Pandora's PVP Wizard Guide
Pandora - Lost City
Posts: 454 Arc User
Alright, a disclaimer: This guide is for helping you play your wizard and not suck at it. If you want to blow like Haiz and LLama go ahead, that's your choice, I don't really care. If you don't like me, or you don't like the way I play, don't read the guide. It's for helping people not suck, if you suck and refuse to admit it then there's nothing I can do for you. Don't complain. If you don't like my guide, shut up and leave. If you like my guide but think it could be better, tell me how. Lastly, sometimes I call classes by their MY-EN names... Clerics are Priests (EP), Blademasters are Warriors (WR), Venomancers are Werefoxes (WF), barbarians are Werebeasts (WB), Wizards are Mages (MG), and archers are the only class that kept their old (better) names.
That said, this guide, like all of mine, is an eternal work in progress. It is NOT complete as you see it, and probably never will be.
For a skills analysis and descriptions, go to the next post, "Pandora's PVP Skill Handbook". The post after that, Pandora's Box, is a Cube of Fate guide geared toward mages. The rest of this post is a general mage and mage PVP guide. Enjoy!
Welcome, wayward gimp.
So, you rolled a mage. Well, I'll tell you right now you're making a big, big mistake. While I love wizard more than any other class, I'm going to tell you right now that you're in for a wild ride. Your class is considered underpowered by many (and they're right!), it is difficult to get parties until around 80 and you are basically food for any archer who notices you no matter what build you're in. (Well, until you have full HH90 light armor, anyway.)
There's only 4 reasons to roll a wizard.
1) You like to be different.
2) You're a ****.
3) You like oneshotting people.
4) You're just that hardcore.
Figure out which you are, and make sure you are ready for this commitment before moving on. Mage is a lot of fun to play, and you're a powerhouse if you can make it to a high level, but getting there is hell. If you're going to be a casual player, please do yourself a favor and roll Archer or cleric.
Making your character.
Unlike archers, of which males are not very manly looking (ask a male archer to use a lightning attack on you and watch his pose. Nuff said.), both genders look okay for mages.
And, unlike archers, mages look good in basically any style you can put them in. I couldn't find any decent "longer" hair options, so I stuck with short hair, but it worked out nice. Red schemes look really good when casting fire spells, by the way. One of my mage friends made a full light blue/white scheme and it looked pretty awesome when he was casting Ice Dragon.
Don't neglect the skin tone option. While I picked a basic Caucasian skin tone, I have seen mages who do crazy **** like purple/red and make it look really cool. Experiment! We're an exotic class, it's only natural that we'd look that way. Remember that you are the rarest class in the game, so there's nothing wrong with having a rare looking character as well.
The lowbie levels.
Just when you thought the lowbie levels as an archer were rough, enter mage. Your damage is not much better than an archer and you get hit like nothing. Unlike archers, I really REALLY do not reccomend putting any con in at all. In fact, even if you're going light mage, don't start raising your str or dex for now. Just get enough str to wear robes your level and pump your int with every point you get. The faster you kill things, the faster you can get out of the hell that is pre-60 mage.
When you start running out of grind spots, try swimming around for a bit and killing water mobs. With sandstorm and stone rain, we kill water mobs very quickly and water gets the same 1.5x exp modifier that flying gets. For a long time as a low level flying mobs will be mostly wood, which we have no advantage over (no barrier OR critical element) but if you can slip into a vipents party full of archers and priests you'll get good EXP anyway.
Eventually you'll be able to kill Foxies/Foxwings and you will be able to **** these. They cast fire magic, so buy some robes from the AH that have only one or two elements and one of them fire (this way you have a ton of fire resist), throw on your fire barrier and **** 'em with water spells. We are the best class in the game for faming foxies, which are in turn (IMO) the best exp early game. If you want to duo foxies take a priest with you; his buffs will both cause you to kill faster and save your heirogram. Good places to go after foxes are in the air above hidden heroes and in the air behind city of misfortune.
At this point you should be thinking (THINKING, NOT STATTING) which mage you want. There's two kinds of real mages.
The Builds
~Full Int~
This build is the most simple, and most common. You get enough str to wear your gear and everything else goes into int. You hit like a mac truck, you take damage like you're paper, and you do what a mage's job is to do - hurt like **** and die in two shots.
To succeed as full int, you need good gear. Really good gear. Like, + your gear up with mirage stones to +4. All of it. And fill it with HP or pdef shards (this is arguable - I say mix them both, but that's just me.) You need the HP and the pdef from nice gear or you're just going to want to quit the game.
On your gear, you're looking for +pdef mods, because your pdef sucks horribly. +HP is nice too but +pdef is your #1 priority. If you get armor with good pdef mods, then your survivability will improve considerably.
Please understand that as full int, all an archer has to do is target you and roll his face on the keyboard and you are dead. You'll die faster than Deity can rack up a credit card bill. The upside: unless he has winged shell on, you'll oneshot his **** with a crit. And even if you're a bit too scared of your critting ability, Force of Will can buy you a few seconds to get another Sandstorm off.
If you put con on a mage you're ****. You only get 10 hp per point of con, which is the lowest con HP modifier in the game. And unlike a priest or fox, your job is not to be able to take a couple hits to do other things. You don't do other things. The only thing you do is kill things. If you're going to roll a gimp class, at least do your job.
~Light Armor~
This is the secondary build, which can save your **** in PVP. While the bonus from con is minimal, mages are able to build themselves to equip light armor and this is especially effective on them because of Earth Barrier's huge pdef modifier. Keep in mind that you will hit for significantly less damage (UPDATE: Actually, a full int guild member of the same level and I tested our damage on the same target, using the same gear, and he hit for 200 more sandstorm than me. 2900 vs 3100 average. Since then, most of our full int have restatted light armor...), however, you will be able to take a lot of hits. With proper use of blink, the only way to really die on a light mage is to be chain stunned. You will crit significantly more than full int and every sandstorm crit on an archer is a oneshot, so keep that in mind. This is the build I use.
As a light mage, you have all the pdef you need. It's a good idea to pick either your necklace or your belt, and make one of them pdef based, and the other one magic defense based. Then, when picking armor, you're looking for +hp modifiers (NOT +PDEF, YOU HAVE PLENTY AND MORE SUFFERS FROM DIMINISHING RETURNS) and +hp stones. I cannot stress enough that +hp is infinitely better than +pdef for you.
To follow a light build, your STR and DEX must be your level +4, and 3 int every level. If you put stats in any way other than this you will not have enough int to equip your level's weapon, or enough str/dex to equip your level's armor. It is not possible to equip everything your level and put con on in a light armor build.
Update: The HH90 green light set makes light mages basically impossible to kill. A 9X Conquerer archer with a +4 HH90 bow described fighting me today as "like fighting a warrior that can actually kill me." Robes do roughly the same damage but drop dead fast as hell. I am fully confident now that light armor is the way to go.
~Other Builds~
I am a very, VERY firm believer that builds other than light and full int are total ****. And here's why:
Heavy Mage:
Problem #1: You don't have enough Mag to equip a weapon of your level, which means you're equipping a lower level weapon which gimps your damage tremendously. That, or you're equipping a set of armor 10 or more levels below your level, in which case you might as well just go light armor anyway. Problem #2: This game has diminishing returns. That means that the difference in ACTUAL REDUCTION (I.E: How much your damage is reduced) between 1000 and 2000 pdef is MUCH bigger than the difference between 5000 and 6000 pdef. Yes, heavy mages over 100 can get over 22,000 Pdef selfbuffed, but that really doesn't help you when the reduction of your pdef is only 4-5% more than a light armor of your level. You're trading a LOT of damage and some crit for 5% reduction? Come on. That 5% less damage does NOT help you when your HP pool is too small to support it. This build is a joke build only for people who like to see huge useless numbers next to their physical resistance. Next!
Vit Mage/Hybrid Mage:
Of all the "other builds", this one is the closest one to being useful. Vit mages are robe mages who put points into vitality. Exactly how much they put in varies from mage to mage, but all of these mages have one thing in common. They have the same or less survivability than a light mage, with less crit rate and the same damage. You'll be able to take a few hits from a warrior, but not much because we have the lowest vit-to-HP ratio in the game (10 HP per vit, that means if you put in 50 vit you only gained 500 hp...), and if you're going to be in robes anyway you absolutely do not need additional hp for magic spells. Light armor offers more survivability along with a raised crit rate for increased offensive ability.
Melee Mage:
Shut up.
Basic Low-level PVP tactics
So, as a lowbie, you're good at basically one thing and only thing only: Killing heavy armor. That your warriors and your werebeasts. At low levels warriors won't have their anti-magic sutra and werebeasts don't have enough HP to contend with you in mass PVP, but both will eat your face if you let them get close enough to you. Thankfully, you have a wonderful skill called Distance Shrink, and I'm convinced it is the best skill in the mage's arsenal.
