You can rush dash by saving up 1200 gold and buying the Athletics II book from Brynn book seller.

This allows you to get dash before you even hit level 5.

Pathfinder is a mandatory skill for you to determine how many enemies are in each room and plan your actions.

Throwing nets, claw traps and smoke bombs are cheap and help you buy time when swarmed.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3410144398

This is lvl 22 "late-game" Pyromancer. Absolutely obliterating enemies.

Ok, now that I got your attention...

I highly recommend you start with Electromancy, if not Pyromancy (a bit harder but doable). Don't play Geomancy unless you want serious hard mode, even compared to other non-magic builds.

With Elec/Pyro, what you must get is 30 Prc (Perception). The reason for 30 Prc is you are most likely built as a glass cannon, so you must outrange all your foes or the ones that even so much as touch you will hurt you real bad. There are currently no decent late-game melee-magic hybrid gear so if you wear high protection gear in late game you will just be sacrificing your dps.

Elec needs as much range as possible so you can debuff enemies, mostly putting Resonance on them and then electrocuting every Resonating target within Vision with a guaranteed-hit nuke spell (or multiple nukes).

Pyro needs as much range as possible for the same reason but with more focus on direct damage and Igniting enemies so you can nuke them and their friends.

These are pure mage builds btw.

This means from lvl 1 to 20, you will put every SP (stat point) into Prc until it hits 30 when you're lvl 20. You might be thinking, "But I need Willpower for damage"; you don't, actually. You need magic power and elemental power (Electromancy Power, Pyromancy Power etc) for damage, but magic power and elemental power can be sourced from gear easily. Whereas +range, only a handful of gear and skills give you that, and only +1 or +2 total. You need as much of this as possible.

Moreover, projectile spells (Jolt and Fire Barrage basically) rely on your accuracy. FB's base accuracy is quite low, only 85%. And if you shoot at targets standing near another obstacle (or you shoot over an obstacle, even background coffins that are normally indestructible), you have a chance of having your shots obstructed. So you want as much accuracy on your projectile spells as possible, and even at 30 Prc you will still miss a fair bit when shooting over obstacles. (With Jolt, not as much because Jolt has 170% acc at 30 Prc, whereas FB only has 125%.)

Lastly, 30 Prc means your spells will have higher armor penetration. This is quite important because even though enemies' armor values (Protection) are only 50% effective to spell dmg, they still reduce your damage by a lot. Having high armor penetration ensures enemies can't defend from you very well. Electromancy has the best example here: at 30 Prc, Short Circuit has 108% armor penetration (I believe this caps out at 100%), so basically any enemy may as well be naked vs Short Circuit. Actually, worse than naked because Elec has a high focus on debuffing enemies' shock res all the way to -50% (max cap), meaning you do 150% more base damage, your spell damage may as well be pure damage (not reduced by enemy resistances and prot).

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Tldr; 30 Prc. It is a must-have for glass cannon pure mages, which is likely what you'll start with.

I can walk you through the skill choices for Elec and Pyro as I've completed both in RtR (also previous patches). But it would take too long so I'll shorten this to a few important notes:

For general mages, don't stick to the starting weapon you have, but once you get the best 2h weapon with a higher base damage (such as Lumberjack Axe), switch to it. You can still use a casting staff later on and only swap to 2h weapon when in melee, but in general don't bother too much with casting staves early on. +6% magic power isn't going to do you much good, and you don't have enough spells to keep slinging to make use of that +6% magic power (the T2 mage staff, Hexer Staff or whatever it's called).

Don't be afraid to wear medium armor just for survivability. But make sure you save as much money as possible, and also when doing contracts, try to hand in contracts to the Bailiff so you get +rep in Brynn. Manage between money and rep, and make sure you try to get Brynn rep to Amity before you really start spending. (But some T3 mage gear in Brynn is also kinda decent depending on your build.)

Use the Shout lure. This game doesn't hold your hand. So you use every trick you have to survive. (This is why Geomancer is so hard, early game you really have to use every trick in the book - I literally saved all the traps in my 1st bandit dungeon just so I can boulder push all my enemies into traps without knowing what those pressure plates do.)

For Elec, you have more breathing room due to the knockbacks and immobilizations you do. For Pyro, you really have to dps hard or you'll die.

Focus on unlocking Dash by lvl 10, and learn it exactly at lvl 10. For Elec you can manage without Dash but a bit more risky - for Pyro, you must have Dash. Plan your AP accordingly so you don't end up having no AP for Dash at lvl 10.

Elec can actually go pure mage from the start, but Pyro will find it harder.

Make sure you Inspect enemies so you can see their stats, skills, cooldowns etc. Shift + L-Click to inspect enemies (or friendlies).

Certain items can help you. For Elec, any breakable jar filled with water will give enemies a Wetness debuff, which amps your Elec spells to some degree. For Pyro, any alcohol or Bottle of Oil will do this.

