Perfect World Wizards Guide

Perfect World Wizards Guide by Dtone

1) Why become a Wizard?

Wizards is the hardest hitting magical damage class in the game, and eventually will become the hardest hitting class in both the Physical and Magical damage realm. Not only do they hit very hard, but they’re capable of destroying a massive group of enemies of equal level with a single spell. Wizard is also a ranged class, which allows for preemptive strikes at a distance and is very capable of annihilating monsters before they have a chance to approach, cast, or shoot you. Wizards are also one of fastest classes to conquer quests, making the experience grinding experience a bit easier to take in. Wizards are also the most diverse class in the game, allowing for more strategies available and also making this class one of the most difficult to truly master. A master Wizard can and will become a master of any other class if the player so decides.

2) I’m afraid I might create a failure, how do I prevent this?

There are common functional builds and abstract builds. The more common builds are the Pure Magic build and the Light Armor build. The more abstract builds are the Hybrid and Balanced builds. As long as most of your stat point distribution goes to Magic, you should not have too much difficulty coping with the game. What you should watch out for is leveling and acquiring skills you don’t really need and not have enough points to use later on.

3) Type of Wizard Builds and Point Distribution
Rating System: 1 being lowest, 5 being highest.

Pure Magic build: Attack Rating – 5, Defense Rating – 2
Every Two Levels
Magic 9 Points
Strength 1 Point

Hybrid Build: Attack Rating – 4, Defense Rating – 3
Every Two Levels
Magic 7 Points
Vitality 2 Points
Strength 1 Point

Light Armor Build: Attack Rating – 4, Defense Rating – 4
Every Level
Magic 3 Points
Dexterity 1 Point
Strength 1 Point

Balanced Build: Attack Rating – 2, Defense Rating – 5
Every Level
Magic 2 Points
Vitality 1 Point
Dexterity 1 Point
Strength 1 Point

These are listed in terms of attack power. Each one of these has it’s own strengths and weaknesses with its own uses and its own strategies. The further down the list you go, the more strategies become available, but the less damage you can do. It is highly recommended to decide between Pure Magic and Light Armor, but it is still a subjective matter.

4) Types of Magic

Fire Spells: This school of magic has the most attack spells and is varied in terms of attack types, ranging from Damage over Time, Knockback, Physical Damage, and Magic Damage.

Pyrogram – The most basic fire spell, does fire damage with no particular special affects linked to such an ability, it is one of the fastest spells available in the game and can be recast many times quite quickly and easily.

Pyroshell – Raises defense against fire spells and adds very slow HP regeneration over time. Not very effective at any level. Requires 30 Chi.

Crown of Flame – Causes a Damage over Time effect that does a small amount of damage constantly until the effect wears off. Debatable spell in terms of efficiency.

Divine Pyrogram – A very slow casting version of Pyrogram but makes up in terms of power. This is not a spell you should use constantly until much later levels when a unique spell that removes casting time becomes available. It is also a decent “provoker/starter” spell, but there are better.

The Dragon’s Breath – An Area of Effect spell that strikes at all enemies within a 6m radius of yourself. This spell lasts as long as you put MP into the spell and will not disappear until you so wish it to be. It is your very first effective Area of Effect Spell, it is used heavily later on, and is severely effective in AoE parties. In order to cancel out of the spell, simply hit the “Esc” Key. Requires 1 Spark.

Will of the Phoenix – A piercing magic spell that hits everything in its path and knocks them many meters away. A very dependable spell , but debatable in terms of efficiency, it is a love/hate relationship with this spell among many wizards, but none can debate that this spell has its uses.

Emberstorm – A self charging area of effect spell that causes more damage the longer it is charged, the spell also burns away up to 60% of your user’s HP. This move has a limit as to how long it can be charged and how strong the spell can be, being very efficient to those who can handle timing very well. Unless you’re an expert with spell and damage timing, this spell will not be very effective or efficient.

Blade Tempest – A large area of effect spell featuring not only fire damage, but physical damage as well. Not only is this spell very strong, it also has a wide area of effect, literally destroying all enemies within a certain range. Requires 2 Sparks.

Fire Mastery – A passive ability that increases the damage capacity of all fire based spells. Not the most important, but effective skill and should be mastered only when there are points to spare.

Water Spells: This school of magic is very diverse in terms of aiding the user in many ways. Not only can this school of magic debuff, but it can heal and buff as well.

