin Lefrye cloak
• Amulet: Amulet of the Kraken
• Crystal: Sigrismarr's adornment

 

After playing this game for a few months in 2013, I realized that the mage was going to be a better choice than DK. At that time, it was much easier to find groups for the mage. People didn't want DKs in their groups. I played both chars until I gave up on the DK after the Lor'Tac expansion. I preferred the DK as I like how it looks to play with a large weapon and to be more resistant to damage. It was a little painful to give up on the DK. I agree with the ice build for the mage.

 

I am happy that exactly you answer because I have watched your video about ice mage build. I've been using it since 30 lvl (but I'll need to try electrical build, seems op). Thank you for mentioning about the equipments. I have noticed Athena (in Youtube) has Q4 weapon and expected he will not have that much attack speed or crit but it seems I was wrong.
One more question - what 1 hand weapon should I get?

 

Electrical build is excellent in a group, especially with either another SW or dwarf. If you solo play it's a bit weak.

Q4 weapon is only suitable for those players who have massive gems (we're talking at least trapezoid++) and fully crafted equipment. If you don't meet the requirements, you'll only suffer if you try to use it.

As for 1h weapons, there's a few I've contemplated using:

• Scorn of the Dragon set (weap + offhand) if you want to toss in some fireballs (world drop)
• Staff of Destruction from Myrdosch region (I never got around to experimenting with this one, since I went 2h weap shortly before obtaining it and never bothered)
• Starlight for mana, excellent beginner weapon if you don't have big runes yet
• that wand from the desert region whose name I can't recall right this moment - summons swords if your HP gets too low: this one isn't that good at all, it's just something to fill the slot with if you don't have anything better

 

• that wand from the desert region whose name I can't recall right this moment - summons swords if your HP gets too low: this one isn't that good at all, it's just something to fill the slot with if you don't have anything better

You mean the Desert Flame Wand? If I got you right the first thing I need to do is to hit 100lvl (currently my mage is 62lvl), then farm for Scorn of the Dragon set or Starlight (because as you said it's excellent beginner weapon) and craft some gems. The biggest problem remains the wisdom.

 

This is not a scientific observation, just my anecdotal experience, but wisdom drops from random mobs seems to have been tweaked down again in the last few releasese / hot fixes. Not the quality of the drops, but the frequency has been much lower for me lately.

Consider farming real world bosses on Painful difficulty? Khalys, Sigrismarr, for example. Sigri is especially easy to get to, isn't terribly difficult to kill, and you might end up using his boss item drop to craft a unique in the future.

My SM is level 83; I get ~150 wisdom per kill (wisdom isn't guaranteed in the boss drop, but frequent; I'll guess 80% of the time?) ... I do have Wisdom runes, so your drop amount may vary (I'm also guessing that the drop amount is dependent on your Experience level).

You'll need Keys of Prowess to enter the boss rooms, so you'll also want to farm keys from Khepre in the Great Desert.

 

Yes, that's the name.

The items that I've named are all pretty easy to get. They're either world drops or else regional uniques. As long as you farm, you can get it. You can get it before you turn level 100 too.

As for wisdom, dkarl is right, farming bosses on Painful mode is the easiest way to get it right now. If you aren't able to kill the boss yourself, you can see if you can find someone who is farming a boss for their ingredients and tag their party.

 

IF you get to having 3 skill bars at the bottom then you need to do both an Ice Mage and a Fire Mage.

If you use a plain keyboard, map buttons 6/7/8 to the first 3 skill bars, and put MC, Sing, and FG on Bar#3. That way you press either 8/1/6 or 8/1/7 to cast MC depending on if your a fire or ice mage at the time. (change out 1 for 2/3 for the other 2 skills)
Alternate way is change 1-8 to be Num1-6 and use Num7 to Num9 for the bars, turn your keyboard and left hand the NumberPad (where MC would then be Num9/Num1/Num7 or Num9/Num1/Num8. In my setup (logitech G13), I run 9 skills on 2 bars.

No matter what mage you choose to run, 10/10 in Mind Control, Singularity, Fire Guardian, and your main attack is a must. Put only 1 point into Teleport (any more is a waste). Put some points into Frozen Sphere and Frost Nova (the more the better). If you can handle multiple bars, Frost Charge is a great skill for healing and slowing the crowd.
Note here: A Lightning Mage is the only one not using any cold.

