First some general information about what makes fire mages so hot. (pun was 100% intented
)-) Fire Mages have the best DPS in the game. No questions, its math. Now when you take into account flux and resistences on bosses, and OTM nerfing us at some bosses *cough*Mordy necro gele proteus *cough* other classes will most likley out dps us, but take mages and the best dps on your server and compete at the obelisk in power, the level 150 rock by aggy with 0 evasions and 0 resists, basically a level 150 training dummy that drops dumb drops, a decent fire mage will crush every time.
-) While Ice Mages are heavy hitters and will always top the mage skill hit charts, fire mages are fast. Fire bolt has a 7 second cool down, fire storm has a 15.5 second cooldown, ice shard being the faster ice mage skill has a 15 second cooldown...
-) fire mages are useful at legacy (except ostra 2016 210 smolach).
-) fire mages are meh at 205 and 210 edl bosses (cragskor and exalted phantom)
STATS
The best way to see what stats work the best, and how they best work to build a great Fire Mage is to start with the Damage Formulas.
Level 50 Fire Attunement Damage Boost = 22.331*sqrt(Focus) + 10.044*sqrt(Fire Magic) + 307.16
Level 50 Fire Bolt Damage = 72.853*sqrt(Focus) + 21.611*sqrt(Fire Magic) + 264.84 + Fire Attunement Damage Boost
Level 50 Firestorm Damage = 90.164*sqrt(Focus) + 25.515*sqrt(Fire Magic) + 365.43 + Fire Attunement Damage Boost
Level 50 Incinerate Tick Damage = 27.879*sqrt(Focus) + 12.521*sqrt(Fire Magic) + 227.05
Level 50 Fire Lure Resistance Reduction = 17.516*sqrt(Focus) + 5.1609*sqrt(Fire Magic) + 219.08
Looking at the damage forumla's for firebolt for example, we can see that for about every 800 boost to firemagic, there is a 200 increase in firebolt damage. Meanwhile it takes about 250 focus to have the same effect on firebolt. (this is using a level 220 mage with no added focus or firemagic)
- effect of fire magic.png (165.58 KiB) Viewed 5493 times
Focus
- effect of focus.png (166.67 KiB) Viewed 5493 times
Focus is one of the main ways a fire mage can control their damage output. Although increasing focus has less of an effect than increasing your fire magic, it is nonetheless a key part to your DPS (damage per second). Although full focus builds are a lot of fun, I would not recommend one until you reach end game level. Keeping the 3 focus to 2 vitality ratio works well for leveling until 160, after that it is best to switch to 4 focus for every point in vitality.
My mage has managed to stay full focus since level 160, so it is possible, but solo leveling becomes much harder, and nearly impossible in this build. I would only recommend full focus if you will be group leveling or are done leveling.
Vitality
Vitality is one of the key factors in keeping you alive. Although Energy Shield (Eshield) is a great companion in the aiding of keeping you alive, having health is just as important. Since mages are a ranged class, vitality is not as important as focus, but it is important, especially for leveling. Because of how powerful a mage's damage is, you will often gain the aggro of mobs while leveling, and without a decent amount of vitality you will find yourself dead and or locked most of the time. Although the 3 focus to 2 vitality ratio is great, you may need to add more vitality depending upon how you level and how often you die.
Dexterity and Strength
Dexterity can be nice for a defense boost, but I would not recommend spending any of your stat points. As for strength, this stat is 100% useless to mages, unless you are using dl wand trying for highest auto hit for leaderboards. Other than that don't use it. If you want to use strength make a ranger or rogue
SKILLS
MUST HAVE SKILLS
-) Fire Bolt - 7 second cool down timer, giving this skill the fastest cool down for a mage skill. Does decently high damage, reaching anywhere past 10k with decent End Game gear. Lastly this skill is insta cast. No cast time (other than animation), shortest Cool Down, and high damage places Fire Bolt as a Fire Mage's key skill, much like how ice mages focus on iceshard a fire mage should focus on fire bolt.
