Sage wizard: gory details, numbers etc

Burnificator - Archosaur

Introduction.

This guide aims to show the sage side of playing a wizard, but I also give some basic information which might seem obvious to most, yet I have seen high level characters having no idea. I also try to dispel (har har) some common misconceptions and myths, as well as diving into the more practical side of things.
Annotations in yellow are additions/correction by Adroit.

General information.

Channeling, cast, cooldown.

Now most people know this all already, yet there's a lot of confusion around it.
There are 3 numbers for every skill, they factor in a predefined order.

Channeling:
This is what most would call "casting" the spell. This starts as soon as the skill is activated, this is when the "blue bar" fills up. Channeling can be interrupted. Channeling gear ONLY cuts down on this time, Sutra sets it to zero. sets your channeling to 90%, maximal in game.
After the channeling finishes, damage is calculated, effects are applied to the mob/player, MP is subtracted, cooldown starts running. This is like pulling back the bow string, when the channeling finishes, you release the string.
Cast:
This is where the "effect" animation plays. During this phase the blue bar stays on the screen, filled up. During the cast interrupts cannot happen anymore and if the wizard dies during the cast, the damage will be still applied. The damage actually shows up as numbers and is subtracted during this step. Nothing in the game affects the casting time, that's why Sutra is best used with skills that have a long channel but a short cast. During the cast the wizard is unable to do anything else, be it using pots or genie skills. but genie skills can be used. This part is where our hypothetical arrow is flying towards the target, only the game already knows how much the arrow will hit for. This also means that if your channeling finished BEFORE your opponent kills you or makes themselves invincible, the damage still goes through. This applies even to actual in-game arrows, resulting in things hitting you after they die.
Cooldown:
Should be self-explanatory, remember, it starts ticking off as soon as the channeling finishes, hence some skills being immediately reusable without any visible delay as the cooldown finishes before the cast. This means a skill can be effectively used as often as either cast or cooldown time, whichever is bigger, as these run simultaneously instead of adding up. This has a side effect of accidentally casting the same skill again if the button is held in too long, as the game receives the message to use the skill when its cooldown is done, so instead of cancelling the action because a cast is still going on it schedules to use the skill as soon as the cast is done. This does help with skill chaining, but quickly gets boring when you accidentally re-cast Morning Dew while trying to run away from something (Morning Dew is the worst offender; seriously, that thing cools down like a cleric heal).

Sage triple spark:

Sage version gives 25% damage reduction. It's less than 50% of BB and gets overwritten by it, but helps a bit without.
The demon version gives channeling instead (25%, a bit more than RB), so we are better off with Sutra combo here.

Master Li's Technique:

Gives you 50 chi, 60 second cooldown. It is, in fact, not instant, and requires you to stop running. Very good when idling before a boss battle, but good luck using this in combat, you will gain 50 chi faster with using spells. Apparently quite useful in combat.

You will want a genie with Cloud Eruption, as it will allow you to do devastating combinations with triple spark.
Also get Holy Path, Extreme Poison (works like veno amp and even stacks with it), Absolute Domain for DB tanking and maybe something from this list:
Earthquake - nice skill, less priority than the others. AoE knockback.
Mage Star - wizard specific skill. It's our "**** you I'm invincible" skill, the poor man's AD.
Works on magic damage only, sadly, but gives a breather on bosses.
Expel - Mage Star's physical cousin. It also seals you, so it's better to use if you are doing DB. Note that this information
is not from own experience as I haven't used Expel myself.
Spark - use this for maximized fire damage, more dex = better effect.
Now, the actual skills.

Attack skills:

Pyrogram, Gush, Stone Rain +15, +10, +15 chi, respectively. Sage Pyro has a 20% to give 30 more, for about 21 total chi average.

After you damage rush something, you will be mostly spamming Gush and Pyro, alternating.
The quick cast time and short cooldown make these excellent DPS skills.
Stone Rain has a slightly longer cast, but not too long because sage version shortens the channeling.
Use this to finish the mob off if it's far enough. Gush has a better slow as sage, and Pyro has a chance to give you extra chi. As a wizard you need all the chi you can get.