Distance Shrink, or "blink" as we usually refer to it, teleports you a short distance ahead of your character. It has a very short cooldown time that gets lower as you level it up, and the distance which you jump gets higher. The only downside of this spell is that it costs a lot of chi, but at a low level, you don't need chi burst to kill things anyway so this is where most of your chi will go.
As a golden rule, no matter what build you are, always PVP with earth barrier on. You need the extra pdef. Period.
Your main skills as a low level are your basic three, gush, pyrogram and stone rain. In due time they will essentially be replaced by Sandstorm, which does massive damage for a slightly longer cast time. Gush and pyrogram are to be used interchangably, the slow from gush is no big deal. Rock fall I used when I needed a spike at a low level, but it really doesn't deal that much more damage than the other two. Divine Pyrogram has no place in PVP at a low level.
So, basically, you spam distance shrink and kite around any warriors or werebeasts. If you have more than one on you, kite them around as long as it takes your guildmates to pick them off. One of you for two of them is a pretty damned good trade, and if you get stunned, spam the distance shrink button and hope to god they don't chain stun well. If you get chain stunned, well, better luck next time.
Pitfall, Crown of Flame, Hailstorm, along with your heal, are all useless in PVP and useless in general. Skip them and save your money.
When you start unlocking masteries, there's no need to rush into them. The only mastery you'll get huge use out of until you have a high level ultimate (or ult) is earth because of sandstorm. For the rest the difference is so negligible that you really shouldn't even bother for now.
One level of Phoenix is great for PVE, the knockback is invaluable, but in PVP phoenix doesn't really shine until the later levels when you can afford to raise it up. Even then, it's very situational.
A tactic you should get used to is called bum rushing. This, in terms of mages, is when you use Distance Shrink to get into an archer's minimum range. There is an imaginary circle around an archer where, if their target is inside of it, they deal half damage with basic attacks some of their skills. This is where you want to be as often as possible, as a stunshot crit on you will tick your heiro (if not kill you alltogether - careful, full inties!). In this place, phoenix is a great skill to lead with as it's got a short cast time and great damage.
As you work your levels up, you'll unlock more skills that you basically don't need (except Sandstorm, which should be leveled ASAP as it becomes your core skill very quickly.) Glacial Snare is a great skill later but early on you simply can't afford to level it. Even if you did, you unlock it so late that it would be a lower level than the rest of your skills, meaning it has a shorter range, and that makes it's slow ability useless if you have to be closer to the target than you would be without it. It's only real use, anyway, is against werebeasts and warriors on the ground (the slow does not work in the air...) and as a leading skill for mobs, and I always just lead with gush and did fine. Force of Will is a wonderful skill that you'll level in due time, but for now just get one level of it and use it to interrupt zhen parties and strong ults you see other people casting.
60s PVP Tactics
Alright, so you're 60. Congrats, the hard part is over. Well, that's half true. The hard part is at 80, but 1-60 is pretty bad too. Anyway, you're 60 now and you've got your choice of 3 ultimates. Refer to my PVP Skills Handbook in the page below to decide which one is for you - and it's not the earth one, I promise.
So, what changes now that you're the big 6X? Well, you're done unlocking new skills (besides your nasty little 79 one, but I'm the only mage I've seen with that on this server so far and was the first to get it >:D) however skills like Sandstorm still have plenty of levels to go. If you find yourself with extra money and SP, now is a great time to max out distance shrink, force of will, and phoenix if you need to. Obviously you won't be able to max some of these skills for a much higher level, but leveling them now isn't a bad idea. I'd wait on Glacial Snare since you won't be able to get that to a decent level for some time and, as I said before, the range gimps the use of the slow until you can level it high.
Force of Will will become a great asset once you're able to level it. This skill makes it so your target cannot attack or cast spells for as long as your skill lasts (about the cast time of one sandstorm when maxed.) It has other uses, but it's main use at a low level is for knocking people out of zhens such as a priest's blueball or an archer's arrow barrage. Once you've leveled it up, it is great to use whenever your heiro ticks (to keep them from finishing the job), and after your target does a spark eruption. Not RIGHT after, because you'll hit their invulernability and be met with "RESIST!", but pretty quickly after the animation's done. People get REALLY pissed when they just wasted two spark to try and kill you and they spend the next 6 seconds unable to do **** with it.
80s PVP Tactics
As time goes on, you become more of a damage dealer. By level 80 you should be oneshotting archers with most of your crits, you can do tons of damage to warriors and werebeasts, and even robe priests take a pretty nasty chunk of damage from your sandstorms.
If you are in an organized guild, they may pool Apocaplypse Pages for you when you're 79 so that you can get Undine Strike, a horribly overpowered debuff of 1 second cast time that lowers your target's resistances to earth, water and fire by 60%. Note that does NOT mean you do 60% more damage, because of diminishing returns you'll do somewhere between 25-30% more damage, but it's still spectacular. Keep in mind that only one mage has to debuff for all of them to get the advantage.
By this point, blade tempest will oneshot any robies you come across, except VERY good geared priests (or priests who see you casting it and put on plume barrier.) Your dragon is nasty too, and will oneshot most archers if you hit them with undine before you use it. Unfortunately, undine's debuff isn't AoE, which limits the usefulness of this combo considerably. The difference undine makes for blade tempest is quite small.
If you don't have your distance shrink maxed by now, you're doing something horribly wrong. Max it immediately or you are useless in PVP. Distance shrink and sandstorm are the skills you are going to spam the most (and Undine, if you have it), and most of your other skills really just become situational. You can drop a gush between sandstorm cooldowns if you need to but skills like stone rain and glacial snare really won't see much use. You finally fit your job as a true heavy hitter damage dealer by this level.
It is a good practice to max out frostblade and give it to all the archers, warriors and werebeasts you see. I don't know exactly how much it helps them but the ones in my guild request it usually. At the very least it'll get you on their good side, which is a good thing because parties are essential for mages.
As far as your 80HH weapon, if you're robe I'd recommend the crit sword Yaksa, and for light armor I recommend Endless Ambiguity. Yaksa has a very nice pdef mod that robe users will adore, while Endless Ambiguity adds a whopping +165 HP which is spectacular for light armor. I am not a fan of the HH80 quoit because the damage is just about the same as Endless Ambiguity (it's a bit better but not by much) and it doesn't have the amazing HP modifier.
Your 89 Choice: Sage or Demon
When you hit 89, you have the choice of going Sage or Demon, and this choice will modify all of your skills (when you get the books.) Typically sage is considered defensive while demon is considered offensive, and for a long time, Demon was considered the "only" choice for mages.
You can find a skills listing at www.ecatomb.net. One thing to notice is it is not completely accurate - for instance, for Hell it says "Reduces casting time by 1.6 seconds" - that's wrong. It reduces it TO 1.6 seconds, which is an INCREDIBLY LARGE difference. If it reduced BY, it would be broken-overpowered. It reduces TO, which is not that spectacular really. At least not for pyrogram which had a really short cast time to begin with. It's quite good for stone rain, however, stone rain feels like it has about the same cast time as pre-89 pyrogram.
Quite a few people have **** bricks, but yes, I went Heaven. There are a number of reasons for this choice, but basically, which you choose (sage/devil) boils down to personal preference. In my eyes, because of stone rain and the chi generation skill, Heaven is superior to Hell when the only skills you can mod are the first three. This is obviously up for debate and always will be, but I have chosen heaven because I like the mod for stone rain and if I ever make it to 99 I'll also like the mod for distance shrink and Wellspring Quaff... If by some miracle the Wellspring Quaff description is accurate and the +100% matk bonus is for the full duration of the buff (and not 15 seconds like the devil version's description is). I somehow really doubt that to be the case, though.
Devil is surely not without it's advantages, however. Devil Fury Burst/Chi Spark/Big Glowy Red Cone/Whatever is fearsome, adding the +700% matk that the Holy version does but also tacking on a whopping +25% channeling speed, which is nothing to scoff at. The Heaven fury burst adds -25% damage taken but to be honest, it's barely noticable in PVP and shouldn't really be relied on. I heaven burst when I have multiple targets that I feel I can take out quickly, because I find using sutra on multiple targets is a waste (it runs out too fast.) Keep in mind that both bursts are pretty ****ty unless nobody has noticed you because as soon as you burst you get stunned/slept/sealed and ignored.
Now that you have reached Sage/Demon, you need to get your skill books. The first three skills you can get are Pyrogram, Stone Rain and Gush, and while these used to be your main weak "poke" skills... They now do a considerable amount of damage (your damage for these skills SKYROCKET when you use your heaven/hell books on them) and will become your core damaging skills. Rock fall basically replaces sandstorm, and gush and pyrogram are used in the downtime. Sandstorm does a little more damage than rock fall, but it's so little extra that it's really not even worth using anymore. The blind effect is nice if you have the range on your target to cast it, but the people you want to blind are usually the people barreling at you, so that's probably not the case.
Do not forget that you acquire a new skill when you go heaven or hell, that gains 50 chi or burns 50 chi off of your target. While I'm not sure how useful the demon chi burning skill is (I never have it used on me, for some reason...) I can tell you that the heaven chi generation skill is absolutely ridiculous and should be spammed on cooldown. Vigor is very important for mages and this skill helps you get quite a bit of it.
