Talk:Comprehensive Wizard Guide

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Reduxmage Guide

Reduxmage Guide

Those looking for a different challenge - this will certainly require some patience and determination when starting from scratch.

Idea: The main idea behind this build is to minimize your number of spells while still staying viable and to have the understanding that you will take hits; hence the idea of building up redux. If you train in too many spells, you'll reduce the total amount of redux and outright defeat the purpose of this training path. You need to plan out accordingly what spells you feel are essential and what spells can go by the wayside. Don't expect to obtain redux until you're close to level 40 if you train in the necessary skills as much as you can. I didn't earn Redux on my warmage until I hit level 45, but I sacrificed some TPs in my early levels to boost up EL:A ranks faster and also build up some EL:E ranks to help boost the bonus from 902 and 509.

Choosing a Race: First step is to figure out what race you wish to play. You won't be casting any bolt spells, nor will you be relying on CS based spells because your CS will be too low to make this a viable method for hunting. Your focus is a race that plays well towards a higher strength (STR) bonus, higher total health and idealy one with a bonus to TD. You will be limited by your Attack Strength (AS) when compared to other classes that can double train in weapon skills. A wizard can only single train in a weapon skill every level. At cap, you're already behind 101 points of AS when compared to a square or semi just based on weapon skill trianing, so you need to take advantage of things where you can. Picking a race with a zero or negative STR bonus will only hinder you and those races should only be thought of as a Role Playing (RP) decision only. Remember, you will take hits, it will be inevitable, but the idea here is to see if you can withstand those beatings and still survive as a warmage with built in redux. High strength stats and higher health will be important to helping you survive. The 4 races that have a STR bonus would be: Human (+5) Dwarf (+10) Half-Krolvin (+10) Giantman (+15)

The max health for these races are: Human (150) + 25 for CON Bonus = 175 Dwarf (140) +40 for CON Bonus = 180 Half-Krolvin (165) + 35 for CON bonus = 200 Giantman (200) + 35 for CON bonus = 235

The TD bonuses that these races naturally get are: Human: none Dwarf: +15 Sorcerer, +30 Elemental, +15 Disease, +20 Poison Half-Krolvin: none Giantman: +5 Spiritual, -5 Elemental

I personally find the Dwarf race ideal due to their high STR bonus, slightly better health than a human and especially with the natural TD bonuses.

Understanding Redux: The next thing you need to understand is how Redux is calculated in game. There are 3 Tiers of skills that add to your total points towards earning Redux. Primary = Physical Fitness (50 points per rank) Secondary skills = Ambush, Armor Use, Combat Maneuvers, Dodging, Multi Opponent Combat, Shield Use, Two Weapon Combat (20 points per rank) Tertiary skills = any weapon skill; OHE/OHB/Brawling/Polearm/Ranged/Thrown/THW (15 points per rank) If you want to see all the ins and outs of Redux, you can visit here: gswiki.play.net/Redux A wizard is limited in the number of physical skills it can train towards for Redux. Wizards can only 1x train in all Redux skills, so how you train can impact how fast you obtain Redux. For example: If you decide to go with a THW approach, you’ll be missing out on secondary Shield skill that you would be training in if you went with a single handed weapon (OHE/OHB). Thus, slowing your path to building up redux. As a wizard, depending on the number of spells you decide to train in, the earliest you may see redux kick in will be around the 40-45th level.

Spell Training: This one will take some personal thought on sacrifice. The more spells you know, the harder it will be to build redux. More spell ranks known, the lower your redux will be. The idea is to get your Redux as soon as possible, so limiting your spell knowledge is one of your main goals. I personal felt that since it is easy to obtain Minor Elemental spells 401/406/414, I opted out of training in the MnE spell circle all together. The two main downsides to that decision are not having 425 for the AS boost and 430 for the TD/DS boost they provide. If you follow a similar route as I did with spells, you will want to make sure you have 401/406/414 easily available to be cast upon you to help with some DS and the more important TD you'll be lacking. You'll also have to decide if getting up to spell 535 is important to you. This Haste spell helps reduce RT against maneuvers and spells such as ewave. I chose not to go for it. I personally decided that the wizard spells that aren't as easy to get would be a better route to train in over MnE spells. I also decided to bring MjE spells up to 520 so I can have Mage Armor active for the free +5 Crit Padding it provides. I also decided training up to spell 913 in Wizard Circle was a good spot to stop because you get the added DS from 913, added Elemental TD, plus the small SMRv2 defense boost it provides. My redux mage has a total of 33 spell ranks and I plan to go no further in spell training.

