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Mage build question

MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,786
in Rift

I am level 33 right now and enjoying the game.  I keep hearing/reading people talk about how great Harbinger is how that is the spec.

I want to be able to kill things fast; hence playing a mage.  I have a harb spec and it is ok.  I don't think it is nearly as quick a killer as Pyro though.

My question is this; am I playing Harb wrong?  Is there a better killing spec than Pyro.

As for play what you like comments, I like to kill fast so that is what I am after. 

Any thoughts/examples of good leveling specs for mages would be appreciated. 

 

Thanks in advance

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

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Comments

  • Jadedangel1Jadedangel1 Member UncommonPosts: 187
    Pyro is still good, its just that with all the cooldowns and things they added with Storm Legion it takes a little longer to kill things than before. Harb is pretty good, especially when paired with Chloro I hear, but I'm used to trying to stay out of the way when fighting so it took me a long time to remember that the class is melee now. I use a Pyro/Harb hybrid build done by another Rift player named Valeryy which is not as fast or strong as a full Pyro or a Harb/Chloro but it gets the job done.
  • FoomerangFoomerang Member UncommonPosts: 5,628

    Pyro is fine for leveling up to 48. But harb destroys the other specs when leveling up on the the new continents.

  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,786
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Harb/Chloro - my main. I went from 7-48 in less than day (pre-SL launch city events -pretty much free XP lol), and I just tore through SL content with ease from 48-60

    Look at the official class forums for detailed build suggestions.

    I have the Harb/Chloro build that everyone talks about as super hot, but from my experience Pyro kills faster.  I am doing it wrong.

    What build are you talking about and what was/is your rotation. 

     

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,786
    Originally posted by Jadedangel1
    Pyro is still good, its just that with all the cooldowns and things they added with Storm Legion it takes a little longer to kill things than before. Harb is pretty good, especially when paired with Chloro I hear, but I'm used to trying to stay out of the way when fighting so it took me a long time to remember that the class is melee now. I use a Pyro/Harb hybrid build done by another Rift player named Valeryy which is not as fast or strong as a full Pyro or a Harb/Chloro but it gets the job done.

    Pyro seems to have a lot of skills that make you ignore cast times and cool downs though. 

    What is this Pyro/Harb spec you speak of?  Do you have a link?

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • Jadedangel1Jadedangel1 Member UncommonPosts: 187
    Originally posted by MMOman101
    Originally posted by Jadedangel1
    Pyro is still good, its just that with all the cooldowns and things they added with Storm Legion it takes a little longer to kill things than before. Harb is pretty good, especially when paired with Chloro I hear, but I'm used to trying to stay out of the way when fighting so it took me a long time to remember that the class is melee now. I use a Pyro/Harb hybrid build done by another Rift player named Valeryy which is not as fast or strong as a full Pyro or a Harb/Chloro but it gets the job done.

    Pyro seems to have a lot of skills that make you ignore cast times and cool downs though. 

    What is this Pyro/Harb spec you speak of?  Do you have a link?

    Yes, here it is: http://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree/betaStorm2012#G/S9qGYxphUw/iJ95a9a2B4

  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719

    There are some tricks to playing the Harb that make a big difference. Some are subtle but increase your DPS quite a bit.

    For solo leveling most people pair the Harbringer with Chloro for the constant stream of heals. This is what I do bu there are a few tricks:

    1. Take Pyro for your 3rd zero point soul. Two reasons: Fireball which you will use on "gift" procs as an instant and Flamebolt which will be a big part of your DPS.

    2. The Chloro spell you want to use on "gift" procs is Nature's Touch. It hits hard, scales well and heals you for quite a bit.

