Mage

Having practised the arts of dark magic for ages, mages are masters of the elements. They summon fire out of thin air, scorching enemies in their path, freeze them with ice spells, and scatter them with the element of wind. A skilled mage has many tricks up their sleeve, making them cunning and deadly opponents.

Like priests, mages draw their power from mana, a pool of magic energy that regenerates over time, which allows you to protect yourself from damage, while using strong elemental spells against on your foes.

Elements

Mages are able to use different elements, which are: Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth; with the ability to use four different elements, they are able to take advantage of their targets' elemental characteristic, but are susceptible to elemental disadvantages (in other words, use Water against Fire, but using Water against Water is bad). From the Elemental Property Table, you can see what effects an element has on another element (Attacking Element v.s. Defending Element). Refer to the Elemental Property Table if needed.

Example: Fruit Bug is Earth 1. A Mage attacks the Fruit Bug with Fire Bolt. In this situation, the Fruit Bug is receiving the fiery attack, which makes the Fruit Bug's element (Earth 1) the Defending Element. The Fire Bolt is the one attacking the bug, making it the Attacking Element. When referring to the defending element, there is always a number associated with it, multiplying how effective or weaker the attacking element becomes. Because the bug is earth, and earth is weak to fire, the Fire Bolt will deal 25% (25% x 1) more damage than usual to the bug.

General Gameplay

A Mage gets Mana Shield (Lv. 2) because it is their defense, and Arcane Focus (Lv. 1) to boost the Mana Shield's efficiency. Also, a Mage gets Harvest Mana to gain 60% of their maximum mana, which is useful if low on mana. Disrupt Magic does what it says, disrupts a spell that is being casted; this skill is used to stop spells from the same school (elemental set) from casting for a short a period of time. This is used to stop devastating spells casted by bosses (not needed at low levels). Skip is used to save walk time and trick your target (you can Skip to their back); that's where the cunning part of Mage is. Invisibility is useful for traveling in treacherous places and go undetected in boss battles (which resets the boss). Teleport allows you to go to the last village you've been to, while Bind Earth upgrades Teleport so you can choose to save up to three spots where you want to teleport later on. Arcane Focus can improve the Mana Shield's ability to absorb damage using mana, and cast a nasty AoE at the start of battle for free against monsters.

Other skills acting in utility such as Bind Elemental come in handy to possess monsters which are of the Elemental or Formless race, while Dispel Magic can prevent a monster or boss from placing a nasty debuff on you or one of your group members. Steal Magic works well in PvP by being able to steal magic buffs from a target, such as a opposing Priest's Revitalise. Arcane Might can help increase a Mage's magic, allowing them to deal more overall damage from their skills, improve magic for the rest of their group members and amp up the potential from pets.

Each elemental set (Fire, Water, Wind, Earth) has their own play style, but all of them are given a way to recover mana in battle; however, some elemental sets are able to gain mana easier or provide additional bonuses, such as higher DPS.

More information about strategies and tips in PvP for a Mage can be found here.

Avoiding Builds With More than One Element

It is not recommended for a Mage to spread their skill points across different elemental sets; for instance, three points in the Fire set, four points in the Water set and five points in the Wind set. Doing this will decrease the amount of damage a Mage can do because a Mage usually uses only one elemental set in battle. Because of this situation, a Mage usually has one elemental set, either Fire, Water, Wind, or Earth; therefore, they will need to reset their skills when their current elemental set isn't doing well. There is a way to stop yourself from going back to town and resetting your skill points, which is annoying and time consuming. In Midnight Mountain, you will be able to find Rhizel, who find allow you to remember up to four skill sets (you can only switch skill sets outside of combat).

In the future, you may eventually gain enough skill points that will allow you to cover two elements at once - but for now you should stick to one. However, it is still possible to pursue one or two skills within different elemental sets, given that it does not hinder the element that you are focusing on. For example, a Fire set lacks the ability to deal with crowd-control, something that a Water set would have. Investing four points into the Water set to obtain Flash Freeze, but dedicating most of your skills to Fire and essential Arcane skills is an effective strategy. This would allow you to continue using a Fire set but still have the crowd-control capability from a Water set.

Arcane

It is not an element. It is the collection of fundamental spells for a Mage that come in a wide degree of helpful effects, ranging from mobility, spell interruption, as well as mana restoration & preservation. Other effects include invisibility, stealing or removing negative magic effects from enemies placed on allies, controlling spirits and enhancing magic. It is important for all Mages to at least include some of these spells in addition to the element that they are focusing on for their overall survival and damage growth.

Survival Spells

• Mana Shield
  • A basic spell that boosts your odds of survival by using your own mana to receive the damage in place of your health. Useful for keeping yourself alive while at low health until a priest can heal you. However, use it too much and your mana reserves will be depleted, causing you to become a defenseless sitting duck being unable to use your spells.

