Celtic Heroes

Mages are pretty damn awesome end-game as well. It's just the stretch from 150-180 that makes most people sick of them.

Without 759 defense, drake wyrms will eat a lot of resto pots.

I think it is silly that mages neglect defense, those are the mages that eat plat.

I am lvl 191 so i have a boss build, but if i was a leveling build, i would have 150 dex, 150 vit, rest in focus. This would give me 950 defense. (250 from winter boots, 259 from winter helm, 150 from bat charm, 300 from dex).

Wyrms miss a lot, including the drakes, allowing energy shield to stay up most of my fighting. I use the snowbound cane over a shadow grim because 100 auto with 1k cold snaps will out dps the extra spell damage from an aggy book. I also use elder blade.

My leveling build is 50 ice shards, 40 ice blast, 40 ice attune, 40 frostbite, 40 energy shield, 35 ice lure, 5 sacrifice.

On a combo, i rarely use restoration pots with this build.

I use 100 focus amulet, 80/80 focus vit bracelet, focus ice shards bracelet, 4/4 energy shield sacrifice boots, 4/4 frostbite energy shield gloves, 5 ice blast ring, 5 ice shards ring, 5 frostbite ring, 5 ice attune ring.

I kill very fast and dont die. I also manage energy well with 500 e sigils. I dodge around 35-50 percent of attacks, which makes eshield last longer.

Those that recommend no defense are going to cause more mages to struggle with survival and kill effeciency. Waiting for health between fights will slow you down more than taking longer to kill things.

if you just go full caster and have good a good damage build than you wont need to spam restos etc. i know of plat-less mages including myself who dont waste a bunch of plat items while leveling. We may use an idol here and there but thats it. if you level in a group or have extremely high damage than none of this is an issue. i prefer 3:2 or 4:2 focus to vit, and all damage gear.

if you just go full caster and have good a good damage build than you wont need to spam restos etc. i know of plat-less mages including myself who dont waste a bunch of plat items while leveling. We may use an idol here and there but thats it. if you level in a group or have extremely high damage than none of this is an issue. i prefer 3:2 or 4:2 focus to vit, and all damage gear.

4:2??? Sweet!

*4:1

The true secret to success as a mage: 6 stat points per lvl