Gush: One of the fastest, if not the fastest, spells in the game. Not only does it do slightly more damage than Pyrogram of equal level, but it also has a strong chance of slowing the opponent’s movement speed by 40%. This spell is an absolute must and is one of the best starter spells available.

Glacial Embrace: A protective spell that protects the user from water damage as well as providing additional MP regeneration. This spell cannot truly replace MP potions, Charms, and become a staple and never ending MP source, but it can relax the amount of MP used. Requires 30 Chi.

Hail Storm: The very first Area of Effect spell available to Wizard with quick casting time and has a 33% chance of freezing enemies for a very brief amount of time. Unfortunately, the area of effect area is very small and the spell is not strong enough to be considered a good source of damage. Avoid this spell until you have accomplished everything else.

Morning Dew: A moderate strength healing spell that has a very long cast time. This spell is very inefficient when used in combat due to its absurd casting time. The spell is best used between battles to heal any wounds of yourself or others. The spell is a must-have for any wizard who wishes to be MP efficient. You cannot replace Clerics, but you can still do something in case there isn’t one.

Frostblade: A buffing spell that adds Water Damage to any melee weapon for a party member to use. This spell is extremely useless for a soloing Wizard, but can be a heaven send when used within a large party. The spell itself is debatable in terms of efficiency, so get it if you have a strong feeling you’ll be partying much later.

Glacial Snare: A really strong water spell that has a chance of slowing the enemy down by 80%. The recast time of this spell is too large for it to be used repeatedly and constantly, but definitely a very nice and strong starter spell that will open most opponents to other magic attacks before they can get within attack range. High recommendations on getting this spell, but is not a necessity.

Black Ice Dragon Strike: The strongest Area of Effect water spell that can annihilate many opponents in a single blow. If the opponent happens to survive, there’s a chance they will suffer 60% slowdown. This spell is a must-have for all masterful Wizards. Requires 2 Sparks.

Water Mastery: A passive skill that increases the water damage potential for all water based spells. Skill up only when extra points are available.

Earth Magic: The strongest and most direct of all the magic schools. There is very little diversity in this school of magic and can be very slow. In exchange, this school provides the most amount of damage within a single cast and can be very devastating.

Stone Rain: The highest damaging basic spell of all the starting spells available. Due to its strong nature, it is a staple spell that is used from the most basic level to the highest level. This spell is a must have for all masterful wizards who wishes to become very strong. This spell makes for a very good starter and ending spell, but has a longer recast time than Gush and Pyrogram.

Stone Barrier: A protective spell that also raises physical defense of the caster. This spell is a must-have for all wizards that plan to participate in PvP later in the game. Requires 30 Chi.

Pitfall: A strong damage over time spell that slows the enemy down by 15% and has a chance of stunning the opponent for a short time. This spell is not very efficient in terms of battle and should only be skilled with spare points.

Sandstorm: Devastatingly strong and is considered one of the wizard’s staple spells. This spell also lowers the opponent accuracy, making it more difficult for them to hit the caster. A definite must have for all wizards who wish to become very strong in the game.

Force of Will: A non-damaging spell that stuns the opponent for a certain amount of time, rendering them helpless to the fury that is to come. This spell is very expensive and is highly recommended by many players, though it is a good idea to save points for another spell if there is a deficiency of points available.

Mountain’s Seize: Ironically not the strongest AoE spell, but still strong. This is spell has a very wide Area of Effect and has a very high chance of stunning the opponent for several seconds. This spell is a must-have for any wizard. Requires 2 Sparks.

Earth Mastery: A passive skill that increases earth spell damage efficiency. Not necessary, but skill up when you have points available later on.

Celestial Magic: A diverse range of spells that is diverse in every single way imaginable. There’s no true way to describe the nature of these spells, but the terms of their effectiveness is unquestionable.

Wellspring Quaff: A spell that temporarily increases the max capacity of MP the caster has. Not a completely necessary spell, but a good spell to level when you have extra points available. It’s true use actually comes if you take up Celestial Sage at level 89, giving you 100% extra Magic Attack for your weapon. Requires 1 Spark.

Essential Sutra: A spell that consumes 2 sparks to recover 10% of caster’s MP and makes every spell cast instantly for the following 6 seconds. A very powerful spell that is a must-have for all wizards who wishes to become very strong.

Manifest Virtue: A spell that increases the damage potential of the caster for 30 seconds at the cost of 1 spark. An absolutely must have for any wizard who wishes to have bragging rights on the damage they can do.

