Dragon's Dogma 2: Mage Build Guide

The Mage is one of four starting Vocations in Dragon's Dogma 2, and it's arguably the most popular. Creating lightning storms and geysers of flame is incredibly satisfying, but the real power of the Mage comes from its utility. A support build can give your team constant elemental buffs, increase your attack speed, and heal your party at a moment's notice.

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From offensive to magic formations, here are the best party combinations in Dragon's Dogma 2!

Mages are worth their weight in gold, which is why you should create or hire one as soon as possible. This build gives an overview of what makes the support Mage so powerful, covering everything from recommended spells to ideal equipment for the mid to late-game.

Build Overview

No party is complete without a dedicated Mage. This is the ultimate support Vocation in Dragon's Dogma 2, blessing your team with enhanced speed, elemental damage effects, and even infinite stamina. This build focuses on turning the Mage into a versatile support that excels in all party compositions. We use some of the strongest utility spells in their skill set to keep the party alive while improving their damage output.

As strong as these boons can be, the Mage is a poor DPS class with a passive playstyle. You'll be relying on healing spells and the potent High Palladium skill to stay alive, which is usually more than enough. This spec is ideally played by a friendly Pawn, so the Mage's passive playstyle can be delegated to an AI teammate if you prefer. However, this build works perfectly fine when played by the Arisen.

Skills And Augments

A Mage's focus should be on keeping their party alive at all costs. While a Sorcerer uses their magick to obliterate their foes with high-damage spells, the Mage focuses on providing useful utility effects to the party while occasionally dealing damage, if at all. As such, our Mage builds focus on healing allies and providing buffs, such as increased attack speed or infinite stamina.

Since the Mage is a potential Vocation for Pawns, we have two skill configurations below that vary depending on who's playing a Mage in your party. Both builds focus on utility effects and healing, but the Arisen build is better suited for early-game and comes with a damage spell.

Why We Avoid Certain Augments

Beatitide states that it increases the HP received from magick spells. Unfortunately, this only affects incoming healing, not outgoing healing. In other words, this Augment does not increase the strength of your Mage's healing spells, making this a poor choice.

The same is true for Perpetuation. Although the description states that it extends the duration of enchantment spells, this only applies to incoming buffs, not outgoing buffs. Putting this on your Mage will only extend how long these enchantments last on them specifically, not your party. As a result, Perpetuation is a lackluster Augment for support builds.

Arisen Mage Build

Weapon Skills

High Celerity

Creates a small AoE that grants increased attack speed, cast speed, and movement speed to allies who pass through it.

The AoE persists for a short duration. Celerity's buff lingers as well.

High Palladium

Creates a holy wisp for you and nearby allies. Each wisp blocks up to three enemy attacks, mitigating all incoming damage.

Does not protect against fall damage.

Argent Succor

Heals the selected target and provides a continuous HP regeneration effect for a short duration. Can target the caster.

High Levin

Summons a series of lightning bolts that strike the current target. Pressing the button again summons additional bolts.

Augments

Subtlety

Decreases the likelihood of being targeted by foes.

Endurance

Grants +150 Stamina.

Exaltation

Stamina regenerates 10% faster.

Mettle

Grants 25% more Physical Defense.

Apotropaism

Grants 25% more Magick Defense.

Constancy

Grants 15% more Knockdown Resistance.

No Vocation can support their party quite as well as a Mage. This build focuses on buffing your team with a wide range of powerful abilities, all while you destroy targets from safety with your High Levin spell. You won't be the ultimate DPS of your party, but your Pawns will be virtually unkillable.

Argent Succor is a powerful heal that you can use from a long distance. It charges quickly, fully restores the target's HP, and provides a powerful HP regeneration bonus for a few seconds. High Palladium will protect your team while fighting tough bosses like drakes. Activate this spell while near your team to give them an invulnerable shield, absorbing the next three attacks.

Finally, we use High Celerity to hasten your party's attack speed, cast speed, and movement speed. It's also a handy spell to use while exploring. If you're earlier in your playthrough and are missing some of these spells, feel free to use Halidom to cleanse debilitations or any elemental buff spell to give your team some bonus damage in the earlier portions of the game.

Our Augments focus on buffing your character's survivability. The only one we find mandatory is Subtlety, a Thief Augment that reduces the likelihood that you'll be targeted by enemies. We use Endurance and Exaltation to improve our stamina management, and we run Mettle, Apotropaism, and Constancy to buff our overall defenses.

Pawn Mage Build

Weapon Skills

Celestial Paean

Creates a massive AoE that blesses allies with infinite stamina, increased attack speed, and additional damage resistance for a short duration.

Casting this spell drains all of your stamina. Once the spell dissipates, you will be knocked to the ground.

High Palladium

Creates a holy wisp for you and nearby allies. Each wisp blocks up to three enemy attacks, mitigating all incoming damage.

Does not protect against fall damage.

