To increase or not to increase?

[kalandra]

I am wondering, should I increase my magic missile and firebolt spell beyond lvl 1. Their highly spammable with the low cooldown and low sp cost, but will they become useless in higher level when thier damage is too low?

[Veers]

Fire bolt for sure. Magic missile is up to you. I almost never use anything buy rank 1 in parties, and I rarely solo now that even mobs grey to me can still kill me in 5-7 hits. Higher ranked spells are useful for soloing green mobs for farming since a rank 1 ice followed by max rank Fire and Lightning and then some magic missile spam will usually bring a mob down before it gets more than a hit or two on me. In parties I never use anything but rank 1, except Life Tap which I use max rank of.

Standard mage spells are poorly balanced and until they get worked on, rank 1 spam is really the only way to go for DPM and DPS. I cannot say for sure on the level 30+ spells yet, though.

[misoka]

I've added in 5 points for decrease cooldown with my magic missile and I currently spam the level 1 version of that spell. It does around 1XX damage and over 200 in crits. The SP consumption is really low so it works out well. I don't suggest using the higher leveled versions but it's up to your play style.

I've currently maxed out my fire bolt's level through empowerment and I must say that it's absolutely beautiful as to how much damage it does.

But then again, it depends on your build too. ;D

I only suggest maxing out firebolt because its cooldown time has no comparison when it comes to the level 1 magic missile.

[kasekochen]

B4 i say what im gonna, WHY IS EVERYONE BETTER THAN ME??? anyway, i think that because you (seem to be) a low level like me, try and be as good as you can and the present level, so if you're level 8 try and max magic missile and firebolt as much as you can, then when you learn higher level spells max them out more.

[hitman015]

atm higher level spells are pretty much pointless the difference in damage delt from level 1 and a level 5 spells is around 30-50 maximum your much better off using rank 1 spam, solo is a slightly different matter the extra damage does add up and it can be handy but mages cant really solo too well i have found, group hunting and rank 1 spam is the way to go

[Neightking]

I have actually made to over level 20 going solo 95% of the time. Up your int:spr like 3:1 for a while then switch it to spr:int 3:1. With my wand and spr increase my crit rate is about 6-7% but i also have almost 1000 sp without a sp scroll. For that reason using the higher level magic missle is very reasonable. I have maxed skill points on power for both missle and fire with 2 cool down on missle and one cool down on fire so far. On red level monsters with this build I hit for about 150-200 missle-fire and with crits substantially more. Just my opinion. Hope this helps.

[hostess619]

im a llvl 33 mage and i spent all my skill upgrades on lowering the cool downs of all 3 spells besides magic missle see if how its cool down is already soo low but now the question is whether or not to increase damage next or decrease SP Consumption thats the tough choice because i already hit hard with spells but who couldnt use more power? but less mana consumed would be great because i would buy less pots and stones well less stones i make my own pots

[dukerz74]

Im actually shocked to read of mages saying they cant solo?! :confused:
Are you running up to the mob or something? you should be able to solo almost ANY yellow mob. PERIOD! I found that when I reached sea of greed that the mara sailors did sometimes reach me at the end for ONE hit. Also Im not entirely sure what gear you are wearing but seeing as how mages are the WEAKEST in defense would it not stand to reason that you should have at bare minimum +3 on all your armor?!?! I didnt realize the whole enhancement deal for armor until around 14. I knew about weapons only because I seen someone selling it and poked around just enough to figure out enhancing them. Once I enhanced ALL my armor to +3 those pesky greens and yellows were hitting me for a great deal less. I could literaly point blank and not try to run from a fight. So my advice to all that get smeared quick I would seriously suggest a +3 armor set at the least.

As for spells...
Upgrade EVERY SINGLE ONE! more damage is what you want. Do you level and not wonder how much more damage your missles will do? NO. You know doing more damage is key to survival why would you think twice about upgrading? Sure if the mob is weak switch to missle 1... otherwise hit that yellow/orange with the biggest nukes you got and spit on his corpse! So your SP goes down fast... AND? Rest a bit hit some cheap SP stones/pots and get back into the fighting. There should be no reason any mage wouldnt at the very least BUY his/her upgrades *just in case*...

Skill points...

This is really up to the individual. Depending on your style of fighting you might want to go Int/Spr at about 4:1. Thats roughly what ive done. What that did for me was seriously increase the damage I dealt and gave me a small boost of mana/crit. Going 1:1 isnt a bad idea for those that want to stay safe. The [Free Stat] button says every 5 points damage is increased and since thats what im after thats the direction I went.


