Allods Online Mage Ultimate Guide

Allods Online Mage Ultimate Guide by Elethiel, King, Muxy, Pearz, Valandil, and Vojax

Specific comments by the authors will be denoted by the first letter or two of their names. Valandil has full authority to re-post this thread as necessary.

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Introduction:
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Welcome!

So, you have decided to become a mage. What next?

Being a mage is an awfully exciting and rewarding experience. It takes a lot of perseverance and patience; but when you reach the end, you will be delightfully well-versed and powerful in your own right.

E: The mage class has a history of being underpowered and exceedingly difficult to master in the past, which has made for fewer mages in the game. Mages have some very strong defensive skills when utilized properly, and can move about the battlefield with shocking rapidity. Often times, the best defense for a mage is to simply keep on the move. Although, most of the mages’ skills will require you to stand still to execute.

K: Mages require micromanagement of entropies to truly master.

M: Mages are one of the most complex classes to use while having some of the highest mobility in overall game play. The variety of offensive spells makes them very rewarding in the ways you can progress through the game.

P: Mages in Allods are much different then the stereotypical role of every other game. 1 thing people assume is the phrase “glass Cannon”. In Allods, mages get barriers that make them much less squishy then other classes. Mages excel most at being versatile. The entropy system leaves you wide open to adjust yourself to the situation. Mages are not for the ones that want 1 combo you keep repeating over and over again,

Va: Mages are not an overpowered wtfpwnt class like in some other games. Mages are really squishy, and yet possess strong damage skills for player vs. environment content. They are capable of of good cc in PVE, but not in pvp. Mages are not great at 1v1 pvp, since almost all of their skills take time to cast, and since they dont have much defense. In mass pvp mages do great, sitting behind the tanks and healers nuking the enemies. The mage is somewhat a good class to solo with. Your shields and cc will make killing monsters easier.

Vo: The mage is commonly overlooked due to the complexity and dexterity it takes to successfully play. Although the mage is hard to master, it can be very versatile and in some cases, out dps, out live, and even out tank other classes.

The nature of Allods is flexibility and different ways to accomplish different tasks. The purpose of this guide is to inform you ahead of time of our experiences, and allow you, if you so choose, to learn from our experience. Obviously, you are always free to take your own path and pay the price of learning for yourself, but we want to offer you the opportunity to learn from us.

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Class Attributes:
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Race:
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One of the first things that you notice upon choosing mage as your class on the starter screen is the race. There are two races on the League side that are open to the mage class: Kanian and Elf and one race on the Empire side: Arisen.

Each race for the mage has a specific racial ability that is associate with each race. The Kanians have the ability Focused Mind, while the elves have the ability of Arcane Mastery. The Arisen acquire the ability of Astral Arrow.

Racials:

** Focused Mind: This is a self buff that makes you immune to spell casting interruption for 20 seconds, and has a 1 minute cooldown. You can still be interrupted if you get knocked down or stunned.

** Arcane Mastery: This ability increases your intelligence by 30% for 30 seconds, with a 3 minute cooldown.
Note: This ability is rumored to be changed in a future patch to 30% increase of the next spell cast, with a 2 minute cooldown.

** Astral Arrow: This ability is an attack spell that strikes a target with astral damage and knocks them down for 2 seconds. It has a 4 second cast time and a 20 second cooldown.

E: My advice would be to just pick which race you like the best and learn to use the racial that you get. (But really everyone knows the elf racial is the best! plus you get wings!)

K: Who would want Fu-fu wings? Really zombies are so much better. (And we get a nice skill that deals good burst damage with a knock down)

M: For the most part the class you play is based off preference, but if you really Really want to nitpick then Arisen’s kind of have the advantage with a Wrath mage since there astral arrow’s knockdown allows them to ignore there perception stat, and elven mages can dish out “generalized“ damage a bit higher than the other classes because of the int boost…….

Though personally, I love my wings!

P: Racials don’t make or break your build, but Fairy wings sure do. Elf is the way to go, anyone tell you otherwise is wrong ^_^

Vo: A racial skill is not all it’s cracked up to be. It is very important, but is not and should not be influential on your decision of which race to be. Each has it’s pros and cons. The racial doesn’t make the mage; it comes down to the dexterity of the user, making the mage either ordinary, or extraordinary.

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Entropy/Force Points:
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One of the unique quality of mages is the use of force points or entropies. These entropies are built up each time you cast an elemental spell, depending on what type of spell you cast, fire, ice, or lightning. As you build up the entropies, you can either use them for a ruby ability, or you can let them exfoliate themselves in an entropic manner.

It should be noted that casting spells of opposing elements will destroy entropies of the opposite element. For example, if you have five fire entropies and cast an ice spell, you will create one ice entropy and remove one fire entropy. Ice will remove fire entropies. Fire will remove lightning, and lightning will remove ice entropies.

When you get to 5 stored entropies, the sixth one will eliminate the stack of entropies and will cause one of the following effects:

Drain/regenerate 33% of max mana
Drain/regenerate 25% of max health
Reset all of the cooldowns for a specific element
Cause all skills of a specific element to be on a 10s cool down

It is supposed to be 70% positive entropic response and 30% negative, but it is more like 50%/50%.

K: You should burn your entropies with a ruby skill before it gets to this point

P: After Level 10, your entropies should never reach 6. Better to get exactly what you want, rather then leave things to chance.

Vo: Agree with King.

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Statistics:
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The stats of a mage (or any class for that matter) are the most crucial element of Allods to get right. You cannot just stack one statistic and expect to succeed as a mage. That will not work! Let me repeat in bold, you cannot stack just one statistic in Allods and expect to succeed. There are too many variables in play to make that work properly.