• Harvest Mana
  • An important spell that allows you to recover your mana by up to 60%, especially when your mana reserves are low due to casting expensive spells. Has a lengthy cooldown in place each time you use it, but will often save yourself in times of emergency. When facing critical amounts of damage, using Harvest Mana while having a Mana Shield up can buy yourself more time before you are knocked out.

• Disrupt Magic
  • A necessary tactical spell that can save you and your allies from certain doom or heavy strains of damage. It prevents a magic spell from being cast by a monster, and barring similar skills from being used for a couple of seconds. Learning to time a disrupt against the right spells that a monster casts will allow your priest to conserve his/her mana, allowing the group to survive much longer.

• Arcane Focus
  • A skill that allows Mages to start off with their most expensive spells at the beginning of the battle. The cost of your next spell is reduced to 0, saving valuable mana that could be used to cast that expensive spell once again, or a cheaper spell several times. In addition, the passive that it provides allows Mana Shield to be 10% more effective, and reduce any casting time they might have lost from sustaining damage while casting a spell.

Movement Spells

• Skip
  • A spell that propels you several meters forward, serving as a mobility skill that'll help you get to places faster. Aside from it's ability to help you to get around, it does have purpose in boss fights. Not for the faint of heart but with well executed timing, it can help you avoid become cornered by monsters and help avoid some AoE spells. It can also get you out of roots, and webbing too.

• Teleport
  • A spell that allows you to revisit the last village that you've been to, great for making quick trips back to town for village repairs, or selling junk items. When points are put into Bind Earth, you can choose up to three areas where you would like to return back to, given that you have been there to save it as a location.

• Bind Earth
  • A spell with a very long casting time that allows you to save up to three locations depending on it's current skill level. For example, at skill level 1, you begin with only one location that you can save from. When Teleport is used, it will return you to the exact spot in that map where you saved at permanently unless you override it with a new location. Though it does take a toll on your skill points, and at best you should only have both Teleport and Bind Earth on one skill set.

Support Spells

• Invisibility
  • Truly one of a kind, it is a spell that allows you to become invisible to other players and monsters for a brief period of time. During this state, monsters that are not extrasensory will remove all hate currently against you and will not engage you as you pass by. Useful for avoiding confrontation with powerful monsters which can easily knock you out.

• Arcane Might
  • One of the Mage's only buffing spells that increases the Magic of nearby targets as well as yourself depending on your current level. At skill level 2, the spell will increase your Magic by twice of your current level, empowering other Mages and Priests. It can be even used for pets, allowing them to heal for slightly more than what you have seen.

• Bind Elemental
  • A spell that works similar to the Priest's Possess skill. Instead of demons, undead and brute races, this spell can allow you to control Elemental and Formless monsters. All other rules apply, such as not being able to take control of monsters couple levels higher than you, as well as their slowdowns in casting and movement speeds.

• Dispel Magic
  • An important spell that is only used for special circumstances. It removes a magic debuff from an ally, such as Embers or Flash Freeze. The reverse is also true, allowing you to remove magic buffs from monsters or hostile players, such as Blessing of Speed.

• Steal Magic
  • A special spell which is similar to Dispel Magic, allowing you to take a magic buff from a monster or hostile player for yourself. However, taking it requires a lot of mana, much more than what the average AoE can conjure.

Misc. Spells

• Grace of Elements
  • A passive spell located in the Fire section for a Mage. Although not a fire spell itself, it reduces the chances of you being targeted within a group by monsters by up to 30%, making your allies a more likely candidate for them to pick on.

Fire

Mages that focus on the fiery aspects of their skills to send their foes into oblivion. Such destruction is nimble, and the element of Fire understands the need to bombard their enemies with it, recovering some of their mana in the process. Fast heavy hitting attacks and prolonged burning combos make up the bulk of their skills:

Primary Spells

• Fire Bolt
  • Fire Bolt is a primary fire spell that hits a single enemy multiple times at higher levels. It is a ranged magic attack that is useful against earth and wind monsters. Serves as the main staple of damage for all fire spells used with it.

• Embers
  • Embers is a fire spell that deals damage over time. The embers are required to use Ignite, serving as an important mana recovery skill while at the same time dealing damage. Infernal Heat allows Embers to have a chance of casting Pyromaniac on yourself, increasing casting speed.

• Ignite
  • Ignite is a fire spell that serves as a follow-up skill to Embers. While requiring embers on a target, it inflicts good damage and restores 55% of the damage you dealt as mana.

AoE Spells

• Fire Wall
  • Fire Wall is a fire spell capable of dealing lots of damage within 10 seconds to targets that come in contact with the fire wall itself. It gains knockback properties when points are put into Infernal Heat.

