Missing what I said too. A pure fire and pure ice build are not acceptable builds anymore, so when people say fire or say ice they are referring to different attuned, AOE, and dot, as no matter what you need to use shards and bolt now.Completely missed what I said, and the fact that I don't actively play my mage doesn't mean anything. In fact, I help alot of people with their endgame builds, not just mages... But we'll go past that.No offense fury but you haven’t played in a bit...Ice = Ice Shards + Ice Blast
Fire = Fire Bolt + Firestorm
Hybrid = Any combo of these with at least one different element
Theres no such thing as a ice mage with fire bolt, or a fire mage with ice shards, its a hybrid.
An ice mage can not compete with any form of DPS without using bolt, same way a fire mage cannot compete with any other DPS without shards...
Back in the day this wasn’t really the build, but since tower was introduced, all DPS EG mages have had to build themselves these ways.
A hybrid mage is a DPS mage, and due to attune a hybrid mage either focuses ice or fire and then uses the corresponding AOE and DOT skill, thus due to their necessary leaning they are either fire or ice. A hybrid mage by its original definition is a mage who is in the middle, uses all of the available DPS skills with no real allegiance to an element. This build doesn’t work anymore and is largely outdated, yet some older players still use these builds.
We are talking definitions here, if someone says fire, its assumed they are pure fire.
Hybrids today HAVE to main one element(attunes requirement), so you say fire hybrid, or ice hybrid. Its a million times easier then saying fire mage with ice shards.
As one of the original planners on hybrids, I know how they work...
It was a thing since the beginning of the game, but as levels, caps, and gear got better it got more and more possible to sustain solo. It was the best build... forever, but it was basically impossible to get gear good enough for bolt/storm/shard AND lure during the otherworld(could run it if other mages had lure), with carrow adding attune, it added another skill that had to be maxed out for more power, but there was more levels and better skill point gear so it was possible with good gear. When the tower hit, point gear went up to 15, and more levels/caps were added in, so it was possible to solo sustain all of the dmg skills needed, attune, and both lures with good enough gear. In future expansions, it will be forced apon the players who run pure builds, as there will be a huge surplus of points if the cap is kept at 50.
It is also used by people who cant find/afford firestorm, in some situations.
But, we can talk a little about hybrids while we are at it. Using DOTs is a pretty bad idea on hybrids. As it stands, they are extremely lackluster, not only does it take 20/30 seconds to deal all of its damage, but it deals less then a proper firebolt/ice shard. You'd probably be better off using ice blast(and i dont recommend that as a hybrid either, unless you dont have good rct).
Maybe... I can write one last mage guide, its the only one we are missing.
Using older terminology confuses newer players who aren’t used to a time when players didn’t have to or couldn’t (due to skill points) max both shards and bolt to play a dps build.
So yes, it technically is a “hybrid build” but to say it isn’t a fire build or ice build is missing where the game has gone since 2014
