My Combat Mage Guide

Combat-Mage
Hello my name is Randomq of Alexina currently as of 6/24/2011 im lvl 719, Master of the sword, with R1 Windmill, Icebolt, and Lightning bolt, currently training Combat Mastery. If you would like to ask any questions about this or would need help training add me in game and ill see if I can help.

Ill be going over the basic idea for this along with, Race information, skills, equipment, Enchants, and PvE/PvP stratagies that u might have heard of or might not have. Leaving out all Lance details because I have never use them and not many other people do either.

(btw its one hell of a long read, Enjoy)

Idea for this build:
Combat mages as u can probably guess use melee and magic as primary skill sets. They try to blend the best of melee and magic to destroy enemies while protecting allys. This does take alot of practice that you'll get over time, but u need the right skills before u can do this.

Race Information:
I perfer a human for this type of build because giants arnt proficent with magic as elves arnt with melee,But i will say its possible with either of these races just abit harder. Most of this information is based on my Human experiences.

Skills:
I'm going to tell u which skills i ranked up(even tho i didnt use this order)in what order that will help you do what i stated before as early as possible without raising your cp to high till you r1 your windmill.

1. Icebolt-> to r9 using only 23 ap(for a human). Why?, some people ask but u cant call yourself a combat mage without any magic for ur first 100-150 levels. Plus you can have this to this rank in a half an hour if that and it decreases your speed time. You can obtain this skill 3 methods and ill add the price for each method as well, first one is just buying the book from an npc(7,980 gold), second one is taking magic classes at the school in Tir(4,000 gold, go inside and talk to lassar not ranald outside), the last you can get from the Hunt 5 Black Wolves quest you'll get i think around lvl 15-20(Free ).

2. Critical Hit-> Go get attacked to where the monster/fomor(depends how hardcore u are to the game storyline) and recieve a critical hit from it or use counter to receive the Critical Hit skill as u may guess it increases how much u can crit when u crit. It doesnt add critical rate percentage but adds will that does in smaller amounts and increases damage when u crit only. At r7 it doubles ur damage when u achieve a critical. Recommended to rank with windmill tho it does slow down how fast you can achieve r1 windmill. Definetly get this to r1.

3. Assualt Slash-> This is a new skill from G13 that i find alot of guides leave out because they r from before that update. To get this skill u need to rank Smash up to rC and talk to Trefor about skills(you learn Smash and meet Trefor in the Human beginner quests that u should complete for the ap, money, experience, and many other reasons.) Keep this at rF for now because u dont want to raise ur cp to high before starting windmill.

4. Windmill-> Start ranking to R1 when u are able to crit and after ur icebolt is r9.Anything u have ever read about windmill is true it IS a pain to rank with high cp and it DOES cost alot to get -cp equipment. In my opinion windmill takes care of two different things. One gives u a very good attack skill depending on how u use it u can use it after a combo to release a powerful attack and two it gives u a better way to counter enemies attacks also alowing u to damage if not kill any that are within range.

Ok this is when u have a couple of choices. One, u can rank combat mastery to whatever rank u want but r9 will let u kill almost anything u will be fighting in the beginning of ur mabi life. Or two, u can rank ur perferd melee weapon mastery to once again whatever rank u want but i would definetly get both of these to r1 very early. Either way u go this stage is to increase ur melee damage. If ur wondering when you will increase magic damage that comes later in the guide if your just starting out you will stick to melee most of the time anyway.

5. Combat Mastery-> This skill is one of the two you start with when u create a fresh character. It adds max/min damage, Strength, Dexterity(at higher ranks), weapon balance, and HP. So this as u can tell is an important skill to eventually get to r1 as most skill i have already said are.

6a. Sword mastery-> This skill increases your Max/Min damage when equiped with a sword, Sword weapon balance, and Dexterity. If you plan on using a sword at all I strongly urge u to r1 this the 20 max damage u get from this and the balance can make the 222 upgrade path broadsword(more in equipment section) just that much more deadlier.

6b. Blunt mastery-> This skill increases Max damage when equiped with a mace or warhammer(as a human) and your strength at higher ranks. The skill at r1 gives you 30 max damage which is huge added that blunts usually have higher max damage but needing more balance to achieve the massive hits.

6c. Axe Mastery-> This skill is not a very used skill seeing as there are only three axes i can think of in the game, but it adds Max/Min damage, critical rate when equiped with an axe, and adds Will.