HH90 Light Armor
This is the analysis of the Skywalker set, the HH90 green armor.
My gear:
Helm of Aqua Viciousness +4 (4x +32 HP)
Skywalker Shell +4 (3x +40 HP)
Skywalker Shins +4 (3x +40 HP)
Spirit Eater's Boots +5 (HH80 GOLD BOOTS - 4x +40 HP)
Skywalker Wrists +4 (3x +40 HP)
Sky Demon's Pearl +4
Cape of Tauren Chieften +6 (4x +32 HP)
**Ring Of Flaming Sky +2 (Crit 2%, Magic +2, Dexterity +4)
**Ring of Open Sky +3 (Crit 2%, Magic +3, Magic +4)
Blessing of Christmas
1% Crit Arrow
****ty HH80 sword +3 (Soon to be HH90 quoit +8
)
What I can tell you about light at HH90:
*I have 4731 HP without buffs.
*I have 6083 HP with werebeast buff.
*Without buffs and with earth barrier, I have 58% physical reduction, 58% fire, wood and lightning, with slightly higher water (helm of aqua viciousness) and way higher earth (barrier, dur)
*With just priest buffs and earth barrier, I have 64% physical reduction and 66% elementals.
*With warrior buff, I end up at 68% physical reduction.
*Yoshiki (9X archer con archer with WAY plussed up 90 HH bow) hits me for 800 with stunshot, normal shots 400-600 normal shots.
*Diego (9X dex archer with +3 Gold 88 bow) hits me for the same damage.
*Phoenixes before level 95 ripping bite me for about 900 damage - which is basically nonfactor.
*I still oneshot people and I don't even have my HH90 quoit on.
*I hit a high-80s robe mage for 1200 with stone rain, and he hits me with 1300 for sandstorm. And we're both **** for attacking other mages with earth spells in PVP (gg habit), but the point is made.
I am now fully convinced that robes suck balls and light is the way to go. I am able to tank two archers and, if I can go long enough without being stunned, pop one of them and blink away from the other before dying... Essentially meaning I am able to fight 2 9X archers (buffed on both sides), kill one, and escape intact.
The damage that Haiz and Llama, 2 robe mages do to me is pathetic. Judging by the amount they do to me compared to what I do to them, I'd have to say we hit for the same amount of damage.
Robe is **** and so is full int.
Period.
Territory War
Mages are an essential defensive class for territory war. While our offensive uses are considerably limited, there is no class in the game that hits cart pulling werebeasts anyway near as hard as we do (especially with undine.)
Your main job in TW is to seal and pick off rushing warriors, and then to kill cart pulling werebeasts. Your vigor should be spent on sutra for killing cart pullers, or on blade tempest/ice dragon for picking off groups of dds/heavies respectively. When you hit 89, your Devil Fury Burst or Heaven Fury Burst is a spectacular use of your fury, devil more so.
Decent guilds know that mages are the staple defense class, and you will likely be stacked with guild chi pots and receive vigor transfers from the werefoxes around you. In an offensive war (I.E: When you're pushing) your job is much less essential and the vigor will probably go to warriors and werebeasts instead of you. In an offensive move, your only real job is to seal and kill the warriors who are rushing your DDs.
Force of Will is a spectacular skill for TW. You should use this skill when you see rushing warriors and have other mages in your guild chain seals until the target is down. Another use is for archers who are zhenning - archer zhen is disgustingly destructive in TW and should be disabled AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. FoW is also great against werebeasts right after they get buffwiped. Good communication between mages and foxes means that you can buffwipe the werebeast and have him sealed as soon as he's wiped, preventing him from going into turtle and making the takedown that much easier.
Mages do well on the walls but not as well as archers, because a lot of our gameplan relies on distance shrink and the walls restrict your shrink abilities. If you get rushed by a warrior on the wall, fly up or jump off as soon as possible because the walls are too tight for you to effectively be able to fight off a WR.
When pushing forward (playing offensively), your job is to kill Warriors. Warriors have an AoE stun that absolutely **** TW, and in an offensive push, it's a mages job to keep these warriors down. Chain seals with your team to make sure even if they run in they won't be able to stun (sealing is better than stunning because usually when they run in, they'll be in their immune-to-stun sprint so sealing has to do the job) and then spike them dead. If enough of the warriors are dead, you can take out their archers and then their werebeasts. Only support damage on priests if they have plume shell up, that usually means their heirogram has already ticked and your magical damage may be just what your guild needs to finish them off.
In defense, if the cata pullers reach your towers, order your team to set up zhens where you can hit all their cart pullers. "But Pandora, that's silly! Zhen does crappy damage!" Well, that's true, I agree with you. I wouldn't have believed how incredible mage zhen is for defending if I hadn't seen it in action so my times myself. 3 mages with zhens open on cata pullers, debuffs on the pullers, and a WR dragon ult in the zhen spells death for all of the cata pullers. I cannot stress enough how quickly they go down if this is executed properly, but keep in mind 3-4 mages zhenning is required for it to be effective.
That said, this guide, like all of mine, is an eternal work in progress. It is NOT complete as you see it, and probably never will be.
For a skills analysis and descriptions, go to the next post, "Pandora's PVP Skill Handbook". The post after that, Pandora's Box, is a Cube of Fate guide geared toward mages. The rest of this post is a general mage and mage PVP guide. Enjoy!
Welcome, wayward gimp.
So, you rolled a mage. Well, I'll tell you right now you're making a big, big mistake. While I love wizard more than any other class, I'm going to tell you right now that you're in for a wild ride. Your class is considered underpowered by many (and they're right!), it is difficult to get parties until around 80 and you are basically food for any archer who notices you no matter what build you're in. (Well, until you have full HH90 light armor, anyway.)
There's only 4 reasons to roll a wizard.
1) You like to be different.
2) You're a ****.
3) You like oneshotting people.
4) You're just that hardcore.
Figure out which you are, and make sure you are ready for this commitment before moving on. Mage is a lot of fun to play, and you're a powerhouse if you can make it to a high level, but getting there is hell. If you're going to be a casual player, please do yourself a favor and roll Archer or cleric.
Making your character.
Unlike archers, of which males are not very manly looking (ask a male archer to use a lightning attack on you and watch his pose. Nuff said.), both genders look okay for mages.
And, unlike archers, mages look good in basically any style you can put them in. I couldn't find any decent "longer" hair options, so I stuck with short hair, but it worked out nice. Red schemes look really good when casting fire spells, by the way. One of my mage friends made a full light blue/white scheme and it looked pretty awesome when he was casting Ice Dragon.
Don't neglect the skin tone option. While I picked a basic Caucasian skin tone, I have seen mages who do crazy **** like purple/red and make it look really cool. Experiment! We're an exotic class, it's only natural that we'd look that way. Remember that you are the rarest class in the game, so there's nothing wrong with having a rare looking character as well.
The lowbie levels.
Just when you thought the lowbie levels as an archer were rough, enter mage. Your damage is not much better than an archer and you get hit like nothing. Unlike archers, I really REALLY do not reccomend putting any con in at all. In fact, even if you're going light mage, don't start raising your str or dex for now. Just get enough str to wear robes your level and pump your int with every point you get. The faster you kill things, the faster you can get out of the hell that is pre-60 mage.
When you start running out of grind spots, try swimming around for a bit and killing water mobs. With sandstorm and stone rain, we kill water mobs very quickly and water gets the same 1.5x exp modifier that flying gets. For a long time as a low level flying mobs will be mostly wood, which we have no advantage over (no barrier OR critical element) but if you can slip into a vipents party full of archers and priests you'll get good EXP anyway.
Eventually you'll be able to kill Foxies/Foxwings and you will be able to **** these. They cast fire magic, so buy some robes from the AH that have only one or two elements and one of them fire (this way you have a ton of fire resist), throw on your fire barrier and **** 'em with water spells. We are the best class in the game for faming foxies, which are in turn (IMO) the best exp early game. If you want to duo foxies take a priest with you; his buffs will both cause you to kill faster and save your heirogram. Good places to go after foxes are in the air above hidden heroes and in the air behind city of misfortune.
At this point you should be thinking (THINKING, NOT STATTING) which mage you want. There's two kinds of real mages.
The Builds
~Full Int~
This build is the most simple, and most common. You get enough str to wear your gear and everything else goes into int. You hit like a mac truck, you take damage like you're paper, and you do what a mage's job is to do - hurt like **** and die in two shots.
To succeed as full int, you need good gear. Really good gear. Like, + your gear up with mirage stones to +4. All of it. And fill it with HP or pdef shards (this is arguable - I say mix them both, but that's just me.) You need the HP and the pdef from nice gear or you're just going to want to quit the game.
On your gear, you're looking for +pdef mods, because your pdef sucks horribly. +HP is nice too but +pdef is your #1 priority. If you get armor with good pdef mods, then your survivability will improve considerably.
