Author:Pandora
So, you rolled a wizard. Well, I'll tell you right now you're making a big, big mistake. While I love wizard more than any other class, I'm going to tell you right now that you're in for a wild ride. Your class is considered underpowered by many (and they're right!), it is difficult to get parties until around 80 and you are basically food for any archer who notices you no matter what build you're in.
There's only 4 reasons to roll a wizard.
1) You like to be different.
2) You're a masochist.
3) You like oneshotting people.
4) You're just that hardcore.
Figure out which you are, and make sure you are ready for this commitment before moving on. Mage is a lot of fun to play, and you're a powerhouse if you can make it to a high level, but getting there is hell. If you're going to be a casual player, please do yourself a favor and roll Archer or cleric.
The lowbie levels
Just when you thought the lowbie levels as an archer were rough, enter mage. Your damage is not much better than an archer and you get hit like nothing. Unlike archers, I really REALLY do not reccomend putting any con in at all. In fact, even if you're going light mage, don't start raising your str or dex for now. Just get enough str to wear robes your level and pump your int with every point you get. The faster you kill things, the faster you can get out of the hell that is pre-60 mage.
When you start running out of grind spots, try swimming around for a bit and killing water mobs. With sandstorm and stone rain, we kill water mobs very quickly and water gets the same 1.5x exp modifier that flying gets. For a long time as a low level flying mobs will be mostly wood, which we have no advantage over (no barrier OR critical element) but if you can slip into a vipents party full of archers and priests you'll get good EXP anyway.
Eventually you'll be able to kill Foxies/Foxwings and you will be able to rape these. They cast fire magic, so buy some robes from the AH that have only one or two elements and one of them fire (this way you have a ton of fire resist), throw on your fire barrier and rape 'em with water spells. We are the best class in the game for faming foxies, which are in turn (IMO) the best exp early game. If you want to duo foxies take a priest with you; his buffs will both cause you to kill faster and save your heirogram. Good places to go after foxes are in the air above hidden heroes and in the air behind city of misfortune.
At this point you should be thinking (THINKING, NOT STATTING) which mage you want. There's two kinds of real mages.
The Builds
~Full Int Build~
This build is the most simple, and most common. You get enough str to wear your gear and everything else goes into int. You hit like a mac truck, you take damage like you're paper, and you do what a mage's job is to do - hurt like **** and die in two shots.
To succeed as full int, you need good gear. Really good gear. Like, + your gear up with mirage stones to +4. All of it. And fill it with HP or pdef shards (this is arguable - I say mix them both, but that's just me.) You need the HP and the pdef from nice gear or you're just going to want to quit the game.
On your gear, you're looking for +pdef mods, because your pdef sucks horribly. +HP is nice too but +pdef is your #1 priority. If you get armor with good pdef mods, then your survivability will improve considerably.
Please understand that as full int, all an archer has to do is target you and roll his face on the keyboard and you are dead. You'll die faster than Deity can rack up a credit card bill. The upside: unless he has winged shell on, you'll oneshot his ass with a crit. And even if you're a bit too scared of your critting ability, Force of Will can buy you a few seconds to get another Sandstorm off.
If you put con on a mage you're retarded. You only get 10 hp per point of con, which is the lowest con HP modifier in the game. And unlike a priest or fox, your job is not to be able to take a couple hits to do other things. You don't do other things. The only thing you do is kill things. If you're going to roll a gimp class, at least do your job.
~Light Armor Build~
This is the secondary build, which can save your ass in PVP. While the bonus from con is minimal, mages are able to build themselves to equip light armor and this is especially effective on them because of Earth Barrier's huge pdef modifier. Keep in mind that you will hit for significantly less damage (UPDATE: Actually, a full int guild member of the same level and I tested our damage on the same target, using the same gear, and he hit for 200 more sandstorm than me. 2900 vs 3100 average. Since then, most of our full int have restatted light armor...), however, you will be able to take a lot of hits. With proper use of blink, the only way to really die on a light mage is to be chain stunned. You will crit significantly more than full int and every sandstorm crit on an archer is a oneshot, so keep that in mind. This is the build I use.
