MapleStory/Magician: Difference between revisions

Can use element based attacks early (2nd job advancement).
Very high Mana Point (often just typed as MP) level.
When maxing mastery, additional Magic Attack is added.
Cleric, one of the second job advancements, is the least costly and has many pro-party skills.
Area Of Effect skills.
An array of DOT (Damage Over Time) attacks.

Cons

Very low health and can die easily against most monsters without magic guard.
Magician armors in the beginning give very low defense.
Uses a lot of pots especially MP Pots.
High MP consumption for 4th job AOE skills (primarily the ones that target the entire screen).

Requirements

Minimum level 8.
Have not chosen any other job.

Is this the job for you?

Magicians are ranged characters that eventually become imbued with a specific element, dealing 1.5 times the damage to monsters weak to that element. Each of the three specialized Magician jobs can get summons at the fourth job and use Area of Effect attacks (though they are slow to cast).

Magicians have the highest magic defense in the game, and have the most MP, however many magician skills sap away a lot of MP. At 4th Job, Magicians can acquire elemental resistance, rendering them more resistant to element based attacks.

On the other hand, Magicians have the lowest weapon defense and HP in the entire game, making them prone to dying without their skill Magic Guard, which diverts 85% of damage taken from monsters to MP. However, MP pots can cost twice the cost of HP pots.

Mages (not Priests) gain an elemental reset skill in 3rd job that temporarily suspends elemental abilities when active. It allows magicians to attack a larger array of monsters as efficiently as other non-elemental classes.

Magicians are also able to use some of the status effects magical based monsters use, such as seal, slow, poison, dispel and freeze. Priest gain unbelievable party support skills, like heal, bless, holy symbol, dispel and holy shield, and even a skill called Resurrection (which is pretty self-explanatory).

In regard to Maximum and Minimum damage, Magicians deal very stable damage when mastery is maxed similar to all other classes. Mastery determines your minimum damage.

Magicians can also teleport past monsters with teleport, and drain MP from monsters with MP Eater. Likewise, when Teleport Mastery is toggled it deals damage when teleporting past monsters.

Magicians start off fairly weak in the game, and start to gain power from level 8 through 35. After level 35, Magicians begin to show their powerful magic potential, with their elemental skills dealing massive damage to opposing elemental monsters (with the added boost of Meditation/Bless), and a decent damage range with non-elemental skills. Skills such as Spell Mastery, MP Eater and Meditation give the mage a boost in recovery and power, respectively, and are unbelievably helpful later on. Mages start to show their full potential from level 60, and rise through the ranks all the way beyond level 120, unleashing their fury with terrific area of effect attacks and deathly DOT skills.

Magicians are largely based on elemental abilities which in turn makes them weak in boss runs. With the implementation of elemental reset, their damage is much better on certain bosses such as Hilla and Root Abyss bosses.

Magicians lack the high health of Warriors, the nimbleness of Thieves, the range of Bowman and the rapidity of damage of Pirates. Magicians specialize in mastering elements, dragons and area of effect attacks, status effects, stable damage, and beautiful skills, therefore, if this is what you would like for your special Maple character, this is truly the class for you.

If otherwise, please turn back and choose another class, for once you choose your job, your choice is permanent.

As Grendel says...

"Would you like to have the power of nature itself in your hands? It may be a long, hard road to be on, but you'll surely be rewarded in the end, reaching the very top of wizardry..."

Basic Characteristics

Magicians put high levels of magic and intelligence to good use, they can use the power of nature all around us to kill the enemies, but they are very weak in close combats. Their stamina isn't high, either, so be careful and avoid death at all cost.

Since you can attack the monsters from afar, that'll help you quite a bit. Try boosting up the level of INT if you want to attack the enemies accurately with your magic. The higher your magic, the better you'll be able to handle your magic... ...

Magician Weapons

Staves and wands are the main weaponry of choice. These weapons have special magical powers in them, so it enhances the magician's effectiveness. It'll be wise for you to carry a weapon with a lot of magical powers in it.

Magicians Armors

Honestly, the Magicians don't have much armors to wear since they are weak in physical strength and low in stamina. Its defensive abilities isn't great either, so i don't know if it helps a lot or not.

Lore note: Grendel the Really Old once experimented with dark magic, and it was he who created the cursed dolls. The cursed dolls were later stolen by Lupins, causing some of them to become zombie Lupins. You can find this out during several Ellinia quests.

Basics

AP distribution

Apply your AP to INT (Mage damage = {[{(INT + Magic Attack) * 0.8) + (Luck/4)]/18} * Spell Base Damage * 0.8).
Keep your STR and DEX to a minimum (never apply AP to these stats).

