Recurring post about mage items
If you want mages to have sustained dps, give us a way to sustain our survival over the course of a few hits taken.

Give us a reason and method to sustain in combat that allows us to use this actively with a higher cap late-game:

Please make this have an on-hit upgrade, not an active upgrade:

Make this have a slight flat base on the burn, even if it's 5 damage:

Make this a more practical buy and not what you buy when you're snowballing:

Make this cost more about the on-hit and less about the raw stats: (or split it into 2 items that differentiate these purposes)
