12 replies to this topic

[JeremiahLoh]

I'm going to transcend anyway and so yeah. I'm asking for help on my current Mage. Since I'm trying to minimize the time needed to get to Transcending. How should I build my To-be Sage.

Currently I have:
1 STR
1 LUK
13 AGI
35 INT
9 DEX

Skills:
10 Firebolt
10 Lightning Bolt
5 SP Recovery

I'm planning to go Battle-Sage so I though might as well practice the character now... so I can handle playing Transcend+ more easily...

[Anko]

If you are going old school melee battle sage then that is the slowest way to level a sage. Hindsight with linker spouse or caster is faster. Either way i would get firewall asap and just vertical firewall in orc dungeon.

[JeremiahLoh]

If you are going old school melee battle sage then that is the slowest way to level a sage. Hindsight with linker spouse or caster is faster. Either way i would get firewall asap and just vertical firewall in orc dungeon.

Well from what I see I was thinking of just going Bolt Sage for now then changing to a Battle Sage once I get to transcend as that seems more easy. And... Firewall is pretty much just to keep aggro at bay right?

[Anko]

Melee battle sage is the slowest. Repeated vertical fwalls is the fastest way to level since your dex will be low. Since they are undead they take all the damage at once. The dps is way higher than bolts in OD.

[TheSquishy]

@RO Community-Stop discouraging people from playing the random builds they want to play. Leveling a melee sage is different but in renewal they level just as fast as a regular bolter. The only problem is that many people don't know how to gear a melee sage which, as with any class, makes leveling difficult.

Now for advice part of the post.

For stats there is a certain thresh hold you must reach before you can level in the preferred
hindsighting fashion.

You want 30-40 total dex ASAP. You don't need anymore than this to hit the things you'll be killing
and you get a cast time that's fast enough to support some bolting without you going crazeh.

Next get int 70ish. You can still level bolter style with decent damage.

Now pump the agi. I've found it's gotta be 80-90.

Old school build have str but with weapons actually giving meaningful damage bonuses now it's not necessary.

For skills you should have all 3 bolts maxed.

Anyway tired of typing, message me on forums and I'll be glad to help you out.

[Anchors]

I did pretty much that, leveling my pre-trans sage, with a good amount of gear that was probably not affordable to a new player and a lot of safety wall, but I think this was still slower than my transcended version which I made into a bolter.

That said, though, melee was a also a lot more interesting, and probably would have been faster with some Endows (although with only 49 skill points and the added expenses of elemental stone consumption, maybe also a lot more expensive). If you happen to be able to afford some autocast gear as well, it could help to make the character more entertaining~

On a side note, players seem to think that a typical battle sage doesn't cast bolts at all. I don't think this should be true; you get Free Cast for a reason. Save up for some BGems for Safety Wall, a Phen, or (eep) an Orlean's Gown to prevent cast interruption, and cast a level-appropriate bolt spell as you melee. Although this isn't really necessary if you're soul linked (those level 10 bolts raining down on your opponents will kill them before you can get halfway through an actual cast), if you're like me, you want to solo/your computer doesn't support multi-clienting without lag. :B

[JeremiahLoh]

@RO Community-Stop discouraging people from playing the random builds they want to play. Leveling a melee sage is different but in renewal they level just as fast as a regular bolter. The only problem is that many people don't know how to gear a melee sage which, as with any class, makes leveling difficult.

Now for advice part of the post.

For stats there is a certain thresh hold you must reach before you can level in the preferred
hindsighting fashion.

You want 30-40 total dex ASAP. You don't need anymore than this to hit the things you'll be killing
and you get a cast time that's fast enough to support some bolting without you going crazeh.

Next get int 70ish. You can still level bolter style with decent damage.

Now pump the agi. I've found it's gotta be 80-90.

Old school build have str but with weapons actually giving meaningful damage bonuses now it's not necessary.

For skills you should have all 3 bolts maxed.

Anyway tired of typing, message me on forums and I'll be glad to help you out.

Well I finally got to level 40+/36 and using a Bolt Sage for now (God i hate it when an enemy gets through Firewall... ) Although I think I can still converge this into a Bolt Build. Currently I'm almost done getting to 70 INT, after which I'll be investing into AGI and DEX.

Skills:
10 Firewall
5 Fireball
8 Firebolt
8 Lightning Bolt
10 Thunderstorm
1 Sight

My plan for Sage Life was this:
http://irowiki.org/~...GAdoIOak2s3rAJy

After Transcending I was thinking of just getting 50 STR for the 5% Aspd Bonus should I be able to nab a Sage's Diary Weapon in Transcend Life.

P.S. I hate Orcs now for making me break my Wrist Watch,5 Pencils and my favorite Stapler.

