The Bright Wizard's mace is heavily geared towards offence and taking on SV. While it has one of the weirdest hit pattern, it can be worked with to be able to take on SV in light hordes, which works well with the fireball staff which thins out hordes nicely. It is also able to roll some really nice combos like Killing Blow with Backstabbery. It is highly recommended to pair mace with the speed trinket, as its dodge is almost comparable to WW and has an efficient count of 3, so even without the trinket it is still able to function pretty well.



Recommended - Killing Blow + Backstabbery + Stamina (Improved Pommel, Perfect Balance) or Regrowth(N) or Earthing(N)
Alternatives - Bloodlust + Berserking + Earthing (N) or BS or Devastating Blow or Stamina (IP, PB)

The first strike of the mace is a fast (0.5s) vertical strike [] from the top down dealing (5) to normal, (4) to armoured and (16) to resistant. While it has a very narrow hitzone, it is excellent for smacking the rat immediately in front of you and will stagger SV overheads. It is easy to headshot (+1/+0.5/x1.5) with this but it doesn't add much damage. Pushing or heavy attacks will skip this attack in the chain.

The second strike of the mace is slower (0.75s) than the first strike and has a very narrow upwards diagonal hitzone [] which makes headshots (+1/+0.5/x1.5) nearly impossible and deals (6/0/0/0) to normal, (3.5/0/0/0) to armoured and (18/0/0/0) to resistant. While it hits 4 rats, the very narrow hitzone means most people are unable to hit many rats normally and probably is the major cause of complaint about the mace. This strike is able to stagger SV not doing overheads and is the most damaging light attack against the ogre.

The third strike of the mace is relatively fast (0.65s) and has a nice left to right hitzone [] and deals (3/2/2) to normal, (0/0/0) to armoured and (8/8/8) to resistant. This attack staggers SV if they are not doing overheads.

The third strike of the mace is the slowest (0.85s) and has a nice right to left hitzone [] and deals (3/2/2) to normal, (0/0/0) to armoured and (8/8/8) to resistant. This attack staggers SV if they are not doing overheads.

The heavy attack is a slow (1.1s) overhead smash [] that is easy to headshot (+1/+0.5/x1.5) and deals (10) to normal, (4.5) to armoured and (28) to resistant. This strike is able to stagger SV overheads and does the most damage to the ogre out of all its attacks.

This combo is for fighting individual SV or for fighting with 2-3 rats at a time. The first strike stuns the first rat, then turning and dodging sideways into the rats while swinging the second strike increases the actual hitzone, giving you an easier time at hitting multiple rats. When fighting against an individual SV, this is better than just spamming charged attacks as it does more DPS (4 + 0.5[hs] + 3.5 = 8 vs 5 = 4.5 + 0.5[hs]) and if you have KB you got 2 chances to proc an instant kill.

[Combo 2: Light/(turn right, strafe left, dodge left, swing mouse left) light/(dodge right, swing mouse right) light/block (cancel/push)/repeat]

[media.giphy.com]
This combo is for taking on ~3-4 rats at a time. Similar to the first combo, this adds in another light attack where you dodge back to your starting position while swinging from left to right. Again, this increases the hitzone of the attack, but has an interesting synergy with backstab, as the first and second attack would stun the rats which would end up facing mostly to your right and you are swinging from left to right, so even though you are facing them sideways, you can sometimes trigger backstab which increases your DPS by a fair bit.

This combo adds on the last light attack for dealing with thicker hordes (4-6+) of rats but really, you shouldn't be facing that amount of rats if possible. Use animation cancelling with block to reduce the downtime of the mace's last attack and to protect you from random hits that you will be receiving. Usually you would want to push instead, since the density of the rats would be too thick for you to continue the chain safely. You will be relying mainly on your mobility from the dodges to avoid incoming attacks, so keep your dodge count (3) in mind when you have to use this combo and are not running the speed trinket.

This combo is for quickly dealing with a SV mixed in with 3-5+ rats. You will have to keep on dodging and pushing to stagger the normal rats back while the SV should be in front since they stagger less, putting less rats between you and the SV so you are able to damage the SV. You will have to keep dodging to avoid rat attacks and it is not recommended unless you really are desperate or have stamina traits since you will run out of stamina very quickly.

This combo adds another light attack (which makes it good for dealing with even more normal rats with/without SV) to deal with the rats which increases your DPS but also increases the chance of you getting hit. Do note that your attack will stop at any SV when swinging from either side, so the rats after the SV will not be staggered. You can add on the last light attack, but again it increases the time where you will be vulnerable. You will have to be aggressive with this combo and push into the horde in order to get as many rats within your push range to stagger them around as much as possible (unless you are with your team).

The mace is the BW's best melee weapon against the ogre, especially with backstab. When the ogre spawns, stay away from the ogre and focus on killing any ambient rats with your staff. Once the ogre locks aggro on another player, run right in and backstab, initiating with a charged attack (56 damage, 1.1s), then either use the first 2 light attacks (32+36=68, 1.25s) and block cancel or keep spamming charged attacks as the damage (50+ DPS, 100+ with str pot) difference is minimal. You will usually get the ogre's attention after a few seconds, so it would be best if you know how to kite the ogre on the spot.