Please understand that as full int, all an archer has to do is target you and roll his face on the keyboard and you are dead. You'll die faster than Deity can rack up a credit card bill. The upside: unless he has winged shell on, you'll oneshot his **** with a crit. And even if you're a bit too scared of your critting ability, Force of Will can buy you a few seconds to get another Sandstorm off.
If you put con on a mage you're ****. You only get 10 hp per point of con, which is the lowest con HP modifier in the game. And unlike a priest or fox, your job is not to be able to take a couple hits to do other things. You don't do other things. The only thing you do is kill things. If you're going to roll a gimp class, at least do your job.
~Light Armor~
This is the secondary build, which can save your **** in PVP. While the bonus from con is minimal, mages are able to build themselves to equip light armor and this is especially effective on them because of Earth Barrier's huge pdef modifier. Keep in mind that you will hit for significantly less damage (UPDATE: Actually, a full int guild member of the same level and I tested our damage on the same target, using the same gear, and he hit for 200 more sandstorm than me. 2900 vs 3100 average. Since then, most of our full int have restatted light armor...), however, you will be able to take a lot of hits. With proper use of blink, the only way to really die on a light mage is to be chain stunned. You will crit significantly more than full int and every sandstorm crit on an archer is a oneshot, so keep that in mind. This is the build I use.
As a light mage, you have all the pdef you need. It's a good idea to pick either your necklace or your belt, and make one of them pdef based, and the other one magic defense based. Then, when picking armor, you're looking for +hp modifiers (NOT +PDEF, YOU HAVE PLENTY AND MORE SUFFERS FROM DIMINISHING RETURNS) and +hp stones. I cannot stress enough that +hp is infinitely better than +pdef for you.
To follow a light build, your STR and DEX must be your level +4, and 3 int every level. If you put stats in any way other than this you will not have enough int to equip your level's weapon, or enough str/dex to equip your level's armor. It is not possible to equip everything your level and put con on in a light armor build.
Update: The HH90 green light set makes light mages basically impossible to kill. A 9X Conquerer archer with a +4 HH90 bow described fighting me today as "like fighting a warrior that can actually kill me." Robes do roughly the same damage but drop dead fast as hell. I am fully confident now that light armor is the way to go.
~Other Builds~
I am a very, VERY firm believer that builds other than light and full int are total ****. And here's why:
Heavy Mage:
Problem #1: You don't have enough Mag to equip a weapon of your level, which means you're equipping a lower level weapon which gimps your damage tremendously. That, or you're equipping a set of armor 10 or more levels below your level, in which case you might as well just go light armor anyway. Problem #2: This game has diminishing returns. That means that the difference in ACTUAL REDUCTION (I.E: How much your damage is reduced) between 1000 and 2000 pdef is MUCH bigger than the difference between 5000 and 6000 pdef. Yes, heavy mages over 100 can get over 22,000 Pdef selfbuffed, but that really doesn't help you when the reduction of your pdef is only 4-5% more than a light armor of your level. You're trading a LOT of damage and some crit for 5% reduction? Come on. That 5% less damage does NOT help you when your HP pool is too small to support it. This build is a joke build only for people who like to see huge useless numbers next to their physical resistance. Next!
Vit Mage/Hybrid Mage:
Of all the "other builds", this one is the closest one to being useful. Vit mages are robe mages who put points into vitality. Exactly how much they put in varies from mage to mage, but all of these mages have one thing in common. They have the same or less survivability than a light mage, with less crit rate and the same damage. You'll be able to take a few hits from a warrior, but not much because we have the lowest vit-to-HP ratio in the game (10 HP per vit, that means if you put in 50 vit you only gained 500 hp...), and if you're going to be in robes anyway you absolutely do not need additional hp for magic spells. Light armor offers more survivability along with a raised crit rate for increased offensive ability.
Melee Mage:
Shut up.
Basic Low-level PVP tactics
So, as a lowbie, you're good at basically one thing and only thing only: Killing heavy armor. That your warriors and your werebeasts. At low levels warriors won't have their anti-magic sutra and werebeasts don't have enough HP to contend with you in mass PVP, but both will eat your face if you let them get close enough to you. Thankfully, you have a wonderful skill called Distance Shrink, and I'm convinced it is the best skill in the mage's arsenal.
Distance Shrink, or "blink" as we usually refer to it, teleports you a short distance ahead of your character. It has a very short cooldown time that gets lower as you level it up, and the distance which you jump gets higher. The only downside of this spell is that it costs a lot of chi, but at a low level, you don't need chi burst to kill things anyway so this is where most of your chi will go.
As a golden rule, no matter what build you are, always PVP with earth barrier on. You need the extra pdef. Period.
Your main skills as a low level are your basic three, gush, pyrogram and stone rain. In due time they will essentially be replaced by Sandstorm, which does massive damage for a slightly longer cast time. Gush and pyrogram are to be used interchangably, the slow from gush is no big deal. Rock fall I used when I needed a spike at a low level, but it really doesn't deal that much more damage than the other two. Divine Pyrogram has no place in PVP at a low level.
So, basically, you spam distance shrink and kite around any warriors or werebeasts. If you have more than one on you, kite them around as long as it takes your guildmates to pick them off. One of you for two of them is a pretty damned good trade, and if you get stunned, spam the distance shrink button and hope to god they don't chain stun well. If you get chain stunned, well, better luck next time.
Pitfall, Crown of Flame, Hailstorm, along with your heal, are all useless in PVP and useless in general. Skip them and save your money.
When you start unlocking masteries, there's no need to rush into them. The only mastery you'll get huge use out of until you have a high level ultimate (or ult) is earth because of sandstorm. For the rest the difference is so negligible that you really shouldn't even bother for now.
One level of Phoenix is great for PVE, the knockback is invaluable, but in PVP phoenix doesn't really shine until the later levels when you can afford to raise it up. Even then, it's very situational.
A tactic you should get used to is called bum rushing. This, in terms of mages, is when you use Distance Shrink to get into an archer's minimum range. There is an imaginary circle around an archer where, if their target is inside of it, they deal half damage with basic attacks some of their skills. This is where you want to be as often as possible, as a stunshot crit on you will tick your heiro (if not kill you alltogether - careful, full inties!). In this place, phoenix is a great skill to lead with as it's got a short cast time and great damage.
As you work your levels up, you'll unlock more skills that you basically don't need (except Sandstorm, which should be leveled ASAP as it becomes your core skill very quickly.) Glacial Snare is a great skill later but early on you simply can't afford to level it. Even if you did, you unlock it so late that it would be a lower level than the rest of your skills, meaning it has a shorter range, and that makes it's slow ability useless if you have to be closer to the target than you would be without it. It's only real use, anyway, is against werebeasts and warriors on the ground (the slow does not work in the air...) and as a leading skill for mobs, and I always just lead with gush and did fine. Force of Will is a wonderful skill that you'll level in due time, but for now just get one level of it and use it to interrupt zhen parties and strong ults you see other people casting.
60s PVP Tactics
Alright, so you're 60. Congrats, the hard part is over. Well, that's half true. The hard part is at 80, but 1-60 is pretty bad too. Anyway, you're 60 now and you've got your choice of 3 ultimates. Refer to my PVP Skills Handbook in the page below to decide which one is for you - and it's not the earth one, I promise.
So, what changes now that you're the big 6X? Well, you're done unlocking new skills (besides your nasty little 79 one, but I'm the only mage I've seen with that on this server so far and was the first to get it >:D) however skills like Sandstorm still have plenty of levels to go. If you find yourself with extra money and SP, now is a great time to max out distance shrink, force of will, and phoenix if you need to. Obviously you won't be able to max some of these skills for a much higher level, but leveling them now isn't a bad idea. I'd wait on Glacial Snare since you won't be able to get that to a decent level for some time and, as I said before, the range gimps the use of the slow until you can level it high.
Force of Will will become a great asset once you're able to level it. This skill makes it so your target cannot attack or cast spells for as long as your skill lasts (about the cast time of one sandstorm when maxed.) It has other uses, but it's main use at a low level is for knocking people out of zhens such as a priest's blueball or an archer's arrow barrage. Once you've leveled it up, it is great to use whenever your heiro ticks (to keep them from finishing the job), and after your target does a spark eruption. Not RIGHT after, because you'll hit their invulernability and be met with "RESIST!", but pretty quickly after the animation's done. People get REALLY pissed when they just wasted two spark to try and kill you and they spend the next 6 seconds unable to do **** with it.
80s PVP Tactics
As time goes on, you become more of a damage dealer. By level 80 you should be oneshotting archers with most of your crits, you can do tons of damage to warriors and werebeasts, and even robe priests take a pretty nasty chunk of damage from your sandstorms.
If you are in an organized guild, they may pool Apocaplypse Pages for you when you're 79 so that you can get Undine Strike, a horribly overpowered debuff of 1 second cast time that lowers your target's resistances to earth, water and fire by 60%. Note that does NOT mean you do 60% more damage, because of diminishing returns you'll do somewhere between 25-30% more damage, but it's still spectacular. Keep in mind that only one mage has to debuff for all of them to get the advantage.
