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Oi lads, i'm Festus from Smuggler's Paradise's guild Utopie and here's how i play my mage.



Part 1 - The class explained

What exactly is the mage and how does it differ as a class from other spellcasters?
The mage is your typical run-of-the-mill ranged magic user tailored for both burst aoe and sustained single target damage.
We use a dual resource system to cast our spells - mana and elemental force points.
You need to spend both mana and a certain amount of force points to cast most of your damaging magic.Force points are generated once every 30 seconds and each elemental force cycle generates a random amount of points with the lowest amount being 2 (3 with rubies) and the highest being 5.
The mechanics behind the class are simple - manage your force points, manage your mana, have good situational awareness, always have your shields up and smash things with frozen meteors and stuff.

Part 2 - Changes.
The changes Broken Chains brought to the pve mage are marginal, at best. Apart from the repositioning of rubies and one new ruby set everything else has been focused solely on the pvpers.But still, the new rubies are somewhat interesting.
Glowing Lava
Every time someone hits us while we're under our physical shields the attacker receives XX amount of fire damage. Does not trigger on dots.Each rank increases damage inflicted. Not good at all for PVE. We're not supposed to get hit, period.
Frosty Pattern
Each time a comet or a meteor hits it's primary target another comet is launched at the nearest enemy in a 7 yard radius.The secondary comet does some damage and stuns whatever it hits for 2 seconds. Ranking this up increases the number of targets the comet can hit. Another PVP ruby, the 7 yard range give the secondary comet almost a point blank effective range and mages like ranges (being at one, that is).Nice when you need an emergency stun to peel off of a melee attacker.Assuming, of course, there's only one enemy in range.RNG targeting, people, the keks are real!
Electrization
After casting Electric Pulse/Thunderhead we get 1 to 3 stacks of Electrization, which allows us to instantly cast Thunderbolt. The instant Thunderbolts benefit from Thundering Advantage's mana reduction but do not consume it's stacks. Very cool for PVE when you need to shift your position and still do damage while moving.
Lucky One
With the 6.0 patch this now gives our Seal of Health 33% chance per ruby rank to be undispellable.

Part 3 - Stats.

Your 'locked' stats.
Vigor & Stamina
Vigor increases your damage on a multiplier basis while Stamina increases you health by a flat amount.V&S can't be raised by potions, buffs or glyphs.You increase in V&S as your gear improves, with rubies, as you level your patron blessing or, eventually, if you get a guild tabard.
Luck & Faith.
Luck gives you flat global critical strike/heal chance.Unlike the old stat system luck can't be increased with glyphs, pots, buffs etc. The only way to boost luck is with personal and guild rubies.
Faith increases your mana pool. It's only found on main/off-hand weapons and wands.

Offensive and Defensive stats:
Your normal stats, giving bonuses on a percentage basis.One point in a stat = 1% increase in the effectiveness of whatever bonus said stat gives. For example - 2 points in proficiency = 2% increased damage, 0.5 points in proficiency - 0.5% increased damage.You can boost your normal stats with glyphs and alchemical potions.
Proficiency & Vitality
Just like vigor and stamina these increase your damage dealt and total health respectively by a certain percent.
Determination
As you take damage a resource bar under you mana bar starts to fill.You deal increased damage based on how full the bar and how much determination you have.
Great in PVP, complete garbage in PVE.We're squishy, we're not supposed to get hit. Ever.
Brutality
As your target's health decreases you deal increased damage to it based on how low it's health is.Basically an 'execute' stat.Invaluable.
Anger
Another PVP stat.The higher your anger - the less amount of damage you need to deal to a target before it start receiving Wound Complexities.Which reduce healing taken.
Willpower
While under any form of CC or losing a certain total % of your total health a little bar starts to fill next to your health and mana bars.When the bar is full you become immune
to all CC for a few seconds.Willpower reduces the required time spent under CC/health lost to activate your immunity and increases the immunity's duration.
PVE? I don't think so.
Bloodlust
Basically heals you for a % of all damage AND healing you do.Not bad at all, but can never fully sustain you even with severely gimping your other stats.
Tenacity
Anger's counterstat,The more tenacity you have - the more damage you'll have to eat before you start receiving wound complexities.

