MapleStory/Magician

Beginners
When you begin the game, you get to choose the stats that your character will begin the game with. These are STR, DEX, INT and LUK. Magician equipment, defence, and damage all depend on INT and LUK; STR and DEX are not required for anything. When creating your character, STR and DEX should be as low as possible, preferably a 4 in each, though up to dual 5 or even 6/4 is acceptable. Since INT and LUK will be raised at each level up, it doesn't matter what they are at this point, as long as STR and DEX are low. However, getting a high INT (8/9/10) would be preferable, as well as LUK. Just remember to major your AP(ability points) in INT.

Detailed information about raising INT and LUK can be found on the Builds page.

Be patient at the start, It's kinda hard ;)

Maple Island
At the beginning, your damage will be severely limited. The best training enemy for the beginning Magician are Green and Blue Snails. Try not to use healing items now. Save them for later. If you die now, your experience stays the same. Later, during the first job, exp decreases if you die. Now since the BIG update, it will be alot easier for mages to lvl up. Luckily, the Magician's advancement level is only 8, whereas the other classes have an advancement level of 10. Also, a Hand Axe appears to be the best weapon for a Beginning Mage, since it has a higher tendency to strike for 3 damage.

The first few maps have an abundance of green snails. Beyond that are the two towns on Maple Island. If you wish, there are also quests on Maple Island that can be completed. One gives a helmet equip, and another gives a weapon. The second quest may require a lot of patience, as it asks for 10 orange mushroom caps (orange mushrooms have 80 hp!) as well as 30 blue snail shells. Fortunately, if you have the patience, there are safe spots you can jump and hit mushrooms without taking damage, but your hits tend to be extremely low (1). The reward for the quest is a fruit knife, which may not be very worthwhile for a beginning magician unless you want to sell it later.

Once you hit level 8 and if you have at least 20 points of INT (which you should if you have read this guide so far), go to Southperry and take the ship to Lith Harbour at a cost of 150 mesos. You may also want to have at least 2200 mesos after to buy a wooden wand.

Victoria Island
First things first. By now, hopefully you should have at least 2,200 meso remaining, enough to get to the Mage town, Ellinia, and buy the first weapon that adds Magic Attack. If you have more, go to the Lith Harbour Weapon/Armour store and purchase the level 11 Common-Class top/bottom. These have more Weapon Defense than more your level 8 and 13(Male) Mage-specific equips, and no monsters apply Magic Defense to their attacks yet. The level 13(Female) Mage-specific equips have a slightly higher Weapon Defense than the level 11 Common-Class equips, but the slightly higher Weapon Defense is not worth the additional cost. Also, it may be easier for beginning mages to simply forgo clothing and invest their mesos in weapons, Red Potions, and Blue Potions.

When you are ready, either talk to the man in the ticket booth near the ship, and choose to go to Ellinia or walk to Ellinia. Walking is a good way to train, but running into high level monsters is more or less inevitable. If you walk, make sure you do not advance to level 9 before getting to Ellinia. Also, before you leave, there is an easy quest you can do in Lith Harbor. Talk to Olaf, who is near the right of the city, in the lower level. Once you've answered his questions correctly, you can choose the next quest from him. Choose path of the Magician. Once you've become a magician, you can go back and talk to Olaf again (whenever, doesn't have to be right away)and get a reward.

Once in Ellinia, head to the house at the VERY top of the map and go inside. Talk to Grendel. Assuming you are level 8 with at least 20 INT, advance from a Beginner to a Magician. Grendel will also increase your max MP by a large amount, and give you 1 Skill Point (SP) to use. Using that SP in magic bolt would most likely be the wisest, as it doesn't use too much MP, so you can really start fighting.

New patch edit (With Shell Throw) Putting a point or two as a Beginner into Shell Throw can make fighting larger monsters a bit easier as Beginner and early Magician, abeit a sacrifice of a snail shell or two. It loses its usefulness when your Magic Bolt actually hits over 25-40(the end limit of the technique), but for taking down Mushrooms FAST, it's worth the sacrifice of a pair of Red Shells.

