Embermage Skill Guide

Short but thorough guide for evaluating the Embermage's skills in Torchlight II.

Introduction

In honor of reaching the final "unattainable" fame rank with my Embermage (sadly no extra skill point), I present to you my short primer of all Embermage skills in Torchlight II.

I've put well over 600 hours into Torchlight II and leveled multiple Elite characters through various NG+ tiers, both on softcore and hardcore, so I know a bit about how the game works. Hopefully this guide will help you in picking skills for your build and whatnot.

It's worth a mention that any skills that are based on weapon DPS and deal elemental damage (like Magma Spear, Shockbolts, etc.) convert all weapon damage to that damage type BEFORE calculating any bonuses (such as the elemental damage bonus from items, Focus, the Elemental Boon skill, etc).

Charge bar

Filling the Embermage's charge bar grants the character infinite mana for twelve seconds, during which the Embermage also gains +25% to all damage. Since charge rate is based on the amount of damage you deal, strong Embermages essentially always have infinite mana throughout most of the late game because of the high damage output.

For an excellent Embermage skill calculator, click HERE[www.tidbi.ru]

Inferno

Magma Spear

You fire a channeled barrage of magma, piercing foes and setting them aflame. Range is 16 meters.


The default starting Embermage skill. It's a quick-firing channeled attack, similar to the Outlander's Rapid Fire. Its main damage comes from the burning damage-over-time effect, not the initial hit, which are both improved by Focus and +% fire damage bonuses. While the skill is not exactly terrible, I'd still respec the initial point into Prismatic Bolt instead.

Magma Mace

You summon an enormous mace of fire that channels the energy of your weapons, stunning foes in a five-meter arc and setting them ablaze. Magma Mace does not build charge.

Summons a huge flaming hammer and swings it in a wide arc. Magma Mace has a high chance to stun, procs life and mana steal on hit, gains the ability to break shields and slow enemy attacks with tier bonuses, and has a separate stacking fire damage-over-time in addition to its regular fire attack (both scale with Focus). Fantastic if you were to make a melee Embermage, but who in their right mind would want to, really?

Firebombs

You hurl three gouts of flame that ignite the ground for three seconds and sometimes cause foes to stumble in panic as they burn, Firebombs gain no charge.


Yay, another sub-par fire attack. This skill deals no actual direct damage, instead covering the ground with fire that deals damage over time. Of course, this means that Firebombs cannot crit or benefit from Fire Brand. Possibly the most useless skill in the entire Inferno skill tree.

Blazing Pillar

You create giant pillars of intense flame that seek out and immolate nearby foes. Blazing Pillars is good at building charge.


Finally, a useful skill. It creates multiple pillars of fire that spread out and seek enemies to kill. The damage is good, with a high chance to burn enemies, which means good synergy with Fire Brand. Also, the tooltip isn't lying – the pillars build charge very quickly. Great fire-and-forget skill against groups of enemies and single targets alike.

Infernal Collapse

You create a concentrated sphere of heat, which suddenly expands outward in a devastating four-meter blast.


Creates an explosion at mouse pointer. The damage is fairly decent, although the range of explosion is quite small and desperately needs the tier bonuses to increase it to an acceptable level. Even so, you'll likely be better off spamming Prismatic Bolt than casting Infernal Collapse, because Collapse doesn't really offer anything other than a one-shot damage burst.

Immolation Aura


A vortex of flame surrounds you, damaging foes within a three-meter radius.


The aura only works against enemies at a very close range, which is the last place you want to be as an Embermage. It has a fairly short duration, doesn't synergyze with Fire Brand and deals low damage. In short, it's not worth it. If you want to use the skill for its damage reduction bonus, I've got three words for you: Skull of Limoany. You can spare the three item sockets for +15% damage reduction more easily than 15 skill points.

Firestorm

You call down burning cinders from the sky over a 15-meter radius, setting foes alight and increasing their susceptibility to fire damage. Firestorm gains no charge.


The fire equivalent of Hailstorm, although much worse because it's similar to Firebombs, as it deals no actual direct damage, instead covering the ground with fire that deals damage over time, so it cannot crit and doesn't benefit from Fire Brand. The overall damage is also smaller than Hailstorm and the fire splinters don't add much. You can safely skip this skill.

