Magic: Any tips? I feel like I'm doing it wrong

[Jetter]

So, I'm on my third character and I figure I'll try being a mage. I feel like I'm failing.

It feels very resource-intensive. Mana regen isn't quick and I'm burning through fire stones to kill just about anything above basic bandits. Flamethrower helps on weaker enemies but I tend to get hit while using it. I'm finding that I can't easily get my hands on enough stones, compared to fighter/archer/gunslinger the parts are uncommon in the wild and a little hard on the wallet.

Sure, I could summon a sword, but that's just being a fighter with extra steps and less stamina.

So I guess my question is really just how do I mage?

[LuckyLou]

depending on your armor set it should regen faster ive never really played a full mage myself, if you need extra stone i have some

[HK47 Raiden]

I have Rune Sage as my only full skill tree so far, but what I do mostly for ranged magic slinging is summon lantern > shoot lightning from lantern and I also place the trap too, and as a back up I summon the great Runic blade.

You say it’s just being a fighter with extra steps but the great runic blade hits like a truck, and ignores physical damage resistance entirely, and I can use the decay boon for extra damage on top. That is if they don’t die to a couple of lightning shots and the magical trap.

For mana I try to stay “tired” and cook fish meals for the mana regeneration I wear the wide black hat (10 or 20% mana cost reduction), blue clan sage robe (20% MCR), scholars boots (10% MCR), and have the light menders lexicon (5 or 10% MCR with 5% damage buffs on top for my spell casts).

I’m finding it works great, I don’t know what my other skill trees are going to be yet though, maybe Hex Mage and philosopher or hex and hermit.

Edit: for Fire stones you can get thick oil cheap in many stores and after a few days/a week resting in Cierco the mana stone deposits and troglodytes respawn so they can be farmed, and if you deconstruct the troglodyte staves they give you 3 or 4 stones each time.

[Ysthrall]

I played a ritual mage. I got the full tree, and the mana regen skills from Monsoon, and the special robes for mana from Levant (needed the gems from mana sites).

My usual strategy was to open with the Inferno Pistol, zap with lightning on the way in, make them walk over a runic trap and then thwack with the summoned blade.

[Naryoril]

You haven't mentioned any skills that require breakthrough points, so no, that alone isn't how you do mage. You'll need to use some breakthrough points.

Options are:
1) As already mentioned you can use the rune sage for the lightning and the traps.
2) Kazite Spellblade for elemental discharge which you can use in connection with varnishes or rags to shoot any element you desire
3) Shaman with the wind sigil (the wind sigil doesn't require stones, but has a cooldown, costs more mana and the wind altar in the area must be activated)
4) Philosopher for the ice sigil (or just more fire damage if you want to focus on fire, it always comes with a permantent mana regeneration)
5) DLC Hex Mage, can't really say anything about that but it's also an option

In case you don't know: sigils can be stacked, e.g. using mana push in an ice sigil on top of a wind sigil will cause both of the effects to activate (and looking at the extremely high impact damage this does the standard mana push probably activates as well).

As for gear: combine mana reduction with damage bonus on the element of your choice. Depending on what trees you take (e.g. if you have philosopher or not) you need more or less mana cost reduction. You can get a mage tent to get a mana instead of stamian cost reduction compared to other tents.

[March]

That summoned sword you mention from Rune Sage... it does purely ethereal damage. It ignores physical protection entirely, and so far in my game, almost nothing has much protection against it. If you get Runic Lexicon, you'll get a two hander that does even more damage, and all ethereal.

With the regular sword, your basic bandits in Chersonese are 3 hits. Purple ghosts are 2 hits. Red ghosts are 4 hits. I don't even use the two hander, since I'd like to keep my mana costs as low as possible.

You don't need much stamina to wield it.

That said, what the others are saying is true.
Get breakthroughs (especially the mana regen one in Monsoon).
Get Runic Lexicon and start blasting enemies with lightning balls.
Get a large quantity of gear that reduces mana cost.
Get Runic Prefix and start doing even *more* damage with every spell.

You can also go with the Hermit breakthrough to increase your boons, plus get a sigil of wind that allows you to combine weird stuff and create massive lightning blasts.