Glacial Snare, Divine Pyrogram, Sandstorm +20, +20, +15 chi, respectively

I have channeling gear, so Divine Pyro is my most used skill of the three. It has shortest cast time, so you get the most out of the channeling bonuses as well as Sutra (more on that later). I don't have sage SS yet, but I assume it will outdamage Divine Pyro in that case. Sage Divine Pyro and Glacial both also give a resistance debuff, but that is actually interfering with Undine, overwriting it. If Undine goes first, the effects are ignored. The extra damage is cool though.
As these spells still cast longer than the previous set, the best usage is as an opening skill if you are going on a single mob, especially glacial which has an almost guaranteed nasty slow. Seriously, 80% is like putting mobs in slow-mo. Sandstorm also decreases accuracy which can come in handy. Sage Stone Rain outdamages level 10 Sandstorm and the book for it is hard to get.

Kiting skills:

We have three very useful skills for kiting and moving mobs around.

Will of the Phoenix +15 chi

This is our AoE knockback skill. With me it hits about as hard as sage pyrogram, although not as spammable.
Please note that it's a forward-facing fan AoE, so it doesn't hit everything around you and can glitch out the direction, but tends to hit along the line
between you and your target. The actual knocback direction is also kind of glitchy and tends to spread mobs around.
I do not have sage of it yet, the sage version removes a second from the cooldown, making it a bit more spammable.
Very useful on melee mob groups as a follow-up when they get close. Only use this skill when mobs are close to you as it has pathetic range, which makes sense for a knockback skill.
The knockback doesn't work on players, as it states on the skill, however, it also fails on most bosses and certain instance mobs. It's really a trial and error thing - some mobs do get knocked back, some don't. A lot of smaller outside bosses are perfectly pushable by it, like Gouf for instance. There doesn't seem to be a pattern on that. However, when this fails to push mobs back...

Force of Will +10 chi

This skill is intended to seal the target, as in, make it unable to use abilities but still move around. While it is a nice skill for PvP, it's really its side effect that makes it awesome. A sealed mob will run straight away from you, making it more like a "fear" skill for mobs. The sage version is AoE, but in practice, mobs have to be clustered REALLY tight for it to hit multiple targets. It still comes in handy though. This skill enables us to safely explode mobs (like these lanterns in 29 or reverexes in 39) at a distance. Get its HP low enough that a single hit will kill it, use FoW, wait till it's outside the boom range, finish it off. The only things immune to sealing are bosses and certain mobs in high level instances. Take care not to make a sealed mob run into a group of friends if you or your squad is not prepared to deal with them.

Distance Shrink -20 chi, -10 if sage

Also known as blink. Despite its description, this skill does not actually teleport you. It kind of "pushes" you very quickly, so collision detection still applies. An example of true teleporting is the sin skill Shadow Jump/Teleport. That one teleports you to the target, ignoring walls, other targets and terrain. This skill doesn't require a target, and will "push" you 25 meters in the direction you are facing. This means you can tap S, use this skill and be 25m away from your target - away enough from melee attacks yet within casting range. This is heavily advertised as an awesome kiting skill, although its usefulness is kind of limited in regular combat, pretty decent, as, even though the description says channeling is instant, there is still a delay between using the skill and teleporting. That being said, this skill is a lifesaver on bosses that do some kind of an attack where you have to get out very fast - circle boss in FC, the slash guy, Farren, stuff like that. It also helps if you are running (like in a dungeon) and want to get a small speed boost. Sage version cuts the chi cost in half, so you can boost 5 times on a single use of the sage chi gaining skill or 10 on a single spark.

Crowd Control / Stalling skills:

We have 6 skills that can be used for crowd control and stalling.

Mountain Seize -200 chi

This is our lowest-hitting 2 spark AoE, but it comes with an almost guaranteed AoE stun. The stun is of the kind where the target cannot do anything at all - moving, attacking or using items (in case of players) is disabled.
Sage version has a 50% chance to only use up 1 spark. It helps, sure, but as far as I remember it's bugged and always uses 2 sparks at full chi due to the order in which chi is added and removed (it doesn't actually only use 1 spark, it instead takes 2 and gives back 1). Getting the sage version is only worth it for the damage. Be wary of the channel time - it's our LONGEST channeling skill.

