Beginners Mage Build in Ashes of Creation

Greetings glorious adventurer! Welcome to our guide on the Mage archetype in Ashes of Creation!

Mages are highly effective at controlling groups of enemies and dealing high burst damage. This guide covers essential Mage abilities and skill rotations.

Skills

The suggested build is designed for group play, in situations which you have a tank in your party or you do not do the pulling. If it happens that you are the one that pulls (or playing solo), start up with Frostbolt.

Important note: There are diminishing returns to crowd control effects such as Chilled and Frozen. If in a party with another Mage, it would be recommended to synchronize your skills in order not to waste opportunities for Shatter.

It is important to understand how Elemental Empowerment works in order to save up mana and optimize damage. The ability will take your last used spell (frost/fire/lighting) and will provide you with a buff. The buff will last until you use a skill from different elemental school or you click on the Elemental Empowerment icon to cancel the effect. Here are the buffs:

Frost – Weapon combo finishers deal bonus 70% damage, apply Frozen on up to 3 targets if they are Chilled, and reset the cooldown of Frostbolt.
Fire – Weapon combo finishers apply Burning for 100% fire damage on up to 3 targets and rest the cooldown of Fireball or Firebolt.
Lighting – Weapon Combo finishers deal 35% lighting damage, apply Volatile to up to 3 nearby enemies, and reset the cooldown of Lightning Strike.

Fire skills

Start with Fireball – for single target damage. Early on, the mobs will not have as many health points and a single Fireball will be more than enough to bring them down. Use auto attacks to save mana. Swap to Firebolt once you unlock Combust. Firebolt is better for stacking Burning from which Combust can benefit.

Pick Bombardment as soon as you make your choice of Fireball or Firebolt.

Magma Field is the other fire skill. On its own, it is not really that amazing. The upgrade Pyromania provides 2 additional ticks of 50% burning damage. At the early stages of the game, there are better options, which leads to this ability to be picked this close to level 20.

Lightning skills

Lightning Strike – is a single target skill until upgraded – Amplified Lightning Strike. Fully charged Lightning Strike can provide more damage output than Chain Lightning before the upgrad with Aftershock.

Chain Lightning is the next in line skill from the Lighting school. It starts to shine with the Aftershock upgrade, when you hit targets with Staggered. This debuff can by applied by your Fire skills (Bombardment), by a Tank (Charge, Shield Assault) or a Fighter (Form Of Celerity).

Ball Lightning is a rather unique skill – it creates a ball of lighting which travels from your location towards the location you are currently aiming. One target can be hit multiple times, especially if they are slowed or rooted. Furthermore, the skill applies Volatile, which buffs up the damage output. The other method of having Volatile debuff on the target is by using auto attacks with a wand.

Frost skills

Frostbolt – single target skill, best suited for PVP scenarios. Potential good combination: Accelerative Blink + Frostbolt. As freshly started character, Frostbolt is of huge help in solo farming.
From the frost school, the two most used abilities are Hoarfrost and Cone of Cold – the first spell Chills the targets, the second spell can make the chilled targets Frozen. The upgrade Tempestuous Cone Of Cold becomes meaningless in this combination – you can’t push back rooted targets.
The combination above continues with the Shatter passive. After the targets are Frozen, use fully charged Lightning Strike.
Blizzard – is a skill on a 90 seconds cooldown, which essentially applies chill and freeze on targets in close proximity to you. The skill type is “channeling", which means you can move around, but any other activity will stop the skill. Currently, the damage output is lacking, the cooldown is huge and not being able to use other abilities are the reasons placing this skill on the “not desired" list.

Arcane skills

Arcane Volley – The starting skill of any Mage.

Blink – The skill can help you with keeping your distance from your enemies or chasing after them. The upgrade Unyielding Blink is useful if you get caught and Accelerative Blink can help you with chasing.

Shell – will help you live through a lot of punishment.

Slumber – great skill if you are soloing content or in PVP scenarios to shake off reletless Fighters.