First job

The first two attacking spells you learn are magic claw and energy bolt. Your Energy Bolt must be at least level 1 to use magic claw. The first two defense skills are magic guard and magic armor, and you must have at least one skill point invested into magic guard to use magic armor.

Tips

Magicians depend solely on magic skills to attack. Use them, as ordinary weapons and weapon attacks are useless.
Add 1 energy bolt at level 8 (6 MP per attack). Do not add magic claw (10 MP per attack) yet. 6 MP per attack is sustainable considering how little MP you have now.

Try to max MP Increase 1st. (add 5 MP recovery 1st ONLY) This will give you plenty of MP to utilize.(MP increase formula is 15 + (total INT * 0.1), may have slight variation as decimals aren't displayed) Slower MP recovery will be remedied in the 2nd job by MP Eater. (The MP recovery formula for mages is skill level (character level/10) +3. The final +3 stands for the basic mana recovery rate for beginners. Therefore maxing MP recovery early on before Max MP Increase DOES NOT improve your mana recovery rate. If you sit on a Relaxer or a Palm Chair, MP recovery is 1.5 (skill level(character level/10) +3).)
Do not add Magic Armour. It is not useful in the long run as monsters will deal a lot of damage later on (more than 500), so -20 damage isn't useful. Use Magic Guard instead. It diverts 80% of damage to MP, allowing you to survive many monsters, that would otherwise kill you in 1 hit.
If you want to have as much MP as possible, just start adding Max MP after advancing as the magician. Add 1 energy bolt after Maxing your MP. As training up to level 13 (9374 experience from level 8 to 13) without energy bolt would be exhausting, it would be wise to ask a friend to train you past this stage.
Choose MP pots that will recover about half of your MP. From level 1 to 30, try to use only blue potions and blue pills, as they won't tax your mesos too much. From levels 30 to 40 ~ 50, you could keep using blue potions, but 100 MP recovery for a 1000+ MP bar scarcely does anything. It is recommended, though, that you buy mana elixirs, pure waters, and elixirs(at this levels, monsters will start dropping elixers, keep them, don't use them yet, these are percentage based pots, so use them only if no normal pot can fill up more than 50% of your MP) as soon as you can afford them, since this will allow you to train much faster and more efficiently.
Being a mage (what magicians are known as), the status effect that will lead to your downfall is Seal, cast by some monsters like Jr. Boogie and Fairies. Carry some Holy Water to remedy this.
Some Mages choose to become a Pure INT mage. This means that they choose to add all their Ap in INT. The attack of these mages are exceptionally high, but they suffer from inability to don mage equipments, which need some luck. If you become one, wear a bathrobe. As for weapons, use the level 8 wand until level 35 (this will be somewhat difficult but worth it), and switch to a Maple Staff (Weapon attack - 25,Magic attack - 48, 100 more HP). At level 43, upgrade to a Maple Lama Staff (Weapon attack - 39,Magic Attack - 58,100 more HP, 50 more MP). At level 64, get a Maple Shine Wand (Weapon attack - 49,Magic attack - 80, 1 more INT, 100 more HP, 100 more MP) OR a Maple Wisdom Staff (Weapon attack - 50,Magic attack - 80, 1 more INT, 150 more HP, 50 more MP). Also get a Maple Magician Shield at level 64; a Stolen Fence, Pan Lid and Maple Shield can be utilized during earlier levels. Don't forget to buy a hinomaru fan from the free market too. A good one can have MORE Magic Attack than some level 90 staffs! The Maple Staff, Maple Lama Staff, Maple Shining Wand and Maple Wisdom Staff are available during anniversary periods. During other times, just buy them from the free market (although they are extremely expensive, they are well worth it).
Beyond that, you might want to consider Elemental Wands, which can be obtained from Gachapon.
Try not to die by standing on a platform that is a little bit higher/lower than the ground so that mobs cant` hit you (unless they can do ranged attacks)

Beginners

For more details on raising INT and LUK, see Builds.

At the start of the game players no longer get to choose the stats for their characters by rolling dice. GlobalMS now allows you to add your stats anyway you want, and a 1st job instructor (i.e. Grendel the Really Old) will correct them. Spend your free Ability Points at each level by adding 1 to DEX and 4 to STR until you become a magician. Note: as of the GlobalMS patch v0.66, beginners can only put stats into STR and DEX, to allow quick training while on Maple Island. Unfortunately, INT affects how much MP you gain every time you level up, so you will now end up with less MP than mages from other versions. In older versions you were able to gain 100+ MP from the first 10 levels by spending all of your AP on INT.