The most primary important stats for a mage are: intelligence, luck, perception, conviction, and wisdom. How exactly various mages balance these stats determines what type of stat build you follow, and almost every person has their opinion on what is the optimal way to balance your stats.

Some other important stats to pay attention to include: agility, stamina, endurance, faith, and willpower.

~&~ ~&~

First, let’s talk foundations. What does each stat do?

* Intelligence (int) – Intelligence is the primary stat that determines the damage multiplier for all of your skills. More intelligence means more damage.

* Luck (luck) – Luck determines what the chance that you will perform a critical strike (crit; 2x damage) or a glancing strike (1/2 damage). Higher luck will raise your critical strike chance (to a maximum of 95%) and lower your glancing strike chance (to a minimum of 5%).

* Perception (perc) – This stat determines at what chance your spells will be resisted by your opponent, as well as how much of it will be resisted. The higher you raise this stat, the less chance your opponent will have of resisting your spells.

* Conviction (conv) – This stat determines what chance your crowd control effects (and in some cases the damage associated with a crowd control skill) affect your target and how long the effect lasts for. A higher conviction skill means that you will be able to control your opponents for longer and have less chance of it being resisted. Yes, crowd control effects CAN be resisted!

* Wisdom (wis) – This stat determines how much total mana you have and how quickly you can regenerate that mana. More wisdom equals a larger mana base and a faster regeneration rate.

As for the other important stats, most of them are defensive in nature with the exception of faith, which is a utility stat.

* Agility (agi) – Agility is the stat that is used to determine how often you will ‘dodge’ an opponents physical attack. This stat does not apply to magical attacks!

* Endurance (end) – Endurance is the anti-stat to luck. Your endurance will determine the chance that you will receive a critical strike from an opponent in combat. If you have very low endurance, you will take a lot more damage in combat. This ability influences both physical and magical attacks.

* Stamina (stam) – Stamina works very similarly to wisdom, except for health instead of mana. Stamina determines the amount of health that your character has.

* Faith (faith) – Faith is the anti-stat for Rage. Rage produces wound complexity, which you need to have sufficient faith to overcome in order to heal yourself.

It is important to be aware of these stats, because the balance of these affects your ability to survive.

~&~ ~&~

What about stat balance?

Balancing your stats in Allods is one of the most challenging (and rewarding) aspects of the game. Like we said before, you cannot stack one stat at the expense of all the others, or you will fail. You must maintain certain statistics at certain levels in order to be able to deal damage to your opponents and survive in a fight.

First, let’s talk about limits. What stats do you have to maintain at a certain level?

The most important stat to keep under control is perception. If your perception drops too low, you will be dealing a lot less damage (even no damage if your perception drops too low!). Every creature and player in the game has a specific elemental resistance. If your perception is not high enough to overcome their resistance, you will see “Resist” every time you try to deal damage to them. If you roll your mouse over the perception skill, a tooltip will appear with the following information: “Chance for you to miss with magical attacks: XX%”. You need to ensure that this % does not ever go above 20%, ideally. If the % gets to around 50-70%, you will begin doing zero damage regardless of your int or luck.

The second most important stat to keep under control is luck. If your luck drops too low, you run the risk of dealing glancing strikes every hit (which is one-half of your normal damage). Every time you attack, your luck value is checked against your opponents endurance value, and the result of this determines whether you deal a critical strike, normal strike, or glancing blow. While leveling, you want to keep your luck high enough to keep your “glancing blow chance” around 10% or below. It is best to put all of your leveling points into luck, because it is very difficult to find high-level equipment with luck on it.

Once you have these two stats under wraps, you can begin dealing with stackable stats.

For your intelligence, you want this stat to go as high as possible without sacrificing perception or luck. The damage modifier is linear in nature, so the more intelligence you add, the more damage you will do.

As for wisdom, you want as much of this as you can get without sacrificing the above stats. Obviously, more wisdom means you will have more mana and more mana regen for longer fights. This stat is also linear in nature and will continue to increase as far as you stack it.

~&~ ~&~

There are a couple of typical approaches to maintain stat balance. In each case, the perception values are maintained at 20% or less.

The first and most common one is to keep your luck high enough to maintain a glancing strike chance of ~10%, while putting the rest of your stats into int and wisdom. This is typically called a high intelligence build. The key to making a build like this work is keeping your wisdom high enough to allow you to last an entire fight.

The other most common build is to raise your luck high enough to maintain a 30-70% critical strike chance, and lower your wisdom down to rely on the mana return rubies in the various element trees. The key to making this build work is taking the mana return rubies as soon as possible and maintain your critical strike chance at a very high level.

E: As for myself, I go with an extremely high crit chance build (50+%). My reasoning behind this is that a very high crit rate, allows for the mana return rubies to activate (proc) more often, essentially giving you access to an infinite mana pool. The drawbacks are that I am forced to lower my wisdom to extremely low levels in order to boost my int up high enough to do damage, so if I don’t crit then I am out of mana very quickly.

K: I go for a 48% crit, its enough to return mana. I can last through all the GT fights with only 8k mana. I keep my perception at 20%, and pump the rest into int. Int increases damage and the strength of your shields.

M: When your lvling up to the lvl cap, a crit chance of 30% will be a pretty hard thing to do without sacrificing too many of your other stats (…or forking out gold for crafted gear like blues and purples), but after you start getting geared enough, 30% crit chance would be the minimum. I personally do around 50-55% in GT and roughly 45% in heroics (that’s with potions). One of the reasons for high luck is the mana return rubies, it’ll allow you to keep an endless supply of mana for long drawn out fights.

