Isador
Monday, 2nd May 2005, 02:24
Hello all.
This post will have more info added as I gather info I don't have right now. And I would like to apologize for any misspelling.
This is a small guide that will tell you how to play a mage, well in my opinion anyway :)
I'll be telling about spells I think is absolutly nessecary, surgestions on talent build, how to solo play, how to party/raid play and, if I can remember, someting about the Mage quests.
To start of with, spells/talents I think is needed (other than the obvious).
Evoation - Talent. Gives you a 1500% mana regen rate for 8 sec's, this is a channaling spell so make sure no mobs are attacking you, and it's best saved for a combat situation.
Clearcasting - Talent. Gives you a percentage chance of your next combat spell will have a mana cost of 0.
Improved Counterspell - Talent. Sielences your target, only use when target is caster spell, otherwice it wont work. Counterspell is a great way to pull casters into melee combat and for some reason, after the effect wares of, the taget forgest he's a caster and keeps poking you.
Combustion - Talent. The last fire talent you get, it gives you a 100% chance of your next firespell critting, this combined with a Pyroblast or Flame Wave is awesome. :D
Pyroblast - Spell. You need to start this spell of with a talent in the fire tree, the rest (ranks) are trained at your mage trainer. This is a great spell to start of combat, long cast time and loads of damage.
Flame wave - Spell. Starts of a a talent in the fire tree, the rest are trained at the mage trainer. This spell is great for when you need a big range and much damage, I don't know the range but it's bigger than the Arcane Explotion.
The 3 different talent trees are Fire, Arcane and Frost.
The Arcane talent tree (spells) is basically a supplement to the two other trees. It's importaint to get points in Arcane as there are no mobs who are resistaint or immune to Arcane, but the spells are more expensive (mana wise). Furthermore Arcane ads to the total manapool, mana regeneration and other very usefull stuff, for both a Fire and Frost mage.
The Fire tree (spells) are focused on dealing as much damage as posible, most of the talents go to reducing cast time and increasing damage. Other than that, it's very straight forward.
The Frost tree (spells) focueses on slowing down/stopping your enemy (movement and attack speed) thereby getting a chance to get in more damage from you and your teammats.
My talent build and why.
Arcane Tree
5/5 Arcane Missiles - Gives you a 100% cance of NOT getting interrupeted while channeling the spell. This is great since the spell is expensive and does a lot of damage, total.
Arcane Concentration 5/5 - Gives you a 10% chance of getting clearcasting, witch means that your next offensive spell has a 0 mana cost, if you cast it within 13 secs (I think, it might be 14 or 15 secs, thers a timer that tells you how long you have).
Improved Arcane Explotion 5/5 - Reduceses the casting time of the spell, getting it down to an instant cast. There ALMOST no difference in cast time from 4/5 to 5/5 but when your in the middel of loads of mobs all hitting you it interrupts your cast time (slowing you down) so it's importaint to get the last point.
Evocation 1/1 - This gives your the abillity to have a 1500% mana regen over 8 secs. With a 10 min cooldown. (I know I repeat my self here)
Improved Mana Shield 2/2 - Encreases the damage your mana shield can take and reducing the damage vs. mana ratio.
Improved Counterspell 2/2 - The targeted caster (mana user) is silenced for 4 secs, this pulls loads of aggro from the caster to you and courses the target to engage in melee combat.
Fire Tree
Improved Fireball 5/5 - reducing your Fireball cast time, when full point reduced bu 0,5 secs :D
Ignite 5/5 - When fire spell crits, the target recives aditional 40% of the initial damage over 4 secs. (this is why combustion is great)
Improved Fire Blast 5/5 - Reducing cooldown time, when all points you can shift between Fireball and Fire Blast with almost no wastet time.
Flame Throwing 1/2 - Encreases the range of your fire spells. The only reason I have this one is to get the 30 points needed to get the Combustion talent. I might change this one to Burning Soul.
Pyroblast 1/1 - This one speaks for it self :D
Improved Flamestrike 3/3 - 3 points are neede here to gain access to the Blast Wave talent, so this is the only reason I have this one
Improved Fire Ward 1/2 - This reflects the fire damage you recive to your attacker (If you active the spell), this might get moved to Burning Soul.
