General

@kirbyhyper: Yeah i gave up on getting my guide stickied on basil so i just put it up on maple&fm

replace the & with a period

@asher1111: I don't understand either; maybe I'll try adding more stuff soon.

Thanks for the good words on the current status on the guide (as well as for the mention of familiar help), though I'm not sure how much I should hope for as far as stickying goes given that there has been an F/P guide randomly stickied on this forum for the past 3-4 months. lol

@kirbyhyper
Very odd, I don't understand why "I am currently unable to add due to word count limits" because there are many posts here on basil that have over a thousand more words than your guide. (For example, my [url=http://www.basilmarket.com/forum/2722616]unstickied beginner guide[/url])

Btw, if you need help with the familiar section of your guide feel free to check out my guide which has a bit of information on which familiars are useful.

Edit: Forgot to say - Great Job on this guide and I hope you have better luck getting it stickied than mine lol

[quote=Deadlymember]Bump. The other guide is out dated, would rather new I/L see this one. Also TS are you still active?[/quote]I haven't touched this game in 4 months (I have a bad computer, no friends and I'm pretty much at my peak of damage before I need to start pumping in massive amounts of money, also school [currently I'm in exam time]).

I will admit though, it's really cool to see this still front-paged despite my inactivity. Not sure what I need to work on as far as the guide goes though (it seems that there aren't any interesting updates as far as I know).

Bump. The other guide is out dated, would rather new I/L see this one. Also TS are you still active?

Bump la bump.

I think it's time for a BUMP.

[url=http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s113/a1whizzy/cat.jpg?t=1258845413]Bumping[/url]

Basilmarket should have a system to more easily transfer guide ownership between users. Then you could have avoided the whole appeals process.

Bumpy bump bump.

Im considering changing my f/p to i/l...

Is it true what i hear though, i/l are just a weak version of lumis ?

Time for another bump?

@Jwoy: Basil has updated it, cause there are RED skills there.
It is 5 monsters, +2 if you get the Hyper skill at Lv189.

@Jwoy: Yeah it hits every 210 ms so it's lands ~19.05 in the 4 seconds it's up averaging to ~3.81 hits per second if you factor the time that it's not up.

The extra 100 range opens up a lot of places where you can teleport up to (Hall of Honour for example) and you will also notice a difference horizontally. I have a hard time playing F/P and Bishop nowadays because their Teleports feel so short.

Edit: Chain Lightning still only hits 5 monsters.

@Jwoy: Training or bossing, it probably honestly won't make much of a difference.
The RED update for Teleport was all the difference that was needed, and the Hyper skill won't really add to it.
Your description of the distance with taking a step will pretty much almost be accurate. lt's very minor.

However, if your character doesn't already have max Speed/Jump (regular mobility), this might be a little more significant in terms of helpfulness.

[quote=Jwoy]@kirbyhyper:
I have only one question, how many hits does FO hit per second? Edit : It is 210ms (accoirding to JT's chart) once it begin to hit, that make FO - Critical Chance more useful than ever.
Anyway, how useful is the extra 100 range of teleport? (I heard the 100 range is equal to the distance walked by a character who have a 100% speed for 1 second, which is not very far, based on my opinion, solely on the observation [I cannot change to an I/L yet since RED haven't reach my version])[/quote]

l currently have the Teleport Mastery extra range Hyper skill for convenience sake, and although it's no Luminous teleport, you will definitely see a difference in distance even though it's not significant.

@Jwoy

Initially I was going to pretty this calculation up but who cares; I'll just type this up as I go.

First thing we need to do is show the impact of Frozen Orb on your damage without any hypers at all (a lot of the base stuff will spring up from this and hypers just multiply these numbers anyway). We will assume that whatever you are attacking already has 5 ice counters. I will also ignore boosts like Arcane Aim, Storm Magic and Infinity as both skills are subject to them anyway.