Elemental Shell: A strangely strong spell that increases all spell resistances 1000% for 4 seconds and should only be used when anticipating a really strong spell coming. Skip and purchase it only when you have points available after you have all the necessary spells maxed and mastered.

Soporific Whisper: A spell that has a large cost to put the enemy to sleep for 4 seconds. A very good spell to use in case of emergencies and render most opponents helpless to your fury during that time. The true use of this spell actually comes when either stunning a boss on a spell or sleeping a Cleric in PvP before they sleep you because this spell does not have casting time. Requires 20 Chi.

Distance Shrink: A spell that instantly dashes your character ahead a certain distance within a second. A highly effective move that makes traveling a lot easier and makes it easier for Wizard to combat all sorts of enemies. A certain must have for all wizards. Requires 20 Chi.

Undine Strike: This spell smashes through your opponent’s fire, water, and earth magic defenses, making them very susceptible to any spells about to be cast. It shoots the resistances down by 60% for the next 12 seconds, making opponents horribly open for a quick end.

Elemental Invocation: A spell that consumes all your MP and puts it into a single strike. This spell demolishes the opponent’s HP, MP, and Chi at the cost of all your own. Extremlely strong, but extremely costly. Requires 1 Spark.

Normal/Advanced/Celestial/Demonic Eruption: This special ability is given to all classes, enhances their damage done to the opponent at the cost of sparks. This ability is given to you at next to no cost and is a must for all Wizards.

Town Portal: A game spell given to all players as a way to quickly transport to a safe location in an nearby town. This spell was originally intended to get players out of stuck situations that they cannot normally get out of. It has a 1 hour recast, so use at your own low risk.

5) Recommended Spells in terms of Priority

Primary Spells: You’ll need these spells to function in the game. Absolutely needed.
Pyrogram
Gush
Stone Rain
Distance Shrink
Essential Sutra

Secondary Spells: Level these whenever you can, but never at the cost of a Primary Spell.
Morning Dew
Dragon’s Breath
Sandstorm
Blade Tempest
Black Ice Dragon Strike

Recommendations: Spells to be considered when there’s nothing else to level up but have SP available.
Glacial Embrace
Stone Barrier
Frost Blade
Manifest Virtue
Mountain’s Seize

Optional: You can grab these out of personal taste, but not at the cost of something important.
Wellspring Quaff
Glacial Snare
Will of the Phoenix
Force of Will
Soporific Whisper

End Game: Raise only when everything else needed is raised.
Fire Mastery
Water Mastery
Earth Mastery
Undine Strike
Hailstorm

Everything else you can get after that.

6) “S” Key Kiting

The “S” Key makes your character run backwards. While doing this, you can lightly tap on hotkeys containing your spells and your character will stop temporarily to cast the spell then continue running as the spell finishes, giving you some time to gain some distance the small time gap you have to wait between spells.

7) “S” Key Teleport

Same concept of “S” Key kiting, except using Distance Shrink to quickly gain a large distance between enemies. To fully amplify the effectiveness of this spell, slow the opponent down with a water spell, knock them back with will of phoenix, and distance shrink backwards to gain an absurd amount of distance from your opponent.

8) Advanced “S” Key Kiting Combination

At later levels, when you master the use of macros, one combination I recommend is 2 separate macros. First consists of Sandstorm, Gush, Will of the Phoenix, Gush; the second consists of Gush, Will of the Phoenix, Gush. The strategy is to start off with Sandstorm, gush them as they approach, shoot them away with will of the phoenix, gush them as they fly away, then you distance shrink away from the opponent, after that gush should be recharged and can be fired off again with a short will of phoenix and gush to follow. This combination keeps next to all melee monsters away from you and you will receive next to no melee damage. This is also very formidable as a boss tanking/kiting strategy, but definitely not the best due to Wizard’s slow running speed.

9) What is Chi and Spark?

After a certain level, the bar under your MP bar fills up in yellow; this is your Chi. After several levels, you’ll gain an empty red diamond reticle to the right of this bar, when this red diamond fills and shines, it means you’ve gained 100 Chi and have acquired a Spark to use.

10) Final Thoughts

Wizard is definitely a class to be feared for it’s sheer raw power. They’re very slow starters, but in the end, they are absolutely amazing and cannot be rivaled by anyone other than another Wizard in terms of damage. I hope you have enjoy using Wizard as much as I do and have a fun time in the game.