-) Fire Storm - 15.5 second cool down, only half a second longer cool down than ice shard. Does high damage, my highest fire storm to date is 29700 (have a screen shot where I hit 29700 then hit 29264 the following fire storm :3 ) With decent gear it can hit anywhere from 10k-15k+ noncrit, doing 20-30k+ critical damage. Lastly this skill is AOE, and does a great job at shredding adds. Unlike Ice Blast, Fire Storm is a great skill with a decent cool down time. Throw on a necral band of Fire Storm and you are all set with this skill.
-) Fire Attune - Need I say more? Fire Attune boosts the damage to Fire Bolt and Fire Storm, which are your two main skills. This is a must use skill for any fire mage that is aiming to be top tier.
SUGGESTED SKILLS
-) Fire Lure - Although this skill doesn't need to be maxed for leveling, this skill becomes essential for any 6* or 5* boss. I would highly recommend that you use this skill and keep it maxed. Furthermore, Fire Lure is 1 of the 3 needed lures for Proteus.
-) E-shield - This skill will keep you alive. A maxed (level 50) e shield will provide around 3k protection. With its decent cool down time and fast cast, E shield is great for protecting you against chaos boss's Chaos AOE Skill and any other AOE that may be thrown your way. The skill also helps to minimize deaths getting to bosses.
-) Ice Shard - For any mage 205+ I highly recommend using this skill. The 205 and 210 EDL bosses have high fire resistance but very low ice resistance, which is why you may have noticed icemages are a key to locking these and always get the kills. But with ice shard a fire mage can form a middle ground between ice mages and melee dps on these bosses. Although you won't be as amazing for locking or killing these bosses, your DPS will be on par with the best of your hasted rogues and rangers, and maybe even a little better. Sometimes I even use occult gloves (instead of ancient beast bone) and an imperial necral band of iceshard instead of my firestorm necral CDR brace at these bosses. All in all ice shard gives ice mages a little bit of the other element which greatly helps at bosses where fire magic is weak. It also helps with the 210 Smolach (ostra 2016) legacy boss, and skain when the fire shield is up, as well as Pyrus.
-) Incinerate - Incin has both pro's and cons. I would recommend using ice shard as your third dps skill over incinerate, as it provides you with an ice skill for bosses weak to ice, and it is burst damage so better for lock fights. However, if you have enough skill room for a 4th skill, I would recommend picking up incinerate. On proteus it lands between 375-450, on helis 1.5-2k to provide a range for its damage. I use it as my fourth skill and it is great to have, but I wouldn't use it over ice shard if I had to chose. Also it's fun to cast on noobs in the arena and watch them burn. Freeze is too
-) what about energy boost? - I didn't forget the skill (well actually I did but that isn't the point
) but in my opinion, energy boost is one of those skills where if you need it use it, but sigils are preferred. GEAR HELP
There is quite a lot of options for gear out there for mages to chose from and these are my recommendations on which to choose!
General Gear Break Down (this is an odd color isn't it?)
For this section I will be breaking it down by level ranges, as what works best changes with your level range.
Levels 1-100
Skill points>damage boost gear>regen>fire magic>focus>vitality
-) Now, the only reason why I placed regen in here is because at this level range, regen actually does something... after level 80ish regen becomes barely useful, but in this range regen can actually make a dent. If you are using e regen lixs or sigils, or just don't need the regen than skip it, but I liked the regen because it made this range extremly cheap.
-) Skill points help a lot here, the closer you can get your skills to 50 the better. Fire magic and focus don't even come close to competiting in terms of usefulness to skill points. a +1 ring will help more than any focus or fire magic item that you can aquire in this range. I would recommend a royal and grand fire attune ring, a royal firebolt ring, and a royal firestorm ring for this level range. For braces look for any that can add skill boost, I would recommend the thawing frostiron braces (they add firebolt, focus, and fire magic).
-) Armor wise it doesn't really matter. If you can afford it the heroic set is nice, offering 30 armor for boots and gloves for a total of 60 armor, which is more than you would probably get from a shop armor set. But I would recommend warden or darkshadow.
