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• Royal Circlet
Advantages -- Good ac (40), +10 to all helps on damage and mana and str for wearing armor, +40 mana rules also. Disadvantages -- None really. Some dislike the +10% light radius, but I never minded that. Spells are flying so much that plenty of off screen monsters are always coming in anyway, and I don't mind seeing things further away from me. Gives a mage more time to decide which spell to use on them, and to get as many hits as possible in before they can close to melee range. • Gotterdamnitsdark
Advantages -- Huge ac (60), +20 to all is very nice, easier to find than RC (debatable). Disadvantages -- -40% light is a bad thing. If I need to put 6 or 7 chains into those steel lords, better I see them before they are 5 squares away. 0% resistance to all is a disaster also, making this only useable on melee levels. As a mage you are going to be taking by far the most damage from ranged attacks, mainly blood stars and fireballs, so resistance is more important than ac. Also 20 less mana than RC. • Thinking Cap
Advantages -- +2 spell levels, +30 mana Disadvantages -- awful ac (1-4) unusable durability (1/1, at least initially). • Awesome great helm of stars/sorcery Mages get a bit screwed here, as neither sorcery nor stars can be suffixed on "godly" or "holy" helms. (Just whales, mammoth, ages, and some other crap mages aren't exactly drooling for). Pros to these "awesome" helms are; up to 45 ac and +11 to all or +20 to magic, but they are still pale imitations of the mighty RC. • Obsidian great helm of stars/sorcery This can be useful, but only if you can't find an RC, TC, or are truly desperate for resistance. I'd recommend the ob/stars for all around utility, with ob/sorcery only netting you 18 more mana than the stars, at the cost of everything else. Flux's Choice I'd recommend RC for 95% of the situations you'll find yourself in, only switching to TC in no-melee levels, for example witches and advocates, or for normal/hell item runs, or possibly for nightmare/hell lvl 16, where you need the extra fireball damage for the fire resisting blood knights and advocates, and +2 spell levels might save you a fireball per monster. Just be extra careful (artillery mage style) not to let get any knights close to you, as the loss in ac will get you hit most of the time, and just one hit every five or ten knights will negate all of the mana an time you were saving by having to shoot fewer fireballs at them. • Naj's Light Plate Advantages -- +1 spell levels. Not much str+ required to wear it. Looks cool. Disadvantages -- Awful AC, only +5 magic, small resistances bonus. In the trade off between +spell levels and the disadvantages associated with them, this is maybe the least attractive of the +level items. Purely for no-melee levels, as anywhere else the lack of AC will get you killed, or force you to play so carefully to stay out of range or melee monsters that the benefit of the +spell level is gone. • Awesome Full Plate of Sorcery Advantages -- Best ac you are going to get, +20 magic. Disadvantages -- Requires 90 str to equip, very hard to find. • Awesome Full Plate of Stars Advantages -- Excellent ac again, +11 to all helps everywhere. Disadvantages -- Very hard to find. • Awesome Full Plate of Giants Advantages -- AC, +20 str covers a lot of the ground from 45 to 90. Nice bonus to damage also. Disadvantages -- No magic/mana+. Not a very wizardly-sounding item. • Awesome Full Plate of Anything else Advantages -- AC of course. Disadvantages -- It's not sorcery or stars or giants. In summary, whatever awesome plate you can find/buy with the highest ac is your best bet here, almost always. Trade offs come in when you have something like Saintly/Stars and find a plain Awesome plate. You would need to weigh the +AC with the loss in other attributes, and that depends a lot on your other equipment. • Dreamflange Advantages -- +1 spell levels, +30 magic, +50 mana, +light radius +50 magic resistance Disadvantages -- Weak damage, can be hard to find. • Civerb's Cudgel Advantages -- - +200% Damage vs. Demons (huge damage) Disadvantages -- -2 to Magic -5 to Dexterity (114 less mana than DF offers) doesn't work on non-demons. • King's Bastard Sword of Haste/Speed Advantages -- Fastest attack, good damage, good +to/hit Disadvantages -- no magic bonus, no resistance