Mage

Alpha-2 Mage Chain Lightning arcing around an environmental obstacle.^[1]

You saw there that I ice bolted to apply stacks of chill. I Then followed up with my Elemental Empowerment attacks that added additional chill stacks, which created the frozen condition on the target they couldn't move; and then before that frozen conditions subsided I used my Arc Lightning in order to cause the Shattered effect.^[2] – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 Melee Mage using a Greatsword weapon combo with class abilities.^[3]

Different weapons have different synergies with class abilities, which just introduces that extra level of depth. It's like, how can I maximize the effect of this... I'm trading in this case my ranged potential for the ability to apply these status effects in a more AoE regard, which makes Greatsword a lot better for dealing with packs than the wand; and sometimes you'll even be able to use either one based on the situation. We allow players to swap their weapons based on what they are coming up against and it creates a lot of answers to different situations if you have the tools for it.^[4] – Tradd Thompson

Mage is an archetype in Ashes of Creation.^[5]^[6]

Mages are able to combine skills from different elements, along with non-elemental spells and weapon attacks to produce powerful synergies and combos.^[2]
- Players can focus exclusively on a single element, but this will reduce their ability to benefit from synergies and combos between different elements.^[7]

Passive essence is converted into useful forms and patterns under their direction, which can then take the shape of nearly anything imaginable! Mages can bend space, summon light, or set the very air ablaze – applying force in all its rawness, or in any shade of their elemental fury.^[5]

Mages tend to have the most direct relationship with The Essence compared to others.^[5]

Mages tend to have the most direct relationship with essence compared to others, and they manage that bond with a singular will... As a Mage’s connection to essence develops further, their power will continue to grow, unfold, and take shape.^[5]

Mage classes

Class	Primary	Secondary
Acolyte	Mage	Cleric
Archwizard	Mage	Mage
Battle Mage	Mage	Fighter
Shadow Caster	Mage	Rogue
Sorcerer	Mage	Bard
Spellhunter	Mage	Ranger
Spellstone	Mage	Tank
Warlock	Mage	Summoner

Skills/abilities

Mage combat abilities

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

Skill	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Arcane Empowerment	Temporarily dramatically increased cast time while active. Consume all spell charges for increased duration per charge consumed. Spell charges are generated whenever you cast an offensive mage spell while not under the effects of Arcane Empowerment. Each cast generates 1 charge, up to a maximum of 10 charges.^[8]	-	-
Arcane Volley	Fires a volley of arcane missiles at your target, dealing arcane damage with each hit.^[9]^[10]	-	-
Ball Lightning	Creates a large ball of highly charged electricity that travels slowly forward, dealing rapid periodic lightning damage to enemies it overlaps with and applying an Electrified stack to targets with each hit.^[11]^[12]	-	-
Black Hole	Summon a black hole at the target location that reduces movement speed of enemies in the area.^[13]^[14]^[15]	Increased duration.^[13]^[16]	Explodes for area damage upon expiration.^[13]^[16]
Blink	Instantly teleport a set distance in the direction you are moving.^[17]^[18]	-	-
Blizzard	Channel a massive blizzard around you, raining a barrage of hail shards upon your enemies while channeling. Each shard impact deals ice damage in a small area around it. All enemies in the blizzard also accumulate a stack of Chilled periodically. Activate the ability again to end the channel early.^[19]^[20]	-	-
Chain Lightning	Release a powerful streak of lightning that hits your primary target and then chains outward to all nearby enemies from that target, dealing lightning damage and applying 3 stacks of Electrified to each target hit.^[21]^[22]^[23]	-	-
Cone of Cold	Blasts a cone of cold in front of the caster, dealing ice damage and applying a stack of Chilled to each enemy hit. The blast also leaves behind a field of ice mines that explode on proximity contact, causing additional ice damage and Chilled stacks to nearby enemies.^[24]^[25]	-	-
Drain Essence	Drain your target for damage over time, and gain return mana to yourself over the duration.^[26]^[14]^[27]	Heals you over the duration.^[26]^[5]	Reduced cooldown.^[26]^[5]
Elemental Empowerment	Whenever you cast an elemental spell, your weapon attacks deal additional damage of that spell's element and apply a stack of the corresponding elemental status effects to targets hit. Casting a spell of a different element switches this effect to the new element.^[28]^[29]	-	-
Fireball	Instantly hurl a ball of fire toward your target, dealing fire damage and applying one stack of Burning to target on impact.^[30]	-	-
Fissure	Calls forth a series of jagged spikes of earth in a line in front of the caster, dealing earth damage and applying two stacks of Earthen to each enemy hit along its path, and then launching them in the air.^[31]	-	-
Frostbolt	Launch a bolt of frost towards your target, dealing ice damage and applying two Chilled stacks to the target on impact.^[32]^[33]	-	-
Gift of the Magi	Restores mana upfront, plus an additional amount over time, to you and a friendly target.^[34]^[14]^[35]^[36]	Increased duration.^[34]^[35]^[5]	Increased initial amount restored.^[34]^[35]^[5]
Lava Storm	Creates a field of lava at the selected location. Deals area damage over time.^[14]^[37]^[38]	Increased damage. Increased duration.^[37]^[5]	Increased damage. Increased duration.^[37]^[5]
Lightning Strike	Call down a bolt of lightning upon your target, dealing lightning damage and applying two stack of Electrified to the target.^[39]^[40]	-	-
Magma Field	Erupts the earth at target location, forming a boiling pool of lava that deals fire damage to enemies per tick while periodically applying a stack of Burning to enemies within the area.^[41]	-	-
Meteor	Conjures a massive flaming rock before sending it hurling toward target location. Upon impact, it deals major fire damage while knocking foes flying, and then continues to roll forward for its remaining distance, dealing additional fire damage while applying stacks of Burning to enemies along its path.^[42]	-	-
Meteor Storm	Summons forth a Meteor Storm, dropping 3 meteors in the target location.^[43]^[14]^[44]	Adds an extra meteor.^[43]^[5]	Adds an extra meteor.^[43]^[5]
Prismatic Beam	Spawns a giant prismatic beam of energy that can be aimed around you. Deals large damage to enemy targets.^[45]^[14]^[46]	Increased damage.^[45]^[47]	Snares hit targets.^[45]^[48]^[47]
Shell	Create a protective magical shell around yourself that absorbs a large amount of damage before breaking.^[49]^[50]	-	-
Slumber	Applies the sleeping condition to targets affected within a small area around the primary target, rendering them unable to move or take any action. Any damage dealt to a sleeping target will break the effect.^[51]^[52]	-	-
Thundershock	Shoots forward a beam of lightning that damages enemies in a line in front of you.^[53]^[14]^[54]	Increased damage.^[53]^[55]	Now knocks down hit targets.^[53]^[55]