• Fire Hail
  • Fire Hail is a fire spell that summons several hailing bolts in the targeted area, causing constant damage to all enemies within it's range. Powerful but expensive in mana consumption when used. It must be maintained by channeling the skill when in use.

Passive Spells

• Infernal Heat
  • It is a passive spell that improves the overall damage of your fire spells by up to 10%. It determines the increase in casting speed that Pyromaniac gives through the Embers skill, as well as allowing your Fire Wall to knock back enemies when coming too close into it.

Ice

Also known as Water to some, these Mages hone the element of Ice to devastate enemies and erode them in a never-ending cycle of frost. Because mana is the water around them and in the life force of their enemies, they gradually gather it through the remnants of their attacks and store it through the crystallization state. Concentrations of continuous damage over time, crowd control and critical strikes play a key role in their arsenal:

Primary Spells

• Icicle
  • Icicle is a primary water spell that hits an enemy with multiple icicles at higher levels. It is a ranged attack that is useful against fire and earth monsters. It is the main spell of choice for water mages.

• Mist of Ice
  • It is a skill that increases the rate of mana regeneration from your water attacks to your mana crystal as long as you are standing in it. When monsters stand in it, you have a higher chance of performing critical strikes against them. It inflicts no damage, unless points are put into Intense Cold, causing them to receive water damage over time equal to a percentage of your magic.

• Frigid Splash
  • Frigid Splash is a water spell whose damage is evenly split across the number of targets, in the form of damage over time. While it does not inflict a lot of damage, it increases your chances of a critical against them and makes them more susceptible to wind attacks. This can be used jointly with Mist of Ice, boosting your odds of landing a critical by a lot.

AoE Spells

• Ice Spikes
  • Ice Spikes is a water spell that inflicts deadly water damage over a short area. Useful for dispatching groups of enemies that are close together very quickly, without sacrificing too much mana to do so. Prone to miss against moving targets, unless it is well anticipated.

• Blizzard
  • Blizzard is a water spell that inflicts water damage across a large area over 10 seconds while channeling it. Useful for attacking groups of enemies that don't like to stay all in one spot and often split off. Consumes a lot of mana to use the skill.

Crowd-control Spells

• Flash Freeze
  • Flash Freeze is a spell that can freeze a single enemy, putting them out of commission for up to 40 seconds unless they break out prematurely from receiving further damage. Use against an important enemy player or monster within their group to break their ability to deal lots of damage, or recover a lot of health.

• Frost Nova
  • Frost Nova is a spell that freezes enemies across a radius around you, preventing them from performing any action against you for up to 20 seconds. Use against hordes of monsters that are targeting specifically you.

Support Spells

• Mana Crystal
  • It is a spell that stores 25% of your mana reserves in the form of a crystal, extending your supply of carrying mana. When your current mana is low, you can use this spell to retrieve the mana stored in the crystal. Using attacking water spells restore a small amount of mana back into the crystal, to a maximum of 33% mana.

• Mana Explosion
  • A spell that serves as the detonate button for your mana crystal. Inflicts water damage equivalent to the mana that was currently stored in the crystal to nearby targets around it.

• Path of Frost
  • Path of Frost is a water spell that reduces the movement speed of enemies by 40% and suffer 15% more damage from wind attacks across an icy area.

Passive Spells

• Arctic Winds
  • A passive spell that increases the damage of all water spells by up to 15%, as well as the odds of freezing enemies by 15% from using your water spells. It is an important prerequisite skill to unlocking all water spells that follow it.

• Intense Cold
  • A passive skill aimed at improving Mist of Ice in order to deal damage with it, adding a damage over time effect to the skill based on a percentage of your magic. Stacks up to four times, as long as the enemy continues to stand in it.

Wind

Those who carry the flow of electricity in their bodies, Mages who walk in the path of Wind are capable of manipulating air currents to electrocute those that wish to harm them. Electricity is just another form of wind, which moves the energy that drives it, thus channeling it into a form of conductible mana. High burst damage attacks and spell chaining make up the sheer volume of their spells:

Primary Spells

• Thunderbolt
  • Thunderbolt is your main wind spell. It inflicts damage to a single enemy, which becomes higher at later levels. It is a ranged magic attack that is useful against water and fire targets.

• Lightning Rod
  • An important wind spell that retrieves the stacks of Lightning Charges that were placed on your target with Thunderbolt, due to the effect of Overcharge. Restores a percentage of your mana based on the number of stacks that you removed from the target, to a max of five stacks.

AoE Spells

• Lightning Bolt
  • Lightning Bolt is a wind spell that inflicts three hits of wind damage to all targets over a large area. Damage is dependent to the center of the blast, targets closest to the center receiving the most damage out of it. Consumes a lot of mana on use.