For PVE normally i like to keep a healthy 60:40 Proficiency to Brutality ratio and i favor Vitality heavily over Bloodlust. But with the current state of gear and runes stat optimization is hardly possible.

Part 2 - Building your mage.


Here i've gone for a pure, full out pve dps build. With our current level of astral progression CC isn't really needed, but a very solid CC build can be achieved very easily.
Link > http://en.allodswiki.ru/calc#!2!112..3.2…F!oknwql/YAFAOX

Skills and spells.
I'll only be listing what is used in this build, as explaining EVERY single spell we have will take way more time than i have available, sorry folks.

Right, in our tier 1 skill we have
Lightning Grasp
Deals a low amount of lightning damage at close range.Deals double damage if the target is below 25% health. With the Lightning Jolt rubies this deals 600% more damage and has 100% increased range. Total damage ramps up to 700% if the target is in the skill's execute range. Needless to say - an amazing finisher and a solid filler every time the Jolt buff is available regardless of target's HP.I chose to keep it at rank 2. The damage increase, even with all the potential multipliers, is NOT worth the 3 talent points investment.

Tier 2
Frostbolt
Deals decent frost damage.Longish cast time and mana heavy.Useless without the Northern Lights rubies. Rank 3/3 for dem deeps.

Stone Barrier / Stone Wall
Our physical shields. Barrier and it's upgraded version Wall give us 6 (at rank 2) charges each of which absorbs XX amount of physical damage. If the shield is depleted during combat a 45 second cooldown begins. Any existing cooldown is immediately finished when we exit combat. If at least 1 charge remains after combat the shield can be refreshed without incurring cooldown. It's really not possible to get 3/3 ranks on these, at least for me, i can't spare 6 talent points total for 1 extra charge on the Wall.

Tier 3
Icy Comet
Bread and butter of the frost dps spells. Deals giganto damage, has a 50 yard range and does NOT need a line-of-sight of it's target to be cast! Costs 2 frost elemental force points.
Thunderbolt
Frostbolt's lightning version.Deals less damage and costs less mana.Applies Static Charge from the ruby tree and benefits from Electrization rubies.
Elemental Shield
Stone Barrier/Wall's elemental damage counterpart.Behaves exactly the same as our physical shields.

Tier 4
Flash
Mobility/Oh shit 30 yard frontal instant teleport. You get ported in the direction you're facing, NOT the direction you're moving.Rank 3 shaves off 5 seconds off the cooldown, not worth it.

Tier 5
Icy Grave
Our only non-ruby CC skill. Freezes it's target in place for 30/50/60 seconds per rank. Cast time is 4/3/2 seconds.With the Ice Tomb rubies it will freeze an additional target close to it's primary one. One point in this only because CC is unneeded at our current level of astral.
Reflections
An Oh Shit defensive cooldown. Gives us 5 reflections each of which has a high chance to absorb and negate any incoming damage. Reflections lasts for 15 seconds at most and is castable under all forms of CC.

Tier 6
Seal of Health
Increases total health and mana of you and your party mates by 30% at rank 3 for 30 min. Invaluable and undispellable with rubies.
Lightning Pulse
Our main Lightning elemental force points burner. A single target channeled spell that inflicts lightning damage. ANY incoming damage or movement will interrupt the channel.Damage absorbed by shield or movement during Magic Tactics will NOT interrupt the channel. Costs 2 lightning force points. Activates Electrization rubies.

Tier 7
Icy Meteor
Icy Comet's upgraded version. Deals increased damage, hits ALL targets in a 10 yard radius of it's primary and can still be cast without line-of-sight.Costs 3 frost force points and a lot more mana than it's singe target counterpart.

Tier 8
Thunderhead
Lightning Pulse's upgraded version. Hits it's primary and 3 additional targets in a 10 yard radius. Costs a lot more mana, deals more damage to it's primary (aoe not included) and costs 3 lightning force points. In terms of channeling interruption it behaves the same as Pulse. Activates Electrization rubies.