First Job: Magician
Welcome to the way of the Magician. For detailed information about what each skill does, refer to Skills. For detailed information about how to allocate skill and ability points, refer to Builds

1st job, low level magician training spots: The Tree that Grew 1,2 or 3 (no. 3 has green mushrooms. For all you low level magicians, WATCH OUT), the place that people call the Slime Tree and Henesys hunting ground (all) However, as you are still pretty low leveled, it could be wiser to stay close to Ellinia until at least level 10.

After you reach level 20 or so, Perion (which is ironically the Warrior's town) is a relatively good place to train, since the monsters, which are mostly stumps and their variants, have low magical defense and slow, good for magicians.

Second Job advance preparations
At this point, you're a Magician, you're at level 30, and you're currently much more powerful than the other classes. Return to Ellinia and converse with Grendel. He will give you a compliment, and then send you to the 2nd Job Advance Instructor in The Forest West of Ellinia. He'll talk to you as well, and then send you into the darkness. Inside this tree, you will find several Horned Mushrooms and Curse Eyes. Kill them. Instead of EXP and Items, they give you Dark Marbles. Collect 30 of these marbles, and then talk to the Instructor. He will give you the Proof of a Hero, and then send you back to Grendel the Really Old. Here, he will inquire as to which path you wish to take...

You have three roads before you, each with a myriad of puzzles and adventures that await you. The least common choice is the Fire/Poison. This does not mean that it is inferior, of course. By level 38, you'll be capable of dishing out more damage faster than any other class. Or, you could become an Ice Mage, and quickly freeze and kill your enemy. Lightning comes along with ice, and Lightning gives you the ability to kill of a pack of 6 monsters all at once (Ice/Lightning are placed in the same job, so you get both eventually as an Ice/Lightning Wizard). The third, and possibly most common choice is the Cleric. As a cleric, you do the least damage, but you eventually become (literally,) the life of the party. You'll eventually end up very wealty as a cleric. This is because Clerics can cheat the system; they can gain MP from killing monsters, and HP from their MP-consuming skill, heal. Nowhere in this process is money drained.

Holy, Fire, Ice, Poison, or Lightning?
There are several paths from which this single choice can take you. Be sure to pick the one that won't bore you to death!


 * Fire/Poison Wizard: Fire Wizards (or Fizards, as they seem to be commonly known) tend to spend most of their time in Ossyria, since Fire-Friendly (Or Fire Abnegant) monsters roam the beautiful white snowbanks of El Nath and the areas encompassing it. Poison is also an option in this job, but most simply choose to stay away from it and place their SP into more useful skills, as this is phased out instantly in the Third Job Advance. Leveling with a Poison Wizard is difficult. The highest level Poison Wizard on beta only reached level 42. Fire Wizards spend most of their time sniping ice monsters from afar with their magical instruments of burning death. They tend to Teleport from monster to monster, killing from afar and near when strategically advantageous. Slow is an essential skill to them as well, as it allows Fire Arrow the time it needs to destroy mobs of, say, Jr. Yetis.

A note on maxed Poison Breath: Only after Fire Arrow has been maxed a Fire Wizard might consider the option of maxing out Poison Breath. With a base damage of 70, a 60% mastery, and a magician with roughly 175 m attack and about 35 luk this skill can deal about 347-578 Poison damage while actual poisoning does 70 hp damage or 1/40th the enemies hp. This can allow a Fire Mage to deal with some Fire creatures they normally would not be able. There are roughly 12 enemies weak to Poison.

In the third job, these Mages undergo a nice power boost. Explosion has a range that rivals Fire Arrow, and a power that is equal to Fire Arrow, rendering it useless, seeing how Explosion is a mob skill, whilst Fire Arrow is stuck to one target at a time. (Explosion is, however, painfully slow) Though, Fire Arrow may find solace in the fact that it gets an upgrade in the form of the Fire Mage's Magic Composition spell! This attack is a fusion of Fire and Poison placed into an ethereal bow. When launched, this attack strikes with a Base Damage of 150, and also a 70% chance of Poisoning the enemy for 40 seconds. Fire Mages also get Poison Myst which is a poison based mob skill that initially hits one monster for damage and then creates a mist with 70% chance of poisoning for all monsters that travel within the mist.


