Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
Portal Knights Mage Build – Talents, Skills & Equipment
With our Portal Knights mage build providing you a guide to allocating your attributes, skills and equipment you’ll be able to beat the game and even fight the hard mode bosses with your mage class. With the mage being one of the base game classes that specialises in magic they specialise in being able to abuse the elemental weaknesses of their enemies which is key to maximising damage output. While this requires them to use more diverse mage weapons and mage spells than most other classes they are still a capable solo player or party contributor option.
With your magical wand or staff in hand the mage is well equipped to deal with all Portal Knights content and is a specialist at spamming mana heavy spells which is a unique playstyle compared to the ranger and warrior although is generally a harder class to play successfully. With a lower health pool the mage also needs to use careful positioning and timing when fighting the more difficult bosses as they often only are able to survive a single hit. Specialising in wand, staff and scythe weapons some in the Portal Knights community have also used a mage scythe build that transforms you into a battle mage and while a fun alternative build option to experiment with is unlikely to be your first choice given the advanced playstyle. For those wanting to try this scythe build though you’ll also find some of the basic details of that playstyle discussed throughout this best mage build guide.
Portal Knights Mage Build Attributes
The mage has the primary attributes of intelligence and wisdom in Portal Knights which increase your spell damage and mana pool respectively. When building your standard mage you’ll want to place all your points into intelligence to maximise your damage output while reserving points for constitution to give you a small boost to your health pool that gives you some important breathing room in harder battles. The level will depend on your preferences with a good initial amount being 20 points and even up to 40 points although every constitution point will lower your damage output. While a larger mana pool sounds like it provides useful utility in practice your mana needs can be easily met by equipment and potions.
For those that want to experiment with a Portal Knights mage scythe build you’ll want to prioritise strength as this improves your melee damage with the scythe weapon archetype.
Portal Knights Mage Build Talents
Like other Portal Knights class options the mage has some flexibility in their build depending on how far you have progressed and the content you are facing which are all detailed below. Most of these decisions come down to the balance of damage, survivability and utility that you are looking to achieve based on your playstyle. If you want an easy to follow option as a default allocation for a mage build then use the following:
Frost Armour > Master of Elements > Spell Crush > Mana Thief > Magic Armour > Blood Magic
For a detailed breakdown of your options and when to select each for your mage refer to the below:
Level 2 Talents
Level 2 talents for the mage are based on your choice of weapon and should be regularly swapped to reflect your currently equipped weapon. Generally this will be wand or staff unless you are going for an advanced experimental scythe build.
Level 5 Talents
- Mana Shield: Mana shield can be an okay talent to select early on during your Portal Knights adventure as it can reduce the damage you take to health when you have less potions or other methods to restore your health available. Later game though when you need mana to cast spells frost armour is a better option provided you can survive without having mana shield absorb damage. For hard mode bosses in particular this will come down to how much constitution you have decided to invest.
- Frost Armour: A reliable slow on enemies that hit you with melee attacks which can sometimes be unavoidable during boss fights and other engagements. As noted above this talent also has the benefit of keeping your mana pool for spell casting rather than absorbing damage but generally won’t be your fist choice as you should be aiming not to get hit with melee attacks as a mage.
Level 10 Talents
- Master of Elements: A huge source of damage for the mage that makes this the clear choice to select within this tier.
- Transcendence: Not a useful talent as there are other ways to restore mana and you are severely hurting your damage if you don’t use master of elements.
Level 15 Talents
- Spell Rush: A strong reduction in spell cooldown which can be a good option when you start using spells regularly and don’t have any critical strike modifiers on your gear to help reduce your spell cooldowns through other means.
- Spell Crush: The best option once you acquire critical strike modifiers like mana strike and spell slinger that turn the guaranteed critical hit into mana or allow you to reset spell cooldowns to chain spells together for greater overall damage.
Level 20 Talents
- Meditation: While all of the talents in this tier focus on providing methods to regenerate mana it’s unlikely that you’ll stand still for longer than 5 seconds in most battles that makes the increased regeneration lacking compared to other options. It can be an option when clearing large content like dungeons though which allow you to stop between monster fights though.
- Summoning of the Orbs: Similar to meditation this talent relies on having enemies around you to defeat to acquire the mana which isn’t always possible depending on the content. If you have the ability to rest between fights meditation is easier to use and control than this option.
