Celtic Heroes

The Official Forum for Celtic Heroes, the 3D MMORPG for iOS and Android Devices

New mage

#1
Hey guys, I just started a playing mage a couple days ago. This is my first time playing since the destiny update. At least I think that's what it was called. Anyway, I remember Dal Rita being significantly different. The castle got revamped, npcs that used to be across the road are now on the other side of the road. Over all though, I quite like the changes. So my mage is now level 35 in Shalemont at the "other side" quest were you have to cross the bridge kill the trappers/archers. I paused at this point because it's the biggest level gap in the beginning quest line. Killing lvl 37* enemies for one quest and killing lvl 45** for the next and I feel like I need actual build at this point.

I've been doing mostly 3 focus, 2 vit till now but I have only spent 6 skill points. Two in firebolt, two in lure of fire, and two in cloak of fire and I've been using level 1 shards, e-shield and e-boost along with them and been able to kill every enemy I've had to up until this point, but now with the quest jump I need a little more, probably a lot more, fire (or ice) power to get the job done and I don't want to screw myself over at the start by using a bad skill combo.

The reason I don't just go fire is because one, I assume since there are less Ice mages it would be easier to gear that way. Two I'm not buying plat to start, so I really need to be careful with my gold and I have no idea when I'll get fire/ice attunement or storm/blast so I won't really get many benefits from going either or for now and thirdly I just noticed something that makes me doubt if bolt is really better than shards.

My shards (at level 1) take 4 energy and do 96 cold damage and bolt (at 3) also takes 4 energy but only does 64 fire damage. My ice magic is at most 3/4 of my fire and min 2/3rds. I'm not sure if this is just because skills scale badly or if shards actually does cost less energy per dmg than bolt.

Finally, I'd also like to try a hth or auto build as I read it can increase your dps at lower levels and it would complement potentially complement shards better.

Any ideas you guys have are welcome, I'm on Epona so if you guys have any recommended items maybe you can also include an accurate cost.

On the last note of gear, I was originally hoping to get the woven sorcerous armour to make leveling easier, but now I've started the duskshadow quests so I didn't think it would be worth it, however I've only been able to get a single relic so far and at this rate it will take me days, if not weeks to get it all so I haven't given up on the woven armour yet. So what do you guys suggest for armour?

Re: New mage

#2
Welcome back to Celtic Heroes! Yes, the game has changed quite a bit over the past couple years!

I’d highly recommend focusing on a fire build at lower levels. I’m not exactly sure how energy costs compare at higher skill levels (I haven’t tried my mage as an ice build for a while). I think Ice usually does around twice (or more) damage for about twice the energy cost? In which case it would be up to you to decide if you want the speed of fire or power of ice.

Ice does deal more damage, but it also has much longer cooldowns, which means you will be spending more time waiting for skills to come back so you can finish off harder mobs that you don’t kill with the first hits. Until you get firestorm and fire attunement, I’d recommend levelling up both ice shards and firebolt...because more damage is good. Once you can get your hands on fire attunement and/or firestorm, start putting points in those instead of ice shards. Fire lure will become pretty useful in the immediate future as well, even with only a few points in it.

As for other skills, e-boost and e-shield are both awesome skills. I highly recommend dedicating some points to those for the survivability and regen aspects (how many points is up to you, depending on whether you need the regen or shield more).

Always keep in mind that you can get a book of alteration and reset your skill points...you aren’t forced to stick with your decisions. You could buy one from a player (not sure of Epona’s pricing) otherwise you could do bounties to get tokens and get it from the bounty store.

A hand to hand build is a decent idea, I’ve heard some people really like it at lower levels, but I personally haven’t tried it, so I’ll let someone else comment on whether it’s a good idea and what you should do for it :P.


As for gear...for the most part I just stuck with the free gear from the quests (pre shalemont) until I started the warden armor quests around level 60. The duskshadow gear is pretty great, but has gotten much harder to collect since they changed it from the shards, so it may not be worthwhile. You probably won’t be able to get much of it before you reach the point where it’s not very useful anymore. You could buy shop armor if you need it, but seeing as mage armor is usually pretty low, I don’t think there is much of a benefit to it. A few more armor points won’t make much of a difference, you would probably be better off spending the gold on skill rings to give you a few more skill points.
Have questions about anything? PM me!
Alternatively, you can rarely find me online in Sulis.
Go team #WorldSkillsUSA2019!
Harbinger of cold hard logic and reason.
Check out the player-run Celtic Heroes Database!: celticheroesdb.com!