Ok once these r where u like them (i think r9 combat mastery and r1 in your favorite weapon mastery) you can start thinking about your magic again. There are three basic bolt spells that you will be using to most. Icebolt, Lightning Bolt, and Fire Bolt. Of course there are other skills u will get on your magic tab,but these r the basic damage bolts (Healing is counted as a bolt spell but do i really have to tell you what it does?). I will describe each bolt along with where to get it and how much it will cost (other then Icebolt since i have already done that) including healing following this along with other magic related skills(under the magic and life tabs).

7. Icebolt (cont.)-> Icebolt can be stacked up to 5 times providing one shot per charge. It has the most stable damage at any rank but r1 is 70-80 thus letting u use it with much less Int for Magic Balance. It uses very low MP at lower ranks but the MP cost/the damage output is very low. Great for stun at r9 but you might want to get it to r1 for the int from it when u upgrade to Lightning Bolt.

8. Lightning Bolt-> This skill can be obtained thru buying the skill book from a magic npc(lassar,stewart) for 7,980 gold, or thru taking lassar's magic class (7,000 gold) its the third and final of her classes. This skill is the easiest single charge damage bolt boasting 40-150 damage at r1, But easyly the worst without Int and magic mastery ranks for the magic balance that i mentioned before and your questions will get answered soon. This skill has a special ablitiy to jump? off of the target with multiple charges.(2 charges=2 enemies hit) But this has a downfall with to many enemies because each time it jumps to another another enemy its damage weakens. Also if your in a party with someone who also has Lightning bolts charged ,lets say 3 for an example, if you charge one bolt and shoot it at a group of monsters it will use your partners charges hitting 4 enemies.

9. Firebolt-> This skill can be obtained thru similar methods of buying the book(4,980 gold) or taking lassars magic class for 4,000 gold this one is the second class she gives. This skill can be stacked up to 5 times but you use all charges when u shoot it. This skill's unique trait is its 100% knock down to ANY enemy that doesnt have Advance Heavy Standard. Its damage at r1 is 60-120, multipied by the number of charges if the charge count is 4 or lower. If u have it fully charged it gets multipied by 6.5x.

10. Healing-> Healing allows u to heal other players and certain npc. This skill can be obtained by a human by buying the skill book from Lassar, Stewart for 9,800 gold. This skill is something i think everyone should have at atleast rF, your party mates will appreciate being healed once and again so they dont have to use HP potions. The best MP/HP recoverd rank is r6, healing 21 hp per charge for 20 mp.

10. Magic Mastery-> This skill gives u MP, Int, and Magic Balance. This skill is almost mandatory if you r doing any type of magic. Also helps Lightning Bolt's spazy damage. With r5 i believe its 260 int to have 100% magic balance, at R1 its 225 so very good for that.

11. Musical Knowledge-> Very good skill for int/ap ratio. This skill requires no combat to rank only books. The books for it are not very expensive after the first book thats 80,000 gold( you can get for free if u befriend aeria, the book seller, and by asking her about skills).

12. Composing-> Another good skill for Int at a higher int/ap ratio. Like Musical Knowledge this skill is ranked by books not by use. All of these books r reletively cheap.

Those r the basics of the magic skills the three damage bolts each have there own mastery and share one mastery skill that increases damage by a % for both elemental and magic bolt masteries and also reduces MP cost by a % for the element mastery and the magic bolt mastery. But those can come later if u want the damage but for a Combat Mage it isnt as important as the melee mastery(s) that u chose.

All of these skills are important but there are some others that u should look up on mabinogiworldwiki these include:Charge(if you plan on using a shield like me), Defense(you learn during beginner quests), Evasion(dodges magic bolts and arrows at a fixed %), Final Hit (if you plan on dual wielding swords), Mana shield (takes damage from MP instead of HP), Production Mastery(adds STAM that u use for melee attacks and skills), and Life skills that add Dex for certain weapons ill go over.

Equipment:
Being a combat mage and not a pure mage you wont need any clothing that give u mana reduction bouns because the MP u do use for ur spells u have dont take enough MP to show a signifigant amount of MP saved. So since im on the subject ill start with the equipment in this order Armor, Gloves, Boots, Helmet, Weapons, and finally Shields.

Armor: when you pick your armor think affordablitiy before looks. example light melka chainmail has the same defense and protection as normal dustin armor while the melka price runs from 20-50k atm and dustin is 1mil+. Also melka has a much lower repair cost because Dustin armor has a magic effect giving u a auto defense in melee and range for a certain %. If you dont mind not having the auto defense go with the melka as a new player the auto defense wont help you much anyway.

