Mage build, wands / staves

[Kitet]

I have notorious lack of new wands. Other stuff drops from monsters, can be found in chests, but I found only 1 type of staff. The next one I found was only after I went to some temple-like biome. So I've gone from a staff lvl 1 straight to lvl 13 or so, after days of playing.

There's also no other staves you can make yourself, at least I can't find the recipe anywhere.

It's hard being a mage in Core Keeper. Only thing I can do is use upgrade station on the one I already have.

Any recommendations?

[Gigispackles]

Yeah, starting off as mage is rough until you get the best staff, Arcane Staff, from Malugaz. The Scholar's Staff you got, from my experience, is the 2nd best one. The other staves you can get are from the first slime boss, the fire shaman cavelings, Azeos (bird boss), and another very end game one (trying to avoid spoilers if you're still exploring).

From testing on some bosses and general exploration, none compare to the Arcane Staff. The one from Azeos would be good if the projectile didn't bounce back at you and blow up when it hits anything, enemies and walls included. It's very dangerous.

I find magic difficult compared to ranged/melee until you get more magic levels and even level up ranged to 50. The passive of % chance on ranged hit to give 100% crit chance for a short time applies to magic. Pair it with recover % mana on critical hit from magic tree and it really helps sustain mana. Foods that increase crit chance and max mana help out a lot with sustaining mana as well. Also recommend crit chance/damage amulet and rings.

Takes some time and effort to get going, but magic might have the highest dps in the game. I've skipped multiple boss phases or did so much damage so fast they couldn't attack even once. Highest damage single hit I've done with the Arcane staff was 16.8k.

[Semirotta]

There is very little balance to anything like combat and branching out as a class. There is no reason to use summons for example as their dmg is low and AI is stupid. Anything long range is useful if its just dealing dmg.

[AI]

malugaz's staff is sooo good for farming magic xp, espescially if you found a stationary or near stationary enemy

[Str8_Newb]

I must have gotten really lucky getting the slime staff drop and some of the first pieces of gear I found was mage gear - summoner, apprentice and witch doctor items. I can share the silly world seeds I used if you want.

[Str8_Newb]

123456789101112 - Named Planet 9 Settings: Default - slime staff dropped from Slime boss

666 - Named Hell Settings: Biome chaos off, ore and tunnels high, pits low, everything else normal

101100110111001 - Named Stuff Settings: Default

13 - Named Lucky Settings: Biome chaos extreme, everything else default

8675309 - Named Jenny Jenny Settings: Default.