Re: New mage

#3
Hey guys, I just started a playing mage a couple days ago. This is my first time playing since the destiny update. At least I think that's what it was called. Anyway, I remember Dal Rita being significantly different. The castle got revamped, npcs that used to be across the road are now on the other side of the road. Over all though, I quite like the changes. So my mage is now level 35 in Shalemont at the "other side" quest were you have to cross the bridge kill the trappers/archers. I paused at this point because it's the biggest level gap in the beginning quest line. Killing lvl 37* enemies for one quest and killing lvl 45** for the next and I feel like I need actual build at this point.
Hey Sam :)
Welcome back to the game, and welcome to the mage community.
Not to toot my own horn, but I would recommend looking at my fire mage guide. In there I have addressed (hopefully) most of your questions as well as some more information that may become handy as you level up. Even if you stick to ice a lot of the information is the same for ice vs fire mages, the only difference would be over specific gear etc...
I've been doing mostly 3 focus, 2 vit till now but I have only spent 6 skill points. Two in firebolt, two in lure of fire, and two in cloak of fire and I've been using level 1 shards, e-shield and e-boost along with them and been able to kill every enemy I've had to up until this point, but now with the quest jump I need a little more, probably a lot more, fire (or ice) power to get the job done and I don't want to screw myself over at the start by using a bad skill combo.
I would spend more skill points, I get the desire to be careful (alt books aren't as cheap as they used to be), but as a mage you can't just get by with autos, and with the addition of the bounty shop alt books are fairly easy to get.
I would recommend fire for early to eg. The faster CD (cool down) helps a lot with leveling, as if a skill evades it isn't the end of the world. Also the faster CD makes the turnaround from mob to mob shorter, giving more xp and a faster leveling experience in general. Lastly, until you reach 205+ fire outperforms ice. At EG ice and fire are equal, but until then fire is just better stat wise.
I have this spelled out a bit more in my guide, but the general idea for a fire mage (if you wanted to go fire) is to max skills in the following order:
-) Fire attune
-) fire bolt
-) fire storm
-) and then split points between fire lure and e shield, or use eboost instead of shield, or split amongst all 3
-) ice shard
The reason I don't just go fire is because one, I assume since there are less Ice mages it would be easier to gear that way. Two I'm not buying plat to start, so I really need to be careful with my gold and I have no idea when I'll get fire/ice attunement or storm/blast so I won't really get many benefits from going either or for now and thirdly I just noticed something that makes me doubt if bolt is really better than shards.
On most servers, yes, there are less ice mages, however it isn't too difficult to gear a fire mage, and really the difference is so slight I wouldn't use this to pick an element. I stuck with fire because I prefered the play style (faster skill casts etc). Also it isn't too difficult to change at EG, as you will end up with maxed ice and fire magic regardless of what you pick (as at EG you will need to use ice shard and fire bolt regardless if you are ice or fire).
My shards (at level 1) take 4 energy and do 96 cold damage and bolt (at 3) also takes 4 energy but only does 64 fire damage. My ice magic is at most 3/4 of my fire and min 2/3rds. I'm not sure if this is just because skills scale badly or if shards actually does cost less energy per dmg than bolt.
at the same level, shards costs a lot more energy than bolt, but it does more damage. In terms of DPS (or damage per second, found by dividing damage by how long it takes for the damage to reoccur) bolt has the higher DPS as well. Both setups use a decent amount of energy though and the scaling is somewhat decent between them, if I remember correctly fire does use a little less, but not so much that it should be the sole determinant.
Finally, I'd also like to try a hth or auto build as I read it can increase your dps at lower levels and it would complement potentially complement shards better.
I wouldn't recommend this. It works if you can shell out a lot of gold into lux and rare armor etc (full rad ES, OW lux dmg offhand, regen lux, etc...), I would stick to the standard 3 focus 2 vit built, and if you need to add some extra vit into your build every once and awhile.
Any ideas you guys have are welcome, I'm on Epona so if you guys have any recommended items maybe you can also include an accurate cost.
Unfortunately I cannot help here, but my advise would be to try and reach out and make friends with some higher level players and see if any have some tomes they can give you at a discount or for free. I don't suggest using anyone ;) but older and higher level players are usually willing to help a nice noob that approaches them and asks for help rather than free stuff outright.
On the last note of gear, I was originally hoping to get the woven sorcerous armour to make leveling easier, but now I've started the duskshadow quests so I didn't think it would be worth it, however I've only been able to get a single relic so far and at this rate it will take me days, if not weeks to get it all so I haven't given up on the woven armour yet. So what do you guys suggest for armour?
duskshadow is a great set, and I would recommend using it if you want cheap easyish to acquire armor.
As a mage, armor is pretty much pointless in terms of armor stat, so don't worry about getting armor for that. rather it is useful for the stats on it only, so focus more so on the other stuff the set gives you rather than just the armor rating.



If you need any further help, please feel free to PM me either on the forums, band, or line.
I hope this helps, and welcome back :)
-Bob
Feel free to pm me about anything or talk to me in game :D
Bob The God
This Bob guy is a guide? Legitimately?
Former EG try hard who’s now relaxing midgame on crom.
Fire Mages are where its at

Re: New mage

#4
By hth I don't really mean going for all the gear and focusing a build around it. ( sorry to mislead) It's just that at this point if I get an item that adds 10 damage (I did the quick math for unresisted dmg so fire, ice or poison) to my attacks it would do more damage then my wand and it interrupts better. I'm a little busy right now, but I have further comments for later.

