Need mage advice

[dakotamorales2009]

I have not been able to beet even the first difficulty but just got the game.

[Tappin]

Odd. He was my first 5 difficulty win, and I still find him easier than a lot of others.

Start with taser, go for several, but maybe take a wand or torch if nothing else is available. Flame throwers are great, but you probably don' have those yet. Stack elemental damage, and enough health, health regen, life steal, armor, and dodge to stay alive, though if you have enough elemental damage, you shouldn't have that much getting to you, especially on lower difficulties.

Other than those stats, the items that make you more likely to apply and spread burn help with clearing crowds.

Skip anything that says melee dmg, ranged dmg, or engineering., since they don't help. Range and % dmg do help, but I've found I don't need those either.

Dodge the big guys, and the level 20 boss' attacks.

[Mangles]

I think the big hint is that taser is the play with mage. Upgrade them when you can because they get double shot. Grab a sausage whenever you see one.

[GeminiEclipse]

I usually just go tasers and fire buffs like sausage, snake and that other one.

[Grijm]

I believe Mages start with sausage and snake now, but you can get more copies of snake for even more fire spread. Just stack Elemental Damage, it is strong enough to even kill both bosses on D5.

[Draednaught]

Typically elemental builds work in one of two ways.

First, a successful elemental build will take advantage of the snake and scared sausage items. While snake causes the burning effect to spread to nearby enemies (snake is not a unique item, but usually taking only one or two is enough), sausage causes all attacks to have a chance at inflicting burning (depending on your attack speed and what weapon you're using, one might be enough). Luckily, Wizard starts with both of these items. Moreover, because burning does not stack, and because the burning effect seems to scale the same regardless of its source (though the base damage may differ) this means that there is little difference between using a taser to apply burn via sausage and using a wand to apply it. That said, wand is a weaker weapon overall since it only targets one enemy and taser scales both the sausage burn and its initial damage with elemental, making it a better weapon.

Second, successful elemental builds instead find the flamethrower item and grab lifesteal + range. Flamethrower applies burn to just about everything around you since it pierces 99 targets, meaning it does a ton of damage. More importantly, because it attacks very fast and each hit counts for lifesteal, the flamethrower makes it very easy to scale damage and survivability at the same time.

General play tips:
Luck is an incredible stat, buy it early
Don't be afraid to grab lemonade and strange food, consumable healing is a very effective form of healing
Damage is important, but once you reach enough of it that there aren't giant enemy balls on screen you should focus on armor, dodge, and health
% damage scales everything, even damage from items like sausage, cyber ball, and etc

[BeatsToBreak]

Lots of good advice here, but one tweak with the Mage that has helped me was not grabbing the Taser as the first weapon. I usually go with the Torch or Lightning Blade because the gray versions can take out more enemies than the Taser's. I'll then start grabbing each Taser I can find and keep upgrading them.

I beat my first D5 last night with the Mage, five max Tasers and one purple one. I was so focused on dodging the bosses' attacks that I didn't realize how low I had brought one of them. I then killed it and made short work of the second one once I had some more breathing room.

[Linguistically Inept]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von BeatsToBreak:

but one tweak with the Mage that has helped me was not grabbing the Taser as the first weapon.

+1 for this; its obviously rolling into rng to hope you get offered a taser early but as a starting weapon taser is just not good for round 1 (and lacklustre round 2)

[Snowfunk]

Start stacking wands, buy all tazers.
And look for Flame Thrower.
Ignore melee imo, and keep an eye out for pierce or even chain.

Wizard is really strong, one of my first 5 wins where I actually killed the bosses.

[Bellpepper]

Yeah the taser, despite what the name suggests, is like an elemental shotgun that scales extremely well with elemental damage as you upgrade it, has a great survivability upside, has a +harvest bonus as the subclass, and is one of the few ways to get elemental damage without just overriding your DoTs. Add a flamethrower for the DoT, maybe pick up that +piercing bandana if you see it, and you have a very consistent and strong class.

[Mike]

I started with torch because it is AOE and eventually found a flamethrower. The flamethrower is AOE, very high attack speed, ranged, 100% pierce and amazing dps. Also good with lifesteal. Recommend it for late game.

[Kotli]

Start with torch or wand since these 2 have 100% chance to deal burning damage on attack which spreads due to having a snake, meaning you get way more damage than the taser, even with a sausage at lest to start with.