Lack of TD: Depending on your spell choices, this may or may not be a problem for you. This is certainly an obstacle that a lot of people might face if choosing this training path. There are three distinct ways to combat this.

1) Wear the highest AsG as you can. Yes, this will mean you'll have higher spell hindrance and the possibility of needing to cast 506, 902 or 909 as you're out hunting could result in some annoying failure rates that you might not be used to. Going from enchanted Double Leather (CvA = 12) to enchanted Leather Breastplate (CvA = 5) means you gain +7 to your resistance to CS based spells. But you get hit with a higher spell hindrance (4% for Double Leather to 6% for Leather Breastplate).

2) Ensorcell. This is very important, especially if you're choosing to use a shield. Adding a T3 to your shield and T3 to your armor, that's an extra +12 to your TD. If you decided to go THW or Polearm, you miss out on the free TD protection you can add to a shield.

3) Society Take COL for example - Sign of Dissipation will give you +15 TD.

Skill Trianing Path: With limited physical skill ranks wizards can train in, you want to try to maximize points towards your Redux as much as possible. Ideally you'd want to try and train every level as such:

  • 1x Armor Use (20 points per rank)
  • 1x OHE or OHB (15 points per rank)
  • 1x Shield Use (20 points per rank)
  • .5 to 1x CM (20 points per rank) - if you can do this 1x, even better
  • 1x PF (50 points per rank)
  • 1x HP until you hit an amount of mana you feel is good for your build. I personally stopped at 54 ranks, this puts my mana just over 200 at my current level of 62. I have yet to run low on mana on a hunt for a long time with my character’s build and hunting methods.
  • .5x spells (or as often as you can to hit your spell goal)
  • Swimming/Climbing – pick up ranks when you can if you plan on hunting areas that have any climb/swim checks at the lower levels and then it may be especially important to work on them to make sure you can have enough for higher hunting grounds such as minotaurs area or Nelemar.
  • .5x-1x Perception (do your best to keep this up at 1x, it's a cheap skill for defense against SMRv2 skills)
  • Elemental Lores - build up your Air first, then focus on Earth. You want your air lore ranks high enough to bring down your weapon swing RT from the 4 or 5 seconds it will be to 1 second. After that point you should focus on earth lore to help boost your AS with spells 902 and 509.

Low AS issues: You will have low AS compared to any Semi or Square class, mainly because wizards can only train in any weapon skill 1x a level and can only 1x CM a level (every 2 ranks in CM gives +1 AS). All semi and squares can train in both 2x a level. To make up for the AS deficit some, wizards have access to spells 902, 509 and 425. However, depending on your spell training choices, you may not get the AS boost from spell 425 if you opt to not learn the spell. The ways to overcome the AS issues is to get use the highest enchanted weapon you can get your hands on. If you can't afford anything over 7x then focus on making that your primary weapon. Try to get a couple Ensorcell tiers on it, the extra AS from an ensorcell flare can be very beneficial at times. Join a society. COL gives 3 signs that boost your AS: Sign of Striking (+5 AS for 1 mana point) Sign of Smiting (+10 AS for 2 mana points) Sign of Swords (+20 AS for 1 spirit point) Total of +35 AS Utilize enhancives if you can find ones that boost your Strength and your weapon skill (OHE/OHB/etc). Train in EL:E as soon as you can fit it in. This lore boosts the bonus that 902 (evoke) gives you and boosts 509 bonus. Make use of 909 self-cast. The self-cast version is a reduxmage's best friend - it will knock down most creatures while giving the caster zero RT. So you can STOMP and immediately follow up with an attack. Be sure to remember using this does not incur any RT for the target creature as well, so they can stand right back up.