Chain Lightning damage per cast is 273 * 6 = 1638%. If I then proceed to factor the criticals I need to multiply this by our average critical damage by our critical rate. min crit is 45, max crit is 75 so average crit damage is +60% (I will ignore the fact that the Explorer Ring mentioned gives +5 to min crit so that the result is not specific to these exact critical boosts. Crit rate for Chain Lightning in this case is 100% so we just multiply the damage by 1.6 ie 2620.8%. Boosted delay is 690 ms

Frozen Orb damage, if you land all the hits is 220 * (4000/210) = ~4190.48%. Critical rate is 75%, so critical rate boosts damage by 1.45, thus 6076.19%. Boosted delay is 1350 ms

Now at this point we need to come up with 2 cases: one where you go 5 seconds of only casting CL and one where you cast FO and spend the remainder of 5 seconds casting CL.

Case 1: using only CL
5000/690 = ~7.25 * 2620.8 = ~18991.3%/5 seconds

Case 2: using CL and FO
(5000 - 1350)/690 = ~5.29 (so essentially you can cast 2 CLs in the time you cast FO) * 2620.8 + 6076.19 = ~19939.84%/5 seconds

So with these critical rates, using Frozen Orb every 5 seconds increases your damage by 4.99% (fails to round up; with just our base critical I calculated a 4.36% damage increase so the extra crit rate currently is working in Frozen Orb's favour).

I should also mention that with base crit rates I also looked at how it impacts your damage if you decided to cast every 8 seconds instead of every 5 seconds (technically I should've picked 12 seconds which is the longest you can go before having to cast it again) and it turned out to have a lesser benefit to your damage than if you spammed it as much as possible. So feel free to curse at server lag at every time you see Frozen Orb still on cooldown when its duration finishes.

Now let's factor in hypers:

Chain Lightning - Reinforce essentially multiplies CL damage by 1.2 -> 3144.96%
Chain Lightning - Extra Strike essentially multiplies CL by ~1.67; I will simply redo the calculation to avoid working with a rounded number here.
Using both hypers gives a total of 3669.12% per cast.

Frozen Orb - Reinforce obviously has the same effect as CL - Re -> 7291.43%
Frozen Orb - Critical Chance changes our crit rate from 75% to 95%, changing the crit damage boost from 1.45 to 1.57, which calculates to being a ~8.28% damage boost (with just base critical it was a 9.92% damage boost; should be fairly straightforward as to why getting more crit is less beneficial the more you already have).
Using both hypers gives a total of ~7895.16%

So now let's plug these new numbers into our cases; first we will do a calculation with both CL hypers and FO - Re:

Case 1:
~7.25 * 3669.12 = ~26601.12%/5 seconds

Case 2:
~5.29 * 3669.12 + 7291.43= ~26701.07%/5 seconds

So actually Frozen Orb spammed boosts your damage by ~0.38% with this critical rate. (with base critical Frozen Orb decreased damage by ~0.13%)

So I guess my point of requiring FO - Critical Chance to not be detrimental to dps doesn't work in this case, only I don't know if someone's content with a 0.38% damage increase especially since that virtually means not hitting everything potentially makes it not worth your time. So now let's calculate with all 4 hypers:

Case 2 (using the Case 1 mentioned above; it is no different):
~5.29 * 3669.12 + 7895.16= ~27304.8%/5 seconds

Which is now a ~2.65% damage increase. (with base critical I calculated a 2.54% damage increase)

So aside from showing that Frozen Orb should probably be buffed this somewhat shows that for your own damage's sake you should have Frozen Orb - Critical Chance. Anyone who has a problem with the way I got these numbers should probably show me why.

@Jwoy: I did the calculations with no additional critical multipliers so I'll have to recalculate for using them. Friday is my "day off" of school, so I'll work at it (and start at rewriting the guide) then.

So as far as updating goes, I've been really out of MS for a while due to school and my own choosing to focus on other games instead of this (all the dailies have worn me out o.o). I'll look for time to work on this guide but odds are I'll probably do a substantial amount of rewriting.

[quote=okaythen]Another really good training spot for 105-140 would be Crimson Guards.
They are level 120 so you won't miss TOO much at 105 and give 6.1k exp per kill and have about 100k hp.
Crimson Guards have element resist so make sure you have element reduce on.
Also they seal a lot so get holy waters from ellinia pot shop. If you kill them in 1 hit all the time, you will not need holy water.
It is good to stand on the upper platform as CL connects to the mobs on the bottom level occasionally.
CL doesn't connect on the bottom level unless there are mobs on the stairs located on both sides of the map.
If you're hitting less than 40k per line with CL it is recommended you go a bit later (110-115) so you won't miss as much
and have to burn through your holy water.

