The Official Light Armor vs Pure Magic Discussion

I love LA so far, Thanks for making me change build Amourb:pleased!

Currently im level 47 Wiz with 2400 Psys defence. I actually hit more than pure Wizards my level.

I'm a pure mage, and I do wish that I had the same survivability as light armored mages.
I haven't been worrying too much about my equipment, so stone shield only gives me around 1k physical defence. It is unfortunately low, but at least I have a few pieces of equipment which has +phys def.

I also have 3% physical reduction (1% from equine, 1% from armor, and 1% from pants of hades), so total I have around 28% physical reduction.

Its useless.

I still get two - three shot by archers my level, but I do enjoy my damage very much.
So far, my sandstorm hits around 1600 on clerics, and 2000 - 2800 on heavy armor users. I've also hit 2440 on a level 89 archer, but I suspect he/she had low earth resist, that's all.

PvE wise though, I really enjoy the damage. Its great, fast leveling and less damage taken since fights aren't prolonged by low damage.

The post to end all posts:

The Wizard Armour Law*:


1-58: Hybrid/Pure Mage

- Due to the speed of levelling during these levels thanks to quests, and due to you likely not wanting(or being able to) PvP, a Vit Mage is perfect from 1-58 because you will die less, and level faster. Experienced players should go Pure Mage because they are skilled enough to operate with low HP.


59-78: Light Armour Mage/Pure Mage

During these levels, you will want to PvP due to the 2nd spark and level 59 skills. You will also want to zhen. Light Armour helps in both areas, as you will be able to survive hits with Light Armour in PvP, and you will be able to handle aggression in zhen due to your high power. A Pure Magic Mage can also handle these levels if you plan not to PvP, and don't mind a slower zhen/not zhenning.


79-89: Pure Magic Mage/Light Armour Mage

From these levels you will likely want to play in Undine/Fishing parties, or grind on other air mobs. Due to the levelling speed, and your amount of experience at this point, you can play Pure with ease. PvP will also be good as Pure due to your raw power, and potentially Undine Strike. If you can't afford Undine Strike, and want to PvP(at the expense of more hiero costs during Undines/Fish), then stay as a Light Armour Mage


90-109: Pure Magic Mage

Here you will finally obtain truly awesome gear: hh90 gear. You can socket your armour with defence+ stones, and still attain large amounts of hp. Your Celestial Skills and higher-refined weapon will make Pure even more powerful. You are set to PvP as a Pure, and will have the potential to outlevel the other classes(with the exception of a Penix Werefox).


110+(With 8th rank): Light Armour Mage

You have so much power that you can sacrifice some damage for more Critical Hits and defence. Congrats on getting 8th rank, by the way. Now, go forth and 1-shot some Archers with Gush.



/thread.

mmm, i started off pure, but went la at such a low level i never experianced damage loss, there for, i will not go pure again.... ever... Im getting 7k crits 1/5 mobs, and when a mob does hit me, its laughable, i can toe to toe with barbs my level, and still beat anything but a cleric/veno in fair pvp, im perfectly content with this damage loss, because ive never seen it, so i will never miss it. Ive got no problems in pvp or pve. i might take an extra spell to kill, but ya know what... while your blowing your charm when you accidently agro more then 1 mob, im laughing that the silly beast when he hits me

so you all do what you want, and ill do what i want. thats how it should be for everyone.

both pure and LA have thier own pros and cons, there is not greater then or less then, its personal prefrence gg

Well what can I say......60+ i noticed like 95% of the mobs r magical mobs and I'll admit after going LA at 70 grinding has become a bit harder in more than 1 way.
You actually have more chances of being killed when u aggro more mobs as LA than as pure since the magic rez from robes multiplied with the tonz of magic points u have will get a reasonably difference in mag rez.
Now the point is on a pve server I have no ideea why recently alot of wiziez went LA when they never pk.You guys would be surprised to see so many bms,barbs,archers even clerics in pk mode on sanctuary ; as robe u take less dmg from magic,kill faster thus waste less of your charm thus PvE based,robe wins by alot and it'll win even by more in the future.
Now for the pvp part......I'd say LA is better by miles away or mby that's just here cuz besides me there r just a few wiziez(about a total of 3 including me)who r in pk mode,and most pkers are,as I stated before,phy dmg dealers.
Now the thing I'm worried as LA is not the -dmg but rather the -mag rez more in the future than now,since the difference is getting bigger and bigger between LA/robe ,fortunatelly we got a wonderfull skill called blade tempest wich can like take 70-90% hp off robes or 1 hit them wich makes us kill them faster even if they got more mag rez.Another awesome part I noticed is that when fighting bms,barbs I actually do more dmg to them since I don't have to kite that much and so I get to do more hits w/o the fear of getting killed,I can take my time and charge sparks while fighting or play with they'r charm,till I get 2 sparks for sutra and bingo...."nice fight but I gotta go,lemme' send ya to the after-life before I leave tho".

