[3.14] Odif's Old Obsolete Skel Mage Guide, New one is in a new thread

to have is better than to need

Can someone please explain to me why: "Do NOT get + fire or cold damage to spells on your wands, it will mess up EE..." does lightning also cannot be used or only cold/fire? and and how does this now relate to the new patch in which they state that:
• Fixed a bug where Skeletal Mages were dealing far less damage with Cold and Fire Projectiles, compared to Lightning Projectiles. They now all have the same average damage (equal to the average of all of the previous base damage).
• Fixed a bug where Skeletal Mages' Cold and Lightning Projectiles could not deal a Critical Hit.
Was the EE and not use +cold/fire to spells related to this earlier bug or is it unrelated. I am a fairly new player so if something is not clear to me e.g. on the wiki, I ask. Please be understanding ;)

Sure, when YOU cast elemental damage, it triggers EE.
Lightning is a great example because there are so many good skills to cast it with.
So Lightning procs EE, I used arc last league just because I love it, now the monsters get a +25 to lightning resistance and a -50 res to fire and cold. If you had fire or cold or both added to YOUR spell casting it would buff the enemies for those too. so lightning fire= +25 to lightning and fire, lightning fire and cold = +25 to all and an actual nerf to you.
EE does not care what your minions are doing, it only applies to your casts.
This means when the enemies have -50 fire and cold, your mages can really light them up! Your lightning guys will do fine too, just not as much because enemies will have +25 to lightning.

NOW take that and curse them with elemental weakeness and at gem level 20 you get: Fire -89% Cold -89% and lightning -24%, see you are STILL winning and winning BIG! This is like a 300% damage increase for your mages and resistances can go negative for even MORE damage ;) Increase is good in POE MORE is BETTER!

EE is a free curse (it isn't but IT IS), well it costs 1 point, but you're there anyways.

Edit, adding on: The fix was for the weaker mages, the were nerfed behind the scenes. With this removal they should be doing even more damage now! Exciting, if I wasn't playing Reaper I'd be here :)

"

GrunkleBob wrote:

Sure, when YOU cast elemental damage, it triggers EE.
Lightning is a great example because there are so many good skills to cast it with.
So Lightning procs EE, I used arc last league just because I love it, now the monsters get a +25 to lightning resistance and a -50 res to fire and cold. If you had fire or cold or both added to YOUR spell casting it would buff the enemies for those too. so lightning fire= +25 to lightning and fire, lightning fire and cold = +25 to all and an actual nerf to you.
EE does not care what your minions are doing, it only applies to your casts.
This means when the enemies have -50 fire and cold, your mages can really light them up! Your lightning guys will do fine too, just not as much because enemies will have +25 to lightning.

EE is a free curse (it isn't but IT IS), well it costs 1 point, but you're there anyways.

Edit, adding on: The fix was for the weaker mages, the were nerfed behind the scenes. With this removal they should be doing even more damage now! Exciting, if I wasn't playing Reaper I'd be here :)

ah, I see, thank you very much ;)

No Problem, I added a little more talking about elemental weakness, the real curse we use :)

Good luck witch!

No Problem, I added a little more talking about elemental weakness, the real curse we use :)

Good luck witch!

Ohhhhhhh now I get it, I just looked at my POB from last league, unless I missed something I lost 60% damage. Yeah this build ain't what it was.
My buddy is currently running it and we are at about Tier5 maps, he just put in pierce and it's noticeable. So we will see, should still do red maps easy enough. I would say make specters carnage apes, you'll need the frenzy damage boost!

Been toying around the build, as I wasn't too satisfied about power/frenzy spectres as they spam theire ability in the void bc we recast skele alot

I've been trying to add some kins of mage spectre to the mix for DPS, so we had to find a spectre that scale well with all stuff we already have


- Tryed extensively Frost auto scout
In the end they're not that bad: scales decently, don't die and add a good barrage fire on packs
Pierce for skele and LMP for frost auto scout was the best i found
Overall, not crazy

- Black schythe arbalist: not good scaling, bad idea

- Tryed Baranite preacher: Oh boy!
So there ability is bonkers with gmp at cleaning packs
They scale damage decently well with existing set up

They are spectacular with skeleton mage because they shine where skeleton are weak (i only use pierce no lmp/gmp): skeleton mage are not very good at : clearing expedition, clearing legion (if you played you know what i mean), because they kind of " panic " and shoot everywhere
Baranites destroys that content!!

So in the end i feel like they complete each other well



Downside is: clutter (omg)
Have to use convocation also for good positionning, mandatory! Feels super good to play

On a side note: a mistake we all make (imo) is taking a brand for EE: then you can't cast sniper's mark on a middle of a pack (because brand takes it away), it's abs crazy OP. Don't need second curse for it to work

MIND TO CLARIFY THE BRAND AND THE EE PART PLIS (LAS PART OF THE POST)

Best dps trick to beat down tuff packs (like those from expedition), you elemental weakness + EE the pack (with your non brand - non hitting over time spell), then you put sniper's mark on the middle man.

This move is not possible with brand, because brand are auto casting themselves once you casted it so snipe's mark would be insta depleted (by the brand)

Hope this help

And what do u recommend to apply EE and the curse, instead the brand? ARC FF? Ty for the reply bro