Combat Maneuver training: Hopefully you'll be able to keep close to 1x CM in your skill training. I'd suggest seeing about getting your Feint up to Rank 3, possibly 4, as soon as possible. Once you get to Rank 2, the skill is somewhat (roughly 60% effective) against spell casting creatures, so Feint will become a mana free skill to try and setup some creatures to drop their DS so you can hit them easier. Rank 3 is ideal to use against spell casters and it starts to become more effective against semi and square type creature classes. Feint can be a cheap (doesn’t cost mana and you don’t use Stamina for anything else) method to help control a monster. A successful Feint gives the target a few seconds of RT, long enough for you to get a few 1 second swings in and then you can use Feint again. This is basically a way to RT lock the target. After you hit rank 3 (at a minimum) or 4 in Feint, you may want to look into putting 2 ranks into Disarm. Disarm is one of the most irritating maneuvers in some hunting areas that can leave you standing there like a rolton, waiting to be slaughtered. A couple of ranks will help boost your defense against the maneuver. After 2 ranks in Disarm, turn towards building up Cunning Defense - it's not much, but each rank gives you phantom Dodge ranks that’ll help bump up your DS and SMRv2 defense a few points. Hunting choices: You won't have spells as a secondary attack method, so you need to carefully plan out your hunting choices, especially once you get over level 20. Creatures start to utilize more maneuvers, SMRv2 abilities/spells, CS spells and of course some hunting grounds may require a handful of Climb or Swim ranks to get to. If you haven't been training in Climbing or Swimming, these hunting grounds might be off limits to you. You may also want to see about sticking with a hunting area until you're over hunting by 4-6 levels if the creature choices at your current level are too difficult to due things such as high CS spells or lots of maneuvers. You may need to live with the idea that you may be under hunting your level sometimes.

Armor Choice: This hunting style means you will take hits and the heavier the armor you can wear, the better off you'll be. Redux won't come fast and when you do get it, it will be slow to build up. Running around in soft leather armor probably isn't the most ideal option. I'd suggest getting into leather breastplate as soon as you hit 27 Armor Use ranks (27 ranks required to get the lowest spell hindrance for MjE and Wiz spells). As you continue to build up Armor Use ranks, try to keep stepping into the next up AsG when you hit the spell hindrance minimum: Leather Breastplate - 27 ranks Cuirboulli Leather - 35 ranks Studded Leather - 70 ranks

Or you can look to add on armor accessories: Add arm greaves at 35 AU ranks. Add leg greaves at 70 AU ranks. There are two issues with this method:

1) If you're still in Leather Breastplate, that will be the AsG used for attacks made against you. You will also miss out on the extra free point of TD going to the next AsG

  • LBP = 5 CvA
  • Cuirbouilli Leather = 4 CvA
  • Studded Leather = 3 CvA

Remember, a lower CvA means higher TD and all help towards your TD is a bonus.

2) Armor Accessories add to your overall encumbrance and do not change the AsG level. If you add arm greaves to your character while wearing leather breastplate, the game will treat you as if you were wearing cuirboulli leather, but you don't get the CvA benefit. You get hit with the higher spell hindrance, too.

End goal for armor should be brig, but this is an end goal for post cap simply due to the fact that you need 130 Armor Use ranks to offset the spell hinderance to the lowest possible level of 12%. You will need the help of Ascension skill ranks in Armor Use to achieve this level if you don't go the route of acquiring enough enhancives. Chain mail might be a possibility if you're willing to accept the fact that you're spell hinderance will be massively high, even with the help of 5 ranks of Armored Fluidity.

Maxing Armor Use through Ascension and capping only nets you 151 ranks. You're still 59 AU ranks away from fully training off chain mail down to it's lowest spell hinderance of 16%.

Even if you maxed out the 50 ranks you can get with enhancives for Armor Use, you're still 9 AU ranks away from that 210 ranks needed, but at least your spell hinderance would only be 23% or 24%, depending if the equation truncates or rounds up.

With this information you're left having to decide if wearing chain mail is worth the better protection on the chest/abdomen/back and everything else defaults to scale protection and suffer the massive casting penalty or do you play it more safe and only take the 12% that you can train down to for brig (can be brought down to 6% with 5 ranks of Armor Fluidity)?

