Gun wielding mages

[Plebeian Kilo]

Anybody have experience with gun wielding mages? Plan on making one myself but curious whether it is viable. I'm still in that "Make 100 characters until you pick a main phase" and any advice would be awesome!

[Cutlass Jack]

Its very viable. Any weapon can work with a mage really.

But I hear dual blunderbusses +Combusting Wounds is very fun together. Just to put that idea out there.

[Spritefall]

Firearms only enter into "reload" phases, while spells and all other weapons enter "recovery" phases. This makes it easier in certain cases to weave firearm attacks and spellcasting; as opposed to using non-firearms.

[vinzi]

Unless you have a melee build guns are the only weapons i would ever consider for wizards. Thats because you can cast in the middle of your reload. But all other weapons have recovery time instead of reload so you have to wait til thats over before you can begin casting.

This won't let you cancel the reload. It will still do that after you have cast the spell but it means that for example a healer can act the moment someone gets hurt or your wizard can cast a big fireball the moment the enemies cluster up.

There are exceptions. You could use something like the unique battleaxe that boosts fire powerlevel on your firemage without the intention to ever swing it.

[Plebeian Kilo]

Hm.. does this mean I should be giving firearms to characters like Aloth instead of the usual scepter etc?

[DmgOvrTym]

Maia's base choices are Ranger, Wizard, Ranger/Wizard. Arbalest with wiz crit spell and buff preception and she hits like a truck.

[Plebeian Kilo]

Damnit. I'm currently running a Cipher/ranger but feeling a little glass cannony. Mage could be nice with buffs... should I switch?

[Plebeian Kilo]

Which would be better btw, cipher/ranger or mage/ranger?

[vitamin boost]

Heresy! o_O

[vinzi]

Originally posted by KingKilo:

Which would be better btw, cipher/ranger or mage/ranger?

Cipher ranger has more synergy i think. Since cipher requires you to hit things with your weapon and ranger is all about hitting things with your weapon.

Ranger has a really nice full attack skill that they get from level one. You can even upgrade it to get +20 accuracy from it. Use that with double guns as soon as the battle starts on an ascendant and you get ascdended state pretty much from the getgo.

[Drake]

Wizards have access to a soulbound arquebuse.

[devilindupriest]

Spearcaster arbelest (+accuracy based on Arcane skill) or Xiti's (sp) blunderbuss imo. First one is nice because it does knockback base and immobilize enchant, making it better than the arbelest modal imo. The blunderbuss does knockback as well, making it a nice choice for mage personal self-defense. If you want self-buffing mage gun wielding, I have to say I'm not fond of Blightheart. Dragon's Dowry and going Priest (Magran, might as well) instead for minor avatar instead of Martial Prowess. Although Merciless Gaze or whatever that early mage spell is fairly nice. Either way I don't feel like single class mage self-buffing for weapon damage is all that hot. Basically have to cast 6 spells to catch up to a multi-class in terms of weapon damage for about 1 minute.