By this point, blade tempest will oneshot any robies you come across, except VERY good geared priests (or priests who see you casting it and put on plume barrier.) Your dragon is nasty too, and will oneshot most archers if you hit them with undine before you use it. Unfortunately, undine's debuff isn't AoE, which limits the usefulness of this combo considerably. The difference undine makes for blade tempest is quite small.
If you don't have your distance shrink maxed by now, you're doing something horribly wrong. Max it immediately or you are useless in PVP. Distance shrink and sandstorm are the skills you are going to spam the most (and Undine, if you have it), and most of your other skills really just become situational. You can drop a gush between sandstorm cooldowns if you need to but skills like stone rain and glacial snare really won't see much use. You finally fit your job as a true heavy hitter damage dealer by this level.
It is a good practice to max out frostblade and give it to all the archers, warriors and werebeasts you see. I don't know exactly how much it helps them but the ones in my guild request it usually. At the very least it'll get you on their good side, which is a good thing because parties are essential for mages.
As far as your 80HH weapon, if you're robe I'd recommend the crit sword Yaksa, and for light armor I recommend Endless Ambiguity. Yaksa has a very nice pdef mod that robe users will adore, while Endless Ambiguity adds a whopping +165 HP which is spectacular for light armor. I am not a fan of the HH80 quoit because the damage is just about the same as Endless Ambiguity (it's a bit better but not by much) and it doesn't have the amazing HP modifier.
Your 89 Choice: Sage or Demon
When you hit 89, you have the choice of going Sage or Demon, and this choice will modify all of your skills (when you get the books.) Typically sage is considered defensive while demon is considered offensive, and for a long time, Demon was considered the "only" choice for mages.
You can find a skills listing at www.ecatomb.net. One thing to notice is it is not completely accurate - for instance, for Hell it says "Reduces casting time by 1.6 seconds" - that's wrong. It reduces it TO 1.6 seconds, which is an INCREDIBLY LARGE difference. If it reduced BY, it would be broken-overpowered. It reduces TO, which is not that spectacular really. At least not for pyrogram which had a really short cast time to begin with. It's quite good for stone rain, however, stone rain feels like it has about the same cast time as pre-89 pyrogram.
Quite a few people have **** bricks, but yes, I went Heaven. There are a number of reasons for this choice, but basically, which you choose (sage/devil) boils down to personal preference. In my eyes, because of stone rain and the chi generation skill, Heaven is superior to Hell when the only skills you can mod are the first three. This is obviously up for debate and always will be, but I have chosen heaven because I like the mod for stone rain and if I ever make it to 99 I'll also like the mod for distance shrink and Wellspring Quaff... If by some miracle the Wellspring Quaff description is accurate and the +100% matk bonus is for the full duration of the buff (and not 15 seconds like the devil version's description is). I somehow really doubt that to be the case, though.
Devil is surely not without it's advantages, however. Devil Fury Burst/Chi Spark/Big Glowy Red Cone/Whatever is fearsome, adding the +700% matk that the Holy version does but also tacking on a whopping +25% channeling speed, which is nothing to scoff at. The Heaven fury burst adds -25% damage taken but to be honest, it's barely noticable in PVP and shouldn't really be relied on. I heaven burst when I have multiple targets that I feel I can take out quickly, because I find using sutra on multiple targets is a waste (it runs out too fast.) Keep in mind that both bursts are pretty ****ty unless nobody has noticed you because as soon as you burst you get stunned/slept/sealed and ignored.
Now that you have reached Sage/Demon, you need to get your skill books. The first three skills you can get are Pyrogram, Stone Rain and Gush, and while these used to be your main weak "poke" skills... They now do a considerable amount of damage (your damage for these skills SKYROCKET when you use your heaven/hell books on them) and will become your core damaging skills. Rock fall basically replaces sandstorm, and gush and pyrogram are used in the downtime. Sandstorm does a little more damage than rock fall, but it's so little extra that it's really not even worth using anymore. The blind effect is nice if you have the range on your target to cast it, but the people you want to blind are usually the people barreling at you, so that's probably not the case.
Do not forget that you acquire a new skill when you go heaven or hell, that gains 50 chi or burns 50 chi off of your target. While I'm not sure how useful the demon chi burning skill is (I never have it used on me, for some reason...) I can tell you that the heaven chi generation skill is absolutely ridiculous and should be spammed on cooldown. Vigor is very important for mages and this skill helps you get quite a bit of it.
HH90 Light Armor
This is the analysis of the Skywalker set, the HH90 green armor.
My gear:
Helm of Aqua Viciousness +4 (4x +32 HP)
Skywalker Shell +4 (3x +40 HP)
Skywalker Shins +4 (3x +40 HP)
Spirit Eater's Boots +5 (HH80 GOLD BOOTS - 4x +40 HP)
Skywalker Wrists +4 (3x +40 HP)
Sky Demon's Pearl +4
Cape of Tauren Chieften +6 (4x +32 HP)
**Ring Of Flaming Sky +2 (Crit 2%, Magic +2, Dexterity +4)
**Ring of Open Sky +3 (Crit 2%, Magic +3, Magic +4)
Blessing of Christmas
1% Crit Arrow
****ty HH80 sword +3 (Soon to be HH90 quoit +8
)What I can tell you about light at HH90:
*I have 4731 HP without buffs.
*I have 6083 HP with werebeast buff.
*Without buffs and with earth barrier, I have 58% physical reduction, 58% fire, wood and lightning, with slightly higher water (helm of aqua viciousness) and way higher earth (barrier, dur)
*With just priest buffs and earth barrier, I have 64% physical reduction and 66% elementals.
*With warrior buff, I end up at 68% physical reduction.
*Yoshiki (9X archer con archer with WAY plussed up 90 HH bow) hits me for 800 with stunshot, normal shots 400-600 normal shots.
*Diego (9X dex archer with +3 Gold 88 bow) hits me for the same damage.
*Phoenixes before level 95 ripping bite me for about 900 damage - which is basically nonfactor.
*I still oneshot people and I don't even have my HH90 quoit on.
*I hit a high-80s robe mage for 1200 with stone rain, and he hits me with 1300 for sandstorm. And we're both **** for attacking other mages with earth spells in PVP (gg habit), but the point is made.
I am now fully convinced that robes suck balls and light is the way to go. I am able to tank two archers and, if I can go long enough without being stunned, pop one of them and blink away from the other before dying... Essentially meaning I am able to fight 2 9X archers (buffed on both sides), kill one, and escape intact.
The damage that Haiz and Llama, 2 robe mages do to me is pathetic. Judging by the amount they do to me compared to what I do to them, I'd have to say we hit for the same amount of damage.
Robe is **** and so is full int.
Period.
Territory War
Mages are an essential defensive class for territory war. While our offensive uses are considerably limited, there is no class in the game that hits cart pulling werebeasts anyway near as hard as we do (especially with undine.)
Your main job in TW is to seal and pick off rushing warriors, and then to kill cart pulling werebeasts. Your vigor should be spent on sutra for killing cart pullers, or on blade tempest/ice dragon for picking off groups of dds/heavies respectively. When you hit 89, your Devil Fury Burst or Heaven Fury Burst is a spectacular use of your fury, devil more so.
Decent guilds know that mages are the staple defense class, and you will likely be stacked with guild chi pots and receive vigor transfers from the werefoxes around you. In an offensive war (I.E: When you're pushing) your job is much less essential and the vigor will probably go to warriors and werebeasts instead of you. In an offensive move, your only real job is to seal and kill the warriors who are rushing your DDs.
Force of Will is a spectacular skill for TW. You should use this skill when you see rushing warriors and have other mages in your guild chain seals until the target is down. Another use is for archers who are zhenning - archer zhen is disgustingly destructive in TW and should be disabled AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. FoW is also great against werebeasts right after they get buffwiped. Good communication between mages and foxes means that you can buffwipe the werebeast and have him sealed as soon as he's wiped, preventing him from going into turtle and making the takedown that much easier.
Mages do well on the walls but not as well as archers, because a lot of our gameplan relies on distance shrink and the walls restrict your shrink abilities. If you get rushed by a warrior on the wall, fly up or jump off as soon as possible because the walls are too tight for you to effectively be able to fight off a WR.
When pushing forward (playing offensively), your job is to kill Warriors. Warriors have an AoE stun that absolutely **** TW, and in an offensive push, it's a mages job to keep these warriors down. Chain seals with your team to make sure even if they run in they won't be able to stun (sealing is better than stunning because usually when they run in, they'll be in their immune-to-stun sprint so sealing has to do the job) and then spike them dead. If enough of the warriors are dead, you can take out their archers and then their werebeasts. Only support damage on priests if they have plume shell up, that usually means their heirogram has already ticked and your magical damage may be just what your guild needs to finish them off.