Gloves: Any gloves from an npc will work but gloves bought from a Clothing npc dont give u the 1 point of protection that heavy gloves from a Blacksmith npc sell do. Some of this changes for example i know Ferghus sells clothing gloves even tho he is a Blacksmith(fail one but a Blacksmith all the same) npc.

Boots: Just like with the gloves the same goes for boots heavy gives 1 protection and normal ones dont.

Helmet: These all give 1 defense and 1 protection from what ive seen other then the Knight Wing Plate Helmet which gives 2 defense and 1 protection.

Weapons: There are many good weapons but ill give the two best(in my opinion) from each of the different melee weapons: Swords, Blunts, and Axes.

Swords->
222 upgrade path broadsword-> gives a great max attack of 73 with 30% critical on the sword, But very low balance so r1 combat mastery and sword mastery with decent dex required. Or very high dex.
270 upgrade path Gladius-> gives a decent max attack of 65 with 5% critical on the sword, But higher balance then the broadsword above you can achieve 80% balance with less dex and less skill ranks.

Blunts->
180 upgrade path Mace-> Gives great max attack of 75 with 0% critical thats the downfall of this weapon you need critical enchants if u choose to use this weapon, But you should have no problem at all getting 80% balance.
195 upgrade path Warhammer-> gives excelent max attack of a huge 86 with 22% critical, But absolutly no balance. Defently need high dex in order to use with no help from blunt mastery for balance.

Axes->
245 upgrade path Francisca-> gives excelent max attack of 93 with 34% critical, but with 9 balance. so you need very good dex to make this weapon work just like the Warhammer. To get this damage u must get a max artisan upgrade.

Shields: As with weapons there are many good shields some are better then others in auto defense or regular defense. These arnt all the shield just some of the pretty commonly found ones from easies to obtain to people using. Each shield has a different hidden defense which doesnt show on ur character screen but are applied to your character anyway. (All shown without artisan upgrades. All Stats found with Gem upgrades.)

Round shield->+5 hidden defense and -5 critical from enemy's attacks, 5% max for any of the auto defense passives, max of 2 shown defense.

Kite shield->+15 hidden defense and -10 critical from enemy's attacks, 11% for auto defense to melee, 13% for auto defense to range, and 8% for auto defense to magic, max of 4 shown defense.

Heater shield->+15 hidden defense and -10 critical from enemy's attacks, 13% for auto defense to melee, 10% for auto defense to range and magic, max of 6 shown defense.

Beholders shield->+15 hidden defense and -10 critical from enemy's attacks,

Dragon shield->+15 hidden defense and -10 critical from enemy's attacks, 15% auto defense for melee,range,and magic, max of 7 shown defense and 2 protection.

Enchants:
This is where it gets abit tricky. You have to find a prefix and a suffix that both complement and that doesnt hurt eachother as well. I have played alot with this looking at good melee enchants and mage enchants, and have found that only one good not hard but not easy to get mage enchant will work. Since Will O' the Wisp does add int and mana it takes 5 str for icebolt being over rC. That might not sound to bad but once u have those on all ur equipment it will cut your melee damage down by a good chunk. So the other mage enchant i found is Sprout(Suffix). This enchant only comes from The New King's Request INT Theater mission with a very low chance to get but it gives u 7 int and 12 mana with no requirements or penaltys. For a max of 35 int and 60 Mana once u have it on 5 equips. The melee enchant Fox(prefix) are very easy to get the items from ciar beginner/normal. I would stockpile these till u find an enchanter(R5+ to be safe so u dont get to many fails) and keep enchanting the same gear(if u have 200+ int if not as the enchant if he/she will help u) till u get max stat roll or atleast max stat roll for Max damage as this enchant gives u max and min damage if u are over lvl 14.

PvE/PvP stratagies:

Ones i like to use for PvE include:

Smash>Assualt Slash>Windmill>Lightning bolt: and if its still not dead then ur probably in trouble and id windmill spam it.

Windmill>Assualt Slash>Windmill>Smash: this has no magic in it but u loose more hp

Charge>Smash>Assualt Slash>Windmill>Lightning Bolt: this one opens with charge to stun leaving them open to kill with rest of it.

The one i like to use for PvP:

N+1>Lightning Bolt>Charge> then just be creative after this point use what skill fits the situation if u see he loads a skill but is still running at u get ready to use normal attack,windmill, or counter. if he loads a skill and stands still use magic again. etc PvP is all about knowing what to do when u have to do it.


Tell me how u guys like it and if there are any typos or anything