lionheart555

From the birth of their characters to the first few level ups, players have a choice to make. Which path will they choose? Will they become a melee type character? Or will they become the equally deadly mage? Whichever path they choose has its own advantages and disadvantages. Down to the simplest of ideas, this article will explore what the advantages of having warriors are, as well as the advantages of having mages. And then my own personal opinions at the end.

First off, let’s take a look at warriors and mages in generals, minus the specifics that comes with the elements. For melee types, damage is guaranteed to be higher as they level on. Why is this? Thanks to some veteran players from both IGG and TWWL, we now know that as the attack of a warrior increases, the higher the multipliers are for a specific attack. What does this mean you ask?

For example, consider Hagendis Hit for a fire warrior and fire combo beating for a fire mage. At 2000 magic attack, the multiplier for fire combo beating is around 1.6. Meanwhile, at the same attack for a warrior, Hagendis Hit has a multiplier of about 2.

For a better example of multipliers, here is the first one that came to mind. Let’s say a fire has 2000 attack. And let’s say his multiplier is 1.4. Now suppose he hits a mob for 7000 damage with Hagendis Hit. Now suppose the attack was 1999 (just short of 2000) and the multiplier was 1.2. It would only hit somewhere around 6000. As you can see, warriors have an advantage with multipliers over fire mages. As a note, the numbers are probably different for each element; I have not tested this. Also, if you look back one paragraph, you’ll see that the numbers just given are not accurate. They are only for examples.  

So what else do warriors have over mages? For one, it is much easier to train warriors and pets together than it is to train mages with pets. The reason being, warriors rely on strength to do their damage, meaning they can just do a normal attack to one shot mobs. Meanwhile, mages rely on their magic attack and therefore, need to use up SP to hit as hard as warriors do. Naturally, warriors finish off mobs quicker than mages assuming both can one hit the mobs.

Finally, let’s look at the attacks in general. The highest damage move a mage can get is their final mage spell. For warriors, after a long and difficult quest for most people, they can obtain their respective element’s Dragon Soul Ability. Not only do these skills hit much harder than their final warrior skills, but they even have a chance to seal their targets. Compared to fire combo beating, they hit much harder and are much more useful. At the same time, Dragon Soul Skills can go through moves like Vanish and Stonewall.

And don’t forget the recently released Job skills. Knights get an ability to block seals for three turns. It is cast upon three players. Killers get a great non elemental attack skill which is strengthened when opponents are sealed. And warriors get a skill that reflects magic attacks for up to 2000 damage. Maybe not as useful in PK, but in quests, it can be a lifesaver.

Warriors do have a lot of advantages don’t they? Also, by my experience, they tend to be a little faster than mages as well, especially the PK build warriors, though I’m sure there are plenty of very fast mages around Wonderland.

Moving on to mages. Mage skills tend to have a higher base damage, meaning at lower levels they will hit a bit harder than warrior skills. It might seem better to go with the stronger attack in the long run, but then again, remember the plus side of having high INT. All mages have a higher sealing rate, and a higher seal resist rate than warriors. Simply because magic attack is the main stat that increases seal resistance and seal rate. There is talk of Magic Defense doing so as well, although many players claim that Wisdom and magic defense, in fact, do not increase seal resistance. That is still something to be thoroughly tested.

Anyway, why is seal resistance useful? Well, for those who don’t PK much, a lot of PK is revolved around first sealing the enemy team and then picking them off. At the same time, of course, players want to keep their own characters from being sealed. With mages, their higher seal resistance rate allows them a chance to keep from being sealed to do some damage to the other team.

And questing…everyone knows that in the Version 4 tough quests like DS, JS, and Sea Lord that the super fast mobs just love to seal you, preventing you from moving and finishing the quest within time. In fact, the difficulty of those quests does not come from the hard hitting mobs, but rather from all the seals they manage to land on your team before you even get a first move.

And of course, as everyone knows, mages can hit through Stone Wall. A warrior’s nightmare, Stone Wall blocks all physical attacks for three turns. For mages, blasting through Stone Wall is a piece of cake. Mages can also hit through a wind’s vanish technique, another great use for them. Coupled with higher seal resistance and the ability to hit through stone wall and vanish, mages make a good choice for any PK team.

And finally, the mage job skills. Wit gets a very useful ability that allows the other party members to hit a target for 50% more damage. Do some math, and that allows for some pretty damn good hits. Priests can prevent a dead player from being revived. Although this is hardly useful in most PK’s, it will be needed in high end quests like Fatal Blow, which is due to arrive soon. And seers, they seem to have the worst job skill, which is simply to protect one player from seals.

By personal experience, I find good mages to be slower than warriors, but more likely to get a one shot kill and considerably less likely to be sealed. At the same time, I have seen very fast mages, and been killed by quite a few as well. So I’m sure there are much more to talk about when comparing mages and warriors, and I’m sure there are much better players than I who can sit you down and talk about it. But down to the simplest of ideas, there they are.

Now, to the specifics.

Starting with fire warriors, it’s been confirmed that fire warriors have the highest multiplier skill, which, surprisingly to me, is not Fervidity (Fire DS) but Hagendis Hit. Faster fire warriors have mess, which in team PK, can be a real blessing. Nothing is better than watching a high strength fire knock out his own teammate (Russian Roulette anyone?). In questing, mess is more for preventing mobs from using skills.

Also, remembering that fire knights are fast, they can hot fire their own teammates, letting their slower killers attack much faster. I’ve also seen some pretty amazing warrior class fires as well, with high HP and attack. Slow, but they last long and hit hard.

Next are water warriors. It’s difficult to find a standout water warrior, since most waters are utilized for their sealing abilities and their revival technique. Still, out of all the elements, water warriors have the highest seal resistance (confirmed by a TWWL player). Also, it seems water DS (anybody know the name for this), is also has the highest multiplier out of all the DS abilities.

