Is the bow really the best mage weapon

[yuvhaim]

just because of range, it allows you to curse enemies from a mile (but not activate it out of range), with the additional advantage for rune mage (long range lightning) it makes the bow the best mage weapon which makes little sense to me...

[Ysthrall]

My personal favourite was the obsidian pistol. Apply burning at range.... I did not think of that bow ability....

[camus]

The passive skill that increases lock-on range is nice too, I had tried a build once of just using that with fire sigil + spark that worked pretty well. It was fun just running around shooting arrows and fireballs until things died, the bow nerfs a few months ago kind of ruined it though. Thinking I might try it again with the dlc since there's an enchantment that basically un-nerfs horror bow.

[parent child bowl]

Originally posted by yuvhaim:

just because of range, it allows you to curse enemies from a mile (but not activate it out of range), with the additional advantage for rune mage (long range lightning) it makes the bow the best mage weapon which makes little sense to me...

Why? Because you'd rather have the stereotypical mages with staves and wands?

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by parent child bowl:

Why? Because you'd rather have the stereotypical mages with staves and wands?

In a way it's kind of silly because no bow is inherently geared towards casters, no mana reduction, no effects that reduce enemy resistances to elements and only 1 bow that applies a DoT effect of a damage type which a caster could potentially stack.

Though with that said, now enchantments open up more possibilities since you can add (very minor) elemental damage and also apply some debuffs.
I guess as mentioned above the Horror Bow with its enchantment should be good, the gold bow with the +10 lightning could be solid too.

[Midas]

If you have no specific weapon constraints (chakram, lexicon, etc), then the best mage weapon is the one that gives you the most mana reduction and elemental damage bonus for your weapon.

[Kaede]

^ What he says. I have a fire mage and bow won't help it's EXPLOSION at all.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Kaede:

^ What he says. I have a fire mage and bow won't help it's EXPLOSION at all.

In which case I'd imagine the best weapon is compasswood staff for the -20 mana cost and +20 fire elemental damage.

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by Midas:

Originally posted by Kaede:

^ What he says. I have a fire mage and bow won't help it's EXPLOSION at all.

In which case I'd imagine the best weapon is compasswood staff for the -20 mana cost and +20 fire elemental damage.

Well you'll want a way to apply elemental vulnerability, so chimera or frozen chakram is desirable. And if you're doing a fire build, flamethrower can become quite potent.

I feel like it's really hard to justify 2H weapons on mages when elemental vulnerability is such a huge damage increase, which is a shame.

[Midas]

Originally posted by SrsBznz:

Originally posted by Midas:

In which case I'd imagine the best weapon is compasswood staff for the -20 mana cost and +20 fire elemental damage.

Well you'll want a way to apply elemental vulnerability, so chimera or frozen chakram is desirable. And if you're doing a fire build, flamethrower can become quite potent.

I feel like it's really hard to justify 2H weapons on mages when elemental vulnerability is such a huge damage increase, which is a shame.

I'm not sure if the hard math is available anywhere, but I tested fireball with and without just a compasswood staff and that +20 doubled its damage.

[yuvhaim]

the bow contains a scope for spells?
this is a bug.... why would holding a bow extend spells range?
it makes no sense, this game is full of weirdness that suggest the developers never seen a bow or a street or a hill...

[yuvhaim]

Originally posted by Midas:

Originally posted by SrsBznz:

Well you'll want a way to apply elemental vulnerability, so chimera or frozen chakram is desirable. And if you're doing a fire build, flamethrower can become quite potent.

I feel like it's really hard to justify 2H weapons on mages when elemental vulnerability is such a huge damage increase, which is a shame.

I'm not sure if the hard math is available anywhere, but I tested fireball with and without just a compasswood staff and that +20 doubled its damage.

all is true but the range... with a bow i can hit enemies with a spell from the bows focus range which is about 3 times farther.

[yuvhaim]

what i am saying is that this is a bug abuse, aim from 30 m and fill them with hexes, lets say 5, then start shooting lighting, when they come close activate all the hexes at once.
they all die...

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by Midas:

Originally posted by SrsBznz:

Well you'll want a way to apply elemental vulnerability, so chimera or frozen chakram is desirable. And if you're doing a fire build, flamethrower can become quite potent.

I feel like it's really hard to justify 2H weapons on mages when elemental vulnerability is such a huge damage increase, which is a shame.

I'm not sure if the hard math is available anywhere, but I tested fireball with and without just a compasswood staff and that +20 doubled its damage.

Elemental Vulnerability applies a -25% resistance debuff which is basically the equivalent of +25 damage. Resistances can be brought into the negatives as well, so there's no such thing as overkill.

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by yuvhaim:

what i am saying is that this is a bug abuse, aim from 30 m and fill them with hexes, lets say 5, then start shooting lighting, when they come close activate all the hexes at once.
they all die...

It's kind of OP on Hex Mage but for Rune Sage to truly shine you need Runic Prefix, forcing you to use a lexicon.
Well, on second thought I guess it's not that OP, you can already cast Jinx from stealth and stack up 5 debuffs before entering combat any way.

[yuvhaim]

as for non bug playing i use tzar chackrum and the pain in the axe... both from in the inheritance chest