As a light mage, you have all the pdef you need. It's a good idea to pick either your necklace or your belt, and make one of them pdef based, and the other one magic defense based. Then, when picking armor, you're looking for +hp modifiers (NOT +PDEF, YOU HAVE PLENTY AND MORE SUFFERS FROM DIMINISHING RETURNS) and +hp stones. I cannot stress enough that +hp is infinitely better than +pdef for you.
To follow a light build, your STR and DEX must be your level +4, and 3 int every level. If you put stats in any way other than this you will not have enough int to equip your level's weapon, or enough str/dex to equip your level's armor. It is not possible to equip everything your level and put con on in a light armor build.
~Other Builds~
I am a very, VERY firm believer that builds other than light and full int are total crap. And here's why:
Heavy Wizard:
Problem #1: You don't have enough Int to equip a weapon of your level, which means you're equipping a lower level weapon which gimps your damage tremendously. That, or you're equipping a set of armor 10 or more levels below your level, in which case you might as well just go light armor anyway.
Problem #2: This game has diminishing returns. That means that the difference in ACTUAL REDUCTION (I.E: How much your damage is reduced) between 1000 and 2000 pdef is MUCH bigger than the difference between 5000 and 6000 pdef. Yes, heavy mages over 100 can get over 22,000 Pdef selfbuffed, but that really doesn't help you when the reduction of your pdef is only 4-5% more than a light armor of your level. You're trading a LOT of damage and some crit for 5% reduction? Come on. That 5% less damage does NOT help you when your HP pool is too small to support it. This build is a joke build only for people who like to see huge useless numbers next to their physical resistance. Next!
Vit Mage/Hybrid Wizard:
Of all the "other builds", this one is the closest one to being useful. Vit wizards are robe wizards who put points into vitality. Exactly how much they put in varies from wizard to wizard, but all of these wizards have one thing in common. They have the same or less survivability than a light mage, with less crit rate and the same damage. You'll be able to take a few hits from a warrior, but not much because we have the lowest vit-to-HP ratio in the game (10 HP per vit, that means if you put in 50 vit you only gained 500 hp...), and if you're going to be in robes anyway you absolutely do not need additional hp for magic spells. Light armor offers more survivability along with a raised crit rate for increased offensive ability.
Melee Wizard:
Shut up.
PVP Tactics
Basic Low-level PVP Tactics
So, as a lowbie, you're good at basically one thing and only thing only: Killing heavy armor. That your warriors and your werebeasts. At low levels warriors won't have their anti-magic sutra and werebeasts don't have enough HP to contend with you in mass PVP, but both will eat your face if you let them get close enough to you. Thankfully, you have a wonderful skill called Distance Shrink, and I'm convinced it is the best skill in the mage's arsenal.
Distance Shrink, or "blink" as we usually refer to it, teleports you a short distance ahead of your character. It has a very short cooldown time that gets lower as you level it up, and the distance which you jump gets higher. The only downside of this spell is that it costs a lot of chi, but at a low level, you don't need chi burst to kill things anyway so this is where most of your chi will go.
As a golden rule, no matter what build you are, always PVP with earth barrier on. You need the extra pdef. Period.
Your main skills as a low level are your basic three, gush, pyrogram and stone rain. In due time they will essentially be replaced by Sandstorm, which does massive damage for a slightly longer cast time. Gush and pyrogram are to be used interchangably, the slow from gush is no big deal. Rock fall I used when I needed a spike at a low level, but it really doesn't deal that much more damage than the other two. Divine Pyrogram has no place in PVP at a low level.
So, basically, you spam distance shrink and kite around any warriors or werebeasts. If you have more than one on you, kite them around as long as it takes your guildmates to pick them off. One of you for two of them is a pretty damned good trade, and if you get stunned, spam the distance shrink button and hope to god they don't chain stun well. If you get chain stunned, well, better luck next time.
Pitfall, Crown of Flame, Hailstorm, along with your heal, are all useless in PVP and useless in general. Skip them and save your money.
When you start unlocking masteries, there's no need to rush into them. The only mastery you'll get huge use out of until you have a high level ultimate (or ult) is earth because of sandstorm. For the rest the difference is so negligible that you really shouldn't even bother for now.
