Rift Mage Soul Tree Builds Guide

In this article, I will be revealing some of the best Rift Mage leveling builds as well as some alternate builds you can use for things like running dungeons, dealing damage, and even healing. While some could be literally dominating, some might just not even make sense. This Rift Mage builds guide explores possible combinations for selecting souls for both solo and group or team play.

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Solo Play Builds
3. Group Play Builds
4. Leveling Builds
5. DPS Builds
6. Healing Builds
7. Other Builds

Introduction

In Rift you will be selecting three souls which will be the basis for all of your character’s abilities, generally you will have one main soul and two other souls which will mainly be used for the starter abilities they give. In this guide I will be discussing the Mage souls, what they do, and which ones I suggest that you should use.

Mage is definitely a DPS based class, but you do have the option of getting some healing in there as well with the Chloromancer soul, which can be used to effectively heal lower level instances. Another cool thing about the mage is that it has two different souls that have pets, the Elementalist and the Necromancer. The souls that are going to dish out the most mage-based damage are the Pyromancer, Warlock, and Stormcaller. There is also a crowd control based soul which is the Dominator, and the Archon is the buff/debuff soul.

As with any other class you’ll want to decide before you pick your souls whether or not you’ll be doing a lot of solo gameplay or grouping. These can be changed later on of course or even whenever you decide to switch it up as you’re able to purchase up to four roles which allow you to use different souls in each.

Solo Play Builds

With soloing you’ll want to go with Necromancer as your main soul, the Skeletal Horror makes for a great tanking pet and you’re also able to heal it which makes this a really fast and easy way to level.

As for your off-souls you’ll want to pick up Chloromancer which has a debuff that gives you a chance to heal on hit right away, as well as a 2 second cast heal later on which can be specced for instant cast.

The best option for your third soul with this combination is Dominator which you can use to CC targets for situations where you pull too many or are trying to get out of a tough spot without dying.

It should be noted that every mage should have a role with Chloromancer for the resurrection in case you’re the only one able to Soul Walk and then you’ll be able to resurrect dead group members.

Group Play Builds

Now for the grouping Rift Mage builds, there two routes you can go with here at a lower level. First of all is obviously the DPS, they are all highly effective for doing damage in groups excluding chloromancer of course, however, the top would be using Pyromancer as your main soul with Warlock and Necromancer as your off-souls. The 0pt ability to get a pet with Necromancer is a great help to your damage as your pet is always there constantly doing it’s own thing.

The other way you could go with a mage is healing as mentioned earlier, for this you will need to use chloromancer as your main soul. It’s takes a bit of research and getting used to to be an effective Chloromancer healer, you’ll want to keep Radiant Spores up on preferably the tank’s target as it gives them a chance to heal on hit. Bloom is the main healing spell you’ll be using, when spec’d it is instant cast and heals for quite a generous amount, but does have a few second cooldown, but it hardly uses any mana which is very nice. You also have an AoE heal which hogs up a lot of mana and shouldn’t be used if only one or two people are getting low unless everything else is on cooldown.

Leveling Builds

Out of all the Mage builds available in Rift Planes of Telara, I think the most effective Rift Mage leveling build is the Necromancer / Warlock / Dominator combo. I discussed this at length in the Rift Mage leveling guide, so you should check out that article and the guide for more information on that soul combination.

However, if you do not want to use that build, I also consider the Elementalist (main), Chloromancer or Warlock (second soul), and Dominator (third soul) to be a good combo as well.

Basically your Elementalist spec will give you a solid pet and a lot of spell damage. However, how you work your second soul is up to you.

Chloromancer would give you a lot of self-healing power without much extra damage whereas Warlock would give you some self-heals but also increase your damage significantly. If you feel like you are dying a lot, consider Chloromancer. If you are doing great but want more damage go with Warlock.

Your third soul as a Mage should almost always be Dominator. Transmogrify and Neural Prod are powerful spells which require no skill points investment; it only is natural to pick these abilities up by choosing Dominator as your third soul.