[Anchors]

A few things...

1) If you're going with a hindsight/battle build (likely the only reason you would pick up any agi at all), you need level 10 hindsight. I see that there are 15 points left on the build, but 2 belong to job1 and hindsight will eat up 10. I would also consider having Study at 10 for any kind of build where you would use melee with a book, but that's largely preference. Also, if you're looking for aspd bonuses, go with a ledger of death, and save those 50 points you'd put into str for something else you can use to boost magic damage output.

2) If you're going for pure bolt sage, your skill build mostly works for it; I'd try to work in level 10 cold bolt, however, so that you can also handle fire monsters with ease. Also, a pure bolter sage won't need anything outside of int, some/a lot of dex, and maybe some vit for survivability if you need/want it (and/or possibly some luk depending on whatever else you're going for). Agi is good for flee, but, imo, I just would avoid it altogether unless you plan on putting LOADS of points into it - but in such a case, you'd be better off as a hindsight sage.

3) If you're a bolter and using the vertical fire wall technique, you MAY be able to pull some points from Free Cast and put them into anything else you might use, since placing and using the vFW restricts your movement and as such you won't be doing a lot of moving around AND casting once it's been placed. 10 Free cast is probably more useful for the hindsight/battle builds as it brings your aspd while casting back up to full.

4) It helps to practice fire wall (normal and vertical) on slower monsters; orcs are actually pretty fast movers. I personally recommend the map twice north of Geffen with Caramel and Bigfoot, as neither is aggro (so you don't have to worry about being spawned on), both are cast sensitive (so you can control when a monster starts chasing you just by casting on it), and both are low level (and thus easy to deal with if you make a mistake). On top of that, bigfoot is slow while caramel is fast, so you can get easy practice against a slow monster or a little more difficult practice against a faster monster. Hopefully, this will save you both some wrist wear and some desktop accessories in the long run.

5) Yes, fire wall is typically used to keep aggro monsters off your back, but undead and fire types will chew through it at their normal walking speeds. However, unless those monsters are immune to fire (some fire types and a select few water types), they will also take as much damage of fire wall as the game can process while the monster is moving through that cell of fire wall. That said, if you orient the fire wall properly using a technique called the "vertical fire wall" or vFW, you can force a mob of undead types to walk through all three cells of each vFW you place on the ground. As they pass through, they will take most if not all of the possible fire wall damage.

What you wrote makes me think you were fighting the normal, green orcs out in the field instead of the slow-moving orc zombies inside the dungeon (the entrance to which is on the northwest corner of the first orcs map). Ignore those and just go into the dungeon. Once you have the hang of vFWing, leveling to job2 up til base 72 is cake there.

Hope that helps!

[JeremiahLoh]

A few things...

1) If you're going with a hindsight/battle build (likely the only reason you would pick up any agi at all), you need level 10 hindsight. I see that there are 15 points left on the build, but 2 belong to job1 and hindsight will eat up 10. I would also consider having Study at 10 for any kind of build where you would use melee with a book, but that's largely preference. Also, if you're looking for aspd bonuses, go with a ledger of death, and save those 50 points you'd put into str for something else you can use to boost magic damage output.

2) If you're going for pure bolt sage, your skill build mostly works for it; I'd try to work in level 10 cold bolt, however, so that you can also handle fire monsters with ease. Also, a pure bolter sage won't need anything outside of int, some/a lot of dex, and maybe some vit for survivability if you need/want it (and/or possibly some luk depending on whatever else you're going for). Agi is good for flee, but, imo, I just would avoid it altogether unless you plan on putting LOADS of points into it - but in such a case, you'd be better off as a hindsight sage.

3) If you're a bolter and using the vertical fire wall technique, you MAY be able to pull some points from Free Cast and put them into anything else you might use, since placing and using the vFW restricts your movement and as such you won't be doing a lot of moving around AND casting once it's been placed. 10 Free cast is probably more useful for the hindsight/battle builds as it brings your aspd while casting back up to full.

4) It helps to practice fire wall (normal and vertical) on slower monsters; orcs are actually pretty fast movers. I personally recommend the map twice north of Geffen with Caramel and Bigfoot, as neither is aggro (so you don't have to worry about being spawned on), both are cast sensitive (so you can control when a monster starts chasing you just by casting on it), and both are low level (and thus easy to deal with if you make a mistake). On top of that, bigfoot is slow while caramel is fast, so you can get easy practice against a slow monster or a little more difficult practice against a faster monster. Hopefully, this will save you both some wrist wear and some desktop accessories in the long run.

