MapleStory/Magician/Skills

Improving MP Recovery
Mastery Level 16

Passive

Recover more MP; based on skill level and player level This increases the amount of MP you regain every 10 seconds. This skill should be maxed, but it's not the first priority.

Improving Max MP Increase
Mastery Level 10

Passive

Needs: Improving MP Recovery 5

Get more Max MP on level-ups and when spending AP

This skill is THE first priority to max. Despite the unclear description, this skill increases the max MP you get when you put AP into MP (which you shouldn't be doing), and when you level up. This is less noticable at first, but it becomes more noticable at higher levels if not maxed ASAP.

Magic Guard
Mastery Level 20

Active

Temporarily takes damage out of MP instead of HP; damage goes to HP if MP runs out

This skill replaces HP damage you take, up to a max of 80%, and converts it to MP damage instead. This skill is one of the most important first-job skills, as it can prevent deaths from damage greater than your max HP (which will be more common at higher levels)

Magic Armor
Mastery Level 20

Active

Needs: Magic Guard 3

Temporarily boosts weapon def

Increases Weapon Defense temporarily. This skill is pointless, as the 40 defense isn't as useful as any other skill would be.

Energy Bolt
Mastery Level 20

Active

Single ranged attack

This is the first magic attack that a Magician can get, but is less effective at what it does than Magic Claw. Uses less mana per casting than magic claw.

Magic Claw
Mastery Level 20

Active

Needs: Energy Bolt 1

As seen (by most Maplers) vs Energy bolt, this skill is superior to Energy bolt in every way when maxxed. Most mages do not put more than 1 SP into Energy Bolt,and think everything should be in this skill. It costs significantly more mana.

Dual ranged attack.

Ice/Lightning Wizard Skills

 * 1) MP Eater: Max at 20 points. If you have points in this skill, whenever you attack, there's a chance you will absorb a precentage of your enemy's MP. It isn't the most useful skill in the world, but useful enough that you should max it eventually. Put 1 point in it ASAP to reap some benefit of this skill early on.
 * 2) Meditation: Max at 20 points, require 3 points in MP Eater to unlock. This skill, when activated, increase the magic attack of all party members nearby. A very useful skill to max, as 20 magic attack will improve your damage more than you'd think.
 * 3) Slow: max at 20 points. This skill slows down nearby enemies. It's useless for Ice/Lightning mage, as you can either just zap your enemies into nothing, or freeze them solid.
 * 4) Teleport: Max at 20 points. This skill allows you to teleport to a direction instantaneously (sp?). This can be used to combine with attack skills to tele-cast (by teleporting immediately after casting) to allow you to attack with mobility and style, and only 1 point is necessary to reap most of its benefit. You should max it eventually to cut down the steep cost, as well as increasing distance.
 * 5) Cold Beam: Max at 30 points. This is your single target attack skill. It's more powerful than magic claw and freezes enemy solid, rendering them helpless. While there are very few enemies that are weak against ice, this spell allows you to attack single enemy with virtually no threat (provided that you can actually hit your enemy semi-consistently), as long as there aren't any cannon-fodders nearby eating up your Cold Beam while your enemy unthaw.
 * 6) Thunder Bolt: Max at 30 points. This is your multiple target attack skill. While it's actually less powerful than Magic Claw, it can attack up to 6 enemies at once. Tired of annoying small Cold Eyes around you eating up your Cold Beam while the Taurospear you're hunting unleash their thunderous fury at you? Zap the critters into nothing, then you can proceed to freeze your target to death. It's also very helpful for fast training.

Fire/Poison Wizard Skills

 * 1) MP Eater: Max at 20 points. If you have points in this skill, whenever you attack, there's a chance you will absorb a precentage of your enemy's MP. It isn't the most useful skill in the world, but useful enough that you should max it eventually. Put 1 point in it ASAP to reap some benefit of this skill early on.
 * 2) Meditation: Max at 20 points, require 3 points in MP Eater to unlock. This skill, when activated, increase the magic attack of all party members nearby. A very useful skill to max, as 20 magic attack will improve your damage more than you'd think.
 * 3) Slow: max at 20 points. This skill slows down nearby enemies. Since Fire Wizards lack the power to subdue their enemies, this might be a good skill to invest in, particuarly seeing how useless Poison Brace is.
 * 4) Teleport: Max at 20 points. This skill allows you to teleport to a direction instantaneously (sp?). This can be used to combine with attack skills to tele-cast (by teleporting immediately after casting) to allow you to attack with mobility and style, and only 1 point is necessary to reap most of its benefit. You should max it eventually to cut down the steep cost, as well as increas its distance.
 * 5) Fire Arrow: Max at 30 points. This is your primary attack skill, and it does a lot of damage compared to other mages, being 50% more powerful than Magic Claw and 20% more powerful than Cold Beam. However, the physical attack classes will catch up on damage eventually, making Fire Wizards pretty weak at high levels. Despite all that, you should still max this ASAP, after 1 point in Teleport and MP Eater.
 * 6) Poison Brace: Max at 30 points. While this attack does damage, it doesn't do much. Instead, it poisons the enemy you're attacking, making them lose HP over time. This might be a good support skill if you're hunting stuff like Werewolves, but I believe Slow is a better investment as Poison Brace is not very effective before level 70, and completely useless after that.

Cleric Skills

 * 1) MP Eater Max: 20 Every time you hit a monster you have a chance of taking some MP from them. The more points you have, the better the chance and the more MP you get.
 * 2) Heal Max: 30 Heal the HP of you and your party. This will also attack up to 6 undead monsters.
 * 3) Invincible
 * 4) Teleport Max: 20 This will let you 'move' faster. Uses a ton of MP, more points in this only means that you use less MP. This is an all or nothing skill, either you should plan to max this out, or don't touch it at all.
 * 5) Bless
 * 6) Holy Arrow Max: 30 This is a holy attack. It deal more damage to undead monsters.

Heal is considered a much better spell than holy arrow since it will heal you and your party and attack more monsters. The only drawback is that heal can only attack undead monsters, whereas Holy Arrow can attack any types, and does bonus damage to enemies weak to holy.