Tier 9 Dragon tear spells.
Elemental Surge
A 6 second channel spell. Deals full damage to it's primary and any other enemy caught in it's path at the end of the 6 second channel. If the channel is interrupted lesser amount of damage will be dealt.If at least 4 seconds are spent channeling - all targets affected will also be knocked down for 2 seconds.Rank increases damage. Uninterruptable while under Magic Tactics. Costs 2 tears and better tears increase damage dealt.Can deal some terrifying damage, especially when hitting multiple targets, when fully charged.
Magic Tactics
When activated it allows us to move and cast/channel without interruption.Amazing for high mobility fights.Note that Pulse/Thunderhead channels will NOT be interrupted by receiving damage. Costs 5 tears to use. Ranking it up decreases the cooldown while better tears increase it's duration.With top-grade tears this lasts for 27 seconds per cast.

Rubies.

As you can see my build is pure frost/lightning constructed for farming and fast astral runs.Unfortunately the fire rubies are tailored for, and best utilized at, PVP. And while you might come across some niche PVE builds involving fire - it's vastly inferior to frost/lightning
...i love fire
> Link http://en.allodswiki.ru/calc#!2!112..3.2…F!oknwql/YAFAOX

Fire tree

Lucky one
Each rank increases Luck by 3 points and gives our Seal of Health 33% to be undispellable.

Frost Tree

Frosty Advantage
Increases non-crit damage of Frost Bolt and Comet/Meteor by 5% per rank. Also gives damage 33% chance per rank not to dispell Icy Grave if the target affected by it is above 90% health.Basically you can hammer away 10% of a target's HP before Icy Grave get's broken.
Adherent's Determination
Increases Brutality by 3 points per rank
Northern Lights
During combat every 6 seconds you receive a stack of Northern Ligts.Reduces mana/cast time of Frostbolt by 50%, stacks 5 times and each Frostbolt consumes one stack. Does NOT stack with itself.
War of the elements : Icy Lightning
When each new elemental cycle begins you have a 25% chance per rank to receive one additional frost and lightning force point, but you stop generating any and all fire points...which we're not using anyway.
Icy Avalanche
Mana cost of Comet/Meteor decreases by 10% per rank.
Sleet
Cooldown of Comet/Meteor decreases by 15% per rank up to 50% total at rank 3
Master of Intuition
Increases Proficiency by 3 points per rank. More stats, more pew pew.
Hailstorm
Comet/Meteor have a 33% chance per rank of Hailstorm to cast an additional Comet on the same target.The secondary comet deals 30% of it's normal (not parent) damage and can NOT either crit or glance.
Intense Cold
Increases frost damage dealt by 4% per rank.

"floating" rubies
There are 2 rubies here that can be moved around.Currently i have them in Intense Cold for bonus frost damage.Other options are :
- 1/2 rubies in Swirling Snow which gives our shield and reflections an increased chance per ruby rank to add 2 additional charges and permanently prevents any from of cast/channel interruption from taking damage for as long as any of our shields is up and holding.
- 1/2 rubies in Ice Tomb. You will want rubies in this if you want better CC. Each rank gives Icy Tomb a 33% chance to freeze an additional to it's primary target and increases frost damage done by 1%.
- Additionally one point can be swapped between Icy Avalanche and Intense Cold. But since i'm in a very heavy farming phase i prefer the increased mana efficiency to 4% increase to frost damage.Less downtime/pot/myrrh consumption makes me a very happy boy.


Lightning Tree
Lightning Jolt
When each new 30 second elemental cycle begins we get one charge of the Jolt buff, which increases out Lightning Grasp's damage by 600% and range by 100%
Static Charge
Each lightning spell adds charges of Static Charge on it's target.Stacks up to 10 times and deals increasing periodic damage per stack.Lasts indefinitely but is instantly removed when the target moves.Good for adding some more hurt in a static boss fight. Pulse/Thunderhead add 2 charges per channeling tick.
Unstable Energy
Increases lightning damage dealt by 4% per rank for up to 15% total at rank 4.
Prismatic Lightning
A very mana heavy cleave type AOE that hits it's primary and 3 additional targets for lightning damage. Long cast time, NO force point cost and you literally get to shoot lasers at things.
Electrization
After completing a full Pulse/Thunderhead channel this adds 1 to 3 stacks (per rank) of the Electrization buff, each stack allows one Thunderbolt to be cast instantly.
Cascade
Each tick of Pulse/Thunderhead deals 5% per ruby rank more damage than the last.Adds up to some pretty nasty final hits from both spells, ergo it's so important to always do full channels on both spells.
Thundering Advantage
Lightning's version of Northern Lights, behaves the same but affects Thunderbolt instead.
Sage's Intelligence
Increases Vigor by 3 % per rank.
Dynamo Effect
Decreases channel time and mana cost of Pulse/Thunderhead by 10% per rank, Less channeling time means less opportunity for interruptions.
Lethal Shock
Increases Shocking Grasp's damage by an additional 30% when hitting targets below 25% health. With this the potential damage adds up to the whopping 730% increased damage on a target below 25% hp every 30 seconds.
Elemental Wrath
Adds 5 elemental force points distributed between all active cycles, but only if we have less than 2 points of each active cycle.Since we're not gaining any fire points with this build, Wrath will add 5 points total between our frost and lightning points.