Dragon's Breath -100 chi

Only works for crowd control with the sage version. There's a 20% chance to stun the targets. While the chance stated seems fairly low (20%), it procs per tick, per mob. The stun is also the same kind as the Mountain Seize stun, so you will be able to handle a lot more mobs with DB as soon as you get the sage version. The damage increase from getting sage version is negligible, so only go for this if you want the stuns (and you DO want the stuns). Note that while you can use HP/MP food while in DB, you can't use any apothecary.

Hailstorm +5 chi

Yes, the lame, pathetic Hailstorm. I leveled this skill last because I was told it was pathetic by the countless skill guides. It's not. While the damage might be not the best, it is the freeze that does it for me. This one only freezes in place, so ranged mobs can still attack. However, since the freeze is a bit chancey (33%), in most cases it will split the group in two - the ones that stay behind frozen and the ones that do not proc and run towards you. This allows another squad memeber to grab the frozen ones and thus "share the load", or you to deal with the mobs that ran up to you and then take out the rest. It is also the only long-ranged AoE we have that doesn't require sparks.
Sage version ups the damage and adds a single-tick water DoT on the frozen targets. The DoT, like all our DoTs, is pathetic, however, the skill's icon changes when upgraded to sage - and is in fact the water DoT icon (check it, same icon as psy skill torrent). The area of effect is less than you would expect, so make sure to always target the centre of the group and watch out for mobs that didn't get hit but aggroed anyway (if you are getting heals that is important as these mobs will aggro on the healer).

Black Ice Dragon Strike -200chi

Water AoE, almost guaranteed slow. The slow is 60% so less nasty than the 80% of glacial, however it's AoE and lasts longer. This is also the highest pure magical damage hitter that exists in the game so far.
Sage version is a must have. It has a 50% chance to increase your magical crit rate by 30% for 10 seconds. I have heard that if the 50% goes through, it always crits. I haven't gotten it yet, so I have no possibility to test this. If it's true, however, then the sage version is just OP. Even if it's not, it's still a very good skill.

Blade Tempest -200 chi

Crowd control? More like crowd murder. This skill has no special effect it applies to mobs, and its numbers seem to be fairly low compared to the other two ultimates. However, the damage is counted twice, for the physical as well as for the fire part. This skill hits through Elemental Immune AND Physical Immune creatures, for half damage. On the first sight, the numbers are low even when doubled up, but there's a small detail - your magical attack is counted twice, too. You are effectively having double your magic attack when using this skill, so yeah, THIS is this skill's special effect. Blade Tempest makes more of your weapon, and it truly shines at the endgame. The highest hit on PWI was achieved by Blade Tempest - Adroit of Lost City clocked an astounding 13 million of damage with it. Sage version is the same as Mountain Seize, having a chance to give back 1 spark.

Special: Blinding Blaze -100 chi
This is a level 100 skill from AEU (Morai dungeon). It costs a spark and places a debuff on the target that gives it a chance to get frozen every time it is attacked. While the freeze is 3 seconds only, and cannot trigger more often than every 8 seconds, giving the target 5 seconds of rest, the debuff stays for 45 seconds. The chance to proc is not stated but seems quite reliable, plus, ANY kind of attack triggers it, so if it didn't trigger, hit it with Undine a few times and it will stick. This skill is handy for dealing with the head in Warsong, for example. It is worth the spark, although the long cooldown kind of limits its use even on a single target.

Special: Soporific Whisper -20 chi
OHT skill. 4 second sleep. Kind of lame in my opinion, but can buy you enough time to drop a nuke. Has only 20 meter range, and a cooldown of whopping 2 minutes. Sleep renders the target totally helpless but gets removed with any damage dealt. This doesn't include any debuffs that come without damage, so you can still Extreme Poison them before dishing it out.
It does shine in PvP however, I did a few tests and you can perfectly sleep your opponent thru the spark, then seal their *** and laugh like a maniac spewing fire spells.
The instant cast is awesome.


Support & buff skills:

We have 3 self-buff shields (they cancel eachother out), a buff for melee water damage, a MP increase self buff and yet another shield buff, as well as Sutra and a heal.