Crit & Damage padding/weighting: Once you finally decide what your end armor is going to be, that will be your main focus on how you pad your armor. You need to think about the fact you're going to be more like a warrior and take hits. With 520 active at just 20 spell ranks you get +5 CER crit padding. You won't have the health levels a warrior will, so my suggestion would be to work on getting damage padding up to at least heavily level (10 CER) and adding at least 5 CER of crit padding. Then focus on damage padding.

I have some studded leather with 7 CER damage padding and it can make a noticeable difference when you're taking a beating. I'm currently focusing on building up a set of brig and it's at 7 CER damage and 5 CER crit. My goal is to keep adding on damage padding as I can.

Ascension: Nothing is set in stone at this point about the Ascension training other than the Tier 1 skills that have been available to train in since September of 2021. These basic skills you can train in will be very beneficial for a warmage and even more so for a reduxmage. I’d strongly suggest work on building your Ascension skill points as much as you can. I adjust my reduxmage’s Ascension experience to match the level he is because I want those extra ATPs to help bolster his redux. Right now at level 62 he’s got his ASC Exp set to 62%. So out of 100 experience points, 62 go to his ASC exp bucket and 38 goes to his normal experience bucket. It takes a while to level going this route, but I am okay with it. I’ll eventually stop putting up my ASC Exp up once I hit level 75, at that point ASC Exp will be 75% exp until I cap.

Here are suggested Ascension skills you’ll want to look into:

  • Armor Use – 5 ranks. That may not seem like much, but when you need 70 ranks to get into Studded Leather to have the lowest spell hinderance possible, getting that armor on at level 64 instead of level 69 just means you have more of your body covered and protected with scale armor. Plus it helps build your redux a little.
  • Physical Fitness – 5 ranks. This is the main, primary skill for helping build up your redux. It might not seem like much, but every bit helps your cause.
  • Shield Use (if you decide to use one) – 5 ranks. Again, this won’t do much on the large scale of things, but that little extra bit to help your redux go up is a bonus.
  • Strength – at least 4 ranks, this will give you +2 to your AS.
  • OHE/OHB (or whatever weapon skill you decide to go with) – 5 ranks early on to net that +5 AS, then you’ll want to focus this one or maybe Armor Use, depending on your personal priorities.

What I hunted:

So far things have been going pretty good for my personal experience. My hunting consisted with hunting strictly in Solhaven. I started on the West Road critters from level 3 to level 7.

I then moved to hunting greater orcs and shelfae soldiers – I bounced between them until level 9.

Then I focused thraks, manticores and boars for a few levels and went to level 12 and bounced between this area still for a bit and shelfae chieftains until level 14 – just be mindful of the pumas and panthers, they like to pounce and knock you down.

I moved to forest trolls, mongrel trolls and greater orcs until level 18. I also ventured to dark shamblers from time to time, just get Purify Air in case a fog beetle comes around – their poison breath sucks. I then went to wind witches and thunder trolls until level 21 or so. They do cast call wind and can sometimes buffer you (knock you over like call wind) when the thunder trolls spawn. The other annoying thing is wind witches sometimes phase and you miss your melee attack.

I then shifted to the lake and hunted cougars and centaurs until around level 26, then I started to shift my focus to the pra’eda on the lake as well. They have natural padding, so they don’t crit easy if you don’t hit hard enough, but utilizing self-cast 909 helps keep them down and rapid cutting with 506 active, they don’t take too long to kill. I generally left the fenghai alone, they often have Wizard Shield active…more hassle than they’re worth for your time. Remember to be mindful of the occasional roa’ter that comes around and shan cleric will fog to you at times. I hunted this way until around level 30.

I now moved into the valley and hunted mezics. Thankfully they’re squishy, but now you have to be extra careful of the tree spirits and their 917. Use 909 as much as you can and keep moving, you should be able to avoid tree spirits fairly well and hopefully not get 917 cast at you. I hunted this way until level 36 and only had 917cast at me 2 or 3 times.

