Runes of Magic US / AU

Honestly F1nnick, m/r is one of the least effective PvE mage combos. It is viable, and as RoMage can tell you, it is fun as heck to play, but in a by-the-number analysis, m/r loses.

M/R's big feature is the ability to dual-wield a wand and a dagger, and that should theoretically make them the highest mdam mage. Unfortunately Runewaker apparently thought of that and nerfed the mdam on daggers and made damned sure that you can't dual wield wands. What that means is that you can't actually dual wield- you would want a staff just like every other mage class combo, and that means that you're losing the benefits of extra runes that m/s gets. You'd get more dps as m/w and you'd get more runes and stats with m/s. You get better elites on m/p. M/R can't do anything in PvE that m/w, m/s and m/p can't do better.

Now- PvP is another story. M/R can be beastly in PvP but (there's always a but lol) m/wd and m/k do PvP better, so you still lose.

M/R is viable in PvP and in PvE at endgame... but you might find yourself wishing you could just use a fruit of forgetting and going /warrior or /scout. You'll get regularly outdps'd by them (by a smallish margin), and that's annoying. If the dual wielding thing was worth doing, it would be different. As it currently is, the class is almost broken-ish. Playable yes, advisable- no.

Quoted from "F1nnick;509597"

Thank you for the great feedback. I think I'm going to try rogue mage instead of mage rogue. It sounds closer to what I was hoping mage rogue would be like. Stealth + daggers + magic

r/m is more worse than m/r in both pve and pvp.

Just as Fandreith pointed out, M/R imho is very fun to play, and it does pretty good damage in both - PvE and PvP. I have one of suggested M/K combo, but M/R in my opinion is much better.

First, as mage you're always glass cannon, you will produce a lot of damage in short time every 5 min for 20 seconds. Elemental Catalysis + Ancient Spirit Water + Shadow Protection (or Clear Though) + Curse Weapon Rune and Pet's buff and you will produce a lot of damage in short time, and if tank can't hold aggro, you better stack a lot of stamina and HP. As we're limited to 2H staff (better then any dual weapons), we can have only 1 recon rune, thus even if you produce less damage from OP class such as R/S, you will get aggro more likely as they can have 3 recon runes.

What makes M/R great is Cursed Fangs + Fang Ritual. To play as M/R you have to have Fang Ritual always running (ntBuff does the job). It's almost as having Fireball without bad cool down and with additional DoT (Damage over Time). So you can cast Flame, Fireball and spam CF until mob is dead. As CF is projectile cast, you can cast it while running. You share 2 great AoE every mage has - purgatory fire and thunderstorm. First one is great for close fight, where other one is great as cast on distance. Mostly, tank will aggro group of mobs, you will cast Thunderstorm and any mobs that survive and gets close to you, you clear with purgatory fire.

Kiss of the Vampire has bad cool down, but it is nice spell that returns 10% of HP. I don't use it in my rotation as I can't spare too many TP on it. At higher level it does increase damage of your next 2 magical attacks as well, thus it is good, but as we are always short on TP, you might hold on maxing it until you got other spells maxed.

R/M are popular in SW as they can lay down traps even if all structures in Castle get destroyed. I was surprised at amount of R/M in my old guild, just at the time of SW.

And just to mention M/K combo, it does give a bit more HP and defense, but you're missing those good instant casts and light magic is not as fun as dark magic.

As this is mostly gear game, almost all combos are doable, but some are more fun to play then others.

Hope this helps

I play Mage/warden and love the combo. If your up for something different look at the elite's and maybe pick it up as a 3rd class. Just a suggestion.

Just thought I'd point something...

A M/R with a T10Ghostly Wand
and a T10Juggler's Throwing Knife in offhand deals more damage than a 2-H T10 and even T11 The Puppet Queen

On top of that, even if it says it doesn't stack, putting a Curse VI on each weapon gives you a nice +12% casting speed... And you get to use 2 Mdamage Runes and 2 MCrit runes...

Considering you need 6 T10 stones to make the two weapons, you still save 3T10(or 1T11) and compared to the 2-H counterpart.

Tried it, it works yet nobody seems to think its a good combo. Lets just say i laugh when M/R thinks he's OP and pulls aggro while doing less dmg than me. Oh yeah, i have 2 Reconciliation VI and he has 1 Recon X....

