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by Danier
I get asked a lot of questions about mages,
stats, skills, comp loads, etc., so decided to write it all down and put
it out where people can see what I did, what I do, and most importantly,
why.
I play Danier, a level 62 mage with the following starting stats:
Str: 50
End: 28
Coord: 26
Quick: 26
Focus: 100
Self: 100
Health: 14
Stamina: 28
Mana : 100
My starting skills were: War Magic, Life Magic, Item Magic, Creature
Magic, Mana Conversion. All these were at the Trained level, with the
following skills added during play:
Arcane <5>,
Melee Defense <20>,
Leadership <35>,
with Lockpick projected to be added at 65.
What this gives is a character with a lode stone tied to his ass, and a
big steak dangling from his butt. I was chased down by reedshark after
reedshark, and devoured quite eagerly. This was before sticky melee, but
you would never have known it as the monsters would get into a
"happy" zone right behind me, and simply chew through my very
low health (Sometimes in one bite) and then have some Danier-dinner.
The first few levels were tough, for
obvious reasons. (They didn't have to be, but I was still learning the
game, and had to pay my price in blood for the lessons.) The lessons I
learned were as follows:
1. Baby Mages have huge firepower compared to fighters of the same level,
and they are able to use this firepower at range, in relative safety.
2. Baby Mages miss a lot, and scorch a lot of foliage, due either to low
coord, or low War Magic skills. They need to plan accordingly.
3. Baby Mages simply cannot take damage worth a damn. When the monster
gets to melee range, you die. This was demonstrated to me very directly
one night when I was in GW Dungeon <the one there in town> and went
through EIGHT bodies killing one banderling guard who was right at the
entrance portal. I would appear, shoot him once, do 10 points of damage
<maybe, he resisted a lot> and then die. For those that are curious,
I did kill him and recover, but it hurt.
4. Baby Mages can kill above their level, by a lot. Think about the
above story of the bodies. I was killing a monster which was double my
level, something I really had no business fighting, yet I did kill him.
Baby Mages need to be very careful, but they can kill aurochs, reedsharks,
lower banderlings, monouga, etc. all with relative safety. They reason I
mention killing above your level is that it is very important when it is
time to calculate xp. If you are killing above your level, you get a lot
more xp than otherwise. The formula, based on speculation, appears to be
something like: <(monster's health * monster's level) / your
character's level>.
5. Killing above the level of the mage can continue throughout the life of
the mage, thus enabling mages to level very quickly. On the downside,
mages need to recharge etc. Still, mages appear to be able to level more
quickly than fighters.
6. Baby Mages have no meaningful strength. Even starting with a 50 (high
for a mage), I did not have sufficient strength to really wear armour. The
Armour spell and the Impenetrability spell applied to a robe both mostly
make up for the lack of material armour, at the cost of having to
continually cast spells. This is annoying, but it is not a bad thing at
all, as it gets one used to the concepts which will later be absolutely
necessary in order to manage the magics which will enable success.
Personally, I leveled up on "free-range" monsters for around 7
levels, then found a nice tower to perch until around 13 when I went up to
the Neydissa Castle, and used my awesomely powerful level 3 spells to hunt
the mattekar there, including the now-extinct Hoary Mattekar. The hoary
was a level 99 monster, and I think I traded bodies around two or three to
one with it, with me being on the low side of the ratio. For me it was
worth around 10k xp, and that was "good eatin'". I also whipped
on the Great and Snowy Mattekar, burning vitae and growing in power.
By contrast, when I created a new mage on a different server <DT> I
simply found a nice pack of aurochs and liquidated them repeatedly until
level 6 or so, taking less than 3 hours, then moving to a banderling tower
near GW, and perching there, then proceeding to mattekar. I used the rules
above.. and ran a lot. Auroch Yearlings could kill me with one hit, and I
acted accordingly, by not letting them get to the range needed to
eviscerate me. (Cowardly, but not gutless was my motto.)
But.. back to stats.. and the reasons for them.
Focus and self are simply critical for mages. There are large areas in
Asheron's Call where a difference of 10 points in a skill is the
difference between bouncing when you attack, and hitting a monster well,
and where 20 points completely turns the tables from being dinner, to
eating dinner. While it is tempting to slip 10 or 20 points over to
endurance, you are really better off, especially in the long run, to
simply deal with the problems at the lowest levels as an investment in
future power.