Critical Mass 3/3 - 3 points required to get Fire Power, witch leads to Combustion, and it increases your crit chance
Blast Wave 1/1 - Get the spell trained when you can, this is a great AoE spell.
Fire Power - 5/5 Increases your fire damage with all your spells by 10%
Combustion 1/1 - Gives a 100% chance of next fire spell critting.
Solo and Group playing
When solo playing, at any level, you need the initiative when going into battle, if a mob get the drop on you (Attacks you of your guard) it decreases your chance of comming out alive, especially if you don't have blink (below lvl 20).
What I usually do is; start of at max range with a Pyroblast ((Combined with Combustion)ong cast time and much damage), then a Fireball (med. cast time and med. damage), a Fireblast (instaint cast and little damage), a Frost Nova (at this time the mob will prob. be close enough to hit you (H2H combat) so this spell let's you get some distance). Then another Fireball and a Fireblast. At this time the mob will most lickly be free og the Frost nova and very low on health, so a final Fireball should finish him off.
This ofcourse only works if I have the initiative when starting battle.
If a monstere attackes you of your guard, you can try starting of with a Frost Nova and then a Pyroblast from there, depending of terrain, how far to nearest freindly players/guards and other monsters, you'll have to improvise your attack. If things get too "uncomfetable" get a Frost Nova of and Blink to get some distance, a Mana Shield would proberly be helpfull too.
Daymare has a very good point, if you get jumped by a mob (humanoid or beast) it's a good idear to sheep the mob to get distance or to run away. Just keep in mind, that unlike the priest spell shackle (for undead) the sheep spell heals the mob very fast so try not to sheep a mob who's take damage, unless you wanna run away :p
When Partying/raiding. There usually is a tank to take care of the aggro, but beeing a mage/nuker, you'll pull aggro of the tank if your not carefull, especially if you start of with a crit hit. And the tank will have a hard time getting aggro back of you. So it's a good idear to wait abit before you start to "Hiroshima" a mob, this way the tank will have "Good aggro" and you most likely not pull aggro to yourself.
When fighting more than one mob, you should figure out witch mob the tank is attacking and focus your attack on the same mob. Don't worry about the tank, not beeing able to take the damage, that's what the healer is there fore, but if you attack another target then the tank you'll be "tanking" your self and beeing a cloth where with few hitpoint's the healer will have lots more to do, so unless you have a good healer along you can course a wipe this way. A good tool in raids to help assisting the tank is the mod "CT raid assist" witch you can find at http://www.ctmod.net/downloads.ct
In between combat, make sure you drink your mana water (and eat your food for health) so that you have a full manabar (healthbar) when you and your group start the next fight, most times a group will wait for Mages/healers to get full mana, but there's no guarantee, especially if your in a random group.
What spell to use?
When In a instance it's important to conserve your mana by casting the most effecient spells (damage vs mana cost / "The most bang for your buck"). Ie. if a monster is almost dead and you know if you cast another fireball that does 600-700 damage, and the monster only has 400 hp left your gonna wast your mana, so let the tank(s) take care of the rest, so you can focus your spells on your next victim. If you gain Clearcasting while, then cast the spell the does the MOST damge no matter the mana cost, at high lvl's Blizzard will be the most devasteting spell, but that's a AOE (Area of Effect) spell, so using that spell will most likely get you some aggro, therefore a Arcane Missile spell would be your best bet.
At some point you'll have to fight mobs who are resistaing or even immune to your spell's (don't worry, a firegut don't heal it self if you, for some reason, try to damage it with a fire spell, but it wont hurt it).
Area of Effect(AoE)
Be carefull while using your AoE spell, mainly because you pull a lot of aggro but if theres sheeped or shackled mobs around you undo the relese the mobs. A good idear is basicly NOT to use AoE spells when soloing (unless when fighting mobs a few lvl's lower then your self) unless you have a good healer along.
When in a party/raid, it's a good idear to make sure the party knows (especially the healer) that your going AoE crazy otherwise you'll likely end up dead. When you have all 5 points in Improved Arcane Explotion, this will be your foremost AoE spell, allthough start out with a Blast Wave or a Blizzard.
Thats about all I can think of, but if something else pops up in my memory I'll type it in. If you have any questions fell free to post the (so others can benefit) and I'll answer to the best of my ability.
