Pandora Saga Mage, Wizard and Warlock Guide

Pandora Saga Mage, Wizard and Warlock Guide by Echo

If you’re just starting out and you love damage dealing spellcasters then this is the place for you

To break it down from the very beginning, you have four classes to choose from. To achieve that life long dream of tempesting someone in the face, choose mage.

Races and Their Racial Skills–As they pertain to Mages
*I am not including all of the racial skills here, just the ones that make sense for mages

-Lapins: The two most viable options for mages here are magic resistance or inner light. Magic resistance as a racial skill is all around useful in this game. It will not show up as a numerical resistance in your character window, but gives you 5% magic resistance. Inner light increases the mana recovery rate. While this might sound nice, I personally advice against it because while it is nice to recover mana more quickly in a pvp setting you either won’t have any time to rest at all or plenty of time to rest wherein it won’t matter that you’re regenerating at a slightly lower rate.
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-Myrines: Calmness converts damage into MP. This is really only viable, however, if you have enough defense/life/etc to survive hits and actually live to gain the mp back. Sharpness adds some dodge, which is only useful if you plan on building an agility-oriented warlock, which I advise against in the first place.
-Enkidu: Stone Skin is a nice way to give yourself some more survivability out on the battlefield.
-Humans: Adaptability to lessen the time you suffer ailments and Pharmaceutics to increase the effects of all those pots you have stored up! Neither of these are particularly strongly oriented towards a warlock but they can work for you if you feel the need to be human.
-Elves: Nature’s Harmony is great for lowering the mp costs of your spells. If you don’t plan on putting much spirit into your build this can be highly useful to keep yourself more mana efficient out on the battlefield. Steadfastness will provide charm resistance, which ends up giving you a bit of protection against debuffs and the likes. I place it in the same category as the human racials. If you go elf, you want to go with Nature’s Harmony.
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-Dwarves: Stronghearted let’s you survive a killing blow. Same level of usefulness as Pharmaceutics, Adaptability, and Steadfastness.
*Note: while it won’t make or break your build, note that each race has different starting stats, with lapins and elves geared most towards the mage builds we’ll be looking at*

Leveling Up and Spending Your Status and Ability Points
Okay, as you level up as a mage, press “y” to bring up your character screen. With the tab on “parameters” it will look like this:
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BAM! Now you see my build. But that’s not really the point. The number next to status points shows you how many you have to spend. Now, it’s time to choose what build you want. There are a bunch of varieties you can use obviously and crafting your own build is encouraged ^^ It helps to have a long term goal in mind when starting your character so that you aren’t faced at level 40 with the question why on earth did I put 50 spirit into this warlock?!?!

The Uber-Damage-Dealer
We’re essentially looking at my build here. For maximum magical attack damage you’ll want full int, so 99 int. You may notice in the screenshot that mine is listed as 113 (99+14). The +14 all comes from equipment. While 113 is the number that my magical attacks are based off of, 99 is the maximum number that you can pump status points to. The ways to tweak this build depend on how much you want to spend on Dex, Sta, and Spi. I highly recommend at least putting some into stamina otherwise you’ll be even squishier than you need to. Spirit sounds nice, but the more I stare at mine, the more I find it useless. But what it is doing for you is increasing your mana pool, mana recovery rate, and spell interrupt resistance. Dex is important because that’s your casting speed. It might not seem like much first but when you get up to a warlock you’ll be facing some loooooong cast times, so you’ll want that dex to speed things up a bit.
That being said, a build to follow would be: 30 sta, 50 dex, 20 spi, and 99 int with everything else left at it’s base stat.

The Fast Caster
What we’re looking at here is a warlock with the fastest casts. For this you’ll want to hit 99 dex. That plus saltio will get you down to one-second-cast-time ice tempests. This is highly useful in pk. The way to use it: cast that ice tempest in the perfect place to pin your enemies against the wall. The perfect way to follow that up is with your damage dealing warlock friend who will be casting tempest while they are pinned, so that they are then hit with maximum damage while the fast caster has ensured that they won’t get away. The thing about this build is that your damage will look very sad in comparison to the damage dealer. What to do with the rest of your points? Pump them into int to get as much damage as you can, but make sure you save enough points for stamina to get some of the survivability. Spirit: take it or leave it.

Now, with the character screen still up tab over to “abilities”. Expand magic to look like this:
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I still need to max that prof! At any rate, first off, the red portion of the bar shows how many ability points you have spent into an area, the green bar overriding that shows your proficiency, which will naturally raise over time as you use skills attached to that area. As your proficiency increases you’ll start to see an increase in your damage. As a mage, you’ll want to be pumping into elemental, since that will provide you with spells such as firebolt, hailstone, ice spear, etc.

What you may want to decide, although it isn’t imperative that you do so right off the bat, is if you want to be a Thunderstorm warlock or a Meteor warlock. The reason that it’s not terribly important that you decide right away is that at each job change you get the option to reset your ability points. Now let’s be clear here, you can ONLY reset your ABILITY POINTS at job change, NOT your status points.

