10-13-2005, 10:11 PM
Stock up on stamina gear. Keep your blink and polymorph hotkeys accessible. Never stand your ground. It's certainly possible to close-range outdamage a particularly feeble lower level opponent, before around level 40, when damage starts increasing far faster than hp. But it's not good practice.
Against meleers keep a snare on them at all times--cone of cold, frost bolt (using rank 1 for a short cast time is nice), whatever. But stay on the move. Practice holding down the right mouse button and sweeping the mouse around to turn quickly for an instant fireblast without losing distance. I usually use my blink to gain enough distance for a polymorph, then save my frost nova for when the enemy manages to get close to me--timing it so that they get caught in it BEFORE they get in melee range. Keep up the damage all you can while still keeping distance. Don't stand around waiting for him to get up on you, but you're not too likely to end the fight very fast if you only use fireblast. So you gotta judge when your enemy is properly slowed, and far enough away to throw out a scorch or fireball. But do it fast--don't stand around waiting to see what the spell does; just get it off and get out of there.
Fighting a hunter is exactly the opposite--get up on him, and stay there. A hunter can't shoot you if you're within eight yards of him. Sheep his pet, if you can. Otherwise just get in range and throw down a frost nova to keep the both of them off of you.
And other casters is a bit more straightforward. There's really nothing much you can do to keep them from damaging you, other than blinking behind them while they're casting, or strategically timing a counterspell. So it's really just about doing more damage to them than they do to you.
Healers are a different story. Healing is more mana efficient than damage. All they really have to do is keep themselves alive until you run of out of mana. Catching them off-guard with their healing is a good thing--throw down all the burst damage you can, and hope they start trying to heal too late to save themselves. Counterspell a heal when they're at low life, and you may be able to finish them before they can cast again.
I would take Skan's advice with the talent points. If you're going to be fighting other players, Presence of Mind is not something you want to miss out on. Especially in a fire build. The power of a combination of polymorph, fireball, fireblast, PoM-fireball in quick succession can really give you the advantage. With my level 60 mage and a bit of luck on crits, I can literally kill off certain level 60 enemies (squishies--some casters, rogues and hunters who skimp on stamina gear and for some reason maintain a level of hp at or below 3,000) in just those three hits. It's not very likely, though.
Against meleers keep a snare on them at all times--cone of cold, frost bolt (using rank 1 for a short cast time is nice), whatever. But stay on the move. Practice holding down the right mouse button and sweeping the mouse around to turn quickly for an instant fireblast without losing distance. I usually use my blink to gain enough distance for a polymorph, then save my frost nova for when the enemy manages to get close to me--timing it so that they get caught in it BEFORE they get in melee range. Keep up the damage all you can while still keeping distance. Don't stand around waiting for him to get up on you, but you're not too likely to end the fight very fast if you only use fireblast. So you gotta judge when your enemy is properly slowed, and far enough away to throw out a scorch or fireball. But do it fast--don't stand around waiting to see what the spell does; just get it off and get out of there.
Fighting a hunter is exactly the opposite--get up on him, and stay there. A hunter can't shoot you if you're within eight yards of him. Sheep his pet, if you can. Otherwise just get in range and throw down a frost nova to keep the both of them off of you.
And other casters is a bit more straightforward. There's really nothing much you can do to keep them from damaging you, other than blinking behind them while they're casting, or strategically timing a counterspell. So it's really just about doing more damage to them than they do to you.
Healers are a different story. Healing is more mana efficient than damage. All they really have to do is keep themselves alive until you run of out of mana. Catching them off-guard with their healing is a good thing--throw down all the burst damage you can, and hope they start trying to heal too late to save themselves. Counterspell a heal when they're at low life, and you may be able to finish them before they can cast again.
I would take Skan's advice with the talent points. If you're going to be fighting other players, Presence of Mind is not something you want to miss out on. Especially in a fire build. The power of a combination of polymorph, fireball, fireblast, PoM-fireball in quick succession can really give you the advantage. With my level 60 mage and a bit of luck on crits, I can literally kill off certain level 60 enemies (squishies--some casters, rogues and hunters who skimp on stamina gear and for some reason maintain a level of hp at or below 3,000) in just those three hits. It's not very likely, though.