One level of Phoenix is great for PVE, the knockback is invaluable, but in PVP phoenix doesn't really shine until the later levels when you can afford to raise it up. Even then, it's very situational.
A tactic you should get used to is called bum rushing. This, in terms of mages, is when you use Distance Shrink to get into an archer's minimum range. There is an imaginary circle around an archer where, if their target is inside of it, they deal half damage with basic attacks some of their skills. This is where you want to be as often as possible, as a stunshot crit on you will tick your heiro (if not kill you alltogether - careful, full inties!). In this place, phoenix is a great skill to lead with as it's got a short cast time and great damage.
As you work your levels up, you'll unlock more skills that you basically don't need (except Sandstorm, which should be leveled ASAP as it becomes your core skill very quickly.) Glacial Snare is a great skill later but early on you simply can't afford to level it. Even if you did, you unlock it so late that it would be a lower level than the rest of your skills, meaning it has a shorter range, and that makes it's slow ability useless if you have to be closer to the target than you would be without it. It's only real use, anyway, is against werebeasts and warriors on the ground (the slow does not work in the air...) and as a leading skill for mobs, and I always just lead with gush and did fine. Force of Will is a wonderful skill that you'll level in due time, but for now just get one level of it and use it to interrupt zhen parties and strong ults you see other people casting.
60s PVP Tactics
Alright, so you're 60. Congrats, the hard part is over. Well, that's half true. The hard part is at 80, but 1-60 is pretty bad too. Anyway, you're 60 now and you've got your choice of 3 ultimates. Refer to my PVP Skills Handbook in the page below to decide which one is for you - and it's not the earth one, I promise.
So, what changes now that you're the big 6X? Well, you're done unlocking new skills (besides your nasty little 79 one, but I'm the only mage I've seen with that on this server so far and was the first to get it >:D) however skills like Sandstorm still have plenty of levels to go. If you find yourself with extra money and SP, now is a great time to max out distance shrink, force of will, and phoenix if you need to. Obviously you won't be able to max some of these skills for a much higher level, but leveling them now isn't a bad idea. I'd wait on Glacial Snare since you won't be able to get that to a decent level for some time and, as I said before, the range gimps the use of the slow until you can level it high.
Force of Will will become a great asset once you're able to level it. This skill makes it so your target cannot attack or cast spells for as long as your skill lasts (about the cast time of one sandstorm when maxed.) It has other uses, but it's main use at a low level is for knocking people out of zhens such as a priest's blueball or an archer's arrow barrage. Once you've leveled it up, it is great to use whenever your heiro ticks (to keep them from finishing the job), and after your target does a spark eruption. Not RIGHT after, because you'll hit their invulernability and be met with "RESIST!", but pretty quickly after the animation's done. People get REALLY pissed when they just wasted two spark to try and kill you and they spend the next 6 seconds unable to do crap with it.
80s PVP Tactics
As time goes on, you become more of a damage dealer. By level 80 you should be oneshotting archers with most of your crits, you can do tons of damage to warriors and werebeasts, and even robe priests take a pretty nasty chunk of damage from your sandstorms.
If you are in an organized guild, they may pool Apocaplypse Pages for you when you're 79 so that you can get Undine Strike, a horribly overpowered debuff of 1 second cast time that lowers your target's resistances to earth, water and fire by 60%. Note that does NOT mean you do 60% more damage, because of diminishing returns you'll do somewhere between 25-30% more damage, but it's still spectacular. Keep in mind that only one mage has to debuff for all of them to get the advantage.
By this point, blade tempest will oneshot any robies you come across, except VERY good geared priests (or priests who see you casting it and put on plume barrier.) Your dragon is nasty too, and will oneshot most archers if you hit them with undine before you use it. Unfortunately, undine's debuff isn't AoE, which limits the usefulness of this combo considerably. The difference undine makes for blade tempest is quite small.
