Celtic Heroes

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Bob's Fire Mage Guide (Updated May 15, 2021)

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UPDATE LOG
Update Log: 8
Last Update: May 15, 2021
Reason for Update: Because I said I would update it two years ago and some upstart asked me why I hadn't in the comments.


For anyone new to my long essay of a guide here, there is where I leave my personal note etc...
Last guide update I said I was waiting on some new damage formulas and I was going to run all the BT (and dino, which wasn't even out when I last updated this guide :lol: ) through them and try and provide a better quantitative look at the gear available to us... Issue was I wasn't the one creating those formulas and the person who was gave up and quit the game (RIP). As such I'm going to be putting a lot more disclaimers into this guide and unfortunately don't have any new graphs or charts to include. If someone does have some updated formulas and wants to share them though, I may find the willpower to put it all into excel and update the guide holistically.
Anyways this should serve as a stop-gap update for now... may fine tune some more in the coming weeks but just as equally may not :lol:
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Hey Everyone!
I noticed that there are several other mage guides on the forums:
-) A General Mage Guide
-) A PVP Fire Mage Guide
-) An Ice Mage Guide
-) And Even An Auto Mage Guide

But, there was no DPS Fire Mage Guide. A ways back, I made a Fire Mage Guide, but was told that it was a bit technical, was focused only for EG mages, and lacked some common answered questions that an updated guide should try to address. I have taken this criticism to action, and have since been trying out some new things, looking into new gear, and even made a noob mage on Herne, Bob TheMage, lvl 115, to test out some new noob game mechanics. After a while, I have finally gathered the information needed to compile this into a new, fresh, easy to read and use, Guide.

Like with my old guide, I will be updating this as new content comes out, and as I notice new things that I think can help mages everywhere of every level. So check back regularly.

Organization
This Guide will be broken down into a few sections.
-) First, I will generically go over a mages different stats, abilities, skills, and Pets/Mounts.
-) Second, I will take a more in-depth look into different level zones, going over gear, skills, and leveling techniques.
-) Thirdly, I will go over EG for a fire mage, further going into roles at EG bosses like BT and Dino, what rings and other gear are best for optimizing your DPS, some tips and tricks.
-) Lastly, I will go over my suggestions in totality and ideas for building up your mage. [previously a section devoted to bragging about what my nooby drawn multi logger mage was running, removed for all the obvious reasons plus that my YouTube videos were super cringy)

STATS, ABILITIES, SKILLS, Pets/Mounts

STATS
Strength
Strength is 100% useless for a mage. Don't put any stat points here. There are only 2 weapons that a mage can realistically use that utilize strength, Ymir (and grim/askold etc) wands, and Dragon Lord Wand. All other mage weapons use magic damage, which, is not affected by strength. Even for DL wand, strength is pretty useless as autoing does not add to a mages DPS. This is mostly due to how much attack is needed to land autos on a boss. At the EG level, a ranger needs 13k+ attack to land a decent amount of autos on a boss, no mage can get near this without heavily sacrificing almost all of its DPS.

Dexterity
Some mages over time have said that dex is useful for defense. However, I beg to differ. Defense can help for mages solo leveling because of how squishy we are, but the amount of dex it would take to have a sufficient amount of defense would heavily cut into a mages DPS. If you are having trouble staying alive, I would suggest buffing up vitality, buying a shield, beefing up e shield, or spaming restos.

Vitality
Vitality is fairly important, however its importance changes over the course of the game, especially with level. Read below for the specific level ranges to determine how much, if any, vitality to use.

Focus
This is without a doubt your most important stat as a mage. Focus directly impacts your damage and your energy. The over generalized recomendation is to get as much focus as you can without sacrificing surviability. Look below for a more in depth analysis for each level range.
Here is a graph* to display the importance of focus. This graph analyzes a lvl 50 firebolt with a focus range from 0 to 5000. For purposes of comparison, fire magic is kept constant at 0.
focus.png
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*Disclaimer: This graph utilizes Swan's old DMG formulas and does not accurately provide an idea of how focus plateaus in effect. If you have any questions about this feel free to pm or comment and I'll explain in more detail.


ABILITIES
There are a multitude of abilities in this game, from pets, to mounts, to novelty, to evasions, to DPS abilities. I will only be covering the DPS abilities of wand, fire magic, and ice magic here.