Charge Mastery (Passive)


Your expertise with charge lets you gain it faster, and retain it longer.


This is a great skill as long as you have no intention of progressing to new game plus. Once you reach the late game and acquire decent gear, you will often fill your entire charge bar in a few seconds with Prismatic Bolt or Flame Pillar, making any charge rate bonuses useless.

Elemental Attunement (Passive)

The Embermage is finely attuned to the elements, inflicting elemental effects on nearby enemies and extending the duration of all elemental effects.


Possibly the most misleading skill in the game. The bonus chance to burn / freeze / shock / poison doesn't apply to any of your attacks or skills, but instead affects nearby enemies as an invisible aura. Although the bonus duration DOES apply to other skills, it's not an issue with maxed Prismatic Bolt, as you're spamming that skill and constantly refreshing the duration anyway. Don't waste any points on this skill.

Fire Brand (Passive)


When you hit a burning enemy, you do an additional burst of fire damage.


One of the three highly-useful elemental brands. The damage scales well and is improved by Focus and +% fire damage bonuses. It does damage separate from your attack instead of adding the damage straight to it. The Brand's damage also has a chance to crit. It's important to note that Fire Brand doesn't benefit any skills that only deal damage-over-time (like Immolation Aura, Firestorm, etc.). Also, it can only proc on targets that are actually affected by burning, not by any other fire-damage-over-time effects (like from Magma Spear, Firebombs, etc.).

Frost

Icy Blast


You unleash a hail of five ricocheting icy bolts to slow and immobilize your foes.


I can think of another skill that shoots five bolts at enemies and happens to be far more useful. Goes by name of Prismatic Bolt, maybe you’ve heard of it? Icy Blast deals damage based off weapon DPS, which is not something you want to see as an Embermage, because your weapon will likely be a stat-stick with low DPS and mostly useless in that regard. Pass.

Hailstorm

You call down shards of ice from the sky, pummeling foes within a 15-meter radius. Hailstorm gains no charge.


Here’s a nice AOE damage skill that doubles as highly-effective crowd control. It affects a very large area, does respectable damage, has a low cooldown, high chance to stun and freeze, and it softens enemies for following ice and electric attacks. What more can you really ask for?

Frost Phase

You vanish from one location and instantly reappear in another, dealing cold damage in both places within a 2.5 meter burst.


Your basic blink/teleport skill, a typical one-point-wonder. What’s more, it actually deals damage at the points you’re jumping from and to. The damage scales with player level, not skill rank, and is affected by Focus and other damage bonuses, so it can usually even kill trash mobs on crits.

Elemental Boon

You imbue yourself with a bolstering aura which increases your elemental damages and resistances. Boon's benefits are also applied to any allies within 12 meters.


Let me count the ways in which this skill is a waste of points for any late game build. First, the reduction to elemental damage taken will become totally irrelevant as soon as you start stacking Skulls of Limoany for +% all damage reduction. Second, the minor mana recharge doesn’t even matter, as you essentially have infinite mana thanks to the Embermage’s charge bar. Third, the maximum damage bonus from Elemental Boon is equivalent to 76 Focus, which will likely only be a fraction of your total Focus by late game. And finally, can we talk about the pitiful 15-second duration of Elemental Boon? Actually, I’d rather not. Just forget about this skill.

Frost Wave


You hurl forth a wave of ice shards, impaling and freezing foes in its path.


Frost Wave is everything that the Berserker's Northern Rage wishes it was. Unlike the Rage, Frost Wave can be spammed as a main attack and the splinters don't spread out randomly. The speed of the splinters also becomes very fast after the Tier II bonus and they're much longer than Northern Rage. However, you really need the full Tier III bonus (5 waves) to have Frost Wave become viable in late game. Second best skill behind Prismatic Bolt to pick as a main attack.

Ice Prison

You summon pillars of ice around a target, trapping it within. You, however, can pass through the barrier. Pillars reflect damage back at foes attacking them.