Pyroshell, Glacial Embrace, Stone Barrier -30 chi each

Stone Barrier is perharps the most notable, as it boosts our physical defence, something wizards sadly lack in. While demon version is the one that gives 150% pdef increase, 120% for sage is cool too, and the Earth defence buff is a nice extra, because it tends to be lower than other resistances due to how stats on equips can be distributed (while most equips have equal resistances for all 5 elements, some equips ditch up to four elements to up the remaining ones, and Earth gets ditched first).
The remaining two shields up their respective resistances, sage versions even more so. The side effects (HP and MP) regen are not really noticeable, even with sage/demon increase, especially in combat, so the biggest reason to max them are the elemental defences. Case in point: I have 11k fire defence. With sage pyroshell it goes up to 21. With cleric mdef buff it's more like 24. This makes you practically invincible against fire damage. Note that it's not as useful in PvP as the only fire damage sources from players are other wizards as well as some skills from other classes that either add a small DoT or a small amount of fire damage, as well as the archer self-buff. Glacial Embrace is less useful in PvE but covers 2 classes in PvP - psychics and wizards. If you go PvP I would still advise walking around with Stone Barrier though, as it also covers physical classes.

Wellsrping Quaff -100 chi

This boosts your MP greatly. I go from slightly under 11k to 17k with it. The sage version doesn't give more MP compared to the level 10 version, but slightly boosts your magic attack for 15 seconds instead, same amount as cleric RB. The upgrade is kind of worthless, I got mine because it randomly dropped from a book I hoped would drop Stone Barrier ._. The demon version is kind of better as it gives 15 seconds of faster channeling, also same as RB. In short, this is only worth the spark as a MP buff, the adds aren't worth it. However, even if you aren't planning on maxing it, get it to at least level 5, which unlocks...

Essential Sutra -200 chi

This is the Sutra I was talking about. It costs two sparks, it turns you into a magic machine gun, and it's awesome. It stays true to its description and makes channeling time zero on all your skills for 6 seconds. Except it doesn't and just gives you 90% channeling reduction. At full chi, if you have a chi pot that gives 1+ chi or the genie skill "Cloud Eruption", you can outright murder things in a matter of seconds. It is very, very good even if you just have 2 sparks to cast Sutra, but it becomes truly amazing when you get sage and have the 399 chi capacity. Then you can triple-spark, use a method of your choice to gain at least 101 chi (God's tea, White tea or (recommended) Cloud Eruption - level 1 will do as it is enough and costs lowest energy), and then use this, followed by spellspam of your choice. There are opinions on which spells to use here, but pay attention to the cast times - as these eat up the precious seconds. I found the sequence [Divine Pyrogram]->[Sandstorm]->[Divine Pyrogram]-> [another long channel, high damage spell]. Glacial Snare or Stone Rain might sound like a good idea to include in the combo, but I advise to only use them as the last spell, as their cast time is somewhat longer. Surely, you lose half a second on Pyro's cooldown, but other options have worse Damage / Cast time ratio. If you have a decent genie you can even manage to throw in an Extreme Poison for maximum damage - 170 max energy and 60 mag for 2.2 regen is enough to be able to cast EP shortly after cloud eruption which should stay at level 1.
Adroit suggests a Pyro-Divine Pyro-WoP-Pyro-Divine Pyro/other nuke combo as it allows you to squeeze in more damage, especially with Spark (the genie skill), but do keep in mind that WoP is only of use if you are at close range, otherwise stick something else there.

Frostblade +10 chi

This buff is totally useless for the wizard himself, unless you go melee wizard. If you do so, you shouldn't be reading this guide as it will be totally useless for you. However, you can buff any class with it, which means archers, sins and so on. The extra damage is akin to archer self buff for fire damage or elemental sharding, it goes through physical immunity but doesn't get any mastery bonuses and the like. Sage version makes it last half an hour, so unless you have a friend that loves this buff it's kind of useless to upgrade it to sage. However, the sage/demon FB gives 20 chi on cast which makes it quite useful as it has better chi over time than spamming Morning Dew. Demon increases the damage a bit. I use it mostly for chi gain, also because it adds a glowing orb effect to the weapon. Looks cool on psychics. There are a lot of false beliefs about this skill, so let me get this out of the way: it only affects autoattack. Period. This means simply whacking with a weapon and shooting arrows. No skills are affected. That means Plume shot too. Give the cleric the shiny-glowy but explain that the buff doesn't actually DO anything for them. Unless they are a fist cleric. I have seen one once. Sad, pathetic creature he was.