I find water killers useful due to the abundance of fires in the game. Usually, one hit and fires are down a chunk of HP. Water knights can be useful to revive and also to occasionally try and seal. Never seen a water with warrior class, but I imagine if they are built right, would be difficult to kill.

By far, it seems the easiest warrior type class to build is an earth; very “user friendly” as a TWWL player describes it. In other words, it’s a build that is very difficult to get wrong or mess up. I find earths very useful for PK and for quests, especially with the ability to use terra, which is the best seal on game. The damage type earths are also decent; DS has a chance to terra and the final earth melee skill hits pretty hard against waters. And never forget Blockage, which, if used by earth knights with some good speed, is an absolute pain in the ass for waters and other sealers. Earths also tend to have higher defense, which is great for training pets, and they have two of the best buffs in game, which is Earth Fairy Skill and Stone Wall. Both are an absolute in the more difficult quests.

And finally, there are the winds. Arguably the best for PK’s, wind fighters excel in speed and strength. The good wind fighters will beat the fastest waters and earths any day due to the advantage of the speed cape and the speed ring. Vanish makes trying to attack them a pain (unless you have Fervidity or are a mage). As they get the first move, they can seal you, kill you, or play with you to their liking. Don’t forget their ability remove stone wall from an enemy, and even cure terraed teammates. Paired with a good water and decent fire, and a wind will make any team tough to handle.

In quests, winds with their speed sometimes allow questers the advantage of the first turn, especially in the pre-quests for DS. And let’s not forget that wind DS. It can cut through an earth’s stonewall, and coma to boot.

It’s also been confirmed that one of the wind’s sealing spells is based on speed instead of magic attack, and also, Fast (Wind DS) gets a damage bonus from speed (thanks to Gui for this information).

And that pretty much covers the warriors. Moving on to mages. Starting with fire mages, remember they have one of the best AoE skills in game. Blaze beating attacks up to six opponents and with high magic attack that is pretty deadly. Blaze beating from a 2700 magic attack fire mage dealt roughly 20,000 in damage to Martians in 15 rounds challenge.

Again, most mages of the fire type will have mess, although few end up using it, instead relying more on attack. I have never seen a fire priest.

Water mages are probably the most common. Everyone needs waters than can effectively freeze and sleep enemies. The high INT from water mages increases the seal rate and it even increases the amount a water can heal his or her teammates. Water Fairy Skill fully heals the team, which can be useful during both quests and PK. Wits waters are good for killing fires, but I find the best to be water priests with magic set and good INT and WIS levels. On Libra, there is one such priest who, without a doubt, resists like 80% of the seals used against him.

Earth mages are great for killing waters. Bottom line, since they are a mage their seal rate is a bit higher as well than earth warriors. So Terra works a lot more with them. Other than that, there is nothing too special about earth mages. If you haven’t tried making one, I suggest dumping INT on one and then hot firing it and letting it have a go at one of those water dragons in the more difficult quests.

Wind Mages are, by my experience, the most flexible out of all of them. They can be good questers, good pkers, and even both. The high speed still applies to them with the aid of a speed ring, and decent INT can still allow for some decent damage. The downfall is, unless you have some secret no one else knows, wind mages will never be faster than wind warriors.

Wind mages seem to have a greater chance when trying to seal high seal resistant bosses, such as Buddha, the big dragons in Reborn Quest, and many others (using coma). Coupled with anti sealing techniques and some good speed, wind mage is a good choice for someone who wants to both PK and quest with a wind.

Note: All information was gathered from interviews and personal experience. Not all information may be 100% accurate and not all information may agree with the reader’s opinions.

Thanks to

Gui
KillaB
Lockheart

For their time and opinions.

~ Your Libra Correspondent

Lion

Ximei

"And in the end, the one with the biggest gun wins."

Sorry about that. A very comprehensive article. You must have worked quite a bit on it - excellent job!

alxyz

As Ximei said before, you did a great job with this article.

xKaitouJeannx

This article is very dteailed, good job <3 I prefer mages, becosue I like their skills/ eqs ^^

wingster05

wow lion
u are my best corespondent, i LOVE  reading ur threads and posts  
ur the best, keep up the good wrok.

Mert82

yeah thats a LONG and great job you've made. I wasn't bored when i read it at all.

blp1988

I really like mages for the skills since "most" mages aside from wind have AOE skills which help kill fast. But mages get screwed when it comes to the weaker elements since they don't have a nuetral skill. Melles have killers js (if they go rb as a killer) and bloodsuck which are both elemental nnuetral skills so they can still do amazing damage to their weaker elements. Not really fair that mages get screwed like that. And don't say get the mages blooduck, since it's atk based they would only be able to do maybe 1/5th the damage  any melle could do.

And as you said mages are really tough to seal, when I did the 9 tails fox and 3 headed dogs my melle was constantly sealed every freaking round, I had to constantly relog him every time he got terra. While my mage was only sealed 8 times at max out of 4 runs of both quests.

Nice article. would give pop if I could but since mods removed +pop...

[ Last edited by blp1988 at 8-13-2009 15:00 ]

GFMei

I just can't believe I read all that
Anyway, moving on to the article, you did an amazing job. Everything is explained and very detailed. I must say that, except my water and earth who are built wis/con and a little bit of int,  all of my characters (many fires XD) are warriors because I find training a mage quite costy (ehem, I'm not the richest person you know XD) and harder but still the results of a good fire mage are deadly and, if i can say, 'unstoppable' considering their immunity to stone wall/vanish.

silverfeline

wow what an observation

mistysnow

You’re right..
It’s easy to train pets with a warrior character than in a mage.
And you can also save SP pots in a warrior character..