PVM Mage Template

BaneX2

So through scouring the internet, its been hard to find a solid PVM Mage build. So through researching different opinions on a mage template, and looking through lists of possible gear from my own collection, what ive seen people wearing, arti lists, etc, I think ive devised an ultimate build. I would like to get any opinions on the matter as I'm not an expert on this game.

Okay So first things first Stats and Skills
Stats - 100 Str / 25 Dex / 125 INT (with +25 Stat scroll)
Skills -
105 Eval
115 Spellweave
105 Magery
120 Myst
55 Resist Spells
110 Focus
110 Meditation
(Certain skills are increased by the suite. Such as Eval +10 to 115/Magery +5 to 110/Resist Spells +45 to 100)

On to the Suit
Talisman - Wizard's Curio
Cloak - Rangers Cloak
Robe - Hawkwinds Robe
Sash - Open to anything, right now I have a Spell Focus
Boots - Minax Sandles
Helmet - Scholars Halo
Gloves - Cuffs of Archmage
Tunic / Leggings / Gorget / Sleeves - Random Legendary Artis that combined with the above pieces gives me full resists/ rest of the LMC I need to get to 40/+8% SDI on leggings/Mana Inc/Mana Regen/Energy Eater +12% on sleeves/ +7% Casting Focus.
Shield - 30% Soul charge/Spell Channel/5 INT Bonus/5 Mana Inc/ 4 Mana Regen/ 5% LMC
Apron - Tangle

Jewels - Imbued Ring/Bracelet
Ring - 12% SDI/FCR 3/ +15 Resist Spells/ 10% LRC/ +5 Magery
Bracelet - 12% SDI/+15 Resist Spells/3 FCR/1 FC

Complete Suit Total - (Did not include Weapon to keep my options open for slayer spellbooks)
80% SDI
FCR - 6
FC - 2
100% LRC
40% LMC (I think this will be slightly higher if the archmage cuffs are bone and give +3%? Not sure)
+25 Intel Bonus (bumps my intel to 150 Cap)
Kinetic Eater - 5%
Energy Eater - 12%
+7% Casting Focus
+Fair amount of Mana Inc and Mana Regen
+A few hit point increase/ and 4 hit point regen
+10 Eval Intelligence
+5 Magery
+45 Resist Spells

Thank you for spending the time to read this, as I said I would appreciate any feedback as I'm still relatively knew and don't know all math equations. I don't know if anything is surplus, or if anything cancels out one another. Like if the lack of 5 eval intel in lue of 5 more resist spells makes a difference? Could I bump eval up to 120 and lowering resist to 95 not really affect anything as far as resisting, and my damage would increase even further? These are the things I haven't tested and am unsure of. Thanks for your time!

InLor

As a caster you'll want to have max fc, which is 4. There are invasion spellbooks now with 50% SDI, fyi. 

Bombur

I think you could throw in Necromancy & Spirit Speak by dropping Meditation/Resist to go around with double Skeletal Dragons if you wanted to mix it up as well.

North_LS

i'd drop focus down to 100 and put the 10 points elsewhere - focus only increases mana regeneration in multiples of 20.

Merus

North_LS said:

i'd drop focus down to 100 and put the 10 points elsewhere - focus only increases mana regeneration in multiples of 20.

Focus also serves as the modifier for Mystic (like eval for magery)

North_LS

Merus said:

Focus also serves as the modifier for Mystic (like eval for magery)

Oops, forgot that entirely. my fault.

Tiberius

If you get 45 resist from the suit, then why have resist spells at all?  I thought any resist past 40 from armor is better than gm resist spells since they do not stack.  So add gm inscription for 10 percent more damage? I havent played in a while so Ive been reading about all the skills quite a bit.  Im thinking of droping resist spells all together on my paladin in favor of focus or bushido.  Even though Im at gm resist which was a pain long ago when I played more.  Not sure how it went up so easy this time.

Max_Blackoak

what are you using for defence? with the template above you would rely on a mageweapon, but you mentioned you wanted to use spellbooks instead. unless you're running in protection (which would reduce your fc cap by 2 and thus render the fc2 on your suit useless) you will get disrupted a lot by monsters hitting you.