Ice Prison is more of a survival skill than anything else. It’s useful for temporarily taking a tough enemy out of combat until he breaks free of the prison, by which time you’ll likely have cleaned up the other mobs and can focus on him. Ice Prison loses a lot of its potency in lategame, where it’s just easier and quicker to blast away enemies rather that mess with the Prison. The tier bonuses make the pillars explode when destroyed and significantly reduce the cooldown, making it possible to spam Ice Prison and turn it into a mini-nuke with respectable damage.

Astral Ally

You summon an astral clone of a fellow Embermage, who joins you in battle with powerful spells.


Summons a mirror image of an Embermage to fight for you. Like with most summons, the duration is pitifully short, while the cooldown is horribly long. The Astral Ally also dies with disturbing ease on higher difficulties, and the so-called "powerful spells" are nothing more than Magma Spear, Icy Blast and Prismatic Bolt, none of which are improved by your elemental damage bonuses, Focus, etc. Not really worth the points.

Staff Mastery (Passive)

Your skill with staves lowers the elemental resistances of enemies when you strike them. These effects are also applied to the Magma Mace, Magma Spear, Icy Blast and Shockbolts skills.

The "requires a staff" line alone should be enough to make this skill worthless, but it’s pretty much useless all on its own. The way armor works in this game, even a fully maxed Staff Mastery will only get you at most around 500-1000 extra damage in late game against level 100+ enemies, which is nothing compared to the 100k+ damage crits you’ll likely be dealing by that point.

Frozen Fate (Passive)

When you kill an enemy, you have a chance to freeze up to four additional enemies within a seven-meter radius.


I guess it’s somewhat useful as a one-point-wonder, but it should be noted that despite using the words "frozen" and "freeze" in its name and description, the skill actually immobilizes enemies, which means that it has no synergy with Ice Brand.

Ice Brand (Passive)


When you hit a frozen enemy, you do an additional burst of ice damage.


One of the three highly-useful elemental brands. The damage scales well and is improved by Focus and +% ice damage bonuses. It does damage separate from your attack instead of adding the damage straight to it. The Brand’s damage also has a chance to crit. Note that Ice Brand doesn’t proc on any damage-over-time effects, like those from Ice Prison or Frost Wave.

Storm

Prismatic Bolt


You unleash a flurry of five prismatic bolts that seek out nearby foes.


This is the skill that makes Embermages so powerful. The idea behind Prismatic Bolt is to spam it, cause the elemental effects (burn, shock, freeze, poison) to proc, and then have the three brands (Fire, Ice, Lightning) add their damage bonus to each following hit. When the skill is maxed, the elemental effect proc chance will be high enough to virtually guarantee all of them applying on the initial hit because each proc chance applies to every individual bolt. It's possible for a single bolt to convey multiple elemental effects.

Each bolt also carries all four elemental damage components, meaning that the three brands can proc off EVERY bolt. While the poison damage does not have an associated brand, its elemental effect reduces all enemy armor by 33%, improving your overall damage. Also, the tier bonuses for Prismatic Bolt apply to the base damage before all other bonuses, making the Tier III damage bonus far more powerful than something like "+30% to all damage" from random equipment.

Prismatic Bolt vs. every other skill

In my other three class-specific guides, I've done side-by-side comparisons of the main DPS skills (like Flame Hammer vs. Emberquake) to see which is superior. This is not really needed with the Embermage, because Prismatic Bolt blows every other skill out of the water.

Let's assume an Embermage who has Prismatic Bolt and all three Brands maxed at rank 15/15. The Embermage has 1000 Focus (+500% elemental damage) and no other damage bonuses.

Initial hit (per bolt): (494 * 4) + 500% = 11,856
Follow-up (min damage with brands): 11,856 + 3 * (2215 + 500%) = 51,726
Follow-up (max damage with brands): 11,856 + 3 * (6643 + 500%) = 131,430

Note that the above damage is PER bolt and WITHOUT any critical hits. Assuming a mediocre late game critical hit bonus of 300%, the maximum possible combined Prismatic Bolt damage per cast would be: 5 * (131,430 + 300%) = 2,628,600

Comparing THAT to any other skill would be pointless. For example, Magma Spear – even when maxed and using some godly weapon with 10k DPS – would deal at most 180k damage per hit in the above case, and that's including the critical hit bonus and max crit damage from Fire Brand. Even with its bonus damage-over-time factored in, it doesn't come even close to Prismatic Bolt.