P: The most common mistake about stats is to trust the numbers when you hover over the number. That number only applies to PVE, and even then it is a rough estimate based on the mobs around that level. What luck and perception boil down to is the defense stat of the enemy (both PVE and PVP). Even if your luck stat says 60% crit some mobs (or players) will have a lot more endurance and you won’t crit anywhere near 60%.Use those numbers as a general guideline only.

Vo: I always kept my perception at 25% or less, then pumped the rest into luck and int. you needn’t worry about wisdom until you’re at endgame content.
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Talents and Rubies:
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The mage has access to a wide variety of talents and ruby skills that are primarily elementally driven. There are three main elements that the mage has access to: fire, ice, and lightning. It is very important to remember which skills are derived from which element, because there are a lot of synergistic factors that will aid your damage and survivability.

We will address the talent tree first.

~&~ Fire ~&~

Fire arrow – Inflicts fire damage to the target. 1.5 second cast time. No cooldown. This skill is a good spammable skill. Can be precasted.

E: This my one of my personal favorite skills, because it is cheap and at max rank and with my optimal stat build I can easily crit in excess of 20-30k damage with it in full epic equipment.

P: 1 of your basic skills almost everyone maxes. Its FA or Shocking grasp or both, their your best PVE DPS.

Va: At level 42, my rank 3 fire arrows crit for about 11k.

Vo: probably the best skill to spam in general. the low mana cost and low cast time paired with the dot from lava spill is the 2nd highest dps a mage can output. my fire arrow crits gt bosses for 20-30k also, along with 7k crits from lava spill = gg.com

Meteor – A high fire damage, area of effect skill. Can only be precasted. 5 second cast time, no cooldown. Meteor can proc multiple times if you crit on more than one enemy.

E: This skill is a little more difficult to use due to the pre-cast requirement. In a hectic fight, it is very easy to miss with this skill despite the huge AoE radius.

Vo: really only useful is for precasting before a fight, or if you have r2 endless flame/high crit rate its incredibly strong in heroics. ive gotten instacast meteor 5 times in a row in heroics before. in gt your lucky if you get 2 instacasts per boss.

Wall of Flame – This is a great crowd control skill and good damage skill. When you use it, after 2 seconds you place it, a fire wall appears on the selected area for 10/15/20 seconds. Any enemy that enters the area will run in fear for 6 seconds depending on a conviction v. willpower check, and take fire damage every second. The fire wall-induced fear is affected by your conviction stat. Instant cast, but has a 2 second placing delay. 1 minute cooldown.

E: I kind of like this skill. It is useful in tight spaces where your opponent will be forced to run multiple times through the firewall, or for use as a defensive barrier while you are casting or to stop a fleeing opponent from escaping.

M: This is by far one of my favorite spells, It plays a key role in the spell combination you’ll use to clear various areas in your heroics. And when used in conjunction with hypothermia, astral arrow or arctic shock, it’s a great CC for PvP

Va: The damage is actually quite nice, in pve I can place it in front of a group of 6 mobs and aoe them with meteor, they would all run into the wall, and then run and take damage for 6 seconds, as they run back to kill me, they hit the wall again. Great skill to grind with.

Vo: r3 no matter what. ever since the patch it is the most OP mage spell i’ve ever seen. so useful for heroics/gt/pvp. it’s incredible in every way.

Conflagrate – Causes the target to flee in terror for 4 seconds depending on conviction v. willpower, and inflicts fire damage every second. Instant cast, 1 minute cooldown.

E: I am not a big fan of this skill. Even if you have a lot of conviction to lengthen the fear, the length of the fear and the cooldown and the fact that it is a single target skill, make it not very useful. I only have one point in it for crowd control purposes.

Va: Increasing this skill past rank 1 only increases the damage it inflicts. Since it onlys lasts for about 4 seconds, the damage output is not that great, this skill is used more for cc than dps.

Vo: agree with E and Va. its a cc type skill. i only use it when firewall is on cd. id say r1 in general.

~&~ Ice ~&~

Ice Flow – Channels a stream of ice that inflicts ice damage per second and reduces the target’s movement speed and physical damage dealt by 15% for each stack of the Ice Flow effect. Effect can stack up to 6 times over the duration of channel. Each stack lasts for 2 seconds on the target. Any damage dealt to the target will cancel the a stack. If this effect is cancelled by fire damage, the target takes additional ice damage. 3 second Channeling time, no cooldown.

M: It’s great for slowing a target that isn’t being attacked too quickly by other players. The physical damage debuff can work wonders against most forms of physical damage.

P: People overlook the -physical damage it gives per stack. Shuts down phys classes pretty bad.

Va: Raising this skill in rank only increases the damage it deals, and the damage is already very low, so it would be a waste of points. One full ice flow will apply 6 stacks to the target.

Icy Grave – Freezes the target in a block of ice for 20/25/30 seconds depending on rank. High conviction = higher freeze time. 2.5 second cast time, 10 second cooldown.

K: Keep this at rank 1 if you are just entering heroics or leveling. You can effectively CC two targets if you also spec’d into Hypothermia. Just cast a 5 stack Hypo on the second mob to CC it during Icey’s CD

M: A quest in Gipat called Thief’s Map is the main reason I have this… but for heroics, it’s never really used by a geared party that’s trying to get the last few items they need.

Vo: only really need r1 for everything. then r0 for gt.