Mervyn

Drop 60 med and take 60 necro for wraith form, and you want 120 eval, makes a difference.

(plus then you can do flamestrike/energy bolt and evil omen and the evil omen will hit before the spell so you get a 25% spell damage increase) this is actuallly very similar to my main pvp char.

Rock

Since you are taking Mysticism, be aware that it provides two methods reducing the effects of curses and being poisoned.  The first is Stone Form, available at a low skill level. It acts passively to reduce poison and curse effects. Then at 58.1 skill (reliable by about 70), your start gaining the ability to cast Cleansing Winds, a wonderful heal+cure+remove_curse spell.

@Max_Blackoak makes a good point about defense.  If you do drop Resist, then you'll have extra points for Magery and Eval.  The extra magery will help with effectiveness of a spell-channeling mage weapon. (Completing the Magery skill gain quest in New Haven grants you a blessed Staff with only -10 penalty, so 110 magery would effectively give you 100 Mace Fighting. Another benefit of holding a weapon is you can use the Enchant and Immolating Weapon weapon buff spells.

Another consideration is your starting skills at character creation.  There is only one skill you mention that can't be quickly brought to 50 in New Haven.  (Buy them to 40, then accept the various accelerated skill gain quests.  You'll go to Old Haven and complete them all within an hour.) The problematic skill is Mysticism, for which there is no accelerated skill gain quest, but you can buy it to 40 in Ter Mur.  However, your character can start with 50 Mysticism, which will end up saving you some time.

Actually I just lied.  You won't be able to train Spellweaving in New Haven, either.  In fact, your character cannot even choose it as a starting skill.  Once your character is advanced enough to take down a few Exodus Minions and Overseers, you do a quest chain starting in Heartwood to earn you the right to be a spellweaver. You also get a spellbook with just 2 of 16 Spellwaeving scrolls.  You still can't buy any skill, so you'll likely go to the pentagram thing by the main bank in Britain and repeatedly cast the Arcane Circle spell to raise skill level to 25 or 30 (or almost 40 if really patient). It is useful to take a friend when you fight the Exodus dudes, to run interference if nothing else. The remaining scrolls might be acquired from players, but the actual source is loot from Mondain's Legacy dungeons. Two scrolls (Summon Fey and Summon Fiend)  must be acquired via quests.  (Theoretically a player could give them to you, but you cannot cast the spell until you have completed its quest.)

Rock

I meant to also mention race.  Unlike sex, it has significant bearing on your character.

1. Human -- Jack of All Trades (JOAT), 20% phantom ability in all skills. (You need more than 20% actual and/or jeweled skill to start seeing more ability than the 20% JOAT, though.)  This would not help your character much, because his template already includes more than 20 Meditation and Focus.  Strong Back, lets you carry 60 more stones than other races.  And humans have a base Hit Point Regen (HPR) of 2.
2. Elf -- Has 20 more mana than other races.  They would have 100 mana at 100 INT; an elf would have 120.  If the character were a resourcer such as miner or lumberjack, an elf has a better chance of getting advanced stuff such as wood, ore, and the added ingredients that result at GM skill.
3. Gargoyle -- Has a base of 2 Mana Regen (MR).  This is effective regardless of the armor you wear. This is not phantom skill; it rides permanently on top of the MR received from jewelry, armor, weapon, Meditation, and Focus. It is also fully functional regardless of armor worn.  Gargoyles can also fly at mount speed but cannot use a mount. If you need an imbuer, you could replace Focus with Imbuing, which buffs Mysticisim in the same sort of way.  Gargoyles inherently have a better chance at successful imbuing than other races, and they begin with 2000 loyalty points to the Gargoyle queen.  At 10,000 points, you gain the ability to use the queen's soul forge, granting yet another bonus to your successful imbuing chance. (Loyalty is gained by fighting overland in Ter Mur, and in the Stygian Abyss dungeon. Some loyalty can also be gained via various Ter Mur quests.) Focus is a lot easier and cheaper to gain than Imbuing. If you do go this route, start your character with 50 Imbuing (in addition to his 50 Mysticism), because there is no accelerated gain quest for this either.
   

Maximus_Neximus

InLor said:

As a caster you'll want to have max fc, which is 4. There are invasion spellbooks now with 50% SDI, fyi. 

