Archmage

The usual crap - "Okey before I start with the guide i want to be clear, I do not care how you play what you do etc. this is how i play it, and believe me you it does work properly." (copy/paste from my Soul hound guide)

0. Chit-chat
Alright, why I start with 0. not with 1. , simple i wanna fill ur head with bullsh1ts before I start with the actual guide for Archmage. This guide with contain information not only for Archmages(sorc if u wanna call them) but for all other mages as well. I will give information about equipment, skills, skills enchanting, pvp hints etc. Now here is where i want to stop for a sec - pvp hints. When I write down the pvp hints i write them down THEORETICALLY. What does it mean? Let me put it simple, with every new guide i introduce you to something new - "Next target" in the soul hound guide, "Attack" in the Trickster guide. Here I'll introduce you something that you all know and at the same time you always pass by as if it is something insignificant. Now, I live with my mates in a house, we all play Lineage,however, in different servers, and most of the time we talk about Lineage cuz more or less thats what we are interested in (at least takes us away from our busy daily life), and when we talk about Lineage I mean - pvp tactics, equipment, in different situations different set up(I saw with my own eyes Tiat dying in 37 seconds by 12 attackers, not TITANS!! on a 5x server), tactical siege stuffz, augoments, attributes, skills, classes EVERYTHING. Long story short, we always end up to as i ll call it "The Big IF!". Okey so what is "The Big IF!"? Imagine the following situation, two soul hounds pvping each other with exactly the same stats, both casting Death mark and it lands, and afterwards they cast Silence(Void something), however, soul hound 1 has his silence +15, whereas soulhound 2 has his silence +0 on chance. Which one wins ? Well you can't really say, presuming the chance of landing s1 to s2 is 85 % and s2 to s1 is 40 %, yes THEORETICALLY s1 has bigger chance to land Silence, but it might fail and s2's silence might land therefore s2 wins the pvp. And there are always "IFs" in L2. There is never 100 % win, and this is a FACT!!! Also there are chars good for different situations - some are good for farming - Warlords, some are good for olympiads - Tanks, some are good for outdoor pvp - archers. Every character in Lineage has its particular purpose.

1. Introduction
Ah mages, my favorite type of class. Every person has his/her own type of class some are mage person, others tanks, others secret assassins in their Lineage world. My one is mage, but i do like playing with other classes as well. As all of you may know, mages are high nukers which is their main +, fast farmers, and good-ish in pvp, what they lack is physical def. Now why Archmage? No, seriously why Archmage? You got Storm Screamers with trillion m.att killing everything with 3-4 hits, you got Spell singers which once they start attacking you you are just as good as nothing, neighter you can move fast nor you can attack/cast fast, and you got Necromancers, which for me are the best mages. I mean Necromancers as i said in my previous guides have everything you need - block magic/physical skills, silence, fear, mass fear, paralyse, mass warrior bane, mass mage bane, summon/transfer pain (OP!). SO WHY ARCHMAGES?! Well, when you think of it when was the last time you saw Archmage on a pvp server? And did you notice that mages somehow after Interlude are not that

prefered class? Every mage has its purpose, its "+" and "-", Storm Screamers are good farmers but they do lack of casting speed which may cost their loss in a pvp, Spell Singers have planty of slow c.sp/atk/speed skills which are needed vs mele classes but they have no heal vs mages, and Necromancers... no comment. So why I like archmages, I'm gonna explain later in the guide.