Icy Comet – Throws a comet of ice at the target, inflicting damage to all targets in its path. 4 second cast time, no cooldown.

E: Icy Comet got a bad rep. early on. I haven’t used it much, but I think it is a much more powerful skill than most people will say. It will track a target around walls and such too, which is kind of fun!

Va: Damage is not that great considering the cast time and mana cost.

K: The dps is the same as FA, Prism and Thunderbolt. I have also seen people outrun the comet, effectively dealing zero damage, I would not recommend it.

Vo: i hate it. only possible way of success is with avalanche, but how often does that occur even with spamming ice quake? not very.

Reflections – Creates 5/6/7 reflections of yourself that has a chance to absorb all damage inflicted on you. If you are hit with any aoe skill all of the reflections will be used. Instant cast, 30 second cooldown. ~10% chance for the damage to pass through without stripping any reflections.

E: For pve, Rank 3 recommended. For pvp, rank 1.

K: Max it, such a life saver.

M: Rank 1 is great for All mages! but I personally prefer rank 3.

P: Here is what it boils down to, how often you think aoes will hit you? A lot of people underestimate maxing it since they see it as 1 more illusion for 3 talent points. But if you look at it this way:
In 30 secs 6 hits will get full absorbed or 7 hits
Generally in 7 secs your not getting hit much more then 7-8 times, making every subsequent illusion more useful since it is another chance to just take zero damage.
Obviously if you’re aoe’d often, then that makes ranking it up useless.

Va: Rank 1 recommended.

Vo: r1 for gt/pvp and r3 if your leveling cause not many mobs have an aoe.

~&~ Lightning ~&~

Shocking Grasp – A melee range, instant cast, lightning damage skill with no cooldown. When the target is under 25% hp, this skill will deal double damage.

E: I really like this skill for select situations. It is good for confusing opponents and for finishing enemies off. I have it at Rank 3.

K: Rank 3 is best, I have it at Rank 1 cause I’m to lazy to run up to whatever GT boss we are on when its at 15% (or whatever that number is)

M: I personally wouldn’t get rank 2 unless you plan on getting rank 3. It’s another one of my favorite spells

Va: Rank 3 recommended.

Vo: r3 all day ervery day. except maybe r1 for gt since you never really get close to the bosses or you get owned by a cleave.

Thunderbolt – Inflicts lightning damage at range, and drains some of the targets mana dependent on int. 3 second cast time, no cooldown. Also has the advantage of not drawing attention to yourself in pvp, like prism does.

E: This skill is essential for pvp. You must have it if you want to defeat healers or summoners. In my experience, though, if you use this skill in pvp, they WILL hunt you down and kill you as soon as possible.

K: Pvp skill, looks awesome to lol-1-shot lowbies with too.

M: A must have for pvp mages, It’s great for burning away mana on healers and summys and forcing them to play defensively

P: Pure PVP skill, don’t bother if you don’t PVP

Va: This is mainly used in pvp against caster classes.

Vo: only use is in pvp. if you get it, put it at r3

Electric Pulse – Channels an electric pulse that inflicts lightning damage roughly every second. 8 second channeling time, 20 second cooldown.

E: Low damage, high cost, no cc. Useless.

M: Maybe, just maybe, if this worked with the Cascade ruby, it just might be useful, unfortunately it doesn’t. I can’t recommend ever getting this spell.

P: Don’t do it, It’s a TRAP!!! Ellune tricked me into getting it once …………….. (if anyone remembers him)

Va: HUGE mana cost, not high enough damage. Since you channel this, you can easily get interrupted while casting, thus wasting all that mana. Since there is no slow effect or anything on this skill it is pointless to take.

Prismatic Lightning – Blasts the target with lightning damage, and can hit up to 3 other enemies within a 10 yard radius of the target. 3 second cast time, no cooldown.

E: This is a nice skill, but not worth it for a mix pvp build. I have Rank 1. Very useful to have rank 3 for pve though.

K: Looks awesome. Oh, it has good dps too.

M: Beautifully animated spell that is great for pve, Though with my low end net connection it tends to make my screen freeze a lot more than normal in confined areas.

P: PVE version of thunderbolt. Generally want 1 or the other of these 2. Used to be cooler when it fake blinded D:

Va: Decent damage, good aoe

Vo: good all around use. get it r3 in pretty much every build. except maybe a PURE pvp wrath build

~&~ Neutral ~&~

Stone Barrier – Creates 5/7/10 stone barriers around you, absorbing physical damage you take. The damage absorbed depends on how high your intelligence is. There are also 3 rubies that increase the amount absorbed by 20% up to a total of 60%. Instant cast, 45 second cool down.
Note: You can only have Stone Barrier OR Elemental Shield active at once, not both.

M: I don’t believe in a rank 0, rank 1 or rank 2 for stone barrier, there is only rank 3 >.<;
Stone barrier also stops you from being cc’d from several different “silences”.. if I remember right.

P: If it isn’t Rank 3, you failed.

Va: Rank 3 is advisable for any mage

Vo: r3 no matter what

Dispel – Removes a positive magical effect from an enemy, or one negative magical effect from a friend. Does not work on Damage over Time skills, only works on buffs and debuffs. 3.5/2.5/1.5 second cast time, no cooldown.

E: This skill is essential for pvp, but for pve only rank 1 will suffice. This spell works on all manner of effects in heroics and Astral both effects cast on your party members and self-buffs that bosses use. Highly recommended at rank 1 at least.

K: This can be used to remove all mage shields; if you ever have to kill a brother mage.