Elemental Shell +15 chi

OHT skill. Ups your elemental defenses by 1000%, except wood. In practice cuts elemental damage about in half. Also has a 10% purify chance, kind of handy I guess but not reliable at all. You won't be tanking Pole with this. Can be cast on others, although the purify will always apply to you if it procs. This skill kind of sucks, mostly because it only lasts for 4 seconds while having a 30 second cooldown.
However, it's good for the 15 chi it gives as it casts instantly and doesn't interrupt running.
Morning Dew +15 chi

Healing skill. Can be used both on yourself as others, which lets you save someone else's *** in a pinch. The heal is pretty damn good, too. It has virtually no cooldown, too, so can be readily used again. Sage version gives a 10% chance to fully heal the target. This means you can potentially fully restore a barb from near death, yes, all 20000+ HP. Even if it doesn't proc, it still gives a good 5-7k of healing. HOWEVER, it has immensely long channeling; clocking at 4.5 seconds, it is our second longest channel. This is where channelig gear comes in play - at -36% channeling I can pretty much spam this and possibly replace a cleric unless the situation calls for purify or IHB spam. With Sutra you will be outhealing anything and anyone. I spam this before bosses to gain chi. As a side note, demon version comes with a weak regen instead, so it will be more like cleric's Stream of Rejuvenation, albeit weaker at only 600 HP over 3 seconds.

Other skills:

Undine Strike
OHT skill. This thing rules. Undine is our president. It channels 1 second, casts a half and is ready to use in another half with its 1 second cooldown. This debuffs the target's resistances against our three elements by 60% which is a lot, and it works better the more resistance the target has. It lets you handle magic resistance mobs like a boss. It helps fellow psychics and wizards without it. It deals some low earth damage, too, and doesn't work on Earth Immunity creatures as a result. It works as a decent poke skill, too, as well as finishing off these annoying cases where the mob has like 5 HP left and still hits you.

Crown of Flame, Pitfall +10 chi each

These skills are often overlooked, because their purpose seems to inflict a DoT on the target. However, the DoT is kind of pitiful (even with my weapon, they tick for pathetic lower 4 digit damage), so the skills are considered worthless. Nonetheless, they have negligible cast and channel (1 second each) and still clock at around 20-30k with my weapon, excellent for finishing off survivors. Sage versions are generally not worth it; however, the extra range (30 meters) can come in handy. Crown of Flame ticks faster and deals more damage while Pitfall increases the already poor 15% slow to slightly less poor 20%. I got Crown of Flame as a random book, so I upgraded it, since selling this is outright impossible. Pitfall also has a 15% chance to freeze the target for 3 seconds which is really unreliable.

Ice Prison -200 chi

Complicated skill; basically it is an AoE aura that ticks for 12 seconds, every 3 seconds, each tick having an 80% chance to debuff with +30% magical damage taken, kind of like sage veno amp but for magic only. It also lasts only 2 seconds if it procs. However, it doesn't require a target so it can be used to check for stealthed enemies, although the high chi cost and a massive cooldown kind of limit its usage. It is more of a support skills for others in your group.

There are a few more skills out there but they are PvP related and hard(ish) to obtain. They are strictly PvP by design, and their descriptions are easy to find here: http://pwi.ecatomb.net/skill.php . I have only have Life Reversion and Spatial Reversion, but haven't really tested them in PvP myself; they are really timing based and have a good chance to fail. Life Reversion might be useful to cast right before the opponent's charm ticks or when their HP is low otherwise, and the other one might be useful against sins with their teleports as a sort of a makeshift knockback.

Conclusion.
Wizards have a lot of skills, and while you will be mostly fine using just a few of them, you will improve your survival and damage output by knowing what each skill does. Using every skill at all times is not necessary at all, and at times even counterproductive, but the right timings can increase your damage tenfold and still let you get away in one piece.
Now can someone please write a demon guide?..

