by Reaperfan Wed Jul 24, 2013 1:25 pm
Fireball is your best friend and should be your main and most often-used spell as a fire mage.
Fire Spray is alright, but not great (at least for PvE) since it doesn't stun enemies. It's good in PvP as a quick poke spell to keep pressure on though.
Ignite is awesome both in PvE and PvP. More powerful than Fireball for a ridiculously low MP cost a well as having a near instant startup. When forced into close-range fighting this will melt faces (get it? "Melt," because it's hot) and you can use nearly indefinitely without having to spice back up.
Firestorm is basically the same as it is in Dark Souls, albeit with faster startup. Awesome to have against certain bosses, but generally a situational spell.
As for equipment, you're just looking at your standard fare for casters. Monk's Headwraps, Ring of Magical Sharpness/Friend's/Foe's Ring, Kris Blade +5, filling in the rest of the slots with whatever you want. Though I've found Old Ragged Robes and Binded Set are most common for female caster characters, and if you want to Black Turpentine buff your weapon just go with whatever you like upgraded down the Quality path. As to the catalyst choice, it all depends on if you think you can handle the MP shortage of the Insanity Catalyst. Fire spells generally cost alot of MP (at least relative to magical spells), so if you don't want to be spicing all over the place then Wooden Catalyst is your best bet. Pushing a ToB would also work to get the power of the IC without the MP loss, but then you'd have miracles in the mix and that wouldn't be very "Fire Mage" would it?
Stats are pretty easy too. You can basically ignore endurance, pump Magic to 40, Intelligence to at least 36 for maximum spell slots (I'm pretty sure it's 36. But since I can't remember exactly just keep going till you have 6 spell slots
), if you're going for SC then Faith 16, with the rest of your stats going towards your Vitality and Strength or Dexterity to pump up your Turpentine-fodder weapon.
Then again, this is all me thinking of this more as a caster. If you're going for more of a spellsword build with Black Turpentine being your buff then things will be entirely different and you can basically disregard my entire post past the spell usage.