FC4 only works for chiv. 2 is the cap for everything else.

Mervyn

Maximus_Neximus said:

InLor said:

As a caster you'll want to have max fc, which is 4. There are invasion spellbooks now with 50% SDI, fyi. 

FC4 only works for chiv. 2 is the cap for everything else.

He listed spellweaving in his template, which is capped at FC4. 

Maximus_Neximus

Mervyn said:

Maximus_Neximus said:

InLor said:

As a caster you'll want to have max fc, which is 4. There are invasion spellbooks now with 50% SDI, fyi. 

FC4 only works for chiv. 2 is the cap for everything else.

He listed spellweaving in his template, which is capped at FC4. 

But since he has high magery, spellweaving is capped at FC2. But tbh, I forgot about that spellweaving alone had a FC4 cap because I've never used it without magery.

Mervyn

Actually it’s only if you have 69.9+ magery that chivalry is capped at FC2, not spellweaving.

LordJJOliver

Ok guys I have a dumb question. Sorry I am a returning player from many years ago (played between 1998 and 2005ish) - I notice that the base skills you put at the top add up to 715... some are under 120 so I assume the gear brings it appropriately to 120 etc.. but with gear that gives pluses, can you still not go above 720? I was under the impression you could max skills at 720, then add gear that gives +10 in magery say, and it would still bring your magery up, assuming your magery was at like 110 or whatever below 120. Is this not correct?

LordJJOliver

Ok so I did test this myself and my skills do go up regardless of 720 cap when I put gear on. So I guess my question is: Is there no bonus over 120 in a skill with plus gear? And if that is the case, does your build just work this way to save you time in raising these skills all to 120 through skill gain rather than adding pluses? And could someone potentially just raise all or some of these to 120 and save themselves money/hunting/searching for some of the items you have listed that would raise those skills?

Bilbo

Yes you can go above 720 with items.  Currently I am running 840 on a Tamer/Bard with 120 Magery

popps

LordJJOliver said:

Ok so I did test this myself and my skills do go up regardless of 720 cap when I put gear on. So I guess my question is: Is there no bonus over 120 in a skill with plus gear? And if that is the case, does your build just work this way to save you time in raising these skills all to 120 through skill gain rather than adding pluses? And could someone potentially just raise all or some of these to 120 and save themselves money/hunting/searching for some of the items you have listed that would raise those skills?

Yes, with +skill items you can exceed the 720 CAP but be carefull that the Masteries only rely on REAL skill points NOT on items' points....

So, for example, if you are running Magery with 110 "real points" plus 10 extra magery points on items AND you are using a Magery Mastery, that Mastery will only function for its bonuses off of the "real" 110 Magery points on the Template, NOT the total 120 including the 10 from items....

Therefore, it is advisable that, for the Skill(s) which your Template is "mainly" going to use/rely on and, thus, use Masteries, you train up as many points as possible so as to use the Mastery's Bonus at its fullest.

WornOutYourTool

Could try ...
120 spellweaving
120 magery
120 evaluate
120 mystic
120 focus
  60 necro

120 spirit speak

Yeah I know it's 60 points over, I'd fill in skill on items or drop whatever you like down.  I find necro compliments Magery so well.  60 will let you corpse skin, wraith, omen, blood oath, all the good stuff minus wither.

LordJJOliver

WornOutYourTool said:

Could try ...
120 spellweaving
120 magery
120 evaluate
120 mystic
120 focus
  60 necro

120 spirit speak

Yeah I know it's 60 points over, I'd fill in skill on items or drop whatever you like down.  I find necro compliments Magery so well.  60 will let you corpse skin, wraith, omen, blood oath, all the good stuff minus wither.

So you think no resist magic spells or meditation at all?

LordJJOliver

I am a bit confused about resisting magic spells, and the elemental resist boosts from gear. If you have gear that gives you full 70/70 to all resists, does resisting magic spells actually do anything? And is it only beneficial to certain skills?

