Ashes of Creation Mage Best in Slot and Stat Priority

Please note: If you can afford to, once the Journeyman Scribe station is available, it's highly suggested that you also use Journeyman Enchanting Scrolls to enchant your Level 20 gear, which will greatly boost your stats even further, giving up a minimum of 8 stats on all your gear and weapons. The more you enchant a specific item, the more expensive it gets as you upgrade it. This also comes with a chance for the item to be destroyed after you've enchanted it 8 times, so be careful!

The items listed above showcases some of the best gear options for the general Mages. However, based on your overall gameplay, there may be other items that you may prefer. For example, I PvP a lot, so instead of wearing the light armor pieces with Magical Power and Intellect, I'll sacrifice that Magical Power to put some heavy gear on, since it comes with so much armor and even some Constitution, which gives you a bigger health pool. This is one of the reasons you will see some pieces with no Magical Power on it and only Con and Max Health.

The other reason is because Intrepid recently changed the gear and how the stats work. Stats now have Deminishing Returns (DRs). This means the more you stack of one stat, the less rating you get from it. For example, we love Magical Power and in the past would stack it and Intellect. Intellect no longer gives 3 Magical Power, and instead gives a few Magical Power RATING, which is much lower. So, due to that, it's highly suggested to not go any higher than 200-250 Magical Power, as those are the breakpoints for when you'll be able to feel the DR hit on Magical Power.

For that reason, I like to sit at about 230 Magical Power and then go either Critical Strike Chance or, if you plan to PvP a lot, stack Health. I personally go a middle ground of both, so I have close to 5k Health, with my 230 Magical Power, then I aim to slam the rest into Critical Strike Chance. Note that while the other stats like Magical Penetration, Magical Critical Power and Magical Accuracy, those are valued much lower than Magical Power and Magical Crit Chance.

Another massive changes Intrepid made was to the rarities. Drastically nerfing the higher raririties in the gear. For this reason we only suggested Uncommon on all the Armor pieces and Legendary on your Weapons. Reasoning is the gain from Uncommon to Legendary on the armor is minor in comparison to the dramatic gains you get from a Legendary Weapon. I urge you to go broke and spend all the time needed to craft your weapons at Legendary when the Journeyman Stations are available.

Before we get into the gearing, we need to talk about your stats and stat priority. Just like all MMORPG's, stats are very important and you’ll find stats on gear, as well as some consumables that you can use that can boost your stats. There will also be tattoo system implented later on that will also boost your stats.

There’s six primary or attribute stats, and each point added to this main stat will boost additional stats you have that they are calling Waterfall stats. Intellect is our main stat and we want this on most, if not all of our gear since Intellect is the only main stat that gives Mages Magical Power. The stat priority is as follows:

1. Intellect – Each point of Intellect gives you 3 Magical Power Rating, 2 Magic Critical Power Rating, 2 Magical Accuracy Rating, 1 Magic Block Mit Rating and 1 Magic Disable Duration Rating. Intellect should be prioritized above anything else.
2. Wisdom – Each point gives you 2 Magical Cast Speed Rating, 2 Magical Penetration Rating, 2 Magical Critical Chance Rating, 2 Magical Evasion Rating and 1 Magical Disable Rating. Still good for Mage, but prioritized after Intellect.
3. Mentality – Far less important than Intellect and Wisdom. Each point gives you 1 Max Mana, 2 Magical Resist, 2 Magical Crit Avoidance Rating, 1 Magical Crit Mitigation Rating, 1 Magical Disable Rating and 1 Magical Disable Reduction Rating.
4. Constitution – The main stat for PvP. This is a defensive stat that will help make you much tanker. It's suggested to have 2-3 pieces of tanky gear on if you plan to seriously PvP. Each point gives you 1 Max Health, 2 Armor, 2 Physical Crit Avoidance Rating, 1 Physical Disable Evasion Rating, 1 Physical Disable Evasion Rating and 1 Physical Disable Reduction Rating Rating.
5. Strength and Dexterity – These are both Melee stats that will increase your physical damage. You never need to worry about these two stats. The only time I had a piece with Strength or Dexterity on it, was when I didn’t have any bracers at all, so I used a Strength bracer just because it has some Armor on it.

As a Mage your stat priority is Intellect, then Wisdom, then Mentality, then Constitution for PvP, stacking more tanky stats if you plan to be serious about PvP. At some point you’ll find or craft enough gear and you’ll be able to keep additional sets in your bag. It’s nice to keep a few pieces of gear with some Constitution on it, because it brings Health, armor and some Physical Crit avoidance.

There is a ton of options for armor and weapons to choose from; in Ashes of Creation, any Archetype can wear any piece of gear. That means you can wear light armor, with some heavy armor and if you really wanted to you can even use daggers, spears, huge two handed greatswords, bows and more. This is because almost every weapon in the game can roll either Physical Power or Magical Power. So if you don't see your favorite weapon on the Best in Slot list, don't worry! Just pick one that you like! They're all so good and on par with each other, plus some might be easier to find or cheaper to craft, so keep an eye out! Also worth mentioning that both the Short and Long Spellbows Weapon Tree get Wound baseline. Wound makes the target take decreased healing, which is very good for PvP.

With that being said, leveling your Artisans is incredibly important. Ashes of Creation rewards you for gathering, processing and crafting by making sure all of your best in slot gear can be crafted. This is huge because all this gear can actually drop from certain enemies, however it will almost always drop at a Common or Uncommon quality, with an EXTREMELY low chance to drop at a higher quality. However, if you craft the piece of armor or weapon using higher quality materials, then that piece of gear will be a higher quality, offering it more stats than it would otherwise have. The qualities and their colors, alongside an example, are listed below.

• Common – White ( Copper Wand)
• Uncommon – Green ( Copper Wand)
• Rare – Blue ( Copper Wand)
• Heroic – Yellow ( Copper Wand)
• Epic – Purple ( Copper Wand)
• Legendary – Orange ( Copper Wand)