In defense, if the cata pullers reach your towers, order your team to set up zhens where you can hit all their cart pullers. "But Pandora, that's silly! Zhen does crappy damage!" Well, that's true, I agree with you. I wouldn't have believed how incredible mage zhen is for defending if I hadn't seen it in action so my times myself. 3 mages with zhens open on cata pullers, debuffs on the pullers, and a WR dragon ult in the zhen spells death for all of the cata pullers. I cannot stress enough how quickly they go down if this is executed properly, but keep in mind 3-4 mages zhenning is required for it to be effective.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.
Post edited by Pandora - Lost City on
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Pandora's PVP Skill Handbook
One of the major compliments I got on my archer guide was how in depth I was about the skills, and I plan to do the same right here for us mages. However, I'm going to go at it a little differently. Here we go.
You can find your skill tree, along with the numbers I have assigned there, here for quick reference. I'd love to put the image in the post, however, for whatever reason this forum has disabled image linking in just about every forum. Makes guides that much less nice, actually.
http://i38.tinypic.com/ih8x0h.png
So, let's get started:
1) Pyrogram (Image: )
Channel: 1.5 seconds
Cast: 0.8 seconds
Cooldown: 3.0 seconds
This skill is the most basic of basics. You summon a burning card, you throw it at them, maybe yell the Gambit line of your choice (Royal.... FLUSH!!!) and then they take some fire damage. The damage isn't tremendous, in fact it's quite low, but the spell casts very fast and it's a great little poke. Should be maxed as it's one of your base 3 skills. Useful in PVP when sandstorm is cooling. I like sandstorm -> gush -> pyro.
2) Pyroshell (Image: )
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
Spark Cost: 30 Chi
This is your fire magic barrier, the last of the barriers you should raise. It's only use is raising your fire defense. Useful for fighting fire magic mobs, and that's about it.
3) Crown of Flames (Image: )
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
1 level of this skill and never any more. Never touch this skill ever. Not worth the mana it costs to use it.
4) Divine Pyrogram (Image: )
Channel: 3.0 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 3.0 Sec
Pyrogram on steroids. This skill has a considerably longer casting time but does pretty damned good damage. The long cast time makes it really situational (used mostly as your opening skill against metal mobs) and WOULD make it basically useless for PVP (it's damage isn't on the level of sandstorm) if not for one thing. Take a good look at it's casting times - it's very heavily based on Channeling, which with Essential Sutra, is gone. That makes this skill a mere one second cast for some very nice damage. Raise this skill later for your sutra combo.
5) The Dragon's Breath (Image: )
Channel: 1.2 Sec
Cast: Channeling
Cooldown: 15.0 Sec
Spark Cost: 1 spark
The mage's zhen skill. This skill sets up a big circle around you where the mobs/players inside will take damage every few seconds. It's used because every target in the circle takes damage at once, meaning you can pull lots of mobs into the zhen and kill them all at once for some very effective leveling. Not a great PVP skill, though, but it's alright at low levels when all you're fighting is lowbies. Never use it in real pvp, the damage is mediocre and you'll get stunned out of it. Not to mention it wastes a spark.
6) Will of the Phoenix (Image: )
Channel: 1.0 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 8.0 Sec
The mage's first and only knockback skill. You must get at least one level of this skill as it is great for knocking back mobs in PVE. As you level it up, this will become one of your main TW skills and it's also a great little spike when your target gets too close. Does more damage than your basic skills and casts very fast, but it has a short range.
7) Emberstorm(Image: )
Channel: Shut
Cast: The Hell
Cooldown: Up
This skill is not to be used ever under any circumstances. Get one level of it and pretend you've never heard of it.
8) Blade Tempest (Image: )
Channel: 4.0 Sec
Cast: 1.8 Sec
Cooldown: 30.0 Sec
Spark Cost: 2 Spark
This is one of your ults, a nasty little skill that does it's damage as half fire magical and half PHYSICAL. As the only physical nuke mages get (I hate priests.) this skill is an amazing pickup. Once you level it, if you can successfully cast it, basically every robe and 90% of the archers caught in the AoE are going to die. Does not do spectacular damage against heavy armor, because of the half-physical aspect. Should be used where there are lots of robes/archers clumped up, or when you absolutely need to finish a priest in one shot (like if they're healing themselves.) It's a good idea to cast FoW on the target before you start BT so you don't get interrupted. I cannot stress enough how destructive this spell is against robe classes.
9) Fire Mastery (Image: )
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
One of your three mastery skills, this one for the fire element. It's only real use, in my opinion, is for blade tempest. It's difference on the sutra combo is minimal. Skip it until late.
10) Gush (Image: )
Channel: 1 second
Cast: 1 seconds
Cooldown: 3.0 seconds
This is your staple water skill. It casts very quickly and has a nice slow effect to go along with it. A nice filler skill for PVP, a nice lead for PVE, overall a great skill. Max it out ASAP.
11) Glacial Embrace (Image: )
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
Spark Required: 30 Chi
This is your water barrier. Along with giving the usual defense bonus for it's element, the water barrier has the special bonus of adding a MP regeneration bonus that scales with the levels. While being useless for you in PVP, this skill is great if you're fighting magic mobs that are wood or metal (you don't have barriers that can resist them) because it saves you some MP. Obviously a great choice against water magic mobs as well. This barrier should be maxed after earth.
12) Morning Dew (Image: )
Channel: 4.5 seconds
Cast: 1.2 seconds
Cooldown: 1 second
A crappy, gimpy heal. Actually, when maxed, it can heal for quite a bit. Either way, the long cast time makes it useless to us... Until you start doing the cube. If you plan to cube, get this heal to 8 or more. I have it maxed now as I do cube daily. Why? Because there's a room called The Last Stand where the only way for a mage to complete it is to kill all of the monsters attacking him and then sit as far in a corner as he can spam potions and self heal. Without a proper heal you will not make it through this room.
13) Frostblade (Image: )
Channel: .8 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 3.0 Sec
One of the wizard's more interesting skills (and our only real support skill since our heal is useless), this skill adds damage to the buffed player in the form of water elemental. Similar to burning arrows. The damage is small but noticable, and it is especially useful when fighting fire mobs. The other use of this skill? Spam it on yourself to produce vigor fairly quickly. A nice skill, but no rush to max it. Raise it casually when you find the chance.
14) Glacial Snare (Image: )
Channel: 2.5 seconds
Cast: 1.8 seconds
Cooldown: 15.0 Sec
A nice, strong nuke, glacial snare would outclass sandstorm if it wasn't for it's pathetically long reuse time. This skill has a great slow effect which is basically the equivalent of paralyzing the character, but it doesn't work in the air and smart warriors will sprint out of it. Still a nice hard nuke, and a great lead for PVE. I reccomend leaving it at level 1 for a while, and then when you can finally get it a lot of levels, get them all at once. If you raise it slowly early it will not outdamage sandstorm and the slow (if it even lands) will be useless because of the shortened range. Lastly, this skill plays a part in your sutra combo, so you WILL want to raise it eventually.
15) Black Ice Dragon Strike (Image: )
Channel: 4.0 Sec
Cast: 1.6 Sec
Cooldown: 30.0 Sec
Spark Required: 2 Spark
The famous "dragon" of mages, this skill hurts like a *****. It does tremendous water elemental damage to all of the targets in the AoE, and is the hardest hitting of your ultimate on non-robe targets. This skill, unfortunately, has a huge flashy animation that people will rush to cancel you out of. The damage is spectacular and can oneshot warriors and archers if it crits, but the results on a warrior are nothing like the results of Blade Tempest on a robe. Overall a solid choice for an ultimate that will definitely be useful in TW.
16) Water Mastery (Image: )
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
Your water mastery will find use mostly in glacial snare and ice dragon (the difference on gush is a joke), so pump it when you have enough of those two. There's really no rush, you can leave this out for a long time.
17) Hailstorm (Image: )
Channel: 1.8 seconds
Cast: 1.2 seconds
Cooldown: 12 seconds
This skill had the potential to be useful but it just doesn't excel at anything. The damage is pathetic and the freeze chance is unreliable and basically useless with the huge cooldown the skill has. You can get away with not putting a single point into this skill, and I highly reccomend you do just that.
18) Wellspring Quaff (Image: )
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 3 seconds
Spark Cost: 1 Spark
This skill raises your max MP. It's essentially useless until you reach devil/angel. However, once you hit 59, you're going to want to get 5 levels of it so that you can get...
19) Essential Sutra (Image: )
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 60 Seconds
Spark Cost: 2 Spark
This skill is incredible. It costs a hefty 2 spark, but for the next 6 seconds, all your spells have no channel time at all. This still is the best way to finish off a warrior or werebeast because, while fury has a HUGE super flashy animation and a cast time, this skill just makes a shine around you and has no cast time at all, meaning you're much less likely to get stunned out of it and you can unload immediately without the long casting pose of fury burst to let your target's stuns recharge. The best combo for this is Divine Pyrogram -> Glacial Snare -> Sandstorm -> Divine Pyrogram.