Adroit - Lost City

Well a few notes. First of all you should mention this is a pve guide.. because I got the impression this would be both, and was nearly facepalming at your suggested genie skills. If you are just doing pve though, those genie skills would be okay though. And now for some corrections.

During casting time of a skill, you can use genie.
I use master li in combat all the time, and it is certainly faster chi gain than using skills
Blink is absolutely fantastic, its usefulness is NOT "kind of limited in regular combat".. it is absolutely essential
The sage effect on divine pyrogram does interfere with undine debuff, but it does not overwrite it. The buff is not overwritable, so if you use d.pyrogram first and then immediately after try to undine.. the fire debuff on undine will do nothing (you will still have the -20% fire red for 15 seconds), and if you undine first.. the sage effect on d.pyro will do absolutely nothing.
Sage BIDS does not always crit when you get the proc, but my crit rate goes to over 50% for 10 seconds
Sage effect on BT/MS is not bugged, it just has a poor description. Essentially it gives you a spark back first, and then uses your 2 sparks.. so if you are at full chi and it tries to give you a spark.. it'll basicallly disappear. If you are between 2 and 3 sparks, it works exactly like you'd expect. Above 3 sparks and you will see less benefit (and no benefit if you start at full chi).
Pyroshell is used to 1v1 another wizard, it essentially cancels out genie spark
Glacial embrace is never used, every class with any real water damage also has earth damage.. and due to earth skills generally dealing more damage than water and the fact that you also get pdef from stone barrier, it is used over glacial embrace all of the time.
Sporafic whisper is fantastic in pvp
Essential sutra results in a maximum of -90% channeling, if your channeling ever hits or exceeds 100% it is capped back down to 90%. It also means that there is a chance you can get interrupted during a sutra combo. Also, my preferred sutra combo is pyrogram -> d.pyrogram -> wotp -> pyrogram -> d.pyrogram. Not only does this combo work wonders with genie spark, but getting these 5 skills off in 6 seconds does more damage than the 4 skill combo you mentioned.
Elemental shell is a free +15 chi every 30 seconds.. don't even need to stop running to use it. It is fantastic.
Getting the sage/demon version of frostblade doubles the chi you get per cast to 20 chi.. very worthwhile and used all of the time to build some chi in downtime.
Level 11 versions of pitfall/crown of flame increase their range to 30m, which is useful when trying to finish off something at max range.

That's all I have from a quick skim

Burnificator - Archosaur

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

Well a few notes. First of all you should mention this is a pve guide.. because I got the impression this would be both, and was nearly facepalming at your suggested genie skills. If you are just doing pve though, those genie skills would be okay though. And now for some corrections.

During casting time of a skill, you can use genie.
I use master li in combat all the time, and it is certainly faster chi gain than using skills
Blink is absolutely fantastic, its usefulness is NOT "kind of limited in regular combat".. it is absolutely essential
The sage effect on divine pyrogram does interfere with undine debuff, but it does not overwrite it. The buff is not overwritable, so if you use d.pyrogram first and then immediately after try to undine.. the fire debuff on undine will do nothing (you will still have the -20% fire red for 15 seconds), and if you undine first.. the sage effect on d.pyro will do absolutely nothing.
Sage BIDS does not always crit when you get the proc, but my crit rate goes to over 50% for 10 seconds
Sage effect on BT/MS is not bugged, it just has a poor description. Essentially it gives you a spark back first, and then uses your 2 sparks.. so if you are at full chi and it tries to give you a spark.. it'll basicallly disappear. If you are between 2 and 3 sparks, it works exactly like you'd expect. Above 3 sparks and you will see less benefit (and no benefit if you start at full chi).
Pyroshell is used to 1v1 another wizard, it essentially cancels out genie spark
Glacial embrace is never used, every class with any real water damage also has earth damage.. and due to earth skills generally dealing more damage than water and the fact that you also get pdef from stone barrier, it is used over glacial embrace all of the time.
Sporafic whisper is fantastic in pvp
Essential sutra results in a maximum of -90% channeling, if your channeling ever hits or exceeds 100% it is capped back down to 90%. It also means that there is a chance you can get interrupted during a sutra combo. Also, my preferred sutra combo is pyrogram -> d.pyrogram -> wotp -> pyrogram -> d.pyrogram. Not only does this combo work wonders with genie spark, but getting these 5 skills off in 6 seconds does more damage than the 4 skill combo you mentioned.
Elemental shell is a free +15 chi every 30 seconds.. don't even need to stop running to use it. It is fantastic.
Getting the sage/demon version of frostblade doubles the chi you get per cast to 20 chi.. very worthwhile and used all of the time to build some chi in downtime.
Level 11 versions of pitfall/crown of flame increase their range to 30m, which is useful when trying to finish off something at max range.

