Pandora's PVP Skill Handbook
One of the major compliments I got on my archer guide was how in depth
I was about the skills, and I plan to do the same right here for us
mages. However, I'm going to go at it a little differently. Here we go.
You can find your skill tree, along with the numbers I have assigned
there, here for quick reference. I'd love to put the image in the post,
however, for whatever reason this forum has disabled image linking in
just about every forum. Makes guides that much less nice, actually.
https://2img.net/h/oi38.tinypic.com/ih8x0h.pngSo, let's get started:
1) Pyrogram (Image: )
Channel: 1.5 seconds
Cast: 0.8 seconds
Cooldown: 3.0 seconds
This skill is the most basic of basics. You summon a burning card, you
throw it at them, maybe yell the Gambit line of your choice (Royal....
FLUSH!!!) and then they take some fire damage. The damage isn't
tremendous, in fact it's quite low, but the spell casts very fast and
it's a great little poke. Should be maxed as it's one of your base 3
skills. Useful in PVP when sandstorm is cooling. I like sandstorm ->
gush -> pyro.
2) Pyroshell (Image: )
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
Spark Cost: 30 Chi
This is your fire magic barrier, the last of the barriers you should
raise. It's only use is raising your fire defense. Useful for fighting
fire magic mobs, and that's about it.
3) Crown of Flames (Image: )
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
1 level of this skill and never any more. Never touch this skill ever. Not worth the mana it costs to use it.
4) Divine Pyrogram (Image: )
Channel: 3.0 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 3.0 Sec
Pyrogram on steroids. This skill has a considerably longer casting time
but does pretty damned good damage. The long cast time makes it really
situational (used mostly as your opening skill against metal mobs) and
WOULD make it basically useless for PVP (it's damage isn't on the level
of sandstorm) if not for one thing. Take a good look at it's casting
times - it's very heavily based on Channeling, which with Essential
Sutra, is gone. That makes this skill a mere one second cast for some
very nice damage. Raise this skill later for your sutra combo.
5) The Dragon's Breath (Image: )
Channel: 1.2 Sec
Cast: Channeling
Cooldown: 15.0 Sec
Spark Cost: 1 spark
The mage's zhen skill. This skill sets up a big circle around you where
the mobs/players inside will take damage every few seconds. It's used
because every target in the circle takes damage at once, meaning you
can pull lots of mobs into the zhen and kill them all at once for some
very effective leveling. Not a great PVP skill, though, but it's
alright at low levels when all you're fighting is lowbies. Never use it
in real pvp, the damage is mediocre and you'll get stunned out of it.
Not to mention it wastes a spark.
6) Will of the Phoenix (Image: )
Channel: 1.0 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 8.0 Sec
The mage's first and only knockback skill. You must get at least one
level of this skill as it is great for knocking back mobs in PVE. As
you level it up, this will become one of your main TW skills and it's
also a great little spike when your target gets too close. Does more
damage than your basic skills and casts very fast, but it has a short
range.
7) Emberstorm(Image: )
Channel: Shut
Cast: The Hell
Cooldown: Up
This skill is not to be used ever under any circumstances. Get one level of it and pretend you've never heard of it.
Blade Tempest (Image: )
Channel: 4.0 Sec
Cast: 1.8 Sec
Cooldown: 30.0 Sec
Spark Cost: 2 Spark
This is one of your ults, a nasty little skill that does it's damage as
half fire magical and half PHYSICAL. As the only physical nuke mages
get (I hate priests.) this skill is an amazing pickup. Once you level
it, if you can successfully cast it, basically every robe and 90% of
the archers caught in the AoE are going to die. Does not do spectacular
damage against heavy armor, because of the half-physical aspect. Should
be used where there are lots of robes/archers clumped up, or when you
absolutely need to finish a priest in one shot (like if they're healing
themselves.) It's a good idea to cast FoW on the target before you
start BT so you don't get interrupted. I cannot stress enough how
destructive this spell is against robe classes.
9) Fire Mastery (Image: )
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
One of your three mastery skills, this one for the fire element. It's
only real use, in my opinion, is for blade tempest. It's difference on
the sutra combo is minimal. Skip it until late.
10) Gush (Image: )
Channel: 1 second
Cast: 1 seconds
Cooldown: 3.0 seconds
This is your staple water skill. It casts very quickly and has a nice
slow effect to go along with it. A nice filler skill for PVP, a nice
lead for PVE, overall a great skill. Max it out ASAP.
11) Glacial Embrace (Image: )
Channel: Who cares?
Cast: Short.
Cooldown: Irrelevant.
Spark Required: 30 Chi
This is your water barrier. Along with giving the usual defense bonus
for it's element, the water barrier has the special bonus of adding a
MP regeneration bonus that scales with the levels. While being useless
for you in PVP, this skill is great if you're fighting magic mobs that
are wood or metal (you don't have barriers that can resist them)
because it saves you some MP. Obviously a great choice against water
magic mobs as well. This barrier should be maxed after earth.