WornOutYourTool

LordJJOliver said:

WornOutYourTool said:

Could try ...
120 spellweaving
120 magery
120 evaluate
120 mystic
120 focus
  60 necro

120 spirit speak

Yeah I know it's 60 points over, I'd fill in skill on items or drop whatever you like down.  I find necro compliments Magery so well.  60 will let you corpse skin, wraith, omen, blood oath, all the good stuff minus wither.

So you think no resist magic spells or meditation at all?

Necromancery can provide more mana than you know what to do with in most cases, Margery mastery for those times it doesn't.  I've converted quite a few to this.  Studded or bone armor for extra LMC works wonders.


Resist spells is a personal preference.  Outside of PvP I don't really find I need it often.

WornOutYourTool

LordJJOliver said:

I am a bit confused about resisting magic spells, and the elemental resist boosts from gear. If you have gear that gives you full 70/70 to all resists, does resisting magic spells actually do anything? And is it only beneficial to certain skills?

You basically have the right idea.  Things like getting hit with mana vamp, paralyze, blood oath, so on are why resist is wanted.  

LordJJOliver

WornOutYourTool said:

LordJJOliver said:

I am a bit confused about resisting magic spells, and the elemental resist boosts from gear. If you have gear that gives you full 70/70 to all resists, does resisting magic spells actually do anything? And is it only beneficial to certain skills?

You basically have the right idea.  Things like getting hit with mana vamp, paralyze, blood oath, so on are why resist is wanted.  

I just tested by placing my resist spells on soulstone, fought daemons at the daemon temple with and without, and it was a bloody nightmare.. i was constantly getting frozen, poisoned, etc... it was hard to fight. had GM resist spells and i almost never get these effects. I was trying to make a rounded caster for PVM - honestly though it seemed brutal doing 1on1 with a caster (daemon) without Resisting spells. Could I bring my resisting spells down to 85 with my pluses to free up room to raise other skills? would i be able to resist lower level spells that daemons or higher throw at me?

Here are my stats and skills for reference (if you have advice)

Faster casting is 4/4 (someone above said you get interrupted with lower, but i get interrupted just ass much as when i had 1/4 or 2/4)
cast recovery 5/6
Lower mana cost 40/40
LRC 105/100
Spell damage increase 91
mana regen 27/30

full resists with exception of physical resist is almost full (energy 75/75 due to elf) i have a bad chest piece currently that only really adds 2 mana regen and 20 physical resist for the stats on it that matter - if i had something better there i might have full phys resist - the rest of my gear is mostly high end stuff that i wouldnt really like trading out for something that isnt better overall. nothing currently adding skills besides resist spells, and sometimes meditation depending on books im holding - my cuffs of archmage add 15 resist, and book adds 9

INT 150+39 STR 120 DEX 10

Magery 120
Myst 100.3
Spellweaving 108.6
Eval int 105
Resisting spells 105 (or 100 if I swap books)
Med 100 (110 if i swap books)
Focus 100

WornOutYourTool

@LordJJOliver

Yeah like I mentioned, resist is preference.  I don't worry much about poisons and debuffs and there's ways around para.  Depends on comfort level and playstyle, so all good.

Out of curiosity were you under protection in your test?

LordJJOliver

WornOutYourTool said:

@ LordJJOliver

Yeah like I mentioned, resist is preference.  I don't worry much about poisons and debuffs and there's ways around para.  Depends on comfort level and playstyle, so all good.

Out of curiosity were you under protection in your test?

No i was not under protection. Well if I drop my resists down to 80 or so after pluses etc, would i be pretty good against the para, poison, etc? Does GM or GM+ make a huge difference? I just want to be able to raise eval higher and get myst/spell weaving to at least 110

Grace

Your resist spell is going to go against your enemies eval int. So you can get away with under 100 for low eval int monsters and shrug most off. But once you get to strong caster targets you will see the difference.

LordJJOliver

ok so... i guess figure out my gear and get more +resist bonuses. i could drop it to 76 with my current gear and still have 100 resist. that would free up some room.

popps

LordJJOliver said:

ok so... i guess figure out my gear and get more +resist bonuses. i could drop it to 76 with my current gear and still have 100 resist. that would free up some room.

@LordJJOliver

I do not understand...

If you "drop it" down to 76, how can you then "still" have 100 resist ?

If it is 76, it cannot be 100.....

Also, what do you mean by "free some room" ?