6 replies to this topic

[kuhrama]

hi there!

I have mostly played as paladin and physical damage classes my whole life, but for some reason (maybe the lack of pvm content on the server rn) I have decided to try out the sage class. I have always been kind of interested in the ability of casting while walking and being able to cancel monsters casts and avoid magical damage with magic rod. So yeah, going for sage for sure.

As I've played physical damage classes for a long time, I don't want to focus on hindsight as it would be making a magic class physical. I prefer to have a super mage, casting skills and all. I'm just having a hard time with skills as I I'm not quite sure which skills to get and at what level to be a caster sage. Should I focus on the bolts or try to get Thunder Storm and Fire Wall maximized and the bolts at lvl 5. Should I get Frost Diver at lvl 5? Is Heaven's Drive/Earth Spike worth it rn? Please Help me out.

(this will be mostly for fun, I'll never go nowhere near WoE and I'm pretty sure this can't stand MvPs at all. I just want to be able to have some fun with the class, but I'm not sure how to manage the skills to the point of no unnecessary suffering when leveling)

Thanks in advance and sorry for the wordy text

Edited by kuhrama, 02 June 2020 - 02:40 PM.

[Prodigy]

I'm assuming you're on the Transcendence server.

 

I played a Sage as my main character even before trans classes came out. I just want you to be mentally prepared with what you're getting yourself into. A caster Sage is just an over glorified Mage. Walking while casting is neat, but your killing speed will be slower than most other classes. Now if we had trans classes, Scholars at least have Double Bolt which makes a huge difference.

 

I suggest Fire Wall 10 is a must. It lets you solo and mob places that you couldn't otherwise. Fire Bolt will be your main leveling skill. If you go the usual leveling route of Spores>Bigfoot>Orcs>Hodes>Petites>Prison, majority of those are weak to Fire. Thunder Storm is good only for Byalan. Otherwise, Heaven's Drive will be enough for your AoE needs. I personally don't like the Frost Diver+Lightning Bolt combo because that takes too much time (and chance) to setup when I can just Fire Wall things and be done with it. So it'll depend on what you prefer. The level of your Fire/Cold/Lightning Bolts will depend on what things you want to hunt outside of leveling.

 

As for your Sage skills Hindsight is in no way "making a magic class physical". Aside from casting while walking, Free Cast also lets you attack while casting. It's neat since you can be attacking one monster, and cast on a different monster. Now if we had Soul Linkers on the server, casting while attacking becomes near useless as Hindsight Sages will be better off just attacking. Reason is Sages need to stop attacking, manually cast a spell, then continue attacking. By the time it takes to setup all that, you would have already rained down a bunch of bolts on the enemy.

 

Earth Spike and Heaven's Drive are definitely worth it. Endow Blaze 5 gets a lot of use for leveling with parties (orcs, petites, hodes, prisoners are weak to fire).

 

Spell Breaker and Magic Rod are more for PvP. They work on monsters, sure, but there's no point in using them against monsters. Monsters do not have that long of a casting time. By the time you see them start casting, you won't have time to Spell Break them. That is unless you're spamming Spell Break on them even before they cast. However that means you're not casting damage spells. Same with Magic Rod, you have to be spamming it and wait for them to cast. They're just not practical for PvE.

 

I hope this gives you something to think about.

[kuhrama]

Hi there!

Wow! I was almost hopeless about getting any reply here and you provided a bunch of useful info. tbh, It has actually given me A LOT to think about.

Taking longer than other classes to kill is not an issue for me with this character as I want to just have fun with it and enjoy the class, not really maxing it out to be the best possible.  Btw, I didn't mean to sound harsh by saying it is ~~making a magical class physical~~, I'm just not a big fan of autocast build as I've done some of them in other servers, but I understand that Sage is different and has different possibilities.

 

Anyways, you gave me some things to consider.

First, I was for sure going the Thunder Storm route, even spent my points there [ ] , as I was planning on leveling at Anolians or Turtle Island in the future to have some fun , but now I'm thinking it over. I've removed Spellbreaker from by build as, given what you mentioned, it seems quite unpractical. I can still see Magic Rod maybe saving me every now and then from getting hit, so I think I'll keep it, just at a lower level.

I've come up with two builds that I believe would be good for me. One includes Thunder Storm and I'll use it to kill water mob in Byalan, Anolians and Turtle Island:

here

The other one has no Thunder Storm, but has Magnetic Earth lv. 1, which also gives me Volcano, Whirlwind and Deluge at LVL 3 to assist people if needed

here
 

I acually think I'll go for the first one with Thuder Storm or maybe getting Soul Strike as being a glorified mage sounded very interesting to me and having at least the most important mage skills seems proper , but I'm torn since Support skills can be very useful as a Sage. Do you think Dispell has any use outside of PVP/GvG scenarios? I got a feeling that if I enjoy this as much as I think I'll do, I'm gonna go for double bolt once rebirth comes.

Thanks for the previous reply!
 

[Prodigy]

The second link won't load. Also fyi it looks like you're using https://irowiki.org/~himeyasha/skill5/ and you can directly share the link skill of builds there, so you don't have to put it imgur.

 

More on Magic Rod, most monster skills ignore it. Think only typical targeted spells like Bolts, Jupitel Thunder, Soul Strike, Frost Diver, Holy Light, etc. Things like their elemental attack goes through Magic Rod. Monsters don't have any buffs that Dispel actually removes. I can't comment on Magnetic Earth since my experience with it is only from the Classic server. I don't know if it has any PvE uses nowadays.

 

Soul Strike is fun for sure with it's super fast casting time and low after cast delay. I just find its damage to be too lacking. Unless you can kill stuff in 1-shot with Soul Strike, a lvl 10 bolt or lvl 5 Earth Spike is much better. I wish it got the same treatment as Earth Spike did in the recent balance patch.

Edited by Prodigy, 03 June 2020 - 02:24 PM.

[kuhrama]

Hey Prodigy!

There it is, I guess.

http://irowiki.org/~...HOakbnanjN1rBJy

I feel quite comfortable with it even though I've given up on those skills I mentioned as they feel weird in PvM and some are drop dead useless. I've moved most points to the first class and got a quite good skill pool for a variety of situations.

made up my mind about Soul Strike and I think it won't be worth the 14 points of investiment. I've moved it to other skills. That's it. If you could tell me what you think, I'd be quite happy!

Thanks for the help again!

[Prodigy]

Looks good. Volcano is niche as well since you have to be standing inside it to get the atk/matk buff. I'd rather get Endow Tsunami 2, Deluge 1. At least Deluge is a portable water source for a Priest to make holy water.

[Hiban]

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Edited by Hiban, 11 June 2020 - 05:21 PM.