Last day of respec. Thoughts of skill build?

[mandyio]

Hey hey :) I'd like to hear some skill build ideas. I'm a PvE player for now but I might do PvP later. The skill decision is kinda important for me since I cant buy platinums for now.
My current build is:
Fire
Frost
Time Shift
Shield (Biggest question in mind is, shield or heal?)

Passives:
Full +5 int
Rest on +5 str

Thank you!
Mandy =)

[vholt]

Depends on your play style

[Energizeric]

Heal is definitely better than shield. Shield can at most absorb 500 points of damage, so it basically extends your life by 500 health points. Heal can heal you for far more than that depending on your damage stat, but even if you have low damage it will heal 700+ and could be as high as 1000. So heal will extend your life further, assuming you use it at the right time. Also, heal can restore mana so you use fewer mana pots.

[vholt]

Heal is definitely better than shield. Shield can at most absorb 500 points of damage, so it basically extends your life by 500 health points. Heal can heal you for far more than that depending on your damage stat, but even if you have low damage it will heal 700+ and could be as high as 1000. So heal will extend your life further, assuming you use it at the right time. Also, heal can restore mana so you use fewer mana pots.

Well i think it's still debatable, because the issue with rogues one shotting or even it's 2 or 3 attacks, they kill you far too quickly for you to even heal. At least with a shield you can anticipate an aim shot and negate it, as healing before you get hit won't do anything. Also, 500 is not the maximum potential, of the Arcane Shield because of the invulnerability perk, which has a great potential of putting off 1000 dmg or whatever burst of damage you tank in that short timeframe. Just a second thought to add, I'm not choosing sides though. Again it's still debatable which one is better.

[thekdub]

I hate having shield and have tried to make heal work for me in pvp during the free respec period. You just get 1 shot by rogues too often without shield though. Unfortunately, shield is a must in pvp I'm afraid.

[sonvolt]

I would go for heal and only put one skill point into it so that it gives you mana. Much better in pve than shield and is helpful in pvp when recovering between battles.

[mandyio]

Is having none of the supportive skills (heal nor shield) an option or is it a bad idea?

[wolfkult]

If you just want to annoy people go fire/shield/heal/clock. Take forever to kill people but you can kite forever.

[vholt]

Is having none of the supportive skills (heal nor shield) an option or is it a bad idea?

I've tried multiple variations of this and it's actually quite fun. Try fireball, gale force, timeshift, and lightning. It's not recommended for serious gameplay because you run out of mana quickly, and you depend on pots or health packs, but when used in pvp correctly i could kill warriors so fast :o

[maillard]

Personally I prefer Fireball, Lightning, Time Shift and Shield. I don't play PVP but without shield you can die quite fast on elite maps. Using charged fireball + charged time shift can keep things away from you. But with canons firing and bosses hitting quite hard you need better protection. I use pots to heal so its not that much of an issue. And you can increase the amount of damage absorption & couple of seconds of invulnerability with shield upgrades. But without mana heal, you will see rogues crying for mana.

[drgrimmy]

Is having none of the supportive skills (heal nor shield) an option or is it a bad idea?

If you are doing strictly PvE, I think builds without heal or shield are great. My personal favorite is fire, frost, gale and time. Four aoe type skills all with crowd control properties. Great for controlling and killing mobs. Probably even better for your party than ill timed heals from lifegiver. Expensive pot wise, but not too much of a big deal when you get some money and start doing some serious elite farming (lifegiver does not help you too much in elite farming as the cooldown is long, I find the response is slower than pots - eg your lifegiver gets cast after you die, and you are pretty much spamming pots anyways).

For serious PvP I would recommend against such a build.

[Lady_Pebbles]

IMO... Mages have the weakest Shield and Heal skills....

Warriors have Horn of Renew, its both a Shield & Heal skill. Rogues have Razor Shield, its both a Heal & Attack skill.... Mages get a Shield skill that breaks easily & has a long cool down (30secs literally half a minute). Also a Heal skill that benefits team mates more than themselves. Shield has an instant cast; tap it and boom its up... Heal on the other hand, tapping it has like a 1-2sec delay. X.x

Both have some nice benefits. But both need to be tweaked in order for them to be more useful... Also so that the class can have a better survival rate.

For now though... Just try your best to work with what you got and figure out which one is best for you.