Levels 100-150
Skill points > damage boost gear> Fire magic > focus > Vitality > Regen
-) Congrats on reaching level 100! Regen from lux is now officially useless! This will be the last level range I will even mention regen. OTM doesn't really understand how much energy casters go through to understand that the regen they provide us is 100% useless. Regen imo should be % based, and based off of your total energy, or function similar to regen lixs, with a base regen + a % of your total energy. But regardless of how I think it should be we need to opperate within the confines of what OTM has set up for us, and that means energy regen items that don't help at all. So congrats!
-) Skill points still help the most in this range, as your skills probably won't all be at 50 or close yet. Until you can get your skills to 50 skill points will always be the most useful out of the possibilities for your gear.
-) Fire magic and focus are great, but only use if you cannot find skill point gear or damage boost gear
-) For armor I would recommend obisidan mixed with ancient beast bone gloves and boots for the best dps. For what's best for staying alive I would recomment meteroic and frozen. But this is the level range where there is a good split between those who use the warden-DG quest line of armor vs those who use the side quest armor (obsidian/beastbone/occult). IMO the side quest armor is always better for casters for dps. OTM did a really good job in designing this armor and I would reccomend taking full advantage of it. 300 damage boost to firebolt is amazing. My mage still uses ancient beastbone gloves at 226. Only item I would use over it (except at gele where I need to use full edl) is DG gloves.
Levels 150-180
Skill Points (unless the skill is at 50) > CDR = Damage Boost Gear* > Fire Magic* > Focus > Vitality
* You are probably wondering right now, "Why the *?" Well, I'll tell you. This is now the level range where your skills should be around 50 or close to it, and it is here where you should start investing in damage boosting gear, especially when you get to 170+ with Hrung CDR skulls at 175, and hrung hats at 175 too. The * is refering to the effects of necro rings. You have finally reached a stage where a boost from a fire magic item is high enough where it can outperform other gear aspects. For example a godly necral ring of burial (100 dex, 100 foc, 1000 fire magic) will add around 260 firebolt damage, and 340 firestorm damage give or take a small amount (does not include effect from attune damage being boosted) . For a ring that is a great bundle (considering a mighty gele firebolt ring adds 400 firebolt damage). So this is where you would want to consult the damage forumlas or just look at your skills and see if the amount of DPS gained from the fire magic item is higher than the dps gained from the item that provides a damage boost/CDR.
-) Damage boosting gear also includes Cool Down Reductions (CDR's). IMO CDR's should be viewed as % increase on damage, instead of a % decrease in CD.
-) for armor I would say mix alchemical with beast bone and fill in the remaining with dragonlord. So ancient beastbone gloves, alchemical boots, hrung firestorm hat (or DL hat if you don't have), dl skirt (alchemical legs unlocks at 185), and dl bp.
-) fashion tip: Mage DL is sexy af... Mage DL with blue coven is unbeatable...
levels 180-240
CDR = Damage Boost Gear > Fire Magic > Skill Points > Focus
-) Congrats! The end of leveling is near! It is now time to solidfy your build out of leveling and into an EG build. This means you will most likley be shifting from a build with vitality to a full focus build.
-) Here you will most likley have every skill at 50 or 49 (thinking of fire attune/lure as the unmaxed skill). As such, you should prioritize CDR like a necral band of firestorm and a Hrung Skull/Emberdrake Bolt CDR Misc over skill points. In the remaining jewel spots look out for damage boosters like a mordy firebolt brace, gelebron rings, and even a gele firebolt wand!
-) Fire magic is still great. Although it doesn't help with evasions (although it should there is a misconception that ability points act like attack, OTM has confirmed this TO NOT BE THE CASE for maxed abilities. For example 2200 fire magic will help you land your skills the same as 5400 on a 220 mob, but if your firemagic is only 1560 you will probably miss most of your shots. I still use a imperial necral ring of burial and I am unsure of when I will be replacing it with (except a godly burial ofc). Most likley will only replace with a godly gele ring or something from corrupted gardens, will have to wait and see.
