Mage Solo AOE'ing - Revisited (Mover Pulling Vs. Speed Scrolls)

Alright young Mage, so you just hit 60 and you want to maximize your time by solo AOE'ing right?  You want to use that brand new Frost Nova to crush your foes beneath a mountain of ice, right?  But, you're still kinda noobish and are unsure how to best accomplish this....  well I have two options for you.



Just as a little background, for purposes of this instructional video and write up, the Mage i'm using is my level 67 Enchanter.  She's a mostly pure INT build, 75 INT, 7 DEX at the moment.  She does have decent +9 gear and a +10 weapon.  She is not using any SparkCash items of any kind aside from a mover, the Stinger.



For a more in-depth write up of how to do this technique, please go to my original posting about this located here:  Mage Technique: Solo AOE.

This short tutorial has more to do with your choice of when to continue using a Mover, Vs. when to just stick it out with Speed Scrolls.  So why would you use one technique over the other?  The answer has mostly to do with defense.

 If you've already viewed the video, you noticed that I did the Mover Pull technique naked.  The only thing equipped on my Mage was her +10 Staff, she did have scrolls on though.  But with a meager 308 DEF and 324 EVA naked, I'm sure most mages can top that in whatever gear you're using, and then add to the fact that you can scroll over your base DEF, and well, there's not much excuse why you can't do this technique on your own.  Fully equipped, my Mage has 888 DEF and 602 EVA, big difference.

What that all means is, if you're in an area far above your level, or somewhere where mobs hit extremely hard because of your lack of DEF, than chances are, the Mover Pull should be your technique of choice to employ.

One thing you do need to learn is how to pull in groups.  What I mean by this is you need to lump all of your mobs together as much as possible.  This eliminates most straight-line pulls.  At some point, you're going to have to loop back around to get your mob together tight.  If you leave them with a lot of distance between your first and last mob, you'll run into problems.  You'll either be unable to re-mount because the first mob is on you too quickly, you'll lose mobs when you do re-mount as they may run back to their spawn points, or it will just be one messy looking pull that will take additional time to clean up.  Lumping them all together ensures that all mobs get hit with the maximum amount of damage and that life saving debuff.  Also while pulling, it's important to try to minimize the hits you take along the way.  This not only helps you survive and conserve stones/pots, but it maximizes the number of mobs you pull.  Oftentimes if you zoom by a mob and it hits you once, it will pause and then lose aggro on you leaving that mob behind.  That's not what you want to see.

In the video, you'll notice that the Speed Scroll pull is a cleaner, more effective way to AOE.  However, it does require you to take more hits because you won't remount.  You will instead simply use the speed bonus from the scroll to increase the distance between you and your mobs while you await Nova's CD.  Running around your AOE circle increases the likelihood that all of your mobs will get stuck with the speed debuff while also buying you some time for your skill to cool.  Once it's nearly cooled, start running straight out (safely, don't run into more mobs if you can help it), get enough distance and drop another Nova on them.  From there, you can judge whether you can finish them off with an Inferno (if you have it) or you can charge in with Burst to finish them off.  It does take practice and more or less knowing what kind of damage both you and the mobs can take.