If you don't have your distance shrink maxed by now, you're doing something horribly wrong. Max it immediately or you are useless in PVP. Distance shrink and sandstorm are the skills you are going to spam the most (and Undine, if you have it), and most of your other skills really just become situational. You can drop a gush between sandstorm cooldowns if you need to but skills like stone rain and glacial snare really won't see much use. You finally fit your job as a true heavy hitter damage dealer by this level.
It is a good practice to max out frostblade and give it to all the archers, warriors and werebeasts you see. I don't know exactly how much it helps them but the ones in my guild request it usually. At the very least it'll get you on their good side, which is a good thing because parties are essential for mages.
As far as your 80HH weapon, if you're robe I'd recommend the crit sword Yaksa, and for light armor I recommend Endless Ambiguity. Yaksa has a very nice pdef mod that robe users will adore, while Endless Ambiguity adds a whopping +165 HP which is spectacular for light armor. I am not a fan of the HH80 quoit because the damage is just about the same as Endless Ambiguity (it's a bit better but not by much) and it doesn't have the amazing HP modifier.
Territory War
Mages are an essential defensive class for territory war. While our offensive uses are considerably limited, there is no class in the game that hits cart pulling werebeasts anyway near as hard as we do (especially with undine.)
Your main job in TW is to seal and pick off rushing warriors, and then to kill cart pulling werebeasts. Your vigor should be spent on sutra for killing cart pullers, or on blade tempest for picking off groups of priests/mages. When you hit 89, your Devil Fury Burst is a spectacular use of your fury.
Decent guilds know that mages are the staple defense class, and you will likely be stacked with guild chi pots and receive vigor transfers from the werefoxes around you. In an offensive war (I.E: When you're pushing) your job is much less essential and the vigor will probably go to warriors and werebeasts instead of you. In an offensive move, your only real job is to seal and kill the warriors who are rushing your DDs.
Force of Will is a spectacular skill for TW. You should use this skill when you see rushing warriors and have other mages in your guild chain seals until the target is down. Another use is for archers who are zhenning - archer zhen is disgustingly destructive in TW and should be disabled AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. FoW is also great against werebeasts right after they get buffwiped. Good communication between mages and foxes means that you can buffwipe the werebeast and have him sealed as soon as he's wiped, preventing him from going into turtle and making the takedown that much easier.
Mages do well on the walls but not as well as archers, because a lot of our gameplan relies on distance shrink and the walls restrict your shrink abilities. If you get rushed by a warrior on the wall, fly up or jump off as soon as possible because the walls are too tight for you to effectively be able to fight off a WR.
PVP Skill Handbook
One of the major compliments I got on my archer guide was how in depth I was about the skills, and I plan to do the same right here for us mages. However, I'm going to go at it a little differently. Here we go.
You can find your skill tree, along with the numbers I have assigned there, here for quick reference.
So, let's get started:
1) Pyrogram
Channel: 1.5 seconds
Cast: 0.8 seconds
Cooldown: 3.0 seconds
This skill is the most basic of basics. You summon a burning card, you throw it at them, maybe yell the Gambit line of your choice (Royal.... FLUSH!!!) and then they take some fire damage. The damage isn't tremendous, in fact it's quite low, but the spell casts very fast and it's a great little poke. Should be maxed as it's one of your base 3 skills. Useful in PVP when sandstorm is cooling. I like sandstorm -> gush -> pyro.
2) Pyroshell
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
Spark Cost: 30 Chi
This is your fire magic barrier, the last of the barriers you should raise. It's only use is raising your fire defense. Useful for fighting fire magic mobs, and that's about it.
3) Crown of Flames
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
1 level of this skill and never any more. Never touch this skill ever. Not worth the mana it costs to use it.
4) Divine Pyrogram
Channel: 3.0 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 3.0 Sec
Pyrogram on steroids. This skill has a considerably longer casting time but does pretty damned good damage. The long cast time makes it really situational (used mostly as your opening skill against metal mobs) and WOULD make it basically useless for PVP (it's damage isn't on the level of sandstorm) if not for one thing. Take a good look at it's casting times - it's very heavily based on Channeling, which with Essential Sutra, is gone. That makes this skill a mere one second cast for some very nice damage. Raise this skill later for your sutra combo.
