I always assume when we talk about battle mage/druid/caster we're referring to leveling/lixing and not bossing.
Many moons ago, when radiant es armor came about, the battle mage build was actually a viable build, even for bossing. I agree though that folks who try the battle mage build probably just want to shake things up during lixing/leveling as it can get boring.
The fact that a battle mage relies heavily on cloak of fire damage, essentially means it's not a bossing build. Folks should stop criticizing it from that perspective.
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