Fire Magic
The most important of the 3 DPS abilities. Fire Magic directly links to how much damage your fire based skills will do. To counter a popular conception, ability DOES NOT equal accuracy. Although it does impact accuracy, 5000 fire magic will barely, as in not really noticeable, be more accurate than 2200 Fire Magic on a lvl 220 mob or boss. Maybe sometime in the future this will change, but as of now this is how it is.
As I did for focus, here is another chart to look at the impact of fire magic on firebolt, with focus held constant at 10 for comparison purposes.*
fire magic.png
fire magic.png (180.95 KiB) Viewed 31021 times
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*Disclaimer: This graph utilizes Swan's old DMG formulas and does not accurately provide an idea of how fire magic plateaus in effect. If you have any questions about this feel free to pm or comment and I'll explain in more detail.

Ice Magic
Arguably the second most important of the 3 abilities. Although as a fire mage you are probably wondering why you should care about ice magic, due to the nature of bosses in the game, some are weak to fire, others are weak to ice. As a result, it is valuable to have both fire damage, and some ice damage. I'm not advising going full hybrid, but using ice shard is a definite plus, thus I stress caring about ice magic. No need to buff it up with gear, but it is worth maxing.

Wand
Useless. Plain and simple. Unless OTM revamps the wand attack and range stats wands are fundamentally useless after level 50, and even before level 50 they are not needed.

SKILLS
I will cover this in order of what a Fire Mage should max first while leveling. Read the skill description for further details on use for the skills. This is not a 100% definitive order, and depending upon your situation/level one skill may be more valuable than another.

Fire Attunement
Ever since the addition of this skill with the Dragon Fire (dracarys) update in 2013, this has become an essential skill for fire mages. Prior to this update fire mages were considerably weaker than ice mages, with the old best build being maxed shards and maxed bolt, fire storm was obsolete as it did less damage than shards with a longer cooldown. fire attune changed this and made mages fire or ice, no more hybrid mage. This skill is a massive buff, and imo is the most important fire mage skill. At early (1-130) this skill can double the damage of your bolt and storm. As such, I would recommend maxing it first.

Fire Bolt
The first skill any mage learns on the shores of Lirs Reach, now heros landing. This skill is now instant cast, with a cooldown of 7 seconds. It is the fastest mage skill there is, and an extremly important fire mage skill. At upper EG levels it can do astonishing damage. This skill is the best skill to focus on in terms of damage boosting stats (see the EG section of this guide for a more detailed explanation as to why).

Fire Storm
This skill rose to importance as a result of the dragonfire (dracarys) expansion in 2013. As a fire mages AOE skill fire storm can be a handy tool for clearing adds (as OTM thinks mages are meant to do), however, as providing more damage than fire bolt (up until max EG DPS builds), it is a leveling fire mage's heavy hitter skill. Due to this it is without a doubt the second best fire mage DPS skill.

Fire Lure
Up until level 50, lures do not need to be leveled, as mobs resistance is quite low. After level 50 however, mobs start to develop resistances, with a dramatic gradiant between Stonevale and Shalemont. Even upon entering Stonevale throughout the remainder of leveling, lure only needs to be half maxed, maxing lure only becomes required for bossing, from met bosses all the way through Gele, and especially prot (see EG discussion for more details). My advice is to split your spare points after your DPS skills above are leveled between e shield and energy shield, stopping putting points in lure at half max.

Energy Shield
Energy Shield is a skill tome shop skill that unlocks after the entry quest is complete at level 19. As mages lack defense and armor, this skill is a mages best defensive attribute. Up until the tower release in 2014, e-shield was nerfed. The skill description said it was impacted by focus and ice magic, but this was not true in effect. After this update, e-shield recieved a boost. A max E-Shield for an EG fire mage protects the user from around 3k damage, which is basically a re-castable 3k health buff. This is especially helpful for dealing with a bosses AOE, as the aoe from a boss will wipe our your e shield, but by the time the AOE cycle restarts e-shield is ready to be re-casted. For leveling it is also very important for preventing deaths and keeping attune on. However, it is not more important than DPS skills imo, and as such should be leveled using spare points with fire lure. This doesn't hamper e-shield's effectiveness, as even not fully maxed it is still quite useful. Even at EG level my mage doesn't have e-shield maxed.