M: A great spell to have at rank 3 for pvp

P: Another PVP heavy skill. Very limited uses for PVE.

Vo: really only useful for pvp. can dispel df and aegis to name a couple buffs. get it r3 if you do get it cause r1 and r2 is just too slow to work.

Elemental Shield – Creates 3/5/7 shields that absorbs elemental damage. Amount absorbed depends on your intelligence. Instant cast, 45 second cooldown. Note: You can only have Stone Barrier OR Elemental Shield active at once, not both.

E: Good to have as many ranks as you can afford after you get all of the other skills that you need.

K: Rank 3 makes Zalmar (Gorluxor’s Tower boss) a joke.

P: At least R1, R3 is more for PVP fighting mages and very selective bosses you run into. Generally stone is better to have on.

Va: At least one rank recommended.

Vo: gt and pvp you want r3. otherwise its your choice

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Next, we will address the rubies.

~&~ Passive stat bonuses ~&~

There are one of these bonuses in each element tree.

Sage’s intelligence – Increases Intelligence by 5/10/15 %
Cunning Thoughts – Increases Perception by 5/10/15 %
Propitious Magic – Increases Luck by 5/10/15 %
Stoic Soul – Increases Conviction by 5/10/15 %

K: Get as many as you can.

P: Pretty important to have, miss 1-2 at most.

Vo: get ALL int perc and luck bonuses

~&~ Fire Only ~&~

:-: Active :-:

Lava spill – A fire damage over time skill; no instant cast; no cool down. 2 second duration per fire entropy and does fire damage once per fire entropy used.

M: A must have for most fire mages

P: The best way to unload your fire entropies with FA spam for PVE.

Fire trap – A large area of effect, triggered fire damage skill. Will remain in place for approximately 2-3 minutes. Only caster can see it.

E: Good for heroics, or sneakily nuking random lowbies in the arena. >:)

P: It’s a TRAP!!! Don’t get it, long cast time and it poofs if you out range it. Useless PVP and time you take to set it up for PVE you could have just killed the mob.

Maximize – Increases the avatar size by 20%. Decreases Agility by 10% and adds half of those points to stamina and half to strength.

M: It’s not a high priority spell, but does have a nice use for GT raids when energy users make up a large part of the raid.

:-: Passive :-:

Calefaction – Increases all fire damage dealt by 3/6/10 %

E: This ruby set is essential to have all of if you focus on fire damage skills in the talent tree.

Va: If you use a lot of fire skills, rank 3 is recommended.

Burning Desire – Grants a 10/20 % chance to restore 25 % of your total mana when you deal a critical strike with your fire spells.

E: These rubies are absolutely necessary for a fire crit mage, does not proc for fire wall, conflagrate or lava spill. Can proc multiple times for meteor.

Va: If you have a decent crit rate and use a lot of fire skills rank 2 is recommended.

Flame Absorbtion – Restores 33% of mana when you receive fire damage.

Fire Auspices – Reduces all damage taken by 1/2 % per fire entropy stored.

Searing Advantage – Increases your fire damage dealt by 1/2 % per fire entropy stored.

E: Good for fire-heavy builds.

Eruption – 56% chance to reset the cooldowns on all fire skills upon receiving fire damage critical strike

Endless Flames – 5/10% chance to cause the next fire spell to be instant cast upon inflicting critical damage with a fire spell

Obsidian Mirror – Increases Elemental Resistance by 5/10% and has a 3/6% chance to return damage when hit by Elemental damage.

E: Does not return damage from being struck by damage over time skills!

~&~ Fire & Ice ~&~

Purge (fire tree) – Uses fire and ice entropies. Removes one harmful magical effect from a friendly target, 10% mana back for each effect removed.

E: The list of effects that this skill works on is pretty much emtpy. This is a useless skill.

Boiling Plume (ice tree) – Uses fire and ice entropies. Inflicts one time damage based on number of entropies used.

E: Not very good damage.. another useless skill.

P: I got it once thinking it could be a golden egg. I was very wrong, it lasted in my build a total of 10 mins before re-skilling out.

~&~ Fire & Lightning ~&~

Seismic Snap (fire tree) – Uses fire and lightning entropies. Knocks a target down for 0.5 seconds per entropy used, depending on conviction v. willpower.

E: I am not fond of this skill, but some people find it useful.

Icy Coating (lightning tree) – Uses fire and lightning entropies to restore layers to Stone Barrier. Does not add layers beyond the max barriers of Stone Barrier.

E: I am also not fond of this skill, but some people swear by it.

M: A great spell for PvE ^^;

Vo: good for soloing heroics. the road to is costs too much otherwise

~&~ Ice Only ~&~

:-: Active :-:

Ice quake – Does ice damage in a small radius around the mage.

E: Good for building up ice entropies!

K: A mage without Ice quake is not a mage at all.

M: A must have if your planning on getting the heal spell (elemental harmony). Also, you can run around with 5 ice entropies on you all of the time for the 5% damage reduce with rank 1 Frosty auspices to help reduce a little damage when someone tries to blind side you in pvp, or for setting up a quick 5-6 entropy wrath. And lastly you’ll have an extra 5 second cc to use right away in pvp. The downside is clicking ice quake every 24- seconds

P: Very versatile skill for building entropies, regening MP, general AOEing XD

Vo: get it.

Snowstorm – A channeled, ranged, area of effect, ice damage over time skill. Has a 50% chance to slow targets by 90% for 2 seconds, depending on conviction v. willpower.

E: I use this skill all of the time for both PvP and heroics.