20) Manifest Virtue (Image: )
Channel: 0.8 Seconds
Cast: 1 Second
Cooldown: 5 Minutes
Spark Cost: 1 Spark
While I have not yet gotten this skill (it requires level 100), it's pretty basic. It eats up one spark and adds your MP/100 as a % to your matk. Meaning if you have 10,000 MP, you'll add 100% to your matk. I am *not* positive on this but it seems obvious this spell would stack with wellspring quaff meaning that your MP should be pretty damned high by the time you've got it. Lasts 30 seconds.
21) Stone Rain (Image: )
Channel: 2.0 seconds
Cast: 1.4 seconds
Cooldown: 6.0 seconds
Your bread a butter earth skill, Stone Rain takes a bit longer to cast than gush or pyrogram but the damage is noticably better. If you use it or not in pvp depends largely on if you're crit or channel based (a channel-based caster will find more worth in this skill) and if you prefer to use little short spells or do more damage in a single one. I lean toward gush and pyro because a shorter cast time appeals to me. Either way, max this skill as it's your base earth skill and you will use it a lot until you get sandstorm.
22) Stone Barrier (Image: )
Channel: SHORT
Cast: AWESOME
Cooldown: INCREDIBLE
Earth Barrier. This is your main barrier skill, as instead of adding a useless regen effect it adds a whopping 100% physical defense. This skill is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for PVP no matter if you're light or robe. MAX IT. NOW.
23) Pitfall (Image: )
Channel: 1.0 Seconds
Cast: 1.0 Seconds
Cooldown: 8.0 Seconds
The crown of flames of the earth tree, this skill is pretty crappy. The paralyze and the slow are nice but not nice enough to justify using it. Get one level and move on.
24) Sandstorm (Image: )
Channel: 2.5 Seconds
Cast: 1.5 Seconds
Cooldown: 6.0 Seconds
Reasonable cast time, miniscule recharge, and incredible damage. This is your main skill, the skill that makes mages what we are. A critical from this skill will oneshot most archers of your level, and will easily tick the heiro of a werebeast or warrior your level. Sandstorm also has a neat little effect of wrecking the target's accuracy. This skill is absolutely incredible and I spam it in PVP, and use it more than I use any other skill. If you max nothing else, max this. Your #1 skill. Period.
25) Force of Will (Image: )
Channel: .5 Seconds
Cast: 2.0 Seconds
Cooldown: 22.0 Seconds (at max level)
Force of Will is another amazing asset to mages. This skill silences the target, cancels any channeling skill they may have had running and prevents them from using skills or any type of attack until the seal wears off. This skill is spectacular even at level one, if an archer is zhenning or a priest has blue ball up just target them and hit this skill and... Viola! It's down. See a mage summoning up a big nasty dragon? Force of Will, and their sparks are wasted and their cast is cancelled. As you get to a higher level (and have maxed sandstorm and spare SP) you can level this skill up and it will become amazingly useful. Did your target just spark burst? Awesome, seal them and waste 5 seconds of their spark. Your heiro down and you're in deep ****? Seal them and buy it time to recharge. Saves your friends too, if an archer is wailing on your priest just silence him and buy your priest a chance. Great, incredible skill that you should get one level of early and then max when you can spare the SP. Leveling up the skill also lowers cooldown time.
26) Mountain's Seize (Image: )
Channel: 5.0 seconds
Cast: 1.4 seconds
Cooldown: 30.0 seconds
Your two-spark "ult" doom skill for earth, Mountain's Seize is surprisingly disappointing. The damage is considerably less than fire and water (which is weird given this element's damage...), but in turn it stuns all the targets in AOE to a high chance for a few seconds. While this sounds great on paper, it's really not, as most of the time you're using one of your ults the targets are already stunned from your warriors in the stun cloud. Stuns don't stack so using this skill on a target that's already stunned results in no additional effect. All in all, I'd skip on this skill, despite being your only stun before 89 it's really situational and in my opinion the worst of the 3 ultimates.
27) Earth Mastery (Image: )
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
Despite the ultimate for earth being pretty crappy, sandstorm is not, and earth mastery = sandstorm damage. This is the first mastery you should max.
28) Elemental Shell (Image: )
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Raises the target's metal, water, fire, and earth resistance by some ridiculous number for 4 seconds. It's not horrible, but it's not spectacular. I don't have this skill yet as it is a 79 skill and my clan stacks pages on specific players.
29) Soporific Whisper (Image: )
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 2 minutes
Chi Cost: 20 chi
Puts the target to sleep for 4 seconds. Pretty cut and dry, could be used as a chase or an an additional interrupt like FoW.
30) Distance Shrink (Image: )
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 10 seconds (at max)
Chi Cost: 20 chi
Warps you 25 meters forward (at max level) immediately. Amazing for chasing, amazing for kiting, just all around amazing. While this skill will not do much for you in PVE, it is one of our absolute most important PVP skills and should be maxed as soon as you can spare the resources to max it. If you're being chain stunned, spam your distance shrink button until you can get out of it. If you see a warrior channeling a stun on you, distance shrink away and it'll waste his time. If you see an archer channeling stunshot, distance shrink out of his range and it'll cancel it out and buy you more time. Just an amazing, super-useful utility skill that you should max if you ever plan on PVPing. Leveling this up lowers the cooldown time to a mere 10 seconds.
31) Undine Strike (Image: )
Channel: 1 seconds
Cast: 0.5 seconds
Cooldown: 1 seconds
THIS SKILL IS AMAZING. It's by far the best of the new 79 skills, it casts basically instantly (and cools down just as fast) and lowers the target's resistances by 60%. Lowers their water, fire and earth resistances, all of the mage ones. It essentially gives you +20%-30% damage on the target, and that effect holds true for all mages who hit it. Get this skill as quickly as possible, it's well worth the 20 apocalypse pages to make it. It becomes your lead skill for the rest of the time you play this game. The effect lasts 12 seconds, and cannot be refreshed while it is on the target. You must wait for the effect to wear off before starting it again.
32) Elemental Invocation (Image: )
Channel: 3 seconds
Cast: 1 seconds
Cooldown: 10 minutes
This is a level 100 skill and I'm hung over and too lazy to figure out what the description of it actually means. It does a bunch of different **** on the target. If you're level 100 and you're still reading my guide, my only question is how much you spent buying that character.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
A Cube of Fate guide
Pandora's Box
for horrible gimp mages
Cube of Fate is a daily repeatable quest where, if you finish it successfully, you get a buttload of EXP and a reasonable amount of SP, not to mention you'll probably get some Mysterious Chips. These can be traded in at the Mysterious Merchant in thousand streams for molders and gold HH mats.
Sounds great, right? Wrong. You are a mage, you're gimp as hell, and you're the worst class in the game to do cube.
But at level 80+ you get 400,000 exp a day if you complete the cube. That's nothing to scoff at; that's almost as much as both of your other daily quests combined.
So, I'm going to do what I can to help you complete the cube. I do this quest every day and it is where a large part of my experience has come from. Keep in mind the whole basis of the cube is LUCK and regardless of how good you are at it, you can finish it in 5 minutes and use 9 tickets or you can be in the cube 3 hours straight and use 100 tickets and not complete it. I am not making any promises.
That said, the way the cube operates is that you trade mirage stones for dice tickets and every room takes up dice tickets and has a special quest-thing in it. Some of the quests are to count floating orbs, some are to kill mobs, some are even to kill players. If you get into a room, you complete that room, then the guy takes a dice ticket and gives you a die. You roll the die 1-6 and that's how many rooms you continue on. If you get to room 50, you win.
If you die, regardless of it's from environment, mobs or players, you go back to the start.
Let's give it a go.
Room 1: Fate's beginning
This room doesn't really count. It's the lobby. Here you'll find a bunch of pots that don't do anything of use, some shops with **** like "TICKETS/CARDS" in the name, some people using the lobby as a free port to ADC, and the guy in the middle, Room 1 Teleport Master.
You will find these herc-clones in every room, they are who you talk to to continue along the cube. This one in particular you have to talk to like 16 times before he'll actually give you dice.
But before you activate your dice and warp into the cube, check your character. You want the following things:
1) Full vigor.
2) Red potions of your level.
3) Pink/purple/Ican'tseecolors potions of your level.
4) Werebeast buffs + priest buffs (optional, but the chances of you finishing a certain room without wb buff is low as hell)
5) Robber Card x1
6) Bully Card x1
7) Both heirograms.
8) Dice Tickets. It's debatable how many you want, but I'd go for about 40. Any you don't use you can use tomorrow, after all. You make these at the pot by breaking mirage stones into 2 tickets each, or by buying tickets from players.
All set? Good. Double click your cube and port in.
Room 2: Chest Of Mystery
Talk to the guy, he gives you a quest to shovel some chests. Shovel some chests. Get a die. Use it.
Room 3: Slaughterhouse
Pretty easy room. These mobs use water magic to nuke you, just kill them, they don't livesteal so it's not so bad. Make sure you kill the right type, the names are really similar. Use your water barrier.
Room 4: Mice Bashing
This room is a joke. There's a bunch of tombstones around. Talk to the guy, get the quest, and oneshot the tombstones with gush and pyrogram. Then you get your die and continue.
