The Ultimate PvE Mage Guide for Ashes of Creation

Mages are an elite Archetype in Ashes of Creation, masters of multiple schools of magic, and the ability to wield those powers to decimate enemies. Mages stand out as a powerhouse class; with devastating single-target and unmatched AoE spells, they can burst down foes with ease and quicker than most.

Unlike traditional MMORPG's, in Ashes, Mages aren't solely using one magical elemental. Instead, Mages are encouraged to weave—blend spells from different schools to maximize their synergy and damage. For example, one of the highest damage combos for Mages is the Shatter effect. This talent unleashes massive damage when you trigger Shatter. To activate it, you (or your raid) must freeze the target with Frost spells, then hit them with a Lightning spell to trigger Shatter.

All of the aforementioned and more make an extremely fun and powerful Archetype.

For those of you looking for a PvP specific guide, please click the link below.

Strengths

• Very high single target damage.
• Extremely high AoE damage.
• Most sought after DPS.
• Fun and fluid rotation.

Weaknesses

• Very squishy without Shell.
• Mana economy is a concern for longer fights.
• Forced to hard cast often.

One of the most compelling and unique aspects of Mage is its approach to spell synergy, encouraging you to weave abilities from different schools of magic to maximize their damage and/or utility. Rather than being locked into a single elemental focus, Mages constantly combine Fire, Frost, and Lightning spells to create devastating interactions that amplify their power.

Two prime examples of this are two big Mage skills, Fuse and Shatter, which highlight the importance of elemental synergy. Fuse, for instance, boosts the damage of your burns by 50% if the target is affected by Shocked, which is a debuff applied by most Lightning spells. This encourages you to strategically layer Fire and Lightning spells, setting up debuffs to supercharge your damage output.

These interactions not only make Mage powerful, but also add a deeper level of gameplay. Mages must constantly adapt their spell usage to fit the situation, balancing crowd control, debuffs, and when to unload their magical power unto their enemies in order to sustain their Mana as well as their high damage output.

For a full list of every Mage spell and ability, please clink the link below for the Mage Spell Glossary

Mages, much like every class in Ashes, can wear any gear in the game, regardless of if it's Light, Medium or Heavy Armor. Each armor type has it's own set bonus depending on how many pieces of the set you have, however for PvE you'll find most mages decked out in Light Armor. The Light set is the only set bonus out of the three that has a bonus of Magic Casting Speed. Later down the road the best in slot gear will also be Light Armor, since end game gear has its own set bonus as well. For example, the Bloom Warden Garb is the best in slot chest piece that drops from the Citadel of the Steelbloom. This has both the Light Armor set bonus and the Bloom Warden set bonus.

As for weapons, much like the gear, you can use any weapon you find. There are a ton of different types of weapons; from one handers, to two handers, to spellbows, wands, spellbooks and much more. The goal is to just use whatever gives you the most Magical Power. And be careful that it is Magical Power by the way, because all weapons can be either Magical Power or Physical Power.

As for which weapon a Mage prefers, in a perfect world Mages will use a Great Spellsword in their primary weapon slot, which is a two hander, and in the secondary weapon slot you'll use a Wand in their main hand and a Focus in the offhand.

There are a plethora of consumables ranging from potions, to food buffs, to scrolls and much more. All of which can drastically boost your damage, all for a relatively low price. It's highly suggested that you pick yourself up some of these consumables listd below.

• Rations – Provides health regeneration over a period of 20s.
• Scroll of Intellect – Increases Intellect(your main stat) for 2 hours. If you use a higher rarity scroll, used increases, so does the amount of Strength gained. You can only have one scroll buff active at a time.
• Fruit Salad – Gives you 20 Magical Power Rating for an hour.
• Health and/or Mana Potions – These give you Health or Mana, depending on which you consume. These share cooldown with each other, so you can only use one at a time!

Below is a list of all major Mages changes. Intrepid does many patch updates, however they don't always effect Mages, or if they did, they were really minor like visual changes or bug fixes.

• Shatter: Reduced damage from from 300% to 225%
• Ball Lightning hit frequency has been reduced by 50%.
• Magma Field damage per tick has been increased by 20%.
• Shell duration has been reduced from 15 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Prismatic Beam: Fire Empowerment burn reduced from 100% to 25% per tick and increased burn apply chance from 33% to 100%.
• Prismatic Beam: Ice Empowerment chill reduced from 6 seconds to 1 second per tick and increased chill apply chance from 33% to 100%.
• Prismatic Beam: Lightning Empowerment volatile debuff duration reducedfrom 6 seconds to 1.5 seconds per tick application
• Arcane Circle: Reduced duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Reduced the cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds and the bonus damage has been reduced from 30% to 20%
• Chain Lightning increased damage by 30%.
• Aftershock passive’s damage bonus has been reduced, to offset this increase. Aftershock now triggers for half of the original damage, down from full.
• Blink: Fixed a bug preventing the Unyielding Blink passive skill from enabling the ability to break disabling effects.
• Chain Lightning, Arcane Circle, and Ball Lightning have updated visual effects.