Enrias's complete guide to magic.

• Angel wrote on 2012-11-06 21:17
  @Justified
  
  Well, even though it's only 28 mana/min, it all adds up.
  Even when I started out in NA with my mage I never dealt with mana issues.
  I can clear SM's without running out of mana once, when I get near the 0 mark I just transform to fill her up again.
  
  In the rare occasion that I do run out of mana, I use a potion.
  Farming potion making isn't a must, players can decide to just buy them for 20k/stack aswell.
  Same as holy waters really.
  
  Yeah, another reason why I went for Thunder first is because of the rafting, it speeds up the exploration leveling so much.
  
  I've also thought about making Firebolt the first offensive spell, of course it's the best single target DPS spell we have.. but to become more usefull as Lightning Bolt it'll have to be a CC+4 wand.
  CC+4 wand drains dura very fast, and even on a fomor wand to save gold it'll drain you out of ducats in no time.
  
  I'll add Firebolt to the list in the next update though, as it is an important skill to rank soon.
  I just went with Lightning bolt because it'll profit from the mastery +15% aswell, it's a one charge hit spell so it's easy to spam some leftover mobs.
  
  So what I'm trying to say, a CC+4 fire wand is great, but money/ducat consuming, it's better for a newbie to start out with lightning bolt unless their funded and can afford the repair on a cc+4 wand.
  
  And yeah, Ice Spear is a better floor sweeper than Thunder, but you can't expect newbies to gather all IS and EJ pages below level 100, that's pretty much near impossible.
  
  The starting out as a mage part is meant for a mage to become stable, and able to solo SM's without needing support all the time. When they get past that mark they can easily farm IS pages, rank other skills and level up to 70/20 weekly.
  
  That said, thanks a lot for the criticism, I'll change te lightning bolt part to also have a firebolt alternative and I'll change some other things here and there.
  
  @Adrianna & Mentos
  
  Thanks a lot! And Mentos you should!
  
  @Valkyrio
  It's not necceseraly hard, it's just much harder than all other skillsets.
  Most players who like a bigger challenge, and like more work for their skills decided to go mage.
  I have to admit, the rewards are really worth it.
  
  And really, it's not thát much time they'll have to spend for it.
  A lot of these things can be combined.
  
  Commercing also brings XP, Skill XP, ánd gold.
  Running dungeons for pages drops also have herb patches
  Running dungeons for pages also drop homestead seeds
  Keeping a farm gives you a nice amount of gold, and homestead seeds.
• Valkyrio wrote on 2012-11-06 21:49
  I thought seeds only dropped from goblins?
  
  And I'm going off topic now, but I don't think mage is anywhere near as harder as archery.
• Mentosftw wrote on 2012-11-06 21:50

  Quote from Adrianblade;976516:

  I will worship you as a God if you do O_O
  
  Oh and nice guide Enrias! That said...I still dislike mages O3O

  
  
  I'll give it some thought if there's an audience for it.
• Angel wrote on 2012-11-06 21:55

  Quote from Valkyrio;976608:

  I thought seeds only dropped from goblins?
  
  And I'm going off topic now, but I don't think mage is anywhere near as harder as archery.

  
  
  Archery is AP-friendly, the only pain is the life skills for the extra dex.
  Archers also have it easy while bandit hunting and nearly anything they do.
  They also have the fancy Elemental reforges.
  
  There is always an audience for a guide, everyone who is a fighter would appreciate a guide on it.
  Always some stuff they didn't know, or nice to check if they forgot something.
• Eliirae wrote on 2012-11-10 16:44
  It's nice that you've taken the time to write a guide on this!
  