Mage passive abilities

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Attack Damage		Increases attack damage by 5.^[56]
Cooldown Reduction		Reduce all ability cooldowns by 5%.^[56]
Critical Hit Damage		Increase the damage and healing bonus from critical hits by 20%.^[56]
Critical Hit Rate		Increase the chance for damage and healing abilities to critically hit by 5%.^[56]
Defense Mitigation		Increase defense mitigation by 4.^[56]
Disable Chance		Increase chance to disable by 15%.^[56]
Health Regeneration		Generate an additional 1.5% of your maximum health per second.^[56]
Mana Regeneration		Generate an additional 1% of your maximum mana per second.^[56]
Maximum Health		Increase maximum health by 75.^[56]
Movement Speed		Increase movement speed by 5%.^[56]

Elements

There are elements (such as Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Electrical) in Ashes of Creation each with their own resistances.^[31]^[57]^[57]^[58]^[59]^[60]

Other elemental influences may include Darkness, Light and Planar.^[60] The Air Strike ability has a nature based root.^[61]

The Mage archetype offers four elemental schools as augments to a character's primary skills.^[58]

Elements may have more influence in certain seasons and climates. For example, frost abilities may be stronger in winter. This affects both PvE and PvP.^[62]^[63]

There may be ley lines and strong magical places in the world that change or alter the way spells work.^[64]

We've discussed a little bit about how the seasons and biomes will react with different types of skills. Like if you have a fireball and it's summer it might be a little bit different. If it's winter and you have a frost ability it might be different.^[63] – Steven Sharif

Mage augments

Mages will offer four magical schools of augmentation, such as teleportation, fire, frost, and lightning (electrical).^[58]^[65]^[60]

Say for instance, I am a Ranger that has a Charge bolt ability as my primary active skill and I've chosen Mage as my secondary and applied the elemental to it. I now have a Frost charge bolt, and if I fire that frostbolt and hit a target, they may be freezing for a period of time as a debuff and that might slow their speed. If a wizard applies a nuke on a target and that nuke is a frost-based nuke, those two stacking elements might then either further snare (slow the target) or paralyze and freeze the target. So, there are combination out effects that build up: A primary, secondary and some ancillary effect occurs when those are combined.^[60] – Steven Sharif

There's going to be four schools of augmentation for each archetype. One of the schools for the mage is the teleport school. You can take that teleport augment, apply it to your charge skill: now instead of charging x distance over time you're going to immediately teleport to the target dealing x damage and a condition modifier. If you were to apply the elemental school to your class ability you would then instead you would charge x distance; upon reaching target you would set the target ablaze if it's fire or you would electrocute them and deal with damage over time.^[58] – Steven Sharif

Spellbooks

Spellbook 3D render.^[66]

Spellbooks are a type of ranged weapon in Ashes of Creation.^[67]^[68]

When we were creating the book we have for Alpha-0, one the ideas floating around was to have a large tome with a chain that held the tome; and you could swing the tome to hit your targets as a melee book. Whether or not that comes to fruition we will see, but it was an idea on the sketchboard.^[69] – Steven Sharif