I’ve never played my mage as a main before, but I’m levelling one now to try end game. I usually play tank classes, or a pet class, so the concept of playing a caster without a tank pet is so foreign to me.
How do you do Delves as a mage? I’d be playing frost. Are the elites hard to solo? What about the bosses? And Zek’vir?? Is it even a possibility?
I realize these questions might sound dumb to a seasoned mage, but I’m used to tanking or having a tanky pet, so I’m literally clueless about anything other than that. =/
Thanks for any suggestions or advice. <3
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As Frost, if you can slow/snare it, you can kite/kill it. For elites, you have a ton of defensives to get away/burn them down. Mirror Images gives you a 20% damage reduction and redirects threat to the images. Alter Time lets you take a full beating for up to 10 seconds and then snap back to undo all the damage taken. You also have Ice Block/Ice Cold for a free heal (twice, as Frost, via Cold Snap), and can Blink/Shimmer away from danger. On top of that you have 2x shields in Ice Barrier and Mass Barrier, and worst case scenario, you can Invis to reset the encounter without dying (or alternatively to skip a pack in a delve). (In group content, Invis also gives you a a 60% damage reduction upon reappearing, which can come in really handy.) Add some healing pots to that and you’re pretty well equipped to deal with anything.
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Small additional tips - as a Frost Mage you can summon Mirror Images, Water Elemental and cover self and them in Ice Barrier via Mass Barrier (it does not stack with normal Ice Barrier though, so don’t use normal barrier in such case and keep it off cooldown to apply if your personal barrier from Mass Barrier gets destroyed). That makes images and elemental much tankier and since images and Elemental usually draw aggro first (especially images) this will give you period of time where elite / boss would be killing them instead and you can freecast. Capitalize on it with Time Warp and on-use trinket and many elites would be dead before they even kill all the shielded summons and boss would lose big chunk of health before it even starts hitting you (avoid the mechanics though - many bosses throw something at player specifically even if they are aggroed on someone else).
Also play with Brann as healer - he can purge buffs from enemies / dispel debuffs from you, has his own form of cheat death effect that he uses on low health player (Emergency Supplies) and would sustain your health with his potions (which he drops on ground and you need to pick to get healing). Convenient way to gather them is to play Ice Floes - unlike Shimmer it allows to control your movement distance while casting, so you can run to and pick nearest potion(s) while still casting the spell. This also allows to use Blink to remove stuns and roots and can also be convenient / important against enemies that use them.
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I soloed Zevkir as arcane on “??” difficulty, you have to be very deliberate basically and know all of the pieces of kit that mage has (and understand the fight, like you only kick the heal and then use barrier (with the energized barriers talent) to nullify the other kickable cast which slows you and puts a dot on you
For a lot of world/delve content cone of cold is going to be extremely useful. Also talents like blast wave, alter time, and dragon’s breath/supernova are pretty much essential
There isn’t one trick that will help, but rather learning the full kit through and through. Some classes are very quick to learn, even if difficult, but people struggle on mage I think – and it’s because you have to have a deeper knowledge of the spec than most.
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Delves are possible, i set brann to dmg since i can keep myself alive. Zekvir i had a horrible time with. Mind you im in full conquest gear, 603 ish IL at the time. You have to be very very good with your defensives and very good with the mechanics. It took me probably 15-20 tries before i got it. Alter time and displacement have to be used on every cd, shifting power helps a lot to lower cds on those, plus your shield. I also used mass barrier to help. Start off with mirror images/Timewarp/all dmg CD’s. Will take a good chunk off. Avoid the bad stuff, use alter time and displacement as needed. I did it as frost, so it can be done and its mainly about dodging the mechanics, interrupting his poison thing and kill the add(s) he spawns or theyll screw you, but dont let them distract you from his abilities. Delves in general arent bad, you just cant pull huge groups at a time, have to be more careful.
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I’ve found delves to be very easy with frost. Glacial spike will freeze the elites so by the time they reach you they’re mostly dead. Don’t be afraid to use CDs, they come back pretty quick.
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Of course the only issue is that anything you need to kite is usually immune to slows or snares. Great design by Blizz on this. /s
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