M: It’s nice to use with the kanian racial or for areas where there are mulitple targets in a bottleneck or chokepoint-like area. And in heroics it compliments firewall very well.

Hypothermia – Freezes a target for 1 second for each frost entropy used, depending on conviction v. willpower.

E: I am not a big fan of this skill, but some people (looks at Eeeke) use it religiously.

K: Awesome skill, makes 1v1 pvp much easier. Drop a 5 stack on your target and sit back and cast your spell. Rinse and repeat. (Hi Rawr!)

M: Using several ice entropies with hypo is great for setting up a fire wall on someone. One entropy hypo spammed after each ice quake is very effective in combat

P: Love hypo spam, no one can run away from you !!!

Minimize – Decreases the avatar size by 20% and decreases stamina by 10% and adds those points to agility.

K: Pointless. I talked to the agi tanks in my guild, they said it wouldn’t be a big help to them.

:-: Passive :-:

Intense Cold – Increases all ice damage dealt by 3/6/10 %

Northern Lights – Grants a 10/20 % chance to restore 25 % of your total mana when you deal a critical strike with your ice spells.

E: This is actually on my list of rubies to get, because Ice quake is so cheap and has the ability to proc more than once… now…. what to sacrifice…

P: Combined with Ice quake, pretty much keeps your MP to max since every target AOE get a chance to give back MP.

Ice Absorbtion – Restores 33% of mana when you receive ice damage.

Frost Auspices – Reduces all damage taken by 1/2 % per ice entropy stored.

Frosty Advantage – Increases your ice damage dealt by 1/2 % per ice entropy stored.

Ice Age – 56% chance to reset the cooldowns on all ice skills upon receiving ice damage critical strike

Avalanche – 5/10% chance to cause the next ice spell to be instant cast upon inflicting critical damage with a ice spell

Crystal Mirror – Increases Divine Resistance by 5/10% and has a 3/6% chance to return damage when hit by Holy/Shadow/Astral damage.

~&~ Ice & Lightning ~&~

Elemental Harmony (ice tree) – Uses ice and lightning entropies; instant cast; no cool down; heals the mage for a certain amount based on number of entropies used.

E: This skill is essential in pvp, but you must have a lot of faith (350+@lv42) to overcome other players’ rage value.

K: I have a Screenie of my combat log floating around on the forums somewhere showing me healing myself for full HP. Basically, if you don’t stack rage or your dps isn’t insane, you won’t kill me.

M: It’s a really great spell in a lot of places for both pve and pvp, and it‘ll help you save gold on heal items… I‘d recommend picking up ice quake alongside the heal.

P: Useful heal, not necessary but very useful to have.

Arctic Shock (lightning tree) – Uses ice and lightning entropies; instant cast; locks all players in a 10 yards radius around you in place without freezing them completely.

E: 10 yards is not very far.

M: Personally I like to blink near a target who has another target near them to use arctic shock and then lay a fire wall down to cc both of them. It also works well with shocking grasp when you want to use your short range damage on a player while strafing around him to throw there targeting off (especially if your target is trying to run or kite.).

P: Favourite PVP CC. a max arctic for 10 secs is a hell of a long time to be held down.

~&~ Lightning Only ~&~

:-: Active :-:

Tempest – Small area of effect, instant cast, no cooldown skill that does lightning damage based on the number of lightning entropies used.

M: A great spell in PvE for lightning mages. And can be used easily in PvP when the target is slowed.

P: Bread and Butter with shocking grasp for your PVE damage. If shocking grasp R3 this is a must.

Flash – Instant cast; 20 second cool down; teleports the user 35 yards forward. Does not work up steep hills or through any physical objects.

E: You must have this skill if you like living.

K: I’ve been thinking about not using it.

M: I see it as utility in pvp and a luxury in pve

On a side note…. I’ll Always refer to this spell as “Blink”.

P: Can have a long explanation of how amazing it is, but you can just get it and find out.

Displacement – 1.5 second cast; 1 minute cool down; Increases your chance to dodge by +50% for 18 seconds.

K: Mana drain and doesn’t last long.

P: Might be useful, haven’t tested.

Clarity – Increases mana regeneration by 10% for the entire party.

K: We loose the ruby skill in patch 2.0 Its still useful for now, just a heads up.

:-: Passive :-:

Unstable Energy – Increases all lightning damage dealt by 3/6/10 %

K: A must have for lightning mages

Positive Feedback – Grants a 10/20 % chance to restore 25 % of your total mana when you deal a critical strike with your lightning spells. Does not work with Shocking grasp.

K: A must have for lightning mages

Electric Absorbtion – Restores 33% of mana when you receive lightning damage.

Lightning Auspices – Reduces all damage taken by 1/2 % per ice entropy stored.

Thundering Advantage – Increases your ice damage dealt by 1/2 % per fire entropy stored.

K: A must have for lightning mages

Lightning Jolt – 56% chance to reset the cooldowns on all lightning skills upon receiving lightning damage critical strike

Cascade – 5/10% chance to cause the next lightning spell to be instant cast upon inflicting critical damage with a lightning spell
Does not proc with Shocking Grasp.

K: A must have for lightning mages

Amber Mirror – Increases Nature Resistance by 5/10% and has a 3/6% chance to return damage when hit by Disease/Acid damage. This skill is presently bugged and increases Elemental Resistance for now.

K: Our anti class is the Summoner, they deal nature damage…

~&~ All Elements ~&~

Elemental Wrath – Instant cast; no cooldown; uses fire, ice, and lightning entropies to deal physical damage to a single target based on the number of entropies used.