Papulatus and Pianus are also decent exp 120+ and is good practice for bossing for players that never really bossed.
It is recommended you bring allcures or holy waters to those bosses too.
Hope this helped and gl getting it stickied![/quote]Interesting about Crimson Guardians. I'm personally not a fan of training at places where there's a seal chance but it seems worth a shot. I might go as far as making a new I/L to test all these areas that are being suggested to me to make sure and I'll definitely add Papulatus when I get the time (Pianus I'm not entirely sure about since the spawn rate is so low).

[quote=Jwoy]Replace Frozen Orb - Critical Chance with Chain Lightning - Extra Target.
Phantom Link skill, Explorer ring and Hyper Critical alone is enough to achieve 100% Critical chance. Having extra target on chain lightning will boost up your training speed significantly, ie Evo Lab, DiPQ, SH and such.
Edit : 4x~5x training wise, Stairway to the sky 1 is faster, tons of mob, extremely high spawn rate, easy map circulation. Although one of them is strong against your element, it is still faster than other place here thanks to the 3 reasons I gave.[/quote]In the skill descriptions that unfortunately don't fit, I do mention the fact that Chain Lightning - Extra Target is at an awfully late point where it stops mattering to an extent. As far as the build itself goes the most likely spots where you would get it would be at level 200 (where at that point you most likely don't even need it anymore anyway) or at level 190 (moving Teleport Mastery back in order to get it at level 189 is not worth it). I think in other versions (you specifically play in msea) it's at a different level so it's a better idea, but do note that Frozen Orb does require both Reinforce and Critical Chance hypers in order to not be detrimental to dps (can provide calculations if necessary) so odds are I would suggest something around the lines of resetting when one hits 200 if anything. Personally I find Glacier Chain and Frozen Orb to be enough help with mobbing at places like Evo and DI to not find it necessary and HoH does not seem to have mob sizes big enough to really warrant it in my experience; not sure about Golems.

yikes. thunderstorm is awful. totally resetting the points into ice strike >____> ice strike or glacier maxed prove more useful at this point (parsing leaves here)... the skill is totally forgettable unless your stationed. even in stationary positions im finding the skill forgettable and annoying. i can see some use if your under funded (DoT attempts), but even than...

i remember even being able to incorporate thunderspear into training better than this, messiest skill ever ;x

Another really good training spot for 105-140 would be Crimson Guards.
They are level 120 so you won't miss TOO much at 105 and give 6.1k exp per kill and have about 100k hp.
Crimson Guards have element resist so make sure you have element reduce on.
Also they seal a lot so get holy waters from ellinia pot shop. If you kill them in 1 hit all the time, you will not need holy water.
It is good to stand on the upper platform as CL connects to the mobs on the bottom level occasionally.
CL doesn't connect on the bottom level unless there are mobs on the stairs located on both sides of the map.
If you're hitting less than 40k per line with CL it is recommended you go a bit later (110-115) so you won't miss as much
and have to burn through your holy water.

Papulatus and Pianus are also decent exp 120+ and is good practice for bossing for players that never really bossed.
It is recommended you bring allcures or holy waters to those bosses too.
Hope this helped and gl getting it stickied!

Bumping this to give notice of a minor update.

I removed Dead Scarecrows from the list of training zones as I heard they were re-nerfed. I then fixed up a few other training areas.

I also mentioned Gollux as a work in progress. I will post a strategy as I continue to do Gollux runs (I will try some on Normal mode but it didn't end well last time I tried it; mostly due to lag though). Will also probably put something on Grosso Polpo and (hopefully) Livyatan as well even though they don't seem to count as bosses.

Also most people will probably have noticed by now that an F/P skill distribution is currently stickied on this forum. This probably is just a random mistake but I'd like to think this is a chance that this guide will get stickied soon. I'd like people to help out with that if you're willing; you can do so by giving some additional advice on things, or submitting a ticket to mrbasil recommending this guide be sticked. Thanks if you do

Looks like this could use a bump.

