Priority Abilities to cook to Lvl 10

[Splendor]

Yeah, for a frostbeam elr mage lvl 10 arc lightning is important mainly because it increases the number of shards stacked from your frostbeam, but a fire mage using double shatter doesn't really need it because those abilities aren't tied to attack speed. It doesn't hurt, but it isn't necessary.

[Ozymandius]

+1 on Arc Lightening

[Ozymandius]

I agree with Splendor, the starter version of ELR Mage needs to balance both fire (immolate) and ice (blizzard or frost nova), so you can use Shatter and Thermal Shock. It is basically a double attack using Immolate followed by Blizzard/Frost Nova (or blizzard/frost nova followed by immolate). At early trials, you can clear large mobs very quickly using those double attacks, and if your AR is high enough you can trigger these attacks back to back to move through mobs pretty quickly. I feel like I get more direct damage from Blizzard, but Frost Nova is better for triggering Northern Winds.

My Fire Mage uses Fireball as primary attack plus Arc Lightening as secondary. Hitting targets with Arc Lightening softens them up for your ability attacks; you should see small red circles under the feet of enemies that have been hit by Arc Lightening to let you know where to direct your fire. In addition, a level 10 Arc Lightening boosts your attack speed by 25% and it tends to slow down enemy advances toward your hero, so it gives you a bit more time to maneuver out of a tough spot. I have not tested to see if there is a damage difference in using Arc Lightening vs. Frostbolt as the secondary attack, but I can confirm that you do not need to equip Frostbolt in order to get Shatter and Thermal Shock.

The leaderboard features more Ice Mages with Frost Beam than Fire Mages, but you should be able to do well in an ANB with a Fire Mage build.

[Stusmith50]

I've always been told that arc lightning is the priority for 10, due to the attack speed bonus.

[Splendor]

Well... I'm not sure what gear you have but dfa should be able to comfortably clear at least 90. Are you using to shatter to gather mobs? All you mentioned was firing shots and using vortex... What you want to do is run down the middle while casting frost nova followed by immolate (to trigger shatter) and then followed again by dfa (to trigger shatter a 2nd time which works because northern wind is still active). Thermal shock can also be useful with these abilities. Hitting a vortexed mob with dfa and then casting frost nova for shatter causes big damage (also useful against bosses). Skills not being at 10 shouldn't be a big deal for this build, shatter should deal plenty of damage already, but if it's not you may simply need higher damage weapons and more dmg stats on gear (don't forget +fire dmg and +frost dmg on gear). If you can afford them or get lucky drops a fire lily can help a lot with this build (but isn't neccessary) and a dfa BoM would help a lot too. As a point of reference I used this build to lvl up my character and then switched to frostbeam around trial 100. I was using a fire lily. Up through trial 90 I was getting fast clears.

Edit: I would also add that you need frostbolt equipped as one of your primary attacks in order for shatter to work.

[Raingold]

With Warrior, Whirlwind was the obvious choice. This time, I've got 2 Research slots, but getting few BoLs. Have several Abilities at 9, except passives, using all slots. I'm doing ELR with GM Fire Mage with Sash of the Ignitor, ToS, VoWS. Playing on tablet, so opted for DfA build based on helpful pinned Guide here.

The lack of BoLs is a major hangup, and I don't have time to try to score more outside of trials. I've got 36 hours and 24 hours left on two I'm cooking to 9. I want to get both CTs.

The Meteor possibilty at 10 for primary Firebolt attack looks like it might be the most useful for ANB. Gaining another bolt with DfA could help, too. No idea how significant the 1 second on Frost Nova and the slightly larger area on Immolate might be. Some of these abilities are new to me.

Also, any tips on drawing mobs? The advice to run down the middle and fire shots, plus Vortex, is all I've got.

I just reached T65 and got killed by Vortexed mobs a couple times, so I scored more gems and added Armor and Vitality Brilliants to my gear. Also practicing moving and DfA more while engaging mobs to evade those one-shot distance killers.

I maxed my speed to 27, still challenging to clear the map fast enough. Any suggestions? BTW, I have the full ELR and GM set with Integrales Mantle and recipes for all of it. Just upgraded Igneus to Legendary. Thanks.