Ice Shard
Ice shard? Why "Ice" shard? Isn't this a fire mage guide? Didn't you just say
fire attune changed this and made mages fire or ice, no more hybrid mage.
Yes, hybrid mages are not as powerful as they once were, as in, don't max ice shard over fire storm if you have fire storm... But, especially in EG or even 180+, having ice shard as a skill becomes quite useful. Bosses and mobs are weak to different elements. For example, 205 and 210 edl are weak to ice, 185 and 195 EDL are weak to fire, Monoliths are weak to fire, but Smolach 210/160/110/60 is weak to ice. As such, I have found it useful to have a skill that isn't fire. Furthermore, at most bosses there will be an ice mage and a fire mage, and in these cases ice shard does more damage than incinerate would in its tics.

Incinerate
ice shard does more damage than incinerate
Ok, yes, I did just say that, but that doesn't mean incin is useless, does it? Imo, incin is a good 4th dps skill, however I would advise against prioritizing it over ice shard, unless you are meant to be a fire mage locker for bosses only weak to fire magic. In this case, ice shard is useless.

Other Skills:

Other useful skills

Energy Boost
"EB" is a fairly decent skill, but imo sigils or an elix work much better as you don't need to sacrifice skill points. nonetheless it works well if you are just starting out and don't want to pay for sigils or lixs.

Assasins Lure
plure (pierce lure), is extremly useful. And unless you have a few mages in your clan or time zone who activly use it I would suggest picking it up. It is also extremly useful for group leveling with a rogue or ranger or a spear war.

Magic Lure
Useful for leveling with a druid or for proteus (see EG section)

Soldiers Lure
Slash lure, slure, is useful if you have a lot of DPS wars with axes, otherwise don't worry about it.

useless skills

Sacrifice
garbage, next?

Energy Well
garbage, next?

Ice blast
Uh, I think your lost, Here is the Ice Mage guide. Ok fine, that's a bit mean, considering I say ice shard is worth using. But ice blast is mediocre even for an ice mage, without ice attunement and ice lure and ice magic buffs it is really trashy for a fire mage. You may think its ok as a 5th dps skill, but really this hurts your dps as you don't have enough time to cast 5 skills reguarly.
There is one exception here, and that is in the case of no access to CD (cool down) items. Running Ice blast as a fire mage does suck, but its better than sitting waiting for skills to recharge. If you do run it in this case, never prioritize its cast. If ANY other skill is ready (Besides just lapping your own incin) cast that skill first.

Ice attunement
Fire attune gets rid of ice attune, so useless

Ice and Giant lure
Let ice mages use lures for themselves.
Giants lure may be wanted by hammer warriors, but unless you're extremely nice prob going to want to save the skill points for yourself. Bit greedy and selfish, but mages are a DPS class and this is a DPS fire mage guide, so sue me.


PETS AND MOUNTS

Pets
When considering Mage pets there are really only 4 options, the Rabbit, the Eagle, the Dragon, and the Phoenix. Each pet is decent in their own rights, however there are certain reasons why it would be better to choose one over the other.

Rabbit:
The rabbit was one of the first two pets introduced and is still one of the best pets for players of any class to use due to its extremely useful heal and energy resupply skill. The focus boost on top makes for a great mage pet, combined with a nice energy boost like skill that is actually able to assist with the mage energy output, and the heal with saves mages restos for health.
The only drawbacks to this pet are in comparison to the others that offer a damage skill rather than a support skill. This being said for any mage that wants to stick to a cheaper less plat dependent game style, I would argue the rabbit is always the way to go.

Eagle
Personally I am not a big fan of the eagle. As the skill is a physical damage type mages can't really get much out of it and due to the way mob resists work this makes it even weaker than an elemental skill buff. On top the evasion drop hasn't been shown to be too game changing if noticeable at all. Overall its okay, and it does provide more DPS than the hare, however I would argue that the benefits from the support attributes of the hare outweigh the small DPS bump with the eagle. This being said it is a personal calculation that needs to be made.

Dragon
The dragon is as of now the best DPS pet in the game hands down. This being said it is also by far the most expensive pet in the game, both to acquire and to feed.
The critical skills bump provides a noticeable increase to a mage's critical chance and thus to a mage's net DPS at a boss. Furthermore, the skill does pretty decent damage capping out around 2500 damage. For a fast cool down and an insta cast skill this is a pretty good set up and thus it retains the crown for best DPS pet.
If your goal is to build a DPS mage aimed at getting kills or winning locks this is the pet to go for.