[quote=FrostPhoenyx]Cool, I've been maining an I/L mage since about 2007/2008 as well but I've played on and off over the years xD What exactly is a power stance, is it from Infinity? I never really understood that skill haha. Also what is the difference between Elemental Adaptation and Hero's will?[/quote]Stance is basically a "hidden stat" that prevents you from being knocked back when you get hit by something. It's really useful in a lot of training and bossing situations which is why the reliance on outside sources to maintain a high stance is a con.

Naturally we get 20% from Absolute Zero Aura and 50% while Infinity is active (which is only 33.33% of the time) so it's rather low.

Main difference between Elemental Adaptating and Hero's Will is that Elemental Adapting prevents you from taking status, while Hero's Will cures the status (seduce) when you're afflicted by one.

Edit: If anyone wants any updates on how the guide is doing, everything else simply doesn't fit in the post.

Cool, I've been maining an I/L mage since about 2007/2008 as well but I've played on and off over the years xD What exactly is a power stance, is it from Infinity? I never really understood that skill haha. Also what is the difference between Elemental Adaptation and Hero's will?

[quote=litaozhao]Pretty sure t.ots instant levels only work if you finish everything he recommends for you , which at levels 30-35 includes ellinel and mushking. This means they're not really instant levels.

Scarecrows were nerfed t.o hell, but I guess 135 exp compared t.o the old 220 is still okay.

MPE is always the preferred choice from 70-140. Nothing else is necessary.[/quote]T.ot's requirements for level 30 is the first Ellinel quest, a Curbrock thing, and some know how. Once you do those he doesn't ask t.o do anything else until 35. Essentially they are all free levels.

Dead Scarecrows were reverted back t.o giving 220 exp per kill.

I realize that Monster Park Extreme is good enough but generally that's only 30 minutes spent per day, and some people might want alternatives.

@FrigdorMagic: I actually do already have a section for all three typed up. The whole "site won't let me post the whole thing" issue doesn't seem to be here anymore so maybe I'll try to jam them in now, but thanks for providing links; it will be nice to provide some additional sources

Pretty sure tots instant levels only work if you finish everything he recommends for you , which at levels 30-35 includes ellinel and mushking. This means they're not really instant levels.

Scarecrows were nerfed to hell, but I guess 135 exp compared to the old 220 is still okay.

MPE is always the preferred choice from 70-140. Nothing else is necessary.

[quote=Sungoon]Hey looks great and this is what this class needs
I think that an explanation of how skills work would be wonderful, as well as some training spots that take advantage of elemental magic for those of us who love grinding on regular mobs (such as myself)

removed lists for quoting's sake

But great job! Informational and clean![/quote]Added some regular monster training areas, including Ice and Lightning-weak ones. Thanks for the suggestion!

[quote=magmaster233]Amazing guide! Really appreciate it

2 questions though: I'm level 91 and I didn't have a guide so I maxed everything except Shatter (0 sp), elemental adaptation (0 sp), and thunderstorm (4sp). What do you suggest I put points in for the last 9 levels?

Is the 4th job advancement process still the same as old guides around the net?[/quote]Ideally you should have all 3 maxed but if you absolutely have to drop one of the skills I would leave Elemental Adapting at level 14. It still provides some decent status resistance and you might not need it too much outside of the higher up bosses.

As for 4th job advancement, it's similar in the fact that you still have to provide the Heroic Star and Heroic Pentagon. Main difference is that you do not have the option to just buy the Secret Spell Scroll for 10m anymore. Do remember that Manon is Ice-weak and Griffey is Lightning-resistant though

[quote=magmaster233]Amazing guide! Really appreciate it

2 questions though: I'm level 91 and I didn't have a guide so I maxed everything except Shatter (0 sp), elemental adaptation (0 sp), and thunderstorm (4sp). What do you suggest I put points in for the last 9 levels?

Is the 4th job advancement process still the same as old guides around the net?[/quote]

You need all those 3 maxed. You leave ice strike at 14.