Spell Empower...
This is tricky... For me im going full on damage increase for missle and fire at about 5:1. Mostly because I use missle most as I can get off 2 missles per fight with the short recast (sometimes 3 if needed). Fire comes in 2nd usually only 1 per fight but the recast, again, is short. Right now my lineup for low yellows high greens is [missle, fire, missle] If its a higher yellow its [missle, fire, frost, lightning]
and for those real tough yellows/ low oranges its highest spell versions of [missle, fire, frost, lightning(repeat if needed)].


Weapon...

Obviously we want the most up to date weapon. For those that think this isnt obvious... Its because you do more damage. Got 3 Silver laying around? Spend it on upgrading that plain weapon into a +5/6/7! The look is sweet and that damage increase is not so bad either.

Hope all that didnt come off as rude... just trying to help :cool:

[retardz]

like dukerz74 said, its good to have all the skills available with you, incase u find your self facing a boss monster or something.

i would get all the fire bolts u can first since it gives the most damage and still is pretty cheap with sp at higher lvls. i dont know what higher level ice bolt does, im thinking maybe it slows the target more? but still get it lol. same with lightning, i seen it add a status to the monster but it doesnt say anything about what it does.

if anyone knows about ice and lightning tell me plz :)

[Neightking]

like dukerz74 said, its good to have all the skills available with you, incase u find your self facing a boss monster or something.

i would get all the fire bolts u can first since it gives the most damage and still is pretty cheap with sp at higher lvls. i dont know what higher level ice bolt does, im thinking maybe it slows the target more? but still get it lol. same with lightning, i seen it add a status to the monster but it doesnt say anything about what it does.

if anyone knows about ice and lightning tell me plz :)

With each increasing level of ice bolt the time of decreased attack speed increases. With lightning you can get additional damage similar to like archers bleeding damage or whatnot

[tingrui22]

Other spells should be maxed but then lvl 1 magic missle should be kept for doing combos

[Patchouli]

Magic Missile above level 1 is rarely, if ever useful.
Firebolt above level 1 is marginally useful if you are soloing and are using it for spike damage to try and minimize the amount of hits you take. For optimum damage over time though, firebolt 1 wins even against a +5 damage empowered firebolt 8, except maybe if you're a 0 int build, or if you empower cooldown on firebolt.

[hoshino]

Im actually shocked to read of mages saying they cant solo?! :confused:

Not to sound demeaning, dukerz, but it sounds like you've never heard of Ogres, and yet you talk like you camp the mobs at Uruga for a living. The whole "I kill yellow mobs before they hit me" stops once you reach mid-game (and for some builds, even earlier). Trust me on this.

If you're insisting that you can solo efficiently with the crippled mage skills as they are now, I'm going to guess you haven't gotten very far with your mage yet, nor set foot in a dungeon other than Luminous.

[PsychoRomeo]

I find that having cooldown on Magic Missle is very worth it.

[Antonius]

Well, the max level FB owns during guildwars, especially when it crits.

ouch.

but eh, for grinding purposes, I do spam MM1s and FB1s only
(FB MM MM FB MM MM). Maxed cooltime and damage for both.

[Bmzei]

I see what everyone is saying...

I do agree that the mages ahve an unfair advantage as far as solo combat.
I also agree that cool down time is significantly important.
I like 5 points of INT and 15 SPR I'm onyl a LVL 20 and I feel like I cannot keep enough Helth. Therefor I have started a second mage. And I am going to figure something out that works for me. Maybe find a way to add + to my armor.
I Gathered all levels of the spells I could and I use them. I will try to spam lvl 1 magic missle.

[retardz]

if u are about to go solo, use the highest level of the skills as u can. it slower with the cooldowns but kills faster. just find a good pattern to use them, also remember to run and shoot.

heres a pattern i use:

Magic Missile, Fire Bolt, Lightning Bolt
Magic Missile, Ice Bolt, Magic Burst
Magic Missile, Magic Burst

if they dont die by then its time to run till cooldowns are done and then repeat lol

[maximum]

Im actually shocked to read of mages saying they cant solo?! :confused:
Are you running up to the mob or something? you should be able to solo almost ANY yellow mob. PERIOD! I found that when I reached sea of greed that the mara sailors did sometimes reach me at the end for ONE hit. Also Im not entirely sure what gear you are wearing but seeing as how mages are the WEAKEST in defense would it not stand to reason that you should have at bare minimum +3 on all your armor?!?! I didnt realize the whole enhancement deal for armor until around 14. I knew about weapons only because I seen someone selling it and poked around just enough to figure out enhancing them. Once I enhanced ALL my armor to +3 those pesky greens and yellows were hitting me for a great deal less. I could literaly point blank and not try to run from a fight. So my advice to all that get smeared quick I would seriously suggest a +3 armor set at the least.