That's all I have from a quick skim

First of all. Did I tell you yet that you are ****ing cool?

Second, I didn't know about the sage/demon FB effect. This is cool.
Third, I tested Soporific Whisper in PvP today and it was like EPIC.
Fourth, I will definitely try the fire combo. I didn't ever think of linking spells like that since the buttons for these spells are far apart for me and I doubt it will go off in a macro.

I will test the elemental chi gain and maybe promote it to a pushable button.

All in all, thanks for the reply. Forever burning!

P.S. I also now have a bad mental image of you USING poor old Mr. Li during combat...

Toliman - Raging Tide

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

... Also, my preferred sutra combo is pyrogram -> d.pyrogram -> wotp -> pyrogram -> d.pyrogram. Not only does this combo work wonders with genie spark, but getting these 5 skills off in 6 seconds does more damage than the 4 skill combo you mentioned...

will of the phoenix (wotp) ??? In combo ?

This skill is kinda a waste against ranged monsters whether it be archer or magic casting type. The range is only 10 and not long enough to reach so you waste time moving forward to cast it while the monster is still hitting you.

You have great chance to run towards target to cast will of the phoenix instead of casting other skills of Sutra chain.

It is better to replace it with other skills instead.

P.S.

I myself now use Demonic Eruption to increase channeling speed (from -33% channeling to -58% channeling) instead of Sutra. It give increased damage output and extra MP.
In bh69 today I had to wait while Barbarian level 89 will take aggro from Damned Gaurnob, then after my combo my Wizard got aggro and I had to run, waiting while tank will get aggro back.

Also during period of 1 Demonic Eruption (15 seconds) my Wizard can kill up to 4 mobs (level 88) in range up to 30 m around me.

Adroit - Lost City

@Burn - np, and there is always some down time in pvp. You can watch any of my videos.. it really isn't difficult to work it in. A lot of the time you end up kiting for a moment to let your charm cd or something and have a moment before anyone is in range to start atking or for you to atk back.. or maybe after a blade hurl, or when an opponent immunes or runs away. There are all kinds of times where it makes sense to use it, you just can't use it when your opponent is like one hit away from dying.

@Toliman - I generally get near my opponents before I start my sutra combo, partly so that I'm in range for wotp, partly because I have to be within 20m for spark, and partly so it is difficult for them to get out of range before my combo is done. In cases where an opponent is going to be out of range for wotp, I just use crown of flames in its place. One kinda hidden advantage to this combo I use is that you can sometimes get multiple hits to hit at the same time and bypass where you ordinarily would not do enough damage. Damage calculation is done at the moment between channeling and casting times, but there is then a delay before the damage hits the opponent which depends on both the skill and the range you are from the opponent (I'd assume this delay is meant to make it look like dmg hits when the animation does), and the delay on wotp is very small. So you use a skill with a longer delay (pyro, d.pyro) and then a quick one, and sometimes they'll hit at the same frame and the damage will essentially be combined into one hit.

