Runes of Magic US / AU

W/M:
Gear/stat like a mage.
2H Staff.
Melee range fights, using only elite skills. No warrior primary skills are needed. (You can throw fireball into the mix only if it is maxed and at same level as the warrior side.)

M/W is a mage.

Both are good at doing what they do, both are fun. I have a lvl 67 w/m, and have loads of fun on it when I play it (I say this because currently I am leveling a priest/rogue).

Quoted from "ghostwolf82;485018"

W/M:
Gear/stat like a mage.
2H Staff.
Melee range fights, using only elite skills. No warrior primary skills are needed. (You can throw fireball into the mix only if it is maxed and at same level as the warrior side.)

M/W is a mage.

Both are good at doing what they do, both are fun. I have a lvl 67 w/m, and have loads of fun on it when I play it (I say this because currently I am leveling a priest/rogue).

Er, I may have to dispute the use of a 2H Staff. Currently, the WarMage's primary damage is Electric Attack which is a self buff that activates everytime you do a white attack (works even in Treasure Hunter! ).

As such, you'd want a weapon that has the highest possible magic damage while also having the highest possible attack... which is a WAND. Currently, my Warrior uses a Ghostly Wand which does ~2/3rd the magic damage of my Cast Out Staff (both are tier 9 and +15). The drop in damage is more than made up by the fact that the wand's attack speed is 2.5 to the Cast Out's 3.5. And by using a wand, my WarMage can also use a SHIELD which is a convenient place to put more stats on.

Currently, my Warrior far outDPSes by Mage as far as single targets go (group targets are another story), at least when using my mage gear for everything else. Right now, I'm experimenting with statting chain gear like a mage for extra protection, but it's gonna be a while yet before that provides even equivalent protection and hp that my Mage gear provides. My Mage set gets priority on upgrades after all.

I'm also trying to stat to increase physical accuracy. Electric Attack can't exactly proc on a white hit if you can't LAND that white hit to begin with.

I have played a warmage since I started playing. It is my absolute favorite class to play. In ch3 I wore the same gear on my warrior and my mage. (which people couldn't under stand lol) I was using a raksha staff t8 and had around 33k ma. I chose to go with lava weapon after the changes to the tooltip at lvl 67 (lava weapon was quite a bit higher than electric attack). I found myself hitting things and players for upwards of 100K and more depending on which mob. BUT I noticed the damage output for a white attack regardless of the actual white attack damage ranged from anywhere from 50K to 400k on the same mobs with the same levels. Any ideas on why this might be?

I haven't been playing this character much recently because it doesn't keep up with other classes as far as dps goes, which is sad because I really love to play it. But I have been thinking of going with a wand and seeing how that does me as far as damage goes. I know for sure I would be better off with a shield considering that I wear cloth.

Quoted from "ellyzi;485711"

I haven't been playing this character much recently because it doesn't keep up with other classes as far as dps goes,

Due to the recent super nerf, and white swings not being effected at all, warmage might just be the new king of dps...

W/M you would want to stat pretty much exactly like a mage, which, in my opinion kind of defeats the purpose. If you're going to stat like a mage and gear like a mage then just go mage and do better than you'll ever do as W/M.

However, with this new GCD nerf (Praying and hoping to the lord that it gets reversed), I honestly have no idea if this still applies... as mage is getting hit pretty hard, along with healers.

hello my friend, i started out just like u a warrior/mage.... i lv up my warrior with chain gear and two handed axe... reason for this was that i was ignorant of the fact that the secondary class affects the primary meaning that i didnt findout about elites skill until lv 40~ish... i was told that warrior mage wears clothe wen i was lv 62 im so clue less sometimes... well this was like 8 months ago so from wat i could remember a warrior/ mage wearing chain and a two hand axe is easy to lv up
ps mage/warrior does more damage at engame just thought i should let u know..... im now a mage/warrior i completely flip the script on my class i hope i was of any help to you

Quoted from "guultek;489595"

After my last reply I figured I would focus on building a mage/warrior. However, I still stuck with leveling the warrior side. I came back and read the other replies several days later, which provided some ideas to try out.

As for gear and stat like a mage while leveling isn't working well. Especially if one is poorly geared, which I am. Using a 2h staff, meleeing in cloth = squishy = losing lots of hp per fight. War/mage is a mana and rage hungry build so I'm chain chugging hp and mana potions. I ended up trying shield + 1h. Using shield + 1h, my War/Mage is less squishy, but it still feels like I kill stuff slowly. Even killing mobs 5 levels below me seems slow.

