Is my Fire Mage / Magician viable?

[raubrey]

Hi All,

It just occurred to me (oops) that there will be fire-resistant creatures in the game since I happily killed a frost-resistant one...then I remembered the elementals. I'm LV 20, and a glass cannon as it is. I didn't know if I start putting points in Magic damage (bolt or ?) if that would be enough or if I'll soon need to make or continue on a different character.

I had read that someone(s) did a Firemage/Firemage build so maybe they reload the worlds with Fire-resistant enemies? I wondered how much mallus this would cause...a big reputation hit or just a bit of frustration?

I have the staff of course and only a couple levels in shield but don't think that would be sufficient even with more points.

Thanks.

P.S. I guess Frost mage works because it is physical damage? Am I reading that right?

At least I got the Destroyer achievement out of this build. :)

[raubrey]

I'll just update my progress so far:

I found Fire Elementals dropped like flies with Arcane Blast (only 2-3 levels).
For resistant bosses, I use Armor Melt / Arcane Blast - might add an Ice Bomb or just Staff damage.

Overall it is an interesting class to play, both difficult and easy (for trash mob and Malestrom). I am struggling with damage output in general though (not to mention cave-ins).

I do want to try the class 100-wave invasion mode, otherwise I would be surprised if I get the class much past 30 other than sticking to an easy difficulty level.

I would still welcome any input on the build, though I know things are pretty quiet around here.
Looking forward to Din's Legacy!

TL: DR

Solution: Arcane Blast +/- Armor Melt +/- Staff Damage

[Fulano]

Personally I think all of the hybrids are viable... but some will be able to fight on harder difficulties than others.

I think elemental resistance is very underwhelming in this game. I have a level 20 something fire mage/fire mage and don't really have a problem destroying fire elementals, they just take a couple shots extra to kill.

Maelstrom is beautiful for the 100 wave invasion mode, as my fire mage/fire mage just constantly cast the two maelstrom skills and the monsters couldn't get away before I killed them all, and no rocks to worry about in town!

I really like how different each class is in this game, and how each class has several ways they could be played. I haven't made a Arcane Blast specialist yet but it's one of the ones I've wanted to do.

I hope you find some casting speed items, they make a huge difference for magic based classes!

[raubrey]

Originally posted by Fulano:

Personally I think all of the hybrids are viable... but some will be able to fight on harder difficulties than others.

I think elemental resistance is very underwhelming in this game. I have a level 20 something fire mage/fire mage and don't really have a problem destroying fire elementals, they just take a couple shots extra to kill.

Maelstrom is beautiful for the 100 wave invasion mode, as my fire mage/fire mage just constantly cast the two maelstrom skills and the monsters couldn't get away before I killed them all, and no rocks to worry about in town!

I really like how different each class is in this game, and how each class has several ways they could be played. I haven't made a Arcane Blast specialist yet but it's one of the ones I've wanted to do.

I hope you find some casting speed items, they make a huge difference for magic based classes!

What did you supplement your DPS with for Bosses and tougher mobs?

So Far I have Malestrom with the upgrades for all fire-based damage and then
started adding Volcano (Armor melt seems to help sometimes). It's odd as there seems to be a bigger struggle to kill things even though you can wear down many enemies with the Malestrom.
I'm constantly running away and often have to run it 2X and try to get in some staff damage unless I have more than a 1 strong enemy or 2-3 moderates.

Oh and I have to start below normal - normal-easy or the last levels are just too tough and I spend more on potions then I can afford.

It's a nice change of pace from Reaver/Healer and Trickster/Hunter with the AOE but it sure would be an awesome class if Intelligence affected normal damage.

[Fulano]

Uhm... dang, my fire mage is on the other computer... I'm in the middle of moving so I haven't fired that thing up yet.

I hadn't thought of a reaver/healer yet. I love the reaver's damage boosts and triple attack. That might go nicely with the precision and holy shield skill... But I've got too many characters as it is. I'll save the idea for later (Maybe for another multiplayer build).

Okay, my dual fire mage is level 30 right now. Mana regen is 27, only a 28% casting speed boost from my gloves and a +50% magic critical hit bonus with my staff. I've only got Firey Blast, Fire Shield, Fire Mastery, and Maelstrom. On the other page of fire mage skills he's got one point in maelstrom and fire mastery. So that's giving +90% fire damage from the skills, with the casting boost he's doing about 40 DPS minimum. It seems to do the job with killing enemies.

For the mobs I usually stun them with maelstrom and run to a safer area (or up stairs) then pick off the ones that chase me down. It does get a little tedious compared to other characters that can just charge into groups and flatten everybody.