-) Focus is still meh. By now you should have plenty where your energy is somewhat decent and focus barely improves your skills much. nonetheless more is always better.
-) I didn't even include vitality... Unless you are pvp vitality doesn't really matter too much in this range, just try and stay north of 3k hp and you should be all good.
-) for armor I would say mix occult, a hrung firestorm hat, ancient beast bone gloves, and DG.
-) For DG pieces I would reccomend Chest -> Helm -> Gloves -> Skirt -> Shoes for maximum DPS. The first 3 items give great firemagic boosts that gives you more DPS than you lose when taking away the occ/alch/hrung piece.
Some General Advice about Maging
1) HOTSWAP! If I get one more pm asking me if you should hotswap... I started hotswapping because I joined Resurgence, the dominant clan on Arawn, at 220. The only way I could even compete with skill points or DPS was for me to hotswap. I went from the worst EG mage in the clan to one of the best (some would say the best but WestWend Lonehawk Mendel and MickyDee are some pretty baller ice mages). Hotswapping allows for you to take full advantage of the gear that is out there. Instead of using 4 rings you can use 3 and then 1 for every single skill. It does take some time to get used to it, but trust me it is 100% worth it.
2) GROUP LEVEL. Solo level mage can be alright, but i prefer to deal massive damage in groups. Also its just more fun this way... and Mages are not the victims of the profiling that druids suffer through where people think casters suck for leveling. If you have pierce lure everyone will want to level with you. Mage with magic lure and druid is also a very OP combo.
3) SIGILS! use energy sigils. they are amazing
FAQ (ooh this color ought to be cool
)-) Should I hotswap?
Read above
-) How do you get proteus kills? The rangers on my server are awesome.
Rangers on every server are amazing at proteus with edl quiver. Shout out to ventius (betus on forums). EDL quiver is just way too op. I have two ways around their annoying quiver stealing all the prot kills.
1) The good Little Support Lure Monkey Mage Approach. For all of you mages who don't want to play sneaky in organizing lock groups to get kills here is the best way I can suggest. Take advantage of times with low rangers, on prot bases (as they are less likley to haste) and use pots. You won't get a ton of kills but you may pick up 1 or 2.
2) The sneaky lock group engineer's way. The best way to get prot kills is to organize full mage lock groups. Mages are the second best dps at proteus behind rangers, a few rogues on my server can outdps me but only 3 atm (and they have only outdpsed me once each). As the other ranged dps class, a full mage group can outlock a 1/3-1/2 ranger group. If you can't complete with mages fill in with ranger alts and pretty good rogue mains. I call this stacking the lock group. Due to the odd screen or prot rage rangers are likley to die, and since when you die out of lock all DPS you put towards kill gets wiped, the rangers will lose any credit towards kill. Is it evil? yes. Does it work? yes. About half my prot kills are from this, the other half are from me trying really hard when ventius or carpediem aren't there.
3) luck
-) Are gele wands or hrung skulls better?
There is no cut and dry answer to this question. You are gunna hate me, but it has to do with the formulas. If the hrung skull's CDR % adds more damage than the gele wand would, use the skull, otherwise use the wand. Don't take the wands skill into account. Unless you have magic lure on most bosses the wand skill is just an extra button to push during cool downs for your main skills. I use a royal emberdrake firebolt CDR and gele wand and I love it. I would suggest going for a combo like this (unless you play on arawn, cuz godly firebolt misc is mine
)-) What is your build/gear?