As for spells...
Upgrade EVERY SINGLE ONE! more damage is what you want. Do you level and not wonder how much more damage your missles will do? NO. You know doing more damage is key to survival why would you think twice about upgrading? Sure if the mob is weak switch to missle 1... otherwise hit that yellow/orange with the biggest nukes you got and spit on his corpse! So your SP goes down fast... AND? Rest a bit hit some cheap SP stones/pots and get back into the fighting. There should be no reason any mage wouldnt at the very least BUY his/her upgrades *just in case*...

Skill points...

This is really up to the individual. Depending on your style of fighting you might want to go Int/Spr at about 4:1. Thats roughly what ive done. What that did for me was seriously increase the damage I dealt and gave me a small boost of mana/crit. Going 1:1 isnt a bad idea for those that want to stay safe. The [Free Stat] button says every 5 points damage is increased and since thats what im after thats the direction I went.


Spell Empower...
This is tricky... For me im going full on damage increase for missle and fire at about 5:1. Mostly because I use missle most as I can get off 2 missles per fight with the short recast (sometimes 3 if needed). Fire comes in 2nd usually only 1 per fight but the recast, again, is short. Right now my lineup for low yellows high greens is [missle, fire, missle] If its a higher yellow its [missle, fire, frost, lightning]
and for those real tough yellows/ low oranges its highest spell versions of [missle, fire, frost, lightning(repeat if needed)].


Weapon...

Obviously we want the most up to date weapon. For those that think this isnt obvious... Its because you do more damage. Got 3 Silver laying around? Spend it on upgrading that plain weapon into a +5/6/7! The look is sweet and that damage increase is not so bad either.

Hope all that didnt come off as rude... just trying to help :cool:mages look so weak because their low hp-lvl. im feeling so jealous in the fighters andall the other caracters. i think:so much hp....but i know a good thing with the mages.they can attack from distanse.so im normaly starting with frozen spell (slow down) then magic missile(fast cool down )third fire bolt ( high damage ) and the lighting as last spell.(the only usable spell ) if needed i use magic missile again.the i am done or i run for my life.a tip:hobos are really weak against fire.REALLY WEAK.

[mavZz]

Both =) With Empowerment for CD for Magic Missile. The final touch down would be magic missile[x] and firebolt[x] ; where x =max level of skills. srry for the maths =d

[tsoper85]

My Mage build - For parties DMG and for solo/pvp.

Magic Missile - 5 points in cooldown

Firebolt - 5 Points in damage

AOE Spell - 5 Points in damage (For group parties in Uruga/CP)

Saving the rest for upping the Damage 5 Points once I get my tier 2 spells

Want to put 5 points in the damage Fire Blast (Level 2 version of firebolt)

Want to put 5 points in the damage Magic Missile Tier 2

Want to put 5 points in the damage Lightning Blast Tier 2

Rest is undecided.

I may put points in Magic Missile Tier 1 if I have extra left over haven't figured it out yet. But with this build you are strong enough to solo if you need to (Since you have the Max DMG on the high level spells) but you have decent AOE dmg to be useful in parties.

I chose this build so that when we do PVP I do more 1 vs 1 dmg as opposed to Maxing Sp reduction/Cast rate of my AOE spell, which would be what I wanted to do if I wanted to make a more PVM Party Mage.

I find anyway without any SP reduction that I can do 2 groups of 10 or so Mobs in Uruga/CP without needing to Stone/Pot or use my Life Tap skill. And I'm a pure INT Mage, so I don't even have as much SP as most mages.

My 2 cents anyway.

[soysauce2rice]

I used to use a lvl1 firebolt but i dunno now. My combo was Magic missle (max lvl w/e it was), fire bolt (lvl 1), ice missle (max), magic missle (max), fire bolt, Lightning bolt (max), magic missle (max), fire bolt.... then i'd have to cast magic missle and firebolt like once or twice together before i can use ice missle again.

[max9183]

fireball lv 2 sint worth it lv 3 is though


lv 2 has 3x the cooldown time of lv 1 but doesnt do 3x the damage so yah

icebolt and lightning bolt seem to me like useless skills they do low damage and dont seem like a good use of a skill point

[KazeTut]

hey ppl were do you guys get firebolt. can u tell me were?