  I would however like to note some things in general:
  
  MP is going to be a problem for new players. Remember, we're not all super experienced with Mabi and know how to make millions from the get-go, or even 10k+ quickly. In my experience, transforming to a paladin doesn't really fill up your MP pool...Maybe DK does, but that's G3, so "I can go through a SM without running out of MP cause when I get low I can just transform and fill up my MP again" doesn't apply to a new mage who is still working on G1 and G2. Heck, I'm STILL working on doing G3 >_>
  
  It takes awhile to get a decent mana herb farm going on a homestead, so this means that unless a new mage has a bunch of generous friends that are willing to help them out, it's going to take awhile to get a big enough homestead + the mana herbs to start it out (Base herbs are insanely easy to get, so that is no issue)
  
  Speaking of mana herbs, the base success rate for MP30s, 50s, 100s is going to be insanely low. Have fun only making 20-25 mana potions out of that stack of 60 mana/base herbs you spent forever gathering. It's easy to say "just get someone else to make them for you" but that requires more generous friends :P
  
  While a CC+4 firebolt is stronger than lightning bolt, it also costs like, what, 10x the MP per use? Not to mention it costs money to: buy the wand, repair the wand while getting it's prof up, upgrading the wand, repairing it again while proffing it up to finish upgrading, then possibly proffing AGAIN to do an artisan upgrade. There's really no reason a new player just starting out as a mage should even consider a CC+4 firebolt wand. Fomor Wands make it cheaper, sure, but that is still a lot of ducats, and in the shape commerce is now...
  
  And don't even get me started on the books for meditation or the pages for thunder/ice spear/fireball. A new mage will possibly be able to get thunder on their own, but they'll have to be incredibly lucky to get anything else. They also won't have the funding to get meditation to a high rank, or ice spear/fireball. I mean, how much do these things cost on Alexina? 2+million per whatever?
  
  Being a mage is really rewarding when you can take on an entire spawn of high level enemies without the fear of being hurt, for sure, but it's a very rough beginning and honestly I wouldn't recommend it to most brand new players unless they were willing to deal with the hardships at the start.
• Angel wrote on 2012-11-10 17:29
  Hey Eliirae, thanks for the reply.
  
  I've started a new mage a few months back to test the build with mana issues and everything along those lines.
  I've made a nelf in the exact build I described in the guild and I personally never ran in to mana issues.
  
  Mana farms a take a while, mana potions are pretty cheap. A few HW runs should give you enough money for a few stacks.
  The mana issues never happen with lightning bolt, only with advanced magic. Once you've got Thunder you can spam rafting.
  It requires MP, but at the end you can trade in stars for MP50 potions, so you will get pots pretty much for free.
  
  And as I stated in the guide, beginners should keep it to lightning bolt, if it's a funded player with a rich alt, then go for firebolt with cc+4 instead. It's expensive and costs load of MP.
  
  I only put thunder as the advanced magic to gather because it's the cheapest, and easiest book to get. In Alexina the entire book costs 400k maximally and is easy for a ~ level 100 to grind themselves.
  Meditation till r9 only costs about 300k, and is also easily grinded by yourself.
  
  With all these new updates, mages have been boosted gigantically.
  When my mage was total level 400/150 I could already crit 2.1k with thunder.
  
  A mage is indeed very rewarding, however it takes a lot of time, patience, and will to get started.
  I do reccomend it to new players because you start with a load of AP. (100/100 from start = 200 ap) G1 is another, what? 150 ap?
  And that's only in the first week of playing, you can get r1 lightning bolt, r9 magic mastery, r9 crit with that and you're already punching 150's or 200's with lightning bolt. Strong enough to grind pages for Thunder.
• Gaby5011 wrote on 2012-11-12 02:49
  My mage guide:
  
  Rank Magic Mastery, Critical Hit and a bolt.
  Now, rank whatever you want, not whatever you need.
  You prefer Thunder over some easy bolt int giving? Go ahead and rank Thunder. It's a game and games are made to have fun. So go ahead and have fun ranking Thunder.
  
  Some people are telling me that I should rank Blaze. It's my last offensive magic skill left to rank. But I don't want to, so I don't bother ranking it. I'm having much more fun with Fighter right now.
• Retard wrote on 2012-11-12 04:04

  Quote from Angel;979055:

  Hey Eliirae, thanks for the reply.
  
  I've started a new mage a few months back to test the build with mana issues and everything along those lines.
  I've made a nelf in the exact build I described in the guild and I personally never ran in to mana issues.
  
