Runemage

Template:OrbusVR Class
The **Runemage** is a magic-type damage class in OrbusVR. Runemages use their wand to cast a variety of spells by drawing runes in the air.

## Weapon Interface

A Runemage's weapon interface.

1. Triplicity/Contamination meter: Filled by casting 15 spells successfully.
2. Health: Don't let this drop to 0.
3. Super Ability: Fills by hitting enemies with spells. You can activate your Super by pressing both triggers when the bar is full.
4. Stamina: Dictates how far you can sprint/teleport.

## Abilities

### Spells

Main article: Spells

A Runemage uses their wand to draw spell runes in the air to create projectiles or rays with various effects.

* The spell's base damage will depend on the accuracy of the cast, a perfectly drawn spell can be up to 20% more powerful than a sloppy cast.
* There is no cooldown or mana cost on casting a spell - a Runemage can fire spells as fast as they can draw them, which makes a Mage's damage output mostly dependent on their accuracy and casting speed.
* Spells can be cast without needing to find the rune on the corresponding Spell Pillar.

It takes a lot of practice to get used to the casting system and to be able to do decent damage as a mage, this is the reason why Mage is considered the most time-consuming class to learn. There there can be a variety of reasons why spells don't work. For further help, see here.

### Teleportation

Main article: Teleport (Spell)

The Runemage is able to cast a three-part teleportation ritual, which will consume a Runemage Reagent to create a pedestal with a blue teleport orb. All players will be able to use this orb to teleport to the location specified by the mage performing the ritual.

It is currently possible to teleport to six different Teleport Pillars.

### Super Ability

Pressing both triggers while the yellow Super Ability bar is full will create a spell consisting of a projectile and a beam at the tip of the wand. This spell deals a lot of damage without any additional effects.

* The range of this ability is very limited, a mage needs to stand near the enemy for the attack to hit.
* Like any beam-type spell, adjusting the weapon messes up the direction of the beam.

## Talents

 10
 15
 20
* Affliction: Adds a weakness debuff to the target. Can stack up to twice on every enemy, and weakness stacks are shared between all mages and scoundrels.
* Frostbolt: When a Frost spell hits, you gain a buff that will increase the length of your next DoT from 12 to 15 ticks.
* Fireball: When a Fire spell hits, you cain a buff that increases the damage of your next spell cast (not hit!) by 13.6% (only the initial hit for DoT spells).
 30
Main article: Triplicity and Contamination | **Contamination:** Cast a two-part ritual spell that increases the duration of Runemage DoT effects on targets that are affected by your contamination spell by 50%. Only castable if blue bar is filled up, meaning every 15 successful spell casts.

* Lend a Hand enables you to draw the next spell while still being able to direct the previous spell that is still in the air.
* Shared Streak overwrites Selfish Streak and vice-versa. That makes Selfish Streak the better talent to choose if you are in a group with other mages.
* Runic Speed is currently broken and has no effect at all.
* True Affliction has been nerfed so much that it's not worth choosing over the damage increase and Weakness debuff you get with Affinity.

## End-Game Builds

Main article: Runemage/Tilesets

There are three popular mage builds: the **Fire Mage**, the **Frost-Fire Mage**, and the **Rotation Mage**. The Fireball Mage's goal is to spam Greater Fireballs for maximum damage, while the Rotation Mage uses Fire, Frost and Affliction spells to get the most value out of their talents and tilesets. The Frost-Fire Mage is an in-between build that can use self-proccing tilesets at low casting speeds, but doesn't cast the difficult Greater Affliction spell.

As all builds mostly use the same talents and equipment, and mainly differ in the spells they cast and some of their tilesets. It is easy to change build by switching in a few pieces of equipment with different tilesets on them.

### Recommended Talents

* Lend a Hand: Being able to direct your spells while casting is very valuable, even if this takes a while to get used to.
* Selfish Streak: Gives a bigger boost to damage than Shared Streak, and Shared Streak can even cripple the damage of other mages near you by overwriting their buff.
* Runic Diversity: Even if Fire Mages can't use the boost of this talent in most situations, the alternative is currently broken and doesn't work at all.
* Affinity: The Weakness debuff from Affliction is what makes Rotation Mages viable. Fireball Mages profit from the Fireball damage boost buff too.
* Triplicity: As Contaminate only boosts Mage DoTs, not the DoTs of other classes, and the DoT build of Runemage is not really viable, **Triplicity is the way to go.**

### Fire Mage

Main article: Runemage/Tilesets/Fire Mage

The Greater Fireball spell is a spell that is fast and easy to cast, and does a lot of damage on top. Fireball Mages are well-versed in this spell, being able to cast up to three Greater Fireballs per second.
With the only spell used being Greater Fireball, Fireball Mages need to have a healer at their side to trigger their tileset, or be able to cast at a precise speed that triggers both 3 per second and 2 per second tiles.

### Frost-Fire Mage

Main article: Runemage/Tilesets/Frost-Fire Mage

This build uses a Greater Frostbolt spells every 5-8 Greater Fireballs. A Frost-Fire Mage has a greater damage output at lower casting speeds than a pure Fireball Mage, as they are able to make use of the powerful Iceheart weapon affix and self-proccing tilesets, but is out-DPS'ed by pure Fire Mages at higher casting speeds.

### Rotation Mage

Main article: Runemage/Tilesets/Rotation Mage

To use the whole extent of their Affinity talent, a Rotation Mage uses Greater Fireball, Greater Frostbolt and Greater Affliction spells. This build has the highest potential damage out of all mage builds, as the Greater Affliction used in their rotation not only applies a powerful DoT, but also boosts damage of the whole party by up to 10% by placing Weakness debuffs on the enemy.

There should only be one Rotation Mage in a party at the same time, as there can only be three Affliction stacks and two Weakness stacks on an enemy at once.

## Gear Enhancements

These are the suggested equipment affixes for Runemages. All builds use mostly the same affixes.

**Armor Affixes**

* Projectile Damage
* Crit Damage (Crit Chance works too, but is slightly worse when using potions).

**Weapon Affixes**

* Bleed is the preferred damage affix.
* Iceheart (+5% damage vs enemies with Slow) as a secondary damage affix for Rotation Mages and Frost/Fire Mages.
* Giantkiller (+3% damage vs Bosses) or Charged Strikes (every 10th hit is a guaranteed crit) as a secondary damage affix for pure Fire Mages, but also work well for the other builds.
* Unbending can help with survivability, as the squishiness of the class makes mistakes very punishing.

**Ring Affixes**

* Empowered
* Elite Hunter

## Tips and Tricks

* Adjusting your weapon can help with casting and can prevent a sore wrist, but will mess up the direction of beam-type spells.
* For tips on how get the spells to work, see here.

## Gallery

Orbus Mage Smile and jordaNN 1.pngSmile and jordaNN as Runemages
## Orbus Community Resources

* Leaderboards
* DPS Leaderboards
* Character Armory
* Potato's Map & Boss Timer
* Community Forums
* Mishka's Video Help Guides
* Unofficial Community Discord
* Travellers Hall Discord