The fireball staff is excellent at CC but you will have to be positioned well. It knocks back rats in a line but deals little (0.75) damage to them until the fireball explodes. It suffers from issues such as being weak vs SV, excessive friendly fire and randomly exploding on invisible walls/geometry, but overall it brings a lot of firepower to the team and can be situationally better than the conflag at killing rats.

• Fast casting rate
  
• Knocks back rats hit by the projectile in a line and adds a DoT (1 dmg/s, 2s) on each rat hit
  
• Lower heat generation rate than other staffs
  
• Tossed fireball projectile can be arced to apply DoT twice to rats (projectile + explosion)

Recommended - Stability + Channeling Rune + Regrowth or Bloodlust
Alternative - HoD or Haste + Channeling Rune + Regrowth or Bloodlust
High Damage* - HoD + Haste + Bloodlust
Max Damage** - HoD + Haste + Channeling Rune or Stability

* Will burn through your health at an extremely fast rate, taking 100-200 vent damage per map is to be expected at the minimum. Bloodlust is superior to regrowth and is significant enough to matter, allowing you to mitigate almost all of the HP loss from venting if you play it properly.

** Will make you a walking health toilet as you got no heal on it. Channeling helps to reduce vent damage and stability allows you to spam more, but without healing you will need heals to make up for the lost health.

• The fireball explosion ranges from 0.75 m to 3 m, so make sure you have some clearance from your team mates before the fireball lands on the ground. This will come about from practice and experience, so while you are learning, just keep that in mind and don't be afraid to burn your friends (otherwise, how would you learn?).
  
• To minimise the FF further, try to stay at a slight distance from your team, jump before throwing and aim for large clumps of rats away from your team and trust your team to be able to handle whatever is directly in front of them (if they really can't then just chuck fireballs through them to knock rats back as the projectile doesn't do that much FF damage).
  
• You will also have to learn the arc of your fireball casts, so you'll know where to aim at what distances to aim the fireball at the incoming rats legs to both knock them back and deal explosion damage to them (and double DoT).

• Jump before throwing the fireball, you can avoid some FF plus when you throw after the peak of your arc, the fireball drops faster, allowing you to land fireballs through rats dealing double the DoT (2 x 2 dmg) which allows for an instant (2 dmg) fireball to potentially kill a slaverat on cata.
  
• Quick cast fireballs with minimal charge and vent in between casts, with stability and channeling you can keep tossing out a fireball each second without overheating, providing a very strong linear CC that also does AOE damage and applies DoTs to all rats affected. Best for holding a choke point on your own, but any friendlies in the way will suffer so warn them in advance.
  
• Spam quick cast fireballs at your feet while running out of a horde if you are caught out of position and surrounded. Your health will suffer greatly but if you got enough health you would be able to escape since it opens up a path through the rats from knockback.
  
• Spam quick cast fireballs in an area in front of you to knock back/down a large mass of rats in front of you. Useful when the run goes bad suddenly and your team needs some breathing space.
  
• Go high into the overheat and vent partially and keep spamming fireballs if the horde is really thick, trade your health for damage output. You vent faster the hotter you are, so it results in less downtime between your fireball spam, while your healing trait should be able to minimise the health loss as a result.
  
• Fully charged fireballs is for killing large clumps, instant cast fireballs are for linear CC. You can use a number of instant cast fireballs to linear CC rats into a clump and the explosions from the fireballs will kill them all. Balancing between a full charge and instant casts is a matter of experience and judgement for use while on the run.

• Instead of sticking closely to your team, you can range slightly away from them to give you some room to burn rats with minimal FF. Always position yourself where you can get incoming rats to line/group up and funnel through a choke point.
  
• If you are getting surrounded in an open area by a horde, you will have to either try to break through the thinnest part of the horde to circle around the outside, or play even more aggressively and charge into the thickest part of the horde while spamming fireballs to knock them down and take out as much as possible before you are surrounded.
  
• Your best positions are either at the front or back while pushing as you would deal the least amount of FF while having a large area of free fire zone. It also gives you a view of the rest of the team to allow you to decide whether they need a bombardment danger close or not.

Each weapon covers for the weakness of the other. Fireball clears out the thick rat densities that the mace is unable to handle, and the mace allows you to handle SVs in the thinned out horde. Fireballs knock rats around, allowing the mace to get in a lot of backstabs as a result.

With both the mace and fireball staff, you can either sit back comfortably tossing out fireballs for CC and AOE, or charge into a horde while spamming fireballs in an area to knock most of the rats down and thin out their numbers before switching to melee, where the movement pattern of the mace usage lends itself to deal a lot of backstabs for maximum dps.

Trash clearing with both is a breeze while running as individual rats can be burnt with the staff or 1-2 hit with the mace, and larger clumps can be hit with a fully charged fireball while on the run before the team runs through them and clears up the remainder. Any rats chasing can be handled with a couple of fireballs as they are all lined up and by being willing to run high in the overheat region, the time spent venting is minimised and damage output maximised, allowing your team to push through and clear through hordes much faster which means overall your team would be facing less hordes and specials.