General

i usually go 1 in each attack, all passives max then buffs then attack skills

I would go:
100: 1 in attack skills for obvious reasons
101-104 (10): max buff mastery for magic attack and buff duration
104-124 (60): max either ifrit and arcane aim in any order to increase base damage
124-134(30):-max paralyze
134-144(30):max mist eruption
144-154(30):max flame haze
perfect just in time for your mist eruption cooldown cutter hyper. Prepare to be OP
max maple warrior
max infinity
max meteor shower and hero's will

The reason you max paralyze first is because you probably won't be bossing until you get your lvl 155 hyper.
Maple Warrior's damage boost isn't as good as arcane aim or ifrit in my opinion.
Infinity I only use for bossing and HOH. It probably won't do you much good in other places.

See this for help:
http://www.basilmarket.com/MapleStory-Guide-Fire-Poison-Mage-Guide-459.html#4thjobbuilds

I'm going to revise the builds soon, though

@QuizMaster: I actually have considered myself stupid for a very long time. Doesn't chance that I will try and help people as much as I can.

I take this reply as a no. Very well then.

@QuizMaster: And now we're on the same page. Will you now better explain to me why I'm wrong?

@QuizMaster: Interesting that you would continue to reply after you said you're tired of my ineptitude.

@QuizMaster: Then maybe you shouldn't have replied to me at all in the first place. You asked why someone would max Infinity before Ifrit, and I said exactly that.

@QuizMaster: First of all, you realize that you could've said all of this stuff in your first reply to me and it would've saved both of us time.

Secondly, what does that really have to do with anything? Obviously we know that the actual damage increase is highly varied; someone's not going to make the decision of maxing Infinity over a skill with a stable damage increase without knowing it.

@QuizMaster: You hardly did so. At least mention that in the same post or something. I realize that there are instances where x other skill is better but that's where average comes in.

@QuizMaster: Cool, you have more chances to proc; that still doesn't mean you'll get procs 60% of the time.

You're somewhat contradicting yourself in this post. It hardly makes sense to say that something has a greater average benefit and then go and say that something else will help one's damage more anyway. If something has a greater average benefit to your damage, that means it has it's better for your damage. I've done calculations showing that Infinity is clearly an overall better damage boost which is why I would even attempt to make such an argument in the first place. As far as what would be better to max first the only reasonable one to max before Infinity would be Ifrit and only because of your point of not having to cast it (we will disregard that you still have to actually summon it every 160 seconds to optimize its usage).

Ifrit adds 70% mastery so maxing it early is actually smart.
Infinity also lasts 60 seconds with maxed Buff Mastery; more if you have other sources of buff mastery increase as well (S Rank Mechanic would bump it to 66).

@QuizMaster: If you've seen the move in practice you would know the proc rate does not look like it's 60% at all. Constantly attacking I would be lucky to see 3 procs, and this is talking about an I/L that can dish attacks faster than an F/P.

That is something that people could mention as a reason to max Ifrit or even Maple Warrior first but on a solely numerical basis they are less beneficial to your damage than Infinity (this is of course assuming that there is already a point in Ifrit prior to maxing any of the skills).

How is the number irrelevant? It is the amount that you're going to get out of it in practice assuming that you frequently use the skill, which you should unless you already funded your character hard enough that you don't need it in any application you're using the character in.

[quote=QuizMaster]Meteor Shower gives you a 60% chance to do 220% damage. That's like an extra crit for free. And why would you max Infinity early? It lasts for 30 seconds and then goes out for 120.[/quote]If Meteor Shower's proc rate is anything like Blizzard's, it's not the slightest bit worth using in a bossing situation.

While Infinity is only up 33% of the time, the overall damage boost is 18.33% (15% with the way it's bugged if it still is), which is still a higher overall damage increase than Ifrit, Maple Warrior (especially at lower levels), and Meteor Shower (even if the proc rate is as high as it says).

Put the basic 1 point in each attack (Minus meteor shower), then max out buff mastery. Then go for Arcane Aim, then Infinity, then go for Mist Eruption maxing, then Paralyze, Maple Warrior, Hero's Will, Ifrit. Max out Meteor Shower last due to its low damage - If it still gave DoT it'd be a nice thing to have, but since it doesn't, oh well.

Since youre 4th anything goes really.

Well for any class, always max your passives first, especially those involving att
Every level 2SP into passive and 1every other level on either attack skill, Or buff and knowing fp, paralyze with arcane aim first, then buff mastery is your best shot