DPS Builds

If you want to max out your damage (and have a lot of burst damage), you will want to spec Pyromancer and Elementalist. You will want to put at least 32 points in each tree, maxing out these key talents:

Pyromancer: Ignition, Improved Fireball, Fiery Concentration, Combust, Flicker, Improved Flame Bolt, Burning Bright, Fire Storm, Wildfire, Pyromancer’s Armor, Backdraft, Improved Ground of Power, and Heat Wave.

Elementalist: Biting Cold, Ice Shield, Exposure, Improved Exposure, Tempest, Force of Nature, Greater Elemental Affinity, Fiery Assault, Synergize, Intensify Elements.

Theoretically, you could get Archon as a third soul and add 5 points into Soul Fire, but if the game allows it, I think grabbing both Elementalist and Pyromancer 31 point talents is ideal.

What you get with this build is all the powerful fire damage talents of Pyromancer. Your main method of dealing damage will be with the Pyromancer’s Fire spells.

However, with Elementalist you also get a lot of great +damage talents like Exposure and Improved Exposure (combine for +10% elemental spell damage for the whole group), Tempest (which stacks wonderfully with the Pyromancer’s naturally high crit-rate), and Intensify Elements, which is a massive damage booster.

You also get mana regen abilities with Elementalist. You also get the benefits of having a high-powered pet that can dish out a lot of damage. Your damage will increase more noticeably by adding the Elementalist’s powerful pet rather than going 51 points in Pyromancer (which is a waste of points).

For your third soul, remember that Dominator is nearly always the best for any of the Rift Mage builds; you pick up a few good abilities without any skill point investment.

Healing Builds

While healing may not be your reason for selecting a Mage, every Mage should have one good healing Rift Mage Build as one of their off-specs in case they ever have to heal.

Thanks to the “role” system, once you unlock alternate roles (purchase from trainer), you can swap freely between up  to 4 roles. Properly talented (and played) the Chloromancer dishes out great damage and healing.

Chloromancer truly is an incredibly strong soul. A Chloromancer with good skills should be able to heal an entire small-group dungeon (perhaps not until higher levels) and still dish out nearly as much damage as a normal caster.

They also can dish out plenty of healing to help keep up the melee group in raids, all while dealing damage like a normal caster. You actually have few direct heals but rather your spells deal damage. Definitely get this as an off-spec and your allies will thank you for it.

Chloromancer is one of the few souls where nearly every skill really shines. I recommend maxing out Chloromancer for those who want to heal, grabbing every talent in full.

For your second soul, I recommend getting Elementalist, and placing your remaining 15 points in it: 5/5 Biting Cold, 1/1 Ice Shield, 4/5 Elemental Link, and 5/5 Tempest.

Note: If you do not find yourself using the 51 point Chloromancer ability, you can always pull 6 points out of Raised in Nature and Unleashed Abandon. You can then put them into Exposure and Improved Exposure. This would be useful to have for groups with other Mages.

Other Builds

While not previously mentioned, I suspect many raid groups will have an Archon (or at least an Archon/Chloromancer hybrid). Additionally, a well-played Dominator will go far in PvP.

The only soul that does not have a well-defined role in my opinion is Stormcaller. It definitely is outright weaker than Elementalist or Pyromancer when it comes to damage output and soloing power.

Stormcaller does have a lot of escapes and snares however; it is possible that a Dominator/Stormcaller hybrid will be quite effective at group PvP or kiting large amounts of enemies (such as during Invasion events). Time will tell.

–

As you can see here, Mages have different options based on whether they are looking for the best Rift Mage leveling builds, best Rift Mage damage builds, or best Rift Mage healing builds. You can also find several example mage builds with recommendations here, as well as discuss them or add your own. Additionally you can get tens of different builds and recommendations in this guide.

It seems that the Elementalist finds its way into a lot of builds (as it is a great spec), whereas the Necromancer and Warlock are great for solo play and leveling. The Chloromancer is also very strong and should not be overlooked.