If you have to choose 1, then Ice Mage will probably be better for you on low levels and Bosses with few minions. Besides the three previous you'll also want Ice Missle, Frost Nova, Frozen Sphere, and Frost Wind.

I find being a Fire Mage with Fireball, Frozen Sphere, Frost Nova, and Meteor to do way more damage than being an Ice Mage. As an Ice Mage your main attack is Ice Missle which ONLY HITS 2 monsters. As a Fire Mage, Fireball hits 4 in a row (and 8 when they're side by side) and explodes on the 4th for a nice size area damage.

.
I'll explain my reasoning. Went against Dragan in the Great Hall on Mercelless as an Ice Mage. I was doing ok till I got him down to where the spider came out. Soon there after I forever lost site of Dragan as the mass of spider minions buffered me into a corner. I couldn't do enough damage fast enough just hitting 2 little spiders at a time. For every 2 I killed, the "spider queen" was producing 5. If I had had the ability to switch between Ice Mage and Fire Mage I could have corrected the situation, wiped out the "spider queen" (that I couldn't reach as Ice Mage) and then cleaned up the _screen_full_ of little spiders. Then I could have gotten back to Dragan, whom I had gotten down to 1/4 health before the "spider overrun".

There are times (whipper and shield guy) that being stuck as an Ice Mage solo just doesn't cut it. Sorry Silverseas, but for me that holds true. Understand, nbo5775 and everyone else, that what actually drops is a very big effect on what you can do. I would love to have that Living Memory belt, but it has never dropped. I've only gotten a few of those King pieces and they are all crap (I've armor that has a total base value of 10% (a+b+c=10).)

Another examples:
Sargon. First map I run as a Fire Mage. Second map as an Ice Mage. And that is both solo and in group.
Arachna: I'm Fire Mage solo or in Group. As an Ice Mage, I can never get past the little spiders to ever do any damage to her. Which means I'm not doing much more slowing than what I do as Fire Mage either. Just too many of the little versions.

 

Arachna has reduced Ice res afaik, and probably the spider at the Great Hall likewise.

Ice forces you to go into melee range a lot, using various crowd control to survive. Remember that with those lots of little spiders one Frost Wind grants an enormous buff to Frost Nova's damage for 1,5s, and then the Frost Nova reduces ice res, which combined with singularity zeroes the Ice res completly. Think: singu -> teleport -> frost wind -> frost nova -> frozen sphere -> ice missile -> frost charge (when stun from frost nova ends and you find yourself taking dmg) -> repeat when cooldowns end.

Of course fire is very good too, it doesn't require such flawless, complicated and dangerous combos to do considerable damage.

Lightning works well in groups with other lightning users, because that way electrified debuff stacks well enough to do really great damage. It has the downside of not having a specific skill from the last row.

Poison... may work well with the new PW Gorga's items, but I don't think anybody has tested it thoroughly enough. It would take everything maxed out in the first (generic magic) category except for teleport of course (1/10), frozen sphere maxed, meteor maxed, posion mastery 1/2, frost charge 1/10, guardian of flames maxed... destruction special talent perhaps... then possibly bloodmage, and the rest of points - not sure. Maybe put them into fiery destruction and fireball and use Scorn of the Dragon set?

 

Since you asked...

I crafted Q10 pauldrons and gloves on my TS SW, swapped into it and made some minor adjustments to make it as close as possible to what it originally was prior to the gear swap. Took out poison mastery and went to try it out on mobs and bosses.

On mobs it's weak [EDIT] because MM is a single target skill, wasn't worth it.

On bosses my only source of poison damage (because I was playing solo) was the damage ticks from poison mastery. Also wasn't worth it.

So in conclusion, poison mastery is trash on SW at the moment, even with the help of Q10 pauldrons.

 

Is there a possibility to change my choices made in experience? As far as i can see it's only " left-click" to add. Would be nice if there was a "right-click" to remove.

 

You can reset your points ( top right corner) or chose Preset 2 3 or 4 for completely new set of experience settings.Hope this helps;

regards;
Shine2

 

Gonna try that, thnxx for ur help