Phoenix
The phoenix is the newest member to the acceptable caster pet family. While the dragon keeps the crown for top DPS, the phoenix is a step up from the eagle in providing a decent damage skill while having a pretty great support attribute with its lure effect. The damage of the skill takes longer to cool down and does less damage than the dragon, but the support skill is useful.
I've gotten some flak over this analysis but I still stand by it. Stat for Stat, dragon does do more damage ASSUMING that there is always a phoenix lure skill on the boss you are attacking. This is a big assumption and I wanted to make it clear. I ran a phoenix (mostly because at the time no one else had a fire phoenix) but also because I'd rather lose some DPS some of the time (its a really small difference between dragon and phoenix) than not have the phoenix when I needed/wanted it.

Mounts
Might be one coming in the next update....

Might be a really cool one.....

Might be wanting one myself....

Might be making a Mage....

(I am, I am making a Mage)
Prior to this post by the old CM Muldar, the Wolf was the best Mage mount, however with the introduction of the Elk (really its a stag/moose, so let's just call it that) the wolf doesn't match up as well. Not only does it look stunning but the bolas effect to the damage skill is a nice touch that allows for mages to get in an extra hit or two before taking damage to themselves or to their eshield. On top of this the damage skill is elemental damage which fits nicely in the class dynamic for mages being elemental masters and does pretty great damage considering.
With Dino being the top EG boss and it being extremely weak to magic damage, Elk is a necessity at this point to any mage looking to top out their DPS and go for a dino kill.

FIRE MAGE BREAK UP BY LEVEL RANGES
This is a part of the guide I felt I needed to go more in-depth in than my previous one. I will break down this section into bulk level categories, 1-50, 50-100, 100-130, 130-150, 150-180, 180-215. I will cover 215+ in the EG section which immediately follows this section. Without further a do, lets begin :)

Levels 1-50
Welcome to the game! "You're a wizard Harry!", or "You're like... a wizard." Sadly there are no transfigurations or murdering of white walkers, but mages are, in my not so humble opinion, the best class in the game. Ice mages may be chill and all, but being a hot head can be way better.

This is a fun level range. A mage can easily solo level here if they have attune, fire storm, and fire bolt, however, since fire storm only drops in the OW, a zone where you need to be 60+ to access, and the bosses that drop it are levels 80+, you are unlikely to be able to acquire this spell tome at the start of the game. As such, I would suggest supplementing ice shard for fire storm.

During this level range worry less about gear, and worry more about leveling. I would recommend following the questlines. If you are making an alt, or are a world x-fer, or you just happen to have a large sum of gold to toy around with, this is the level range where regen has the largest impact. I would recommend buying a heroic ammy of vigor or just a standard heroic ammy of rejuvenation. This level range goes fast, so don't worry too much about buying level gear for this range. Investing in a royal and grand fire attune ring however can be quite helpful.

Levels 50-100
Welcome to being level 50! you now have the ability to use OW shop gear, including the masters grimoire (master grim).

For leveling, I would recommend staying with the quest line, OTM has expanded it and it is a nice, cheap way to level up. Other possibilities are to lix in stonevale to 70, pirates to 89, scorpians or eyes to 100.

For gear, I would suggest acquiring the dusk and dark shadow armor. The focus boost is nice, and the armor bonus is equivlent to the warden questline armor. BUT don't neglect warden and met armor, as these armor pieces are required for frozen which is required for dragon lord which is required for exalted dragon lord which is required for dulch gul which is recquired for... wait that's it :P

Warden Quest Line
Meteroic Quest Line

Jewlery is finally accessible to you. at level 60 you can start to use ow skill rings. I would recomend going for a royal and grand fire attune, a royal firebolt, and a royal fire storm. There is an event ring for fire storm as well that works pretty well as well, same for fire bolt. All in all, try and max these skills as high as possible. At this point in the game, gather all the skill points you can, max fire attune, then fire bolt, then fire storm, then lure, then e shield. Skill points will add more damage than any other attribute, this changes after level 150, but up until then keep this trend up.
This is also the last level range where regen has any use. After 100 regen doesn't provide any reasonable assistance in terms of energy or health regen. I would suggest investing in sigils over regen.

As for lux, a masters grim is helpful, but not required. it does provide a large buff to your damage but if you lack the gold don't worry about spending a lot of time farming for one.

Levels 100-130
Welcome to the beginning of the early game stages. Up until now you were in the tutorial to the game. You have hopefully now unlocked your warden armor, acquired fire storm, have started your met armor, and are beginning to grasp the mechanics of the game. Starting at level 100 the game goes a little slower (not as much as it used to with the new xp curve), and you enter the role of the dutiful camper! It is in this level range that most likely your clan, if an EG feeder or a clan that kills frozen bosses, will begin to teach you how camping bosses works, how to record times of kills and attendance, and some basic locking strategies.

