Celtic Heroes

Here's the thing: firebolt is the best mage dps skill. Iceshards is second. Firestorm is third. Iceblast, possible incin 4th (haven't bothered using either). So why would you handicap yourself by using fb fs incin or shards blast frostbite, when you could just do firebolt shards firestorm? Especially because after you get the direct dmg skills the attune is no longer a factor since it doesn't boost dots.

I max firebolt shards and firestorm and it works great. I am no longer useless at 205/210 edls (can boost shards to 9.3k ish without attunes using slightly different gear from normal build), and overall am much better dps on event bosses and leveling (don't think I've lost kill on a 6* event boss after turning 205, despite much worse gear than some clannies)

Because instead of a third dps skill, a lure is much kore usefull to carry. Even while leveling.

A high lvl mage can carry even 7 skills, maybe even more with good skill swapping. So set up however u want.

I just saw this thread and figured I would put my opinion in. Ice is pretty great for leveling with the 1-2 hitting mobs although it is very slow. In my experience I often find that a somewhat fire and ice build is actually pretty great if you have the right gear as you get the high damage of ice and the fast finishes of enemies from your fire.

Are you speaking from personal experience when you say "right gear"?

I went to level 145 in 10 days by soloing my ice mage. My attunement is 42/30 and my shards and blast are both 35/30. My eshield is at 30/30 and I have lure nearly at max at 29/30. My ice magic is maxed at 1530. Those are the only skills I have invested in. I have seen posts here which indicate that freeze is also a good investment but, at this point, I am unwilling to sacrifice damage for freezing especially considering that they unfreeze the second you cast on them anyhow. The goal should be fast killing, not delaying the kill by freezing them in place.

That being said, I will admit that the process would have been much slower if I were running a low end build. My clan has kept me in the best gear for my level that we could muster plus I run constantly on super combo and heroic combo elixirs and I keep about 10,000 restos in my inventory for healing. To speed up my fights i have around 3000 sigils to keep me healed after battle. Without these advantages, it would be much slower. I only play an average of 4 hours on work days and 12 hours when I am off work so I don't have a load of time invested. If I could have hammered out 8 hours a day or more, I could be at level 180ish by now.

Near the end of the boggan tunnels, I am finding it faster (or maybe just easier) to level in a group with a single tank player. It prevents me from needing to keep my shield up. I keep my health around 2200 hit points and my focus is at 1037. Both shards and blast do 4000 to 5000 damage per cast on average. Even with restos I can get overwhelmed at times when soloing and trying to fight off four 3* plus mobs at once. Without restos, you might be able to do a 2 party group with a druid. I think 3 or more in a group would lower the exp to the point where you'd still be faster soloing . To be honest, I'm not sure that even 2 in a group speeds up the leveling process. I can still tank fairly well solo on combos. The fact that two make it easier could just be tricking me into believing it's faster. The biggest nuisance I am running into in Carrowmore is the damage delay when casting spells. This glitch will sometimes cause you to be killed by mobs who are already dead, technically. It's also harder to pull individual boggans out of the group here because, many times, the others swarm you when you try pulling one of their comrads.

If you are going to solo level an ice mage quickly be prepared to make a serious investment. I honestly don't believe that there are enough skill points available at these levels to create a hybrid which would be effective on its own. Of course, I am still a noob so I haven't had an opportunity to test that theory.

Are you speaking from personal experience when you say "right gear"?

Right gear as in good stat and skill boosting gear. I find that event rings are nice for a decent hybrid build as they very often boost fire and ice abilities/stats/skills at the same time! So I would say I do speak from experience when talking about event gear and when talking about the build.

Leveling as an ice mage reminds me of leveling a druid. Both slow, fire better all the way for any level.

As a fire Mage I don't see much need of ice builds, I've tried them out, and yes you can absolutely bomb mobs. However if you miss....ice shards is a long way away. As a fire build, and I have an excellent build, I can still do tons of damage, and if I miss, it won't take long to get another skill in, or even to get that last hit in. I'm pulling about 2.5k bolts and 3k storms. So damage for fire isn't all too bad. (Anyone know how much ice dmg would be doing at my lvl?)

As a fire Mage I don't see much need of ice builds, I've tried them out, and yes you can absolutely bomb mobs. However if you miss....ice shards is a long way away. As a fire build, and I have an excellent build, I can still do tons of damage, and if I miss, it won't take long to get another skill in, or even to get that last hit in. I'm pulling about 2.5k bolts and 3k storms. So damage for fire isn't all too bad. (Anyone know how much ice dmg would be doing at my lvl?)

It all depends on gear, I assume 4k-5k hits would be reasonable with proper gear. To see how far gear can take u, I do 4.9k firebolts on lvl 130 fire mage, 4.5k ice shards and 3.1k storms.

I recently started my mage up and found that fire gear was way too popular in demand but not in supply. For this reason I opted to buy some of the ice gear and try out that instead. With rings and bracelets and decent lux (in my case wyldgrove sun ammy and idolised glider) I've been able to to get a 30/25 ice attune maxed lure, shards, blast and fire bolt. Ice alone wasn't impossible but with fire bolt to bridge the long waiting gap between spells it's more than enough to get levelling.

When running through mobs I find that lure, bolt, shards, blast, bolt is more than enough to usually kill the mob.

Also before it's mentioned the 2k spec of my ammy is rarely used in levelling. I'm aware there's better choices but it's what I had at the time.