All Advice is welcome please

Depends on how good your heal and int gear is...I went always 75 vit on my lock on solo climbs, so that should work for a mage aswell. Having some Heal mastery gear in your vault also helps vs eps at tough situations.

And go with max mana gear from 1-15 else you'll be regenerating every quarter level...

Not sure about abilities, maybe all three of mage or power + doublecast.

This is just an opinion, hope it helps

Also consider Salvation.
Heals one ally for a lot, and charges with hit taken.
If you're getting your ass beat, get fully charged without having to spend lots of time/mana on healing back up slowly, just get it done and get back to the assault.

The best solo mage on Hardcore... Melee/Healer... laugh if you will...

1. Look at the base starting stats on a Mage
2. Look at the base starting stats on a MONK (big difference)
3. Notice that you will reach 75 int and 75 vita faster than a monk
4. Now... if you concentrate on healing oneself more than killspeed, you will get to 71 easily on a Melee/Healer Mage vs Monk

Normally a Monk starts with more than 10 extra points, and even that can not help them compared to a mage.

Okay...

1. EE Staffs
2. EE Heal charms (1st Focus, 2nd Reg Heals and finally Wilds)
3. Robes: stat/life = lvls 1-19, then HM or Int or both
4. Main Charms... same as Robes

Now... if you add things up using the portals as a point of reference... you will see where I am coming from.

Goodluck in your endeavour.
Regards
Rex.

EDIT: Abilities are simple: Salvation = upto 51% and also Retribution = 51% upwards.
6 points in both abilities will yeild around 46% (or 51%) just go hard and do it.
or read my solo builds using heavy weapons to gauge abilities.

This post was edited by izParagonzi on May 10 2012 03:25am