Thunderstorm Warlock:
-at least 71 ele
-40 exo
This ability pathway gives you the almighty spell thunderstorm! I would argue that going for the thunderstorm warlock is a more pvp-oriented build, but that’s not necessarily true. Thunderstorm is a great spell that stuns enemy horses in the field and then essentially obliterates them. Even if you’re not hitting horses with this spell it still does a decent amount of damage. It also has a more frequent hit rate than meteors does, which is more of a burst damage spell compared to thunderstorm’s sustained damage. Other spells of note that you get along this pathway are elemental absorption, pure arrow, and bless weapon. Elemental absorption is a short duration self-buff that reduces damage you take from elemental spells. Bless weapon can be used on allies to give them the light aura to their weapon. Pure arrow doesn’t do epic damage but it is a single target spell that does holy damage so it’s useful against mobs like the warg, anubis, etc that won’t take much damage from your other spells.

Meteor Warlock:
-at least 71 ele
-40 invocation (if you’re doing this though you’ll want that extra one point to get 41 invocation for Psychic Blades)
Meteor is the other choice you have. It’s a high-damaging aoe spell that also has a chance of stun. Pretty basic. Meteor and Thunderstorm both have a long cast time, by the way. The spells of note that you get along this pathway are Psychic Blades and Mana Shield. Psychic Blades is a severely useful spell because it does not count as elemental damage, so it will work wonders against mobs that are elemental resistant. It hits three times, but if you’re pro you can get off a double hit of it, so essentially 6 times. However, you may get a little depressed inside when you see a conjurer like Asteria hitting for 1.2k with each blade when you’re only hitting 400 per blade. That all comes down to invocation proficiency, essentially. Since conjurer’s pump 90 into invocation and then prof grind up to that they will always hit more than a warlock does with psy blades. It’s a sad fact. Mana shield will cover you in a protective bubble so that when you get hit some of the damage that would be done to your hp will be done to your mp instead. I have never found this spell useful enough to save me in any certain situation, but it’s still nice to have.

Now that you’ve spent some ability points, you’ll want to access those unlocked skills. Press “K” to bring up the skill menu, that’ll look like this:
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If you uncheck the box that says “compact display” you’ll be presented with this view, which provides you with the requirements for upcoming skills:
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From either of those windows you can click and drag a desired spell to any spot you want on your quick bar ^^

First Job Change
So now you’re level 20! Well my friend, that means that you can go get your first job change :D What you’ll need to do is go talk to the Mage Trainer. There is one in each nation, but there is also on in Royal Street, depicted here:
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In order to change your job you’ll need 3 gold crystals in your inventory when you talk to the NPC. You can often buy them in Central Astir from a booth for a modest price, or if you want to grab them on your own you’ll be looking at killing either crawlers or ratlings. Ratlings are a slightly tougher kill but they do have a higher drop rate, so that’s what I would recommend. You will be given the option of becoming either a sorcerer or a wizard. Sorcerer branches off into Corruptor and Shadowblade, whereas Wizard branches off into Conjurer and Warlock (the ultimate goal in this guide).

Continue leveling up and going through the questline. Once you hit level 45 you’re eligible for the second job change!

Second Job Change
Once again you’ll need to talk to the Mage Trainer. She will tell you to meet an NPC in the Himurart Desert. Port there from Central Astir via Tawatha the Transporter if you have that spot saved. If not, you’ll have to ride out. There will be a blue flag on your map where you need to go. The NPC that you talk to in the desert will tell you that you have to face a test. Let me tell you first, you may not have a party to complete this test, but do not worry; it is extremely easy. You’ll be spawned into an area with three types of mobs: snakes, spiders, and flowing rays. All you have to do is kill each one. Hit them with their elemental weakness and they should go down in one hit. Spiders are weak to fire, so just blast them with firebolt. Snakes are weak to ice, so hit them with either hailstone or ice spear. Finally, the flowing rays are weak to lightning, so hit them with shock or thundercrash (I wouldn’t recommend thunder ball unless they are the only type of mob left on the map). Once you have killed all the enemies on the map you will be transported back outside. The desert NPC will congratulate you and tell you to go back to the Mage Trainer. When you talk to her this time, she will give you the option of turning into a Conjurer or a Warlock. Pick Warlock ^^

Elemental Skills/Spells
Now that you’re a warlock it’s a good time to go over all of those skills! I’ll be talking about them in relation to a pvp setting because I think their pve use is pretty straight forward :D

-Firebolt: Gained at level 1. This is a single target spell that inflicts fire damage. It’s not a heavy damage dealer but can be used when other skills are on cool down.

-Shock: Gained at level 12. This is one of the most useful spells in pvp and you get it super early on. Shock will usually trip your enemy (the only reason it won’t is if they have resistances), which enables you and everyone else to swarm them and take them down (assuming you have back-up around you). Single target. Thunder.

