Mage skills for DPS and heal?

[intelinside1]

So at lvl 62 I was wondering at this point what skills would be best for HEAL and DPS?

Right now for
DPS/damage= RoF 5 lightning 5/5, delphic 2/5, thunderer 2/5, meteor 3/4 and all passives
HEAL = all heals & passives maxed but not sure if I should focus on RoF or Meteor now? or should I go with something else?

For the damage set should I focus on Thunderer or reset for Damnation at this point?

[Zaaqen]

My healer build has maxed Meteor and Damnation - Since it's not really intended for damage, when I can sneak a damnation in, it increases everyone elses damage enough to make up for it. Any situation I'm using damnation on the healer build is always boss mobs in multiplayers that are under the effect of deep freeze. Meteor is nice to pack a punch against the Spire bosses that have adds while still having BL available.

--At 68 you could have max RoF and meteor on this build, which I like the idea of, but haven't actually tested since it would require me to give up damnation (since in the situation I would use damnation, the 10% damage for everyone will do way more than RoF). I could see RoF in this build having great use on a PVE mage in group arena.


The other build is a questionable one because there are so many routes you can take. For single target damage, Thunderer is our best ability, but costly. Raining AoE's is quite nice, especially for those in pve gear. Triple AoE mages aren't uncommon. Dual AoE mages are the norm.

At 68 you could have a hybrid healer/dps build with maxed thunderer, maxed resto/HE/Sunto, and 3/4 meteor (with all passives, but only one point castinator). I personally like this build, as the 3rd point of meteor is the big upgrade. The 4th is nice, but nowhere near the upgrade that 2 to 3 is. Then when you do decide to go to 70, you can get that final point of meteor.

[intelinside1]

My healer build has maxed Meteor and Damnation - Since it's not really intended for damage, when I can sneak a damnation in, it increases everyone elses damage enough to make up for it. Any situation I'm using damnation on the healer build is always boss mobs in multiplayers that are under the effect of deep freeze. Meteor is nice to pack a punch against the Spire bosses that have adds while still having BL available.

--At 68 you could have max RoF and meteor on this build, which I like the idea of, but haven't actually tested since it would require me to give up damnation (since in the situation I would use damnation, the 10% damage for everyone will do way more than RoF). I could see RoF in this build having great use on a PVE mage in group arena.


The other build is a questionable one because there are so many routes you can take. For single target damage, Thunderer is our best ability, but costly. Raining AoE's is quite nice, especially for those in pve gear. Triple AoE mages aren't uncommon. Dual AoE mages are the norm.

At 68 you could have a hybrid healer/dps build with maxed thunderer, maxed resto/HE/Sunto, and 3/4 meteor (with all passives, but only one point castinator). I personally like this build, as the 3rd point of meteor is the big upgrade. The 4th is nice, but nowhere near the upgrade that 2 to 3 is. Then when you do decide to go to 70, you can get that final point of meteor.

Thanks for the thorough response.

I like the idea of damnation with my heal set for helping the other players damage.

So for my DPS/AOE set I'll keep upping my thunderer. So i'm guessing u don't think damnation is necessary for this set, but I have seen some mages who use it well against me at around lvl 58-62

[Zaaqen]

Damnation can certainly be used to great effect outside of multiplayer dungeons, although it is situational. It's very long recast is part of the problem. You have to ask in this situation, is 10% more damage for those 5 rounds going to equate to more than having another spell would help.

I actually don't personally use Damnation in group arena, but if you were with, say, 2 archers it can be used intelligently to devastating effect. (I'm using this as an example, there's others where it comes out quite nicely) -- Have both archers open with multishot, instead of lunatic. You open with damnation. Now they have the 8% increase from battle prowess and the 10% increase from damnation for their lunatic fire.

Basically, damnation is an ability that you need to be able to back up with more firepower. If you can't do that, you would probably be better off using something else. -- This is also why it's so powerful on a deep-freezed boss. It will effectively last for 8-10 player combat rounds assuming a constant state of deep freeze.

[intelinside1]

Great response again thanks. I see what you're saying gotta back it up with more firepower for the real effect to take place. I think I'll stick to thunderer for PvP since it seems like damnation is more for arena.

But now that u mention it damnation is very powerful in PvE with the long rounds... hmm i think i will work on damnation for my heal set as u mentioned before...another issue there though is only having 5 skill slots in use at a time. So I was wondering for my heal set what I'd have to replace? I'm guessing purify on a lot of bosses.

[Zaaqen]

Generally speaking, yes, purify is the skill that gets cut. If it's a boss that I need purify on (final boss in temple), I likely wouldn't have the rage to keep damnation up anyway. If you had 2 mages I guess technically one could have damnation, but when we do 2 mage runs, we always both have it up to stagger it a little.

Healer pretty much has a set skill lineup, with only the variable of purify when it isn't needed. In GB's I will often drop restoration in favor of an aoe since the situations where a restoration would do me more good than the aoe in GB's is rare.