bonus, less damage than the CC where you are using it. • Merciless/Ruthless Bastard Sword of Haste/Speed Advantages -- Same or nearly the same damage as a KSOH, but cheaper to buy and repair. Disadvantages -- Missing the to/hit bonus, but since your targets are all stone, that's not a big deal. • Arch-Angel's Staff of Apocalypse Advantages -- +2 spell levels, around 10 charges of apocalypse. Disadvantages -- No +magic/mana, no shield = -ac, no blocking, crappy damage for melee. • Arch-Angel's Staff of Wizardry Advantages -- +2 spell levels, +30 magic. Disadvantages -- Same as AAA, but at least you do get some magic added. Flux's Pick Over all DF is the way to go most of the time. You'll need the ac from your shield, you get the biggest mana bonus of any weapon, and +1 spell level is not bad either. The only times I'd consider switching are on lvl 15 hell/hell if you get Soul Burners, and then for Lazarus' room and lvl 16. The reason of course is that you are going to be dealing with fully immune monsters, and whacking at them with DF is not a real sound strategy, being as we're playing for speed and precision, remember? Of course use your golem liberally (much more strategy below) but even with his help, if your damage is around 55 or 60, you can count the number of hits it will take you to kill 70-110 Soul Burners or Advocates per level. And no speed of haste on that DF either. It would seem that a KSOH is your best bet at this point, but for the lesser known CC. The Civerb's Cudgel is a lowly mace, with only the 1-8 listed damage, but that +200% damage to demons (In hell, v1.07 Diablo, only lava maws are not classified as demons. They are animals.) applies to your over all damage, not just the 1-8 for the mace. Figure that your overall damage is around 65 or 70 with it equipped, and you can see that you are suddenly going to be doing 200, or good warrior damage. Of course your swing rate will be far slower than a warrior, and you have no to/hit bonus with the CC, but since everything you are hitting will be stoned or a barrel anyway, who needs +to/hit? (Not to mention the ac bug helping you out there.) It's also not a bad idea to carry a Dreamflange and maybe a Thinking Cap along with your equipped RC and CC down to lvl 16, hell/hell. Once you get an area cleared out, walk or teleport into new areas, luring as many of the blood knights as possible after you around the corner. Then get set where the advocates aren't shooting you, (line up next to a wall for best accuracy and monster grouping) and lvl 18 fireball like a fiend. Once all or most of the knights have been lured out of an area, it's much easier to switch to your best melee weapon and teleport back in and set to bashing the statues. Your golem will last much longer without knights around also. • Stormshield Advantages -- Good ac (40), fast block, +10 str, Indestructible, easy to find. Disadvantages -- +4 damage, no bonus to magic/mana. • Godly tower shield (of the ages) Advantages -- huge ac, up to (60), ages = indestructible Disadvantages -- No bonus to any stats, no suffix possible besides ages. • Emerald/Obsidian of Absorption/Ages Advantages -- Very nice resistance, avoid some damage or repairs. Disadvantages -- No more than 20 ac can be a problem. • Awesome of Absorption/Ages Advantages -- Decent ac, up to 50, and avoid some damage or repairs. Disadvantages -- Not the most ac you can get, pretty lame suffixes. Shields are rather a pain in terms of what is available. There is a very limited number of useful suffixes possible on them. The basic game limit is of the moon, power, brilliance, etc. Far from the best suffixes, and due to the item creation limits (more info on this and everything else in Jarulf's Guide.) you can't even get those with any of the good prefixes. For example it is impossible to generate an emerald/obsidian/awesome/godly/holy shield of the moon. The suffix "of the moon" has too low an ilvl to be found on the same item with any of those nice prefixes, and since stars, heavens, sorcery, etc are not allowed on shields, you don't have too many choices left. Unfortunately for mages, the best suffixes possible on shields are wolf and tiger, neither of which are of any real use. Still, better an emerald-obsidian/tiger shield than a plain emerald. It might save your life someday with those extra 40-49 hps. Flux's Pick My recommendation