The "floating" ruby here is in Prismatic Lightning.
A note on "floating" rubies. These are the rubies i've gotten from raiding mysteries. The build can easily be done and be completely viable without rubies from raiding,pvp ruby and mage's pages rubies (if you're on the "f"2p. If you are - my condolences)

Part 3 - Blasting things the right way!
As mages we don't have a set-in-stone rotation we have to follow.Mostly we're at the mercy of RNGeezus with the force points and what-not.But there is a certain list of priorities to be followed which would make you a lot less of a confused button basher.

General tips and rules about combat.

- always be aware of how many force points you have before you begin fighting OR anticipate the worst case scenario when your cycles have just refreshed, the tank has pulled and you're stuck with 2 force points of each element and your thumb up your arse.
- On a single target : in a situation where you can cast a comet/meteor, your cycles are just about to refresh and you're channeling/casting whatever - always interrupt and cast your comet/meteor.It will always do more damage than the last tick of Pulse or Thunderhead. Unless, of course, you're AOEing down a pack of mobs with Thunderhead and you can only cast comet.Don't interrupt that.
- don't use Elemental Wrath a few seconds before your cycles refresh, chances are - you won't be able to spend all the points you get and you'll be wasting a wad of potential damage.
- know the boss and always have the appropriate shield up, it's not nice at all to be channeling whatever and a freak group/raid wide aoe to interrupt you just because you had the wrong type of shield up
- never cast thunderbolt/frostbolt without their mana cost/cast speed reduction buffs IF you have anything at all else to cast, if you do you'll be sending your mana efficiency down the crapper.
- never ever spam prismatic lightning if you can't get back the humongous amount of mana you'll lose doing so and the fight is nowhere near finished

Situational rotation checklist

Let's say we have 3 frost and 3 lightning points at the beginning of combat and Elemental Wrath is OFF cooldown.
If the tank is still positioning the target we should cast Comet, then Pulse as to reduce the chance of potentially wasting the Static Charge dot, and vice versa if the target is already is in position and stationary.
Then we pop Elemental Wrath to get some force points back and we keep at it.We use our Northern Lights/Thundering advantage to cast Frostbolts/Thunderbolts when nothing else is available.On a stationary target when using bolts - always get the Static Charge to maximum first, then spam Frostbolt, as it does more damage than Thunderbolt.And burn every single Jolt buff as soon as possible. Unless you're a few % away from the target falling below the execute threshold and your cycles are not to refresh in the next few seconds.
If Elemental Wrath is ON cooldown we should go with Meteor/Thunderhead as the remaining one force point will be useless.

The whole point is to alternate between casting your single and multi target versions of your ice and lightning spells, using buffed Frost/Thunderbolts as fillers and utilizing your Jolt buffs for some pretty spooky deeps.
And if any of this sounds confusing or hard - it isn't. It really isn't. Just like any other class it's complicated only on paper.While playing, however, one action flows almost perfectly into the next and any notion of complication evaporates.

Quoted from "SΛΤΗΩ"

Few of my thoughts.

First if all - if you had bothered to actually read my guide and not just click on the build link you'd see that i've pretty much explained why i chose to build the way i have.
Second - frequent crits useless in pve...what?
Third - farming is all about efficiency, not defense.Especially for a ranged mana user.The only problem farming i have is with needing mana brakes, not taking excessive damage, warranting the need to waste rubies in defensive clusters.
Fourth - statistically speaking i'm using pulse and thunderbolt a LOT more than thunderhead. I haven't done the math but i don't think downgrading thunderbolt in favor of thunderhead will benefit me noticeably at this point.
Fifth - read my guide.

Thank you for the input.