PVP Wizard Guide by Pandora

So, you rolled a mage. Well, I’ll tell you right now you’re making a big, big mistake. While I love wizard more than any other class, I’m going to tell you right now that you’re in for a wild ride. Your class is considered underpowered by many (and they’re right!), it is difficult to get parties until around 80 and you are basically food for any archer who notices you no matter what build you’re in. (Well, until you have full HH90 light armor, anyway.)

There’s only 4 reasons to roll a wizard.
1) You like to be different.
2) You’re a masochist.
3) You like oneshotting people.
4) You’re just that hardcore.

Figure out which you are, and make sure you are ready for this commitment before moving on. Mage is a lot of fun to play, and you’re a powerhouse if you can make it to a high level, but getting there is hell. If you’re going to be a casual player, please do yourself a favor and roll Archer or cleric.

Making your character.

Unlike archers, of which males are not very manly looking (ask a male archer to use a lightning attack on you and watch his pose. Nuff said.), both genders look okay for mages.

And, unlike archers, mages look good in basically any style you can put them in. I couldn’t find any decent “longer” hair options, so I stuck with short hair, but it worked out nice. Red schemes look really good when casting fire spells, by the way. One of my mage friends made a full light blue/white scheme and it looked pretty awesome when he was casting Ice Dragon.

Don’t neglect the skin tone option. While I picked a basic Caucasian skin tone, I have seen mages who do crazy crap like purple/red and make it look really cool. Experiment! We’re an exotic class, it’s only natural that we’d look that way. Remember that you are the rarest class in the game, so there’s nothing wrong with having a rare looking character as well.

The lowbie levels.

Just when you thought the lowbie levels as an archer were rough, enter mage. Your damage is not much better than an archer and you get hit like nothing. Unlike archers, I really REALLY do not reccomend putting any con in at all. In fact, even if you’re going light mage, don’t start raising your str or dex for now. Just get enough str to wear robes your level and pump your int with every point you get. The faster you kill things, the faster you can get out of the hell that is pre-60 mage.

When you start running out of grind spots, try swimming around for a bit and killing water mobs. With sandstorm and stone rain, we kill water mobs very quickly and water gets the same 1.5x exp modifier that flying gets. For a long time as a low level flying mobs will be mostly wood, which we have no advantage over (no barrier OR critical element) but if you can slip into a vipents party full of archers and priests you’ll get good EXP anyway.

Eventually you’ll be able to kill Foxies/Foxwings and you will be able to **** these. They cast fire magic, so buy some robes from the AH that have only one or two elements and one of them fire (this way you have a ton of fire resist), throw on your fire barrier and **** ’em with water spells. We are the best class in the game for faming foxies, which are in turn (IMO) the best exp early game. If you want to duo foxies take a priest with you; his buffs will both cause you to kill faster and save your heirogram. Good places to go after foxes are in the air above hidden heroes and in the air behind city of misfortune.

At this point you should be thinking (THINKING, NOT STATTING) which mage you want. There’s two kinds of real mages.

The Builds

~Full Int~

This build is the most simple, and most common. You get enough str to wear your gear and everything else goes into int. You hit like a mac truck, you take damage like you’re paper, and you do what a mage’s job is to do – hurt like **** and die in two shots.

To succeed as full int, you need good gear. Really good gear. Like, + your gear up with mirage stones to +4. All of it. And fill it with HP or pdef shards (this is arguable – I say mix them both, but that’s just me.) You need the HP and the pdef from nice gear or you’re just going to want to quit the game.

On your gear, you’re looking for +pdef mods, because your pdef sucks horribly. +HP is nice too but +pdef is your #1 priority. If you get armor with good pdef mods, then your survivability will improve considerably.

Please understand that as full int, all an archer has to do is target you and roll his face on the keyboard and you are dead. You’ll die faster than Deity can rack up a credit card bill. The upside: unless he has winged shell on, you’ll oneshot his *** with a crit. And even if you’re a bit too scared of your critting ability, Force of Will can buy you a few seconds to get another Sandstorm off.

If you put con on a mage you’re retarded. You only get 10 hp per point of con, which is the lowest con HP modifier in the game. And unlike a priest or fox, your job is not to be able to take a couple hits to do other things. You don’t do other things. The only thing you do is kill things. If you’re going to roll a gimp class, at least do your job.

~Light Armor~

This is the secondary build, which can save your *** in PVP. While the bonus from con is minimal, mages are able to build themselves to equip light armor and this is especially effective on them because of Earth Barrier’s huge pdef modifier. Keep in mind that you will hit for significantly less damage (UPDATE: Actually, a full int guild member of the same level and I tested our damage on the same target, using the same gear, and he hit for 200 more sandstorm than me. 2900 vs 3100 average. Since then, most of our full int have restatted light armor…), however, you will be able to take a lot of hits. With proper use of blink, the only way to really die on a light mage is to be chain stunned. You will crit significantly more than full int and every sandstorm crit on an archer is a oneshot, so keep that in mind. This is the build I use.

