The World of Magic Mage PK Guide

The World of Magic Mage PK Guide by TigerDawg

Background
When IMO came out back in March or April of 2010, I immediately downloaded the game and began as an incompetent mage, playing to just enjoy the game. However, as I progressed as a mage, I realized that there were not many mage pkers. Instead, mages were just viewed as dedicated healers. I did not want to be just the stereotypical mage though, knowing that they were capable of more. I also heard about something called ‘fame.’ After asking around about what it was and how to gain fame, I decided that I wanted to try to accumulate as much as I could. My guild members did not support the idea much since they thought it was a waste of time and that I had to train before I would be able to pk well. I ignored their comments and started pking. Throughout my time playing IMO, I focused on pking hour after hour and month after month. Now, more than a year after I started playing, I am a level 30 mage and consider myself a strong pker. I want to share my tips with everyone else since I have not been as active as I used to be.

General Pking
I started pking as a mage early on when I was around level 17 to 19. At this point, I did not know much at all about how to pk, so I asked around and gathered as much information as I could get. Eventually, I gathered enough information to start pking decently, but I still died against a few rangers. Because of this, I began to think about what I could do to improve my pking, utilizing any useful tips I gained and discarding the rest. By the time I became level 25, I was able to formulate pretty good combos that worked well for me, capable of keeping me alive much more often. Also, an important part of being a strong pker is the ability to remain calm and collected while pking. By being relaxed, the pker can react faster and stay focused. I have witnessed many pkers who would freak out while pking and start healing or teleport away when they could have easily won. I have also witnessed arrogant or enraged rangers who would ensnare me when I wasn’t running, allowing me to easily pk them, or rush into Lanos Black Trader to try to kill me. The key is to first make the combos second-nature, so it does not become something that requires one to try, but rather something that comes naturally. In this way, the reaction time is increased and one can learn the concept of having an empty mind. To have an empty mind or a blank mind, one must be empty of emotion and simply aware of everything that is happening around you in order to react to it in the best way possible. All of this takes a lot of practice and experience and cannot be mastered in one day.

My Pk Strategies
Since my best pking came after I was level 25, I will start with those strategies. What I am posting is the ideal outcome of a fight, so remember that a complete awareness is still necessary in case something goes wrong so that the pker can still react. Also remember that this is just what worked best for me. What works best for anyone else may be different, but feel free to use any information from this guide if it proves useful to you.

As a mage, I recommend to have equips with armor and hp but prioritizing armor over hp. This is because as a mage, durability is extremely important. Usually, armor and hp come together, but in the times they do not, the extra armor is usually preferred since the hp would be minimal compared to the durability that armor provides. This is true unless there is no chance that you would get your armor to a multiple of 5 with the extra armor. As an additional benefit, armor may (or may not) increase the durability of shields.

Note that these tips are more for 1v1s rather than for just random pking on the beach. When I randomly pk on the beach, most players I attack would run even if they are the same level as me, so I can just teleport, freeze or stun, and bombard them with fire attacks, stuns, and more fire.

25+
Slot 1: Freeze III, Stun II, Doom II, Firebolt III, Flare II
Slot 2: Shield III, Prayer II, Recall, Teleport I, Pot
Slot 3: Shield III, Heal III, Prayer II, Healing Wave II, Carnivalize III
Slot 4: Teleport I, Freeze III, Stun II, Doom II, Firebolt III

Slot 1 is for basic pking which will be described in detail later. Slot 2 is for defensive pking. For example, if I was being chased, I would pot, shield, then teleport. Slot 3 is for healing, mainly in training with a warrior. Slot 4 is used to chase my opponent with teleport followed by a freeze or a stun.