When you advance to 1st job at level 8 or higher, Grendel will change your stats so that you only have 4 STR and 4 DEX, and give you 20 INT and 4 or 5 LUK. At first job, you have to be careful when spending Ability Points, as your selections will not be undone (typically you will only put points into INT and LUK). A basic rule of thumb for applying AP as a magician is that as long as your luck is 3 more than your level, you should be able to wear the equipment for your level.

Tips

Be patient, MapleStory has traditionally been more difficult, at the start of the game, for magicians to kill enemies than for other classes.
Spend your skill points on Three Snails and either Nimble Feet (if you have money for potions), or Recovery (if you are very new to the game).

First job advancement preparation

When you are ready to become a magician, note the following:

Decide what kind of magician you will become: lukless or regular.
- Lukless magicians have all points added to INT, and thus, have higher damage.
- Regular has 3 added to INT and 2 added to LUK. It is not recommended to follow this.

Beginner

After creating a new character and starting as a Beginner, do all the quests and level up to the required level to make your job advancement.

Beginner AP

Originally, when new characters were made, players had to randomly generate the starting AP of their character. This required knowledge of the stats used by the desired class, as well as patience, to achieve the optimal stats.

Now when you begin the game as a Beginner,your AP will automatically be placed into certain stats, and when you make the job advancement your character's AP will be set to the minimum stats to become that class. Any additional AP will be available for you to apply.

File:MS Monster Grendel The Really Old's Clone.png

Once in Ellinia, head to the Magic Library 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 4 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.

Three Snails: Putting a point or two as a Beginner into Shell Throw can make fighting larger monsters a bit easier as Beginner and early Magician, albeit 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.

Note: Three snails do not use up shells from your inventory as of the latest patch in GMS.

First Job: Magician

Welcome to the mystical 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

Skills

First job builds can be found at the builds page. Please consult that section carefully.

Second Job Advancement

See Training locations for where to power level.

Go see Grendel at Level 30. He will say that you look much stronger and ready for 2nd job, and will bring you to a secret area, where you have to defeat Zombie Lupin and collect 30 Dark Marbles. They don't give any experience or drops except the Dark Marble. Once you are done, climb back up and exit the map through the portal. Take the 30 Dark Marbles back to Dark Lord and he will ask you to choose between 3 jobs, Wizard of Fire and Poison, Wizard of Ice and Lightning, or Cleric.

Third Job Advancement

See Training locations for where to power level.

Once you are level 60, go to El Nath, and head to the house on the big hill (Chief Residence). Head to Robeira, and talk with her. After a chat, head to Sharp Cliff I. Go inside the crystal portal at the bottom of the map. Double click on the Holy Stone at the bottom. Head inside, fight Grendel the Really Old's evil side, and head out with the Black Charm that it drops. Head back to Robeira and give her this item, and voila, you are third job!

Fourth Job Advancement

See Training locations for where to power level.

Congratulations on hitting 100! Once you hit level 100, Robeira the 3rd job instructor will contact you via lightbulb. After starting the quest, head to Leafre and talk to Gritto in The Forest of the Priest. You will then get a quest to obtain two special items for the fourth job instructor to advance. You will have to kill Manon and Griffey to get the two items, but thankfully, they're special versions of the bosses, which you will find instantly upon entering their respective boss map. Note, they don't drop any of the items the real versions do. After hunting down these monsters and obtaining the two items, go talk to Gritto. She will advance you to fourth job, give you the skill book for Maple Warrior 10, and give you 4 SP and 5 AP.

Attacking Methods and Styles

This section will explain the types of attacking methods, styles and combination of skills used by many mages for effective training.

Magician

When you start off as a mage, your mana recovery will be terribly low. With no MP recovery at lvl 8, your MP recovery is 3, 4.5 on relaxer. If you follow the More MP build, it will be 3.8, 5.7 on a relaxer. Maybe you can do Grendel's Magician traning to boost your exp bar. You might need to find safe spots in ellinia slime/stump maps(Field South of Ellnia has a safe platform with an NPC on it, and Field Up North of Ellinia has a new platform at the top of the map, with a green round portal that leads to Leafre, and do not enter the portal! if you have completed Grendel's Holy Water of Protection (lvl 8 quest, removed in some versions, upgraded to lvl 70 in others) and has been rewarded 2 magic seeds by Chief Tomato.) Try to maybe read something while recovering MP on a relaxer, or just forgo the trouble and sip mana pots IF you are funded. If you have around 1,000 mesos, you can take a cab to henesys and train at henesys hunting ground, where you can train safely on slimes and snails, and there are 8 resting spots (the ones within reach of the jumping slimes and orange mushrooms are risky).