As a light mage, you have all the pdef you need. It’s a good idea to pick either your necklace or your belt, and make one of them pdef based, and the other one magic defense based. Then, when picking armor, you’re looking for +hp modifiers (NOT +PDEF, YOU HAVE PLENTY AND MORE SUFFERS FROM DIMINISHING RETURNS) and +hp stones. I cannot stress enough that +hp is infinitely better than +pdef for you.

To follow a light build, your STR and DEX must be your level +4, and 3 int every level. If you put stats in any way other than this you will not have enough int to equip your level’s weapon, or enough str/dex to equip your level’s armor. It is not possible to equip everything your level and put con on in a light armor build.

Update: The HH90 green light set makes light mages basically impossible to kill. A 9X Conquerer archer with a +4 HH90 bow described fighting me today as “like fighting a warrior that can actually kill me.” Robes do roughly the same damage but drop dead fast as hell. I am fully confident now that light armor is the way to go.

~Other Builds~

I am a very, VERY firm believer that builds other than light and full int are total crap. And here’s why:

Heavy Mage:
Problem #1: You don’t have enough Mag to equip a weapon of your level, which means you’re equipping a lower level weapon which gimps your damage tremendously. That, or you’re equipping a set of armor 10 or more levels below your level, in which case you might as well just go light armor anyway. Problem #2: This game has diminishing returns. That means that the difference in ACTUAL REDUCTION (I.E: How much your damage is reduced) between 1000 and 2000 pdef is MUCH bigger than the difference between 5000 and 6000 pdef. Yes, heavy mages over 100 can get over 22,000 Pdef selfbuffed, but that really doesn’t help you when the reduction of your pdef is only 4-5% more than a light armor of your level. You’re trading a LOT of damage and some crit for 5% reduction? Come on. That 5% less damage does NOT help you when your HP pool is too small to support it. This build is a joke build only for people who like to see huge useless numbers next to their physical resistance. Next!

Vit Mage/Hybrid Mage:
Of all the “other builds”, this one is the closest one to being useful. Vit mages are robe mages who put points into vitality. Exactly how much they put in varies from mage to mage, but all of these mages have one thing in common. They have the same or less survivability than a light mage, with less crit rate and the same damage. You’ll be able to take a few hits from a warrior, but not much because we have the lowest vit-to-HP ratio in the game (10 HP per vit, that means if you put in 50 vit you only gained 500 hp…), and if you’re going to be in robes anyway you absolutely do not need additional hp for magic spells. Light armor offers more survivability along with a raised crit rate for increased offensive ability.

Melee Mage:
Shut up.

So, as a lowbie, you’re good at basically one thing and only thing only: Killing heavy armor. That your warriors and your werebeasts. At low levels warriors won’t have their anti-magic sutra and werebeasts don’t have enough HP to contend with you in mass PVP, but both will eat your face if you let them get close enough to you. Thankfully, you have a wonderful skill called Distance Shrink, and I’m convinced it is the best skill in the mage’s arsenal.

Distance Shrink, or “blink” as we usually refer to it, teleports you a short distance ahead of your character. It has a very short cooldown time that gets lower as you level it up, and the distance which you jump gets higher. The only downside of this spell is that it costs a lot of chi, but at a low level, you don’t need chi burst to kill things anyway so this is where most of your chi will go.

As a golden rule, no matter what build you are, always PVP with earth barrier on. You need the extra pdef. Period.

Your main skills as a low level are your basic three, gush, pyrogram and stone rain. In due time they will essentially be replaced by Sandstorm, which does massive damage for a slightly longer cast time. Gush and pyrogram are to be used interchangably, the slow from gush is no big deal. Rock fall I used when I needed a spike at a low level, but it really doesn’t deal that much more damage than the other two. Divine Pyrogram has no place in PVP at a low level.

So, basically, you spam distance shrink and kite around any warriors or werebeasts. If you have more than one on you, kite them around as long as it takes your guildmates to pick them off. One of you for two of them is a pretty damned good trade, and if you get stunned, spam the distance shrink button and hope to god they don’t chain stun well. If you get chain stunned, well, better luck next time.