E: Because this is a physical based damage, all of your stats stand for other aspects of physical damage. As such, this skill can be dodged, parried, blocked, evaded, and absorbed by armor.

M: There could be a book written on this spell…
On a side note, wisdom = ability to go through armor, and perception = ability to hit for Wrath..

P: Probably most controversial mage skill. Highest possible damage in game, but takes time to build up. Biggest thing is you need high wisdom to make it effective which lowers the effectiveness of the rest of your spells. Swing or miss thing depending on who you ask.

Vo: Talk to one of us individually if you want to learn more about a Wrath Mage.

Mana Shield – 10/20/30% chance to activate a invincible mana shield at 10/20/30% health that drains your mana at 6% per second and is canceled by casting any spell.

E: This skill is completely useless. If you get to 30% hp and are still in range of your opponent, you are as good as dead. Assuming you don’t get killed in one shot to begin with.

K: Dots go through this shield, and you won’t notice when it procs.

Concrete Mind – Increases the amount of damage that Stone Barrier absorbs by 20/40/60 %.

E: A good skill to have if you have spare rubies floating around and you happen to be in the area.

K: Makes Nogrom’s (Gorluxor’s Tower boss) quakes seem like sissy hits.

M: If you plan on getting Icy Coating, this will be a great compliment to it.

—————-

==============
Class Tactics:
==============

—————-
Player v. environment (pve)
—————-

E: Mages are often very powerful in pve game play. Our barriers protect us from most damage up until the mobs finally finish stripping them, allowing us to focus very heavily on weighing our stats for pure damage.

M: For the most part you can get away with having lower perc and wisdom for PvE than you can in PvP

Vo: Mages are probably one of the most fun and easiest classes to level with. They have insane dps and fly through grinding and farming like its a joke. When i was leveling 1-40 I one-two shot mobs, even if they were 1-2 levels higher than me.

~&~ Instances ~&~

Most people will run you through an instance.

~&~ Heroics ~&~

E: When you get your stats properly balanced, and start getting decent gear, you will be able to use meteor, firewall, and snowstorm to pretty much nuke everything.

Vo: Mages can be and will be the highest dps in heroics/instances. The many mobs that you can spam aoe spells on just exponentially increases your dmg output. We once zerged heroic Xaes with 4 mages and did the whole instance in about 20 minutes.

~&~ Raids ~&~

K: When you get to the raiding aspect of the game, you will want to drop any CC’s and focus into dps. Cause lets face it, every fight is a dps race. Most mages swear that fire crit mages are the best dps. I’m wondering if lighting mages would be more usefull if the raid target was debuffed with the rank 3 warden skill that increases lightning damage taken. WTB warden.

Vo: Again, individually ask one of us for input on raid builds

—————-
Player v. Player (pvp)
—————-

In pvp combat, you have to change your build and stats around in order to account for an intelligent opponent. Examples of such changes are listed below:

1) Only using one rank of reflections, since all classes have an area of effect skill that allows them to strip all of your reflections in one hit.

2) For a crit mage, you need a little more wisdom than is necessary for pve content, due to the fact that you will be using skills that do not return mana much more frequently.

3) Stacking large amounts of endurance in order to avoid taking massive critical hits from other classes.

—————-
1v1 Specific classes:
—————-

Warrior –

E: When fighting a warrior, you need to keep your distance as often as you can and use plenty of control skills to keep the warriors from being able to hit you. Typically, you need a lot more wisdom to fight a warrior, because they typically have a lot of endurance.

K: Dropping 5 stack entropy hypothermias is a great way to buy some time to cast a spell

M: Make sure to keep your stone barriers up at all times, and if you have to play defensively, or evasively, icy flow is a great way to limit there movement while making sure they can never hit above your stone barriers.

P: I prefer dropping 10 stack arctic shocks on them.

Vo: Basically keep them at bay with icy flow, then spam ur strong spells. if they charge at you just recast reflections and let it absorb then flash away and icy flow again. its basically a nuke vs nuke fight here. you should never die 1v1 to a warrior your level.

Paladin –

E: Paladins are a very easy class for a mage to kill, in general. The way that paladin barriers work it is best to use fire arrow or shocking grasp to fill up their barriers such that you can begin doing damage to them. Paladins are the only class that you can stay melee to and not be in danger of dying quite rapidly.

Vo: Agree with ele pretty much, or throw a dot on them and let them use all their rotations on that and then spam ur nukes. if ur a wrath mage it’s basically beating on a 5 year old. you should also never die 1v1 to a pally ur level.

Scout –

E: Scouts are generally mage munchies because a lot of their skills require them to be at range, it is usually best to close with them as quickly as possible and dance around them with shocking grasp lighting them up nicely.

K: I can 3 shot them, nothing to be said.

M: Keep the range between you and then as short as possible.

P: No KD if they don’t do damage. Easy peasy.

Vo: Just keep ur barriers up and spam instant cast spells, if they use hasty disguise then spam ice quake. scouts have insane single target dps, so depending on how well you keep ur barriers up, the fight could go either way.

Healer –

E: Depending on the healer, you may never get a kill here in a 1 on 1 fight. You have to drain them as fast as you can with thunderbolt and then work on whittling them down over time. The problem with healers is that Perpetual Heal costs next to nothing, and our dispel doesn’t cast quickly enough to keep it stripped off. The other way to kill healers, is to use Elemental Wrath to go for a one shot kill, which is often sketchy at best.

K: Conflag them, cast invis and start running.