2. Stats
Now there are 4 types of mages(and why the f*ck do i still see soul hounds acting like mages, makes me sick, and im not counting Orc mages as "mage" they are more like support to me): *Copy/paste* Spell Singer STR:21 DEX:24 CON:25 INT:37 WIT:23 MEN:40 Storm Screamer STR: 23 DEX: 23 CON: 24 INT: 44 WIT:19 MEN:37 Archmage STR:22 DEX:21 CON:27 INT: 41 WIT:20 MEN:39 Necromancer STR:22 DEX:21 CON:27 INT:41 WIT:20 MEN:39 CON (CONSTITUTION) affects maximum HP and CP through the CON modifier affects HP recovery speed affects weight limit affects underwater breath gauge affects shock (stun) resistance affects bleeding resistance. INT (INTELLIGENCE) affects M.Atk. stat through the INT modifier INT modifier forthcoming affects curse land rates through M.Atk. WIT (WISDOM) affects Casting Spd. stat through the WIT modifier each point of wit gained makes a 5% difference to Casting spd. affects chance of magic critical hits affects resistance to Hold (aka Roots) and Sleep affects resistance to essentially every single type of debuff not listed by the other stats Thats exactly the 3 main stats we are looking for when it comes to mages. CON needed for hp/resists, WIT needed for casting speed, INT needed for M.att. This is what your mage needs. Some of you might say, alright cool... what about MEN ? Well MEN in High rate servers as well as in low rate servers(if it is not 1-3x) is not needed, I mean srsly m.def and mana regen? with that much passive skills for m.def and mana regen I really believe is not essential. Now from the funny looking graph I've drawn you can clearly see that DE mages have the highest m.att, combined with their skills it makes them the best nukers. Spell Singers have the highest casting speed, making them the best dot(DAMAGE OVER TIME) mages. And here comes Archmages and Necromancers where they

have the highest CON (tanky!) and at the same time reasonable casting speed and m.att.

3. Dyes
Okey, so we have loged in the server, we have created the uber cool yet funny running mage, presuming we will develop it into POWERFUL yet still funny running Archmage, and we face the dilemma of dyes. This applies for all NUKERS!!! Thats how the dyes are and thats how they always will be(okey that was a bit too much... but yeah incase NCSoft dun fack up somethin thats how they ll stay) +4 con -4str +4 wit -4men +4 int -4men VOALA! Now your mage will have +22% casting speed, and +25.2% m.att, and about 123 % more hp.

4. Skills
Okey, here I will explain you WHY I like Archmages. 1st: The weakest mages in my opinion for pvp servers. I love the fact that I am playing with the weakest mage,nothing can compare with the feeling of killing another mage thats more powerful than you. 2nd: The best DPS(DAMAGE PER SECOND) mage, and when I say DPS I mean it. Archmages got 3 DPS skills - Inferno, Decoy, Count of Fire. Inferno - 60 hp every second for 15 seconds Decoy - 157 hp every second for 15 seconds Count of Fire(erm its +15 on Power) - 201 hp every second for 10 seconds Do some maths[I "-" the hp regen, and presume to cast the 3 skills will take u 3 seconds together so overall the total dmg will come to]: (15*60) + (157*15) + (201*10) - (11*18) = 900 + 2355 + 2010 - 198 = 5067 dmg after 18 seconds on Full buffs... WOAH !!! 3rd: The best AOE mage... 4 Aoe skillz, from which 3 can be casted all the time. Now it lacks of Vortexes, which is a big minus, it has only one but hey its more than enough !!! Fire Vortex is quite useful versus any time of char, not only it decreases the opponents speed and atk speed, but also it decreases the casting speed which is

quite useful when it comes to fighting mages. AAAAAAAAAaaaand of course... CANCEL !!! which is not that useful on high rate servers, cuz it removes sie dances/songs. And not only that it lands like sh1t on all Epilogue servers. Mentioning that, something VERY important, on MOST new Epilogue/Freya servers, 3 skills are not working properly. Surrender to Fire - doesn't decrease the opponent's fire resist Seed of Fire - doesn't increase ur fire attack Fire Vortex - doesn't decrease the opponent's fire resist I am not gonna explain you how to check them, just notify the Admins if they are not working so they can be fixed. NAU ! Enchanting skills. Last week one of my house mates told me something and i was shocked, then i picked a pen and paper and started calculating. It turns out that on Freya enchanting skills on elemental is useless when playing high rate servers. How it works out: Presume you have a full set yeah, and ur opponent have a weapon +Water Attribute. Okey personally Water is one of the attribute I have on 3 of my armors when constant playing (I will explain later what i mean by constant playing). So thats 3x120 = 360, presume that the dude is Spell Singer so he ll be able to boost his elemental attack to 320 + he has skills done on water vulnarability +30 and a skill with +30 water attack that comes to 400 water element, okey but I will also have resists that match his 400 element therefore he won't be able to do me any extra ELEMENTAL DMG. However, if he has for instance his 2nd skill enchanted not on water attack but lets say power, yes I will have more elemental resist but (here I am not really sure if it works that way, but my mate told me that with skills enchanted on power they deal more dmg, and he has tested it on several characters not only on one, I haven't seen it with my eyes, but I do trust him) the dmg will be considered from the actual magic defence. So yeah, on Freya I enchant my skills on power. When starting a new pvp server I always 1st enchant my Fear skill +30 or so, and aura flash +15 Chance I will explain why in the pvp hints.