5) The Dragon's Breath
Channel: 1.2 Sec
Cast: Channeling
Cooldown: 15.0 Sec
Spark Cost: 1 spark
The mage's zhen skill. This skill sets up a big circle around you where the mobs/players inside will take damage every few seconds. It's used because every target in the circle takes damage at once, meaning you can pull lots of mobs into the zhen and kill them all at once for some very effective leveling. Not a great PVP skill, though, but it's alright at low levels when all you're fighting is lowbies. Never use it in real pvp, the damage is mediocre and you'll get stunned out of it. Not to mention it wastes a spark.
6) Will of the Phoenix
Channel: 1.0 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 8.0 Sec
The mage's first and only knockback skill. You must get at least one level of this skill as it is great for knocking back mobs in PVE. As you level it up, this will become one of your main TW skills and it's also a great little spike when your target gets too close. Does more damage than your basic skills and casts very fast, but it has a short range.
7) Emberstorm
Channel: Shut
Cast: The Hell
Cooldown: Up
This skill is not to be used ever under any circumstances. Get one level of it and pretend you've never heard of it.
8) Blade Tempest
Channel: 4.0 Sec
Cast: 1.8 Sec
Cooldown: 30.0 Sec
Spark Cost: 2 Spark
This is one of your ults, a nasty little skill that does it's damage as half fire magical and half PHYSICAL. As the only physical nuke mages get (I hate priests.) this skill is an amazing pickup. Once you level it, if you can successfully cast it, basically every robe and 90% of the archers caught in the AoE are going to die. Does not do spectacular damage against heavy armor, because of the half-physical aspect. Should be used where there are lots of robes/archers clumped up, or when you absolutely need to finish a priest in one shot (like if they're healing themselves.) It's a good idea to cast FoW on the target before you start BT so you don't get interrupted. I cannot stress enough how destructive this spell is against robe classes.
9) Fire Mastery
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
One of your three mastery skills, this one for the fire element. It's only real use, in my opinion, is for blade tempest. It's difference on the sutra combo is minimal. Skip it until late.
10) Gush
Channel: 1 second
Cast: 1 seconds
Cooldown: 3.0 seconds
This is your staple water skill. It casts very quickly and has a nice slow effect to go along with it. A nice filler skill for PVP, a nice lead for PVE, overall a great skill. Max it out ASAP.
11) Glacial Embrace
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
Spark Required: 30 Chi
This is your water barrier. Along with giving the usual defense bonus for it's element, the water barrier has the special bonus of adding a MP regeneration bonus that scales with the levels. While being useless for you in PVP, this skill is great if you're fighting magic mobs that are wood or metal (you don't have barriers that can resist them) because it saves you some MP. Obviously a great choice against water magic mobs as well. This barrier should be maxed after earth.
12) Morning Dew
Channel: 4.5 seconds
Cast: 1.2 seconds
Cooldown: 1 second
A crappy, gimpy heal. Actually, when maxed, it can heal for quite a bit. Either way, the long cast time makes it useless to us. One level and move on.
13) Frostblade
Channel: .8 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 3.0 Sec
One of the wizard's more interesting skills (and our only real support skill since our heal is useless), this skill adds damage to the buffed player in the form of water elemental. Similar to burning arrows. The damage is small but noticable, and it is especially useful when fighting fire mobs. The other use of this skill? Spam it on yourself to produce vigor fairly quickly. A nice skill, but no rush to max it. Raise it casually when you find the chance.
14) Glacial Snare
Channel: 2.5 seconds
Cast: 1.8 seconds
Cooldown: 15.0 Sec
A nice, strong nuke, glacial snare would outclass sandstorm if it wasn't for it's pathetically long reuse time. This skill has a great slow effect which is basically the equivalent of paralyzing the character, but it doesn't work in the air and smart warriors will sprint out of it. Still a nice hard nuke, and a great lead for PVE. I reccomend leaving it at level 1 for a while, and then when you can finally get it a lot of levels, get them all at once. If you raise it slowly early it will not outdamage sandstorm and the slow (if it even lands) will be useless because of the shortened range. Lastly, this skill plays a part in your sutra combo, so you WILL want to raise it eventually.