 * Ice/Lightning Wizard: Ah, yes. The ultimate in icy and electrical crowd control is now at your fingertips! As a Lightning Wizard, you can wander about the country side, scaring noobs and vets alike as you massacre groups of upto 6 monsters with Lightning! Statistically, Lightning is no more powerful than Magic Claw, but the compound damage on the six monsters that Lightning strikes add up to be more. And, if you choose Ice first, you are allowed the power to freeze monsters, rendering them immobile. Though Cold Beam is 17% weaker than Fire Arrow, it's ability to freeze enemies makes up for it. Together, with ice and lightning, you will roam the countryside, laughing at the frozen forms of large monsters and burnt (electrified) carcasses of smaller creatures. Forget about slow... who needs to slow enemies down, when you can either zap them to nothingness or make them wish the Fourth Vial Judgement (Random Bible Reference) is upon them?

In the Third Job, Ice/Lightning Mages are the pinnacle of crowd control. Although their Ice Strike is 10% weaker than Cold Beam, it allows Wizards to attack and freeze upto six enemies at once. They also get Thunder Spear, the strongest (currently, at least) spell among all Magicians, with 170 Base Damage maxed. Compare that to the Fire Mage's 150 Base Damage Magic Composition and a Cleric's 105 Base Damage Shining Ray. The drawback to this, like Explosion, is it's slow casting time (Some say that you should put points into Slow to prepare for this attack, but from what I have seen, the freeze time Composition grant you is more than enough). The Ice/Lightning Mage's Magic Composition has a Base Damage of 140, but it only strikes one enemy and freezes only one target, rendering this skill much weaker when compared to Thunder Spear and Ice Strike. However, it serves as an excellent replacement to Cold Beam, and a faster alternative to Thunder Spear.


 * Cleric: The weakest of the three wizards, even when this mage has an elemental advantage, Fire Wizards beat it out in damage. However, Clerics have become quite popular in the Maple Story crowd with their "Heal" skill. With this skill, you can easily heal some 2000 hp for each party member while using only 24 mana. Additionally, Heal can damage undead enemies, such as Wraiths, Jr. Wraiths, Zombies and Zombie Lupins. Also, when Heal is coupled with the skill "MP Eater", a Cleric becomes very low maintenance in the Zombie areas, allowing for them to attack with Heal, and thusly take no damage, and absorb the MP needed for the spell from other monsters via MP Eater. In other words, Clerics can just walk into a crowd of zombies, cast heal for about an hour, and take absolutely no damage in terms of neither HP nor MP. This combination is how Clerics manage to become the richest class in the game, as they tend to have no need for potions, thus allowing them to retain all of the mesos they find as pure profit. Since Clerics mainly cast Heal over and over to level on these undeads, they tend to become boring after level 45. Try your hardest to stick through, as they pay off in a big way.

Looking ahead to 3rd job, Clerics continue to be weakest in terms of damage, due to their lack of Booster or Element Amplification. However, instead they get skills that all parties will love. Holy Symbol increases the amount of exp gained for every person in the party (finally giving parties some uses), and Mystic Door creates a 2-way doorway to the closest town and where you are, allowing travel to the farthest corners of Ossyria in a single step. Not to mention Doom, which allows a Priest to turn upto 6 of it's adversaries into Blue Snails for upto 20 seconds for the price of a Magic Rock, which is comically effective when you're surrounded by a mob of tough monsters. The Summoning Rock can also be used by Priests to activate their skill Summon: Dragon, in which a blue pet dragon appears and follows you around for 2 and 1/3 minutes, attacking your enemies and making your life easier. They also have a very potent mob attack, Shining Ray, with a base attack power of 105 which is only a little weaker than the explosion but stronger than ice strike still, when not factoring in Mage-specific skills. Clerics are also the most popular 2nd job in MapleStory, as their party-benefitting skills are widely welcomed by all 3 jobs.


