Priority Abilities to cook to Lvl 10

[Raingold]

Thanks, bojck. I appreciate all the strategy, attack sequencing, stats, and leveling details. I didn't know about the buffing and debuffing. Your tips on gaining mobs are a great help. I balanced CR and CD, added +Fire, and I'm practicing Trials with my other Mage to get better with the maps and mobs. My DfA timing is improving for getting out of range of insta-kill. I have DfA cooking to 10 and AL to 9. Speeded AL as much as I could. I upgraded to more Legendary gear.

I don't have enough Glory to unlock BoM this time. Considering aTalisman of Power. I've read that VoWS becomes less useful after the earlier levels. I cleared 75, and I'm low on playtime. Thanks for taking time to help.

[bojck]

A lot of good tips here : )

My 2 cents - start it simple: use frostbolt, AL, nova, immo, dfa.

When you start a trial, zap the first groups a few times to get your Integralas buff on - nearly 500 AR more. Your 1500 base AR is totally fine, with this boost you get it to 2000.

Then cast nova on some mobs, move a bit, immo (1st shatter), move some more (2 seconds or so), cast dfa (2nd shatter), then nova again and repeat. Pay attention to the northern wind timer. If it expires, then shatter won't trigger. Do some slower runs to get used to the timing and the range of shatter.

Then try moving faster and cover the map with less shatters. If you move faster, usually you gather a big pile of mobs and deal with it in the end. Then try to target a dense part of the pack with DfA, cast vortex on this spot while in the air, then nova.

Shatter will do most of the damage, followed by DfA and thermal shock. Use +fire damage on all 4 possible items to boost shatter and dfa damage. If you do trials where you are super overpowered, shatter will do 80%, as Splendor said. Normally you want to run higher trials for more xp and better drops. Then DfA and thermal shock are also important, as shatter doesn't obliterate all the mobs straight away. I'd suggest to do runs that take around 1:30-2 minutes until you get the hang of it.

When Kara spawns, zap her several times with AL to apply the AL debuff on her. Cast immo under her for the additional debuff. Cast DfA on her. Immediately after this cast nova - this triggers thermal shock. Damage against bosses in this build comes mostly from DfA and Thermal shock, and less from frostbolt and shatter.

Regarding skills to level:
- when you start an ANB, fireball level 3 is top priority - it adds the splash damage. Once you have GMC weapons, you can forget about fireball
- DfA farming has very low requirements for abilities. I'd suggest initially to aim for frostbolt 5, nova 1, immo 1, passives 5, AL 7, DfA 7. Then upgrade AL, DfA and passives. I use Glass cannon for farming - it has to be lvl 5-6 or more to be really worth it.
- later on you can upgrade immo to 10 for the wider area of effect (to apply the debuff to more mobs)

For stats: make sure to have xp on every item in your xp setup. Add some more critical rating. Movement speed on both. Don't forget the +fire : ) Craft DfA bracers at some point (epics are totally fine)

[kurtcabage]

if you are using DfA build
then should be DfA to lvl10
and arc lightning to lvl10

both is a must

[Stusmith50]

You need to take the plunge and get Beaming! This is only my 2nd ANB with mage after playing warrior exclusively. I'm following Bo & Wispy's guide, and using the Discord mage channel for hints.

[Splendor]

Yeah, when I run a trial in this manner shatter is always #1 for damage on the trial stats, followed usually by thermal shock, then dfa, then vial of the wind spirit. Sometimes dfa is fourth and shatter can be up to 80% of the damage.

[Raingold]

Screenshot_2021-02-04-14-22-51.png Screenshot_2021-02-04-14-29-37.png This is where my Mage is at. I was thinking of switching Celerity for Endurance, but with these huge cook times and few BoLs, I may not get to change anything. Need to run my other characters for gems to get more boosters and cover any reforging, so I probably won't be doing any speed upgrades. BTW, I read in the guide that Frostbeam is harder to control and takes longer to learn than DfA, so along with being mobile-friendly, this seemed like the best build for my situation. Happy to learn options for the future.

[Raingold]

That's great. I might need to rely less on DfA as my favorite attack and focus more on using the Shatter sequence consistently. This is a huge help.

[Splendor]

Keep in mind that northern wind lasts a few seconds so even if a spell is on cooldown and you cast it a few seconds later it can still trigger shatter.

