Mage battle tactics

Causing extreme frustration and pain to your opponents as a mage requires strategy, skill, and mass output of damage. This tutorial will cover more advanced techniques for general use and you may consider using them in PvP combat.

Use the elements to your advantage- Mages have a wide variety of elemental spells; study the table of elements and you will become proficient in maximizing your damage output utilizing your opponent's element. Take caution- experienced players may purposefully drink elemental potions with the hope of decreasing your damage towards them. Counter this by using a variety of spells in battle. Acting unpredictably is to your advantage. If you are facing another mage, find out what element your opponent is using (ex. Fire element spells, Water element spells, etc). Depending on their element, find out what spells and skills they know and use this to your advantage.

Choosing and Building the Right Elemental Set

Part of a Mage's repertoire of spells depend on how you use your chosen element to the best of your ability. Not only do you have to consider about the elemental weaknesses of your opponent, you also have to consider the cards that you are dealt with and how you can use them. A Mage can choose from four elemental play styles, but the general assumption is that you stick with either Fire, Water or Wind in PvE combat, while you have the additional option of Earth in PvP.

Mage Elemental Match-ups

Using Fire: Very strong (+25%) against Earth Strong (+12.5%) against Wind, Dark, and Ghost Neutral (0%) against Neutral, Poison Weak (-12.5%) against Water, Light Very weak (-25%) against Fire Using Water: Very strong (+25%) against Fire Strong (+12.5%) against Earth and Ghost Slightly strong (+5%) against Light Neutral (0%) against Neutral, Poison Slightly weak (-5%) against Dark Weak (-12.5%) against Wind Very weak (-25%) against Water Using Wind: Very strong (+25%) against Water Strong (+12.5%) against Fire and Ghost Slightly strong (+5%) against Dark Neutral (0%) against Neutral, Poison Slightly weak (-5%) against Light Weak (-12.5%) against Earth Very weak (-25%) against Wind Using Earth: Very strong (+25%) against Wind Strong (+12.5%) against Water, Light, and Ghost Neutral (0%) against Neutral Weak (-12.5%) against Fire, Dark, and Poison Very weak (-25%) against Earth

Special Case for Wind and Earth Builds

Recall that a Mage becomes weaker if one possesses more than one element in their build. For Wind and Earth builds specifically, there lies a problem due to the excessive number of points that you wouldn't otherwise have in Fire or Water builds. For this reason, those builds need to incorporate a few skills from other elements in order to improve their performance. But, there is a scarce amount of points that you do have to make use of those incorporated skills, so you can't just go ahead and spend it on whatever you like. Very likely, the Earth or Wind element builds will become a build that you use to dump your teleport skills and invisibility skill on to get around. You have to keep these aspects in mind when you are deciding on a proper set that maximizes your damage output, and still provide the functionality you need.

As stated above, Teleport, Bind Earth and Invisibility are all essential skills you need when moving from place to place, and avoiding high level monsters in your way. But once you add up the cost, it requires 7 skill points, which is a lot for Mages that go down either Fire or Water (there are more skills for Water and Fire than there are for Wind and Earth). If you choose to put any of these three or even all of them onto every build, they will lose out on their potential. This is why one of your skill sets will take on that burden for you, so that you can maximize whatever is on the other three sets.

Spell Tactics For the Average Mage

The Art of Mana Management

One of the difficulties facing Mages is understanding what spells contribute to restoring their mana and how to use them. Without knowing this, a Mage might think that Harvest Mana is the only way to get back their mana. Once they get into a fight and burn through all of their mana (with Harvest Mana and mana pots on cooldown), they are nothing more than sitting ducks. By reducing the use of common spells that waste your mana and knowing the proper spells to get your mana back, a Mage can become more efficient in battle, and in most cases, never run out of mana to spend.

Arcane

• Mana Shield: A Mage should never have their shield up, unless their health is low, or about to be hit with a stun or silence effect. In battles with a group, a Mage can use this spell if they know their healer won't be able to reach them in time, but they should not take the damage with their mana knowing that a healer will be able to restore them back to full health. If a Mage has their shield up after being healed, it is recommended to take off the shield immediately.

• Harvest Mana: There are two ways to use Harvest Mana, either by saving it or using it early. Either way, you need to correct yourself on the way you spend or save your mana.
  • Saving: If you're the type of person that likes to save their mana so that later in the fight once your mana runs low, then use Harvest Mana, you might be lowering your dps by doing so. But, this ensures that you'll never run out of mana during the fight and accidentally become a sitting duck. Instead, try to spend some more of your mana into using AoE spells so that it doesn't end up sitting there, being unused.
  • Use early: If you're the type of person that likes to use all of their mana up at the beginning, then use Harvest Mana, you can deal a tremendous amount of dps, but you risk losing mana too much to the point that you become a sitting duck during the fight, unable to do anything until your mana slowly recovers. After using your Harvest Mana, try to ease up on the use of AoE spells, or else that peak damage immediately drops into a valley. In other words, high mana consumption and high damage leads to low damage and low mana.

