Thanks, Steve. Yeah, my professions are still in the upper 30s. I'll be grinding toward tailoring my own ramie armor but in the meantime your suggestion about gearing up through dungeon runs/relic gathering sounds like the way to go. Absolute or better for gems also sounds right to me so I will be working on that too. The Zirconia seemed like a good idea at the time but I'm not sure it makes a practical difference so I may do some playing around with that. Same thing with the Aquamarine. I thought it would help keep my mana up but am not sure it does.
So far I haven't been paying attention to any weapons other than a staff and an essence. Your thoughts about using other weapons if their sorcery /spell rolls are good enough is intriguing. I will definitely be keeping an eye on that. The idea of putting all my attribute points into sorcery makes me nervous but I think I will try it. Any other thoughts, folks?
Don't be nervous about putting everything in sorc. As Jodu says, you will get plenty of vit and energy from your gear, plus some of the talents help too.
Obviously to get the lvl45 gear you will have to do alot of story or dungeon runs to get enough relics. The light gloves are often loot drops in story mode so don't worry about collecting for them. I understand the boots can drop too, but I am not sure where, maybe thats from dungeon mode runs but they are rare. On top of that the helm has to be tailored so you'll need 40 rems for that as well, although alot of people sell cheap of give them away, and theres plenty of us who have lvl45+ tailoring to make if you need.
Admitedly some players will disagree with my following ideas as we all have different perspectives and preferences.
Firstly you have the potions (health, mana and stamina) to help restore your health and mana.
There are talents like Starlight which restores your mana, then "free your mind" and "fountain of mana" lowers your mana usage.
For haste there's "mental agility" and "invocation". Also if you have any spare talent points, theres "prophecy" and "enpowered healing" in prophet tree to help with mana regen and haste.
Likewise with crit, there is "focused mind"
With spells, you have rejuv and cauterize to help with healing yourself or others.
This site below gives you the chance to play about with talents before actually placing them on your character so you save having to spend EP to reset your talents if you make a mistake.
http://talenttheory.com/calc/
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I think this is about the talent setup I use on all my mages, it is more of a solo player setup, but gives plenty of dps boosts for group dungeon runs. Like I said previously it's not to other players tastes but I found it works really well for me
http://talenttheory....1N2O2Q1V1Pd3g2/
I haven't put any points to boost overload (Overpowered or static discharge) as I tend to use it to draw mobs towards me and bring them closer together for aoe hits. I also don't use frostbite (personal preference) so I have no need for flash freeze, icy touch or biting cold.
Rather than the snare from frostbite, I use flame buffet to give me stuns for strong single mobs and miasma to give me the aoe stun and spell power boost for groups, add erupt with the fissure talent and blizzard with chilling talent and you can clear groups quickly.
Void portal as I found comes in handy for one to one large monsters (eg bosses in the pyramids in azraq desert) as it draws their attack and lets you move away from aoe damage.
I use incinerate alot (every other shot) to get the 150%spell dps, so I got flamelash, pyromania and blazing embers.
I bought the spell fulmination and tried using the talent conflagration but found with such a long cooldown I could benefit from putting the points elsewhere and use faster cooldown attacks.
If you decide to do alot of group dungeons, depending on the level of your dps, if it is high then it may be worth putting the point in "phase walking". If your tank isn't on the ball or lags you could end up drawing unwanted mobs. My main's dps (Steve1973) is about 1997 when buffed, but if I use starlight then miasma it can take the dps to about 2300-2400, plus whatever is on top from crit hits and the talent boosts has often caused alot of chuckles when I get chased around the area, especially for the last boss in ASV
Edited by Steve1973, 14 November 2017 - 12:44.