My char is level 18/18. Since I don't have Electric Attack using a wand won't work very well (not enough physical damage at my level). Which leaves axe/sword/mace and I'm currently using a lvl 14 1h sword. I'm using a mix of mail, leather and cloth to get as much Intel and other stats as possible. However, I'm still low on Dex/PACC so I miss more often against equal level and higher mobs.

So my questions are:

1) How did you guys level your war/mage Warrior side in regard to gear, weapons, statting, and playstyle? I've been combining fireball and surprise attack to front load damage. However, it doesn't work for mobs that charge on initial attack.

2) Electric Rage is costing both mana and rage (15-rage + 30-mana per cast if I remember correctly). Am I suppose to pick up a skill that removes the mana requirement? If so, which skill?

3) A player in-game told me that I get a free TP reset at level 20? Is this accurate? Do I get a TP reset for both the Warrior and Mage Side (gut instinct tells me this isn't going to be free)?

4) How did you guys handle mana regen. while leveling? I'm chugging potions.

5) I could use advice on TP allocation because I know that I didn't allocate them properly. Maxing surprise attack may not be the smartest thing to do from an end-game perspective, but using surprise attack while leveling helps.

It's not so much that W/M kills slowly at the beginning. It's that mage kills much faster than everyone else until the other classes start to catch up. Thankfully, W/M catches up to mage kind of quickly. Probably the most efficient way to level up will be to use the M/W as your main and turn in daily quests on your warrior side until it hits level 30. Hold onto some mage gear for it. If you're going to play your W/M heavily before then, you'll probably want to level it as a standard warrior. Use your physical attacks with a 2h weapon. Rely heavily on the Slash bleed.

After your warrior side hits 30, you pick up Thunder Sword. That's when things come together for leveling. It still costs a lot of MP, but if you're using a staff with all mage gear, Thunder Sword is going to one shot just about any mob you come across. Since you kill things so quickly, you'll spend more time regenerating MP out of combat, and it becomes much less of an issue.

The 35 elite is Electric Attack. Once you're there, you have a skill that will kill just about anything in one or two hits and doesn't cost any MP (except for the initial buff). Once you're at that point, you have one of the easiest classes in the game to level up. W/M is pretty godly until you start trying to gear up and everyone else simply out scales you.

1. If you aren't killing things quickly enough, consider buying PAtk or MAtk food from the auction house. It's usually very cheap.

2. Nope, it will always cost MP. For now, you're going to get more from Slash for the bleed though.

3. You get it at level 30. It will only reset one side. However, at your level the cost of skills is trivial compared to later. Having skills that you don't like leveled to 20 or 30 won't affect your toon in any noticeable way.

4. The faster you kill things the better. You don't have to level all of your skills now. Later on you'll want to level the ones you use, but in the early game many skills only slightly increase with damage per skill level while the MP costs go up substantially. Also, you can use more rage skills. Or you can turn in daily quests on your warrior side for now which is the easiest solution overall.

5. Same as the answer to 3. Leveling stuff up to 30 won't hurt your character in the long run. Once you hit level 30 and get the Thunder Sword elite, you'll want to prioritize that. Same for Electric Attack. For now, you're just trying to survive until then.

I dunno about leveling up. While I leveled up my warmage, I did it pretty much as a standard warrior: chain with 2H weapon (usually a sword if I could get it). It wasn't until I maxed my classes that I heard I should have been gearing it as a mage, And it's only with the recent buff to Electric Attack buff that WarMage seems to come into its own... and what convinced me to use mage gear for my warrior.

Still, if you stat and gear as a mage, your aoe skills basically go into the toilet since theyre based on physical damage. So now I'm thinking of carrying two sets of gear: mage gear for magic damage, standard warrior gear for physical damage, and a macro for hot swapping between them in the middle of combat. My magic dps is awesome, but it's single target only and sometimes I NEED to use aoe.

But statting and upgrading two entirely different sets of gear? Expensive. As. Hell. Do it only if you have money to burn.

That said, has anyone encountered a bug in Electric Attack where the magic damage procs on YOU instead of your target?

I am also training up a warmage as a new player. Reading this thread has creates some questions. What does the weapon/armor choice have to do with anything while a warmage? Can't I just use chain and axes?

Quoted from "Escoce;493186"

I am also training up a warmage as a new player. Reading this thread has creates some questions. What does the weapon/armor choice have to do with anything while a warmage? Can't I just use chain and axes?

Sure, but AFAIK, all the current chain pieces and axes are lousy when it comes to magic damage and magic damage is a large component of the warmage's dps.

In fact, axes have the WORST magic damage out of all the warrior specific weapons (axe, sword, hammer). For the best magic damage for warrior-specific weapon, you'll want to use swords which has the best magical-to-physical damage ratio short of a staff.

