Tri-elemental embermage

[jsp2k]

Any thoughts on this build?

Inferno
Active: Magma spear, Blazing pillar
Passive: Charge mastery, Elemental attunement

Frost
Active: Icy blast, Elemental boon

Storm
Active: Prismatic bolt, Arc beam

I haven't started playing yet but I've been researching classes and skills a bit and this sounds like it would work. I'm still not sure how many skill points there are, I suppose you get them for character levels and fame levels like in first game? If so, there should be room for even more skills, but these would be main ones.

Thanks for input.

[Ziel]

If you like the variety go for it, but it's not going to be a very strong character and won't be very effective past Normal, in case that is something you are concerned with. Arc Beam is a very weak skill unfortunately and I think there are still some issues with the "Shocked" status not being applied correctly. There are also no immune enemies in the game so you can safely focus on one or two elements and their respective Brands.

A few other things: Blazing Pillars already generates charge very quickly so you don't need all that many points in Charge Mastery, and I also wouldn't go overboard with Attunement.

One of the strongest and most popular character builds takes Prismatic Bolt as its main damage skill and maxes all three Brands.

[(Wulf)]

Also put 1 point into frost phase if you can,gets you out of trouble.
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewforum.php?f=41 Have a look at this site mate,gives a lot of good ideas for builds,and you may well get some good ideas for a build of your own. Im a new player as well and its helped me.

[deeveejay]

the question is: u want to create your dream character or you want to create a character who is fast killing machine? the beauty of TL2 is in this: u can create ANY character and u CAN play with this char. it's just a matter of more or less pain and time invested to level-up (and of course difficulty level matters). 3-element mage never will be powerful, but i think it can be very fun to play and rewarding. if u want to kill quickly, try frost mage or (for newbie) Prismatic/Brands build.

[Ziel]

I can recommend frost mage. A little slow in the beginning but you'll be absolutely trashing the place later on.

Kind of like this build: http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=36991

[Slyuxx]

What you use as a primary weapon also has a huge effect. Thank goodness for my unique; level 35 and I'm still a level 21.. yet it tripled my dps to the 700-800 range. Not much time until I upgrade further to a level 45 unique. You should look at the skills and your weapon and plan around your playstyle or pace. "How useful are you going to be in a team?" is another question.

[Krøsusmcoin]

Its really comes down to what elemental damage modifiers u got and second what play style u like - but going melee with with fire mace should def. be the last option.
My mage lvl 100 does a bit of 2 specs fire and elec due to special good +damage% but dudes u cant do a mage without frost phase thats simply numb and def. to boring.
Just have fun and remember synergies when u hit lvl 100 and get bored !!!!

[Mokata Mimiru.]

I personally use prismatic bolt, thunder locus (multiple hits as tier bonuses), blazing pillar (good charge, chance to burn) and hailstorm (Stun is always good) as actives. I use charge mastery, elemental attunement 5 and brands as passives. Concentration spell is your best friend, solid increase in mana recovery.

And 1 point in Frost Phase. Because teleporting out is always better than running.

[Ryu Oki]

Fire is your killing tree for a single element. But Wulf is correct, one single point in the ice tree teleport (frost phase is it?, I hardly pay attention to the namse) even if you go full frost spec. You should not need any more than 5 points in charge mastery for any build to build charge sufficiently enough to have minimal mana problems.

Frost tree is semi fun but seems more towards a crowd control and debuff for ice/elec while partnering with another player. Though I am still building my primarily frost spec'd mage. With the frost bolts though you really need to be in the think of the sh!t to make most use of its snowballs bounciness. So you would really benefit considerably from investing the 15 points in immolation aura for the 15% dmg reduc so that maximum hits occur from each fling of the snowballs. Charge only builds if your spells hit a monster.

Elec is difficult at the start due to prismatic attack being somewhat weak at first unless you can stack enough #% all damage since it actually uses all 4 resist checks. You can also go either way with staff or wand mastery but I would not recommend trying to use both. Pick one. Staff causes a debuff of all resists while you can dual wield wands and make the most of the random spell effects that can land from each strike. But for elec you will also want to sink some points into Elemental Attunement if you do plan on using prismatic bolt and wand chaos. I agree that Arc Beam is weak for damaging purposes but if you use your skills wisely like tossing out a 15 point thunder locus and using arc beam at a choke point to keep them pushed in its range, it can be quite useful.

All in all you really need to play with various skills and think outside the box to really make the most of them all. These are just a few of the ideas I can come up with off hand and certainly not limited to either.

[Robotica]

okay so the absolute best dps you can get on a mage is by using prismatic bolt and maxing out your brands, as mentioned above. It's actually probably the most OP build in the entire game. It is however, extremely boring as you only ever use Prismatic Bolt for all of your attacks. Oh dont forget the Deaths Bounty (I think that is it, the one that gives you hp and mana for kills on marked targets). Literally the best dps you can do, has support for single and multi target, seeks out targets and best of all it applies all of the elemental effects. It's pretty amazing, but like I mentioned kinda boring.

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

First the max amount of skill points one can obtain is I belive 100 from lvls + 32 from fame = 132 (without mods/console,etc).That is 8 skills assumeing you max them ( of note some skills are "good enough" or "one point wonders")

While by it self yes, prismatic is not impressive by itself if you invest completely in the elemental brands its one of the more powerful skills in the game(other wise its just an intresting cc spell). If you want just a power build built around multiple elements I would suggest you do that and build up support skills around supporting primsatic bolt (+ investing in the focus stat as being a flat dmg skill brand and bolt are most effected by this)

This is (a prismatic bolt build) a perfect start charcter as you have 1 main atk skill, 1 main stat (focus), and a fairly flexible choice as far as support skills go (such as useing staff mastery 1-max and magma spear lvl 1 or 1lvl,or 5lvl frosty 1 point in frost phase,max boon the rest would be largely prefrance) and is one of the more powerful builds even on elite.


If your not intrested in that and just want to try to go thru with this build investing in the brands will still help you base dmg considerably however you would have to likely sacrfice something.Also investing in wand chaso would flow with your multi elment theme.The game is playable with either build however your going to have a harder time with you posted build on higher diffculties.


Also arc beam while not terribly strong on its own can be intresting for applying weapon effects as it is I belive effected by cast speed up to a point( for example useing a lvl 1 arc beam and an armor - gem in a simlar fashion to staff mastery+ skills that use it assumeing you have high cast speed which is always good).

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

I belive you can respec thru console commands either directly or thru a special potion item. You would have to do a quick web search for it. Useing the console to respec does mark you as "cheater" if you care. Also you can respec the last 3 skills you have assigned and it is free of charge till I belive lvl 10.

Just be sure to max whatever brand of the element you chose and spec focus (str only effects weapon % skills and is mainly for crit builds), and everthing will work out for you.

[Percopius]

In a non-competitive mod-able game, can you really cheat?

[ArcaneCrumb]

I use prismatic bolts as my main damage dealer, and I use arc beam b/c it knocks back most enemies including bosses. But my build consist of electricity and fire. Magma spear, and the skill where it rains down fire (can't remeber name), are very useful as well.