Now that you have almost all your points sunk into being a mage, what do
you do with the rest? You have 90 points to spread between the 4 physical
stats, so it is evident at a glance that you are going to have to leave
huge gaping holes in your character, there is simply no way around it.
That said, the critical issue is where. Remembering that I started my
character with 50-28-26-26, my suggestion for starting a new one would be
40-40-10-40, with a possible alternate being 45-45-10-30. This gives you a
few more health and stamina points, and enables you to buy more at lower
cost at the higher levels, while somewhat sacrificing your future melee
abilities. There is the idea of "power mage", with stats of
10-100-10-10, but that idea has serious problems with ever having enough
strength to carry much component, which will become a significant
restriction at higher levels.
It is a matter of discussion whether or not the loss of offensive melee
ability is worth the gain in quickness and endurance. I will be the first
to admit that I DO melee, quite a bit. On the other hand, I do suggest
taking the hit on melee ability for most people. I never used physical
weaponry until I was around 45th level, and at that point.. well.. it was
not really an issue. While it is nice to occasionally use melee on the
more resistant monsters, it would also be nice to have another 12 stamina.
(The price for 12 stamina for me right now is roughly the same as 4 points
of focus / self, a not inconsiderable savings.)
Once created, there is the question of what to spend your hard earned xp
on.. The answer is a bit of everything, specifically: Mana Conversion,
Focus, Self, War and Life Magic, Health, Stamina, more Health, Quickness
(5-10 points), and run (10-15 points). Later, after perhaps 10-15 levels,
you will have to start buying up Creature and Item magics too. Remember
that for every 4 points you raise focus /.self, you raise ALL your magics
by a point, as well as improving mana conversion and magic defense. Note
that I did not list buying raw mana. That is because it is a fairly low
priority compared to the others. (though again, after level 20 or so, it
is nice to dump some points into this and expand it.)
This template of 40-40-10-40 has been used by several people, and seems to
be satisfactory for most people's play styles and desires. Personally,
while I hate the loss of endurance, I love having that little bit of extra
strength for component carrying, but that is because I have a tendency to
do longer term camping trips than strictly necessary, and a tendency to
play "lord-protector" to large groups of friends and followers.
In other words, it matches my play style more closely to have the strength
instead of the endurance.
Skills
What skills are really needed to play a mage? To begin, you simply must
have Life Magic and Mana Conversion. I assume that if you are a
"mage" you have War Magic, you simply do not have the physical
attributes for melee. At this point you have 16 skill credits left, and
what I did was to take Creature and Item magics. There are other options
of course, here are the common ones about which people inquire:
1. You can specialize Mana Conversion. This is a very tempting option now
that the dev team has shown love to the specializations. The up side is
that Mana Conversion makes everything you do easier and cheaper, allowing
you to cast more spells in less time <less need to recharge and to
prolong your combat time as you tend to not deplete your mana reserves.
The downside is that the cost is awkward. You now have 2 skill credits
which you cannot bank, you must spend them during character creation or
lose them, which usually means you now have Assess Item or something else
which is really fairly useless. Having effectively spent 8 points on
specializing Mana Conversion, you are now missing a magic, either Item or
Creature, which must be purchased at level 9, pushing off the purchase of
Arcane Lore until 16, and Melee Defense (if desired) until something like
level 55, a very long time indeed. As much as I would love another 30
points of Mana Conversion, I do not like this option much. You do have the
option of course of not taking Item or Creature, but consider that with
one Creature spell <Mana Conversion Mastery> I can make up the
difference between non-specialized and specialized, and that there are
lots of other tasty spells <like Magic Yield Other.. yummy> which
expand my capabilities vis a vis someone without Creature. Not taking
Item. well. that IS an option, but it is a poor choice. The opportunity
cost of Item is simply huge, not to mention the convenience issues. The
amount of money and treasure which can be gained by killing a mass of
critters, then looting to a 200% burden and recalling to a store is
considerable.
2. You can specialize in Life Magic. This
takes care of the 2 wasted points you lose if you are specializing in Mana
Conversion, but the other problems remain. On the plus side, this is a
much more offensively powerful choice, as your drains are simply going to
demolish the monsters.. But again.. Life Magic Mastery works just fine.