-Thunder Crash: Gained when you become a Wizard. This is also a great spell for pvp because of it’s extremely long-range. Stand back, go through a short cast, and watch as your enemy across the field of view takes damage. It does nice damage, and when paired with magical aid, will often kill lower level opponents/enemies with low life.

-Hailstone: 8 points into elemental. This is a single target spell that inflicts ice damage. It is really mediocre compared to ice spear and you should only find yourself using it when other preferable spells are on cool down.

-Thunder Ball: 12 points into elemental. This is an aoe spell that does thunder damage but will not trip any enemies. It’s damage isn’t very impressive, but when you find yourself battling a group of enemies standing in an exorcist’s void (a blue field that nullfies aoe spells) this one will still work. That’s because it’s not strictly an aoe spell, but rather a chain of effects. It’ll hit your target, and then everyone nearby that target.

-Ice Spear: 21 points into elemental. This is a GREAT single target spell. It deals fairly high ice damage and has a chance of slowing your enemy. In combination with Shock it can really slow an enemy coming at you or one running away.

-Firestorm: 26 into elemental. This is an aoe fire spell that creates a firestorm around your character. This is good to use when you’re surrounded by a group of enemies. Another nifty note about it, if you’re about to go through a conjurer’s port and are unsure of what awaits you on the other side, if you start casting firestorm when you first stand on the port it will go off right when you reach the other side xD

-Resist Fire/Ice/Thunder: 33/35/41 into elemental. I’m lumping these all together because they essentially do the same thing, provide a temporary boost in resistance to the elemental they’re named after and a negative resistance to the other elements. Example: Ice resist will boost your ice resist and lower your fire and thunder resist (although it will lower the fire resist more). These spells generally don’t have a practical use in pvp (unless you plan on buffing yourself with it, having an exo in your party buff swap with an opponent, and then hit that opponent with the resistance you just weakened on them). They are, however, great for prof grinding.

-Ice Storm: 54 into elemental. This is the baby precursor to Ice Tempest. You will only have it as a Wizard and not as a Warlock. (Assuming that you pump those points up to 71 elemental right upon job change) It is an aoe ice spell that knocks back your enemies. A great way to utilize it is to pin enemies against a wall. It will result in them taking more damage from your spell and being unable to move for the duration of it.

-Magical Aid: Gained at Warlock. This great self-buff increases the damage of your next attack. It’s pretty simple to understand if you use a single target spell after it. Use magical aid, cast ice spear, and that ice spear will do more damage to that target than usual. If you use an aoe, then only the first hit of that aoe will be magnified. For example, if you cast magical aid, and then cast ice tempest, the first hit that ice tempest makes (only applicable to one target) will be higher than usual. The rest of the hits by that ice tempest will look like they usually do. Finally, an odd anomaly is time bomb. Since time bomb does not go off right away it can or cannot be affected by magical aid. Scenario 1: You cast magical aid, cast time bomb, time bomb hasn’t gone off yet, and you cast ice spear, which takes the magical aid modifier. Scenario 2: You cast magical aid, cast time bomb, wait around without casting any other attack spells, and time bomb will take the magical aid modifier. That all being said, it’s a great buff; use it whenever you can remember to.

-Time Bomb: 61 into elemental. This is the spell just referred to. It is a single-target fire spell that will go off at a later random time from casting it. Now, it will go off within a reasonable span of time. I tend to like the subversive nature of this spell. Unless your opponent is speed reading everything happening in the system tab, he/she won’t know he’s been cast on. They’ll run off, and then bam! time bomb takes a chunk of their health. This spell is especially great on low-life opponents who are trying to flee. As long as they don’t get healed, you’ll probably finish them off.

-Thunderstorm: 61 into elemental and 40 into exorcism. I already covered this above. Love love love love love.

-Meteor: 61 into elemental and 40 into invocation. Also covered above. I don’t like this particular spell as much as Thunderstorm but having 40 points into invocation and just pumping in that final one for psy blades is very very nice.

-Ice Tempest: 71 into elemental. This is a warlock’s greatest spell in pvp. Pinning ability, high high damage, and not a terribly long cast time if you’re currently affected by saltio. The trick to this spell is proper placement and timing. Become familiar with how long it is going to take you to cast according to your gear and buffs. Try to anticipate any enemy movements and place it where it’s most likely to pin them against a wall. If there isn’t a wall around, look for a nice tight cluster of enemies that you can cast right into. It’ll push them all back and deal a nice amount of damage. Plus, that knockback provides your melee party members with a good opportunity to go in an pick off the ones with low life.

And that concludes my guide! I would be willing to add a section pertaining to Warlock-oriented gear if there is a demand for it and answer any other questions that may pop up. Also, please let me know if there are any spelling/content corrections as I will want to fix those right away.

-Echo

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