Pay attention to what your spells' debuffs do. Burning for example causes +35% fumble chance, and +100% abilities energy cost and cooldowns duration or something - very useful, I admit I actually slept on this detail until yesterday or something. Resonance debuff is more clear as it is stated in the skill tree: take advantage of it early on. (This is why Seal of Power works great for Elec early game, whereas for Pyro not so much because most of your damage will come from slinging spells, not melee attacks.)

Pyro really becomes a complete murder machine by lvl 22 or so. Same as Elec. But from my experience, Elec has an easier time getting to that murder machine status (I reached it at around lvl 19), whereas Pyro takes a bit longer to cook.

And lastly: you must learn PATHFINDER in the Survival tree. It is so powerful that I make it almost mandatory on any build. (Keyword "almost"; some builds I don't learn Pathfinder but I know how scary it is to walk around to ID a ? on the screen and it turns out to be something I'd rather not tussle with, but it wants to tussle with me.)

I'll also say, I find Pyromancer to be very fun to play. There are a few things I found that makes the gameplay more satisfying than Elec:

1. Throwing Bottle of Oil or alcohol on enemies. If you have Magma Rain tiles in front of you and the enemy is already standing on one of these lava tiles, throwing a Bottle of Oil or alcohol at him will cause a small explosion. I don't know if it does extra damage but I hear the explosion, it is a neat change. Of course, the enemy still gets the debuffs from Soaked in Oil.

2. You can Magma Rain on top of an enemy (he is in the center tile), on your next turn Net him down. I use this trick all the time against minibosses that I can net down for 6 turns. If they can only be held down for 3 turns, I throw 2 nets on them. It pretty much guarantees they will be ignited, and Burning can lengthen its own duration (because any fire damage fills up a hidden meter that when filled up, causes Burning).

3. You can use Magma Rain to zone enemies out completely due to their AI. Some enemies refuse to walk through the lava tiles so if you set the AOE spell right in front of them and it blocks off a chokepoint, the enemies will just stand there and wait for the lava tiles to disappear. But for you, you just Melting Ray past them and deal massive AOE damage to them. Or later in the game, just drop an Inferno on them after blocking off the chokepoint.

4. You get some really powerful buffs from Baptism by Fire, but when you combo it with Ring of Fire (my first screenshot in the thread shows you how I did it), you get a huge boost in Pyromancy Power. You can even do this as early as level 2 or 3, although it will be harder to sustain because you don't have enough spells and magic power and energy, and risk having enemies pull you into your burning tiles around you (2h axe brigands mostly).

5. Since you don't need any melee skills, you can just drop that staff and use dagger/shield or whatever. Why dagger? It has no +skills energy cost, so if you need to Dash away you conserve as much energy as possible. But I prefer 2h axe the most, because with a 2h axe I can still butcher animals for meat, however it still packs enough power to kill anything that gets into melee range with me. (But I must soften them up beforehand of course, and my fire spells are still the main killers, my 2h axe later in the game just becomes a door breaker and crate demolisher.) Just a note: my Elec uses 2h mace, obviously for the knockback and daze synergy. So I keep a dagger in my inventory for butchering animals.

6. Inferno's duration in the skill tooltip lies to you. The duration isn't 3 turns, I suspect its turns scale to your magic power and Pyromancy Power just like Magma Rain does. This means in pure dps, Inferno definitely hits harder than Tempest. It is pretty easy to group enemies before a chokepoint using Magma Rain and then hit them all with Inferno. The damage is so crazy it absolutely obliterates anything grouped up in that small area. Very, very satisfying to mass murder enemies like that. :D

I forgot to say; for gear, focus on -cooldowns duration jewelry. You can get Pearl Necklace which is T3, only need Brynn rep to be at Benevolence. I kept that necklace until lvl 25+ just for the -5% cooldowns duration itself. Secondary stat to focus on is magic power.

Willpower is mostly invested for its -CD and -AEC (Abilities energy cost) effects. +7.5% magic power is really just a small bonus. Some gear can net you +10% magic power, and honestly, +7.5% magic power only amounts to 1 damage on some of your spells. That 1 dmg isn't a lot because you're not casting that spell every turn, or at least early on you don't have that capability yet. This is why -CD is much better.

But you can't cast anything if you're dead, that is why you max Prc first, to ensure the safety of your character so you can at least run-and-gun if you absolutely have to.

You will source a lot of -CD and -AEC (more like spells energy cost rather than both skills and spells) from Arcane Lore later, you just need to unlock it by lvl 22. But from my experience both on Elec and Pyro, I could make do even without Arcane Lore, already slaying enemies even without Arcane Lore, simply because I sourced all of my magic power and -CD from gear and Magic Mastery seal buffs, and those were enough. And with max range I had time to prep up, often I could prep up before alerting any enemy (big, big reason why you want max range, a pure mage with no pre-buffs actually hits pretty weak).