M: I had nearly a 2 page reply on this… but for the most part you don’t want to stay anywhere near them when they have you targeted. Mana burn will be your best bet that’ll eventually force them to play defensively and keep that Holy Rage (partially) away from you. This is where wrath comes in nicely, but hopefully not before dispelling there Divine Foresight.

P: Only chance is slowly burn them down outta MP using rage trinket and whittle them down. Otherwise go with King’s advice.

Vo: run…fast.

Summoner –

E: Drain, drain, drain! You must drain them as quickly as possible and use Elemental Harmony and pray that they don’t have the Juggernaut trinket. Once they are out of mana, summoners die quickly.

K: What E said, or

M: You’ll want to mana burn them as well, and save the dispel/wrath combo for when they’ve used up there blood bank on Plague of Mending (which is a spell they use both mana and blood to heal with). Some summys don’t rebuff Aegis after it’s removed though. You could also use conflag or firewall before dispelling and wrathing

P: Either out gear them or lose ^_^ best chance is to hit them with a good wrath invis and come in again with another wrath for 2nd life.

Vo: Also agree with elethiel, or run, run like your life depended on it, cause it does. You’ll never win 1v1 with a summoner.

Warden –

E: Use lots of crowd control, or they will on you. Then drain their mana and kill at your leisure.

M: mana drain >.<

P: So much silence, annoying. Best chance is to Burn MP down first.

Vo: This is actually a fair match-up. wardens are the anti-caster class, and its fun to embarrass them. i honestly dont have a strategy against them. drain mana, nuke, repeat?

Psionicist –

E: Lots of crowd control are necessary here too, or you will be the brunt of their crowd control abilities. Mana drain while they are crowd controlled and hope you can finish them off before they crowd control you to death.

M: Mana drain and you can also break there mental link if you move out of range too.

P: Very simply, they cast mind fre on you and its pretty much over. Kill them in under 10 secs (PVP trinket timer) or don’t bother.

Vo: they annoy me.

Mage –

E: Ice quake/meteor to wipe the reflections, shocking grasp to drain any elemental shields, then step back and use any other spells to finish them off.

K: Or just cast dispel twice and drop a meteor on them and /laugh

M: Icy flow works nicely against there wrath, though they can dispel it. and ice quake will be the spell you’ll want to wipe there illusions away with…. Instant cast spells will be your main priority since one ice quake and one hypothermia spammed back to back will cancel every thing else out.

I think that pretty much covers everything, i think.

Enjoy the pew pew fellow mages

P: Mirror match, may the better player win!

Vo: Personally, i precast astral arrow and spam ice quake/grasp till barriers are gone then throw a wrath on them, we are squishy. if a mage has up ele barriers then its an easy fight for a wrath mage. otherwise try to time ur recast of each barriers so u can keep up ele when they build entrophys and stone when they throw the wrath. (if they are wrath spec)

—————-
Group/Mass pvp
—————-

E: Mages are generally much better at group pvp then in individual fights, due to the vast majority of our skills having inductions. This allows us to sit off to one side and throw fire and lightning upon our opponents. When the enemy does decide that you are a threat, flash and other crowd control abilities come in handy for dancing around the battlefield with a warrior in tow. Usually, they will just give up chase and you can go back to throwing fire and lightning at them. You should be following the standard attacks for specific classes, such as draining/dispelling healers and summoners, and offering crowd control support as needed to help your group attain victory.

Vo: Spam prism and watch them ignore you. you should know how to run away if you’re in trouble.

=============
Class Builds:
=============

There are about a million different ways to build a successful mage, utilizing various rubies and talents, but there are a couple of over-arching rules that you should try to follow:

1) If you pick talents of a certain element, you should try to get the associated passive damage buff rubies from the same element.
Example: if you have max fire arrow and meteor, you want to get all of the fire damage buffs, or if you have icy comet and ice quake you should get the ice damage buffs, same with thunderbolt and shocking grasp.

2) You want to get all of the passive stat bonuses (or at least all of the int/perc/luck ones).

3) For pvp, you will want Elemental Harmony to heal you in combat and a lot of faith to make sure that it actually works.

4) For pve, you will want the greatest number of aoe skills for doing maximum damage in heroics.

~&~ ~&~

Below are some rough ideas for what skills to use for leveling up:

—————-

Fire-leveling builds:

Lv 10: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38x2bhx2w6yy

Lv 15: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38x2blxc23gw5yy

Lv 20: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xit … cw3yy10ow3

Lv 25: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xqt … w6yc210ow3

Lv 30: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38x1l … w3yc210ow3

Lv 35: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xqt … 3yc218r0c0

Lv 40: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xqt … 2yc218r0c6

Lightning leveling builds:

lv 10: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38x1e2xyy4w3

lv 15: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xn1pxyy87082

lv 20: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xn3uxy0y18v0c6

lv 25: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xn3 … 4y4118v0c6

lv 30: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xnb … 3y4118v0c6

lv 35: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xbl … 2y4118v0c6

lv 40: http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#_38xbn … 2y4118v5ce

~&~ ~&~

Below are some sample builds for various types of mages:

—————-
Essential Mage Rubies
—————-

—————-
PvE Fire Build
—————-

—————-
PvE Lightning Build
—————-

—————-
PvE Fire & Lightning Build
—————-

—————-
PvP Lightning Build
—————-

—————-
PvP Fire Build (submitted by deadonce)
—————-

—————-
PvP Fire and Lightning Build
—————-

—————-
PvP Elemental Wrath Build
—————-

Hopefully, this guide has helped you become a better mage. Many thanks to all of the contributors to this guide. It is the culmination of more than a year of experience of each mage who contributed to the guide.

Cheers! ^_^