15) Black Ice Dragon Strike
Channel: 4.0 Sec
Cast: 1.6 Sec
Cooldown: 30.0 Sec
Spark Required: 2 Spark
The famous "dragon" of mages, this skill hurts like a *****. It does tremendous water elemental damage to all of the targets in the AoE, and is the hardest hitting of your ultimate on non-robe targets. This skill, unfortunately, has a huge flashy animation that people will rush to cancel you out of. The damage is spectacular and can oneshot warriors and archers if it crits, but the results on a warrior are nothing like the results of Blade Tempest on a robe. Overall a solid choice for an ultimate that will definitely be useful in TW.
16) Water Mastery
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
Your water mastery will find use mostly in glacial snare and ice dragon (the difference on gush is a joke), so pump it when you have enough of those two. There's really no rush, you can leave this out for a long time.
17) Hailstorm
Channel: 1.8 seconds
Cast: 1.2 seconds
Cooldown: 12 seconds
This skill had the potential to be useful but it just doesn't excel at anything. The damage is pathetic and the freeze chance is unreliable and basically useless with the huge cooldown the skill has. You can get away with not putting a single point into this skill, and I highly reccomend you do just that.
18) Wellspring Quaff
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 3 seconds
Spark Cost: 1 Spark
This skill raises your max MP. It's essentially useless until you reach devil/angel. However, once you hit 59, you're going to want to get 5 levels of it so that you can get...
19) Essential Sutra
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 60 Seconds
Spark Cost: 2 Spark
This skill is incredible. It costs a hefty 2 spark, but for the next 6 seconds, all your spells have no channel time at all. This still is the best way to finish off a warrior or werebeast because, while fury has a HUGE super flashy animation and a cast time, this skill just makes a shine around you and has no cast time at all, meaning you're much less likely to get stunned out of it and you can unload immediately without the long casting pose of fury burst to let your target's stuns recharge. The best combo for this is Divine Pyrogram -> Glacial Snare -> Sandstorm -> Divine Pyrogram.
20) Manifest Virtue
Channel: 0.8 Seconds
Cast: 1 Second
Cooldown: 5 Minutes
Spark Cost: 1 Spark
While I have not yet gotten this skill (it requires level 100), it's pretty basic. It eats up one spark and adds your MP/100 as a % to your matk. Meaning if you have 10,000 MP, you'll add 100% to your matk. I am *not* positive on this but it seems obvious this spell would stack with wellspring quaff meaning that your MP should be pretty damned high by the time you've got it. Lasts 30 seconds.
21) Stone Rain
Channel: 2.0 seconds
Cast: 1.4 seconds
Cooldown: 6.0 seconds
Your bread a butter earth skill, Stone Rain takes a bit longer to cast than gush or pyrogram but the damage is noticably better. If you use it or not in pvp depends largely on if you're crit or channel based (a channel-based caster will find more worth in this skill) and if you prefer to use little short spells or do more damage in a single one. I lean toward gush and pyro because a shorter cast time appeals to me. Either way, max this skill as it's your base earth skill and you will use it a lot until you get sandstorm.
22) Stone Barrier
Channel: SHORT
Cast: AWESOME
Cooldown: INCREDIBLE
Earth Barrier. This is your main barrier skill, as instead of adding a useless regen effect it adds a whopping 100% physical defense. This skill is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for PVP no matter if you're light or robe. MAX IT. NOW.
23) Pitfall
Channel: 1.0 Seconds
Cast: 1.0 Seconds
Cooldown: 8.0 Seconds
The crown of flames of the earth tree, this skill is pretty crappy. The paralyze and the slow are nice but not nice enough to justify using it. Get one level and move on.
24) Sandstorm
Channel: 2.5 Seconds
Cast: 1.5 Seconds
Cooldown: 6.0 Seconds
Reasonable cast time, miniscule recharge, and incredible damage. This is your main skill, the skill that makes mages what we are. A critical from this skill will oneshot most archers of your level, and will easily tick the heiro of a werebeast or warrior your level. Sandstorm also has a neat little effect of wrecking the target's accuracy. This skill is absolutely incredible and I spam it in PVP, and use it more than I use any other skill. If you max nothing else, max this. Your #1 skill. Period.