Fire/Poison Wizard

Fire wizards are pretty straight forward. You use magic claw until around lvl 34-35, when you can train on things weak to fire, such as jr. grupins. After that, it's all about spamming fire arrow. Also, learn to use teleport in conjunction with fire arrow. At the later levels (around 50) it becomes useful. Even though teleport at lvl 1 uses 60 MP, it will cost more MP to get hit by an enemy than to teleport.

Fire/Poison Mage

Stay on the monsters you have trained on before. Level 70-80 When you get a reasonable amount of points in Poison Myst, spam it on DT. You will need patience. Poison Myst takes a while to weaken monsters. Once you feel like it, use fire arrow and give 'em oblivion

Level 81-90 ........

Fire/Poison Archmage

Now that you have paralyse, remember to make good use of it. It's like the ice/lightning's freeze effect.

Ice/Lightning Wizard

NOTE: Regardless of whether you decide to max out Cold Beam or Thunder Bolt first, you're likely not going to dominantly use either until around level 35. Magic Claw does far more damage until you're able to put at least 10-15 points into one of the two.

ICE-BASED: Cold Beam's stops targets on a dime, even if the skill level is only 1. Use this to your advantage. If on a long straight platform (w/o sniping points), position yourself at the far end of either side. Then let those ice shards fly. If you've trained up Cold Beam well enough, you should be able to juggle between multiple targets with knock-back. Cold Beam is even good as a support move. If a party member (I.E. during a PQ) is facing a mob too big for him, you can use Cold Beam to hold some of the monsters still and rescue him. Just be wary of the amount of MP you consume with it--if your MP starts to get low and you can't find a place to rest and recharge just yet (especially during the Carnival PQ with no elixirs around), it's never a bad idea to alternate between Cold Beam and Magic Claw to save precious MP.

Ice/Lightning Mage

Congratulations. You have now obtained Ice strike (field attack) and lightning spear(single attack)! Ice strike is capable of freezing multiple enemies, and when used in conjunction with cold beam, allows you and your friends to take on monsters without worries. This is especially useful when you have to kill dangerous or higher level monsters. However, freeze is not effective against bosses. This is when Lightning Spear comes in handy. As a powerful single attack spell, this skill allows you to deal high damage to bosses, none of which should be composite(many pieced monster) at your level. Both skills can be used simultaneously when killing higher level monsters become necessary. Freeze them up with cold beam/ice strike and slash them with Lightning Spear. During ordinary training, use ice strike if you are surrounded, and use the freeze and attack method if monsters are sparse.

Ice/Lightning Archmage

Still, same tactic, freeze them, after that it's a choice between Chain Lightning and Ice Field.

Cleric

Clerics are pretty efficient, once they have max heal and max MP eater. You can just stand at a sniping spot and heal to your delight, draining hp and MP from the undeads, transform it's hp to exp, and keep the MP for yourself.

Here is a list of monsters you can train on. When you feel you are strong enough, upgrade to the next option. The list~~

2nd job-Zombie Mushrooms>>>Zombie Lupins>>>Chronos>>>Jr. Wraith>>>Platoon Chronos>>>Master Chronos>>>Wraiths>>>Coolie Zombies>>>Pac Pinky>>>Slimey>>>Selkie Jr.>>>v/hoodoos (GMS/Event only)>>>Mr. Anchor>>> 3rd job

As some of you might have noticed, monsters like Pac Pinky, Slimey, Selkie Jr., Mr. Anchor and voodoos and hoodoos are not available in all versions. For versions who lack this exp efficient monsters, another option is to train on mixed golems at the Forest of Golem in Sleepywood, a hidden-street accessible from Sleepy Dungeon 5, press up under a blue flower.

Bishop

Finally, after what seems to be a millennia of waiting, your patience and training has paid off. The Bishop wields Genesis, an extremely powerful magic attack. People will be swarming you with pleads to join their party for bossing. And with the new skill Resurrection, you don't just heal anymore. With the additional boost of Infinity, the Bishop is the most powerful job.

Note : Although F,P (meteor) and I,L (blizzard) archmage's attack is 71 basic attack more than Genesis when Element Amplification is taken into consideration, bishops have the advantage of self support skills and party support skills, while the archmages have to fork out twice as much MP for their higher attack skills, therefore, bishops are much more efficient, especially during the late levels when you often kill bosses to level.

When training switch between meso training and exp training, as spamming genesis at skelegosaurus is not economical and sustainable. Utilize Heal and Shining Ray until you have earned 1 million, buy suitable MP pots, and start spamming Genesis once again, until your 1 million is used up. Then, start earning mesos again.