Room 5: Count the Apples
This room is pretty simple, but you might lose anyway. You talk to a guy in the middle and he tells you to count the floating orbs above you. He'll tell you which color he wants, close the window and zoom into first person mode. Then hit alt+h to hide your UI, count 'em, and answer. Good luck.
Room 6: Open Sesame
Annoying room with a huge boss. It deals like no damage but takes forever to die and you have to kill it to pass. Have fun, hope you've got a lot of mana heiro.
Room 7: Have a Listen
This room is ****ing easy. Talk to the butterfly ***** and then run along the south wall of the room straight through the blowup beetles (I just made that up.) Then stick to the wall and run to the teleport master and leave.
Room 8: Try Your Luck
Room 9: 100 Second Stand
There's three of this type of room, but this one[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
atleast this time around you made it past 5x and decided to write a guide
well done pandora
and while im being half sarcastic i really never thought i would see you pass 6x, grats BRAH0 -
***** please. The archer guide's tactics hold true far past 5x. It would do Chaotiic a thing or two.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Cool cool, haven't read yet, will though right away."If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."b:shutup
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »***** please. The archer guide's tactics hold true far past 5x. It would do Chaotiic a thing or two.
that's great pandora, please flame chaotiic when you are more than aware he knows how to pvp far better than most of the eas in BL or RQ
Please when im crashing your entire party start shooting me with DoTs all mighty RQ archers, please do not use your weapon correctly and please continue spamming skills while using a sling.
Shh now0 -
when you find out about "colligation bolt" or "aim low" you can respond, Envy. Until then anything you say to me I'm going to take with a grain of salt.
And by the way, the only person worse at archer on this server than Chaotiic is Chaoslegend, and he didn't drop us a +4 HH80 bow with flawless shards in it so he's forgiven.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »when you find out about "colligation bolt" or "aim low" you can respond, Envy.
What?
1asdpufasdufa9rtj3975ynslg00 -
Envy - Lost City wrote: »What?
1asdpufasdufa9rtj3975ynslg0
Swish. Point made.
1asdpufasdufa9rtj3975ynslg0[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »Swish. Point made.
1asdpufasdufa9rtj3975ynslg0
Um, no not really
What do you mean by "find out about it" ? Im pretty sure ive used them to one shot tons of your members.0 -
Envy - Lost City wrote: »Um, no not really
What do you mean by "find out about it" ? Im pretty sure ive used them to one shot tons of your members.
I have never, ever seen you use colligation bolt once. And you sure as hell haven't used it on me in all your attempts on me, lol. Maybe you'd have won one if you did.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »I have never, ever seen you use colligation bolt once. And you sure as hell haven't used it on me in all your attempts on me, lol. Maybe you'd have won one if you did.
we have fought maybe 3 times
once while i was out numbered
once while you where buffed and i wasnt
and once when i 1 shot you
b:shy0 -
Where's the screenshot of you oneshotting me? Because I know for a fact it's never happened.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »Alright, a disclaimer: This guide is for helping you play your wizard and not suck at it. If you want to blow like Haiz and LLama go ahead, that's your choice, I don't really care.
Uh oh, Pandora hit 8x and he thinks he is the shizznits.
Please put on your PvP guide about using sutra to teleport to city to run faster, all of our mages never actually thought about that before. You are pretty smart at thinking of ways to avoid fights.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »Where's the screenshot of you oneshotting me? Because I know for a fact it's never happened.
oh you **** you're gonna make me rummage through hundreds SS here =.=
link0 -
I have 4.1k HP buffed, nice try. It's not a oneshot when LLama gushes me first. Also, even if it was a oneshot (and it wasn't), I was at dragonmaids = water barrier. Cute.Haiz - Lost City wrote: »Uh oh, Pandora hit 8x and he thinks he is the shizznits.
Please put on your PvP guide about using sutra to teleport to city to run faster, all of our mages never actually thought about that before. You are pretty smart at thinking of ways to avoid fights.
Holy.
'Nuff said.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »I have 4.1k HP buffed, nice try. It's not a oneshot when LLama gushes me first. Also, even if it was a oneshot (and it wasn't), I was at dragonmaids = water barrier. Cute.
Holy.
'Nuff said.
You wernt buffed (besides self buff), it was a magic attack so the barrier made no difference.
LLama didnt attack you, and you wernt fighting mobs.0 -
Man I so failed everything you stated in your guide. I want them to come out with name change scrolls so I can name my char ULTIFAIL. I really wish you put this out before I maxed skills I dont need and but about 50 vit on my char. Oh wells I like a challenge. :P0
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BTW why wont my avatar update.....Im 76 now wtf!0
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Biggyluv - Lost City wrote: »Man I so failed everything you stated in your guide. I want them to come out with name change scrolls so I can name my char ULTIFAIL. I really wish you put this out before I maxed skills I dont need and but about 50 vit on my char. Oh wells I like a challenge. :P
You can always buy a stat re-set.
Back.0 -
o.O pandy actually considered full int as a build
wow lol ,,oh well anyways good guide but you missed a point or two 
one of them is rerolling as LA will make you VERY vulnrable to full int mages,,but hey 
we are rare anyways lol so it's minimal risk here , other is that if your going full int just skip all the items and save up for hh 90 , no need to waste it on some 80 **** then having to change it later,and if ur full int you'll level fast anyways (not me i got college), and a full INT can effectively pvp with crappy gears, just make sure you have a good weapon,,good 2 rings,,and use blink like there is no tomorow ,oh and another thing, hail storm can be used in pvp , when someone is making a run for it or some warrior dashing like there is no tomorrow to you who knows , 33% paralyze ,so might get lucky lol
P.S:talking about mass pvp , small pk wars just nvm them you'll get your butt kicked lolWrathy
8x Mage
LC server .0 -
Mmmm... Nice guide Pandora.0
-
Wrathy.
My name is Haiz and I approve and use hailstorm in PvP. By the way, how do you like my fairy? Jealous much Pandorun?
It is the only mage skill that can really stop movement of someone running in the air and most PvP is done in the air. What do you think is more useful, using gush on someone running in the air or having a 33% chance of paralyzing them for a few seconds? Since mages are probably the fastest in the air if combined with blink I can say that hailstorm has helped me catch up to people, paralyze and then let the clerics/archers catch up to stun/sleep.0 -
Nice Write up Pandora. I personally love being a mage and can't wait till the higher levels,. Me and some friends made a small guild, so I usually have a cleric to save my ****, or a WB to tank so I don't get hit. Again, great guide, have fun out there. Now go kill some helpless level 30 0
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Haiz - Lost City wrote: »By the way, how do you like my fairy? Jealous much Pandorun?
I would be, except you picked heaven, lololol.It is the only mage skill that can really stop movement of someone running in the air and most PvP is done in the air. What do you think is more useful, using gush on someone running in the air or having a 33% chance of paralyzing them for a few seconds? Since mages are probably the fastest in the air if combined with blink I can say that hailstorm has helped me catch up to people, paralyze and then let the clerics/archers catch up to stun/sleep.
I don't have to stop movement. You've got a fairy, but I've got undine strike, and that means unless it's a WR or WB one sandstorm is all it takes. With blink to catch up, why do you need a paralyze? [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »I would be, except you picked heaven, lololol.
I don't have to stop movement. You've got a fairy, but I've got undine strike, and that means unless it's a WR or WB one sandstorm is all it takes. With blink to catch up, why do you need a paralyze?
Like Will of Phoenix, I guess its situational. I never thought to use hailstorm either, but its not a bad idea. If you can get it in for free and it works, then that means they can't move and you can follow up with sutra attacks, undine, Force of Will, etc. But yea, maybe blink is all you need when its maxed.Originally Posted by Pandora - Lost City:
Please understand that as full int, all an archer has to do is target you and roll his face on the keyboard and you are dead.
Words of Wisdom.0 -
what's wrong with Heaven?, vigor is nice+fairy is cute+better for tw,,can't really ask for more b:laugh , anyways,, have fun with your ugly burger thingy b:chuckleWrathy
8x Mage
LC server .0 -
what's wrong with Heaven?, vigor is nice+fairy is cute+better for tw,,can't really ask for more b:laugh , anyways,, have fun with your ugly burger thingy b:chuckle
Any mage in any guild worth their salt has chi pots and foxes on them to the point where they don't need any help from the angel.
Burger is ugly, but 99 and 109 devils are way cooler than angels.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0 -
Pandora - Lost City wrote: »Any mage in any guild worth their salt has chi pots and foxes on them to the point where they don't need any help from the angel.
Burger is ugly, but 99 and 109 devils are way cooler than angels.
You sure do fight to the death on any topic and argument b:chuckleOriginally Posted by Pandora - Lost City:
Please understand that as full int, all an archer has to do is target you and roll his face on the keyboard and you are dead.
Words of Wisdom.0 -
It just annoys me when people try to justify stupidity.[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Because the bigger your damage, the bigger your epeen.0
This discussion has been closed.
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