Editing Playing a Mage

'''Playing a Mage'''

Basic Mage Templates As of 4/01/09

10/30/10/80/100/100
War/Melee D spec
Train Life, Mana Conversion, Item, Creature, Lore, and then whatever you want after that

10/100/10/10/100/100
War/Magic Defense spec
Train Life, Mana C, Item, Creature, Lore, Melee D, and whatever else you wish

30/80/10/10/100/100
War/Life
Train Mana C, Item, Creature, Lore, Melee D, and whatever else you wish

These are some of the most basic mage templates out there that I have seen recently, and in order of how often as well.

I personally play the War/Melee D with starting stats of 10/80/10/30/100/100
I trained Arcane Lore, Life Magic, Item Magic, Creature Magic, Mana Conversion and Leader as of now.

"Getting Started"

1. Learn how to get used to carrying the necessary amount of prismatic tapers and the required scarabs to cast the spells you plan on using. Running out in a dire situation usually ends in quick death of a mage.

2. Get into a guild, look for any active players. Many players of AC tend to be very helpful, sometimes TOO helpful (Lol) but always willing to do just about anything for a new player, or even returning players.

3. Practice on learning about the main pro's and con's of a mage, i.e. having to take 4 schools of magic, definately needing to specialize war magic, also trying to understand the concept of how mana conversion works, and how a higher level of it can drastically change how many spells you can cast.

4. Practice learning how to cast spells with the keyboard...this is a must, its just to damn hard to cast fast enough with a mouse anymore...try mapping a certain keyboard button to cast and use that, i currently use R for previous spell T for next spell and F for cast spell. 

5. Understand that as a mage, you will not be using a shield...unless you are running through somewhere, and if you intend on hunting monsters that are melee based, then roll a mage that has melee defense somewhere in the template and I even recommend putting a few starting attribute points into quick for the bonus to melee d in the end.

6. For fastest method of leveling, Get yourself some rended no wield wands, preferably , one fire, and one bludgeon, but pierce will also work until 290 base war as well. I suggest first going to the olthoi arcade until 20, which is cake, then I would suggest Black Spawn Den with the tusker guard kill quest out there that is 20 million xp, you should be able to get close to 50. 

7. As soon as you hit level 50, you should have over 320 war magic buffed, should have no problems going to abayar's study, which is also called Fiuns, fiuns tend to hit for less damage than other ToD monsters, but they will war the crap out of you, I recommend atleast 240 buffed Magic D for a decent time, stay on the top floor until 90, then flag yourself for the actual lower part of fiuns and take on the higher level fiuns and you can easily level up there to 110.

8. By level 110, you should have been able to get yourself a decent enough melee defense to evade the Eaters in the Ravenous Vault. This is a great place to level a mage quickly, I have seen someone go from 110-130 in two days here. Slash or Pierce Rend with high tinked Melee D is a must here or you will die quickly.

9. Arranging Spellbars:  This is probably the most important task you have for all characters, let alone your mage. There are 7 spellbars, one for each element.  Ostensibly, this allows you to put all the attacks and debuffs for a specific element on one bar each, and simply flip between them as you need a different element, i.e. fire war spells and vulns on bar 1, Frost on bar 2, etc.  The extra spaces beyond the hot keys are customized for other purposes...buff bars, portal bars, and so forth.  If you are good with a keyboard, this is a good way to organize things.
Most people, however, divide up the bars and hot keys by specific tasks, and vary slightly between characters (melee and missile have no need of war spells, for instance).  For an example, my mage has his set up the following way:
**a.Primary solo questing spells.  All vulns, all wars.  I move them down onto the hot keys or close as required for whatever I am hunting (dungeons needing only one vuln/war type are nice this way!).  Keys 1 and 2 are always replenish/stamina to mana, and key 3 is always heal self.
**b. Primary creature magic buffing bar (I don't rely on buff programs).  keys 1 and 2 are StM and Replenish.
**c. The third bar is Item Magic buffs...and debuffs. Keys 1 and 2 are StM and Replenish.  The debuffs don't get used often, but I want them easy to find when I need them.
**d. Life Magic buffs, Protections and rejuv effects.  At the far end of the bar are all the Life Magic Buff OTher effects, in case I need to buff up someone else.  Keys 1 and 2 are StM and REplenish.
**e. Bar 5 is my Group Questing Bar.  This is dominated by quick access to Imperil, Vulns, and other debuff effects, including such specialized things as Stamina Bolt, Fester, and Fellowship aid spells like Heal Other, Stamina Other, and Mana Other effects.  If I need to use War magic, I flip back to Bar One.  Keys 1 and 2 are Stm and REplenish, Key 3 is Heal Self. 4 is Stamina Other, 5 is Heal Other, 6 is Imperil, and 7 is a Vuln appropriate to the quest.  8 and 9 are usually Magic Yield Other and a second Vuln.
**f. Bar Six is all the Creature Other Buff spells, AND the Fellowship-wide buffs.  They don't get used much, but they are all here if needed.  There are a couple of quests where the mage being able to throw back up everyone's dispelled buffs is very useful.
**g. The last bar is my Portals bar.  All Portal spells and lifestone spells are on this bar and available for instant access.  My Panic Button recall (Usually Tusker Recall, the quickest one to cast), sits at the front of the bar.

This is merely one version of arranging your spell bars for a mage. I am sure you can come up with others.
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