  Mana farms a take a while, mana potions are pretty cheap. A few HW runs should give you enough money for a few stacks.
  The mana issues never happen with lightning bolt, only with advanced magic. Once you've got Thunder you can spam rafting.
  It requires MP, but at the end you can trade in stars for MP50 potions, so you will get pots pretty much for free.
  
  And as I stated in the guide, beginners should keep it to lightning bolt, if it's a funded player with a rich alt, then go for firebolt with cc+4 instead. It's expensive and costs load of MP.
  
  I only put thunder as the advanced magic to gather because it's the cheapest, and easiest book to get. In Alexina the entire book costs 400k maximally and is easy for a ~ level 100 to grind themselves.
  Meditation till r9 only costs about 300k, and is also easily grinded by yourself.
  
  With all these new updates, mages have been boosted gigantically.
  When my mage was total level 400/150 I could already crit 2.1k with thunder.
  
  A mage is indeed very rewarding, however it takes a lot of time, patience, and will to get started.
  I do reccomend it to new players because you start with a load of AP. (100/100 from start = 200 ap) G1 is another, what? 150 ap?
  And that's only in the first week of playing, you can get r1 lightning bolt, r9 magic mastery, r9 crit with that and you're already punching 150's or 200's with lightning bolt. Strong enough to grind pages for Thunder.

  
  
  Ok.
  
  First of all, Exploration levels count into the Level rebirth limit. So after 100 levels in expl and normal, your free RB's are done. I think G1 only gives 80ish AP. Mage is the easiest class to raise (maybe besides alchemy). Next to alchemy, it takes the least amount of time to endgame. MP is cheap and anyway, if you do it right cc4 firebolt is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY cheaper and more effective than lightning bolt by a mile...
  
  If you use MP 10s r1 firebolt with a decent amount of int would dish out 80Damage/MP while lightning bolt with decent int would me more like 20 Damage/MP. (800 damage cc4 for 10 MP vs 150 damage lightning bolt for 5 MP). Of course the difference margin shifts more too lightningbolt after all of the mana reduction is factored in, but firebolt still wins by a mile.
  
  My old character almost capped the magic tab before (minus fire mastery, fireball,shields, and enchant) getting blackrobed. I used to always use thunder and it was very powerful in hardmode missions.
  
  However, I recommend fireball in the ADV levels (300-999). R1 fireball in its self along with r1 cc4 firebolt is great for party play and probably better than thunder for EXP (ie: Fireball grind in Offering, SCC, Defeat Shadow Warrior with cc4 firebolt). CC4 firebolt ballooning is also better than thunder rafting.
  
  If you try to use Thunder at that stage in your game play, you're probably going to have a hard time. Thunder doesn't really shine through until after HM. After HM thunder probably surpasses all advanced magic in usefullness (Ice Spear is good for all levels of game play).
  
  BLAZE IS AWESOME (if u have 600 int)
  
  
  
  uh ya
• Angel wrote on 2012-11-12 16:29

  Quote from Tiger;979865:

  Ok.
  
  First of all, Exploration levels count into the Level rebirth limit. So after 100 levels in expl and normal, your free RB's are done. I think G1 only gives 80ish AP. Mage is the easiest class to raise (maybe besides alchemy). Next to alchemy, it takes the least amount of time to endgame. MP is cheap and anyway, if you do it right cc4 firebolt is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY cheaper and more effective than lightning bolt by a mile...
  
  If you use MP 10s r1 firebolt with a decent amount of int would dish out 80Damage/MP while lightning bolt with decent int would me more like 20 Damage/MP. (800 damage cc4 for 10 MP vs 150 damage lightning bolt for 5 MP). Of course the difference margin shifts more too lightningbolt after all of the mana reduction is factored in, but firebolt still wins by a mile.
  
  My old character almost capped the magic tab before (minus fire mastery, fireball,shields, and enchant) getting blackrobed. I used to always use thunder and it was very powerful in hardmode missions.
  
  However, I recommend fireball in the ADV levels (300-999). R1 fireball in its self along with r1 cc4 firebolt is great for party play and probably better than thunder for EXP (ie: Fireball grind in Offering, SCC, Defeat Shadow Warrior with cc4 firebolt). CC4 firebolt ballooning is also better than thunder rafting.
  
