I want to 1-15 Arena with my Mage.
My question is, should I melee my way to level 15 or cast my way?
I'm currently using this charm, which works great for me, but I am wondering the most effective way and the fastest way to level.


If melee is the better way to go, what do I need in gear mods? Obviously EE on the Dagger or Staff, anything else? Perhaps aim for some Life Leech, Str and Dex in a charm and armor?
Any help would be nice.

I meleed there....Pre LPK nerf..with a 70 ee dagger with a large nearly 200 max mana dagger and a 1-50 lpk charm...that had about 20+ stats on it str/dex/vit

and I can't remember what armor I used but probably LPK

However since the nerf..idk

the best is w/e kills faster
with melee you should be able to 3shot anything at level 5
casting should be 2 shot (both of these can be sped up with unspawnables)
so ya, as long as you can generate enough mpa/mpk to counteract that then casting is better

if you do go melee I like lpa
6 on armor and 6 on charm will no regen you to 10 even with a mage
and any bonus mods you can get will make it possible to get to 15too no regen

Alright, thanks for the inputs so far you two.


I obviously would prefer to cast since I would do a lot more damage, but the regening part is difficult sometimes.
What I was thinking was, go Melee, get a 3x High EE Daggers for 1,5,10 get an armor with some Str and Dex, and a charm with LPK Str and Dex. Does that sound like it would workout good?

Melee should certainly get you longer chains.

A mage starts with 60dex so you don't really need to worry about that. If you can get high ee weapons, a decent amount of lpk and +str from your armour/charm, you should be able to melee your way up reasonably fast.

The lack of str on a mage will be the biggest problem for the levels. LPK is still as effective as ever. up to 30 on the charm and up to 30 on the robe is possible @ level0, which is heaps.

I melee with this gear, and I go no regen to Level 10. At 15 I usually have to regen a couple times, but keep in mind at 10 my gear is only basic due to hardcore. You should be able to find much better ones on softcore for better price and efficiency

L1-5
- Bronze Dagger ~ 60 ee
- 200 Max Life robe
- 1-6 Life per attack charm

L5-10
- 75ee, 1-6 lpa iron dagger
- 200 max life robe
- 17 str, 1-4 lpa charm

L10 - 15
- 82ee Ironwood staff
- 25 strength robe
- 17 str, 1-4 lpa charm

One thing that you will 100% need is life per attack or life per kill, better yet both of them. That's the stat that will make you go no regen other than the ee weap. Sure casting is much more damage, but much more regen also [but its a fast regen] however, for the low levels I think its much easier to melee