Before I go forward I believe I need to talk about buffing.  Pre-50 buffing is almost a non-issue just because your fighting very specific creatures and let's face it you just don't have that much in the way of skills to really do much of a buff.  But now that I've graduated buffing has become a big part of my life again.  This isn't a good thing for me as this was one of the reasons I quite play a mage a long time ago.  But none the less it's a nessicity.  So here is my routine that allows me to take anything on the plains and most things on the island (from now on "the island" refers to Aerlinthe).  First my outfit, my standard out fit is my shadow garb, Exarach top, GSA Bottoms and some high Al Solls.  I cast these spells in the following order regardless of hunting situations all of these are 6's, I would kill to have a whole set of 7's.  Critter, Focus, Will, Life, War, item, Endurance, Strength, Magic Defense.  Next I cast a full set of protects and finally I end with casting impen on all my armor and at least bludgeon bane on top and bottom.  Anything above these are extra and depend on what I think I might be fighting.  The order is somewhat important, you want life mastery in there asap so that your STM and Revit work properely.  Also I think imp and banes should go last because they seem to wear faster than any other spells.   

For an  aspiring BM this may look like hell but if I'm paying attention to what I'm doing I can do all of this in under 2 minutes.   Now I've also been more aware of fizzle and time so I've come up with a way to reduce both when buffing.  This is currently being disscussed on the Vault message board but I was playing with this previous to this thread.   I've often said that there is an element of lag associated with fizzle and I know that if your graphics or animations are sputtering around then it's seems that the server considers that lag.   So you need to reduce this, I've found 2 ways to reduce it, first if I'm standing at the lifestone in eastham I run into the windmill and buff there by getting as close to the wall as possible.  This eliminates your character on the screen which means your computer doesn't draw the animation.  This will work in any room.  But when your out on the island there are no rooms to find and the lag there is horrid.  So I position the cammer straight over head and zoom down as tight as I can with out it going into first person mode.  I'm not saying this is fact but I does make buffing faster in my opinion.  I'll be interested to here what others find when trying this.

How to Kill

I won't be specifically talking about the island in this edition as I've only recently really started hunting there seriously.   But I what I plan on doing now is talk about all the high level critters and how to kill each one the BM way.  Oh and to answer one of the main question up front, I DO NOT YIELD I'm not even for sure where yield is on my spell bar.

Shadows - I love killing these things now.  Shadows almost always come in groups of 2 Umbris, 1 Panumbris, 1 Lt, 1 Shadow.  Your goal is obviously the floating treasure chests, Umbris.  So when you find a group, immediately vuln one of them.  It will either throw a spell at you or come for you.  If he throws a spell just move on to the others that are running toward you now.  If he does come for you cast 2 war 7 spells and he's dead and move on to the next.  Your next target should be an Umbris or Panumbris that has run toward you.   Depending on how much your manaC kicked on your first kill you can either straight kill him (Vuln, war, war) or start draining him to regain your stats.  The mana tanks on these guys are huge so what ever stat is lacking drain it then finish it with war.    You go like this till the whole pack is dead.  There is no reason to run unless you get into big trouble.  I've killed a whole pack on me with little problem, just don't panic.  The only thing to worry about is that for some reason shadows are linked with Grievers so you could inadvertently pull one them, still not a problem as most of the time their silly ai tells them to retreat after 1 hit.

 

Virindi Packs - These are variable in size now on the plains.  I've seen as many as 10 virindi in 1 pack.  The first thing to do is take out their pets.  If you don't know how to take out tuskers at this level then your probably not worthy of being called a BM.  After the tuskers just get in there and blow the hell out of these guys.  1 shot from flame bolt 7 and most will fall including Master and directors.  I never vuln virindi it's just a wasted spell.  The only ones liable to give you problems are the executers but that's only if they start resisting you.  And if the resiste more the 8 times give up he's not going down, but still no vuln is worth it because he's liable to resist it any way 2 war spells are better.  Don't believe me? check this shot, it's even when I have vitae and I believe I was 52 at the time.

Altered Drudges - Lol these guys are great.  Vuln, Flame 7, Dead.  No mess no Fuss.  don't even bother luring them.  Just clear the pack then run up and pick up your loot.  Yes yes I know they will likely debuff you.  *Shrug* doesn't effect me.

Augmented Drudges - No reason to even touch these guys, they have bad loot, debuff you and worst of all have an outrageous Magic Defense.

Golems - Corals, Diamonds, and Vapors.  All are fairly easy just don't let them swarm you.  On Corals and Diamonds I use vuln and 2 crushing shames to take them down.  Vapors are little higher level but you can take them after 53 or so easily.  Use frost on them.

Banderlings - Thrashers, Enforcers, and Maulers.  I'm not going to say they are easy because 75% of my deaths since 50 have been to these bastards.  They do go down fairly easily but they hit hard and with elemental damage so it's easy to get swarmed and take high damage.  Although they are pretty good to get a drain off of.  A lot of time I treat them like I did Raveners in my 20's.  Using STM to gain mana then draining staminia.

High Undead - Relics, Cursed Bones, etc.  Ah sweet revenge, beware they do use elemental damage so it can hurt badly but in most cases these guys go down fairly fast and sometimes drop great loot.  Simple rule if they are bones crush them, if they are rotten flesh burn them.

These are the main bad guys that I hunt on a day to day basis.  As you can see there's not much that gives me problems there are other creaturs above these guys like Plasma Golems, Hellfires, etc...  But I haven't fought many enough to get a strategy on them for reliable results.

The Stats

Yes I know this is a short diary but I'm really busy and just wanted to get one out.  Yup I've made level 55 in this amount of time and I haven't even tried.  After all the power-leveling I did to get to 50 I don't plan on doing it again for a long time.  Basically I just go out and have fun and see what I can take down.  It's gotten me plenty of xp to keep me moving up.  So these are my stats.

As you can see I've put some points into Magic Defense.  I don't care what people say it works, I resist everything I fight at some point in time and it's great.  I'll be moving this skill up to 200 eventually.  I did get my manaC up to 200, as I said earlier I hate fizzling and burning plats is not fun let alone very expensive.  From there I've raised a little bit of all my skills and have finally moved back around to bumping my war/life/focus/war which I'm currently doing now.

Conclusion

Well I think the title is very appropriate, if your 50+ Battlemage you get to do pretty much what ever you want.  I swear if turbine would follow me or one of my BM buddies in game for a while they would nerf us faster than thrown weapons.  Next time I plan on doing an in depth analysis of the island. 

So till next time,

Have fun and Blow stuff up!