But with the damage buff given by Electric Attack, the combined physical and magical damage you get from swords pales in comparison to the pure magical damage a staff would give you.

And of course there's the statting system, which rewards specialization in one damage type far more than trying to compromise between magical and physical damage.

Can you please elaborate? What is the difference between magic damage and physical damage. Perhaps I don't understand the relationship between the two types when matched with classes.

I just assumed every weapon did damage, some of it physical in nature and some of it magical in nature.

I do some pretty wicked damage with my axe, or at least I think I do.

Quoted from "Escoce;493220"

Can you please elaborate? What is the difference between magic damage and physical damage. Perhaps I don't understand the relationship between the two types when matched with classes.

I just assumed every weapon did damage, some of it physical in nature and some of it magical in nature.

I do some pretty wicked damage with my axe, or at least I think I do.

I'll try to explain.

Physical skills are based on physical damage and attack. Magical skills are based on magical damage and attack. These are different stats and generally your gear will give either a lot of one or a lot of the other.

Full magic stats: All of your magic skills will do lots of damage, but your physical skills will do essentially nothing. All of your AOE is physical, so your AOE damage is in the toilet. Single target damage is epic through mid game. At end game, due to scaling issues with magic damage, you fall significantly behind nearly every other DPS in the game.

Full physical stats: All of your physical skills will do lots of damage, but your magical skills will do essentially nothing. You'll do nearly as much physical damage as most other warriors until your run out of rage. That doesn't take very long. You may not see it right now while soloing because you are taking damage, but in a party with a tank, you lose out on about half of your potential rage source. All of the W/M's filler skills for when you are low on rage are magic based.

Hybrid stats: Both your physical and magical skills will do about half their normal damage since your stats are split in half. However, nearly all of your skills do *either* magical or physical damage. Not both at the same time. This puts you in a position where you are dealing quite literally half the damage that most DPS classes can push out.

Ok let me try get this straight.

PATK is paired with the PDMG of a weapon to get total physical damage done per strike.

MATK is paired with MDMG of a weapon to get total magic damage done.

Right?

Ok so are these two damage types combined to come up with the total HP of damage done to a target?

Ok if that's so then I would gather combining your primary and secondary classes to max the right attribute for max DPS, but just from rough reckoning since I am playing war/Mage for play style choice, it would seem to me that my total PATK is going to be higher than my total MATK. so wouldn't it make sense to take advantage of that?

How does MATK affect spell damage or doesn't it?

Quoted from "Escoce;494019"

Ok let me try get this straight.

PATK is paired with the PDMG of a weapon to get total physical damage done per strike.

MATK is paired with MDMG of a weapon to get total magic damage done.

Right?

Ok so are these two damage types combined to come up with the total HP of damage done to a target?

Ok if that's so then I would gather combining your primary and secondary classes to max the right attribute for max DPS, but just from rough reckoning since I am playing war/Mage for play style choice, it would seem to me that my total PATK is going to be higher than my total MATK. so wouldn't it make sense to take advantage of that?

How does MATK affect spell damage or doesn't it?

To the bolded. Basically no in any practical sense. There are a handful of skills in the game that do both damage types. All of these skills do multiple hits (one is physical one is magical). Every hit in the game does *either* physical *or* magical damage. Never both.

The only skill you have that hits for both physical and magical damage is the buff that adds magic damage to your white hits. Again, this causes two hits. One is magical, one is physical. All of your other skills do one type or the other. Not both.


MAtk affects your spell damage in the same way that PAtk affects your physical attacks. It allows more of your potential damage (determined primarily by your damage or DPS stat) to make it through the targets defenses.


EDIT: Just thought of the one exception to never both at the same time. S/M has one skill that has damage that comes both from magical damage and (ranged) physical damage at the same time. The reason why it works that way is the physical damage doesn't "act" like physical damage. Too confusing to go into details.

Either I am really thick, or the answers aren't right...sorry

A weapon has both damage types listed....if an axe does 60 phys and 48 magic, and I attack just by double clicking a target, which damage gets applied?

If I cast fireball, does the axe's magic damage some how get applied?

If you do one damage or the other listed on a weapon....which one get's applied when???

I am sorry this is really confusing to me...and I am sorry for being so thick.

If you do a physical attack then the physical damage listed on the weapon is used. If you do a magical attack then the magic damage on the weapon is used.

Clicking on a monster so you get the auto attack is a physical swing of the axe so you get the physical damage. Skills like slash and probing attack are physical damage so the physical damage on the weapon is used.

Skills like fireball and lightning are magical attacks so the magic damage listed on the weapon is used.