  If you try to use Thunder at that stage in your game play, you're probably going to have a hard time. Thunder doesn't really shine through until after HM. After HM thunder probably surpasses all advanced magic in usefullness (Ice Spear is good for all levels of game play).
  
  BLAZE IS AWESOME (if u have 600 int)
  
  
  
  uh ya

  
  
  No they don't stack, it's till either one of them gets past 100.
  You can have 99 in both, I've done that when I moved here from EU.
  
  I didn't measure the "expensive" vs "cheap" in the cost of MP pots, but in repair costs.
  CC+4 sure does way more dmg/mp, but it does take 5 charges of dura PER shot. If you do 5 shots on a mob to kill him, you're out 25 charges.
  While 1 thunder only costs 1 dura.
  
  CC+4 firebolt is indeed great for ballooning, if it's better than thunder rafting is open for discussion. I personally prefer rafting for a lot of reasons though.
  
  I highly disagree on using fireball in the adv levels, it's pretty much the worst party skill because loading it needs all 5 charges, even with cast speed reduction it will take 18 seconds to load one fireball, and most parties clear a spot within those.
  
  Thunder bandit grinding can get up to 1mil - 1.5mil a hour at level 400-500, so that's pretty damn great already.
  Ice Spear is a lovely skill to clear some dungeon rooms, but highly annoying at HM when you freeze the entire spawn and the party goes mad.
  
  And yeah, blaze rocks.
  
  
  
  

  Quote from Gaby5011;979827:

  My mage guide:
  
  Rank Magic Mastery, Critical Hit and a bolt.
  Now, rank whatever you want, not whatever you need.
  You prefer Thunder over some easy bolt int giving? Go ahead and rank Thunder. It's a game and games are made to have fun. So go ahead and have fun ranking Thunder.
  
  Some people are telling me that I should rank Blaze. It's my last offensive magic skill left to rank. But I don't want to, so I don't bother ranking it. I'm having much more fun with Fighter right now.

  
  
  
  Yep! Pretty much, mages have many ways to be played.
  I just posted the most noob friendly guide.
  
  I'll be converting this guide to a PDF and host it online like Trans did before, looks way more organized.
• Justified wrote on 2012-11-12 16:50

  Quote from Angel;980024:

  I didn't measure the "expensive" vs "cheap" in the cost of MP pots, but in repair costs.
  CC+4 sure does way more dmg/mp, but it does take 5 charges of dura PER shot. If you do 5 shots on a mob to kill him, you're out 25 charges.
  While 1 thunder only costs 1 dura.
  
  I highly disagree on using fireball in the adv levels, it's pretty much the worst party skill because loading it needs all 5 charges, even with cast speed reduction it will take 18 seconds to load one fireball, and most parties clear a spot within those.

  
  
  That's a terrible comparison. Firebolt is faster than Thunder, uses 1/4 the MP (if using MP10s) or even no MP pots (if meditating at night), and has a higher base damage than 1 charge Thunder. Thunder is better for durability or ignoring crit protection but, as far as "cost" goes, MP potions sell for much more than repairing costs and Firebolt can fire at 6 targets before Thunder can hit 4.
  
  Fireball is only 15 seconds with speedcasting, and Thunder is still 9.5 seconds, though really if you're running Advance I'd still go with Bolt Magic or Ice Spear (~5 seconds) since both of Fireball and Thunder are laughably slow.
• Angel wrote on 2012-11-12 17:08

  Quote from Justified;980032:

  That's a terrible comparison. Firebolt is faster than Thunder, uses 1/4 the MP (if using MP10s) or even no MP pots (if meditating at night), and has a higher base damage than 1 charge Thunder. Thunder is better for durability or ignoring crit protection but, as far as "cost" goes, MP potions sell for much more than repairing costs and Firebolt can fire at 6 targets before Thunder can hit 4.
  
  Fireball is only 15 seconds with speedcasting, and Thunder is still 9.5 seconds, though really if you're running Advance I'd still go with Bolt Magic or Ice Spear (~5 seconds) since both of Fireball and Thunder are laughably slow.