Next stop was vesperti. They don’t fall from 909, but they are squishy. 2 ranks of Feint worked fairly well to help lower their DS, 3 ranks would have been much better to have by this point. The only real way to combat them is to make sure you can safely defend from their CS based attacks, this means you might require T2 or T3 level ensorcells on your armor and shield and use of a society TD booster. Any extra outside spells like 101 and 107 are also very helpful. They will also shriek and raise their AS by roughly 75 from time to time – this can really hurt from the ones that wield mattocks. I hunted through vepserti until around level 43.

I then made the move to Shan and this was a bit of a challenge. Having 4 different types of classes made things difficult at first. Even with 2 ranks of Feint and 2 ranks of Disarm, I had my work cut out for me. Warriors still had roughly 65% chance to disarm me (have at least 2 back up weapons, I have been disarmed twice in a row) and with them wearing chain or plate armor meant a hard time to get them stunned swinging an OHE. I generally avoided warriors as much as possible until I hit level 46. Rangers, they were the next biggest threat with their spike thorn – also don’t forget they can boost their AS (like warriors) and surpass your DS easy if you’re caught in offensive. If they prep a spell, I’d move away a few rooms if I couldn’t knock them down and kill or stun them within 2 or 3 swings. The wizards aren’t that bad, really squishy and I only had 917 cast at me twice over the 5 levels I hunted them. Clerics are pretty easy, too. Here was my setup when I hunted them: use 909 and wait for them to stand up (they always go offensive stance to stand up) and then swing away. If after 4-5 swings if the target isn’t dead or at least stunned, I use another charge of self-cast 909 again. After a short while you should find a good rhythm hunting them and hopefully never die.

Level 49 I migrated to trali in EN. They’re kind of like a really toned down version of Shan. Keep them down, swing fast and you shouldn’t really have any issues.

Level 53 I started moving into the Blighted Forest and hunting vipers, boars and black forest ogres. This meant that I was indeed overhunting by upwards of 7 levels. Vipers were pretty tame at the time I started hunting this area, they tended to have a higher DS and 909 clearly wasn’t effective against them, but they were squishy and it took a little patience to kill them – you wait for them to attack and then you unleash your fury of swings upon them. They do have a spit maneuver that causes poison over time and it also hinders your AS and DS for a short duration. Like I said, at the time I started hunting them they were pretty tame, even when it came to their spit maneuver. Vipers had about a 15% chance (outside of an open roll) to hit me with their spit also the fact that I hunt with a shield there was a small chance that I would outright block the spit with my shield (I’d say maybe a 5% chance). Boars, they don’t stun. Usually a knock down with 909 and a handful of swings was enough to chop of limbs or outright kill them before they had a chance to attack or stand back up. Same with the ogres, most of them were pretty easy. Knock down with 909 and swing away. Sometimes they’d get a cast of dispel on me, which wasn’t too much of an issue if it was one of the spells I know to cast myself. If I lost 101/107/401/406/414 it could spell troubles because I don’t know how to natively cast them and I have to track someone down to cast them for me.

Once the last phase of PSM3 was pushed out and SMRv2 defense was adjusted downwards this was a massive hit to pures, even one that’s fully singled in PF/CM/Perception with a full 5 ranks in Cunning Defense. Vipers that had about a 15% chance of hitting my wizard now had a 40% chance of hitting him. It made hunting vipers a pain. The loss of AS and DS from the spit was tough to handle, plus the poison DOT could be just another reason to end your hunt for a few minutes until it all cleared out. It was even worse if you got hit by 2 or 3 spits in a row because the poison DOT stacks. I had to dance around the vipers once that change came through. Once I hit level 60 I grew tired of the Blighted Forest and I moved back to the Landing.

Level 60 I started taking myself into Darkstone and hunting Harbingers and MTKs. The only thing that’s of great concern to him in there are the Nightmare Steeds, they can dispel you. Thankfully with changes to hitting undead with non-blessed weapons was added to the game so I could also kill them with my falchion should the need arise.

Hunting is still very viable with him, I just haven’t had the ambition to keep up with him all that often. We’ll see what the future holds and how much further he goes from here.

At level 62, my reduxmage's redux is at 13.51% without enchancives on and 16.39% with all his enhancives on.

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