Pitfall, Crown of Flame, Hailstorm, along with your heal, are all useless in PVP and useless in general. Skip them and save your money.

When you start unlocking masteries, there’s no need to rush into them. The only mastery you’ll get huge use out of until you have a high level ultimate (or ult) is earth because of sandstorm. For the rest the difference is so negligible that you really shouldn’t even bother for now.

One level of Phoenix is great for PVE, the knockback is invaluable, but in PVP phoenix doesn’t really shine until the later levels when you can afford to raise it up. Even then, it’s very situational.

A tactic you should get used to is called bum rushing. This, in terms of mages, is when you use Distance Shrink to get into an archer’s minimum range. There is an imaginary circle around an archer where, if their target is inside of it, they deal half damage with basic attacks some of their skills. This is where you want to be as often as possible, as a stunshot crit on you will tick your heiro (if not kill you alltogether – careful, full inties!). In this place, phoenix is a great skill to lead with as it’s got a short cast time and great damage.

As you work your levels up, you’ll unlock more skills that you basically don’t need (except Sandstorm, which should be leveled ASAP as it becomes your core skill very quickly.) Glacial Snare is a great skill later but early on you simply can’t afford to level it. Even if you did, you unlock it so late that it would be a lower level than the rest of your skills, meaning it has a shorter range, and that makes it’s slow ability useless if you have to be closer to the target than you would be without it. It’s only real use, anyway, is against werebeasts and warriors on the ground (the slow does not work in the air…) and as a leading skill for mobs, and I always just lead with gush and did fine. Force of Will is a wonderful skill that you’ll level in due time, but for now just get one level of it and use it to interrupt zhen parties and strong ults you see other people casting.

60s PVP Tactics

Alright, so you’re 60. Congrats, the hard part is over. Well, that’s half true. The hard part is at 80, but 1-60 is pretty bad too. Anyway, you’re 60 now and you’ve got your choice of 3 ultimates. Refer to my PVP Skills Handbook in the page below to decide which one is for you – and it’s not the earth one, I promise.

So, what changes now that you’re the big 6X? Well, you’re done unlocking new skills (besides your nasty little 79 one, but I’m the only mage I’ve seen with that on this server so far and was the first to get it >:D) however skills like Sandstorm still have plenty of levels to go. If you find yourself with extra money and SP, now is a great time to max out distance shrink, force of will, and phoenix if you need to. Obviously you won’t be able to max some of these skills for a much higher level, but leveling them now isn’t a bad idea. I’d wait on Glacial Snare since you won’t be able to get that to a decent level for some time and, as I said before, the range gimps the use of the slow until you can level it high.

Force of Will will become a great asset once you’re able to level it. This skill makes it so your target cannot attack or cast spells for as long as your skill lasts (about the cast time of one sandstorm when maxed.) It has other uses, but it’s main use at a low level is for knocking people out of zhens such as a priest’s blueball or an archer’s arrow barrage. Once you’ve leveled it up, it is great to use whenever your heiro ticks (to keep them from finishing the job), and after your target does a spark eruption. Not RIGHT after, because you’ll hit their invulernability and be met with “RESIST!”, but pretty quickly after the animation’s done. People get REALLY pissed when they just wasted two spark to try and kill you and they spend the next 6 seconds unable to do crap with it.

80s PVP Tactics

As time goes on, you become more of a damage dealer. By level 80 you should be oneshotting archers with most of your crits, you can do tons of damage to warriors and werebeasts, and even robe priests take a pretty nasty chunk of damage from your sandstorms.

If you are in an organized guild, they may pool Apocaplypse Pages for you when you’re 79 so that you can get Undine Strike, a horribly overpowered debuff of 1 second cast time that lowers your target’s resistances to earth, water and fire by 60%. Note that does NOT mean you do 60% more damage, because of diminishing returns you’ll do somewhere between 25-30% more damage, but it’s still spectacular. Keep in mind that only one mage has to debuff for all of them to get the advantage.

By this point, blade tempest will oneshot any robies you come across, except VERY good geared priests (or priests who see you casting it and put on plume barrier.) Your dragon is nasty too, and will oneshot most archers if you hit them with undine before you use it. Unfortunately, undine’s debuff isn’t AoE, which limits the usefulness of this combo considerably. The difference undine makes for blade tempest is quite small.

If you don’t have your distance shrink maxed by now, you’re doing something horribly wrong. Max it immediately or you are useless in PVP. Distance shrink and sandstorm are the skills you are going to spam the most (and Undine, if you have it), and most of your other skills really just become situational. You can drop a gush between sandstorm cooldowns if you need to but skills like stone rain and glacial snare really won’t see much use. You finally fit your job as a true heavy hitter damage dealer by this level.