5. Equipment
Duhhh... this guide is gettin longer and longer. Okey so equipment, you all know you have to wear Robe i suppose ? AAAAAAAand a weapon with Acumen :P. Now lets get serious, to be a good player you should be able to use several weapons in a different situations, for instance - sigil vs mages, shield vs daggers/archers/tanks etc. Now what you need is several weapons with different augoments. Presume that on the server you are playing it is extreamly hard to get that many weapons with that many augoments etc, the augoment you ll need

THE MOST is heal(notice that I am talking about pvp servers)... It heals on full buffs - 1032, and it has 8 seconds re-use time. This is quite useful when it comes to using Arcane Power, which drains your hp over time. See SS and Necros have LL which kinda restores their hp but sorc don't... so this is the thing you have to get. Now what other weapon with augoment you need is any wep with celestrial shield. Explained in pvp tactics. Next 2 weapons (any 2 weapons) - 1 with active magic crit, 1 with magic power. Next 2 weapons (top weapons attrbited) - 1 with active magic crit, 1 with magic power. Okey while you are going to use them 2 weapons with the active skills everytim you know u ll face an opponent either outdoors in oly you ll always need them, while the 2nd two weapons are kinda optional. Now as I said in my soul hound guide I do believe in what i see, what i mean is I would rather use a weapon with augomented with Empower and knowing that i will DO more dmg than using one with m.critical and hoping for the critical (here comes "THE BIG IF!"). Okey so now we are done with weapons, comes armors. When playing with mage apart from my constant playing set (one that have all the main attributes) I hold another 4 sets (2 parts each) in my inventory. One with extra water, one with extra fire, one with extra wind and one with extra dark. Now this is more applicable for Epilogue servers cuz you can have only 1 att on a piece. Also GOD use them potions for resists that you can get from the Attribute NPC they are so useful that you can't even imagine.

6. PvP hints
Now we got our POWERFUL yet funny running Archmage, we got dyes, we got equipment, we got attributes and sh1t, so we start pvping ^^. Here I ll share you my skill bar, of course for everyone is different but thats how i feel comfortable playing, without MACROS !!!

Okey, quick explanation before you are like "wtf?", notice the rotation button on the right hand side, thats how you can easily distinguish the skill bars. Now notice that on the 2nd and 3rd, the top skill bar doesn't show 3 but it shows 4 and 5, also the skill on 2 is "heal". The last skill bar is my skill bar where i use more than 1 augomented weapons. The 9th button is my normal weapon 10 is Celestrial shield, 11 is the wep with teh celestrial shield, 9 and 10 on the 3rd skill bar are active m.att. Now how my skills work out, I use enter chat so 1-12 and F1-F12 are clear, for Numpad1-12 i use letters, Numpad1 - Q Numpad2 - W Numpad3 - E Numpad4 - R Numpad8 - A im just used to having next target on A doesn't matter where i put it on the skill bar. Now 1st skill bar is for mele chars, 2nd skill bar is for farming and 3rd skill bar is for mages. However I use also skill bar 4 which is can be used for all.

So yeah I was gonna write down about pvps and sh1ts. FIRST! What makes a good pvper , one must: be able to KNOW his character, when to use particular skills etc. be able to KNOW the opposite character so he/she knows how to react be able to use the surroundings be able to use as many keys as possible be able to remain calm during the whole pvp, not like my mate... his leg is shaking while pvping >.< so funny. Now ...PVPS !!! 3 Groups: 1st Easy kill - characters that you kill without having your whole hp down. 2nd Medium kill - characters that get you to half hp. 3rd Facked up - characters that dominates you.

