DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT A GUIDE CREATED BY ME. THESE GUIDES ARE CREATED BY OTHER FORUMERS/PLAYERS AND I HAVE ADDED ALL OF THEM TOGETHER FOR EASE AND LESS WASTE OF TIME. GUIDEMAKERS PLEASE DON'T CURSE ME.
BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO BUILDING YOUR SORCERER
First off, I'd like to thank everyone whose steady support and knowledge has shaped my sorcerer into what it is today. Now I am nowhere close to being considered one of the best sorcerers in Arcane Legends, but tips from others and my personal experiences has shown me a few things that i'd like to give back to the Sorcerer community.
To begin this guide, lets start with what gear a sorcerer can benefit from.
GEAR
To begin, gear is based around players choice. If you want to live longer, go with Ancient Druid gear, and if you want to take out your opponents faster, upgraded mythic gear is your cup of tea. Now for
Weapons
If you can't afford a KershalScepter or Elondrian Rifle (like a majority of players), the next step away would be to use an Expedition Rifle of Brutality. But why not an Expedition Rifle of Assault? Why, because the 3.5-4.8 damage/dps, 1.10% dodge, 0.77% critical chance don't help as much as the 119 HP & 22 STR you receive from the Expedition Rifle of Brutality.You can also use the new Planar Rod of Potency/Brutality as it procs very often and does much damage and helps in PvE & PvP both.
RINGS
You can use include: Archon rings, Elondrian Grove Ring Of Fitness, Frostbitten Ring Of Brutality, Blood Ruby of Shuyal.
Amulets that are mainly used are the The Planar Mythic Amulet, Lunar pendant and the Wild talisman of Brutality. Lunar pendants provide more damage and crit while the Wild Talisman of Brutality provide more hp and proc. Also the new amulet Eerie Necropolis Amulet Of Brutality (released during Halloween Event 2014)
PETS
Pets which are some good for mages are:-
Ethyl, Orion (for dumbies who cant afford better like me), Ribbit (Awesome for the Crit AA), Blinky, Dovabear (only if u wanna boost ur stats high), Kelvin & George (both for the stuns) Breeze (For the Awful freeze in PvP which is soon gonna be nerfed), Singe, Samael, Abaddon, Grimm, and many more. But basically SLAG is the best. (I don't own one but heard much about it).
Skills:-
PvP Skill Guide
Type A: CTF – Free For All (FFA)
A mage in FFA is much less effective than a rogue; a rogue specializes in single target damage, which is what FFA is all about – singling out targets and killing them and moving on to the next. Since this is what makes up the majority of CTF, let’s get right to the heart of the matter.
I. The BUILD(S)
FFA as a rogue or warrior is fairly simple; you have one build you can stick to. For mages, its more complicated. For fighting different classes, you need different builds.
For general FFA, this is my build:
Fireball: 4/5, all except Scorch
Lightning: 3/5, Empowered Bolt and Positive Surge upgrades
Shield: 4/5, all except Displacement Wave
Heal: 2/5, Empower upgrade.
You need to use different fighting strategies for each class.
If you see a rogue, charge shield, charge fireball (make it hit before the charged bow hits you if possible) and quickly follow up by lightning. Charge fire and charge lightning, spamming auto attack in between. Heal when HP's low. If you have a stun pet, stunlock the rogue. This should be enough.
For a warrior, charge fire and lightning. Stunlocking is helpful, so long as the warrior doesn't start with Juggernaut (you'll know by the brief pot sign over his head, and the fact that your FB doesn't stun him). Warrior vs mage fights are difficult, the odds are stacked heavily against you; but lucky crits can win.
For a mage, do the same thing as for rogue.
II. Pets
Favorites of mine are Samael, Slag, Grimm, Orion, Malison, Ribbit.
Type B: Clashes When you FFA, you'll probably get the enemy RG'd and ready to gang-bang your butt - how could you kill them when they were peacefully flagging?!
Get your team ready. An optimum team is 2 warriors, 2 rogues and 1 mage (you). Another good one is 2 warriors, 2 mages and 1 rogue.
A clash is where mages truly shine. With our vast CC and stunning skills, we can amass large amounts of kills and keep the other team literally stunned.
