[X] My Assistant

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll think it over a bit. I didn't know about heatseeker, which sounds nice

I'm so glad I hit 170 before the latest patch. Heartseeker is the first thing I cast when I get channeling. If I have Spirit Stance, Heartseeker, and Regen II on with a healthy amount of overcharge, I can mindlessly smash the numpad to clear rounds on Normal difficulty. Mindlessly smash the numpad. I use a 2H Mace with Power Armor by the way.

This post has been edited by handabanana: May 7 2012, 23:33

I'm so glad I hit 170 before the latest patch. Heartseeker is the first thing I cast when I get channeling. If I have Spirit Stance, Heartseeker, and Regen II on with a healthy amount of overcharge, I can mindlessly smash the numpad to clear rounds on Normal difficulty. Mindlessly smash the numpad. I use a 2H Mace with Power Armor by the way.

Go for the new spell. Maybe you should consider EXP tanks.

Go for the new spell. Maybe you should consider EXP tanks.

The yellow one? Imperil? Won't that mean I have to guzzle mana potions just to keep all 3 (Silence Weaken Imperil) on FSM due to curse-weaving and also risk getting 1-shot'd if I miss Silence one too many times also due to curse-weaving?

In light of the new patch I must ask this. How the hell do I do this "chaining" thing the info for Great Cleave talks about?

I was just wondering how anybody is meant to survive as a mage. I've been thinking about changing, since this new update broke two handed, but I'm just getting killed in a few turns. Any advice?

Be able to kill everything on the board in one hit.
Alternately, be able to kill everything on the board in two hits and set Haste in IA.
Cure and SoL are for the inevitable misses, but hopefully there are few enough of those that you survive.

In light of the new patch I must ask this. How the hell do I do this "chaining" thing the info for Great Cleave talks about?

You probably need higher two-handed proficiency. I can't do it either.

In light of the new patch I must ask this. How the hell do I do this "chaining" thing the info for Great Cleave talks about?

You probably need higher two-handed proficiency. I can't do it either.

http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Skills

You need more prof. to even see the later skills.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll think it over a bit. I didn't know about heatseeker, which sounds nice

You can try maging by getting a staff of destruction with some gossamers of full elementalist/heaven-sent/demon-fiend first, if you have spare credits.
If you don't, then focus on finding a solution on 2H. Eventually you'll face obstacles with maging, and you still need to find your solution.

Not sure what to get after my reset. I gave up Spark of Life because I mainly use Silence on FSM. I usually just play on Normal, so it's only use was for FSM and pals. I gave up on Nerf because the new patch made Weaken much better. I also gave up on Poison because it's now broken like Regen was. Even if it gets fixed, curse-weaving forces me to only have 2 deprecating spells (Silence and Weaken) or chug mana potions to cast 3 or more at a time and risk miss casting Silence one too many times. So with the 15 extra points, I put 8 into the last 3 spirit tanks and 5 overcharge boosts I hadn't filled. 7 more ability points left. Help me decide!

I'll keep spark. If you play on normal only it will be better than SP shield.
Also get imperil and just stop relying 100% on silence. You can also use SP shield later with silence, since it's very good against single boss's SP/MP attacks.

This post has been edited by varst: May 8 2012, 04:18

Speaking of obstacles with maging, how are other high level mages finding this patch? Specifically on higher difficulties or in battles where the difficulty scales with the number of rounds cleared?

I was able to do my arenas on Hell before the patch, but now enemies are too powerful. My approach to rounds was T1 > CM > T3 > cleanup, but now this approach is too risky due to the amount of damage I may face after casting the T1 spell on my first turn. If my evade doesn't bail me out, Spark will almost surely trigger. To further add to the problems, because enemies are more powerful now, Spirit Shield activates more frequently and my spirit therefore drains at a quicker pace. Each turn Spirit Shield activates 1-4 times, with each activation costing anywhere from <1 to >50 spirit.

I can try starting rounds by casting a T3 (or T2) spell in hopes that it kills enough enemies, but this isn't reliable not only because the enemies in the round may be resistant to my element of choice, but also because my spell may miss. This is also MP expensive because I'm not using CM to reduce the spell's cost. Furthermore, I'm inevitably going to take a lot of damage so my spirit is going to continue to leak. I can remedy this by carrying more spirit potions, but it's a hard choice to make because it comes at the cost of mana potions.

In general I'm finding the boost in damage this patch only helpful when it comes to enemies like E1la and those that are highly resistant to my element (so undead and beasts, really). So I'm not really sure where to go from here other than reducing the difficulty. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) I wish there was a staff skill or something that would help mages deal with incoming damage.

. To further add to the problems, because enemies are more powerful now, Spirit Shield activates more frequently and my spirit therefore drains at a quicker pace. Each turn Spirit Shield activates 1-4 times, with each activation costing anywhere from <1 to >50 spirit.