[Energizeric]

Well i think it's still debatable, because the issue with rogues one shotting or even it's 2 or 3 attacks, they kill you far too quickly for you to even heal. At least with a shield you can anticipate an aim shot and negate it, as healing before you get hit won't do anything. Also, 500 is not the maximum potential, of the Arcane Shield because of the invulnerability perk, which has a great potential of putting off 1000 dmg or whatever burst of damage you tank in that short timeframe. Just a second thought to add, I'm not choosing sides though. Again it's still debatable which one is better.

Very true what you say. Most of my deaths seem to come from those quick combos by the rogues. But I can take down warriors pretty regularly now, and when a rogue fails to kill me with that first combo then they are toast!

Only problem I see with shield instead of heal is flag carrying. For me, getting the flags is almost as important as the kills. Ideally I'd like to be on the leaderboards for both. And without being able to heal yourself you are going to have trouble carrying the flag across the grid without team help or without going out of your way to get some healing. I see that as a problem.

[Lady_Pebbles]

Shield doesn't negate rogue's one shot kills. They can literally break through it and one shot you at the same time depending on their crits. Or even break with one AS hit and one hit kill with the next (another AS or charged Piercer) or vice versa. The CD on it makes it so you can only use it once in the middle of a mob in PvP... Hell twice if you're lucky you aint dead after the first time it breaks. Mage's shield is weak & makes your toons more vaulnerable than ppl realize it seems. X.x

[Energizeric]

All I know is when another mage has the shield I can beat them pretty easily as I can inflict far more damage much quicker than they can. So considering you have a 1-in-3 chance of going up against a rogue, then the shield is only better than heal 33% of the time at most, and that is for just 1-on-1 battles. In a group battle heal is way better because it heals (and restores mana to) your whole group, not just you. And as we all know, in a group battle if your teammates die then you will probably die next.

[Caiahar]

All I know is when another mage has the shield I can beat them pretty easily as I can inflict far more damage much quicker than they can. So considering you have a 1-in-3 chance of going up against a rogue, then the shield is only better than heal 33% of the time at most, and that is for just 1-on-1 battles. In a group battle heal is way better because it heals (and restores mana to) your whole group, not just you. And as we all know, in a group battle if your teammates die then you will probably die next.
Well, I kinda disagree on the shield part. My skills are fire, light, shield, and life. Before, what you suggested was Fire, frost, light, and light. I left frost out because, it never stuns anyone, just slows them down. I honestly don't care about slowing them down they're running or something, I need the stun.

[vholt]

Very true what you say. Most of my deaths seem to come from those quick combos by the rogues. But I can take down warriors pretty regularly now, and when a rogue fails to kill me with that first combo then they are toast!

Only problem I see with shield instead of heal is flag carrying. For me, getting the flags is almost as important as the kills. Ideally I'd like to be on the leaderboards for both. And without being able to heal yourself you are going to have trouble carrying the flag across the grid without team help or without going out of your way to get some healing. I see that as a problem.


Yeah i'd pick heal > shield any day for flag running

[Energizeric]

Well, I kinda disagree on the shield part. My skills are fire, light, shield, and life. Before, what you suggested was Fire, frost, light, and light. I left frost out because, it never stuns anyone, just slows them down. I honestly don't care about slowing them down they're running or something, I need the stun.

Frost causes the most total damage of any sorcerer skill when you account for the DoT factor. I'd guess about 10-20% of my kills happen after the other player already killed me from the DoT of frost. It happens all the time. They kill me, and then they die from the frost I hit them with before I was dead. It looks pretty funny in the chat window.

[vholt]

Frost causes the most total damage of any sorcerer skill when you account for the DoT factor. I'd guess about 10-20% of my kills happen after the other player already killed me from the DoT of frost. It happens all the time. They kill me, and then they die from the frost I hit them with before I was dead. It looks pretty funny in the chat window.

Yep yep, sometimes this happens to me with timeshift, because there is a delay after you cast it. You have to wait for it to come down, so sometimes someone kills me right after i press timeshift, and shortly after, a giant clock comes down and kills them too. Haha :P

[Excuses]

In a group battle heal is way better because it heals (and restores mana to) your whole group, not just you. And as we all know, in a group battle if your teammates die then you will probably die next.

Agreed with this. So I use heal.
Mage is not made for 1 on 1 pvp. Sadly.
We need more dmg or armor.

[Zecca]

I think it depend on your play style. Like PVE and PVP it's different. Hahaha.
I will choose, shield, frost, lightning, and wind for PVP
and for PVE i choose, fire, wind, time shift and heal :D