Advice for Archmages?

[reize]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice here.
1. What are the order of the dungeons to explore? Generally I do Trollshaws, Korpul, Old Forest, Maze in that order. After that, I'm not sure where to go.. Died numerous times in Daikara (sp?).
2. What are the skills that make survival easier?

TIA!

[Aoi]

Not a veteran archmage by any means, but my thoughts...

Dungeon Order: Trollshaws->Old Forest->Maze->whatever
Main Skills: Entire water tree, Flameshock, Spell Shaping, Teleport, Probability Travel, Heal
Stat Distribution: Willpower/Magic
Runes: Manasurge/Manasurge/Shielding

I'm heavy on the Willpower since I like using the sustained skills-- I think I had something like -400 on my most recent run.

I don't like Phase Door-- either LoS doesn't get me to safety, or it fizzles when I go out of LoS when it's an emergency. I prefer Water over Fire as the skills are generally cheaper and have more utility. If you want extra oomph and have the mana to spare, Inferno would stack on the area damage nicely, though I'd personally prefer Chain Lightning or Nova. I don't get Arcane Eye, which people evidently swear by, since I find that I spend most of my time zipping through walls with PT and, when I'm looking around corners, I can generally hit things with Corrosive Vapor.

When running around with PT, keep shielding on since you don't want to run into a nasty group unprotected. For 1v1 battles, you've got Freeze, Flameshock and Ice Storm so you can more or less stunlock your opponent. For group battles, Corrosive Vapor, Tidal Wave and Ice Storm will keep them at bay and whittle them down nicely, especially if you can dance around walls with PT. When in danger, teleport to the stairs or somewhere random and hope it's safer.

[Postman]

Nether tried mage, but my arcane blade can (barely)handle ruined dungeon at lvl~15.Died once but finished it. With flameshock and good close defense (smthng like Tidal Wave) your archmage may handle it. Beware of some nasty debuffs. Reward suck though - just some blue items, no yellow.
Don't go into ancient elven ruins if you can't handle crowd of lvl35 assassins&rogues

[darkgod]

Hum ?
The ruined dungeon should always pop an artifact, unless you already found all the possible ones for your level

[Grey]

Max out Flame, Manathrust and Arcane Power for all the offense you need early game. Freeze and Flameshock are also great for disabling toughies. Get Arcane Eye and use it plenty - knowing what's around the corner is a tremedous help. A wand of enemy detection is also invaluable.

Most people hit the Sandworm Lair before Daikara, though you need some special preparations as it's quite a special place and dangerous if you're not careful. Some form of blind resistance is very handy, and teleportation too. It can be a good idea to swap in a teleport rune for this dungeon - preferably one with a lowish range and a very short cooldown.

Early on you obviously want Mana maxed, but make sure you keep Con at a decent level too. Get the Combat Training talent tree from the weapon salesman in Last Hope and invest in the Health talents - they give a decent boost to HP whilst also forcing you to keep your Con at respectable levels. Willpower should get some attention too to keep up sustains like Stone Skin, Arcane Power and Featherwind (very useful later in the game).

For infusions/runes you should have Regen, Mana and a good Wild. Make prolific use of them, but also have the spell back-ups of the first two. If you start as a Cornac then it doesn't hurt to invest a slot for an additional phase or teleport, for those horrible moment when targetted phase door fizzles...

I'd suggest you post some details of your next death so we can see where more specific advice can be given.

[Sradac]

spend your generics to max phase door and keen senses. phase door will save you, and maxed keen senses will let you see most stealthed / invis plus gives a nice bonus to spell crit. freeze, ice storm, and flame shock will make most encounters trivial. Mana thrust I barely use.

[Sradac]

I find alternating between lightning and flame to work better, with 4 points into flame it becomes a beam (mastery puts it at I think 5.2)

Maxed phase door is too valuable. Too many times I have used phase door or teleport without having control over it and it put in a spot I did NOT want to be.

[Sradac]

left my point about flame > manathrust out. Flame is good because if you need to you can just cast it down a long hall filled with monsters then duck behind a corner letting them all burn to death. Leave behind an inferno and tidal wave for added effect.

[Aoi]

At 3, manathrust becomes a beam too. It does a little less damage than Flame, but the upshot is that the damage it does is instant and, from what I've seen, less stuff is resistant/immune to it.

Phase door at 4 [5.2] is effectively identical to 5 [6.5]. Range MIGHT increase [never checked] but it's a moot point since phasing out of LoS in b18 has a chance of fizzle. DG's said elsewhere that it'll phase randomly instead of just fizzling in the future. Personally, I'd take the guaranteed escape of a lower PD or a teleport than a wasted turn.

I notice nobody here has said anything about the upper-tier elemental skills. Any thoughts on that?

[Sradac]

water is an awesome tree in general, fire you need to be careful with unless you have spell shaping maxed, then you can go all out nuts with them.

[Postman]

Hum ?
The ruined dungeon should always pop an artifact, unless you already found all the possible ones for your level

Hmm, I don't remember getting artifacts form the chamber itself, though I was getting some artifact daggers from thieves. May be I got it but didn't remember because it was useless.

[Aoi]

Had no idea that it becomes a beam (isn't in the text.) That does sound superior.

"At level 5 it will create a beam of flames."

[greycat]

Lightning is a beam at level 1.
Manathrust is a beam at level 3.
Flame is a beam at level 5.

Those are the 3 spells I use most as a mage. They all have a cooldown of 3, so you can just keep cycling through the 3 of them as long as your Mana and HP hold out.

[Final Master]

Lightning is a beam at level 1.
Manathrust is a beam at level 3.
Flame is a beam at level 5.

Those are the 3 spells I use most as a mage. They all have a cooldown of 3, so you can just keep cycling through the 3 of them as long as your Mana and HP hold out.

Which I generally find to be ill - I don't like the super low cooldowns with these 3, especially when compared to the other 'basic' attack spells.

[Aoi]

I usually don't get manathrust at all, except to get the other skills in that tree. I'm a fan of AoEs in conjunction with PT. The downside is that it makes escorts really, really annoying.