12) Morning Dew (Image: )
Channel: 4.5 seconds
Cast: 1.2 seconds
Cooldown: 1 second
A crappy, gimpy heal. Actually, when maxed, it can heal for quite a
bit. Either way, the long cast time makes it useless to us... Until you
start doing the cube. If you plan to cube, get this heal to 8 or more.
I have it maxed now as I do cube daily. Why? Because there's a room
called The Last Stand where the only way for a mage to complete it is
to kill all of the monsters attacking him and then sit as far in a
corner as he can spam potions and self heal. Without a proper heal you
will not make it through this room.
13) Frostblade (Image: )
Channel: .8 Sec
Cast: 1.0 Sec
Cooldown: 3.0 Sec
One of the wizard's more interesting skills (and our only real support
skill since our heal is useless), this skill adds damage to the buffed
player in the form of water elemental. Similar to burning arrows. The
damage is small but noticable, and it is especially useful when
fighting fire mobs. The other use of this skill? Spam it on yourself to
produce vigor fairly quickly. A nice skill, but no rush to max it.
Raise it casually when you find the chance.
14) Glacial Snare (Image: )
Channel: 2.5 seconds
Cast: 1.8 seconds
Cooldown: 15.0 Sec
A nice, strong nuke, glacial snare would outclass sandstorm if it
wasn't for it's pathetically long reuse time. This skill has a great
slow effect which is basically the equivalent of paralyzing the
character, but it doesn't work in the air and smart warriors will
sprint out of it. Still a nice hard nuke, and a great lead for PVE. I
reccomend leaving it at level 1 for a while, and then when you can
finally get it a lot of levels, get them all at once. If you raise it
slowly early it will not outdamage sandstorm and the slow (if it even
lands) will be useless because of the shortened range. Lastly, this
skill plays a part in your sutra combo, so you WILL want to raise it
eventually.
15) Black Ice Dragon Strike (Image: )
Channel: 4.0 Sec
Cast: 1.6 Sec
Cooldown: 30.0 Sec
Spark Required: 2 Spark
The famous "dragon" of mages, this skill hurts like a *****. It does
tremendous water elemental damage to all of the targets in the AoE, and
is the hardest hitting of your ultimate on non-robe targets. This
skill, unfortunately, has a huge flashy animation that people will rush
to cancel you out of. The damage is spectacular and can oneshot
warriors and archers if it crits, but the results on a warrior are
nothing like the results of Blade Tempest on a robe. Overall a solid
choice for an ultimate that will definitely be useful in TW.
16) Water Mastery (Image: )
Channel: N/A
Cast: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
Your water mastery will find use mostly in glacial snare and ice dragon
(the difference on gush is a joke), so pump it when you have enough of
those two. There's really no rush, you can leave this out for a long
time.
17) Hailstorm (Image: )
Channel: 1.8 seconds
Cast: 1.2 seconds
Cooldown: 12 seconds
This skill had the potential to be useful but it just doesn't excel at
anything. The damage is pathetic and the freeze chance is unreliable
and basically useless with the huge cooldown the skill has. You can get
away with not putting a single point into this skill, and I highly
reccomend you do just that.
18) Wellspring Quaff (Image: )
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 3 seconds
Spark Cost: 1 Spark
This skill raises your max MP. It's essentially useless until you reach
devil/angel. However, once you hit 59, you're going to want to get 5
levels of it so that you can get...
19) Essential Sutra (Image: )
Channel: Instant
Cast: Instant
Cooldown: 60 Seconds
Spark Cost: 2 Spark
This skill is incredible. It costs a hefty 2 spark, but for the next 6
seconds, all your spells have no channel time at all. This still is the
best way to finish off a warrior or werebeast because, while fury has a
HUGE super flashy animation and a cast time, this skill just makes a
shine around you and has no cast time at all, meaning you're much less
likely to get stunned out of it and you can unload immediately without
the long casting pose of fury burst to let your target's stuns
recharge. The best combo for this is Divine Pyrogram -> Glacial
Snare -> Sandstorm -> Divine Pyrogram.
20) Manifest Virtue (Image: )
Channel: 0.8 Seconds
Cast: 1 Second
Cooldown: 5 Minutes
Spark Cost: 1 Spark
While I have not yet gotten this skill (it requires level 100), it's
pretty basic. It eats up one spark and adds your MP/100 as a % to your
matk. Meaning if you have 10,000 MP, you'll add 100% to your matk. I am
*not* positive on this but it seems obvious this spell would stack with
wellspring quaff meaning that your MP should be pretty damned high by
the time you've got it. Lasts 30 seconds.
Subject: Pandora's PVP Skill Handbook 
Tue Jul 07, 2009 8:54 am