    3. The other big one for DPS purposes at low levels is Ruin.

     

    Here are the 2 macros I use:

    #show Storm's Fury

    suppressmacrofailures

    cast Storm's Fury

    cast Ruin

    cast Flame Bolt

    cast Storm Slash

    cast Vengeful Shock

     

    It has the 3 hardest hitting abilities, all with cooldowns, on top. It skips whatever can't be used and goes on to the next one. The reason for having Ruin and Flame Bolt in there is twofold: 1. They both hit hard and are a big part of your DPS and 2. you can cast both from range as you pull the mob. Just spam the same button and if the mob is out of melee range it first casts ruin and if the mob is still out of melee range it'll cast flame bolt. most same level mobs will be nearly dead by the time they get to you... you can then concentrate on the buddy it brought along.

    Storm's Fury hits hard and will be the first action once the mob is in melee range.

    Storm Slash is just there for when all else is on CD.

    Vengeful Shock at the bottom is a reactive that is only available when you miss or the mob dodges or parries. It's off the global CD so it can be at the bottom and this macro will still fire it off when it's available.

     

    The other macro you'll use a lot is the one you use when you get a "gift" proc. Mine looks like this:

    #show Vorpal Slash

    suppressmacrofailures

    cast Vorpal Slash

    cast Nature's Touch

    cast Fireball

     

    Not many people know about the Vorpal Slash trick and they would have it on their spam macro. The trick is that evne though Vorpal Slash can be made instant, the fact that it started out as a cast-time ability means that it can be used here and because it's now instant, it also doesn't consume the gift proc. So whenever it's off CD and you proc a gift, you can use the macro twice to cast Vorpal Slash and also Nature's Touch. It also benefits from the global CD reduction you can trait for all slash attacks. This results in Vorpal Slash and Nature's Touch both going off 0.5 seconds appart... a big DPS boost.

     

    Fireball at the bottom can be replaced with "cast Vile Spores" if you find yourself needing some extra heals during fights.

     

    4. Always... ALWAYS, have Charged Blade toggled on. It boosts slash attacks by 30% and all other attacks by 10% when you trait Living Charge. The beauty of this ability is that even though it consumes charge and slash attacks can't add charge while this is active, all other spells you cast WILL add charge. Since Harb DPS is a mixture of slashes and instant cast spells, and slashes don't consume very much charge, you can keep this toggled 100% of the time. Ruin, Flame Bolt, Nature's Touch, etc. will all add charge. The way I play it stays at or near 100% charge all of the time... a very nice DPS boost.

     

    6. AOE is weak for the Harb, no matter what. Some people spec into Stormcaller to try to fix that but unless you spend a bunch of points in SC, forked lightning will still be weak. What I use for AOE is 3 things: 1. Lucent Slash spam, 2. Nature's Fury which is the Chloro 4 target chain and 3. Phase Step from the Harb tree.

    But you really won't be going 28 in Chloro until early 50s and Phase Step has a 30s CD. You're left with Lucent Slash...or better yet, kill them one at a time while 3 or 4 others beat on you only throwing lucent slash out now and then. 

    Self Heals will just happen automatically off your DPS but you also have an instant Bloom and later on Flourish, Resurgence and Wild Growth... Wild Growth is specially nice since it also increase DPS by 10% while it heals you and 9 others.

     

    This is what you should look at level 38:

    http://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#FgGi8/SkqGMEB48/i

     

    And this at 50:

    http://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#FgGikE/SkiH2ykih4/i

     

    Your next 3 points after that should go into Chloro (1 in Wild Growth + 2 in Raised in Nature) to get Nature's Fury.

     

    One final thing. it's tempting as a harb to use your blade rush to get in melee range quickly...don't. Your DPS will be much better if you ranged them on the way in.

     

    My typical pull is Radiant Spores (no aggro from this) followed by Nature's Touch - you do this for any mob, melee or ranged. As the melee mob(s) are coming I then have enough time to cast Blazing Light > Ruin > Flame Bolt. If it's a ranged mob, you'll have time to cast Blazing Light and Ruin as you close.

     

    Hope that helps you out... and have fun. You'll be "tanking" 4 or 5 same level mobs with that spec and any elites are also easy.

     

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