5) Yes, fire wall is typically used to keep aggro monsters off your back, but undead and fire types will chew through it at their normal walking speeds. However, unless those monsters are immune to fire (some fire types and a select few water types), they will also take as much damage of fire wall as the game can process while the monster is moving through that cell of fire wall. That said, if you orient the fire wall properly using a technique called the "vertical fire wall" or vFW, you can force a mob of undead types to walk through all three cells of each vFW you place on the ground. As they pass through, they will take most if not all of the possible fire wall damage.

What you wrote makes me think you were fighting the normal, green orcs out in the field instead of the slow-moving orc zombies inside the dungeon (the entrance to which is on the northwest corner of the first orcs map). Ignore those and just go into the dungeon. Once you have the hang of vFWing, leveling to job2 up til base 72 is cake there.

Hope that helps!

I am currently playing as a Bolt-Sage though. I'm only going the Battle Sage route after Transcending.



I moved towards training on the Orc Skeletons and zombies. The only problems I usually encounter there is Firewall bypass from the undeads and accidentally aggroing Steel chonchons when they try to loot something on Firewall, and obviously the Bats. most often I can drop the Zombies but they sometimes do get through, for the Skeletons its always certain they get through.

Currently this is what I'm going for:
http://irowiki.org/~...GAdoIOak2s3rAJy

Then when I transcend to Scholar...
And I assume this would what the Skill Build of a Battle Scholar would have, aside from these what else should I be looking into putting in later on in my Character's 2nd Life.

[JeremiahLoh]

A few things...

1) If you're going with a hindsight/battle build (likely the only reason you would pick up any agi at all), you need level 10 hindsight. I see that there are 15 points left on the build, but 2 belong to job1 and hindsight will eat up 10. I would also consider having Study at 10 for any kind of build where you would use melee with a book, but that's largely preference. Also, if you're looking for aspd bonuses, go with a ledger of death, and save those 50 points you'd put into str for something else you can use to boost magic damage output.

2) If you're going for pure bolt sage, your skill build mostly works for it; I'd try to work in level 10 cold bolt, however, so that you can also handle fire monsters with ease. Also, a pure bolter sage won't need anything outside of int, some/a lot of dex, and maybe some vit for survivability if you need/want it (and/or possibly some luk depending on whatever else you're going for). Agi is good for flee, but, imo, I just would avoid it altogether unless you plan on putting LOADS of points into it - but in such a case, you'd be better off as a hindsight sage.

3) If you're a bolter and using the vertical fire wall technique, you MAY be able to pull some points from Free Cast and put them into anything else you might use, since placing and using the vFW restricts your movement and as such you won't be doing a lot of moving around AND casting once it's been placed. 10 Free cast is probably more useful for the hindsight/battle builds as it brings your aspd while casting back up to full.

4) It helps to practice fire wall (normal and vertical) on slower monsters; orcs are actually pretty fast movers. I personally recommend the map twice north of Geffen with Caramel and Bigfoot, as neither is aggro (so you don't have to worry about being spawned on), both are cast sensitive (so you can control when a monster starts chasing you just by casting on it), and both are low level (and thus easy to deal with if you make a mistake). On top of that, bigfoot is slow while caramel is fast, so you can get easy practice against a slow monster or a little more difficult practice against a faster monster. Hopefully, this will save you both some wrist wear and some desktop accessories in the long run.

5) Yes, fire wall is typically used to keep aggro monsters off your back, but undead and fire types will chew through it at their normal walking speeds. However, unless those monsters are immune to fire (some fire types and a select few water types), they will also take as much damage of fire wall as the game can process while the monster is moving through that cell of fire wall. That said, if you orient the fire wall properly using a technique called the "vertical fire wall" or vFW, you can force a mob of undead types to walk through all three cells of each vFW you place on the ground. As they pass through, they will take most if not all of the possible fire wall damage.

What you wrote makes me think you were fighting the normal, green orcs out in the field instead of the slow-moving orc zombies inside the dungeon (the entrance to which is on the northwest corner of the first orcs map). Ignore those and just go into the dungeon. Once you have the hang of vFWing, leveling to job2 up til base 72 is cake there.

Hope that helps!

I am currently playing as a Bolt-Sage though. I'm only going the Battle Sage route after Transcending.



I moved towards training on the Orc Skeletons and zombies. The only problems I usually encounter there is Firewall bypass from the undeads and accidentally aggroing Steel chonchons when they try to loot something on Firewall, and obviously the Bats. most often I can drop the Zombies but they sometimes do get through, for the Skeletons its always certain they get through.

Currently this is what I'm going for:
http://irowiki.org/~...GAdoIOak2s3rAJy

Then when I transcend to Scholar...