For clashes, we must go back to what a mage does. In my opinion, the role of a mage in a clash is IMMOBILIZING THE OPPONENTS.
What does this mean? Simple. Immobilizing the opponents means to not allow them to attack effectively. This can be achieved by the following skill build:
Fireball: 4/5, all except Scorch
Curse: 5/5
Shield: 4/5, all except Displacement Wave
Heal: 2/5, Empower upgrade.
As you can see, the above build utilizes this requirement to the utmost. With this build a mage can:
1. Lower the other team's attacking - Curse handles this. A team cursed is a handicapped team. Mages cannot drop clock or use skills like ice or, for that matter, spam attack skills; rogues cannot use nox or spam combos like no tomorrow; the only immune class is the warrior, though their magma proc can severely reflect damage on themselves.
2. Stuns: Charged fireball potentially stuns all 5 opponents, thus enabling your team to move forward and attack while the other team is stunned.
3. Stay Alive: Charged shield grants 2 seconds invulnerability and can absorb vast amounts of damage - it is the most essential skill in a clash.
4. Heal mana: Another of the most important benefits. Charged heal heals the rogues' mana and this is vital; because a team with a rogue who cannot attack is, again, a handicapped team.
Once I started playing with this build, I remained unsatisfied. I was still dying much too often and not inflicting enough damage with my 1 attack skill. And that's when I thought of something else.
A High HP Build.
This can easily be achieved by buying a Magma Totem of Potency/ Planar Rod of Potency, Ancient Druidic helm & armor or the new Icescale Armor and Helm which gives a set bonus of 10+ Primary stats and i will not suggest mythics as they are outdated. But if you are a rich player don't mind buying the new rare Imbued Sets.....they are OP. and a Tarlok Heart of Brutality. You can use at least one strength gem on at least 1 of these; or a better option is the Health shard which was released in the Elondrian Event (2014) which adds 54 HP.
The Magma Totem is amazing. With one attack skill alone (Fireball), there's no way you can deal out enough damage with gun - and that's where Magma's killer DPS factors in. Since in clashes with the above build you end up spamming your auto attack, what better way to do it than with a staff? Also if you're worried about curse's damage reflection, your high HP will guarantee you won't die because of your weapon's attacks.
While in a clash, monitor your rogues' mana and HP bars. Use heal when your HP falls below 40% or when a rogue is out of mana; also watch the rogue's HP. Focus on the damage classes of the opposing team and ignore the tanks if possible.
I have used this build with huge degrees of success over the past season. Since I've begun using it, I have never been asked to be replaced in a clash, which is quite an impressive feat considering I don't have an arcane staff/mythic gun and there were plenty of my old guildies who did. Bottom line, if you've got the skill, gear isn't that essential; what's important is making sure you know how to play your class perfectly.
A little hint: since staff hits multiple targets, one way of clashing would be to run in circles, all the while spamming charged FB and auto attack, hitting as many opponents as possible, also making yourself a bit of a target, thus serving as an off-tank; your high HP shouldn't be a problem.
P.S: Know when to avoid rogues. You aren't immortal.
Hiding behind a tank and attack the dps is pretty effective.
That brings us to the end of this PVP Skill Guide. Using this, you should become a successful mage in PvP while also killing a lot.
Elite Running Or PvE Skill Guide
5/5 Fireball (The last upgrade is more useful than it seems, good for ranged enemies and Tindrin Levels etc.)
3/5 Lightning Strike (No Electrical Discharge, and Shock)
3/5 Frost Bolt ( No Ice Wielder, and Artic Shatter)
The reason fot not using Ice Wielder: Their is a bug in the skill that already allows the charged Frost Bolt to freeze and damage enemies around target by default. Meaning this upgrade is currently useless and a waste of a Skill Point.
5/5 Time Shift
4/5 Arcane Shield (No Displacement Wave)
Passives:
5/5 Critical Shot
5/5 Agility (DEX)
5/5 Knowledge (INT)
5/5 Might (STR)
Why not Damage Passive? Because if you're using a Pet that provides atleast a 5% Damage Bonus, it will cancel out the Passive.
Skills for Mobs:
Fireball
Frost Bolt
Time Shift
Arcane Shield
-Always charge all Skills-
Skills for Bosses:
Fireball
Frost Bolt
Lightning Strike
Arcane Shield
-Only charge Arcane Shield-
Switch out Time Shift for Lightning Strike when fighting Bosses, Vice Versa.