Fire

• Embers & Ignite: The only way for Fire Mages to restore their mana is through these two spells. Use Embers on the target, then Ignite them (some of the damage you've dealt is returned as mana). What some mages forget is to constantly use Ignite while the target has Embers (you can get at the very most two to three Ignites within 18 seconds of one Embers). Another scenario that might play out is accidentally using Ignite on a target that does not have your Embers on it (thus the attack fails and starts Ignite's cooldown).
  • The Charm of Eternal Flame allows you to never have to cast Embers unless facing a new target, or the boss becomes invulnerable as part of their attacks.

Water

• Mana Crystal, Mist of Ice & others: One of the most complicated elements to understand, the center of the mana restoration process is Mana Crystal. What fuels it is by using other Water spells. Not having the mana crystal up means that you're losing mana that you could've gotten back. So how does it work? We can break down this process into a simple list.
  • 1. Summoning your mana crystal. When you use the spell, it takes 25% of your maximum mana and puts it into a tiny crystal. This is not the maximum mana it can hold. The real maximum storage for this crystal is 33% of your maximum mana.
  • 2. When using an Ice spell to deal damage to an enemy, a tiny portion of the damage you do gets added as mana into your crystal. Think of having a second bar of Fury that fills up as you keep attacking. Same idea.
  • 3. Using a spell that speeds up the process. When you stand in Mist of Ice, the mana recovered by your mana crystal is increased. What does that mean? Remember the tiny portion that constantly gets added into your crystal while you keep attacking? If this was going on at a rate of 50 mana on every Icicle you've used on your opponent, having that increase of 115% means you now keep collecting 107.5 mana into your mana crystal's storage.
  • 4. Using the mana crystal to get your mana back. Either click on that mana crystal icon (with a bar on it as well) or use the skill key that has it to take mana out of the crystal. But here's the catch, when you take mana out of the crystal, you can only take 25% of your maximum mana's worth from it's storage. That means if you have more than 25% stored up in there, the crystal stays alive (so you can keep collecting mana). As long as there's a single point of mana in there, the crystal will live.
  • 5. The cycle repeats back at step 2, since you're trying to fill up the mana crystal again using your Ice spells.

Wind

• Thunderbolt, Overcharge & Lightning Rod: How Wind Mages restore their mana is similar to that of a Light Priest, through stacks. Spamming Thunderbolt causes a debuff called Lightning Charge (from Overcharge) to occur on the opponent each time it hits, and once this debuff reaches 5 stacks (or simply Lightning Charge x5), then use a spell (Lightning Rod) that will remove those stacks and convert it into mana.
  • The Charm of Raging Lightning allows Lightning Bolt to inflict the debuff Lightning Charge on several opponents.

Earth

• Rune of Wisdom, Rune of Power: Earth Mages are a bit more limited in terms of their mana recovery. They have four different rune skills, each of them with an active effect (stuff that occurs on the field) and a breaking effect (when you're switching runes). By using another rune skill, you're breaking the previous rune, giving you it's secondary effect. You get 10% of your maximum mana back when breaking the Rune of Power (which is a bit less due to the rune's mana cost). Rune of Wisdom, on the other hand constantly gives you a bit of mana every 5 seconds as long as you're within range. Cycling between these two runes should give you some of your mana back.

Moving Patterns and Proper Skill Positioning

Once you learn to manage your supply of mana, you also have to learn how to manage basic moving patterns and skills during a dungeon, boss, etc. For first time players, not everyone knows what the terms stacking or kiting even mean, or even how to properly use Skip when the situation calls for it. The two essential moving patterns are kiting and stacking, while further explaining how Skip can be used.

Kiting means to grab the monster's attention, but stay away from them. You can use any sort of skill to grab their attention, even auto-attacking them at close range. Stacking means to walk onto the position of that player so that your character overlaps with them, and is usually associated with a target (e.g. stack on the boss or stack on Player Y).

Most players do not realize the potential of Skip, as it is often used in the same direction you're running in if you want to stay away from the enemy that is catching up to you. But say if Monster A is chasing you to the left, you can also use Skip in the opposite direction to go behind them, slowing them down as they now have to turn (without getting hit). Knowing this, you can also use Skip to avoid certain attacks, such as when the monster tries jumping onto you, or a deadly attack is coming close to you.

Certain AOE spells, such as Fire Wall look really weak because they have such a short range, that is why first time players often avoid it. The point of Fire Wall is to lure enemies into it, not the other way around. You do this by standing next to the wall if the monster is targeting you, or if someone else is being targeted, they can run into your wall. Luring is an important strategy for many AOE spells that often miss contact with the enemy.