Yes, you CAN get that on a wand, orb, or staff, but this has its own
problems, as you are now restricted to using that particular item, and are
going to have to spend a great deal of effort in obtaining the higher
level versions of the items. The real killer of this to me is that
you lose so much access to the other spells of the Creature school. OR you
lose access to Melee Defense. Whether or not you really need melee defense
is a good question, and will be discussed below.
3. You can specialize in War Magic. You are now officially in trouble, as
you have lost access to both Creature and Item. On the plus side, you get
to take Arcane at creation with the "change" from the
specialization. One down side.. well.. losing Item and Creature is a big
hit, even at low levels. Needless to say, kiss Melee Def. A fond farewell.
4. You can not take Life Magic, and take Healing instead, saving 6 points
which could be used to specialize Mana Conversion. This IS possible, but
the loss of access to Life Magic really cripples a mage. Loss of the
protections and the ability to cast vulnerabilities is serious, but the
biggest problem I have with this option is the loss of access to the spell
Stamina to Mana, and related spells. Yes, you can obtain a Life wand / orb
/ staff to enable yourself to cast Stamina to Mana I, but that is a very
poor substitute.
5. You can drop War Magic, and fight with Life Magic only, saving 16
points, which could be used to specialize Life and Mana Conversion. This
is an interesting option, and I am given to understand it worked
very well in Beta (when lifemagic had a much greater range). The
disadvantage is that you have lost access to any ranged attack, and you
have lost access to the awesomely powerful combination of vulnerabilities
and War spells. While this option woks very well in dungeons, where if it
is on radar, it is in range, it mandates melee distance as your starting
range in surface combat, which, at lower levels especially, is rather
painful. I am personally a big fan of the monster being dead about the
time it finishes closing the distance to me.
Generally, I recommend the taking of all four Magics, and Conversion, with
Arcane and Melee Defense by level 20. I find the other options to simply
be less powerful, as one loses too many of the diverse capabilities which
magic has to offer.
Melee Defense
Do mages need melee defense? It is an interesting question, one on which
there is no real consensus. The problem with a mage's melee defense is
that due to the dreadfully low starting position, the skill will be very
difficult to develop. This is worsened by the fact that there appears to
be a sizable penalty applied to melee defense if the character has a wand
readied. With these problems, it is really difficult sometimes to see the
merit of melee defense.
I personally am a fan of buying melee defense, having bought it at level
20. At the time, I had 135k xp banked, which I slugged directly into the
skill, bringing it to the dizzyingly high level of 99. I was hunting the
Mattekar slopes near Neydissa Castle, and was dismayed to find that my
chances of evading a mattie were approximately diddly divided by squat. I
felt really ripped, I mean I spent 10 skill credits and a full level's
worth of xp for something which was not really worth much. Then I survived
my first "Mite Swarm".
I quickly reassessed the situation, and have come to the conclusion that
melee defense is worth buying, not for protection against the monsters you
are targeting, but for protection from the "environmental"
monsters. The melee defense will likely not work especially well against
whatever it is the mage is actually fighting <Though keep in mind, I
fight well above level. were you to be fighting AT level, that would be
different.>, but it is wonderful for avoiding whatever else is in the
area. The number of times when dodging swarms of monsters has saved me is
considerable, though to be honest, it is also a matter of convenience, and
of expanded capabilities at higher levels. I like being able to run
through groups and not care if they swing at me, knowing most of them will
miss. I also like having the option of readying a shield and weapon, and
playing melee fighter, which having melee defense helps greatly
with.
Finally there is the question of what else
to spend the points on.. you CAN spend them on specializing something, say
Mana Conversion, and that would be nifty. You could buy lockpick, or a
trade skill, or you could simply grab Healing, and learn the Health to
Mana spells, and save some money on components. My real suggestion is that
if you are going to forego melee defense, you should decide to do so at
creation, and spend the points specializing in Conversion or perhaps in
Life Magic.
For me, I like avoiding the environmental monsters <the big crowds of
krep that nobody wants to have to kill to get to the creamy monster
filling of high xp monsters>, and it was well worth it to spend the 10
skill credits.