Against a Ranger: I start with a stun unless I see a mage around who could have shielded him or her. If there is a mage around, I would try to get in a quick doom firebolt to check then back away once I determine that he has no shields. After stunning, I use doom, firebolt, freeze, and get some distance between my opponent and me. Then, I re-shield and heal if necessary. At this point, the stun cooldown would not be entirely over, so I have to wait a bit and estimate when the stun cooldown would end. If I wait too short of a time, the cooldown would not have ended, and the ranger would be able to double shot and impact shot me to death. On the other hand, if I wait too long, freeze would wear out, and the ranger would either run or come at me, catching me unprepared. Because of this, it is recommended to start practicing on weaker rangers before moving on to stronger ones. After the cooldown of stun has ended, I move back into range and stun again. At this point, I just doom, firebolt, freeze, and repeat the whole process until the ranger is dead.

In order to more clearly explain the reasoning behind my combo, I am going to go over a detailed account of what I went through in order to come up with this combo.
At level 25, I realized that I now had the skills needed in order to kill a ranger, but the question was: how? I started by listening to the advice of one of my good mage buddies, Khalim. We both started using the same strategy at level 25 by using doom, fb, flare, stun, doom, fb, flare, trying to shield immediately if our shields got damaged. However, this strategy failed, and we eventually went our own ways and created our own strategies.
From my experience, I knew that if my shields broke, I was as good as dead since a quick impact shot would be able to finish me off. I thought about what would then be the best way to start off a match against a ranger. After careful thinking, I soon realized that stun was obviously the best choice to start a fight. With its normal casting time and its ability to stun the enemy, stun is a skill that minimizes the amount of time the ranger has to attack. Even if the mage stuns first, the ranger can get off a quick double shot and impact shot if lag is in the ranger’s favor. Therefore, if the mage does not start with stun, the mage is as good as dead against an adequate ranger. From there, I thought about what I needed to do in order to fully take advantage of the period of time in which stun was in effect. I tried out stunning and going all-out offensive with double casting and all, but this failed if the ranger potted or if the ranger was strong, equipped with a +8 weapon or high crit. Because of this, I decided that I would need to be a bit more on the defensive if I wanted to win against those rangers. I needed to be as efficient with my skills as possible. Instead of staying in the ranger’s range after my stun ended, I decided that it would be better to try to get out the distance while I waited for the stun cooldown to end before I came back in to stun again and repeat the whole process. With this method, I would only be within the ranger’s attacking range while I had a stun up, therefore, completely minimizing the amount of time that the ranger had to attack me. To do this, I realized that I had to freeze the ranger so that he would not be able to move while I waited out the cooldown of stun. With this in mind, I tested what exactly I could fit into the period of stun to maintain maximum efficiency, simplicity, and effectiveness. In the beginning, I tried stun, doom, firebolt, flare, freeze, but this did not allow for much room for error at all since stun would end almost right when I had finished casting freeze. I tried taking out flare which worked just as I wanted. If I stayed at the right distance, I would be able to get away from my frozen enemy before stun ended or just when it was ending. Even so, if the ranger was spamming the buttons, only one double shot or one impact shot would get in before I was out of range, and it was useless if the ranger stunned me since he or she would not be able to follow up on it with me out of range, allowing me to just heal the damage back up. After stun cooldown would end, I would move back in right at the border of the range of my spells in order to repeat my combo until the ranger was dead. I stuck with this combo of mine because of its reliability and ease of escaping if something went wrong since it never makes the mage committed like hyper-offensive does. The ranger would always be stunned anyways, giving me even more time to react if something went wrong. Even though I did try other sets every now and then to test their effectiveness, I always ended up back at this combo. It is direct and effective. It might be different, but I assure you that it is worth testing.