Indeed, since the patch RE leave me with close to zero SP left, and spark doesn't go off sometimes, all SS drain. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Should I return to maging now?

Used to be a Niflheim mage. I wonder if that's viable now that everything got a serious boost.

Just tried to go back to Holy/Dark the other day and got my ass wooped. Seems like my phase pieces just suck too bad (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Only 50% holy and 30% dark.

Haven't tested elemental, but Dark magic finally feels useful again.
Ironically, since enemies hit a lot harder than they used to, starting with Ragnarok instead of Pestilence can end up saving a lot of mana.

Maging problem? Here's a great advice from Tiap

Get more firepower.

Oh, this work for melee as well.

All I know is that the number of turns it takes me to do an IWBTH hourly has dropped from 30 to 10 when I use dark/holy (using a single heimdall glove a single fenrir pants in addition to a katalox staff of fenrir).

Haven't bothered trying elemental for a while (cold+wind meant that mechs fucked me over).

Used to take about 15 rounds to do hourlies on IWBTH, now takes about 10.

Used to take me about a dozen greater / superior mana potions to clear my highest available arena, now takes me about four.

Sure monsters hit harder, but a lot fewer survive the initial blast because I hit harder too.

Haven't tested elemental, but Dark magic finally feels useful again.
Ironically, since enemies hit a lot harder than they used to, starting with Ragnarok instead of Pestilence can end up saving a lot of mana.

Yeah, Ragnarok saves mana by reducing the need to cast more cures, as strange as it sounds.

I can't be sure about other's playstyle, but now I keep SV (IA), haste (IA), SP shield and spark at the start of arenas, use channeling to cast regen2 and arcane focus. This strategy is good for dark spells which focus on firepower. I also bring 1 spare SP potion in case I get too unlucky.
And with my holy suits I should have no problem on IW.

Elemental spells...I don't know. I tried that before patch, and I found too many monsters with high resistance against multiple elements even on normal. Since then I restrained from using elemental spells on higher difficulty. That's not what elemental do the best anyway (they were good because they had tier 1 spell to save mana)

I'm a melee player who recently finished training Refined Aura. Is it wise to simply balance my aura upgrading (e.g. rank two across the board) or concentrate heavily on strength, dexterity and agility, leaving all other auras at rank one? I'm worried about skewing my stats too heavily in one direction as I increase my level, because I'll surely experiment with a mage build once I unlock tier three elemental spells, and tier two dark and soul spells.

I'm a melee player who recently finished training Refined Aura. Is it wise to simply balance my aura upgrading (e.g. rank two across the board) or concentrate heavily on strength, dexterity and agility, leaving all other auras at rank one? I'm worried about skewing my stats too heavily in one direction as I increase my level, because I'll surely experiment with a mage build once I unlock tier three elemental spells, and tier two dark and soul spells.

In this order:
Green > Red > Yellow = Orange > Blue > Indigo > Violet

Choose Yellow first if you are using Light Armor; otherwise, Orange first. Leave Violet at level 1, upgrade the rest at highest level as you can

Note that order actually becomes irrelevant as soon as you get better equipments and Protection/Regen/Shadow Veil

This post has been edited by Coma: May 8 2012, 07:39

In this order:
Green > Red > Yellow = Orange > Blue > Indigo > Violet

Choose Yellow first if you are using Light Armor; otherwise, Orange first. Leave Violet at level 1, upgrade the rest at highest level as you can

Note that order actually becomes irrelevant as soon as you get better equipments and Protection/Regen/Shadow Veil

Thanks for the response. I had assumed from reading around the forums that stats are much less relevant with higher leveled characters coupled with better equipment, but I was still hesitant to commit to certain auras. It makes sense that Green Aura would take priority since HP is relevant to any build; I overlooked that.



Do you see anything amiss with my ability tree? I'm considering resetting it and moving the five AP from Poison into something else, because I rarely find it useful anymore thanks to the newly introduced Curse Weaving. I'm also planning on challenging Flying Spaghetti Monster once I reach level 110 (probably later tonight after some Grindfests) and acquire Silence, because 200,000 credits is enough to finally finish training Pack Rat. I do worry about the fight though; is it too early to challenge FSM?

Do you see anything amiss with my ability tree? I'm considering resetting it and moving the five AP from Poison into something else, because I rarely find it useful anymore thanks to the newly introduced Curse Weaving. I'm also planning on challenging Flying Spaghetti Monster once I reach level 110 (probably later tonight after some Grindfests) and acquire Silence, because 200,000 credits is enough to finally finish training Pack Rat. I do worry about the fight though; is it too early to challenge FSM?

Your AP tree looks fine to me. If you want a reset, you may consider to allocate the APs into slow.
Are you a light melee with mace...? You will find OC tanks useful for the 2H skill. At last, you will need the SP tanks when you get spirit shield. I don't see a problem for you fighting FSM.

This post has been edited by MidNightPass: May 8 2012, 08:12