My items don't even seem that great anymore, but that I can deal with. It's all the mechanics changed and new abilities and stuff I need help on.

So...Yeah for a mage, what ability should I be using or leveling up? How often do I get ability points? Do these abilities reset per MQ?

Stats now? is it still best to do like 5-10 life at start then mana the rest of the way to MQ?

Catacombs is it okay for casters to cast now? Or should I just stick to back row healing the tanks like always?

Is soloing effective at all now if your charms are mostly 100 EE+?

tons of questions but these will start.

Mage (caster)
Stats: All into int.
Abilities: Piercecast, Pillarcast, Powercast.
Gear: Int weapon, Int armor, EE charm, EE heal charm (try to always carry one even if you focus on dealing out damage)

Mage (healer)
Stats: All into int.
Abilities: Multiheal, Salvation, Powercast (only if you carry damage charms with you)
Gear: HM weapon, HM armor, EE heal charm, EE charm (optional)

wouldn't it be better to buff just one ability? I don't like having to shift click and ctrl click, alt clicking is bad enough...and if i only choose to do one, which should I do?

I do not use mage at all, but I hope this helps out as well as SCXiao's input above.

Basically change abilities to what you are going to be doing, Solo or Group.

Solo (Personally I think you will be able to use these in a group at higher levels if you get one)
Abilities: Powercast & Salvation are the main 2... go like 5 to 6 ability points for Salvation
Stats: 60+ Vitality (if HC, then no minimum than 75)... Rest Intelligence
Note: at higher levels to charge salvation if you get into a group, you could go middle with 75 int (do not know about 60 though)

Group: (Basically this should be renamed to 1-71 run... where everyone uses the best abilities for a fast FULL group run)
Pretty much what SCXiao stated.

Nah, you want to be as useful as possible for your group and when you only skill one ability if hardly makes any difference after level 35-40

You can read this guide for more info: http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=57524636&f=74

Or look at this guys profile, lots of more useful information here: http://forums.d2jsp.org/user.php?i=570455

Another question,

What can I expect to pay for a great MQ charm?

like for example a 180 EE fire

or a 202 EE Earth (lvl 50)

and the reason for this going in here rather than PC is

I want to know this:

Per tier how much EE loss happens?

For example 202 EE lvl 50 = same as 182 EE 55?

Correct assumption or are my estimates off?

/E: And are there any other penalties i'm unaware of in using a level 50 charm w/ significantly higher EE than a level 55 of lets say 180 EE vs a lvl 50 of 200 EE?

This post was edited by GamerScoreJobs on Jun 4 2012 04:27pm

1. Cost of items vary so much... it is dependent on the seller.
2. 202ee lvl50 vs 180ee lvl55... not much difference... just check your dmg on your character screen.
3. no penalties.

EE vs Tier level... there is a chart somewhere, but, I believe it is out of date... hopefully someone will post it for you,
maybe you will find it in this persons Profile:

http://forums.d2jsp.org/user.php?i=570455

well i am no sugest you to take weapon and armor with only INT take int+mana gear till lvl 15-20 coz you start with low mana, then after lvl 15-20 start use only int

This post was edited by Mawa_kaya on Jun 5 2012 02:14am

Actually their would be a lot of benefits to the 202 ee lvl 50. First you can use it for 5 more levels and second it uses less mana to cast. So if those were your choices, I'd go with the lvl 50 charm 11 times out of 10.

Its about 26 per tier lost