For bosses I use the two maelstrom skills. With two of them you can alternate casting them and keep the enemy stunned (provided I don't get killed by rocks...) and pick them off with the fire blast. There still is a massive problem with damage reflection from bosses, I usually have to use a potion to resist the reflecting bolts. The bosses that have like 300% or more fire resistance take ages to kill, but just stunning them is usually how I do it.

My brother loves volcano, with his Wizard, but I haven't tried it yet.

My Wizard character has better stuff, at level 59 he's got +88% casting speed, 95 mana regen, +110% fire damage, he's doing over 300 DPS minimum with his firey blast skill and it seems to kill things plenty fast. With the huge mana regen I can just use the auto-target with the right mouse button and mow things down as fast as they show up.

[Fulano]

Oh, I forgot to say, my brother loves using the blinding flash and teleport skills too. He will blind everybody and pick them off and if he gets overwhelmed he'll teleport across a wall and try again.

I wonder how alternating blinding flash and maelstrom would do...

[raubrey]

Thank you for your reply, it helps!8 I might add more but have run into a problem with my game on my beloved reaver. I'm almost Champion level with the fire mage but if this is going to happen I won't bother running past LV 25 or so. I'll start a new thread.

[raubrey]

I will post my stats or look them up at least. I haven't seen any speed boosting gear. That would be great. I like the idea of Fire Mage/Firemage other than the slow burn for fire restance. Unlike your brother I'm not fond of teleport other than emergency. I can only deal with so many keys as is and its hard to aim so I have to pause. I do like the shield and arcane blast though. The volcano I'm trying to get down my aim is off :D

Best of luck moving! I hate doing that :P

[raubrey]

It looks like all the good stats don't export or I'm doing it wrong.

Edit: My character was missing more equipment than I thought, so some stats would be 20pts. or more, including DPS as I had the wrong staff equipped. oops.

Here are some:

Stats

Health: 258 / 258
Mana: 527 / 527

Attack: 144
Defense: 230
Armor: 172

Damage: 9 - 49
Dps: 27.9

Strength: 16
Dexterity: 48
Vitality: 36
Intelligence: 98
Spirit: 12

Points Left: 0
Resistances

Fire Resistance: 84
Cold Resistance: 44
Poison Resistance: 4
Lightning Resistance: 16
Magic Resistance: 37
Skills

Fiery Blast lvl 1
Fireball lvl 1
Shield of Fire lvl 2
Volcano lvl 1
Fire Maelstrom lvl 2
Fire Mastery lvl 4
Blinding Flash lvl 2
Armor Melt lvl 2
Magic Shield lvl 3
Deep Thought lvl 1
Teleport lvl 1
Arcane Blast lvl 5

I only have 7.7 mana regen!
Critical is like 15%
I don't see casting speed.

This is LV 26, not the best gear. I think I might have borrowed a few pieces too temporarily.

[Fulano]

The only thing I'd change is just try to pick a few skills you don't use and put their points in something else.

As for better armor and such, that's just play time, and for some reason it seems all my best stuff was found while finishing optional quests after saving the town... though I don't spend a lot of time doing that.

The game doesn't list casting speed, you've got to add it up yourself. It's a bonus that only shows up on magical gloves and staves. It's very handy when you come across them but you've got to have lots of mana regen to keep casting. I'll usually have one staff equipped for a bonus to casting speed, and the other staff will be mana regen so I can switch when my mana gets low (or I'm fighting those blasted elf priests).

I think I was experimenting with magical critical hit with the fire mage, can't remember how good it was though. I need to get these characters moved to my main computer...

I think sharing items between characters helps a ton in this game. Playing a different character gives me a change of pace, and more chances to find good stuff for different characters such as sharing good staves you find with a warrior, etc. I spend way too much time sorting stuff in this game. :) In Drox I just set up storage characters for many of the item types so they can hold the good things until I have another character to use them.

In my opinion I think mana regen and casting speed are the two most important stats for magic users in this game. Usually I pick my armor based on those two stats, and when I find a better one I pass the old one on to another character. Being able to cast spells non-stop helps a ton in keeping the enemies at bay. Also higher mana regen means you don't need as large of a mana pool.

[raubrey]

So by regen are you talking Intelligence or Spirit, when picking your gear ? Or just the special drops you get? I thought Intelligence made it regen faster than Spirit, but maybe I misread. I guess then you don't bother with the resists or stat gear?

If I could come up with a way to simplify gear I'd have a much better time of it. I keep making characters to hold gear which doesn't help. lol I usually go with Intelligence/Dex gear then resists, and if magic find then it is a bonus.

As for skills, I actually use all these. For now at least the arcane stuff has worked well on fire-resist enemies. I feel Fire Mastery gives a much better bang for the buck then boosting the individual skills. I find I need to finish some things off with my staff so pop up a shield.