It is a good practice to max out frostblade and give it to all the archers, warriors and werebeasts you see. I don’t know exactly how much it helps them but the ones in my guild request it usually. At the very least it’ll get you on their good side, which is a good thing because parties are essential for mages.

As far as your 80HH weapon, if you’re robe I’d recommend the crit sword Yaksa, and for light armor I recommend Endless Ambiguity. Yaksa has a very nice pdef mod that robe users will adore, while Endless Ambiguity adds a whopping +165 HP which is spectacular for light armor. I am not a fan of the HH80 quoit because the damage is just about the same as Endless Ambiguity (it’s a bit better but not by much) and it doesn’t have the amazing HP modifier.

Your 89 Choice: Sage or Demon

When you hit 89, you have the choice of going Sage or Demon, and this choice will modify all of your skills (when you get the books.) Typically sage is considered defensive while demon is considered offensive, and for a long time, Demon was considered the “only” choice for mages.

You can find a skills listing at www.ecatomb.net. One thing to notice is it is not completely accurate – for instance, for Hell it says “Reduces casting time by 1.6 seconds” – that’s wrong. It reduces it TO 1.6 seconds, which is an INCREDIBLY LARGE difference. If it reduced BY, it would be broken-overpowered. It reduces TO, which is not that spectacular really. At least not for pyrogram which had a really short cast time to begin with. It’s quite good for stone rain, however, stone rain feels like it has about the same cast time as pre-89 pyrogram.

Quite a few people have **** bricks, but yes, I went Heaven. There are a number of reasons for this choice, but basically, which you choose (sage/devil) boils down to personal preference. In my eyes, because of stone rain and the chi generation skill, Heaven is superior to Hell when the only skills you can mod are the first three. This is obviously up for debate and always will be, but I have chosen heaven because I like the mod for stone rain and if I ever make it to 99 I’ll also like the mod for distance shrink and Wellspring Quaff… If by some miracle the Wellspring Quaff description is accurate and the +100% matk bonus is for the full duration of the buff (and not 15 seconds like the devil version’s description is). I somehow really doubt that to be the case, though.

Devil is surely not without it’s advantages, however. Devil Fury Burst/Chi Spark/Big Glowy Red Cone/Whatever is fearsome, adding the +700% matk that the Holy version does but also tacking on a whopping +25% channeling speed, which is nothing to scoff at. The Heaven fury burst adds -25% damage taken but to be honest, it’s barely noticable in PVP and shouldn’t really be relied on. I heaven burst when I have multiple targets that I feel I can take out quickly, because I find using sutra on multiple targets is a waste (it runs out too fast.) Keep in mind that both bursts are pretty ****ty unless nobody has noticed you because as soon as you burst you get stunned/slept/sealed and ignored.

Now that you have reached Sage/Demon, you need to get your skill books. The first three skills you can get are Pyrogram, Stone Rain and Gush, and while these used to be your main weak “poke” skills… They now do a considerable amount of damage (your damage for these skills SKYROCKET when you use your heaven/hell books on them) and will become your core damaging skills. Rock fall basically replaces sandstorm, and gush and pyrogram are used in the downtime. Sandstorm does a little more damage than rock fall, but it’s so little extra that it’s really not even worth using anymore. The blind effect is nice if you have the range on your target to cast it, but the people you want to blind are usually the people barreling at you, so that’s probably not the case.

Do not forget that you acquire a new skill when you go heaven or hell, that gains 50 chi or burns 50 chi off of your target. While I’m not sure how useful the demon chi burning skill is (I never have it used on me, for some reason…) I can tell you that the heaven chi generation skill is absolutely ridiculous and should be spammed on cooldown. Vigor is very important for mages and this skill helps you get quite a bit of it.

HH90 Light Armor

This is the analysis of the Skywalker set, the HH90 green armor.

