I like to start off with auto attacks so that my powerful skills can also do some health damage on top of magical armor damage, that way next turn I have more chances of applying a cc or a dot.
They CAN do health damage on top of armor damage, because by the time the armor is down, the spells will start to be coming off of their cooldowns.
If I were in a position where my fire whip/ice fan couldn't wipe out all of the magical armour to apply it's dot's/cc I would simply auto attack and chose to cast those later.
The idea is that using the skills now will wipe out the armor faster so you can apply status effects a LOT sooner than the weak wand attacks. You're not saving any time by not using the skills from the start.
Level 14 Legendary Wand: 41-48 damage (Water). So 82-96 for a pair at 2 AP. (164-192)
Winter Blast: 202-224 damage (Water) for 2 AP with a 3 turn cooldown.
Hail Strile: 73-81 * 3 damage (Water) for 3 AP with a 3 turn cooldown.
Blinding Radiance: 159-175 damage (Air) for 2 AP with a 4 turn cooldown.
Some enemies of level 14 can have in the range of 746 to 1044 (maybe more) Magic armor.
It's significantly faster to use skills to rip the armor down than to use auto-attacks, and it doesn't really cost anything because by the time the armor is gone the first skills you used will be off of cooldown again.
Also I would never waste a fireball or hail strike to deal damage to just 1 target,a radious that large has to hit at least 2 so I can feel I got the most value I could get from casting that.
I admit that filler spells like fossil strike and searing daggers are a good substitute for an auto attack as they deal more damage, but the problem is that Aero and Hydro lack such filler spells with only auto attacks as the main mechanic to shred some magical armour.
I never said to use AoE spells on single targets. Aero and Hydro have plenty of damaging spells, although yes, Hydro tends to be weaker.
So if we are going to continue excluding the posibility that an elemental mage can team up with a summoner to bring about havoc and elemental devastation I would say any elemental mage which does not have access to fosil strike,impalement fireball, searing dagger and grenades/elemental arrows that have synergy with the mage's chosen elemental class or the aid of a summoner will rely on their auto attacks the same way Necromancers rely on Warfare to deal good damage
I am playing a Water/Hydro mage, and I do not use normal attacks to deal good damage, I use skills.
You can shred almost everyone's magic armor in one fucking turn at level 8+ unless the AP required to move them into position exceeds your allowance.
How many mages do you need for this? And do you mean shred the magic armor of ALL targets in one turn or just one target? You're going to need to be more specific about your example.
At the very least, if I am doing something wrong, it would be helpful to know.
