Archive for the ‘Mage Guide’ Category

Kholai and myself decided to put off grinding, and with the help of some mages in Apoline who were kind enough to undress for us, we were able to put together this definitive Build Damage comparison chart, to settle once and for all which build is best damage wise for mages.

The Final Product:

This graph shows damage based on level for the most popular mage builds.
END Mage, the green line, represents Full END Mage damage, Full DEX Mage damage, Full STR Mage damage, and any combination of END, DEX and STR.
PURE INT, the red line, represents Full INT mage damage.
Pure SPR, the blue line, represents Full SPR mage damage.
Hybrid, the purple line, represents 25 SPR, Rest INT mage damage.

The Graph starts at level 40, as that is where we started to add the SPR for the Hybrid, up until that point, Pure INT and Hybrid are identical.

How magic damage was calculated:

1: Base Magic Damage

First off, Magic Damage is a combination of non-free stat intelligence + weapon magic damage + skill magic damage.

2: The M.Dmg : M.Def calculation.

With this, we shot Kholai to find out how much damage he took. After adjusting magic damage and magic defence, we reached the conclusion that when Magic Damage is equal to Magic Defence, 16% of the actual magic damage stat was dealt as actual damage. When magic defence was twice that of magic damage, 8% of the actual magic damage stat was dealt, and when magic defence was half magic damage, 24% of magic damage was dealt, and when magic damage was four times the target’s magic defence, 34% of the total magic damage stat was dealt as damage. The more magic damage was ahead of magic defence, the more damage was dealt, ending up with actually more damage being dealt than the magic damage stat itself.

Once we knew this, we could determine that level appropriate monsters seem to have about 1/4 the magic defence compared to the magic damage of a mage, since they take 34%, or about 1/3 of the mage’s magic damage in base damage.

2: How Free Stats Work

After this base damage calculation, free stats are applied. For each point of Intelligence, the end damage result is increased by +1.2 (rounding down all fractions), proving that Free Stat intelligence really does ignore magic defence, and that it is more useful against creatures with high magic defence.

Spirit does exactly what it says on the tin, and gives a 0.2% chance of doubling the end damage result. Since the damage calculation can produce much larger numbers than free stat intelligence with lower magic defence, critical hits and spirit are more useful against creatures with low magic defence.

On the defending side, any magic damage taken by the target was reduced by 0.5 per point in Spirit, 25 spirit lowered damage taken by 13 points, meaning that the damage reduction is rounded up. This is only relevant in PvP, since monsters don’t have free stat Spirit. Like free stat intelligence, this reduction occurs outside of the base damage calculation.

3: Total Damage Formula

-Key-
X = Base Damage
Y = INT Free Stat Bonus
C = Critical from Free Stat
L = level 
S = Free stats in SPR

To Get Y:

If under lvl 20:
(L – S) * 1.2 = Y

If level 20 – 59:
[(L - S) + 5] * 1.2 = Y

If level 60-79
[(L - S) + 15] * 1.2 = Y

To Get C:
If S ≤ 25 then C = 0.002 * S 
If S > 25 then C = 5 + [(S - 25) * 0.001]

To Get the total damage:

(X + Y) * (1+C)

4: Figuring out the Base Damage

Thanks to many, many volunteers, a rough intelligence progression of mages from 1-79 was established. Added to this is the average weapon M.Dmg of a Wand of appropriate level (as wands do the most damage). Also incorporated is the average damage of the most potent spell available to the mage at any particular level.

From level 40-48: Fire Bolt 1.
49-52: Magic Blast 1
53-60: Fireball 1
61-68: Fireball 2
69-76: Fireball 3
77-79: Fireball 4

In conclusion; our findings are that Endurance, Dexterity and Strength mages deal the least damage, followed by full Spirit mages.
Intelligence and Hybrid mages are identical until level 40, where the hybrid starts adding Spirit instead of Intelligence, at which point they slowly drop behind intelligence until level 49, when the mage gets Magic Blast, and starts catching up, at worst dealing 7 points of damage less than the full intelligence mage.
With each new version of Fireball, accompanied by the hybrid reaching 25 spirit and once more adding points to Intelligence, the gap between the two narrows, for most of the duration being 1-2 damage between the two until level 69, when the two builds are equal. After this, the hybrid overtakes the full intelligence mage, and continues to do so as the mage continues to upgrade their damage.

This does not include empowerment, damage per second, or differing weapon stats or critical rates, merely the absolute base-line damage rate. With a higher level of damage, this break point between Hybrid and Pure Intelligence mage may occur much sooner.
This also does not take into consideration the inherent strategic benefits and flaws of critical hits, merely the statistical impact of their effect over time.

Credits go to Kholai & Maiya.