Mages in OW Lock Battles:
Don't be alarmed if you get asked to leave the lock group for a rogue or warrior. While mage dps is phenomenal, locks aren't one by net DPS where mages triumph, rather they are won by short-term burst DPS within a 10-15 second time window (exception: aggy/legacy). Rogues excel in this area with most of their skills being insta cast/fast cast. Nonetheless, if you find yourself in a lock group your best skill for locking is fire bolt. it is a mages only insta cast skill.
My recommendation for skill use is:
1) Fire Bolt
2) Fire Lure
3) Fire storm
4) fire bolt
-LOCKED-
This gets in the most DPS overall before the lock I have found from testing.
Welcome to Celtic Campers!

Now that you have gotten camping out of the way, frozen armor becomes a major stage of the game for new players, and is arguably the largest bottleneck in the game. While this is a pain at the time, this is a needed bottleneck. It gives players the needed time to learn locking strategies key to mid and EG play, teaches players key game mechanics and a deeper understanding of their classes, and it teaches needed patience when it comes to gear, as prior to frozen (Warden and Met) were easy to come by, but frozen, DL, and EDL, and especially DG are not. This is also a good time to make a name for yourself on your server as a hard worker and a loyal clansman. This can go a long way in the mid-EG stages of the game.

Frozen Quest Line Walk Through

Now onto gear and other stuff ;)
Gear and Lux
Level 100 -> focus of the seer
Level 100 -> aggy skill rings (yay, up to +10 for fire storm and fire bolt)
Level 110 -> Aggy Grimoire
Level 120 -> Aggy skill braces (go for fire mages bracelet of focus (or vitality) or a battlemages bracelet of fire.
For ammy, I suggest using a hellfire riviere and a hellfire runestone for your misc, continue to upgrade these through EG, switching your misc to a royal emberdrake charm of firebolt once you can (see EG guide)

Armor wise, I suggest using met and frozen. The aura bonus is nice. Spirit shadow works instead of met, but frozen is a better fit. Also, frozen will help when camping pyrus due to the lava fields.

Where to level? I would recommend doing the quest line, as it is free xp, however if you want to speed lix: spiders in carrowmore from 100-105 or trees in ow from 100-115, then wraiths to 120, then blackstones to 126, boggans to 130. Other options include doing trees to 120, and then golems to 130. Lastly, you can do the zombie 105 pit to 105, then either trees or wraiths to 120.

Levels 130-150
Welcome to the Carrowmore stages! You are almost done with the OW (not really cuz Aggragoth's drops are op at this level range, but aside from that dragon). Nothing exciting happens for mages between 130-140, except for a frozen glow stick (Frozen wand) being unlocked at 135. Don't pass up unlocking this item, it is necessary for DL wand and grimoire, and DL grim is needed for EDL grim.

For leveling, stick with the quest line, but if you want to lix just follow the boggan rooms, there is one for each small level range, makes leveling really easy.

Armor, gear and lux
130->Shadow Aggy Grim
135-> frozen wand, don't use but unlock for later upgrades
140-> Beast bone (BB) and Ancient Beast Bone (anc bb) gloves. Anc bb adds 300 fire bolt damage. I still use these gloves at EG, 100% worth getting, only costs 15 minor bone shards
144-> BB and Anc BB boots -> adds 400 fire storm damage, once again GET! Anc is 15 lesser shards
148-> Bb and Anc BB helm -> sacrafice buff... trash but armor and health upgrades are decent.
150 -> Dragon Lord Gloves (see next level section for more details)
150-> focus of the mystic (see next section for more details)
Ammy and charm: Continue to upgrade your hellfire gear. Other options include getting a jalan or comrak ammy or set (shrive or spirit), or using a focus boost lux ammy.
Rings: Ow skill/ event rings are still your best bet (event: silverweb rings of fire bolt, or the frost iron fire storm rings)

Other armor option
There is another option for armor that I used during this range, but it is a little costly and hard to get. This would be the obsidian armor (gloves unlock at 122, bp unlocks at 132) It provides similar armor to frozen, but no health buff, instead it provides fire magic boost, which helps your damage. Don't stress about getting it, but if you somehow get enough grand runes, the set is worth using until DL.