• Wind Burst
  • Wind Burst is a wind spell built to knock back enemies and cause an effect, dealing some wind damage in the process. This effect can be chained with skills such as Lightning Bolt, then Thunderbolt to suffer more wind damage taken, as well as stun enemies.

• Overload
  • Overload is a wind spell that latches on electricity to a monster, causing it to damage itself and nearby monsters that are around it for up to 8 seconds, or when the monster carrying the charge dies. Requires one stack of Lightning Charge to carry out it's full effect, or else it becomes halved.

Passive Spells

• Overcharge
  • A passive skill that is a prerequisite for Lightning Rod. Every time Thunderbolt makes contact with a monster, it causes them to receive a stack of Lightning Charge. This can be built up to a max of five stacks in which every next attack inflicts 15% more wind damage, or be removed with Lightning Rod to restore your mana back.

Earth

Mages who find themselves the most attuned to the Earth beneath their feet, utilize the land in catastrophic disasters to batter their foes. Hidden in the vast stretch of land are runes; mystical instruments of ancient magic carved in stone that either strengthen allies or weaken enemies with it's mysterious powers, stimulating the mana around them. Supportive and hindering effects, as well as multi-hit attacks are found in the roots of all Earth spells:

Primary Spells

• Earth Spike
  • It is your main earth spell that inflicts earth damage several times to a single enemy. It is a ranged magic attack that is useful against wind and water monsters.

AoE Spells

• Spike Trap
  • Spike Trap is an earth spell that quickly inflicts several hits of weak spikes against groups of enemies within a large area. The movement speed of affected targets are cut in half for six seconds. Consumes a moderate amount of mana.

Support Spells

• Rune of Power
  • An earth spell that summons a rune of power, increasing the damage of earth spells by 10%, as well as wind and poison spells by 5%. When destroyed, you recover up to 10% of your maximum mana. Useful for increasing your damage dealt, as well as the damage of others when near it.

• Rune of Wisdom
  • An earth spell that summons a rune of wisdom, increasing the mana regeneration of all allies that are near it. Mages receive the most mana regeneration from it, while other classes receive only a minor portion of the effect. When destroyed, the damage of your earth spells is increased by 5% for several seconds. Useful for keeping your spells alive by supplying you with enough mana over large periods of time.

• Heavy Rune
  • An earth spell that summons a heavy rune, slowing down the movement and casting speeds of all monsters near it by 10%. When destroyed, the damage you take is reduced by 10% for several seconds. Useful for buying you and your group a little more time to use disrupt or smite against a deadly spell cast by a monster.

• Rune of Warding
  • An earth spell that summons a rune of warding, increasing the physical and magical armor of you and your allies when near it. When destroyed, your movement and casting speeds are increased by 10% for several seconds. Useful for slightly reducing the overall damage taken by you and your group.

Notes

• In dungeons, a mage is thought to have been built for a simple task; to deal lots of damage to enemies and knock them out. However, a mage has a lot more shoes to fill in, especially when the group relies on them for survival. Without the proper focus and dedication, a damage dealer lacks capability for the rest of their group, and can easily turn into a liability than an asset. Knowing when to use your skills, in the face of danger is key. These are some points elaborating on where you should watch out as a mage.
  • Your job is to make your healer's job within the group much easier. Skills such as Disrupt Magic are important to your group, allowing you to prevent a deadly spell, that your healer has to otherwise cover for the damage that you would have taken. Against certain bosses such as the Sanitizer Bot from Space Station, the skill Compatibility Check, otherwise known as Embers is randomly cast on one of your group members. Dispelling the group member that has the embers prevents Illegal Instruction, also known as Ignite, which can easily cause a one hit KO for them. It is not expected from any other element except water, but Flash Freeze (much like a Priest's Nightfall) can help stop the monsters that hit the hardest to your group, or a enemy healer which is keeping the group of monsters alive.
  • An AoE spell that cannot be disrupted or smited that you have to dodge by going to a certain spot, or stack on your group members to reduce the damage is another problem. If you are more focused on carrying out your dps than trying to respond to that attack, it will only get yourself knocked out. Most of the time, what group members are wiped out to was an AoE spell that was placed and/or marked underneath their character's feet, because they didn't pay attention to respond to it in time.
  • Knowing how to self regulate matters. If you pull a monster early in the hopes of getting rid of it easily while your group is unprepared for it, you're taking a huge risk for your group whether that it can be handled or not. If you don't look out for your skills that recover your mana, your dps will drop dramatically, putting you at risk for being a sitting duck during battle. Avoiding instructions to not use certain spells like Fire Wall against certain bosses or not defeating that specific monster yet can also cause your group to wipe early.