Martyr Mage

General

A Martyr Mage deals damage with Life Magic via the Martyr's Hecatomb spells, Harm spells, and Drain Health spells.

The Martyr's Hecatomb spells, Curse of Raven Fury, and the Drain spells are sources of offensive damage. The damage of these spells is based on your current Health. Because of this it is very important that Martyr Mages have as much health as possible. For this reason the Martyr Mage template has 100 innate Endurance.

It is also for this reason that the completed template has trained Leadership in order to use the Horns of Leadership, which are created via Gearcrafting. When used in a fellowship (even a one person fellowship) these horns add to your health. These horns require a certain buffed leadership skill to activate. The best horn, the Platinum Horn of Leadership, boosts your health by 10 points and requires 225 buffed leadership skill.
The drain spells are somewhat complex to work with and have non-intuitive effects. However, Drain 6 for example does a similar amount of damage to Martyr's Hecatomb 7 given a caster maximum health bar of 350, so the drains should not be discounted for offensive attacks. Here is a summary of the drain spells, the spell caps are not documented on the spell descriptions in game.

Spell Level	Drain %	Restore %	Damage cap	Restore Cap	Time to cast (seconds)	Range
I	25%	200%	30	60	1.6s	10
II	25%	160%	50	80	2	15
III	25%	133%	75	100	2.5	20
IV	25%	100%	120	100	3	25
V	30%	100%	120	120	3.3	30
VI	40%	75%	151	113	3.3	33
VII	50%	50%	180	90	3.5	38.3
VIII	60%	TBC	TBC	To be confirmed from retail data. The spell description for this spell was incorrect at end of retail.	3.5

Drain 1, 5 and 7 are the most useful drains and can be used in different situations. It is suggested the Martyr mage aim to use drain 1 and 7 (when available) as a staple.

General Usage

Drain 1

• Very quick to cast.
• Can restore at least some health from targets with low remaining health.
• Recovery of health
• Topping off heal ready for other offensive spells.

Drain 7 (or lower as is available at the time)

• Offense - does the most amount of damage

Drain 5

• In combination with Raven's Fury, this spell restores the most health, while still doing some reasonable damage, assuming the MOB being attacked has high health, and the player needs to restore more health than drain 7 can achieve. This combination can be efficient under the above specific circumstances. (This is markedly true at later levels)

Suggested Martyr mage offensive casting pattern

As a general offensive pattern for the Martyr's Hecatomb spells paired with the Drain spells, is as follows. The sub-steps can be ignored to simplify the method.

1. At full health cast the highest level Martyr's Hecatomb
2. Cast the highest level Drain spell possible for the highest drain damage and to restore health to full.
   1. If the drain spell does not replenish full health because the mob has low health remaining, switch to drain 1 or other healing method.
   2. If the mob has plenty of health, but health is capped due to the Restore cap (above table), then:
      1. If your remaining health to be replenished is near the Restore cap of the drain spell in use, cast the drain spell a second time.
      2. Otherwise use drain I to repeatedly restore health until full health is restored.

For more on health raising spells, see:

• Health (Spell)
• Endurance (Spell)

Pros

• There is no protection against life magic damage. That is, since the damage is non-elemental and is dealt directly to the enemy's health, there is no life protection spell to reduce it.
• Because you do not deal in elemental damage you do not need to carry around a vast array of wands.
  • Typically a Critical Strike (Quest: Biting Strike) or Crippling Blow (Quest: Crushing Blow) wand is desired.
• Template finishes early.
• Specialized Creature and Life makes for a good support mage, and not having war magic means more experience can be invested into creature/item/life.
• Drain spells have a much larger radius of operation than the void magic Destructive Curse spell, for example, which makes attacking Mob's remotely possible, and useful at times, although it is not particularly efficient, or timely way to take down a mob. (Players attempting this may wish to use Raven's fury, or Health to Mana, if practical to "empty" health in preparation for a drain of a remote target)

Cons

• Players have Natural Resistances which can reduce the damage of life magic spells.
• Some creatures are drain resistant or completely immune. Unfortunately, there is real no pattern to this. Drain resistance/immunity was added to creatures in the early days as a quick fix to prevent macroing and exploitation. For example, Acidic Diamond Golems are immune to drains. Diamond Golems are not. This is because the Acidic variety were once macroed in Knorr. NB - Typically creatures are not immune to the life projectiles, but have varying immunity to the drain spells.
• Because there is no protection spell against life magic damage there is also no vulnerability spell. You cannot substantially increase your damage by casting a spell or using a rended wand.
  • Critical Strike, Crushing blow and Sneak attack can improve damage output somewhat.
• Martyr Mages may be difficult to play for an inexperienced player, especially if that player has never played a mage before.

Setup

Heritage

Unimportant.

Innate Attributes

• 10/100/10/10/100/100

Innate Skills

Specialized

Life Magic

Trained

Creature Enchantment, Healing, Item Enchantment, Mana Conversion

Completion

Skills

Specialized

Creature Enchantment, Healing, Life Magic, Mana Conversion

Trained

Arcane Lore, Item Enchantment, Leadership

Equipment

Below are some recommended pieces of equipment.

Items with Health Boosting Spells from Group I:

• Baron's Amulet of Life Giving +15 Health
• Elysa's Favor (Red) +15 Health
• Elysa's Favor (Blue) +15 Health
• Elysa's Favor (Yellow) +15 Health
• Elysa's Favor (White) +15 Health
• Refulgent Bracelet +15 Health, Stamina, Mana
• Jaleh's Necklace +25 Health
• Messenger's Collar +25 Health
• Runic Helm of Knorr +25 Health
• Encrusted Bloodstone Jewel (45+) +30 Health
• Red Empyrean Ring +30 Health

Items with Health Boosting Spells from Group II:

• Salvaged Hematite imbued piece of jewelry +10 Health
• Bloodletter Charm Necklace +10 Health
• Protective Drudge Charm +10 Health

Items with Health Boosting Spells from Group III:

• See: Hearty Set

Items with Health Boosting Spells from Group IV:

• Asheron's Benediction +10% Health - available only on accounts which pre-ordered Throne of Destiny.
• Asheron's Lesser Benediction +8% Health - an augmentation available for those without pre-order account status.

Items with Health Boosting Spells from Group V:

• Crown of Anointed Blood +7 Health

Items with Health Boosting Spells from Group XI:

• Salvaged Ruby imbued trinket +5, +10, or +15 Health, depending on level of Gearcrafting Armature used.

Items with Health Boosting Spells from Group XII:

• Bronze Horn of Leadership +2 Health
• Silver Horn of Leadership +4 Health
• Gold Horn of Leadership +6 Health
• Pyreal Horn of Leadership +8 Health
• Platinum Horn of Leadership +10 Health