Levels 150-180
Welcome to the Mid Game! Boy, you thought frozen was a pain? DL isn't that bad as most clans have banks with some drops stored up, but nonetheless, constant camping and killing is still a requirement. Rogues still shine for locking though, so don't get upset when asked to drop for one, be happy they are getting you geared ;)

How to level?
As of now the quest line ends... but it is supposedly getting expanded with the next update. I will update this guide when that happens, but for now you need to lix. Follow the boggans to 156, then do bolgs to 165, then do troll path to 171, then do jug room (room has 4 or 5 4* trolls and a bunch of firbolg juggernauts, its the room along the troll path in carrow) to 175, then do wyrm hall or snorri pit to 180. Other option is to do tower at 170-180+.

Armor, gear and lux
With midgame comes a massive upgrade to this area
150-> focus of the mystic
150-> DL gloves (+5 fire bolt WOAH)
155-> DL boots (meh, +5 EB, use fire storm boots over this until you get full set
160 -> DL Helm (meh, +5 ice blast, use over anc bb helm)
165 -> DL skirt (+5 e shield, hell ya use it)
170 -> DL Robes (+5 cloak, meh, complete your set and get that awesome 500 health, 500 energy bonus, also it looks sick af with a blue coven :D )
170 -> Hrung skull of fire bolt (or fire storm, but fire bolt is better)
175 -> DL Wand (150 focus, not bad at all)
175 -> shadow hrung skull
175-> Mighty Hrung hat of firestorm (op use it, don't worry about breaking dl aura, use anc bb gloves and boots as well if you can still max fire bolt, otherwise use dl gloves)
180 -> DL grimoire (300 focus, op af)
180-> dark mordy grimoire
180-> void hrung skull
180-> Dark mordy helm (use hrung hat over this)
180-> majestic and royal hrung firestorm helm (op use it, don't worry about breaking dl aura, use anc bb gloves and boots as well if you can still max fire bolt, otherwise use dl gloves)
180-> grand necral ring of burial (or ague, but burial is much better (see EG section)) (use only if you already have bolt, storm, attune at 50)
180-> mighty necral ring of burial (or ague, but burial is much better (see EG section)) (use only if you already have bolt, storm, attune at 50)
And a bunch of mordy skill rings (only use over necro rings if A) don't have access to necro rings or B) need to max the skill


Levels 180-215+
WELCOME TO THE FINAL STAGES TOWARDS EG!!!!!
So much gear becomes available here that I will not be discussing that here, I will only discuss the process of getting to EG. For gear and EG strats see next section.
Leveling: tower... Enough said
Gear: OCCULT IS OP Best armor (other than full dg, or mixed in dg) is the following: hrung hat, occult bp, occult skirt, occult boots, anc bb gloves ||

EDL Bossing
This is the moment you have all been waiting for mages! You are finally prioritized for EDL locks... or you were... back in 2014 when clans still lock fought over General Gron and Onyx... Now only icemages matter at 205/210 EDL.... "Wait? Bob?" "Yes?" "Didn't you say:
especially in EG or even 180+, having ice shard as a skill becomes quite useful. Bosses and mobs are weak to different elements. For example, 205 and 210 edl are weak to ice, 185 and 195 EDL are weak to fire, Monoliths are weak to fire, but Smolach 210/160/110/60 is weak to ice. As such, I have found it useful to have a skill that isn't fire.
"Oh ya, I did... hehe, some may say I planned this all along." Although a DG ranger (due to cold damage) or your best rogues/rangers may still outdps you, a fire mage with ice shard is on average better than melee DPS at 205 and 210 EDL. (Ya I wrote this before I had a DG set, gl outdpsing a proper DPS DG fire mage on any EDL except unox/Imp).

EG FIRE MAGE GUIDE
Now comes the fun part of this guide. I will further break this down into a few sections. 1) EG Fire Mage Roles (necro, prot, gele, BT, Dino) 2) Best EG DPS strats for builds and gear 3) How to get prot kills, 4) how to Hotswap 5) Other FAQ's. My build and walk through will be in the following section.

1) EG Fire Mage Roles
Disclaimer: Each clan will have variations to my generic outline below. My outline stems from my own experiences and my roles/roles that I help other mages with at EG on arawn and occasionally other servers. Please contact a leader prior to trying any of this out or before a raid starts for clarification as to your specific role.

Necro
why do I even have this anymore? what server uses strat for necro these days...
If you're part of a small clan and need some help shoot me a PM and I can help with providing a more customized idea of ways strat can be used, but as of right now I don't see any use for providing a "standardized" necro strat.

