Is it possible to kill equal level mobs in less than 15 seconds?

[Bravostar]

I usually don't play mages in MMOs because they tend to be squishy and hate watching casting bar fill up... however, my account got hacked and I want them to restore my characters to the state prior to hack so I can’t play with them, I made a mage.

And it’s driving me crazy! Compared to cleric, rouge and warrior, takes twice as long to kill mobs and survivability is iffy all the time.

I’ll admit, in this game, mage is a challenging class to play because you have to do it smartly, you have to be aware of the surroundings, watch your pulls and that aspect of it I enjoy.

I tried many combinations of souls and somehow got to lvl 25 – warlock/chloro/elemental is the best combo I’ve come up so far, I can survive fights with several mobs and have no downtime at all – however – I cannot kill an equal level mob for less than 15 seconds. Compared to my assassin/night blade rougue that does the same job in 7-8 seconds, this feels superslow.

I tried changing souls and they all work to some extent, but seems on average, 15 seconds is best I get. Admittedly, pyro drops them faster, but pyro has no survivability against 3-4 mobs.

So, is there a soul combination I’m missing that can kill stuff in say 10 seconds, or do I simply have to go on like this until I get to high enough level to create a build with pyro’s dps and get survivability from some other soul?

[aux]

Necro is probably the best leveling build around that level. Speedy kills, little downtime.

[Silverblabe]

Necro / Warlock / Chloro or Archon

get soul purge and the zealot in the necro tree, grab the +charge in warlock tree for faster soul purge.

Void bolt (x2 if you are max range)-> necrosis -> dark touch -> grave rot -> essence link (if 3 or more mobs) -> soul purge until mob is dead -> reclaim power if needed.

Put some more Void bolts if you get an opportunity proc, it gives descent damage and more charge for soul purge.

I usually kill mobs in ~10 seconds give or take 2 seconds, and can take up to 5 mobs without major issues (essence link + petattack on one mob, and take care about the rest).

Absolutely zero downtime, but ultra boring to play in the long run.

[Emarithiel]

I leveled as a warlock main with max of 8 points into necro and its still my end game solo build 51 lock.

I can down mobs in about 15s. Unless I pop a cooldown, in which case its about 8s.

I can also take on 4 50 (non elites) with ease. Dot one up radiate death. Drop an AOE then use mortality. Walk away from all the dead mobs with full hp.

But, I did feel underpowered at times when I watched clerics and warriors do more that this much easier.

[Bravostar]

I leveled as a warlock main with max of 8 points into necro and its still my end game solo build 51 lock.

I can down mobs in about 15s. Unless I pop a cooldown, in which case its about 8s.

I can also take on 4 50 (non elites) with ease. Dot one up radiate death. Drop an AOE then use mortality. Walk away from all the dead mobs with full hp.

But, I did feel underpowered at times when I watched clerics and warriors do more that this much easier.

Yes, the issue is not survivability, already at lvl 25 I see builds where warlock or necro is main do very well, one can take out plenty of mobs and stay up and have no downtime, but my issue is the time to do finish a fight...

I was hopeing there might be a build that can kill faster, even if it means that the mage is a bit more squishy...

I guess the only way to increase the speed of killing is to use aoe as much as possible - if I can kill 1 mob in 15 seconds, but can kill 3 in 30, I'm down to 10 seconds per kill which is much better... if I can grab 4 and kill them in 30 seconds, then it would boil down to less then 10 seconds per kill which puts mage on par with other dps heavy classes...

Hm, never thought about it before... perhaps that's what devs had in mind, mages have crap dps but can survive multiple mobs so if you kill them aoe-style, you end up with quite acceptable dps after all

[Jackofall]

With a zealot as pet and this build http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1z...0N0cax.xtczVzk

I open up with Leech Life (1,5 s) 1,5 cast
Looming Demise (3,0 s) instant
Necrosis (4,5 s) instant
Essence Link (6,0 s) instant
Plague Bolt (8,0 s) 2,0 secs if I pop an instant (Opportunity) the global cooldown is still 1,5. Best case scenario is 7,5
Grave Rot (9,5) instant, after 2-3 hectic clicks...
Soul Purge (17,5) instant channeling

Most of the time the mobs die before my Soul Purge runs out. = less than 15 secs.