1st Easy kill - All Mele characters - Tanks/ Daggers/ AAAa dwarfs / Warlords etc. So what do we do, talking THEORETICALLY there is ALWAYS "THE BIG IF!!". Once the battle is started try to keep your distance as much as possible, start with cancel, use slow to slow down ur opponent if it is not a dagger(btw i ll include here OLs, you shouldn't stay near them cuz of their seals) Fire Vortex of course will even make it better, what follows is fear, if it lands its your win, if it doesn't and somehow you get shackled or dagger gets to you, what you do is (as i said earlier you should have ur Aura Flash on +15 chance) use prominence and aura flash and try to fear them also add up all the DPS skills so their hp can go down even faster. Kite TANKS !! NEVER Kite daggers, better to tank them, they have low chance of blows from front and by using aura flash which cancels their target would be easy for u(AH something important, Arch mages lack of far skills, so you got like prominence AAAAAAANd Elemental Assault, Aura Symphony, and Inferno but their cd is quite big.) 2nd Medium Kill - Doombringers, Tyrants, Titans(vary in Easy kill as well), Gladiators. I add DBs cuz they just do loads of dmg, and somehow get my cp down, but in general they are not scary, apply to Easy kill. Tyrants and Gladiators - its not such a huge philosophy, cancel -> dps skill, slow , if u cant slow them run back, kite use prominence, etc. once they are slowed (even if u have succeeded in casting fire vortex don't bother casting slow) just use prominence and them 3 skills Elemental Assault, Aura Symphon, and Inferno and keep the DPS on, one thing is for sure... they won't do more dmg than you will. 3rd Facked up - Archers, Necros, Storm Screamers, Tricksters, Spell Singers, Soul Hounds. Yeah pretty much facked up. Now... vs Archers, cancel -> slow/vortex you MUST SLOW THEM DOWN, then use ur celestrial shield on the weapon so you get as close as possible so you can use aura flash, also as close as you are the less dmg they ll do you, so while attacking make sure you click with the mouse forward. Necros -> SLOW , fear... why I list slow 1st, cuz if u fear

them ... you won't be able to catch them... they ll just run away from you and your fear would be useless use HEAL weapon, applies the same for SS, Spell Singers and Tricksters. Soul Hounds -> if they use mage weapon you should be fine... you will kill them eventually if u r fully buffed etc, make sure u use cancel after he uses steal divinity, if they rush you however with fighter weapon make sure u kite them.

OLY HINTS !!! Now I didn't do this in my previous guide, but now eventho I am already tired of tying for the pass 2 hours, I will list some important things. Another reason for loving Archamges is that they are anti-mele classes, and judging from my observation 70 % of the servers play with mele classes, and 60 % of them participate in oly... which is LOVELY !!! I am not gonna give hints for every class cuz this will take ages BUT i will not some important things. 1st: THINK !!!! you are playing vs Soul Hound or DA, SUPPOSEDLY they ll start with Steal Divinity or Touch of Death, USE UR DAMN Celestrial shield(thats how important it is). 2nd: do not use Enlightment (except for some situations, i ll let you figure them out)... 3rd: when you buff 1ST you buff with acumen and bers then you use ur buff weapons for bless the body, mental shield, THEN you buff with the rest empower, concentration, ww, and at the end add as many buffs as possible(if u r playing vs Soul Hound) 4th: surprice ur opponent, do the unexpected... remember it might work only once vs the same char

AAAAAAAnd i might have missed something but really right now i cannot be bothered typing anything what so ever.

7. Conclusion
For conclusion... ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... yeah I ll tell you a story about a friend of mine . So here is the deal the dude plays Lineage 2 for about 6 years and... how should i put it, its not that experienced as you might think a fella should be after playing 6 years lineage. I mean he just makes stupid mistakes that makes u angry but at teh same time you are laughing ur ass ... cuz it is funny. So one of my house mates told me that yesturday. He is playing Temple Knight on a 5x server and he is doing oly, while my mate is watching his games and talking on skype. His opponent in oly is EE, they buff up, the match start, the dude tries to sleep him while my friend is chasing him WITH HIS SWORD AND SHIELD !!! the EE realized is not gonna work out cuz he haz smart cubic so he started draining his mana. Meanwhile the dude that was watching was like screaming in skype... "GO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OLYMPIAD STADIUM, EQUIP YOUR BOW AND JUST SHOOT HIM!!!"... rofl .. what follows is

the dude playing the TK, going in the middle of the oly stadium still with his sword and shield equiped, then moving a little bit left, then a little bit right, and my house mate is like ... "dude... what are you doing ?" and my mate is like ... "finding the middle of the oly stadium" jkdsghskdlhgklsdfjgh.

Thanks for reading my 3rd guide, hope you enjoyed it.

Lone