The most I fear now r pure magic wiziez and magic venos but as long as I have BT and I have almost same survavibility to magic as robe due to extra hp of LA I'll keep loving it.
However....I don't know if this can keep up with the magic deff between LA/robe getting higher and higher just relying on some extra hp; and also magic dmg of weapons also getting higher and higher=more magic points,even bigger gap of dmg pure/LA as the lvls go by;I love LA and do hope it'll do well in the future ,but I'm still worried by the looks of equips in terms of magic defense :b:shocked

PS:Now I don't wanna be rude or anything but I'm a person who say's what's on his mind and I'll say to all wiziez in LA on sanctuary that don't pvp at all not even duels and are total carebear PVE freaks,this:ARE YOU GUYS R-TARDED OR WHAT?

Ah I knew some1 would eventually say this.
Now look having 2 sets of armors can be quite expensive since you'll want to add gems and refine them as much as you think it's worth also your inventory has to suffer for that not to mention for ppl that didn't extend they'r inventory to the max will barelly be able to do it.
And the worst thing is...in TW what will u wear? Are you planning to change LA/robe in the middle of battle were you have magical and physical users agains you?
This "carry 2 sets of armors" that I always hear more than I can chew in-game is BS pvp-wise.The only good thing from this is for pve maybe so you take less dmg from magic mobs as robes but that's just simply not enough or it can be usefull again for ppl who like to just duel and pick they'r targets "ops wait for me to change into robe/LA" .....I wonder if some1 in pk or TW will wait for you to do that b:chuckle

Ayano-chan - Sanctuary wrote: »

PS:Now I don't wanna be rude or anything but I'm a person who say's what's on his mind and I'll say to all wiziez in LA on sanctuary that don't pvp at all not even duels and are total carebear PVE freaks,this:ARE YOU GUYS R-TARDED OR WHAT?

LOL. Someone finally said it. b:pleased

Remember Pandora and dddddfunLOL's test?

It was done wrong. With a weapon alone, there will be no difference mainly because of one thing they forgot to consider. Mag/Int is a modifier. It multiplies your damage as you get more and more.

Without any gear on at all I have 318-318 matk. 330 Int.
With 3 mag (from robe armor), it adds 2 matk. (320)
With ring alone (+65 matk), I have 598.
With 3 mag and the ring, I have 602. It added 4 matk.

I tried many diff combinations with gears and the higher my matk was, the more my Int mattered and added more matk (3 int was adding 30~). So I think as you level up and get more matk and int, you'll only get stronger as a pure int mage.

As far as survivability. No matter what, your are dead to an archer. They have magical and physical attacks. And actually have higher levels, a hell pure robe mage has ALOT of options of decreasing dmg enough so they don't take much damage at all. -3% phys. damage reduction sword at 95 (lunar glade sword), -9% damage reduce phys. damage mystical tomes, Def shards, 90HH or whatever, etc. Those things are harder to get than just simply getting LA, but if you had this stuff, LA is a waste of stats.

As far as crit goes, Robe can have 7 crit without any sacrifice at all dex. Personally I have 5 and I crit often enough. A LA mage has about 4% more at 8x right? Doesn't sound much more reliable compared to maybe archers.

Here is how I see it. Neither beats each other, both are suited for different aspects of the game. If you want constant maximum damage always being pumped into this that and the other and are willing to get to a high level for the extra defence boosts and MANY advantages of a robe mage, then a robe mage is for you.

If you rather PVPing and then sometimes good damage from the crits and are willing to go that way and aren't really planning to get a high level or get anywhere then I guess whatever floats your boat.

Every sensible light armor mage I have met admits that arcane and light armor also have their advantages. Thing is you need to have a pretty good build planned if you're going lihgt armor. Such as boosts of the masteries at a lower level, otherwise your damage is doomed lol. Light armor can't just depend on the possible crit, they need to have back up damage to match it.

People say the defense boost for PVP is good, but a demon mage at lv90 with the earth barrier book gets some insane as phys defense. High level robe mages, such as Llama or Elayne from Lost City have some pretty insane constant damage, which REALLY helps those long cast AoEs. Because with blade tempest and such as light armor if you don't crit ,you still do some good damage but you really don't want to be depending on a possible crit for your damage.

robe mages are more suited to the PVE style and believe me its much easier to level off things that die before they get a chance to kill you. Leveling is semi hard before you get the good knockbacks such a pheonix and force of will. But it really isn't wise to be a low level light armor either, because you'll do really bad damage and nothing to back it up. Even your crit damage won't do much.