You can actually see this in one of my videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VFyL-FvV58). Skip ahead to 5:50, and note that the archer in this video has over 17k hp unbuffed. So I messed up and didn't hit spark, but it still worked out.. he took 8485 damage on the first hit (didn't tick him.. charm wasn't on cd), then pyrogram -> wotp hit him for 6764 -> 7343. Neither one of those hits could have bypassed him alone, so you'd expect the first one to tick his charm and then he'd be at a little more than half hp.. but they hit at the same time so the charm never had a chance to tick. It's a really neat little trick to use on tanky opponents, although it can be difficult to pull off sometimes. There was one time that I actually got 3 hits to all hit at the same time, but it was really lucky and I haven't been able to replicate that since.

juicybluca

y u underrate our DoTs dis way

dis DoTs fcks up enemy def charms b:victory

oh yea forgot its pve guide >-<

btw my sutra macro is d pyro pyro crown of flame d pyro,
also crown damage while enemy is sparked is really not that bad

sayplzheal

Awesome post.. I soo wanna get home and try out these stuffs :'D
Thanks for sharing guys

tweakz

If you write a guide; your target audience is noob right? - So why refer to bb, rb, etc which are not noob terms? They aren't even the initials of the skills you refer to.

You will want a genie with Cloud Eruption, as it will allow you to do devastating combinations with triple spark.

-don't need for pve

Also get Holy Path

Pertinence to sage wiz vs every other toon?

Extreme Poison (works like veno amp and even stacks with it)

A majority of the toons out there are Assassins, and their L11 Subsea is far better (pvp/pve issue?)

Absolute Domain for DB tanking

Yeah; if you don't mind carrying those 4.5k hp vit clerics w/pve weapons through BH RB and such. Personally I'd just rather pass on fail build clerics.

Earthquake - nice skill, less priority than the others. AoE knockback.

Mystic's Gale Force I request; EQ: I despise.

Expel - Mage Star's physical cousin. It also seals you, so it's better to use if you are doing DB. Note that this information
is not from own experience as I haven't used Expel myself.

Expel is fine if DB doesn't go down. Fail build clerics using it on me thinking they got mad skills that make up for their build is annoying because I'm gonna drop DB and WoP rather than die (unless I want to show that cleric how bad their heals suck).

Spark - use this for maximized fire damage, more dex = better effect.

more dex -what?

Toliman - Raging Tide

tweakz wrote: »

...

You will want a genie with Cloud Eruption, as it will allow you to do devastating combinations with triple spark.

-don't need for pve
...

This is your own opinion. Other players need Cloud Eruption for PvE.

tweakz

Toliman - Raging Tide wrote: »

This is your own opinion. Other players need Cloud Eruption for PvE.

Yeah, there's a lot of seekers that whine for sparks in RB and I ignore them too. It's nice to have, but not a need.

Adroit - Lost City

tweakz wrote: »

Yeah, there's a lot of seekers that whine for sparks in RB and I ignore them too. It's nice to have, but not a need.

You don't really need a genie or even a squad for 99.9% of pve in this game, so there are no "needs" but there are "nice to haves". I think cloud is one of the more useful pve skills.. not really sure why you're hating on it.

Ursa - Dreamweaver

I think you should add this mention, as is one of the best burst dps combos (without sutra/no channel pots) for sage wizards:
Pyro-Gush-WoTP.

Usage is usually: gush-pyro-gush-WoTP (repeat)

The reason is that with decent channeling (24% or more) there is a delay between gush and next Pyro beacause the damn thing did not had the time to cool down. It really gets annoying at about 30%
So, quick channel high damage skill? WoTP. Does more damage than Gush or Pyro, has 1/1 channel + cast and the sage version brings the cooldown down 1 sec, just perfect for the above gush-pyro-gush-WoTP macro. This is a continuous macro at 24% channel (I have that right now) and if my math is not wrong it should be good up to 36%.

Now there are two faces for this macro: the gush starter and the Pyro starter. The gush starter will give you better DPS (no delay between skills) but the pyro starter has 2 chances of giving you 30 extra chi.
It is a bit situational , but I love landing an extra hit on a boss that's HF'ed than to land a dry Pyro after the debuff is out.

just my 2c

tweakz wrote: »

Yeah, there's a lot of seekers that whine for sparks in RB and I ignore them too. It's nice to have, but not a need.

I can spark 3 times in the first minute of a boss fight (and 4 times in a 75 seconds span), that's not something many non-aps can do. There is a list of some other things that I do/use Cloud on my genie and all of them very, very important in either PvP or PvE so to me that skill is a must. First skill I put on a genie when they came out, never even though about taking it off.