Its alright, better than I thought it would be, but the issues with getting online are pretty shitty.
I'm still totally in the dark on how Ailments work, and the dmg they do. I've seen several streamers just stack Wisdom, but their dmg (as mages) doesn't seem any better than what I'm seeing with my own scuffed character. I've put most of my points into Ferocity and Agility for Crit Chance and Cast Speed. Not sure if Cast Speed is needed at all now though, I had thought maybe it allowed my Staff to do its default attacks faster, but it doesn't seem too. I think I've tried out every possible Spell skill there is in the game now, before hitting lvl20 (lvl22 now), unless there are some rarely dropped skills you can get later on.
Annihilation, Anomaly and Lightning Strike seem to be the clear winners for dmg, while Bulwark is a nice instant heal. The Summons are alright too, but I only use the Tank now though it is annoying in that the pet can actually block me from hitting mobs (maybe a bug). The skill Parasite is cool. Its a lifedrain, that will turn the mob into your zombie once its "dead", and you can have up to 3 of those following you around, would need to see if the Summon tree passives buff them. So, if I wanted to make use of my Rage, I imagine I'd have to use a 1-handed wpn + Catalyst, right?
The Edric fight is janky as hell, maybe it was the servers or my connection to them, but it took me several tries to finally beat him. Probably should have changed up my skills a bit for that fight, maybe using the tank summon (doubt it would last long, but it probably would have helped). Hopefully they get the online issues fixed so its not such a hassle.
yeah lets see.
In beta Annihilation was real good. ice spears had a few builds. theres alot more mods now though. and skills in general.
spears is a projectile, so can scale with alot of the Ranger/rogue passives, that annihilatin can't.
Do note the +10% etc damage runes in a skill apply only to the base skill, not added damage from gear. keep that in mind. Same with fast attack vs slow attack things. like that tear of Eth ice skill, which has a 4s cast time or whatever. +10 sacred damage will still only be +10 sacred damage to it, while it would be +10 sacred damage every .3s tick of Annihilation.
Ailments. in beta. I have not retested it to see if it was changed.
Any given skill can only apply 1 ailment per hit by default. So, if you have a skill that does fire damage, and Aether damage, only fire burn, or Status can apply per hit, not both. There is a passive that allows +1 application per hit.
Then, there are stacks. 10 stacks per ailment by default. Passives can increase this to 205 iirc. Stacks increase the magnitude of the ailment. damage and CC.
Damage of ailments in beta was flat. it did not scale with anything(might have scaled with level iirc). you can see the value in your Character sheet.
your sheet will list a value, like for example my offline char atm. "burn 6-60" damage. that is not variable range. That is 1 stack=6 damage, 10 stacks=60 damage.
Wisdom only effects the CHANCE of applying ailments, not how much damage or how powerful the cc is.
Hard to say if agil or ferocity is better as a secondary stat. Even with staff, you spend a solid amount of time attacking to regen willpower on hit. So attack speed is always useful. And since willpower is the limiting factor, casting faster is rarely the most useful thing.
yeah, don't remember if there were any staff rage skills. But, generally 1h+catalyst yes to be able to cast spells, and use rage. Note catalysts do not regen Willpower on hit like staves. Also, catalyst SPEED up willpower to rage swapping, while staves slow it down. So if you could say cast 6 fireballs with a stave, before running out of willpower, with a catalyst, you might get off 4, before the willpower is shifted over to rage.