  
  
  Don't get me wrong, I never said that firebolt is a bad skill.
  I'm merely stating that lighting bolt is a more newbie friendly skill as a newbie can't keep up with both the mana, and repair costs of a CC+4 wand so I'm suggesting that it's better for them on lightning bolt and thunder.
  
  MP100's sell for 500 gold each on my server, which is way cheaper than 100-150k per repair on a CC+4.
  
  The reason why I see thunder as a better beginner and party skill is that fireball is a 15-20 sec minimum cast skill, and you can fire a thunder anywhere between 3 and 15 seconds. (1 to 5 casts)
  
  Even though my firebolt does nearly as much as my 1 charge thunder, it still works way better for slapping the butt on multiple mobs, a charge of thunder will hit 4 mobs standing roughly near eachother, but you can fire 2-3 1 charge thunders before they actually strike.
  
  Just remember, the skill guide is for newbies who just started here, I stated in the guide that if they're "funded" or have at least 300-400k in their banks it's better to get a CC+4 firebolt instead of lightning bolt.
  
  However for people just starting out they can pay for either mana potions, or repairs, and not both of them.
  
  If you'd rather want to use ice spear over thunder in advance depends on a lot of things, you'd really want to have pretty sweet gear and a pretty nice wand to make your ice spear worth casting in an advance. At least, if you're in a party.
  
  If you're solo-ing ice spear is great to use for many reasons, but in parties you really want to use thunder over ice spear. the freeze takes up a few seconds the entire party could slap the monster, reducing a load of damage that could be dealt, and annoys the players a lot. So unless your IS will 1 hit them, it's better not to cast IS there.
  
  I do see CC+4 Firebolt + Ice Spear as the best starting combo for a mage, however this is inpossible for a newbie to achieve due to the difficulty to grind IS pages and the cost of a CC+4 FB.
  
  Anyhow, after the 3x AP event I'll create a new account, get him to 99/99, finish G1, rank Crit, FB, Fire Mastery, magic mastery, get a CC+4 firewand and see if it's possible to maintain with a bit of HW farming / Dungeon running.
• pkMaster wrote on 2012-11-12 22:33
  Just a tip. If you're willing to run scc hardmode a few times, then it's a really good idea to get yourself a stiff colonel round shield because the stiff prefix adds 10% crit to your magic and comes pre-applied to round shields and drops at the end chests, making it a really nice shield for thunder/fire mages.
• Conor wrote on 2012-11-13 01:07

  Quote from Blassreiter;976441:

  True mages know that MP Cost is never a problem. I make a load of MP 100 Potions whenever I want even with Rank A Potion Mastery (Rank 9 is the recommended cap level) thanks to my Herb Farms. You should include the usage of Herb Farms in your guide.
  
  I personally feel that my magic out damages my melee and I'm a Giant too. I think the reason for this is that I don't have any Max Damage Enchanted equipment to boost my Melee attack, and Magic is already strong without Magic Damage Enchants, the enchants only make them stronger marginally.

  
  
  woa im in ur guild
• Justified wrote on 2012-11-13 05:07

  Quote from Angel;980038:

  MP100's sell for 500 gold each on my server, which is way cheaper than 100-150k per repair on a CC+4.

  
  
  The amount of MP potions you spend on Thunder adds up to a lot, and that also uses durability.
  Is the point.
  
  Also repairs are ~50k if you use 95%, there's no reason to use 98% on anything other than Gacha gear.
  I don't even 98% my R5 enchanted weapons.
• Angel wrote on 2012-11-13 16:02

  Quote from Justified;980325:

  The amount of MP potions you spend on Thunder adds up to a lot, and that also uses durability.
  Is the point.
  
  Also repairs are ~50k if you use 95%, there's no reason to use 98% on anything other than Gacha gear.
  I don't even 98% my R5 enchanted weapons.

  
  
  That's a fair point.
  I'll keep track of my MP pot usage on both CC+4 Firewand and Thunder while doing bandits.
  And well, I just rather keep my gear safe so I prefer 98% still an option to do 95% though, indeed.