This post will have more info added as I gather info I don't have right now. And I would like to apologize for any misspelling.
This is a small guide that will tell you how to play a mage, well in my opinion anyway :)
I'll be telling about spells I think is absolutly nessecary, surgestions on talent build, how to solo play, how to party/raid play and, if I can remember, someting about the Mage quests.
To start of with, spells/talents I think is needed (other than the obvious).
Evoation - Talent. Gives you a 1500% mana regen rate for 8 sec's, this is a channaling spell so make sure no mobs are attacking you, and it's best saved for a combat situation.
Clearcasting - Talent. Gives you a percentage chance of your next combat spell will have a mana cost of 0.
Improved Counterspell - Talent. Sielences your target, only use when target is caster spell, otherwice it wont work. Counterspell is a great way to pull casters into melee combat and for some reason, after the effect wares of, the taget forgest he's a caster and keeps poking you.
Combustion - Talent. The last fire talent you get, it gives you a 100% chance of your next firespell critting, this combined with a Pyroblast or Flame Wave is awesome. :D
Pyroblast - Spell. You need to start this spell of with a talent in the fire tree, the rest (ranks) are trained at your mage trainer. This is a great spell to start of combat, long cast time and loads of damage.
Flame wave - Spell. Starts of a a talent in the fire tree, the rest are trained at the mage trainer. This spell is great for when you need a big range and much damage, I don't know the range but it's bigger than the Arcane Explotion.
The 3 different talent trees are Fire, Arcane and Frost.
The Arcane talent tree (spells) is basically a supplement to the two other trees. It's importaint to get points in Arcane as there are no mobs who are resistaint or immune to Arcane, but the spells are more expensive (mana wise). Furthermore Arcane ads to the total manapool, mana regeneration and other very usefull stuff, for both a Fire and Frost mage.
The Fire tree (spells) are focused on dealing as much damage as posible, most of the talents go to reducing cast time and increasing damage. Other than that, it's very straight forward.
The Frost tree (spells) focueses on slowing down/stopping your enemy (movement and attack speed) thereby getting a chance to get in more damage from you and your teammats.
My talent build and why.
Arcane Tree
5/5 Arcane Missiles - Gives you a 100% cance of NOT getting interrupeted while channeling the spell. This is great since the spell is expensive and does a lot of damage, total.
Arcane Concentration 5/5 - Gives you a 10% chance of getting clearcasting, witch means that your next offensive spell has a 0 mana cost, if you cast it within 13 secs (I think, it might be 14 or 15 secs, thers a timer that tells you how long you have).
Improved Arcane Explotion 5/5 - Reduceses the casting time of the spell, getting it down to an instant cast. There ALMOST no difference in cast time from 4/5 to 5/5 but when your in the middel of loads of mobs all hitting you it interrupts your cast time (slowing you down) so it's importaint to get the last point.
Evocation 1/1 - This gives your the abillity to have a 1500% mana regen over 8 secs. With a 10 min cooldown. (I know I repeat my self here)
Improved Mana Shield 2/2 - Encreases the damage your mana shield can take and reducing the damage vs. mana ratio.
Improved Counterspell 2/2 - The targeted caster (mana user) is silenced for 4 secs, this pulls loads of aggro from the caster to you and courses the target to engage in melee combat.
Fire Tree
Improved Fireball 5/5 - reducing your Fireball cast time, when full point reduced bu 0,5 secs :D
Ignite 5/5 - When fire spell crits, the target recives aditional 40% of the initial damage over 4 secs. (this is why combustion is great)
Improved Fire Blast 5/5 - Reducing cooldown time, when all points you can shift between Fireball and Fire Blast with almost no wastet time.
Flame Throwing 1/2 - Encreases the range of your fire spells. The only reason I have this one is to get the 30 points needed to get the Combustion talent. I might change this one to Burning Soul.
Pyroblast 1/1 - This one speaks for it self :D
Improved Flamestrike 3/3 - 3 points are neede here to gain access to the Blast Wave talent, so this is the only reason I have this one
Improved Fire Ward 1/2 - This reflects the fire damage you recive to your attacker (If you active the spell), this might get moved to Burning Soul.