 * Teleport and MP Eater are both skills shared by all three magician variations.
 * Slow and Meditate (magic attack boost) are both skills shared by the Fire/Poison and Ice/Lightning variations, although only Fire/Poison has the need to max it.
 * In the third job, Fire/Poison and Ice/Lightning Mages both receive Partial Resistance, Element Amplification, and Magic Booster. These three spells improve the elemental resistance, the elemental power, and the Spell Casting speed of the user, respectively. Another skill, Seal, locks enemies from casting spells of their own.

The Second Job
Ahah! Elemental Power! Holy, Ice, Lightning, Fire! For the next 40 levels, you will raise and discover your own, true power. Become one with nature, harness it's power, become stronger so that you can kick Grendel's floating Butt when it's time to reach the Third Job! Your goal is in sight, young mages, more power is at hand!

For Ice/Lightning Wizards
As depicted before, Ice/Lightning Wizards have the highest versatility out of all mages classes, and possess the most efficient group-attack skill amongst all 2nd job advance classes.

Training Grounds

 * Level 30-34: Train where you have trained before. Ant Tunnel is a good choice, and so is Land of Wild Boars. Jr Sentinels and those green and horned mushroom tree dungeons at Ellinia are profitsome alternatives. With Aqua Road out, Fish Resting Spot is not a bad choice as well.
 * Level 35-39: Ice mages can now go kill Fire Boars with ease, so do so at Burnt Land II. They can also go to Sand Castle Playground to train on Flower Fishes if they want. Lightning right now is still too weak for your purposes, so boars are a good source of exp and money for now (use magic claw, not lit!). Lightning mages can also train well on White Ratz in Floor 100 of EOS Tower. Standing on a slide allows one to rain down lightning while not getting hit.
 * Level 40-49: If you're an ice mage, now would be a good time to move up to Jr Celions (the red kitties) at Ossyria, and Fire Boar is a solid (but less rewarding) alternative. Thunder Mages should train on Lorang, can also train on Jr Cellions or Grupin if Lorang costs too much money. You're going to lose money on pots wherever you go anyway, so why not lose them on monsters that give good exp and decent drops? Party with cleric at Hot Sands occasionally if you're feeling bored.
 * Level 50-59: If you have both Ice and Lit, Hot Sands is a very good choice. With only Ice, Red Drake should now be what you're training on (you can also go for Celions and Lioners if Red Drakes hurt too much), while with only lit... Lorangs are still your best bet right now, even though you're earning less than 0.01% exp per kill. Move to hot sands if you're going for Ice after med, when you have level 15 ice. With the new lands coming out, Platoon Chronos in The Road of Time  is also a good choice.
 * Level 60-69: Celions, Lioners, Red Drakes, Hot Sands, the old spots. You can TRY to train at Buffoons if you like, but that's not generally a good idea. If you're not so obsessed with big damage, electrifying some jr yetis may not be a bad idea, as with freezing up some hectors and zombies.
 * Level 70-75: Same old, samd old. Zombies, Hot Sands, Red Drakes. Buffoons might be more practical to hunt right now, but there isn't much change in training.
 * Level 76-83: IS mages can start killing Death Teddies now, since there are some sniping points present where you can hit them without worrying about getting hit. It's not great on your wallet, but it's very fast training. If you need money, Zombies are your friend again. You can also try Buffoons. Comp Mages should just stay at Zombies or Buffons right now.
 * Level 83-88: IS mages got some options now. Bains are a pain to get to and there aren't many sniping spots, but they're like Death Teddies with more money, though the map isn't pure Bains and poison geysers are annoying. Death Teddies are as good as always. If you feel bold, you can try Vikings. Comp mages should probably go for Bains now, or Vikings if you're bold.
 * Level 88+: Vikings are the best target for you now, at least in GMS and MapleSEA. JMSers could probably go for Bains in Weapon Storage (the map after Anego), while KMSers could probably try the red centaurs in Riprey (though I'm not sure about their spawns).