Arcane Circle – 130% bonus magical power boost if you stand in the circle for 15 seconds. This is major cooldown, which you should use wisely – use it if you are certain that in the next 15 seconds you can stay within the circle to fully benefit from the skill. Tip: Use Prismatic Beam at the last second(s) before the skill expires.

Other important upgrades

Shatter, Thermal Equilibrium and Fuse – These upgrades expand the rotation of the mage abilities outside of their respectful magical schools.

Using Shock on Frozen target
Using Burning on Shocked target
Using Freeze on Conflagrating target

Skill Rotation to benefit from those 3 upgrades:

Hoarfrost -> Cone of Cold -> Lightning Strike = Shatter
Ball Lightning -> Fireball / Firebolt -> Chain Lightning -> Firebolt / Magma Field = Fuse
Combust -> Hoarfrost -> Cone of Cold = Thermal Equilibrium

Enchant Weapon – Provides one of your party members with your current elemental empowerments. Might be a good idea to give it a Tank to assist with holding down the aggro.

Stamina Skill Tree

As you level up, you will find yourself using sprint very often. Getting points, early on, can help you get to places quicker and recuperate stamina faster.

Rolling away will be your way to get out of trouble, both in PVE and PVP scenarios.

Blocking without a shield is not recommended.

Melee Weapon

First choice – Deadly Finisher: Wound. Reducing the healing against some mobs in PVE is needed in order to make the fight easier.

Second choice – Refreshing Followthrough. Helps restore mana while attacking with your weapon.

Third choice – Deadly Finisher: Bleed. Overall, more damage.

Weapon Training: Critical Damage and Weapon Training: Penetration – both of them are important. Critical damage will provide more output against light armored targets. Penetration will be beneficial against heavy armored targets. One point in each should provide a balanced build.

The only reason for a Mage to be up close is to apply a needed debuff with a weapon. The most common debuff, which might be missing and is needed, is Wounded.

Use the weapon with the highest available magic power.

Range Weapon

First choice – Deadly Finisher: Volatile. If you are in party with other mage(s), Volatile in the early game is amazing to have, in order to boost the damage output. Otherwise use Chilling. It can be of a huge help in solo grind/moments when you have to kite strong enemy.

Second choice – Refreshing Followthrough. Helps restore mana while attacking with your weapon. If the mana is not an issue – Keen Edge(especially for PVP).

Third choice – Special Extended Finisher: Echo. This one will provide 25% chance to use 2 Finishers at the same time.

Increasing the proc rate of the Finishers is extremely important for the Mage.

Equipment

Disclaimer: The process is slow! All items which are displayed below are obtainable. Armor and weapons mainly drop in various POIs. Recipes are dropping as well, therefor you can obtain higher rarity if you get high enough crafting skill and have the necessary materials.

For level 20 equipment, look for Bloom Warden in Citadel of the Steel Bloom.

Stats

What kind of stats should you be looking for if you are a Fighter and you want to perform well?

Intelligence – increases magical power rating, magical accuracy rating, magical penetration rating
Wisdom – increases magical critical chance rating, magical casting speed, magical evasion rating
Constitution – increases the maximum health points, armor, physical critical avoidance rating
Mentality – increases magical resis, magical critical avoidance rating, max mana

Side note: Dexterity provides Physical Evasion Rating. However, the current stats and values are too low and it is hard to tell if Evasion (for both Physical and Magical damage) can be considered as a viable defense option.

In situations where you an get an upgrade with higher level or rarity item, focus on these stats, preferably in that order:

Intelligence and Wisdom will improve your damage output.
Constitution will help you against physical damage and will increase your health pool.
Mentality will help you with the mana pool and will reduce the incoming magical damage from PVE and PVP.

Final Thoughts

Mastering the Mage archetype in Ashes of Creation requires a balance of timing, strategy, and understanding the different elemental magics. The dynamics of this archetype makes the game play fun and compelling!