I leveled a fighter to 20 and got a little bored. So I tried out a mage and got him up to level 8. I think I'm either doing things wrong or I'm too low level to do things right. I only have the fire bolt, chain lightning and ice bolt.

I am looking for the easiest way to clear areas as well as take out champions/heroes/bosses. Right now I just spam chain lightning and if a boss is left switch to fire bolt. This gets the job done but its terribly inefficient and I go through health pots like nobody's business.

What is the general killing method for these levels? How do other mages claim to never need health pots while clearing dungeon areas like Algore 1,2,3 etc.

My typical scenario (I am about your level):

See group of enemies

Firebolt the nearest one, keep firebolting him as the others run up to me, with any luck, I can kill one before they engage.

Switch to shadow lightning, alternate that with firebolt until mobs are dead.

If it's a big mob, or a boss, I will need to use pots. But I rarely die.

if your a solo mage, don't be afraid to move a little too!
Run away just enough to let the hp regen until you hit higher levels. also boost that endurance a bit. A lot of mage items do that :} Once I got over level 12 I had no prob soloing Algernon and at 15-20 AGTD got so easy I upped the difficulty to add a little more challenge :}

Why didn’t you hit respec button? You could have made from a lvl 20 fighter a lvl 20 mage. Or you want to return to your fighter later? From my exp. if you don’t have a lot of time, it’s better to play only one character and get to the good part of the game…the later dungeons and items

If you are having hard times try to make a friend about your level and play together. It will be easier

And if I might ask: what skills do you use (left, right click+ the 8 slots) ?

Thanks for the responses. Yea I thought about respecing but wanted to try out a mage first before I switched out all my gear and spent all my gold on mage skills. But is that basically how a mage kills? Get in the crowd and just suck down pots? I'm only level 8 so right now I just have:

L: Chain Lightning, R: Fireball, 1: Ice bolt and the standard passives.

Regarding your statement about getting to the good part of the game, that is another question I have not related to the mage. My fighter is 20 and I've basically cleared Algernon, Algor's Terror Dome solo'ing the chieftan at 18. And am almost done with Vergrim's Vexation. I only stopped to farm Sissirat around level 15 a few times to get some gear and gold. Is this the general progression most people follow or am I going to fast through the dungeons? I play mostly on formidable level and on my fighter it's pretty easy.

Again, thanks for the responses.

I had the opposite problem, I had a fighter about level 20, and he absolutely sucked against nearly everything. My shadow mage alt was blasting through with no problems. I guess the thing you have to remember about non-fighters is that you run and shoot, run and shoot. Maybe let them surround you if you want to do an area spell, but then you need either righteous stomp or the new anti-slowing skill to get out of there. If you're gulping down pots it means too many creatures are hitting you

I can’t help you with a beginning strategy, cause I was an archer till lvl 24 and then switch to a mage, but there are 2 basic strategy. The first one is fast and involves some potions: when you have fire ring and gaseous blast you could go in the middle of the crowd and use them and then use shadow lighting to finish them. this is what I use. The second strategy is hit and run. Involves no potion but you loose a lot of time and you level very slow. I think it’s ok to use some potions. Put some skills on endurance too. I have about 10% end and 90% put to intelligence. Then get the skills from warrior that boost the hit points. Here it is what I used at that level. Now I have ice shard and shadow lighting and instead of Banner of Foolish Bravery I took that skill that makes some arcs from the shadow lighting (forgot its name )

Thanks for the response victorash. I actually took the plunge and respecced after running sissirat on insane for a while as a fighter and saving up some cash and getting some caster gear. I pretty much did your exact spell lineup from your link. It works pretty good so far. A question though. Is there some sort of trick to using ice bolt? It seems really hard to line it up at the mob you want. I find myself trying to hit a hero but struggling with getting the aim just right and having bolts buzz right by.

BLue screen of life will help a lot when you can get it too. Once you get blue screen, put 90% or so of your points into int and the rest end, run the passives gym freak and avg. BMI and never let that blue screen come down! Your high int makes your spells way more powerful, and the blue screen absorbs a lot of damage and takes your mana instead of hp.

i disagree as if you respec all to endur and then just have int with endurance gear you will never use blue screen and only using one type of pots.. the little dmg you gain by more int in my opinion isnt worth it if that means you have to use blue screen and waste mana/hp pots.. try it with all the same gear in bonus as i did shadow