Pet Dragons spells too rage-expensive

[eXeel]

I am a mage and at lvl 32, my pet's spell upgrades begins to cost 50-60 rage for the next upgrade. And I have 53 or so. And it takes 3-4 rounds to get up there.

What should I do?
1) Upgrade the most useless spells, to not make my primary spells too rage-heavy.
2) Upgrade the most used spells, so they are good and ready when I find a way to get more rage.
3) Or...?

[Metathron]

I never choose to upgrade one of the dragon's abilities if I'm not able to use it due to excessive rage cost. What's the point, afterall? Or are you at a point where all three choices on level up offer just that? In my last game as a mage, I had no such problems as my dragon leveled up extremely slowly (hardly chose any might skills at all, and no dragon ones).

[DGDobrev]

I would suggest as a mage to stick to the Pet Dragon's utility skills, like Ball of Lightning (35 rage maxed), Mana Accelerator (25 rage maxed), Treasure Searcher (8 rage maxed), Stone wall (if necessary, you can skip it) and do the damage with your spells rather than relying on it - because as a mage, you are at a disadvantage. Only the warrior and the paladin can utilize the strongest pet dragon damaging abilities. You don't miss anything, though, since your spells will become much more powerful than your pet's abilities.

[Hento]

Yep, I never could use dive, fiery phantoms and volcano as a mage, even ball of lightning until end-game.

[eXeel]

I've been using quite a bit the Dragon Dive and Ball of Lightning - and a little of the area of effect Fiery Fathoms or whatever, when I entered a fight with max mana.
So it hasn't been totally useless for me.

But I just needed to get confirmed that I wasn't doing anything stupid by waasting lvl ups on skills I dont use

[Zechnophobe]

You should also keep an eye out for rage items. It is still very valuable for a mage to be able to call some of the stronger damage dealing dragon abilities, since they will often out damage your spells (For a lot less investment). An item granting 10 rage, for instance, will allow you to use abilities like Fiery Phantoms, which is far better than 3 to 5 intelligence will give.

[WhYdOyOuThInKtHaThApPeNeD]

In short I choose option 1.

Right at the beginning of my mage run the rage cost from upgrades quickly made almost everything unusable. I thought they must have made a mistake designing the game or why isn't my rage increasing with my pet levels automatically?

Upgrade junk skills like (imo) wall & lava to keep good skills within limit.
A few times I got stuck where all 3 options were something I would lose when upgraded, so I just chose the 1 of least importance.

I never upgrade the treasure searcher above 2nd level.

For offensive as mage I used Ball of Lightning almost exclusively. Till eventually got Dive then it was that depending on the enemy. Never bothered with any other attack skill.

[KrazyDocK]

Originally Posted by WhYdOyOuThInKtHaThApPeNeD

I never upgrade the treasure searcher above 2nd level.

I would suggest upgrading treasure searcher a few levels. One of the levels will decrease the rage cost eventually. For 8 rage, I can dig 3 chests (and 2 of those useless "altars"). To me, those chests are very valuable since they can provide runes, rare spells, or wanderer scrolls.

KD

[kiwi_atrax]

Originally Posted by KrazyDocK

those useless "altars"

Wut? That black cross with poison skull and debuffs is worth every bit of rage spent on it. Poison DoT seems awesome.

[N3MES1S]

One thing u dont have in mind is that as a mage, your rage is lower by far than if u play with paladin or warrior. If u want to have high rage ammount using a mage, the only way is using items. But as a mage, u will not be interested in rage items, u will be interested on intellect items. And like the other guy said, as a mage u should be interested on pet skills that fix with your class. And dont forget, in the last level of the pet skill, the rage ammount required is lowered, so u dont need to have, for example 70 rage.