Re: New mage

#5
By hth I don't really mean going for all the gear and focusing a build around it. ( sorry to mislead) It's just that at this point if I get an item that adds 10 damage (I did the quick math for unresisted dmg so fire, ice or poison) to my attacks it would do more damage then my wand and it interrupts better. I'm a little busy right now, but I have further comments for later.
I wouldn’t even bother using a wand, after level 30 or so it’s just useless unfortunately. Mages are a caster class only, druids have decent autos but mages just don’t.
Instead of focusing on gear like that for auto damage I would focus on skill rings etc to beef up your skills.
Feel free to pm me about anything or talk to me in game :D
Bob The God
This Bob guy is a guide? Legitimately?
Former EG try hard who’s now relaxing midgame on crom.
Fire Mages are where its at

Re: New mage

#6
Ok just to clarify about D/E (damage/energy) essentially I was looking at if shards did more damage or bolt did with the same energy cost. My level 1 shards use 4 energy and do up to 109 damage while my level 3 bolt also uses 4 energy but only does up to 66 damage. So at low levels you actually do more damage and save more energy with shards than bolt with shards doing significantly more than double an equivalent bolts damage. So in my case shards are better than bolt at low levels.

How ever, using the skill preview, I looked at the progression of shards and bolt and saw that the way they scale, when shards and bolt hit around level 10, shards are doing less than double the damage of equivalent bolts, neither are they saving you energy either.

Anyway, with that I'll be going fire for now.

Re: New mage

#7
Ok, I read your guide bob, (I had read most of the others, but not yours) but I'm wondering about cloak of fire. It's not mentioned in yours nor can I remember it from others, though I do remember reading somewhere that it is very good for leveling, especially solo. So should I use it? Or did you purposefully leave it out of your guide because it's not that worth it. Also do you know if it's affected by fire attune?

One more clarification. When I talk making my mage hand to hand the thing I mean is that I have him fight using his fists instead of a wand as they both do hardly any damage, but it's training my hth ability and as they are about the same now my fists interrupt spells more often then the wand. Right now I have most of my jewelry slots open, as well as my offhand so I'm thinking if I come across any damage gear (which will most likely be better than what I have no matter what.), I'll be hth, doing more damage then if I wasn't. I'm not building str or dex, I'm full caster only using hth instead of a wand because I think it will be potentially better.

Re: New mage

#8
Ok, I read your guide bob, (I had read most of the others, but not yours) but I'm wondering about cloak of fire. It's not mentioned in yours nor can I remember it from others, though I do remember reading somewhere that it is very good for leveling, especially solo. So should I use it? Or did you purposefully leave it out of your guide because it's not that worth it. Also do you know if it's affected by fire attune?

One more clarification. When I talk making my mage hand to hand the thing I mean is that I have him fight using his fists instead of a wand as they both do hardly any damage, but it's training my hth ability and as they are about the same now my fists interrupt spells more often then the wand. Right now I have most of my jewelry slots open, as well as my offhand so I'm thinking if I come across any damage gear (which will most likely be better than what I have no matter what.), I'll be hth, doing more damage then if I wasn't. I'm not building str or dex, I'm full caster only using hth instead of a wand because I think it will be potentially better.
Cloak of fire is pretty low damage, and therefore usually isn’t worth putting points into it..especially when your other options are direct damage skills like fire bolt/ice shards, or more useful support skills like energy boost and energy shield. It is not affected by fire attunement. If you are being attacked by multiple mobs often, it could be worth using, but I’ve never been able to justify the points on my mage at any level.

If you want to go barehanded, feel free, like you said, it’s not much more damage than wands. Farther into the game you will be able to get access to quest weapons that give decent buffs, and boss loot weapons that give significantly better stat buffs, but for the first 60-70 levels, you may as well go barehanded. But like Bob said earlier, you will probably want to focus on using your jewelry slots for skill boosting gear rather than damage gear...a +3 or +4 ring is going to be way better for your damage than a small auto attack damage buff.
Have questions about anything? PM me!
Alternatively, you can rarely find me online in Sulis.
Go team #WorldSkillsUSA2019!
Harbinger of cold hard logic and reason.
Check out the player-run Celtic Heroes Database!: celticheroesdb.com!

Re: New mage

#9
Sam, feel free to pm me in game with any questions. My toons are BloodMoon and StormySeas, I’d be happy to hook you up with attune tomes and answer any other questions you may have! I’m not a mage expert, but I do have the basics down.
Epona
BloodMoon (White Frostbringer's Hat)
221-Ranger

Avarina (Black Frostbringer’s Hat)
210 Druid

StormySeas
220 Fire Mage

Re: New mage

#10
Ok, thanks guys. I'm pretty sure I can myself along now. Also, those attunements are coming in real handy, special thanks to you Son. Good detective skills. Have you ever happened to read the spooks series? That's the original title, I think now some call it the last apprentice. Anyway your name just gives me that vibe. It also makes me think of the Magyk series, but that's less likely you'd have read it I think.

Still, if anyone wants to continue to add stuff go ahead, I'm always looking for new gear on epona so feel free to hit me up.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests