Bloodmystics Up-to-date, Comprehensive, Living, Breathing Wizard Guide

CONTENTS
1. General Introduction
1.1 What this guide is not.
1.2. What were you thinking?
1.3. What’s wrong with Wizards?
1.4. What’s right with Wizards?
2. Builds
2.1. Pure Magic
2.2. Light Armor
2.3. Vitality
3. Skills
3.1. Attack Skills
3.2. Seal/Sleep/Stun Skills
3.3. Buffs/Debufs
4. Genies
4.1. Types of Genies
4.2. Genie “Build”
4.3. Genie Skills
4.4. Recommended Wizard Genies
5. Gear
5.1. Sharding
5.2. Refining
5.3. Rank Gear
5.4. Gear Progression
6. Cultivation – Sage or Demon
7. Grinding
7.1. Level 1-30
7.2. Level 31-60
7.3. Level 61-90
7.4. Level 90+
8. PvE Instances
8.1. Level 1-30
8.2. Level 31-60
8.3. Level 61-90
8.4. Level 90+
9. Territory War
9.1. Defense squads
9.2. Attack Squads
10. PvP Tactics
10.1. General
10.2. Versus Particular Classes


1. General Introduction

1.1 What this guide is not.

This guide is not full of new, unique and compelling insights on playing a wizard that noone else has thought of before. I would submit that there really are no such new, unique and compelling insights. The wizard is one of the original 6 classes and remains largely unchanged.

What this guide is is an attempt to provide, in one location, what is the general consensus of the class as a whole and its role in PWI. What the typical builds are, what the typical gear is, what the typical tactics are for pve instances and pvp encounters, what genie skills are commonly used, etc., etc., etc.

In short, it is intended to compile the wealth of knowledge contained in these forums in one location, rather than to continue the practice of the same questions being asked and answered over and over and over again.

It is not a place to fight to support your opinion vs. another. There are other threads for that. For example, rather than answer the question of which is better, sage wizard or demon wizard, this guide will provide what are commonly recognized as the benefits and limitations of both, and allow the reader, with that basis of information, make up his or her own mind.

It is not intended to be a genuine work of authorship, but merely a two-bit compilation. A compilation, however, that in my estimation is sorely needed.

1.2. What were you thinking?

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. You are about to make a big mistake. Wizards are widely viewed as one of the slowest leveling, most underpowered and hardest to play classes in the game. Nobody needs you for quests. Nobody needs you for bosses. Nobody needs you to farm gear. Everyone can kill you and they will all target you first. To even compete with the other classes, you will more often than not have to spend a lot of money.

1.3. What’s wrong with Wizards?

While arguably we have the highest damage per hit (DPH) of any class in the game (although there are some that argue with this), we are one of the weakest classes in terms of damage per second (DPS). Much of this game centers around killing bosses (for level advancement, to farm more powerful gear, etc.), and for farming bosses, DPH is not nearly as useful as DPS.

We are very weak defensively. We have some of the lowest defense against physical attacks (physical defense or pdef) of any class in the game. We can’t effectively self-heal because our healing skill takes so long to channel you will either have it interrupted or die before you can finish casting it. We have the lowest hit points (HP) in the game: we receive a paltry 10 HP for every point of vitality we add, and our natural armor choice, arcane armor (AA) gives the least amount of HP per refine of any armor in the game.

We have no useful party buffs and only one useful self-buff, although it IS very useful.

We have less beneficial skills for player vs. player (PvP) combat of any class, at least in terms of 1 vs. 1 PvP. We have no ability to effectively stun our opponent. Our only sleep skill casts instantly, but has a very long cool-down period so it really can only be used once per fight for all practical purposes. Our seal is not bad as far as seals go, but it doesn’t immobilize your opponent so they are free to just run out of range while you are left channeling skills that take very long to cast.

1.4. What’s right with Wizards?

We have very good, very hard hitting area of effect (AoE) damage skills, which is very useful for some player vs. enemy (PvE) content in this game, as well as in territory war (TW) which is a massive 80 player vs 80 player PvP event that takes place every weekend, mostly for those approaching or at endgame (depending on your server, at least level 80+).

Our skills, however limited their effectiveness, look the coolest.

Since we are one of the hardest classes to play and level, we tend to be relatively rare.

When we are successful in PvP situations, we are one of the few classes that can kill another player with a single hit, and in TW kill whole groups of people with a single hit. Even if you yourself die a lot, that is a very, very cool thing that wizards can do as well or better than anyone.

2. Builds

People tend to level so quickly now, discussion of builds for wizards is for the most part, a moot subject. Only the Pure Magic build is really recommended. If, however, you want to buck the trend, do all your quests, and level slow and steady the old school way - and you want more survivability - check out one of the other builds.

2.1. Pure Magic

The “pure” or “arcane” build puts all of its attribute points to magic, with only the minimum number of points to strength to wear your current level’s arcane armor (AA), which generally works out to be 9 points to magic and 1 point to strength every 2 levels. This build maximizes your attack power but minimizes your defenses and hit points, especially at lower levels. This is the build most if not all wizards have at level 90 and above, even if they utilized one of the other builds at lower levels.

2.2. Light Armor

Similar to the pure build, this build puts all of its attribute points to magic except what is required to wear your level’s current armor, except instead of AA this build wears light armor (LA), therefore requiring points for both dexterity and strength. This build is criticized for it lower magic attack, but at lower levels the decrease in magic attack is not that substantial, the increase in physical defense is significant (especially when amplified by our stone barrier (SB) skill which doubles physical defense), and your critical hit rate will be higher than that of a pure built wizard which helps to mitigate even further your lower magic attack as compared to a pure build wizard.

This build also has the added drawback of requiring you to reset your strength and dexterity at level 90 with a reset note, which is an added expense a pure built wizard will not incur.

Light armor was a very viable option prior to hyper experience stones and other additions to the game that have made leveling a wizard from 1-100 much, much more rapid. If you are planning on leveling from 1 - 90 rapidly, I would advise against a light armor build. If you are planning on leveling more slowly (through quests alone without the aid of hyper experience stones, oracles and the like) and find kiting mobs while solo questing either too difficult, too boring, or otherwise not in alignment with your preferred style of play, I would highly recommend a LA build.

2.3. Vitality

Some who do not like the low survivability of the pure built wizard add points to vitality to increase their hit points. It is customary that they add up to 50 points to their base vitality since that amount can be easily reset with one intermediate reset note should they wish to do so at higher levels.

Personally, since wizard’s earn the lowest hit points per point of vitality of any class in the game (only 10 hit points per point of vitality), I have never believed that it was a good use of limited resource points and I would rather have the increased critical hit rate and physical defense from a LA build over simply more hit points. But there are certainly those that strongly disagree with me.

3. Skills

3.1. Attack Skills

3.1.1 Pyrogram - Nice skill, quick cast, good damage. As much a staple wizard skill as you can get. Should use spirit to level this skill whenever possible.

3.1.2 Divine Program - Pyrogram’s big brother. Does more damage and has a fairly short cool down, but slower cast time makes this less useful, although some use it as the opening hit on a mob when grinding since the longer channel time doesn‘t hurt you if you didn‘t aggro the mob yet. For that reason, I would probably recommend leveling either this, glacial snare or sandstorm (if you plan to grind on fish) and view the others as lower priority. At later levels and in pvp situations, can be very effective when used in conjunction with essential sutra.

3.1.3 Crown of Flame - one of your damage over time skills, widely viewed as of little use, especially early in the game. Low priority in terms of allocating spirit to level this skill.

3.1.4 Dragons Breath - Great skill, fun to use, decent damage. This skill is basically the only reason anyone will ever WANT a wizard in a pve party (for Frost Covered City runs, rebirth Gamma and Delta, and the occasional zen squad). You certainly want to make it a priority to level this skill.

3.1.5 Will of the Phoenix - A wonderful skill for PvE, it does AoE damage and knocks back your target, which is wonderful for grinding. This skill, force of will, distance shrink and the slow effect from some of the water skills make it so that with practice you will be able to kill mobs without being hit a single time. You should make leveling this skill a priority.

3.1.6 Emberstorm - This should be one of the last skills you level. It requires you to lose hit points to do damage, which as one of the classes with the lowest hit points in the game, it’s usefulness is marginal at best. It can be used in various situations in pvp and pve later in the game, but for all intents and purposes, there is a better skill for almost every situation in which you would ever want to use emberstorm.

3.1.7 Blade Temptest - One of your three AoE nukes and the only attack you have that does physical as opposed to magic damage. In PvP, very effective at killing AA and even LA users.

3.1.8 Gush - The water equivalent of program with the added bonus of slowing the movement of your target. Should use spirit to level this skill whenever possible.

3.1.9 Hailstorm - Rains snow flakes on your targets head. Is technically an AoE skill, but the AoE effect has such a small range (although it increases slightly as you level the skill) its rarely viewed that way. Has a small chance to freeze your target but doesn’t have a high enough chance of success to really matter. Decent to use if you need another water skill for fire mobs, but otherwise there are better choices.

3.1.10 Glacial Snare - Slow channeling, somewhat lengthy cool down, but a fairly strong water skill. Hits hard and slows your target.

3.1.11 Black Ice Dragon Strike - One of your three AoE nukes. Great for using against heavy armor (HA) wearing classes and if it doesn’t kill them, has a nice slow effect as with so many other water skills.

3.1.12 Stone Rain - Somewhat the earth equivalent of program. It has a longer casting time, but does more damage.

3.1.13 Sandstorm - Very slow channeling, relatively short cool down, does high damage.

3.1.14 Pitfall - Another of your damage over time skills which, like crown of flame, should be relatively low in terms of priority. Has a small chance to immobilize your target but doesn’t have a high enough chance of success to really matter.

3.1.15 Mountain Seize - One of your three AoE nukes. Slowest to cast, good for use against heavy armor (HA) wearing classes. If it doesn’t kill them, has a high chance to stun them.

3.2. Seal/Sleep/Stun

3.2.1 Force of Will - Seals the target. In PvE, it’s a great way to control the mob while you kill it. Force of Will actually makes the mob walk away from you pound it in the back with gush and pyro till its dead. Combined with Force of Will to knock it back, it becomes possible for a wizard to grind mobs without being hit a single time. A great asset. In PvP, it is useful to get someone off of you long enough to escape or to prevent them from using skills while you use a skill with a long channel/cast time. Ultimately, it does not immobilize them, so they can (and do) often run out of range once they are sealed. In that way its not perfect, but when you’re a wizard you have to work with what we have.

3.2.2 Soporific Whisper - Instant casting time, decent range. Useful in PvE or PvP to hold your target still for you to use a long, hard hitting skill. The problem is, as soon as they are hit they wake up, which makes this skill far less effective than a stun in TW (everyone is hitting everyone constantly, so they likely won’t stay asleep very long). Plus, so you only get to hit them with one skill, so make it a good one.

3.2.3 Mountain Seize - Listed here as well since its our only true stun. It’s slow to cast, only has a chance to stun (although it’s a high chance), and has an animation that makes you an easy target in PvP if you try casting it. But it is an AoE stun, which is very nice for TW, and combine it with essential sutra or some apothecary items (zooming thunder powder) to make it faster casting, and it can really do some damage on groups of people in TW.

3.3. Buffs/Debuffs

3.3.1 Pyroshell - A fire shield that gives you a negligible increase in hit point regeneration and increases your fire resistance. Only useful when killing a lot of fire mobs for a quest or grinding for experience. And grinding for experience most wizards opt to grind on water mobs. Low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill.

3.3.2 Glacial Embrace- A water shield that gives you a negligible increase in mana regeneration and increases your water resistance. Only useful when killing a lot of water mobs for a quest or grinding for experience. Wizards that grind mobs for experience tend to perfer water mobs, so if that’s you you may want to consider leveling this skill, but otherwise it is a low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill.

3.3.3 Stone Barrier - An earth shield that gives you a significant increase in physical defense and increases your earth resistance. This is a wizards best buff and you will more often than not have this active at all times. It is a high priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill.

3.3.4 Morning Dew - A slow channeling healing skill. Yes, not really a buff/debuff, so sue me for putting it here if you want. You can use this on yourself or others. This is useful in rare occasions such as at the end of a fight to top off your own or your squad mates hit point pool, to heal a tank if your squad’s cleric dies, to heal your cleric if he or she is taking aoe damage while healing a tank, etc. At later levels it can be combined with essential sutra to deliver rapid healing should an emergency arise, but due to its long channel time it is a low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill.

3.3.5 Wellspring Quaff - this skill increases your mana pool, and is helpful but not necessary, generally speaking. It is a prerequisite to essential sutra, which is a very powerful skill, so you will want to eventually level it to level 5 at least, but otherwise it is a low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill.

3.3.6 Frostblade - this is widely regarded as a useless buff, adding water damage to the recipient’s normal attacks. With the rise of 5.0 attack per second builds for multiple characters, there are those that ask for this buff more and more. I would get at least level 1 of this skill so that if they ask for the buff you can give it to them. Otherwise, it is a very low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill.

3.3.7 Fire Mastery - This skill adds a percentage to each of your fire attacks. At lower levels, your attacks do relatively low damage so the percentage added to them is low as well. For that reason, at low levels this is a fairly low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill. Conversely, at higher levels, that percentage increase becomes more and more significant, and this skill should be maxed out.

3.3.8 Water Mastery - This skill adds a percentage to each of your water attacks. At lower levels, your attacks do relatively low damage so the percentage added to them is low as well. For that reason, at low levels this is a fairly low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill. Conversely, at higher levels, that percentage increase becomes more and more significant, and this skill should be maxed out.

3.3.9 Earth Mastery - This skill adds a percentage to each of your earth attacks. At lower levels, your attacks do relatively low damage so the percentage added to them is low as well. For that reason, at low levels this is a fairly low priority in terms of using spirit to level this skill. Conversely, at higher levels, that percentage increase becomes more and more significant, and this skill should be maxed out.

3.3.10 Distance Shrink - This skill teleports your forward a certain number of meters depending on the level of the skill. It is useful for kiting mobs and other players in pvp situations. This skill is a relatively high priority in terms of leveling, however for purposes of pve uses, level 5 or level 6 should be sufficient - the larger distance obtained from increasing its level is not terribly necessary.

3.3.11 Undine Strike - This is a very powerful debuff that works on mobs and other players in pvp situations, reducing their water, fire and earth resistances. It should be a relatively high priority to learn.

3.3.12 Elemental Shell - This skill greatly increases your elemental resistance for a short period of time. Given its limited duration and relatively long cool down, its usefulness is limited and should not be a priority. Many wizards never even learn this skill due to its cost.

4. Genies

For PvP, genies for a wizard are like wheels on a tire. You need a decent genie to be able to effectively to any PvP playing. Genies help wizards tank hits, amplify damage, avoid stuns and gain chi.

While not exactly a "guide", there is a detailed thread hosted by Adroit here:

To my knowledge, no wizard has spent as much time as Adroit play-testing the various genie skills and possibilities as Adroit. It's a long read, but if you have the time it is most likely worth your time.

What follows, however, is a guide. It does not contain the only possibilities, and it is not advocating which genie is best in general, or for any particular situation.

4.1. Type of Genie

Most Wizards seem to elect a Zeal. Zeals state that they have an affinity for "magic", and I believe these are the genies that all wizards are initially provided. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try one of the genies with an "affinity" for vitality, or dex, or strength. Any of them can work just fine for a wizard. The only real differences are the genie skill that comes "pre-learned" on the genie when you first get it and the affinity it has (magic, dex, vit or strength). For Zeals, their initial skill is earthflame - which is an incredibly useful skill for PvE instances on a wizard since it lets you pull mobs out of a group 1 at a time. That alone might be why wizards more often than not stay with the zeal at lower levels.

Once you add 40 points to your genie attributes, it takes 2 skill points to further increase that attribute. The only exception is for the addribute for which your genie has an "affinity" - for that attribute, you can add 55 points before you will need to use 2 unallocated skill points to further raise that attribute. So, for example, you can raise a zeals magic to 55 using only 1 unallocated attribute point. However, if you want to raise its vitality, you will need to use 1 point each from 1 - 40, and then 2 points to raise it to 41, and 2 points to raise it to 42, etc.

4.2. Genie “Build”

By genie "build", I suppose I mean the mix of attribute points between strength, dexterity, magic and vitality. Broadly speaking, most wizards seem to concentrate their points in vitality and magic. Magic points determine how quickly your genie "recharges" its energy once used and vitality determines the "pool" how much energy your genie has to use skills. Some people put in 40-55 points in magic and the rest in vitality, others put 40-55 points in vitality and the rest into magic. Others split it right down the middle, half your points in vitality and the other half in magic. If you tend to use your genie all at once to try and finish a fight quickly, you might prefer to have more vitality than magic. If you have prolonged fights and use your genie more sparingly, you might perfer to have more magic than vitality.

That is another genie type, a dex based genie, where people usually put 40 points or so into vit and magic, and put the rest into dexterity. There are a number of useful wizard genie skills that become more effective the more dexterity points your genie has. Dex genies typically center around the use badge of courage, fortify and spark and are highly effective against blademasters and assassins in particular. Since you are distributing your points among three skills, however, it becomes far more difficult to make an effective dex-based genie with less than 81 lucky points. Genies with that many lucky points tend to be more rare and more expensive. If your genie doesn't have that many lucky points, you may be better of using one of the other genie builds.

4.3. Genie Skills

There are many, many genie skills and combinations. The only difficulty in chosing which ones you want for your genie are that each requires a difference mix of affinity points. For example, it will be very difficult (if not impossible) to put holy path, occult ice, expel, absolute domain and faith on the same genie - you won't likely have enough affinity points to make all those skills an option. Again, review some of the actual genies people have posted in Adroit's genie thread if you like, since you should feel fairly certain that those skills match up affinity-wise (someone already has them all on one genie, after all).

4.3.1. PvE

While any genie skills can technically be used for PvE, and genies are not really even necessary for a wizard for PvE instance, there are some that are most common -

Holy Path - good for kiting if you aggro too many mobs, and also helpful to keep up with your party full of barbs, blademasters, assassins, seekers and venomancers, all of whom have skills to make them run faster.

Cloud Eruption - this is good for quick chi, letting you spark more, use Dragon's Breath and your ultimate AoE skills more often, etc.

Extreme poison - good for amplifying your parties damage on bosses.

Earthflame - good for pulling mobs 1 at a time out of groups.

Tree of Protection/Second Wind - both decent, quick self-heals.

Expel - great for AoE grinding mobs that do physical damage.

4.3.2. PvP

In terms of PvP, genie skills tend to be most useful for saving your behind. They do a great deal to make up for our relatively weak defenses.

In PK, you are looking for skills that make you immune to damage, that will help you avoid stuns, and that will, where necessary, help you amplify the already considerable damage your skills dish out.

Absolute Domain - makes you immune to damage and gives you a few seconds of immunity to stuns, etc. This is one of the most commonly used genie skills. It is also fairly often used against wizards to avoid their long channeling, hard hitting ultimates.

Expel - makes you immune to physical damage for a significant period of time, however you are not able to move or use skills while immune, and you can still take damage from magic attacks.

Cloud Eruption - In PvP, wizards kill with chi.

Frenzy - At the risk of weakened defenses, allows you to increase your attack levels for a short duration. Very effective to get some extra damage on top of a killing attack.

Badge of Courage - gives a relatively small change to break out of a stun. The chance increases, however, the more dexterity points you have on your genie. If your genie is good enough to make a dex-based genie, this skill is a must have.

Spark - Stacked with undine strike, this skill can greatly reduce the targets fire resistance. It has a fairly short range, but when stacked with undine strike and followed with first skills (particularly in combination with essential sutra), it can help you finish off even the hardest of targets. This is another skill that should be used (and perhaps only used) with a dex-based genie.

Fortify - makes you immune to stuns for a relatively short period of time. gain, this skill improves with a dex-based genie and is very nice when combined with Badge of Courage.

4.4. Recommended Wizard Genies

4.4.1. Lucky Points (<81)

4.4.2. Lucky Points (>81)

5. Gear

At this point, I am only going to address gear for a Pure Magic build, as I don't believe it makes much sense anymore to do any of the other builds.

5.1. Sharding

Generally speaking, you will be using protection belts and necks, and while there are whole posts and calculators devoted to analyzing which shard to you when, and how many of this one verse how many of that one, under almost all of those scenarios I have ever looked into, with my builds at the time I looked into them, I was almost without exception pointed to sharding citrines.

Yes, there are those that swear by garnets, and at end game if you +10 all of your gear and have billions of coins, you certainly are free to look into +10 vitality stones, diamonds of tiger, diamonds of dragon, jades of steady defense and the like. But for the majority of wizards, and certainly anything prior to your endgame gear, in my opinion its hard to go too far wrong with all citrines in your armor.

As for your weapon, you're going to want to imbue sapphires. Always sapphires. Again, for your endgame weapon, you can talk about other shards, +1% crit and -3% channel stones, etc. Prior to that? Make your life easy. Only sapphires.

A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT PDEF, DIMINISHING RETURNS AND DAMAGE REDUCTION VS DAMAGE TAKEN:

Diminishing returns is both a fact and a myth of defense. For instance, say you have 8k pdef and 75% reduction. The first 8k pdef got you 75% reduction, but another 1k pdef (9k total pdef) might only get you an additional 2% reduction (from 75% to 77%). Obvious, you received less damage reduction from that additional 1k pdef than you got from your first 1k pdef (i.e. you've reached a point where additional pdef provides less and less protection - diminishing returns).

However, if you turn the coin and look at it another way, with 75% damage reduction you are taking only 25% damage from attacks. Increasing your damage reduction by 2% to 77% means that you are now only taking 23% damage----> an 8% reduction in the amount of damage taken.

23% reduction / 25% reduction = 8% less damage. That additional 2% reduction should result in attacks hitting you for 8% less damage.

The point being, when it comes time to shard your end game gear (because until then, you are really only looking at citrines and pdef ornaments, right?), don't look at a 2% reduction as an insignificant amount. For instance if you had 80% damage reduction and went to 82%, that additional 2% reduction would result in you taking 10% less damage.

5.2. Refining

You are going to want to refine your gear as much as possible. Prior to level 90, +3/+4 is probably the most you need to worry about. From level 90 onwards, +5 on armor is very common. And as a wizard, you will want the refine on your weapon to be has high as possible. We have skills that add as much as 700% of your weapon damage, so weapon damage is very, very important.

5.3. Rank Gear

As your reputation increases, you increase from Rank I, to Rank II, etc. The rank gear at lower levels isn't bad, and since you probably should be planning on using at least Rank 8 gear at endgame, you might as well get the reputation you need as you level to use the rank gear that is available prior to level 100.

Details on rank gear are available here:

5.4. Gear Progression

5.4.1. Armor

As mentioned, the rank armor is always nice if you can get it while you are leveling. Otherwise, prior to level 80, you really only need to use *** purple armor with +pdef or +hp add ons.

At level 80, you should be thinking about whether you want TT80 gold or TT90 gold armor pieces. If so, you will want to get those now and use them. Again, since most people level quickly now a days, I think most don't use those armors at all anymore. In that case, you are just going to be looking for any of the legendary armor (e.g level 78 Steppenwolf Cape and 88 Devil's Cape of Aries, 69(?) Sleeves of the Sea Captain, level 70 mold pants).

Similarly, at level 90 the TT90 arcane armor pants are very nice, as are the TT90 gold wrists. And if you are planning on using the TT99 wrists and boots, etc., you might just want to get the TT90 wrists and boots now and use them through your 90s.

5.4.1.1. Helms

Arcane headgear is generally a challenge. There are not many good molds and most opt not to use the TT headgear. So prior to endgame, unless you are splurging on a Warsoul helm, you will just be looking for *** purple headgear with pdef or hp adds.

5.4.1.2. Boots

Like headgear, good boots for a wizard are sometimes difficult to come by. The TT80 gold are probably the first good boots you can get, and if you want you can easily use those until endgame if you are going to replace them with the TT99 boots, Rank 8 boots (rumored to be comming soon), Rank 9 boots, or the Dancing Sparkle boots (from OHT quest or heavenrage token from packs).