[Poiz]

i think im 32lock/21nec....i jus open with nec/NG then 2 void bolts (drain bolt if cooldown is up) and soul purge...prob around 8-10 secs a mob....only down time i have is to use reclaim power

[Quinalla]

It's about how many mobs you kill over time, not how fast you kill one mob. If you are using a heavy warlock spec, you shouldn't kill mobs one at a time, it's much more efficient to kill several at once. Pyro is the spec you are looking for to kill one mob pretty damn fast, but yes, your survivability suffers. I tend to solo more in my warlock/chloro/dom(0) spec for better survivability, but I will switch to my Pyro/Warlock/Dom(0) spec if I am somewhere I can single pull easily with little risk of adds. Necro/warlock/whatever might be even better, but I don't like playing pet classes and I like having access to healing for helping others when needed. I haven't tried a Stormcaller build since beta, but that might give you a more middle ground between Pyro and others since they have so many spells that knock the mobs back and slow/freeze them.

But yeah, some games really discouraged the AoE/multi-mob killing mindset, but warlock is perfect for it. Man, I am inspired to get several mages together for some AoE fun times

[Pacifyer]

Here is my build for Pyro/Ele/Chloro with enough survivability for solo PvE

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0z...fuczuc00c.xdbh

It is a minimal configuration for 36 lvl. You can extend it for higher levels in any way.
You precast Ice Shield and just burn the enemy.
If there are several enemies then Radiant Spores and Fire Storm just obliterate all of them. You also have some instant heals to back it up until Ice Shield pops up.

Remember that Radiant Spores can also be precast not aggroing the mob.

6 Ele is also good for inter-combat mana regen and Stone Armor.

[Zansobar]

The only problem is warriors can kill in under 10 secs easily and can have 100% hp at the end of the fight, only time they have to wait is for energy regen, which goes so fast it is full by the time they pull the next mob.

[Gulch]

Is it possible?
Definitely.
I do it all the time, not too much quicker than that though, but 15 seconds is easily doable.
42 Pyro/20 Archon

[Flipryde]

it seems you are looking to have your cake and eat it too. You have to choose. Kill fast or have survivability? IMO best solo level spec is nec/lock combination.

[Trisian]

Not being able to kill mobs in a timely fashion as a caster is the reason I'm retiring mine. Too much pain on the hands having to click/press buttons too much.

[Emarithiel]

Yes, the issue is not survivability, already at lvl 25 I see builds where warlock or necro is main do very well, one can take out plenty of mobs and stay up and have no downtime, but my issue is the time to do finish a fight...

I was hopeing there might be a build that can kill faster, even if it means that the mage is a bit more squishy...

I guess the only way to increase the speed of killing is to use aoe as much as possible - if I can kill 1 mob in 15 seconds, but can kill 3 in 30, I'm down to 10 seconds per kill which is much better... if I can grab 4 and kill them in 30 seconds, then it would boil down to less then 10 seconds per kill which puts mage on par with other dps heavy classes...

Hm, never thought about it before... perhaps that's what devs had in mind, mages have crap dps but can survive multiple mobs so if you kill them aoe-style, you end up with quite acceptable dps after all

You were asking if its possible to take out mobs in less than 15s. I said yes.

I can pop 1 cooldown, of which I have 2 that spike my dps so they go down in under 15s. And when those are cooling down I can pop another AOE cooldown and take another 4 out. So thats 6 mobs in under 30s. And then another 2 in the following 30s it takes for the cooldowns to come back up.

Total of 8mobs in 1m and my origional cooldown is ready to go again. (No this doesnt take into account running time from mob to mob, but all classes would have this so it is moot).

[pro24]

After my Champ/RB/Para, leveling a mage is like watching paint dry.