MY CURRENT BUILD/SET UP
STATS
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 5 (215)
Focus: 1135 (2790)
firemagic: 5700
icemagic: 3250
Vitality: 10 (430)
Health: 3456
Health sigils: 311
Energy 12949
Energy sigils: 2606
Attack: 1113
damage: 330
defence: Can't remember
armor: Can't Remember
level: 226
Skills
firebolt (50/45)
Firestorm (50/45)
Iceshard (50/45)
Incinerate (50/45)
Fire Attune (50/45)
Fire Lure (50/45)
E shield (28/45) (with edl legs, 20/45 otherwise) [may need to update this number, been a while]
Freeze (42/45) (use a shadow freeze skull || +12 freeze, 25% CD, 1000 E, 30 mag dmg, 3000 speed; And Godly Abyssal Ring of the Glacier || +10 iceshard +10 freeze) - Freeze for gele I am primary freezer and director of runes and mages at gelebron usually, cuz i haven't missed a single gele raid in Resurgence since i joined back on August 4th 2016
ARMOR:
Royal Trollbone helm of firstorm || (150 vit, 8 firstorm, +650 firestorm dmg, 9 armor, 180 req)
DG BP|| 480 focus, 120 vit, 120 defence, +1000 firemagic, +1000 icemagic
Occult Skirt || +650 firestorm, 176 elemental resist, 240 hp, 300 e
anc bb gloves || +300 bolt , 23 armor, 39 elem resist, 32 hp, 64 e || (hotswap to occ gloves [+900 shard] for 205/210 edl)
Occult shoes || + 500 bolt, 37 armor, 75 elem resist, 120 hp, 150 e
hotswap to edl and darkscale helm of mysteries for gelebron
Lvl 6 golden rabbit (tier 4) named Harey Potter (pun intended
)lvl 2 silver wolf battlemount (tier4) named Ghost, rarely use.
GEAR
MH: dark wand of solar bolt || + 675 to bolt, 5000 mag dmg skill, 180 foc, 600 energy, 130 mag dmg, 3k speed, lvl 210 req
OH: Exalted Dragonlord Grimoire || 450 focus, 6k divine dmg skill [90 sec CD] , 200 divine dmg, 300 chaos resist
Ammy: Godly Hellfire Riviere || 250 focus, 150 vitality, 800 firemagic,
Misc: Royal emberdrake charm of firebolt || 30 focus, 300 firemagic, 15% cdr to firebolt hotswap to golden camo charm for traveling and some bosses and dailies
Brace 1: Imperial abyssal armlet of fire bolt || +445 bolt dmg, + 9 bolt, 450 fm || Hotswap to majestic aetheric band of the meteor when i use edl || 155 vitality, +7 firestorm, + 7 incinerate, 450 firemagic (keeps firestorm maxed when i take off helm, edl gloves cover for brace)
Brace 2: Imperial Necral Band of Firestorm || 25% Storm CD, 400 hp energy, || hotswap to royal necral band of iceshards for 205/210 edl bosses || 20% shard CD, 300 hp e
Hotswap rings:
Mighty Aetheric Ring of Firebolt || +405 dmg, +11 bolt
Mighty Aetheric Ring of Firestorm || + 608 dmg, + 11 to skill
Godly Abyssal Ring of Glacial Storms || +10 iceshard, +10 freeze
Imperial Abyssal Ring of Inferno || +9 firebolt, +9 incinerate
Imperial Orphic Ring of Lure of Fire || 150 focus, +9 fire lure, 275 heat resist
Imperial Alechemic Ring of Fire Attunement || +9 fire attune
Imperial Frostiron Ring of the Glacier || +9 e shield, +400 icemagic, +45 elemental resist
NonHotswap Rings
Imperial Necral ring of Burial || 90 dex, 90 foc, 900 firemagic
Godly Aetheric Ring of fire bolt || +15 firebolt, +675 damage
Majestic Aetheric Ring of Firestorm || +709 firestorm dmg, +12 firestorm
Personal Bragging Rights that I have achieved with this set up/strat
12+ Proteus Kills
29700 firestorm (used some other gear like another gele storm ring, a sacred flame wand, and anc bb shoes)
- _d_2i8i18_g_5h8Ud017svc8nx7pskdxcr4_ficboc.jpg (140 KiB) Viewed 5493 times
This Guide will be updated as time goes by if i notice anything is missing. Please feel free to comment or PM me any suggestions you see or other details you think should be added to make this guide better.
Feel free to pm me if you have any questions or just comment below!
-Bob