[maxavier]

Well, the extra damage isnt really a concern, the base magic damage you do is probably so high, the extra damage only adds little.

[KyleEng]

Right now my lineup for low yellows high greens is [missle, fire, missle] If its a higher yellow its [missle, fire, frost, lightning]
and for those real tough yellows/ low oranges its highest spell versions of [missle, fire, frost, lightning(repeat if needed)].


Nice information, I would agree with most, but this last bit.

It is inefficient in my experience to do the process of
missle / fire / frost / lightning
With the 15 second cooldown.

It seems more advantagous to do the process like this:
missle / fire / missle / frost / missle/ lightning (if you need to get that far)


I'm sure many will agree and would have adapted that process by around level 15 at least.

[Kalipso]

hey ppl were do you guys get firebolt. can u tell me were?

You just go to shop an buy the skill :)

[Kholai]

Reading this, I am frankly amazed at the number of people increasing their Magic Missle who think they're increasing damage. The cooldown empowered Magic Missile 1 takes 1.2 seconds, and can thusly be used faster than a cleric can swing their hammer.

The vast majority of the mage's damage comes not from their skills, but from their stats and weapon, so a level 1 magic missile deals more and more damage based purely on the bonus damage. Since it is so fast, this bonus damage is added quickly, whilst with high-level, slow spells, it is added slowly. The mage thusly does more damage over a shorter space of time with level 1 magic missile than with any of the higher levels.

For Firebolt, this is a different story, empowered tier 5 firebolt has a fifteen second cooldown, and has a massive amount of bonus damage from the skill itself. Against a target with a small amount of HP left, the firebolt could roast it before it can hit again.
However, even firebolt fails in the DPS category. It is much slower than the 4 second level 1 cooldown, yet the damage that gets past defense is only margically higher than that of the level 1 variety. Thanks again to the massive bonus damage from stats and weapon, the level 1 version deals slightly less damage but much much faster.


Compare this to Bash, the cleric attack skill, which has offensive power similar to fireball. Every level has the same 6 second cooldown, and so the only question is the increased SP cost. The damage for Bash is always increased, and using your highest level Bash is always more damaging than your lower levels. High level mage spells are slower, cost more, yet have lower overall damage than their low level counterparts. This alone demonstrates how broken their moves are.

[AdamWest]

MM1 does more damage per second and more damage per sp point.

there is never a reason to upgrade it.

[zarlok]

MM uprades aren't worth it until you hit level 31. Even then, you will only want to use the max MM for a quick burst of damage to finish off a mob, same with max firebolt(which is generally better for this task BUT 15 sec cooldown and sometimes you will need two qucik high damage spells and max MM/ Max FBshould do the trick).

[Haiyastan]

follow this you will definetly like it
http://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19713
GOOD LUCK

[Soul.of.Trance]

I bought the higher level Magic missile because I want to have them instead of not have them. I don't like missing out on something.
http://tinyurl.com/gtr49

[DemonEyeKyo]

only thing i can reaply to that is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :P


DemonEyeKyo
lvl 59 mage teva
lvl 51 mage bijou

[Firemind]

At least for full int mages, we should stay with lvl 1 firebolt and magic missile. Max cooldown for MM and damage for Firebolt, that way you have 1 skill that recharges in 1.8 sec and another that recharges in 5 so you can spam almost nonstop and cheap, I do buy high level firebolt and use it sometimes to finish mobs in desperate moments and take full advantage of damage empowerment, but I have never bought any MM higher than lvl 1, using them is like, oh well I'm going to rest in my mushroom assuming you don't die. I do use though max lvl spells in the case of lightning bolt and ice bolt, same cooldown only more SP and a bit more damage.

[rakgoska]

even if u lear lvl 2 spells u can still use them lvl 1 go on you skill page and you will notice if you ugraded som spells beond lvl 1 there will be 2 arrows so that way u can chose what lvl spell to put in your quick actions (1 to 0)
personnally i have it set up like this

1- pick up items
2- hight lvl missile
3- hight lvl fire ball
4- hight lvl electic
5-hight lvl ice bolt
6- lvl 1 missle
7- lvl 1 fire
8- lvl 1 electic
9- lvl 1 ice
-- hp pots
=- mana pots


so basicly depending on what your doing you have them all ready

[neekomasochist]

I've been making extremely good progress with just spamming Lv1 Magic Missile and Firebolt. All my skill points go into Firebolt and it does the job of doing the most damage whereas Magic Missile is generally there to spam as much as humanely possible, still, it does the damage I want i to. This way I have my other spells, Icebolt & Lightning bolt, left just in case I need them.