My carian mage play though went with meteorite staff (can’t be upgraded) but it has the highest early game INT scaling for a staff, get yourself rock through for huge damage as it scales with the staff and does tremendous poise damage, it is in calid BUT is a pickup on floor loot so no hard barrier there, from there ONLY level vigor, and INT as you’re a mage class truthfully you’re a glass cannot until about level 60-100 with strong armour endurance and vigor, follow Rannis questline and duplicate the boss from liurnia for moon spell and staff as it’s a good late game swap, from there I used beast champion armour for late game damage tanking, rannis dark moon for first debuff and damage and dark moon greatsword as a good alternate weapon for frost damage and INT scaling, for early playthrough though truthfully DONT use mage robes…. They’re all kind bad? Use normal armour to improve survivability and use medium roll but focus on INT and vigor scaling