Finally, you have AOEs themselves. A common mistake is to not use them at all during boss fights. You want to use AOEs such as Fire Wall as much as possible on stationary bosses, as it will give you more damage. But also be mindful of your mana, as wasting too much of it will make you a sitting duck.

Spell Interrupts, Flash Freeze and Dispel

A Warrior has Smite to fend off against enemy spells/attacks. A Priest has Nightfall to put an enemy to sleep. Mages can do both of these tasks, but another common mistake is when first time players don't realize this responsibility and think all a Mage has to do is to deal damage.

Disrupt Magic (at least skill level 1) is one of the most powerful spells in the Mage arsenal, cancelling some of the bosses spells that would otherwise obliterate your group if you time it right. In later boss fights, you will need to cancel more than just one AOE spell in shorter periods of time, something that the tank cannot entirely cover every 15 seconds. For more advice on interrupting, see Interrupting the Monster's Spells.

Flash Freeze is a difficult but worthwhile investment as a Mage, costing 4 skill points in total (Icicle lvl 1, Arctic Winds lvl 1, Flash Freeze lvl 2 (MAX)). It allows you to freeze a monster for up to 40 seconds similar to Nightfall, except that it is immune to an enemy's Cure Poison. In later dungeons, taking out just one enemy can make a huge difference in the fight, especially if the healer can use Nightfall to take another enemy out as well.

Dispel Magic is more of an optional spell and applies to only specific situations against later dungeons and monsters. By robbing the enemy of a single buff or an ally's debuff, it can stop the monster from executing a deadly combo of skills. However, it costs a lot of mana to use the spell, making it only useful part of the time.

PvP Combat

• When facing another Mage:
  • Mages require mana to cast spells, so it is vital to find ways to drain your opponent's mana or burn fury while conserving yours at the same time. Mages often use Mana Shield to conserve health and avoid damage, however, it drains mana. So attack! This burns their mana quickly and leaves them vulnerable to damage.
• Avoid damage from other mages with the skill disrupt magic. Time your disrupts carefully- they drain excessive amounts of mana at once, and the casting time is very short, so if you miss, you'll have to wait another loooong 15 seconds for the cooldown.

• When facing Warriors:
  • Warriors are slow at chasing running targets, and they are helpless if unable to target spellcasters they cannot see/reach. If you have the skills skip or invisibility, use them tactically to your advantage. Position yourself on a platform that may be difficult for a Warrior to reach.
  • If a warrior reaches you, they can smite your casts and leave you silenced. Keep warriors at a distance with the knockback from Thunderbolt or Fire Wall. If they can't get to you, they can't melee or use any of their skills. Be wary- warriors usually counter this with Charge.
  • If they can't move, you can't be hit. Flash Freeze will immobilize your opponent for a maximum of eight seconds. Stay on your toes- a Schwartzwald Trinket will allow the victim to dispel the freeze.

• While warriors have devastating physical strength, knowing if you're facing a tank or a DPS warrior will be to your advantage. Usually, you can judge this based on their armor and skills.
  • If facing a DPS warrior, keep distance between you and use knock-back skills and freeze to keep them from landing hits on you. They need to be able to land solid hits to gain fury, so if they can't touch you, they can't deal very much damage.
  • If facing a Tank, avoid casting spells that will generate fury and try to stall until your team can assist you. Tanks gain extra fury from being attacked and will be able to deal damage if you hit them.

• When facing Priests
  • Damage priests often have a wide range of skills that prevent them from having elemental weaknesses. It's quickest to simply deal as much damage as possible to prevent them from denting your team's health. Silence them with Disrupt Magic or Freeze them until they can be disposed of by a warrior.
  • Healing priests are extremely important to the other team- halt their healing with a flash freeze or disrupt magic. As healing priests usually have all their skills in one element, disrupt magic is very effective. A team without healing can quickly be dispatched.

• When facing Hunters
  • Pure Hunters pose much of a threat when they are further away. They will likely be standing further away on a platform above or below you. Although they have superior horizontal range, you can easily use Skip to catch up to them. They are at their weakest when you are close to them.
    • If you are not dealing with a warrior or a priest at the moment, you can use Flash Freeze to gain on them as they try to flee from you.
  • Pet Hunters are less of a threat (given that they don't have enough points in Sniping), but watch out for the pet. Go after the hunter and avoid carelessly firing onto the pet (the hunter can easily revive it back!). If you have no choice but to deal with the pet, do not use AoE spells (they deal less damage).
  • Hunters are unlikely to use traps in PvP. Although traps can be useful, they only work best when an ally is assisting you, and you know exactly where and how many enemy players will come. Watch out for Root Trap, as it might catch you by surprise (use Skip to get out of it).

Remember to manipulate elements to your advantage! Enchanted wind, water, earth, and fire potions can reduce the damage received from other mages' elemental spells and attacks warriors with elemental gloves or enchantments. The less damage they deal to you, the longer you survive to wreak havoc upon the other team!