25) Force of Will
Channel: .5 Seconds
Cast: 2.0 Seconds
Cooldown: 22.0 Seconds (at max level)
Force of Will is another amazing asset to mages. This skill silences the target, cancels any channeling skill they may have had running and prevents them from using skills or any type of attack until the seal wears off. This skill is spectacular even at level one, if an archer is zhenning or a priest has blue ball up just target them and hit this skill and... Viola! It's down. See a mage summoning up a big nasty dragon? Force of Will, and their sparks are wasted and their cast is cancelled. As you get to a higher level (and have maxed sandstorm and spare SP) you can level this skill up and it will become amazingly useful. Did your target just spark burst? Awesome, seal them and waste 5 seconds of their spark. Your heiro down and you're in deep ****? Seal them and buy it time to recharge. Saves your friends too, if an archer is wailing on your priest just silence him and buy your priest a chance. Great, incredible skill that you should get one level of early and then max when you can spare the SP. Leveling up the skill also lowers cooldown time.
26) Mountain's Seize
Channel: 5.0 seconds
Cast: 1.4 seconds
Cooldown: 30.0 seconds
Your two-spark "ult" doom skill for earth, Mountain's Seize is surprisingly disappointing. The damage is considerably less than fire and water (which is weird given this element's damage...), but in turn it stuns all the targets in AOE to a high chance for a few seconds. While this sounds great on paper, it's really not, as most of the time you're using one of your ults the targets are already stunned from your warriors in the stun cloud. Stuns don't stack so using this skill on a target that's already stunned results in no additional effect. All in all, I'd skip on this skill, despite being your only stun before 89 it's really situational and in my opinion the worst of the 3 ultimates.
27) Earth Mastery
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
Despite the ultimate for earth being pretty crappy, sandstorm is not, and earth mastery = sandstorm damage. This is the first mastery you should max.
28) Elemental Shell
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Raises the target's metal, water, fire, and earth resistance by some ridiculous number for 4 seconds. It's not horrible, but it's not spectacular. I don't have this skill yet as it is a 79 skill and my clan stacks pages on specific players.
29) Soporific Whisper
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 2 minutes
Chi Cost: 20 chi
Puts the target to sleep for 4 seconds. Pretty cut and dry, could be used as a chase or an an additional interrupt like FoW.
30) Distance Shrink
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 10 seconds (at max)
Chi Cost: 20 chi
Warps you 25 meters forward (at max level) immediately. Amazing for chasing, amazing for kiting, just all around amazing. While this skill will not do much for you in PVE, it is one of our absolute most important PVP skills and should be maxed as soon as you can spare the resources to max it. If you're being chain stunned, spam your distance shrink button until you can get out of it. If you see a warrior channeling a stun on you, distance shrink away and it'll waste his time. If you see an archer channeling stunshot, distance shrink out of his range and it'll cancel it out and buy you more time. Just an amazing, super-useful utility skill that you should max if you ever plan on PVPing. Leveling this up lowers the cooldown time to a mere 10 seconds.
31) Undine Strike
Channel: 1 seconds
Cast: 0.5 seconds
Cooldown: 1 seconds
THIS SKILL IS AMAZING. It's by far the best of the new 79 skills, it casts basically instantly (and cools down just as fast) and lowers the target's resistances by 60%. Lowers their water, fire and earth resistances, all of the mage ones. It essentially gives you +20%-30% damage on the target, and that effect holds true for all mages who hit it. Get this skill as quickly as possible, it's well worth the 20 apocalypse pages to make it. It becomes your lead skill for the rest of the time you play this game. The effect lasts 12 seconds, and cannot be refreshed while it is on the target. You must wait for the effect to wear off before starting it again.
32) Elemental Invocation
Channel: 3 seconds
Cast: 1 seconds
Cooldown: 10 minutes
This is a level 100 skill and I'm hung over and too lazy to figure out what the description of it actually means. It does a bunch of different crap on the target. If you're level 100 and you're still reading my guide, my only question is how much you spent buying that character.
By Pandora From official Forum