The Spool-up
Spool-up refers to the series of spells a mage casts before entering
combat, hostile situations, researching, or (it seems sometimes) flushing
the toilet, eating a Holtburger, or scratching one's own nose.
Spooling is rather simple at lower levels, the mage tosses armour self,
impen on the robe, maybe a few specific spells like sprint if they are
going to be traveling, war magic mastery if they feel the need, mana
recovery and stamina recovery spells, etc. Generally this will be a brief
series, using 50% to 100% of the mana pool, which then needs to be
recovered. The limitation on how many spells get cast is basically
constrained by the short duration of the spells themselves, and the slow
rate of mana recovery.
At higher levels, the listing of spells used grows dramatically. Stamina
and Mana recovery spells get used a LOT more, or items which mimic their
effects do. The mage's stamina pool expands and their ability to convert
that to mana grows sufficiently that it is possible to cast more than 100%
of the mana pool as prep spells if desired, though duration is still a
real issue until level 5 spells are obtained.
At the highest levels (34+) spooling becomes an art form, and very quickly
effects a stratification between the good mages and outstanding mages. For
an example of a totally silly spooling pattern, here is what I used at
level 34 to fight olthoi. It is an example of a very deep and annoyingly
long spooling process which I used to fight far above my level. In
order, I would cast:
Creature Magic Mastery 4
Creature Magic Mastery 5
Mana Conversion Mastery 5
Willpower 5
Focus 5
Creature Magic Mastery 6
Life Magic Mastery 6
Rejuvenation 6
Mana Recovery 6
Mana Conversion Mastery 6
Item Enchantment Mastery 6
War Magic Mastery 6
Armour 6
Piercing Protection 6
Acid Protection 6
Impen 6 <robe>
Impen 6 <gloves>
Acid Bane 6 <both>
Piercing Bane 6 <both>
Not listed are all the revitalization - stamina to mana spell cycles,
though at that time I was usually either resting or accepting the generous
contributions of drained olthoi stamina if such was available. Once it was
all up, the sequence was shortened by removing all the level 5 spells.
There are a lot of things about this which should be noted: I am a
very, very patient person, and was willing to put up with such a spooling
pattern as it enabled me to fight far above my level, and to obtain some
treasures which were simply not available in any other areas. Casting all
these spells gave me the exact defenses at level 34 which I continue to
employ at level 62, so that ability of the olthoi to affect me was almost
precisely the same as it is right now, and I can assure that Danier tanks
olthoi quite well, then and now. My character's ability to affect the
olthoi in return has, of course, improved dramatically.
In contrast, my current spool up cycle is much shorter, starting with
Creature 5, then Mana Conversion, then continuing with whatever is needed
(usually focus and self next).
At this point, I would expect that at least 3/4ths of the people reading
this are asking the simple question "Do I have to do all that
crap?". The short answer is yes and no. Of course you do not, but it
is like getting the right items for a fighter. Do you NEED bludgeoning and
slashing protection to fight in the Citadel? Or do you need acid and
piercing protections to fight olthoi? The answer is no, you do not, but
without them you are really going to be a hurting puppy, and by the time
you really do not need them, you are above the level of the monster, and
are not getting much xp for killing them, as they do not present that
great a threat to you.
It is not necessary to have such an amazingly long spool up of course, the
example given is pretty extreme. On the other hand, it provides for
the absolute best protection available in the game against the monsters it
istargeted against, and allows killing of monsters at twice the
character's level. (Anyone trying to fight olthoi at level 34 mage
is well advised to drain though.. their resistance is fairly ugly, and you
will need the health gained through draining to survive most likely.)
I should write a big conclusion to all of this, but to be honest I simply
cannot muster the prurient interest. The key with it all is to have fun.
It is like roleplaying. If you really like playing the blind one-eyed lame
dwarf what only comes out after sunset to terrorize the residents of
villages, then by all means do it. Just because I suggest something as
optimal neither means I am right nor does it mean that anyone has to
agree.
There are good, solid reasons for the choices I suggest, and I have tried
to detail them whenever possible. If there are any questions, please feel
free to email me and ask, I would be more than happy to expand this
document as needed to cover different areas. It is my hope that this helps
to at least define the arguments involved in mage creation and play.
Danier
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To see Danier on the Runway, click here.
Click here
to read about Danier in the Where Are They Now? section.
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