Can you post pictures of your gear? (details from IP frame)

That is costly, but iirc, someone did calculation and pointed that it's better to invest a bit more and go T11 2h staff rather then 2x 1h weapon. Still not the same as R/S who uses second hand and bow as stat weapon.

And even if 2 hand, still will make more aggro same geared R/S.

Edit: Waiting for YoMan to do his miracle...

I recently switched from M/D that I leveled to 70 with. My thoughts on M/R is that it has the *potential* to be a top mage sub with just a few tweaks. None of the changes needed are new revelations and you can find several threads over the years discussing the class. I'll try to be as clear as I can about it.

1. There need to be *some* off hand (1-H) wand options that scale to end game. It is true that about 1/3rd of daggers tier and plus up MDAM. Typically these are also the most sought Rogue daggers. Basically this means that, in nearly all cases, You are either going to pay top...top... gold for your off-hand or you are going to have to wait till the Rogues get what they want. Yes, it is important for our DPS and is a "need" item. However, most groups will correctly point out that a Tia's or Jugglers throwing will help the group more in the hands of a Rogue.
The issue I have seen brought up most often when the 1-H wand subjet comes up is that it would give an unfair advantage to a M/R in terms of MDam. While I don't know what the ToSH wand tiers up to (only seen one F/S on Osha and it flew by while I was in an instance), but if you compare the ToSH Staffs with 2 x Ghostly, they are about neck and neck for MDam. From there it is just a matter of trading the hidden stats on the staff with the runes on the wand...
I realize that this is a little complex but basically, I wouldn't even argue that all wands need to be one hand, just some. This was the case when the game came out. The issue is that there have been no 1-H wands that have come out in a long while that scale to end game. M/R is unique because it can dual wield. Give us the the ability to take full advantage of this. If you have to go to a 2-H staff to keep up with the content, you give up the only real advantage that this class has. This one is very easy. Take some of the existing wands and make some 1 hand and/or add some new ones with the M/R in mind. No skill tweaking... Just additional items. Simple, Huh?

2. Shadow Protection needs to stack. Rogue is all about speed (well stealth, and speed... but, as anything /r gains nothing by way of stealth, speed would make sense). The only speed spell that a M/R has does not work with any other speed buff besides Catalisys. Both M/S and M/W have working speed buffs. The difference is that they are burn baised. I can live with being a sustained class in a burn world but Shadow Protection is litterally useless for the burn phase and then needs to be recast for the 11% it gives. For all non-burn situations, SP is essentially the same as a Clear Thought Pot that nearly every player has a limmitless supply.

That's really it. I could say that it would be cool to get some stealth element that goes along with the vamp/lock side of things but that's a big deal and I'm looking at simple things. What it comes down to is getting a handfull of 58-70 1H wands and making one skill stack. I know it has been years and it probably isn't going to happen but I can always hope.

There you go. 5840Dmg
Dagger 2535 Dmg (Juggler is on my R/S atm but does 2621)
For a total of 8517 Mdmg
T10 Puppet Queen does 8035MDmg and T11 does 8404 so if you add the MDmg Rune to the t11 it does 8546 MDmg but it still less expensive to tier to weapons to T10.

Also if i had the Juggler Dagger on that setup total MDmg qould be 8603... And you score crits more often, and less aggro and 2x +Casting Speed(Curse VII 7, Curse VI 6) +Shadow Protection (+11% casting speed for a total of 24%) is never in cooldown so when Ancient Spirit Water is in cooldown after 30seconds burst you still have that Shadow Protection to boost your DPS.

You save on 3xt10, but id like to have an assestament of how much the extra weapon, the drilling, plussing and the runes will cost to allow you to have comparable damage to simply getting a t11 2h staff.
On a side note for eu players ( we visit us forum as often as our own), in us they have better weapon tunes available last I checked. This they gain more from the ability to have extra runes.

Quoted from "Galenwaithien;509992"

You save on 3xt10, but id like to have an assestament of how much the extra weapon, the drilling, plussing and the runes will cost to allow you to have comparable damage to simply getting a t11 2h staff.
On a side note for eu players ( we visit us forum as often as our own), in us they have better weapon tunes available last I checked. This they gain more from the ability to have extra runes.

Plussing to 16 and 4x Drilling is still less expensive than 3T10 last time i checked...

Quoted from "MasterBait;509995"

Plussing to 16 and 4x Drilling is still less expensive than 3T10 last time i checked...