This would be the Essential Skills of a Battle Scholar?
http://irowiki.org/~...1GA1cBakGAaf9bx
And I assume this would what the Skill Build of a Battle Scholar would have, aside from these what else should I be looking into putting in later on in my Character's 2nd Life.

Edit: Ohhh I finally get what you mean by vFW. I assumed it was just walling off then letting enemies die but I guess it means placing a Firewall up and making the target walk through all 3 pillars.

Edited by JeremiahLoh, 08 August 2011 - 12:36 AM.

[Anchors]

I am currently playing as a Bolt-Sage though. I'm only going the Battle Sage route after Transcending. [1]



I moved towards training on the Orc Skeletons and zombies. The only problems I usually encounter there is Firewall bypass from the undeads and accidentally aggroing Steel chonchons when they try to loot something on Firewall, and obviously the Bats. most often I can drop the Zombies but they sometimes do get through, for the Skeletons its always certain they get through.

Currently this is what I'm going for:
http://irowiki.org/~...GAdoIOak2s3rAJy [2]

Then when I transcend to Scholar...

This would be the Essential Skills of a Battle Scholar?
http://irowiki.org/~...1GA1cBakGAaf9bx [3]
And I assume this would what the Skill Build of a Battle Scholar would have, aside from these what else should I be looking into putting in later on in my Character's 2nd Life.

Edit: Ohhh I finally get what you mean by vFW. I assumed it was just walling off then letting enemies die but I guess it means placing a Firewall up and making the target walk through all 3 pillars.

[1]: That's what you had posted earlier in the thread, but you then posted that you were currently going for 70 int and then agi. Please refer to point 2 in my previous post about that.

[2]: You can drop level 10 fire ball to level 5 (the max you need as a pre-requisite for fire wall) if you haven't already placed the points there. Also, you probably don't need past level 1 Earth Spike (pre-requisite for heaven's drive) since heaven's drive replaces it entirely (unless you really, really prefer the single-target earth spike to the ground-targeted heaven's drive).

[3]: Yes, those are the core skills for a battle scholar. Other skills to look at include:
- A Wall spell (I prefer Safety Wall for a battler, but vFW can still help a battle type keep excess mobs from trying to kill you while you solo another one or two monsters)
- Blinding Mist (provides some easy defense against ranged attacks which neither wall spell will effectively defend against in any practical manner)
- Indulge (for replacing SP. This works exceptionally well wiht a vitata carded accessory so you can also replace your consumed HP)
- Soul Exhale (to steal SP from enemies/teammaters or, with Indulge, also great to support a team as a SP battery)
- Dispell and its pre-requisites Magic Rod/Spell Breaker (Dispell mostly for PvP, but its pre-requisites can help save you from enemy spells)
- Endows (another hallmark of the support scholar, but potentially useful if you're going to invest in a weapon for damage purposes)

If you skip a bunch of these, you'll have points left over. Depending on what you're looking for in job3, you might reconstruct the skill plan accordingly.

On a side note, vFW doesn't have to have a north-south orientation. Just remember that its orientation is entirely dependent on the cell you cast it on relative to your position.

[JeremiahLoh]

Well I sorta ended up converting into a Battle Sage now, Just working on maxing out Hindsight and Study right now alongside putting points into AGI. I noticed It seems abit easier to get 170+ ASPD on my Sage... Are Daggers slower than Books? Also... Since I'm probably gonna be stuck with the Book [3] Any recommended Cards that I should get. Probably which I'm going to use till end-game.

Here's my New Plan now...
http://irowiki.org/~...doCBakGAas3eAJy

What the Skill Planner has are:
5 Heaven's Drive
8 Thunderstorm
10 FW
5 FB (Although I think Fireball isn't as efficient for mobbing unless for underlevelled mobs)
All Bolts are Maxed
Along with this the basic Battle Sage Skills I guess... From what I see, Level 10 Hindsight Bolts are pretty much just overkill though and the Lvl 1-3 Bolts are pretty much sufficient along with the stunlocking you can get by Book Whacking.

*I know its kinda annoying having to look at Skill Trees again and again...

[Anchors]

The whole reason you get Study to level 10 is for the boosted atk and aspd with books.

It might be a good idea to save up for a better book as you level (for a hindsighter, ideally one with good matk and/or int). I'm not sure on cards, though; I just never used any in the weapons I have for job2 and up.

Also, stunlocking is achieved either by actually stunning your target continuously (for which you could use Savage Babe cards but honestly I'd save them for a better weapon) or keeping them in place with the speed of your attacks. With an attack range of 2, book weapons won't generally be attaining the latter method except with 183+ aspd against the slowest of monsters and some good positioning choices in combat.

Later on, having level 10 bolts rain down on your enemies actually is useful. The monsters you face won't always be super easy.