Shocking Burst

You unleash channeled bursts of crackling energy, shocking and stunning all foes up to eight meters away in a 75-degree angle.


Shocking Burst is a short-range channeled skill that deals damage based on your weapon DPS. Its elemental damage component deals damage over time, which means it can't crit. If you also consider its poor stun chance and insane mana cost at higher ranks, Shocking Burst further cements its position as one of the least impressive skills in the Embermage's arsenal.

Thunder Locus

You summon a concentrated thunderstorm at a target location which blasts foes within seven meters for the duration of its existence. Thunder Locus does not build charge.


Thunder Locus creates a stationary floating orb that shoots lightning at nearby enemies. Much like Blazing Pillar, it's a great fire-and-forget skill, as it deals good damage and benefits a lot from extra skill ranks and tier bonuses. I don't really have anything bad to say about this skill.

Arc Beam

You pierce your foes with a channeled beam of energy from your weapons. Destroyed enemies split the beam and strike nearby targets as a secondary effect.


Another short-range channeled skill with unimpressive damage based on your weapon DPS. The mana cost is even worse than Shocking Burst. Coupled with poor range, lack of charge generation, and low damage scaling, Arc Beam is another on the long list of "meh" Embermage skills.

Death's Bounty

You bind the lifeforce of all foes within six meters of the target. Upon their death, their life and mana are drawn to you or other players through three soul bolts.


The Embermage's only healing skill, and pretty effective at that. It essentially turns all enemies in its AOE into walking rejuvenation potions. Killing an enemy affected by Death's Bounty releases bolts that seek out nearby players and instantly heal them on contact. The tier bonuses are also great, increasing the number of bolts and slowing/stunning affected enemies. Very useful when leveling, but less so in lategame, where you will have no shortage of powerful healing potions.

Shockbolts

You release four electrically charged bolts, which follow the ground and ricochet off neighboring objects.


Low-damage bolts that scale off weapon DPS. This skill has no redeeming qualities that I can think of.

Shocking Orb


You release a slow-moving electrical orb, which discharges energy into foes as it passes.


Kinda like a moving Thunder Locus, but way worse. The Orb only lasts a few seconds and the damage is based on weapon DPS, making it pretty negligible.

Prismatic Rift (Passive)

Your chaotic energy teleports enemies away when they strike you, with a chance of random elemental effects.


Grants a chance that attacking enemies are teleported a short distance away from you, and that one or more random elemental effects (shock, freeze, burning, poison) are applied. Sadly, the greatest drawback of this passive is the fact that an enemy has to actually land a hit on you for Prismatic Rift to have a chance to trigger. Blocked, dodged or reflected attacks don't count. Furthermore, it only affects melee auto-attacks, making it barely viable even as a one-point-wonder.

Wand Chaos (Passive)

Attacks using your wand can result in bizzare random elemental disturbances. These effects can also happen with the Magma Spear, Magma Mace, Icy Blast and Shockbolts skills.

So what are these "Bizzare Effects"? Pretty much any unique effect that can proc on strike with certain weapons, such as Acid Rain, Meteor Strike, Summon Shadowling, Thunder, etc. While Wand Chaos can add a bit of variety to your attacks, it can only trigger on auto-attacks and those four listed (useless) skills, also requiring the use of a wand. In other words, don't bother.

Lightning Brand (Passive)


When you hit a shocked enemy, you do an additional burst of lightning damage.


One of the three highly-useful elemental brands. The damage scales well and is improved by Focus and +% electric damage bonuses. It does damage separate from your attack instead of adding the damage straight to it. The Brand's damage also has a chance to crit.

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide has been of some help.

If you want to check out other class-specific skill guides, the links are below:

Outlander Skill Guide
Berserker Skill Guide
Engineer Skill Guide

I've also written two other guides for Torchlight II, found here:

Ultimate Torchlight II Guide
Achievement Guide

Good luck and have fun playing!