Prot
Proteus is a boss where mages will always be hated, unless none are online and you are only one that logs on. If a screen pops up for more than one second.... Anyways, Proteus is a boss in arcane sanctum in the left circular room. What makes proteus special for mages is that he occasioanlly pops up screens that due insane elemental damage coorosponding to the element of the screen, the corresponding lure at 50 is needed to break the screen. 45 will not work, 49 will not work, 49 with 10000000000 fire magic will not work... it must be 50. Screens pop up for all three elements: Fire, Ice, and Magic. Typically a clan will have a designated Magic and a designated pierce lure mage. And then an ice mage will cover ice and a fire mage fire. Before each raid it is advisable to discuss amongst your fellow mages to make sure all lures are covered.


Gele
Gele is a raid where variances for mage roles greatly vary accross servers.
The one constant is this, MAGES MURDER XTALS. Crystals refer to the crystal like (no shiz sherlock right?) objects that spawn in a circle around gele and heal gele each tic by a buttload. Each crystal is weak to its opposing element. Poison is weak to magic, fire weak to ice, ice weak to fire. Mages main job as the main elemental DPS in the game (that's right I'm ignoring you druids, but plz help with poison crystals) is to keep them down. Sometimes having freeze can be helpful as it stops the crystals from healing gele, but more often than not its not necessary if your clan is organized and efficient.

BT
So... Time for a session of Give Bob More Flak!
DPS BT, that's it. Any server worth their salt OT's one root, either by pushing it out of range or using the fact that poison dmg does like nothing to BT and just leave poison root up and OT it, meaning that there are no roots where mages provide the top DPS. From my experience unless a clan is struggling to down the roots in time (usually a result of having an imbalanced raid party) mages are better off just killing BT.

Dino
If you are at this point I feel I can cut down on some of my fluff. Use freeze to bash dino or use elemental DPS to kill the elemental worm. In between dodge orbs and murder dino.


2) EG Fire Mage Builds
I initially broke this subsection down into different gear types, but with how much new content came out figured best to scrap it and provide a more holistic understanding of EG mage builds.
Main aspect of any decent DPS EG build is hot swapping. Every gear choice revolves around this technique, and as a result while it "can" be avoided for the heavy multi logger or super casual player, it is not in the interest of any DPS minded player. As such, the general idea for your hot swap spot for weapon, brace, and ring is to equip whatever best impacts that skill and that skill only. As such, in the following discussion I'm only really going to delve into the idea of "permed" gear, or gear that can't be hot swapped because it is in a non-swappable spot.

Ammy
  • Godly Dino Bolt Ammy
    Imp Dino Bolt Ammy
    Royal Dino Bolt Ammy
    godly BT ammy
    imperial BT ammy
    royal BT ammy
    godly hellfire riviere
    imperial hellfire riviere
    skain set
    perceptor ammulet
    royal hellfire riviere
Some will also hotswap out between dino bolt and shard armies, but I got lazy and chose not to and most mages I know chose not to as well since the damage gain is so minuscule it doesn't really add up. Maybe if ability points contributed to accuracy it would be worth while, but it really isn't necessary for any super measurable DPS gain unless you are talking about 2 named ammys.

Charm
So... This depends on one factor and one factor only, do you have any other bolt recast gear. Bolt recast is crucial to an EG fire mage. If you already have bolt CD gear, then skip over the bolt CD miscs.
  • godly emberdrake charm of fire bolt
    imperial emberdrake charm of fire bolt
    royal emberdrake charm of fire bolt
    Godly BT Charm
    Imp BT Charm
    Royal BT Charm
    godly hellfire runestone
    imperial hellfire runestone
    royal hellfire runestone
Braces
If you have dino bolt brace: mordy bolt brace
If you don't have dino bolt brace, hotswap the mordy and perm a ember drake flame brace (boosts bolt and fire storm).

Rings
So the first part of this section is only updated through gele. I really didn't feel a need to update it past gele since 1) I don't have decent formulas to really stress the difference and 2) all BT rings beat their gele equivalent without my stressing so I didn't see a need for a new table.
This is a larger discussion. I need to thank the following mages for their help in providing data to use in figuring this out: HoHoMage, Arigue, Castrolas, Arachnus, and a few others. Using this data I was able to mass test a bunch of different Eg firemage rings and run them through to determine a generalized list. This list was pretty consistent accross builds with vast differences in fire magic, focus, and cooldowns.
The below chart is organized in terms of rough Damage Per Second, with the numbers on the right giving the average difference between the ring above and below. This is damage per second, not damage the skill does.
EG Fire Mage Ring Ranking.png
EG Fire Mage Ring Ranking.png (205.84 KiB) Viewed 31021 times
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The only edit to this chart is that BT bolt rings are the best possible rings to equip alongside a bolt CDR BT ring (which can be CD hot swapped as well, I was just lazy and wanted to limit my DG hot swaps to only 3 per skill with a few support exceptions.