Critical Mass 3/3 - 3 points required to get Fire Power, witch leads to Combustion, and it increases your crit chance
Blast Wave 1/1 - Get the spell trained when you can, this is a great AoE spell.
Fire Power - 5/5 Increases your fire damage with all your spells by 10%
Combustion 1/1 - Gives a 100% chance of next fire spell critting.
Solo and Group playing
When solo playing, at any level, you need the initiative when going into battle, if a mob get the drop on you (Attacks you of your guard) it decreases your chance of comming out alive, especially if you don't have blink (below lvl 20).
What I usually do is; start of at max range with a Pyroblast ((Combined with Combustion)ong cast time and much damage), then a Fireball (med. cast time and med. damage), a Fireblast (instaint cast and little damage), a Frost Nova (at this time the mob will prob. be close enough to hit you (H2H combat) so this spell let's you get some distance). Then another Fireball and a Fireblast. At this time the mob will most lickly be free og the Frost nova and very low on health, so a final Fireball should finish him off.
This ofcourse only works if I have the initiative when starting battle.
If a monstere attackes you of your guard, you can try starting of with a Frost Nova and then a Pyroblast from there, depending of terrain, how far to nearest freindly players/guards and other monsters, you'll have to improvise your attack. If things get too "uncomfetable" get a Frost Nova of and Blink to get some distance, a Mana Shield would proberly be helpfull too.
Daymare has a very good point, if you get jumped by a mob (humanoid or beast) it's a good idear to sheep the mob to get distance or to run away. Just keep in mind, that unlike the priest spell shackle (for undead) the sheep spell heals the mob very fast so try not to sheep a mob who's take damage, unless you wanna run away :p
When Partying/raiding. There usually is a tank to take care of the aggro, but beeing a mage/nuker, you'll pull aggro of the tank if your not carefull, especially if you start of with a crit hit. And the tank will have a hard time getting aggro back of you. So it's a good idear to wait abit before you start to "Hiroshima" a mob, this way the tank will have "Good aggro" and you most likely not pull aggro to yourself.
When fighting more than one mob, you should figure out witch mob the tank is attacking and focus your attack on the same mob. Don't worry about the tank, not beeing able to take the damage, that's what the healer is there fore, but if you attack another target then the tank you'll be "tanking" your self and beeing a cloth where with few hitpoint's the healer will have lots more to do, so unless you have a good healer along you can course a wipe this way. A good tool in raids to help assisting the tank is the mod "CT raid assist" witch you can find at http://www.ctmod.net/downloads.ct
In between combat, make sure you drink your mana water (and eat your food for health) so that you have a full manabar (healthbar) when you and your group start the next fight, most times a group will wait for Mages/healers to get full mana, but there's no guarantee, especially if your in a random group.
What spell to use?
When In a instance it's important to conserve your mana by casting the most effecient spells (damage vs mana cost / "The most bang for your buck"). Ie. if a monster is almost dead and you know if you cast another fireball that does 600-700 damage, and the monster only has 400 hp left your gonna wast your mana, so let the tank(s) take care of the rest, so you can focus your spells on your next victim. If you gain Clearcasting while, then cast the spell the does the MOST damge no matter the mana cost, at high lvl's Blizzard will be the most devasteting spell, but that's a AOE (Area of Effect) spell, so using that spell will most likely get you some aggro, therefore a Arcane Missile spell would be your best bet.
At some point you'll have to fight mobs who are resistaing or even immune to your spell's (don't worry, a firegut don't heal it self if you, for some reason, try to damage it with a fire spell, but it wont hurt it).
Area of Effect(AoE)
Be carefull while using your AoE spell, mainly because you pull a lot of aggro but if theres sheeped or shackled mobs around you undo the relese the mobs. A good idear is basicly NOT to use AoE spells when soloing (unless when fighting mobs a few lvl's lower then your self) unless you have a good healer along.
When in a party/raid, it's a good idear to make sure the party knows (especially the healer) that your going AoE crazy otherwise you'll likely end up dead. When you have all 5 points in Improved Arcane Explotion, this will be your foremost AoE spell, allthough start out with a Blast Wave or a Blizzard.
Thats about all I can think of, but if something else pops up in my memory I'll type it in. If you have any questions fell free to post the (so others can benefit) and I'll answer to the best of my ability.