Strongest mage skill?

[Jnikz]

anyone know some build/combo?

[Paper Red]

personally Lightning just murders everything. Mage spells are hit-or-miss. Enemies don't often stand still to be hit. Lightning has a bunch of small AoEs that sometimes stack up or even clip the mob's hitbox and strike their head for a crit.

Tier 1
>Runic Barrage - Sucks but best basic offense spell
>Wind Edge - If you can hit an enemy with it, better than barrage spell. Cuts wheat fields and farms easily.
>Water/Fire - spells that waters the lawn and make a camp fire object.

Tier 2
>Lightning - MAX IT ASAP
>BubbleShield - Its okay, if you're not using a 2 handed weapon for big MATK dps, then get it and stack with combat tree shield passive. Only works with shield blocking.
>LowManaBuff - idk this passive does. I never see a damage increase with it. I guess it is bugged like so many skills or just not working as intended

Tier 3
>Ice Mine - Very good damage skill, 2nd to Lightning. Hard to hit mobs with the animation. Acts as a physical platform, so mobs will often run on top of it. Can bridge a gap with it at higher levels.
>Reduced Mana passive - Does not change your tooltip mana costs, or the number that pops up when you cast ("-20 MP"). I'm not entirely sure it even works. Max it after Ice Mine for meteor

Tier 4
>Meteor - Horrible spell. Animation locks you into a solid 20 or more seconds of "hit me please" Causes 3 small meteors that hit for about 1500 damage at random locations somewhere in front of you in an extremely wide angle. The blasts can kill most trash mobs, but often misses. The final big meteor might do damage, it always misses, it just looks fancy but has the same AoE as the small ones despite the visual and hits just as hard probably.

My build: 3 points Wind Edge (great utility skill for bushes and crops) > Max Lightning ASAP > Get 2H Weapon from combat tree > Max Ice Mine > Dump remaining points into life tree skills
(If in a party, get Battle Hymn from Combat tree)

I've tested Meditation I and Meditation II. There seems to be no increased mana per tic or rate of regeneration. Not sure if the skills are bugged. Tumble is the only basic skill I bother with. I am currently just shy of level 30, I don't have enough skill points to get the Cooldown Reduction skill in Basic tree to test it. If it works, then it should be QoL for Lightning spam.

[Paper Red]

Also I just chug mana pots and sausage dishes. Save your red herbs for food and get Alchemy early, it makes a small HP potion item. It is a 1 pointer skill, more points does not make a stronger potion. Use it every time it is available when you're not in combat. You'll build a stockpile of small red potion.

[Kan le Déluge]

Reduced Mana passive works for me. Lightning costs 14 MP after maxing it up.

[Kan le Déluge]

Lightning is the best mage skill, or say the only useful mage skill because it works perfectly with an exp farm. If you don't know what it is, it is just a 3*3 or 5*5 cage with several breeding machines installed inside. Then you put high-exp mobs in and wait the number to grow. (I suggest elephants but I did not try everything). After every machine works and the mobs fill up the cage, throw lightning spells in and grind until you got tired. You might need some mana potion or food to increase the efficiency.

[Paper Red]

Is that so? Thats not much of a reduction. The opportunity cost of the skill point economy dictates investing points into more meaningful things. Mana isn't really an issue so far that I've run into. Blue potions are easy to make and spam. Most food gives you enough mana for a few castings. The only issue is casting animation speed, nimble monsters, and spell cooldowns. You can farm plates all day in low level islands/worlds and upgrade your mana reserve plenty.

[Paper Red]

I like the mob farm idea. I was considering it myself but not sure if you got exp from charmed mobs.

*also for clarity: Ice Mine hits much much harder than Lightning, if you can hit with it. It is devastating to enemies like golems, boss golem, and the dragon when it decided to land.

[Jnikz]

Thanks alot im gonna try it once ireset

[Kan le Déluge]

Originally posted by Paper Red:

I like the mob farm idea. I was considering it myself but not sure if you got exp from charmed mobs.

*also for clarity: Ice Mine hits much much harder than Lightning, if you can hit with it. It is devastating to enemies like golems, boss golem, and the dragon when it decided to land.

Yes, charmed mobs still provide exp AND DO NOT FIGHT BACK OR ESCAPE. I think lightning is better because it works as multiple small AOE. When the mobs get super crowded, one AOE can hit many and many AOEs can have effect on one mob. With my current kit, I can deal around 1.4 k damage for one tick and like 10 to 30 ticks for one spell depending on the density of mobs. That means 1 ~ 3 elephants of lvl 40 will die and each provides about 200 exp.

The level of mobs that breeding machines produce depends on the map level. The highest-level map gives lvl 80 spawned mobs and lvl 40 bred mobs. So just grind enough bioethanol and gears to unlock the farthest island asap. A full-auto wheat product line would help a lot but it is another super long story.

[Jnikz]

lightning is the best.. if you stack on MA atk, you can 1 hit lvl 100+.. my character is only lvl 35 but im farming at lvl 87island. Craft iron rings/amulet, red beret, shield with suffix/prefix of giraffe's leather(+15 ma atk), freezing iron ore[snow biome](+10 ma atk,+20 mana). The best stat for a weapon i think is the +30 ma atk + 20% magic attack in chinese translation.

[RiziN]

Lightning is legitimately overpowered though, if you get lucky a boss fight ends in your first shot :/

[Jnikz]

frost mine is stronger now, the problem with it is it destroys your buildings too.

[iicycube]

The upcoming fix will be the next fire meteor with confirm hits, at the moment the harder hit is ice mine with the new longer range and damage.

If you can make all your armor + accessory with (high%matk+base matk+Crit) it wont underpower at all.

[chips and soda]

Originally posted by Jnikz:

lightning is the best.. if you stack on MA atk, you can 1 hit lvl 100+.. my character is only lvl 35 but im farming at lvl 87island. Craft iron rings/amulet, red beret, shield with suffix/prefix of giraffe's leather(+15 ma atk), freezing iron ore[snow biome](+10 ma atk,+20 mana). The best stat for a weapon i think is the +30 ma atk + 20% magic attack in chinese translation.

You can do Spirit of Fire Stone Glider, Spirit of Fire Wooden Arrow, and Spirit of Fire Shield for insane bonuses. Can get these logs from volcano biome hitting trees.

Not sure if anyone pursued it but you can have Spirit of Fire and Demon of Fire in 1 log.

[Jnikz]

you can get it at poison biome too. ancient(+5% ma atk) on iron rings, clothes and hat.