Now on my Reaver I don't have as many skills or they are passive.

[Fulano]

Ya, gear is probably the biggest pain in this game. Soldak added a feature in Drox to show when an item has a better main stat with a green '+'. Dealing with all the stuff is the main thing my wife doesn't like about Din's Curse. Personally I like taking time to sort out stuff from time to time.

I do pick intelligence or spirit based on which gets better regen, but the regen from those is so tiny it really doesn't add up enough. So I usually try to equip items that give me enough mana regen that I can cast without stopping. I usually don't need a full set of mana regen armor to keep up.

For resistance I usually use potions if I need it rather than worrying about items. I used to keep items around for resistance "just in case" but after getting to level 70 without needing any of it I figured I might as well just sell it.

[raubrey]

Not sure if you both tried Zombasite but it's even worse since you have doors, relics and guards to consider along with gear. Truly Soldak is some tough-love genius trying to cure the world of pack-ratism.

In my other ARPGs like Torchlight/Grim Dawn etc. I have mods for extra storage ...and I got to thinking what if something like this were implemented into the like of Fallout NV or such, the inventory limits, it would change everything. I do like it better than the old-school weight system, at least.

Plus you get the thrill of bag drops which become more precious than legendaries!

That's pretty neat you have a character up to 70. I guess I'll keep at it. I might just dump all that "just in case" gear and use up the potions that I horde, but don't use. Now if I can just apply the "travel light" philosophy to real life... :D

[Fulano]

Right now my highest level character is a priest. I hate the class, especially having to constantly monitor so many boost spells but he's the highest level so I stick with it.

I've got a dozen characters I'm playing. I go about 10 levels then switch to the next character. I keep them 5 levels apart so they can pass down good stuff to the next guy. Though, Drox has me distracted now. My highest character is level 90 in that game and I want to see what happens when you hit level 100. Then I'll return to Din's Curse. All this discussion on it here has me excited to play it again.

Just curious, have you been equipping things you don't have the stats to equip? That seems like it is meant to be part of the game, using potions or magic items that give strength and dexterity bonuses so you can equip stuff that you couldn't normally equip. At first I thought it was an exploit, but I found Drox's equipment system seems centered on the tactic so I started doing it in Din's Curse.

I've only played the Zombasite demo. I'm waiting until I finish Din's Curse and Drox before buying it. I didn't know about the Din's Legacy game though, hopefully that one does well. I'd love to see them go back and make another expansion for Din's Curse that basically brings the updated game engine to it to help with all those quirks that it has.

I'll admit though, There are tons of times where I get stuck in Din's Curse and I have to hide behind stairs or a warp gate. I'll warp down, put in one hit, then warp back and heal at Din's alter. Either because of those large groups or a boss that is crazy tough.

I've got a huge list of ideas for a balance mod for Din's Curse, though I have no idea what can actually be done by a mod in the game. Someday I'll get to learning how to do it.

[raubrey]

Originally posted by Fulano:

I've got a dozen characters I'm playing. I go about 10 levels then switch to the next character. I keep them 5 levels apart so they can pass down good stuff to the next guy. Though, Drox has me distracted now. My highest character is level 90 in that game and I want to see what happens when you hit level 100. Then I'll return to Din's Curse. All this discussion on it here has me excited to play it again.

Just curious, have you been equipping things you don't have the stats to equip? That seems like it is meant to be part of the game, using potions or magic items that give strength and dexterity bonuses so you can equip stuff that you couldn't normally equip. At first I thought it was an exploit, but I found Drox's equipment system seems centered on the tactic so I started doing it in Din's Curse.

I thought it was an exploit too or maybe the items wouldn't work right, so I hadn't tried it since. I will give that a shot on my next low-level character. Currently, I've been over-leveled for my gear for some time.

Congrats on Drox! I'm sure you'll make it to 100 then. I think I'll really get into it when I'm in a space-theme mood again. From what I've seen so far it's closer to the pacing and depth I prefer.

But yeah, I think a few tricks will be in order, like with the gates and picking things off when it gets too crazy. One mod I could envision if not something I'd like to see in Din's Legacy is an occassional (and expensive) invisibility potion. Maybe so it wouldn't threaten the appeal of the Trickster class but allow for a break now and then when faced with seemingly impossible odds. It's a thought anyway.

[Blast X Blast]

No. It's not in the least bit viable. Fire mage and Magician are both subclasses of the Wizard, which includes Ice Mage as well. Not only are you giving up access to ice magic, you also lose access to the Ice Mage's innate passive bonuses.

There's no reason whatsoever to gimp yourself like that. If you want a greater challenge, increase the slider level.

Start over.