embermage question?

[DClocked]

Since embermage does most damage in game, which build does the most damage? fire? ice? storm? I assume it's fire?

[JakGrant]

Well, have to keep in mind some monsters are going to be immune to fire. But I've yet to properly level an ember mage up. As to which tree honestly is better, from a logical point of view. I'd probably say one tree doesn't stand out over others, but each of the trees has it's own pluses and minuses.

Best thing to do is play to your playing style strengths. If player A is good at the fire tree and sucks at the others and doex x damage, and fire is deemed as the most damaging tree. Player B may then come along, find a group of skills that work nicely, get a nice rotation going with ice, and leave Player A's damage looking bad. That's a lot of assuming granted. But the real difference with the trees, is knowing how to play each tree to the most damaging effect, whether that be under the embermage class, or any of the other classes. If you suck at your spell/skill rotations and suck at the class, you're just going to suck at it full stop, and if you're bad at a class, it won't matter what tree you concentrate on. But if you're really good at a class, you might find fire overpowered, where I might find ice the most damaging. They all have their distinctive playing styles, buffs and debuffs. From the little I have played of the embermage I actually do like the ice tree, for no other reason the debuffs and freezes. But in that regard ice gives the impression it's not the most damaging, and I'm pretty sure fire and maybe lightning does more. But if you're getting slow debuffs and freezes from ice, you don't have to worry about things hitting you, cos if they're slowed and frozen you can just blitz them at range.

Anyway ramble over.

[Candesco]

Ice is more a defending tree then offensive. The other 2 do more damage. The storm tree has some pretty good offensive too, like prismatic bolt. I use that one myself. Prismatic bolt strikes enemies with fire, poison, ice and lightning.

[DClocked]

yea im torn between those 2 i dunno whic ht ogo with

[igortroy]

you can actually do insane damage using all three possible standard builds (fire, ice, storm),
but what I like most is the Prismatic build: based on Prismatic bolt as main offense, and lots of passives, buffs and equipment bonuses.
nothing is immune to all, and a high level Prismatic mage might not do as much harm as an ice mage for instance (I've seen one do like 600K ice dmg constantly) - but he'll be doing many types of dmg at once, which is excellent in Elite.

EDIT: here's an example prismatic build:
http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc?i=2#lz5WL9g-7WdPyEnZXwFNwtRs6gLW
you can add Staff Mastery or Wand Chaos depending on your choice of mage weapon,
and add a secondary skill from any tree. mine's Shocking Orb.

[DClocked]

is prismatic bolt the ones that shoots 5 and homes in?

[Candesco]

I find the magma spear not that impressive. Used that a couple of times, but prismatic bolt does more damage. I'll stick to the storm tree myself most of the time and mix it with a bit of ice for the defending. Gonna skip fire. So far things have worked out good. Besides, i see alot of people using the inferno tree most of the time, so i want to create an other kind of build. I think each one of them could do, but i think a pure ice build would mean to rely more on your wand or staff as it is a defending tree.

[igortroy]

Originally posted by Candesco:

I find the magma spear not that impressive. Used that a couple of times, but prismatic bolt does more damage. I'll stick to the storm tree myself most of the time and mix it with a bit of ice for the defending. Gonna skip fire. So far things have worked out good. Besides, i see alot of people using the inferno tree most of the time, so i want to create an other kind of build. I think each one of them could do, but i think a pure ice build would mean to rely more on your wand or staff as it is a defending tree.

don't underestimate Fire builds.
Immolation Aura is the best defensive mage skill except maybe Frost Phase, Blazing Pillar is a certified boss-killer, and Magma Mace allows you to get into close combat and live.
sure, Hailstorm is a better AoE than Firestorm - but a fire build can be immensly powerful. especially when you got Charge Mastery and Elemental Attunement.

if you go Storm, I suggest you skip Arc Beam. it's not even half as good as it looks, and a far cry from the beast it was in Torchlight 1. and don't spend too many points on Shockbolts because you get Shocking Orb afterwards and it's just an ultimate high-level mage skill.

[DClocked]

WAND or STAFF for STORM embermage?
why?

[Candesco]

I skip shock burst also, as it is not that powerfull. Oh, i don't say that fire builds aren't strong, but they are already been used alot. And i'm not fond of the magma spear. The others would deal more damage. I don't like the magma mace much. Not because of it's power, but because it's a melee thing and i like to use my mage as a mage, which means casting spells. Tossing fireballs, shock them and such is more my thing. At this moment from the storm tree i use prismatic bolt alot and have upgraded that to level 7. I also use thunder locus, which works against a heavy crowd. It worked also with the winter widow (that big spider boss). Next i've unlocked prismatic rift, which gives the chance that enemies will teleport and also wand chaos.

Originally posted by FiNaLbOSsOfThEiNtErNeT™:

WAND or STAFF for STORM embermage?
why?

As a backup and combining with wand chaos it gives also a nice effect. the passive skill wand chaos gives a random effect, like a meteor or acid rain.

[Shamanalah]

All build are good. Even Auto-Attack ones... I've made a Fire/Light tankish (1 wand 1 shield) Embermage and she's rocking NG++ on lvl 66 (should be around 80-85)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LyXeyyProw

Auto-Attack doing 350k dmg... ^ ^ (My lvl 100 Embermage cheated with crappy gear honestly, you could do better legitly)

[Atech66]

I walked through it with 2 deaths using magma spear but it was on normal.. in NG+ now it seems way OP.. when magma gets almost maxed and combined with the additional burning skills its pretty solid.