How about gettino extra weapon? Even if you farm it yourself, there's the lost profit from selling the dagger. And the cost of the tunes you use to achieve higher damage/cast speed. I didn't check numbers.

Also this is only after t11 vs dual t10 weapon. I suppose a comparison of t10 vs dual t9 would look more favourable for the staff ( I know... There are even t12 weapons in eu. Maybe in us too)

Most people, for a good reason will overlook projectile training, and that is actually another skill m/r gets from rogue being secondary. Main elite is projectile based, uses energy rather then MP, so I don't see M/R being cut short because of 2h vs. 2 x 1h.

I agree on Shadow Protection, but nothing has been done regarding this, and tell you the truth, I would not even complain. Every time they fix something like that, more likely they will broke something else. But if they fix it, that would be well welcomed and deserved 10% cast speed buff.

I asked more then once, and YoMan broke numbers down always showing that 2h staff is better then any other combo.

Once you get a Fear Devourer, you'll see your Mdmg go ~10k. I currently use a +16 t9 FD and a +16 t9 Ptk and I have a little under 10k Mdmg unbuffed, which makes Cursed Fang spam amazing in siege. For PVE I roll with a M/w, since it does do a little better damage than M/r in burn phase, which sadly is what most of the content is currently.

M/R is not the strongest burst Damage dealers for the mage combos. As a M/R we only have 2 things to make use faster then normal mages. We can have 2 curse runes and we have a -11% casting speed. The problem is, every mage can have a -10% casting speed at just about any time. So now we only have 1 extra curse rune and -1%. With a wand + dagger you can get more Mdamge then any other mage class but there is a problem.

The amount more you gain is not enough to keep up with other classes elites.

So M/R vs M/W

M/R: Extra curse rune, -1% casting time, Curse fang (great for elites and pvp), More magic damage from weapon, more recon. 4 hits every 1 min gain a 13-15% boost in damage.

M/W: Can buff magic attack by 33% for boss fights, Has an extra crit skill a bit weaker then Energy Influx but is always on. For 20 secs has an extra 24%+ crit damage. For 20 secs has - 33% casting time.

A M/W will out damage a m/r in a boss fight. The M/R will do more damage on mobs b/c a m/w only has fireball. Elites never live long for you to hit flame, yet the m/r can use cursed fang.

To lazy to show other classes but you get the point. Though i wish M/R was top b/c it is my fav it is not.

Question was not if is top of DPS chain, but if is playable end-game, and in my own experience it is. (and not even end game yet )

Q: Is M/R a playable end game class? A: Yes
Q: Is M/R the best mage DPS class? A: No

Back to the 2H vs Dual wield topic, the math has been done countless times. Dual wield IS better than 2H staff. However the difference is very marginal with dual wield being barely better to the point that it is not cost efficient at all and is much cheaper to use a 2H staff and produce almost the same result.

Quoted from "RoMage;510065"

Question was not if is top of DPS chain, but if is playable end-game, and in my own experience it is. (and not even end game yet )

Well i tried with a equally geared M/W and never he's beat my dmg. Yeah he spikes a lot higher at the beginning of bossfights but I always end up having done more damage than him at the end of the fight. Anyways if you really want to be on top of the DPS chain you might as well roll a R/S or W/R...

Oh and btw, MDmg > MAttack. its always been that way.

In general mdam > mattack, yes. Unless your mattack is just a bit lower than the mobs mdef. Then it's a different story, as we all know from playing around with mattack vs mdam foods. If you are close to the cap (don't even really need to be that close actually, in my limited experience) you'll see more benefit from mattack food than mdam. More mdam on a weapon is ALWAYS desirable, for sure, no question- but that's a matter of resources. If you could afford to t12 a weapon (or two!) and make Miracle X's of course that would be great. If you could clean t10 your Jenny chest that would be awesome. Most of us can't. A free 33% mattack buff is more practical and will do your garden variety mage more good in the long run.

M/R definitely has the capability to be the top mdam mage yes. But- it comes at a massive cost in diamonds, requiring two fully tiered weapons, and the costs outweigh the benefits for most players.

M/W and m/s can do comparable or better damage for half the price.

For those who want to make the investment, m/r is a wonderful class. For those unwilling or unable, it can end up being a frustrating dia sink.

The issue is not that the class isn't viable- it is. The issue is that to be leet, you have to spend umptybillions to do the same thing other class combos can do for cheap. That's because the combo is not particularly well thought out. M/S and m/w both have better thought out elites