A single max-stacks Seal of Insight gives you more magic power and energy restoration than what 30 Wil or 30 Vit can give you, btw. And a max-stacks Seal of Finesse gives you more bonuses than what most stats can give you. But the only sub-stat no skill can give you more than stats pump can: +range, and that is exactly what Perception gives you if you max it. :)

No prob, take your time. :) I'm glad to be of help to you.

Just make sure you don't learn melee skills. Don't need any unless you go hybrid. And honestly, I've been trying to plan out a Staff Pyro hybrid but I suspect it isn't really doable without making huge sacrifices. I really want to make use of From Blaze to Furnace but uh... It is actually hard.

I usually plan to complete my builds by lvl 25 or 26, but with Staff Pyro hybrid I can't complete the build even at lvl 30.

You dont need dash or any defensive skill, Just kite your enemies, its a Lot easier If you're electro but pyro can do It too.

Godengag is a good spear for mages because It can daze and has good damage, Just grab one from your enemies and repair It. Ignore the +energy for spells It does nothing.

You main goal is 1500 Gold for the tier 2 book on brynn, nothing Else matters more at this stage.

Whoever tree youre using. Brynn has tier 2 books from all skill trees.

Dont pick up melee skills, Focus every skill point on Magic mastery and electromancy and youre Golden, dash is good but i take It late, thats Just me tho.

I also recommend pathfinder on the survival skill tree, it's just a 1 skill point investiment and it allows you to see enemies through walls and doors, letting you shout so you can get them on groups of 1 or 2 instead of the whole horde. I take it on all my builds.

One last thing, buy that drug that gives you 25% exp gain and fatigue/hunger resistance, use it every dungeon and you'll be a lot higher level than most builds, mages take a while to really power spike because tier 3 books are not garanteed anymore.

I found this out the hardway by not reading until it was too late. But if you are a mage, you are either pyro/electro/geo. Not all 3. Do not put points into any of the other ones because you actually lose power on all of your magic if you split. It's not a lot 1% per point in an alternate school, but I don't know of any magic skill that makes it worth it.

Its Just one drug, costs 150 and lasts the entire Dungeon, you'll save some Gold from not rating food because It gives hunger resistance.

Originally posted by Ellavina:

You can rush dash by saving up 1200 gold and buying the Athletics II book from Brynn book seller.

This allows you to get dash before you even hit level 5.

Pathfinder is a mandatory skill for you to determine how many enemies are in each room and plan your actions.

Throwing nets, claw traps and smoke bombs are cheap and help you buy time when swarmed.

for me all books were tier 1, are you sure you can buy those before level 10?

Originally posted by |Revenge|:

You dont need dash or any defensive skill, Just kite your enemies, its a Lot easier If you're electro but pyro can do It too.

Godengag is a good spear for mages because It can daze and has good damage, Just grab one from your enemies and repair It. Ignore the +energy for spells It does nothing.

You main goal is 1500 Gold for the tier 2 book on brynn, nothing Else matters more at this stage.

Nah, skip the Godengag imo. It's not worth it. Lumberjack Axe is just better. Early game daze doesn't mean a lot, your enemy only has 1 skill and he will use it right at the start, unless you daze on the 1st turn otherwise it is just pointless. The most annoying enemies will be the 2h axe Enforcers, or the spear ones who can hit you before you get into melee with them.

Besides, once you get a 2h mace that isn't the Large Club (like Reinforced Club), it is good enough until you reach the next tier.

Godengag is a good spear for any spear user though. It isn't really because it dazes, but it is actually a T2 weapon. Normally if enemies drop that and it isn't broken, I sell it for good early game money.

If you plan your spell choices well, you don't need to buy any treatise with either Elec or Pyro. I believe Short Circuit can be unlocked with Perception, but I could be wrong... Been a while since I played my Elec in RtR. (I have a habit of deleting characters of previous versions, my Elec was made in one of the earlier versions.) Elec generally does well just using Impulse and letting enemies die to the DoT. Or just smack them in the face with the "baseball bat".

Magma Rain is unlocked by Perception though, that one I'm certain because I played Pyro twice so far. (The first one also got deleted due to old version.)

Pyro is a bit nuanced. With no CC, sometimes a Pyro just has to don medium armor for a time to tank some enemies. But with enough Perception, Pyro should be able to setup the pre-battle buffs (Insight and Finesse mainly) and then initiate fights by herself.

I do recommend Dash for all mages though. Magehunter is actually quite resilient and if you don't play right or you got surprised by a Magehunter, things can turn very ugly in an instant. Like, I walked past a map border and immediately a Magehunter aggro'ed, that sort of thing. If my Pyro didn't have Dash at the time, she would've been dead. Even an Elec won't get out of that easily, because 1-tile knockback isn't going to stop a 5-tile Onrush within just the 1st turn.

Sad that the OP changed the thread title. This could have helped others looking for mage advice.