5.4.1.3. Cape/Robe

Capes are like headgear and boots, I'm afraid. There are options for wings of cloudcharger at level 45 (fairly rare and expensive), a channeling cape from FB69 trophy mode, the Glorious Robe of Torment (from the pink wing trophy from packs) and the level 90 channeling cape (from the blue/green wing trophy lunarglade from packs).

Best cape in my opinion is one of the capes with pdef (Glorious Robe of Torment, Wings of Cloud Charger, or that new cape from the new packs [insert name here]

5.4.2. Weapon

You should always try to have a legendary or TT weapon appropriate for your level. Weapons are very important to wizards, and while there are some decent weapons that can be found as drops or quest rewards or out of your supply stash (you will know them when you see them), you are most likely to be better served by one of the legendary or TT weapons.

That said, there is a decent variety of those magic weapons available. There are a few with +pdef add ons which are always a good choice if you feel you need additional pdef. Some wizards also used to swear by glaives for their greater potential for high spike damage. I was always partial to the level 43 legendary glaive, the level 70 legendary sword (nice +pdef stat), the 85 gold frost weapons (aquadash and sensoid are the most popular, in that order). Those alone should get you to level 99/100 if you want.

5.4.3. Ornaments

Protection ornaments. Always protection ornaments. If you only want to PvE, or you expect your only PvP to be in TW and you want to play around with channeling ornaments, I guess I'd say "go ahead, have fun". But for the most part, your going to want pdef ornaments.

Again, at lower levels, get the best ones you can find from quest rewards or drops or the auction house. At higher levels, you are going to want the level 85 gold frostcovered city ornaments, sky demon pearl, possibly the TT80/TT90/TT90 gold protection ornaments, with of course the best being the cube of fate neck, warsong belt, rank 9 belt, OHT 4th map belt, etc.

5.4.4. Rings

Rings - any magic rings with magic, vitality, magic attack, critical hit or possibly even -channeling adds are nice. The school teacher attendance rings work well to at lower levels, so make sure to stop by the school teach daily.

Endgame, you are really looking for possibly the 85 gold frost rings (nice if you can get them for the channeling), the level 95 lunar rings, and of course the Rank 8 and Rank 9 rings.

5.4.5. Tomes

+Magic, +Magic/+Vitality, +Vitality, or even +Strength tomes are all possibilities (you can just put the points you would otherwise need to put into strength to equip gear into magic, effectively making the strength tome a magic tome. I am partial to pure magic tomes.

A level 3 magic tome is not that hard to farm in delta, so I would say, once you get to level 90+, you should have at least a level 3 tome (+15 magic).

Of course, you cant get the level 5 tomes from packs with a Scroll of Tome or a Script of Fate. Each of those items has a pure magic tome option, but I like many I think opt for either Love Up and Down (from the Scroll of Tome) or the Voidlands tome (from Script of Fate). Allocating your attribute points correctly, you can as much or more magic and an extra crit % out of those tomes than either of the pure magic tomes available from these items.

6. Cultivation – Sage or Demon

There are plenty of threads comparing and contrasting the sage and demon versions of the various wizard skills. Eventually, I will either summarize or link to the best of those in this guide. Basically, you only need to know this: Sage wizards get two most often cited "advantages" over demon wizards - those being sage bids and its incredible crit rate and crit buff, and sage masteries which add 5% additional damage to all of your attacks, assuming you learn all 3. At one point in time, although both cultivation choices had their passionate advocates, the majority of wizards seemed to favor sage over demon. The reasons are many and varied, and range from disputes as to whether demon masteries stacked (i.e. whether they afforded the demon wizard an additional 3% crit on all its attacks or only +1% crit to water skills, +1% to fire skills, etc.) to over whether demon stone barrier's +150% pdef was enough to overcome the greater attack power of sage bids.

I myself am sage and have been happy with my choice. Now that Rank 8 weapons are so relatively cheap, and Rank 9 is readily available for a price, wizards don't necessarily NEED sage masteries or sage bids to 1 shot people. Those, being the most often cited reasons for wizards choosing sage over demon, I believe more and more demon wizards will be showing up - electing for the increased control skills and greater crit rate available to demon wizards.