For Fire/Poison Wizards
Fire/Poison Wizards are also often called Fizards, since Poison is a rather meh-ish skill that does not represent the power of the wizard. Despite the lack of versatility, Fire Wizard has the highest damage power out of all mages.

Training Grounds

 * Level 30-34: Train where you have trained before. Ant Tunnel is a good choice, and so is Land of Wild Boars. Jr Sentinels and those green and horned mushroom tree dungeons at Ellinia are profitsome alternatives.
 * Level 35-39: The Jr Grupins in Ossyria are a good choice as you should be able to 2 or 3 hit KO them with minimum MP usage per attack (especially since level 1 MP Eater recovers 14 MP). You could also go clawing up Boars, which might be more profitable. Also, Jr Wraiths in the sewers of Kerning City provide good experience because they are very weak to fire. They also give 5 more experience each than Jr Grupins.
 * Level 40-48: Kill things you can OHKO. Jr Grupins and Jr Wraiths are good initially, then eventually you can 1HKO Jr Pepes semi-consistently.
 * Level 49-60: Jr Yetis, or Grupins. Jr Yetis give less experience but more profit, while Grupins give more experience but less profit.
 * Level 61-70: Grupins are the best exp you can get at this point. White Pangs are alright, but they have the most HORRIBLE maps to train on.  Poison Wizards at this point should be leveling at the same place if they have Fire Arrow.  If not, they should either be training on Dark Stone Golems or Werewolves.  Yetis and Pepe are pretty decent aswell, but when they seperate, they are a pain to kill.>;0 If you have Poison, you can also kill Death Teddies as you approach 3rd job.

For Clerics
Although Clerics are the weakest in terms of damage, their high wealth and the fact that they are virtually invincible more than makes up for it. Clerics are one of the more sought after classes in Party Quests and are never absent during tough raids.

Training Grounds

 * Level 30-34: Train where you have trained before. Ant Tunnel is a good choice, and so is Land of Wild Boars. Jr Sentinels and those green and horned mushroom tree dungeons at Ellinia are profitsome alternatives.
 * Level 35-39: Zombie Mushrooms should about do right now. Your Heal is still too weak to 1HKO Zombie Mushrooms, or any other undeads for that matter, but you can hurt a large amount of them at once.
 * Level 40-48: At this point, try to stick to hunting with parties as opposed to hunting alone. The PQ in Ludibrium is a nice option and so are raids to difficult dungeons with high damaging monsters (more damage you Heal, more exp you get). For healing Clerics, if you have the patience and skill, it is possible to train on zombie lupins with heal at around level 42.
 * Level 49-60: Wraiths, Jr. Wraiths, and Zombie Lupins. Your Heal should be maxed out by this point, so you should have no trouble killing a mob of Jr. Wraiths and Zombie Lupins with 2 hits flat. Wraiths should be a bit tougher than that, but they give more exp and you can still kill a large gang of them at once.
 * Level 61-70: At this point, you should be able to kill most undeads out there. El Nath dungeons and the Golem Hunting Grounds are recomended because they have dark type monsters that take extra damage from holy attacks like Holy Arrow although they are not damaged by Heal. Clerics were made for parties, so try to limit your times hunting solo and try to hunt more in parties with high leveled users in more difficult hunting grounds. Both Balrogs are dark type monsters, so you may consider them as well, although Crimson Balrog is probably still too hard right now. also wraith is a good training spot, if u party a priest with max HS the exp can go really high
 * level 71-78 you could go train anywhere that you think is good exp, grim phantom watches are still too hard to fight but ive seen lv 7x train there
 * level 79+ your holy symbol should be nearly maxed and you should be able to train with dragon knights at grims easy, i personally gain around 800k exp per hour at grims and im lv 87 at the moment, others might train somewhere else, and by now you should be able to hit crimson balrog, but dont get too confident that you can solo it

An alternate guide can be found at MapleStory/Magician Guide Alternate