Against a Warrior: Pking against a warrior requires the ability to adapt to what is happening more than pking against a ranger or a mage does. Typically, I start offensively with a freeze followed by doom, firebolt, and flare. Then, I stun, doom, firebolt, and flare. From here, I continue using the combo freeze, doom, firebolt, and flare, replacing the beginning freeze with stun whenever its cooldown ends. Whenever the warrior rushes in with wild charge or bullrush and attacks, I freeze and move away to create distance followed by more attacks. If the warrior manages to take out your shields, immediately re-shield in order to prevent stun. Prayer is not needed although it could be used if it can be pulled off without getting hit again. If the warrior begins to retreat, I teleport and freeze him or her and try to get between the warrior and his or her destination before resuming with the combo. This allows me to have more time to cast freeze if the warrior tries to run again.
Against a Mage: Pking against a mage is more about who has the better skills or equips since you will both be attacking each other at the same time. Against a good mage, I start with doom, firebolt, and flare in order to remove the shields. Then, I would shield and prayer while they try to stun me. Since shield is instant-cast, it would come up before stun, negating his or her stun. By the time prayer finishes casting, doom’s cooldown would just be ending, so I cast another round of doom, firebolt, and flare. Then, I stun them and finish them off with a final doom, firebolt, and flare. If they pot or heal, just keep spamming doom, firebolt, flare, and stun until they die. Prayer can also be replaced by silence at level 30, but in order to utilize it to its full effect, I wait until right before doom’s cooldown ends before casting silence in order to keep my enemy from attacking back until after I stun and attack again. However, mages can still use instant-cast spells while under the effect of silence, so keep watch for teleports or his or her own silence.
In Battlefield: The battlefield is a much different environment than on the beach, so it deserves a separate section. In battlefield, I prefer to take on the role of a support attacker and stay in the mob of other players, attacking at range behind the cover of the warriors. I would only stray when I see a lone siras that I know I can kill. Because I am always under cover, I can just use doom, firebolt, and flare before stunning and repeating my attacks, knowing that my target is not aiming at me. If I do happen to get aimed at, I will either just back up and re-shield if it is not too bad, or pot and teleport away if I am dying quickly.

35+
Slot 1: Teleport I, Stun I, Fear I, Doom II, Firebolt III
Slot 2: Shield III, Prayer II, Recall, Teleport I, Pot
Slot 3: Shield III, Heal III, Prayer II, Healing Wave II, Carnivalize III
Slot 4: Fear I, Freeze III, Doom II, Firebolt III, Flameshock III

Slot 1 is for basic pking which will be described in detail later. Slot 2 is for defensive pking. For example, if I was being chased, I would pot, shield, then teleport. Slot 3 is for healing, mainly in training with a warrior. Slot 4 is used for training or pking in groups such as in battlefield.

Against a Ranger: I would start with a stun against a ranger unless I see a mage around. If there is a mage around, it would be better to assume that the ranger is shielded, so I do a quick doom and firebolt to get rid of the shields before stunning. Stun is used since it is the fastest way to completely disable the ranger, therefore, minimizing the time the ranger has to attack. After stunning, I would immediately start casting fear which should come into effect right as stun ends since it is stun I. Now, if the game is laggy and it is not possible to fit in a doom, firebolt, and another fear before fear’s effect ends, I would just spam fear until the stun cooldown is over, attack, and repeat the whole stun, spamfear, and attack combo. Otherwise, I would go ahead and use fear, doom, firebolt, fear, and repeat. When spamming fear, I make sure to be in the center of my opponent’s line of travel so that I can keep a consistent fear spam on the ranger. Teleport can be used to help achieve this positioning faster and easier in order to maximize efficient usage of fear’s effect. With this combo, the ranger’s only time to attack would be while the mage is casting stun at the beginning of the fight. Therefore, if the ranger can’t kill you at that time, the ranger is dead. More attacks may be added into the stun, fearspam until stun’s cooldown is over, attack, and repeat combo if necessary, but I do not prefer it since I prefer to have better efficiency in my slots. I also prefer not to use freeze in this combo since freeze would only decrease the simplicity and directness of the combo while not increasing its effectiveness. The same result can be reached without the use of freeze, making this the more direct and effective method.

Note that I am not actually level 35 yet, so more testing, confirmation, and feedback would be appreciated.

Have Fun!
Thanks for reading my guide. I hope it was a great help to all you mages out there and that it will make you want to try to become deadly mage pkers as well. At least for now, I have not been able to be that active, so I hope others can learn from this and carry on my pking strategies.