[Raingold]

Thanks. These are very helpful details from both of you. I'm still trying to figure out what's doing what. I have no idea why my character turns color, etc. Splendor, Thanks for the specifics on how you use the minimap and target attacks. I do use the 150 view, and it helps a lot. I read about getting the second Shatter, so I try for that when the cooldowns are with me.

[Splendor]

At trial 105 with my exp character, after frost nova followed by immolate every mob on the screen is damaged but not dead. Following this with dfa causes a 2nd shatter effect (because northern wind is still active), which kills everything except elites. So basically I run through the level, cast nova, immolate, dfa a few times, Kara spawns, and then I cast dfa first then nova against her for the thermal shock effect (it takes 2 casts at most). Run usually takes about 1:15.

[Raingold]

Stusmith50 and Ozymandius, Thanks for the info on Arc Lightning. I see it on the LBs. I limited my choices based on being stuck in lockdown with an older tablet. I chose these Abilities based on the boosts from the Ignitor Sash to Fireball and another Fire, and what I understood about shatter at the time. I was glad a DfA build was an option for mobile in the Guide here, because it's an Ability I've used more than some of the others. Extremely inexperienced in gaming. It's good to see confirmation that this kind of build can work. I cleared T 70, and I upgraded the Glacias to Legendary. I'm glad lvl 10 isn't mandatory.

I was curious which Ability would be the best choice if I can get only one to 10. As it stands, the ones cooking won't reach 9 until tomorrow and the middle of Saturday, so the lack of BoLs is discouraging.

I reached CH 600. My AR is 1500, I think that includes the Int Mantle.

I've used Blizzard before, but seem to get better results with Immolate, and I wanted to try Frost Nova for Northern Wind and possibly a boost by something else I equipped--I haven't memorized it all. Having an odd transition from Warrior. I'll keep practicing movement and attack sequences with my other Mage.

Appreciate all of you taking time to respond.

[Splendor]

Make sure you're at a low enough trial and make sure to cast frost nova first (it has to hit something too) and then immolate. I like to be at 150% view and run to a spot where there are a bunch of mobs on the mini map. You should see all the red dots vanish. You can even run a little ways after you cast frost nova and then cast immolate to cover even more ground, the northern wind effect hits some mobs off screen as well and on higher trials can keep the whole map aggro once you shatter a couple times.

[Ozymandius]

Splendor thanks for the clarification. If you need Frostbolt to get the full screen shatters, then that sounds like a better option than Arc Lightening for the starter ELR Mage. After getting a Sash of the Igniters belt and BoM with Fireball bonus, I went "all in" on Fire damage, so I am no longer using any ice or frost abilities; just all fire all the time. I ran a trial run adding back Blizzard to see if I would get Shatter and Thermal Shock without Frostbolt. I swapped in Frost Nova and Frostbolt and re-ran TL80. I did get bit of a boost to Shatter from using Frostbolt, but my overall damage did not really improve and my trial completion time was about the same. Sadly, I did not really see the full screen shatter effect, however the combination of Immolate, Frost Nova, and DFA was enough to wipe out all be the most stubborn elite mobs.

[Raingold]

Thanks. Yes, I am using Frost Nova with Firebolt and DfA. I have Frostbolt as secondary attack. I meant, firing to gather mobs. It seems fastest to take out many groups at once. When I started doing trials, I was doing a glob of enemies at a time as I encountered them, and Vortex sometimes doesn't have much effect.

Running down the center and attracting them is much faster. I'm still practicing to find the best timing and coordinate attacks and movement. I'm not great on touch screen, and all the effects from the Talismans and Sash are new to me along with some of the Abilities. Thanks for the good details. I realize I didn't give enough information. I've looked at some videos, but they are so far ahead of me, I'm not clear how to get from wasting time running all over the map to taking out masses of enemies at once--without getting killed.

[Splendor]

Hmmm, I thought you needed to equip frostbolt in order to grant frost nova a 100% chance of causing northern wind... or for blizzards 7% chance...

Yeah... so without frostbolt equipped you won't get the full map shatters that clear 1/3 of a trial at a time. The northern wind counts all mobs on your screen as frozen so immolate and then dfa damages all of those mobs at once. Without frostbolt only the mob you cast it directly on will be affected, so technically you can still trigger shatter but it won't be nearly as effective. I even just tested this on my main experience mage who clears trial 105 in 70-90 secs and uses forst nova, immolate, and dfa. I played trial 55 where my shatter clears all mobs with 1 cast. With frostbolt equipped, the whole screen dies. Without it, only the mobs you hit directly with it die.