Point is, robe mages are what I prefer, they have quite a few advantages, and work well with sutra, because you have a constant fast high damage, which I like. I would go heavy before I go light armor, because I've seen heavy mages who own, and I've seen MANY light armor mages who didn't build well and do embarrasingly bad damage.

My advice, do what suits you. Neither is better then the other. You just have to see what you like to do best and do it. Ofcourse being a robe mage will have more advantages, thats what the mages were planned to be when they made the classes.

I have nothing against light armor mages, unless you have a bad build, then I'd just suggest trying another class or making a new mage.

In conclusion, light armor, you get low MP, and you need to buy mana hieros which you will burn insanely, and you MIGHT get a crit, and I'd MUCH rather constant damage then, I hope this long cast spell ends up cirtting!!!! Robe mages end up with INSANE damage and if you wait long enough INSANE phys def for the class aswell.

Anyway, if you want to PVP, a robe mage just needs to be far away, and use distance shrink along with good timing with force. Also, in the late 7x and 8x arcane is better, because you will get literally INSANE water defense for undines. I already have 10k water defense cleric buffed at lv73.

btw: 2245 phys res, most tanks do PvE build, a lot of vit, a lot of them fail. I've also survived high 7x BM attacks.

AND TO ALL WHO ARE SAYING ARGH NUUU ABOUT ARCHERS. Think of it this way when fighting an archer, if you force of will them, then sutra and cast as many spells as possible, if they arent con archer you've ticked their hiero and with a gush or normal pyrogram (mines REAL fast with my -channeling) he should be died.

Pure mage is all about timing when fighting before 9x.

Here above is the perfect example of some nub who thinks his build is better then everyone elses, when he obviously didn't read I said theres nothing wrong with light armor. I have had many Light armor mages who went to robe tell me its much better damage.

ALL the high level mages in Conqueror are robe and do AMAZING damage. Then we have Pandora, leader of the PK GUILD NOTE THE PK GUILD who is light armor purely for PK. Light armor is if you dont wanna get anywhere.

Robe is if you know you're gonna hit 90 and own.

Light armor, PSH. The only light armor mage I have seen in Conqueror went pure FOR UNDINES, YES UNDINES.

Oh and 6k water defense? LMFAAAAAO!!!!!! You will get hit with, maybe around, 600 dmg by an undine, welldone, light armor is so good, whoops! No it isn't! It's completely useless for the REALLY GOOD high level grinding spots. Nice.

Yes, Light armor is the way to go! If you want to fail on the early metal mobs at lv60 at tusk town and then furhter in at latre 7x and 8x at undines.

HOORAH FOR LIGHT ARMOR FAILURES!

On a calmer note... If you plan on participating in TW as a mage, your build should be robe, and as pure as possible. If you're a LA mage planning to go TW, you should uninstall, because you're not needed there. Simple facts, it's the mage's raw power that a guild needs in TW, not them attempting to tank melees. Outside of TW it's a different story, but still, if you wanted to tank people and do average damage vs melee classes, you should have rolled a barbarian or something, maybe? Mages fight when there's someone to tank for them, or like the 9x mages, when they are capable of tanking it themselves, and they are rather capable of taking a beating, class-weaknesses taken into considerations of course...

Jrudora - Lost City wrote: »

But if Pandora's tests were accurate, then I do think that a mage whether LA or Robe, would both still be equally as good in TW.
Besides, it COULD be arguable. If you had a team set up on the offensive, if the mage's damage is slightly lower but doesn't get one shot by an enemy archer, then the CHANCES of the mage doing more damage over a long period of time increases, rather than having the mage dead half the time.

I'm a pure build though. I like it, cause i've always played the glass cannon roles in mmorpgs. Its kinda fun seeing big numbers

Eh... I don't really know how the tests were performed, or how many times they were tested, but if it's just one try, there's always a gap in damage from min to max. Lucky high shot for the LA and low end shot on the robe? There were probably several tests and it's just an average, I don't know. But, somehow, I seriously doubt the damage difference end-game is that small.

Also, with 90HH gear it's really rare for a mage to get one shot, unless it's some kind of awesome crit, but then probably not even LA would save you. About the offensive... if a mage blends in well, people barely have the chance to pick them out of the bunch, just because there are so many targets during TW. However, if you do get targeted, all you have to do is move away, there are low chances they'll chase you through your own guildies.

Just to put into perspective how much the damage is distributed in TW as opposed to PK... I've managed to be in the gates where the WR's are literally constantly AOEing, and still don't get targeted, or die to the aoe's, and I only have like, 2.5k HP or something? (Yes, my gear is horrible) So yeah, you dish out the damage your class is intended to deal, and if the attack goes well, and you don't throw yourself out as meat, you really shouldn't die too much (unless the opposing guild is a swarm of EA).

Haiz - Lost City wrote: »

If you're going to go light armor you might as well make good use of it, go run into the heat of battle and tank things.

Ummmmmm no