for shields is mixed. The ac is a real help, and getting a nice obsidian or emerald one can be great, as it frees up one of your jewelry prefixes for some +mana, but I'm always sort of frustrated by the lack of any really nice ones for mages. I'd recommend either godly for the most ac, or emerald/obsidian for the resistance. Stormshield is a popular choice, but the only thing I really like about it is the shiny gold print, and +10 str. The ac is nice, but can be far outdone by a good godly shield. The fast block is helpful at times, but let me explain something. Fast block doesn't mean you block faster/better. It means that after you block (your success in blocking is largely determined by your dexterity) something, you recover more quickly to become ready to block or do some other action. This is nice in that you can block and then go back on the attack by casting a spell more quickly, but most people think of SS as nice in that you can block several times rapidly. Well that's fine for a warrior (of course they have fast block as a class specific skill already though) or a rogue in melee, but as a mage, you aren't supposed to be getting hit more than once anyway. Check the tactics section coming up next for more on this, but if you are getting surrounded and beat on my mobs with any sort of regularity, you really need to change your tactics, not just your shield. However as with everything, you can't use it if you haven't found it. And godly shields don't grow on trees, except for Wirt-trees. He is the only place you can get a godly or holy shield. Stormshield is a slightly buggy item in terms of its generation, as it is the only unique gothic shield, and also the only unique tower shield. Both use the non-unique gothic shield animation however. So it is found pretty often, as it is 2x the likelihood right there, being both a tower and gothic shield, and also it's ilvl is right in line with most of the mlvl's you encounter in hell. I'd say that SS is the unique I've found the most often in hell, especially in Laz's room with the 3 unique bosses there. And since hell is where expert mages like to play, you are pretty likely to come across one yourself. • Constricting Ring Advantages -- instant max resistance to everything. Disadvantages -- lose points from mana shield constantly. Basically you should be getting your resistance from elsewhere by now, but this might not be such a bad item to carry for recover runs after death. The slow drain of mana isn't a big deal when you have 500 or more. • Obsidian of the Zodiac
Advantages -- Superb resistance and +20 to all is tremendous. Disadvantages -- Good luck finding one.
Advantages -- Great +mana and +20 to all. Disadvantages -- Again, very tough to find.
Advantages -- Great resistance or mana with +30 to magic, easier to find than ob/zod or dragon/zod. Disadvantages -- Mage has tons of magic already. • Dragons or Obsidian of Titans
Advantages -- The great resistance/+mana, and huge (30) +str if you need the str. Disadvantages -- Shame to waste a suffix for just more str. If you really need +30 str, I'd say take a zod and a stars over a titans any day. Flux's Pick So many options on
jewelry. All of the above listed are very difficult to find, with ob/zod
items probably being the hardest to find yet most sought after items in
the game, which takes any discussion of them into the realm of "dream
setups". However, drakes/heavens or ob/wizardry aren't unreasonable goals
at all. If you are more into the artillery mage goal, dragon/wiz is for
you, as maximizing your magic/mana is the biggest goal. However unless you
have an ob helm and shield, (and as RC is the best helm, that is NOT
recommended) you are likely going to need to use at least one jewel for
resistance. Something like drakes/zod, ob/wiz, and dragon/wiz is a very
nice set up, though you might want to throw in another zod item for levels
where you are having to bash fully immune things. Just one zodiac item can
add 5 or 6 to your damage, and if you consider that you will be swinging
20+ times at 80 or 100 monsters per level, (minus what your golem does for
you) that's a very large difference. Plus the zodiac will raise your ac
and to/hit a few points, and if you are using one all the time it takes
you a long way towards the 90 str you need for your armor.
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