My gear:
Helm of Aqua Viciousness +4 (4x +32 HP)
Skywalker Shell +4 (3x +40 HP)
Skywalker Shins +4 (3x +40 HP)
Spirit Eater’s Boots +5 (HH80 GOLD BOOTS – 4x +40 HP)
Skywalker Wrists +4 (3x +40 HP)
Sky Demon’s Pearl +4
Cape of Tauren Chieften +6 (4x +32 HP)
**Ring Of Flaming Sky +2 (Crit 2%, Magic +2, Dexterity +4)
**Ring of Open Sky +3 (Crit 2%, Magic +3, Magic +4)
Blessing of Christmas
1% Crit Arrow
****ty HH80 sword +3 (Soon to be HH90 quoit +8 :p)

What I can tell you about light at HH90:

*I have 4731 HP without buffs.
*I have 6083 HP with werebeast buff.
*Without buffs and with earth barrier, I have 58% physical reduction, 58% fire, wood and lightning, with slightly higher water (helm of aqua viciousness) and way higher earth (barrier, dur)
*With just priest buffs and earth barrier, I have 64% physical reduction and 66% elementals.
*With warrior buff, I end up at 68% physical reduction.
*Yoshiki (9X archer con archer with WAY plussed up 90 HH bow) hits me for 800 with stunshot, normal shots 400-600 normal shots.
*Diego (9X dex archer with +3 Gold 88 bow) hits me for the same damage.
*Phoenixes before level 95 ripping bite me for about 900 damage – which is basically nonfactor.
*I still oneshot people and I don’t even have my HH90 quoit on.
*I hit a high-80s robe mage for 1200 with stone rain, and he hits me with 1300 for sandstorm. And we’re both retarded for attacking other mages with earth spells in PVP (gg habit), but the point is made.

I am now fully convinced that robes suck balls and light is the way to go. I am able to tank two archers and, if I can go long enough without being stunned, pop one of them and blink away from the other before dying… Essentially meaning I am able to fight 2 9X archers (buffed on both sides), kill one, and escape intact.

The damage that Haiz and Llama, 2 robe mages do to me is pathetic. Judging by the amount they do to me compared to what I do to them, I’d have to say we hit for the same amount of damage.

Robe is crap and so is full int.

Period.

Territory War

Mages are an essential defensive class for territory war. While our offensive uses are considerably limited, there is no class in the game that hits cart pulling werebeasts anyway near as hard as we do (especially with undine.)

Your main job in TW is to seal and pick off rushing warriors, and then to kill cart pulling werebeasts. Your vigor should be spent on sutra for killing cart pullers, or on blade tempest/ice dragon for picking off groups of dds/heavies respectively. When you hit 89, your Devil Fury Burst or Heaven Fury Burst is a spectacular use of your fury, devil more so.

Decent guilds know that mages are the staple defense class, and you will likely be stacked with guild chi pots and receive vigor transfers from the werefoxes around you. In an offensive war (I.E: When you’re pushing) your job is much less essential and the vigor will probably go to warriors and werebeasts instead of you. In an offensive move, your only real job is to seal and kill the warriors who are rushing your DDs.

Force of Will is a spectacular skill for TW. You should use this skill when you see rushing warriors and have other mages in your guild chain seals until the target is down. Another use is for archers who are zhenning – archer zhen is disgustingly destructive in TW and should be disabled AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. FoW is also great against werebeasts right after they get buffwiped. Good communication between mages and foxes means that you can buffwipe the werebeast and have him sealed as soon as he’s wiped, preventing him from going into turtle and making the takedown that much easier.

Mages do well on the walls but not as well as archers, because a lot of our gameplan relies on distance shrink and the walls restrict your shrink abilities. If you get rushed by a warrior on the wall, fly up or jump off as soon as possible because the walls are too tight for you to effectively be able to fight off a WR.

When pushing forward (playing offensively), your job is to kill Warriors. Warriors have an AoE stun that absolutely rapes TW, and in an offensive push, it’s a mages job to keep these warriors down. Chain seals with your team to make sure even if they run in they won’t be able to stun (sealing is better than stunning because usually when they run in, they’ll be in their immune-to-stun sprint so sealing has to do the job) and then spike them dead. If enough of the warriors are dead, you can take out their archers and then their werebeasts. Only support damage on priests if they have plume shell up, that usually means their heirogram has already ticked and your magical damage may be just what your guild needs to finish them off.

In defense, if the cata pullers reach your towers, order your team to set up zhens where you can hit all their cart pullers. “But Pandora, that’s silly! Zhen does crappy damage!” Well, that’s true, I agree with you. I wouldn’t have believed how incredible mage zhen is for defending if I hadn’t seen it in action so my times myself. 3 mages with zhens open on cata pullers, debuffs on the pullers, and a WR dragon ult in the zhen spells death for all of the cata pullers. I cannot stress enough how quickly they go down if this is executed properly, but keep in mind 3-4 mages zhenning is required for it to be effective.