- Mana Thief: The most reliable source of mana from this tier as its effective against regular monsters and bosses and doesn’t require a playstyle adjustment like your other two options above.
Level 25 Talents
- Magic Armour: Given a mage will always seek to fight from range spell damage is likely to be the bulk of damage that you take to your health pool. Being able to reduce this by 30% is a massive advantage and your best option as it is always active.
- Impact Armour: As noted above a mage should be avoiding melee range at all times so the additional armour is generally not going to be an important factor. This option also has the negative of only activating after defeating an enemy with a short duration.
- Refreshment: Boosts mana received although players have ample other methods to maintain their mana levels that make it not worth giving up the spell damage reduction in this talent tier.
Level 30 Talents
- Arcane Concentration: If you are completing content that lets you easily keep a 10 metre distance at all times then this can be a good investment. This will generally be the case when you are grinding lower level content for resources or events and is a good option to boost your damage further when doing this that might even be the difference you need to one hit monsters with your spells.
- Illusion: Every class has the get out of a jail free card in Portal Knights and this is the mage variant. If you feel more comfortable in a boss fight with this equipped then by all means use it but you’ll likely have better survivability with blood magic below.
- Blood Magic: A great survival and utility talent that makes it the stand out within this tier and provides you a regular source of health gain based on the damage you deal.
Portal Knights Mage Build Skills
The mage uses the greatest range of spells in Portal Knights due to their large mana pool and talents that buff spell damage beyond their base values. While there are some clear best skills to equip having a broad range in your inventory to adjust to the element type you are facing is also important. This makes practically every spell a viable option against the right enemy and includes heal, lightning, planetary strike, fireball, light bomb and frost storm. The notable skills of the build are noted below that are useful against all enemies regardless of element:
- War Cry: A boost to damage when playing solo that is a simple to use damage boost. When in a party you should let the person with the highest strength stat cast this as that improves its effectiveness.
- Poison Rain: A reliable spell across all enemy types and particularly electric due to the earth damage it provides. The strength of this skill is the fact that it hits multiple times that adds up to both significant damage and can trigger your talents like mana thief for each poison orb that falls.
- Spell Damage Flask: A consumable item that should also be a regular on your quick access slots given its dramatic boost to damage. While best reserved for fighting bosses you can use these more often if you have the necessary resources spare to craft them.
Portal Knights Mage Build Equipment
Just like the other Portal Knights classes building the right set of equipment for the mage takes some time to achieve as you farm the best pieces from bosses and chests. The mage also has to consider swapping weapons to the monsters you are facing to take advantage of elemental advantages to maximise damage. You might be surprised to find that even lower level weapons out damage higher level ones when you factor in this elemental bonus so always compare weapons against real enemies when playing as the mage.
As a mage your other equipment pieces should focus on the following statistics:
- Multi Strike Chance & Additional Strikes: When combined these two stats on equipment provide a significant damage increase and turn your basic attack into multiple attacks that also synergises with your talents nicely.
- Critical Strike Utility: With spell crush giving you a guaranteed critical after spell cast as a mage you’ll want to find a piece of gear that gives you critical strike utility such as spell slinger for the reset to your spells on critical strike.
- Critical Strike Chance & Damage: Serves as a secondary damage stat on equipment pieces that aren’t available to spawn with multi strike. Critical strike chance and damage will serve you well in these equipment slots as your alternative is generally defensive stats that aren’t needed.
Some potential items in each equipment slot for your mage build are as follows:
Weapon
- Titanium Masterwork Dreadwand: The best default weapon option for your mage given this item has inherent critical strike chance and damage alongside a small mana pool boost. When you aren’t swapping to a different wand to take advantage of an elemental advantage this is the weapon you want in your hand along with the applicable level 2 wand mastery.
- Other Elemental Wand: Whichever is the highest damage wand you have available for the element you want to use to counter a specific enemy type.
Head
- Magi General Crown
- Outlaw Hood
Torso
- Elite Eliminator Jerkin
- Primal Unleased Chest Piece
- Magi General Habiliment
Arms
- High Reaper Gloves
Legs
- Gladiator Champion Legbraces
- Avenger Legbraces
Cape
- Cloak of the Eternal Watcher
Ring
- Ring of Divine Protection
- Ring of Fire