Argent Succor

Heals the selected target and provides a continuous HP regeneration effect for a short duration. Can target the caster.

Ice Affinity

You and nearby allies imbue their weapons with ice damage, allowing you to slow and freeze targets. Lasts 30 seconds.

Overrides elemental boons provided by other skills. Some enemies are also resistant to ice damage.

Augments

Subtlety

Decreases the likelihood of being targeted by foes.

Endurance

Grants +150 Stamina.

Exaltation

Stamina regenerates 10% faster.

Mettle

Grants 25% more Physical Defense.

Apotropaism

Grants 25% more Magick Defense.

Constancy

Grants 15% more Knockdown Resistance.

Skill Alternatives

If you're playing a Thief or Magick Archer, replace Ice Affinity with High Halidon for status cleanses or High Levin for more damage. Elemental blessings don't play nice with either Vocation.

Similarly, if you don't own (or simply dislike) Celestial Paean, High Celerity effectively does the same thing, minus the infinite stamina effect. Just be sure to stick near your Mage near the start of combat to grab the haste buff.

A Pawn with the Mage Vocation should be your dedicated support character. Argent Succor is mandatory on virtually every Mage build in the game. It's the strongest healing spell available, instantly restoring a target's HP at any distance while providing a temporary HP regeneration effect. We also use High Palladium to give your party an invulnerability shield that lasts for three hits. Since this build doesn't have a DPS spell, your Mage will usually spam it.

The other two slots are highly dependent on your party composition. For most groups, Celestial Paean is an S-tier choice. It creates a massive AoE that gives your party infinite stamina and faster attack speed for roughly 10-15 seconds. It's a royal pain to unlock, but it's well worth it. If you don't own this Maister skill, High Celerity is a solid replacement. It buffs your party's attack speed, cast speed, and movement speed.

Finally, we use Ice Affinity since you'll lack elemental weapons for most of your playthrough. Ice is a great element for just about every foe, as it slows down most targets and can outright freeze bosses. If you're playing a Thief or Magick Archer, two Vocations that provide their own elemental damage, then you can run High Halidom for status cleanses or High Levin for a backup damage skill.

As for Augments, we focus strictly on survivability. If your Mage goes down, your party is in trouble. Subtlety reduces the likelihood that they'll be targeted by enemy attacks. Endurance and Exaltation greatly improve their stamina management, making it easier to spam support spells. Finally, we run Mettle, Apotropaism, and Constancy to buff our physical, magick, and knockdown defense ratings, respectively.

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Equipment

Weapon

Cardinal Blaze

(Alternative) Tintreach

Rings

Armor

Ring of Recitation

Arcane Hat

Ares Morpho Robe

Ring of Articulacy

Nightfall Greaves

Pioneer's Cape

Our choice of equipment is fairly similar to our Sorcerer build, although our choice of weapon is different since Mages use normal staves instead of archstaves. When you acquire a Mage, you'll want to head to the Sacred Arbor as soon as possible. Grisha's Armory sells two powerful staves that can carry you through the entire game: Cardinal Blaze and Tintreach. They both have the same magick rating, so pick either one.

Item Upgrades

Upgrade your weapons at an Elven Blacksmith to maximize the magick rating of your staff. Armor should use Vermundian upgrades to increase your overall defensive stats. If you're struggling with knockdown effects, use Dwarven upgrades instead.

To improve our lengthy cast animations, we opt to use the Ring of Articulacy, yet another item you can purchase from Grisha's Armory. This reduces your cast time by 15% and stacks with a second ring. Once you reach Bakbattahl, you can drop one Articulacy for the Ring of Recitation. This provides a stronger 25% cast speed bonus, but it comes at the cost of your max HP.

Finally, you'll want to equip any Mage armor you find in your travels. The starting Mage set leaves a lot to be desired in terms of defensive stats. We use the Arcane Hat, Ares Morpho Robe, Nightfall Greaves, and Pioneer Cape. Most of these items can be obtained during the first half of your playthrough from various vendors and the Mage-Maister quest. Ultimately, equip any armor that you love the look of.

Mage Tips

• Use Quickspell. You can drain your stamina to cast spells more quickly, useful if you need to heal your team in a hurry.
• High Palladium blocks all incoming damage. You can tank meteors, lightning bolts, and other lethal attacks with this spell.
• Give your Mage Pawn the Chirurgeon Specialization. This lets your Mage automatically cleanse status ailments by consuming potions in their inventory.
  • This makes High Halidon unnecessary for endgame Mage builds.
• The "Help" command will force your Mage to cast Argent Succor on you, even if your HP is full.
• If your party has a Thief or Magick Archer, remove all elemental affinity spells from your Mage. Both Vocations have ways to gain elemental damage.
  • This is also true once you reach the endgame. Many endgame weapons have elemental properties that make affinity spells less desirable.
• Consider using the Diligence Augment to reduce the knockdown period of Celestial Paean.

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