3) Factions and EG Fire Mages
With Corrupted Gardens one of the larger changes to the game was the addition of the faction system. This system is tough but is a really cool addition to the game.
If you are in an EG clan that will be downing BT (bloodthorn) regularly it really doesn't matter which faction you join, the new BT gear is way too amazing compared to shop gear. However, if you aren't active enough to have enough DKP to bid or not in a clan that can down BT regularly the faction lux shop will be a great alternative.
The top lux shop for EG mages unlocks at faction level 4, with lower tiered lux unlocked at each faction level below it starting at level 1.
For a fire mage I high suggest going with the reavers (killing liches). Reaver lux shop ammy adds fire magic whereas lich's adds icemagic.


4)How to hotswap
Coming Soon
Feb. 2019: I promise it actually will come soon... stopped making youtube videos but I'll put one together... eventually...
May 2021: Coming at some point :lol: , i always feel like my videos are super cringy (all videos currently gone 0.0 )

FAQ'S
Will be filled in over time... If you get asked a question a lot, or have a question, feel free to PM me and I will include a version of your question with your answer :-)

Really should just delete this section since I always just answer things where they are and forget to add to here ._.

Mage Gear Acquisition Strategies
One of the biggest mistakes I've seen over the years is mages who go all in on one big item and ignore the smaller items that would complete their build. My best advice here is to take building your mage slowly and try and fill in cracks one at a time. Royal gear can get you by just fine, godly's are nice but not necessary to competitive play at all. My last EG mage had practically nothing over imp, no bt helm, etc... but was still insanely competitive. Mage builds from my experience are about versatility rather than investing in only one skill. While fire bolt gear should take priority over other gear, spending every point on a godly BT ring and having no shards or storm gear other than an OW ring is a poor choice. What I would recommend is looking at the chart I made for rings above and when you spend your capital (whether that is KP or your allotted gear requests per X or even your gold) think about how much of a DPS gain each item gives over what you already have and try and match a gold value to it. This is a bit more mathematical than most will want to treat the game, but having this mindset I've found helps to avoid over sentimentalizing godly and fancy gear and instead focusing on reasonably priced gear that will actually make a difference.

In more practical terms:
1) First focus on having sufficient skill points for your main skills: Bolt, Attune, Storm, Shards, Lure, Incin.
2) Get all the CD gear. Literally every skill that has CD gear you should have CD for. there is no gear that replaces CD for damage. You can think of x% CD as x% boost on your damage for that skill. CD is royally important.
3) Focus on getting as much direct damage bonuses as you can (see ring chart for an idea how necro rings and the like that use ability/stat bonuses factor in)
4) building support skills like energy shield, other lures, and freeze. Treat your build up of these skills by following steps 1-3 here. First get enough skill points, then focus on CD gear, and lastly on any direct boosts to them. Unless you are a lure monkey, your support skills should never conflict with your dps skills.

If you take this rough order and apply it to how you spend points, more often than not it will allow you to get the best bang for your buck. I say more often because there will always be crazy opportunities that you need to take advantage of (imperial gele shards ring for base KP, no active mages so an imp bt bolt cd ring is on super sale... etc...).

The last piece of advice here is SIGILS... erm, i mean patience. Game requires a lot of camping and patience. It will take a long time to get a "perfect" mage. The important thing is to realize that a perfect mage isn't necessary to play the game well.
Last edited by bob the mage on Sat May 15, 2021 7:12 am, edited 7 times in total.
Feel free to pm me about anything or talk to me in game :D
Bob The God
This Bob guy is a guide? Legitimately?
Former EG try hard who’s now relaxing midgame on crom.
Fire Mages are where its at

Re: Bob's Fire Mage Guide (Updated November 13, 2017)

#8
Currently working on an ice mage math calc as well, but due to how OTM has been moderating arawn sub forums I will only be posting it to 3rd party sources.


Hey, join our 'Celtic Heroes Mage Guild' group on BAND - The app for groups and communities!

If OTM moderates start reading whole threads before acting maybe I’ll return to forums.
OTM does read forums. The thing is that they don't want drama on here. If you want drama then take it somewhere else, not here. You should make a new topic dedicated to this issue if you feel like it has to be addressed as this isn't the ideal place.
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