Lifegiver Skill:
Pretty much a worthless Skill. Good for leveling up, but worthless for Elite Maps. Also causes Aggro, you can use Potions like everyone else.
Gale Force Skill:
Good for Tombs, but i highly not recommend it for Elite Maps. You want the mobs in one place, not scattered
L41 build ( Full int )
5/5 Fireball
4/5 Shield ( No knock back )
3/5 ( Mana upgrade and hp over time )
4/5 Light ( Use 25% stun, 15% damage and 250% crit upgrade )
3/5 Ice ( DoT & longer stun/ freeze time )
BRUTALITY VS ASSAULT!!!
Assault gives you the most damage. Brutality gives you survivability. There's a give & take between the two and for each item you buy, you have to look and see what's more important to you and your playing style. The give / take percentage can be high sometimes, thus, making it an obvious decision. It can also be low, at which point go with what you wish. For example, with an expedition rifle of brutality that has 2 normal int gems, i have 3701 HP and 558.7 dmg. The equivalent assault version gives me 4 damage over the brutality, but I lose 110 HP. Not a good trade off IMO.
DPS VS Damage
What’s DPS?
First off, let’s start with what DPS actually means.
I’m sure everyone knows it stands for Damage Per Second. But what some of you might not know is that DPS is actually a really simple calculation, as in Weapon Damage divided by Weapon speed (DPS=DMG/Weapon Speed). A slow weapon could have a weapon speed of 1.2x, meaning it will fire every 1.2 seconds, while a fast weapon could have a weapon speed of 0.5x seconds, meaning it could be fired 2 times a second.
So, as you can deduct from the calculation, a weapon with a higher speed (lower multiplier) shows more DPS because it can be fired quicker. DPS has nothing to do with your skill Dmg, it only refers to your auto attack button. It basically describes the possible Damage per second you can do on an enemy without armor, using your auto attack button. So basically, fast weapons with low Dmg output could show a high DPS number as compared to slow weapons with high Dmg output.
If the mechanics are similar as in the other STS games, real Dmg dealt is depending on the enemies’ armor. Let’s say that you’d deal 1000 Dmg on an enemy with 200 armor… This would mean the actual Dmg you dealt would be less than 1000, depending on how much enemies’ armor is taken into account. In PL for example, it can simply be calculated as follows: Real DMG = Dmg dealt – Enemies’ armor. Or, for the example above, real Dmg = 1000 – 200 = 800 real Dmg dealt.
Why is this important?
The more Dmg you’d deal, the less influence armor will have on your actual Dmg dealt.
Here’s the summary…
• DPS=Dmg/weapon speed and refers to your auto attack dmg.
• Higher speed weapons, in general, will give you a higher DPS but lower Dmg value.
• Skill Damage is more important than Auto attack DMG for a high DMG output mage.
The High DPS build-
Let’s check out the the skill dmg…
Fireball: 245-306 Damage
Lightning Strike: 376-470 Damage
Gale Force: 245-306 Damage
Frost Bolt: 327-408 Damage
Time Shift: 327-408 Damage
And just for comparison purposes…
Life Giver: Heals 653-817 Damage
The High Damage Build
Fireball: 273-342 Damage (+28 minimum, and +36 maximum skill Dmg)
Lightning Strike: 419-524 Damage (+43 min, +54 max Dmg)
Gale force: 273-342 Damage (+28 min, +36 max Dmg)
Frost Bolt: 364-456 Damage (+37 min, +48 max Dmg)
Time Shift: 364-456 Damage (+37 min, +48 max Dmg)
Lifegiver: Heals 729-911 Dmg (+76 min, +94 max Dmg heal)
Conclusion
Given you attack mostly with your skills as a pure Damage mage, it should be clear that skill damage is more important as compared to auto-attack Dmg. And when comparing skill damage for a high DPS build vs a High Dmg build, it’s clear that the high Dmg build is vastly superior, in therms of dealing damage, as compared to the high DPS build. Also Dps and Damage differs with the equipment/ weapon you are using,
Special THANKS to for this guide:- LibbertyBells (Jasper), JaytB, and others whose guide i have used and mashed up. :)