[Dasyatis]

I never see any critical hit on my Fire Brand's damage. Did anyone ever notice that?

[HPxXxHC]

I wish I had seen this guide sooner, I started playing with Embermage and distributing points to test the skiils and then I realized that I had done something stupid. Now it’s time to try to focus on what you really need. Thanks for the guide.

[§¢ɅЯↁɅ₪]

Redeeming quality of a Shockbolts is that it does trigger Wand Chaos.
Magma Spear + Wand Chaos is in my opinion better combo then Prismatic Bolt with all Brands because of their cooldown. Magma Spear get more damage this way, Magma spear is fast and triggers Wand Chaos very often.

[StealthyRaven]

What stats and scrolls (for both MC and pet) would you recommend with this?

[wei270]

So JewelryStar if i am trying to build a embermage what sort of build would you suggest

[Jariah Synn]

Is best to stick to one element tree?

[JewelryStar]

- Shocking Orbs: this is one of the best skill suite for build which like to "lazy" style, and it can't dea alot dmg. At maximum, it release 3 orb make your dmg is very imressive.
- Wands Chaos: Magma Spear, Magma Mace, Icy Blast, Shockbolts not useless, you don't don't see its good. The cons of Wands Chaos is it deal random effect, so it can make your fight annoying and longer, harder, more random.

* Fire/Ice/Lightning Brand's crit mechanic and delay not impressive much, don't overated it with PB.

* Tested everything with the game version 1.25.9.5.

[JewelryStar]

* Storm:
- Prismatic Bolt: Its good, but don't overate it much.
+ Fire/Ice/Lightning Brand can't procs more than like 1 time 1second.
+ Each Prismatic Bolt projectile has it own dmg so it will applied on enemies armor for each projectiles, and each dmg types has it own armor....
+ Prismaltic Bolt's crit mechanic is not like character crit mechanic, if character has 100% crit, PB can't has 100% crit. And skills like Magma Spear, Ice Blast, Magma Mace, Shockbolts have more %crit than PB (quite alot).
- Thunder Locus: with each rank higher, it deal less dmg than previous rank per hit, but attacks more target, less dmg's range and stable dmg.
- Shockbolts: it can attacks multiple enemies, but need to stay close target to work the best. It projectiles can "run" on ground durations so it can works as "semi-homing" projectiles attack in some case.

[JewelryStar]

- Astral Ally scale with Pet bonus, not characters stats.
- Staff Mastery: actually it will get you more than 1000dmg, about 5000 or more depend on how many armor enemies has at late game. But still, it can't compared to crit dmg build with good gears. It can be useful at play Hardcore character with selffound items.
- Ice Brand: similar to Fire Brand, Ice Prision when shatter can freezing enemies, applied Ice Brand bonus dmg to next direct hits. Frost Wave can freezing enemies and applied Ice Brand effect too.

* Storm:
- Prismatic Bolt: Its good, but don't overate it much.
+ Fire/Ice/Lightning Brand can't procs more than like 1 time 1second.
+ Each Prismatic Bolt projectile has it own dmg so it will applied on enemies armor for each projectiles, and each dmg types has it own armor....

[JewelryStar]

- Elemental Attunement: +duration for elemental effect is good enough to spend any point left into its. PB can't deal all elemental effect on large group enemies at the same time, and can't attack exactly what enemies you want to targeted all time, EA can't help with that case.
- Fire Brand: it works on enemies that under almost "Burn DoT" type beside Burn dmg effect of Fire dmg. Magma Spear, Magma Mace, Firebombs, Firestorm's Burn DoT can triggered Firebrand bonus dmg for next direct hit.

* Frost:
- Icy Blast: Actually, Weapon dmg base skill can deal alot more dmg than PB per hit. Ice Blast cons are need to close to works the best, can't increase its DPS by +casting speed becaue it has cooldown. But it still good at reduced enemies physical dmg, applied Freezing (so next direct hits can get bonus dmg of Icebrand skill).
- Hail Storm: its best effect that make enemies under it effect will taken more dmg from Lightning and Cold dmg attacks.