@Jwoy she does. when the NPC tells you to get within the shield, that's when she does 1/1.
May not be an important point for most people but for the people that want to know the specific mechanics, seems like they changed AA and Amp both into %total dmg skills (at least, from what I can see in the range. if for some reason the actual effect in the dmg output still refers to multiplier then that's just odd). I've calculated before and concluded both AA and Amp were hard multipliers before they affected range directly but Nexon decided to switch that up. anyways, this means that %Boss and the like will have a drastically reduced effect

This needs to be stickied, we already got a Bishop guide (mine) and a F/P Guide (@Sungoon, my friend ), it sure helps a lot if you ask me.

Hey looks great and this is what this class needs
I think that an explanation of how skills work would be wonderful, as well as some training spots that take advantage of elemental magic for those of us who love grinding on regular mobs (such as myself)

Weak to Ice (and with good spawn):
[*]Cherry Bubble Tea Lv. 37 (? Not sure if they really are, because the Mango ones that are supposed to be weak to Poison are not)
[*]Jr. Cellion Lv. 49
[*]Cellion Lv. 55 (Thanks to elemental weaknesses, I was able to train my I/L on these starting at level 45, and it was very fast)
[*]Hogul Lv. 60
[*]Sand Dwarf Lv. 84
[*]Buffoon Lv. 104
[*]Deep Buffoon Lv. 106
[*]Blood Harp Lv. 112
(I'll stop here since Chain Lightning will become the main attack skill in 4th Job)

Weak to Lightning:
[*]Melon Bubble Tea Lv. 38 (?)
[*]Bubble Fish Lv. 60
[*]Spirit Viking Lv. 119
[*]Gigantic Spirit Viking Lv. 122
[*]Rexton Lv. 131
[*]Qualm Monk Lv. 151
[*]Qualm Monk Trainee Lv. 153
[*]Qualm Guardian Lv. 155
[*]Chief Qualm Guardian Lv. 157
[*]Oblivion Monk Lv. 160
[*]Oblivion Monk Trainee Lv. 162
[*]Oblivion Guardian Lv. 164
[*]Oblivion Guardian Lv. 166

But great job! Informational and clean!

ah. well I was wondering usage of FO as well so I'd be interested. I think a brief mention of Lightning Orb would do well, too

[quote=GoXDS]just wondering what kind of calculations you are thinking of putting? might mention some if you don't mention something[/quote]Mostly whatever calculations I did to come at the conclusion of constructing the 4th job build to be what it currently is.

Mainly things on Elquines' and Frozen Orb's impact on damage (Blizzard I have to do a few more proc tests to get a more accurate idea of its actual proc rate before I attempt to recalculate). Elquines' being based on impact of the mastery alone on damage, and its attack, and Frozen Orbs' being based on whether or not one uses it while it's still level 1, when hypers are involved, and using every 5 seconds as opposed to every 8 seconds.

just wondering what kind of calculations you are thinking of putting? might mention some if you don't mention something

[quote=SilverFoxR]I would put a "summary" in each job list if I were you to show where the points go overall by the end of that job level.

For example, in 1st job, we know everything is maxed, but in 2nd, we know that 1 of the skills won't be able to be maxed out. It'd be best to know which skills to not max in the end (obviously, best to choose between Cold Beam and Thunderbolt, as either would be replaced next job).[/quote]I did plan to do that but basil's weird "your post is too long so we're not letting you post this" thing that I've been experiencing had me cut it out. Right now there's enough room to put them back in so I did; thanks

[quote=LittleCaoBoy]You might want to mention the mastery book vendor.[/quote]That's where the expensive part comes in. I'll mention them more directly though.

Edit: Might as well mention things that I've omitted from the post so far and might not be able to re-add just yet:

- a brief paragraph on AP
- bossing guide
- equipment guide
- information on recommended link skills, character cards, and familiars
- calculations

Is there anything else that I should work to add?

I would put a "summary" in each job list if I were you to show where the points go overall by the end of that job level.

For example, in 1st job, we know everything is maxed, but in 2nd, we know that 1 of the skills won't be able to be maxed out. It'd be best to know which skills to not max in the end (obviously, best to choose between Cold Beam and Thunderbolt, as either would be replaced next job).