Beginner-friendly staff build?

So I have just started the game, and I chose the staff weapon. Can anyone suggest what build I should go for? I'm still not familiar with some game terms so please make it simple and easy to understand ^^.

I am thankful for any help or advice you could give *bow* ^-^ .

 

For your stats you will want to go full INT because it is your main stat that raises your MATK. I would also personally recommend spending some points on VIT for extra HP (10% of whatever your INT stat is should be fine). After you finish your INT stat you can either start spending points on DEX for extra MATK and CSPD, or you could spend the rest of your points on VIT (I would suggest VIT).

At levels 1-29 you will want to get arrows, wall, magic mastery, and mp charge to level 10. At levels 30-69 you can consider getting chain cast, but you could also get other skills. Bless from the priest skills can be useful for saving on healing items and making the game easier, especially early game. At levels 70-149 you should get storm to level 10 and impact to at least level 7 so it casts instantly, but you could get it to level 10 to get its tumble rate to 90%. At level 150+ you need to get finale and maximizer to level 10.

For equipment you can just equip whatever staff, armor, additional gear, and special gear you can buy on the board that is good and you can afford. For a subweapon, I would highly suggest a shield so that you can get skills like shield bash, protection, aegis, and maybe even guardian later on if you want to be a tank mage. You could also choose a more dps-oriednted subweapon like a dagger or arrow.

YouTube can also be a valuable recource for researching builds.

 

@Komibii Thank you very much ^^. I'll make sure to keep in mind and follow your advices .

I also tried to search on Youtube but most of the builds there had stargems and as far as I know they're pretty hard to get...

 

"Pretty hard" is an understatement...

Spoiler

They cost around 300k-400k on the CB, and that's only the unwanted ones. 200k if you're lucky that day... plus, they removed buying random Star Gems with Unpaid Orbs, presumably another anti-tuyul feature, meaning you'll need to sink a good amount of money if you want a large amount of them. Either that, or have a Guild that regularly gifts everyone with the most efficient deal for Ticket Pieces (which can be turned into Avatar Tickets, which can be used to buy Avatars that can be crushed into Star Gems)... also, 15 Ticket Pieces per week free if you beat bosses in two categories: those with base Lv. 1-50, and Lv. 51-100. And from each category, you must... beat 50 Bosses on Hard Difficulty, 25 on Nightmare, and 10 on Ultimate, totalling 85 bosses per category, and 170 bosses total. 170 bosses... for 15 Ticket Pieces. Hmmm.

Then you also have the Challenge Dungeon. A hunting mini-game... that you'll know more about if you try it yourself, solo or with friends. Always better with friends... it's pretty okay, and it's kind of a PvP Challenge since there's a worldwide leaderboard... the higher your ranking, the better rewards you'll get at the end of the week. And prizes include but are not limited to... Ticket Pieces and Avatar Tickets.

You can also opt to buy one of those monthly packages that give you extra bonuses... they also give you extra Ticket Pieces.

And finally there're Events that give them away in large amounts, better take advantage of those...

There's also the "Staff-Fu" which gives a lot of other options... not that I know much about that; I'm more into "Magic Blade" and "Katana"...

A Tiny Little Reminder: Sure, YouTube is a very easy source of info... but it wouldn't hurt to read posts like The Tome of Offense, the Skill Tree List, or The Dual Tome by "Roxas" , or The Tome of Defense by the chicken guy... and we also have this amazing website made by another forum member... and if you can read (or is still learning like yours truly) Japanese, there's this amazing site... mixing and matching, and trying things out for yourself, is real amazing...

 

@Akali097 Wow, I didn't know they're that hard to get x.x

Thanks for the very thorough and simple explanation ^^ . I'll make sure to read those posts when I have time

 

Having a staff weapon as your very 1st character might be difficult if you're just starting out, as some people from parties thinks that all mages should have finale(very powerful lvl4 skill at lvl 150) and kicks those who doesn't have one(read this thread: https://toramonline.com/index.php?t...119-mage-not-having-finale.42942/#post-445338).

Mages are also not suited to be solo players, they need a party(preferrably with tank) to progress at a decent pace and lvl up in the game. The game also revolves around spina(i.e. money). You need spina to get good equips, buy healing potions, buffs, and do all the fun things you want without getting hampered by lack of spina(heck, you can even do very fast lvling by buying nightmare crystals and doing "pride of the rich" quest from lefina at lvl 50, gives 300k exp per stack).

So aside from komibii's advice, one other option you should consider is making your mage a luck farming mage instead, upon reaching lvl 40 you will have access to a 6th stat called personal stat, and you can choose luk as your personal stat among all the stats available. Luk increases the drop rate of items from the monsters you've defeated, and upon making a luk mage you can very easily join one of the numerous farming parties using a magic device and storm, just shout "lfp <insert monster name here> storm for a party to invite you, and then sell the drops in the consignment board. This is one of the most reliable and efficient method of farming for spina. You can also try joining a guild that can help you with levelling and completing main quest, as well as provide good mercenaries and/or food buffs.

 

@+Aria Kanzaki+ I see... It's gonna be hard then. The luck mage thing is good but too bad I have already allocated my stat points, so doing it is out of the question...

But anyway, thanks for the advice ^^ .

 

Im kinda late but mages are actually good for beginners. What you need to do is finish the main quests (ASAP since you'll be around 120ish if you finished it all). Use Friend or Random Mercenaries and do easy mode for convenience. For skills (this are the basics, you can add excess skill points to other skills):

Spoiler: Magic Skill Tree

Magic: Arrows 5
Magic: Wall 5
Magic: Blast 5
Magic: Storm 10 (Mob Farm Skill and main dps skill before lv150)
Magic: Javelin 5
Magic: Lances 5
Impact 7
Magic: Finale 10 (When you reached lv150)
MP Charge 10
Chain Cast 5
Power Wave 5
Maximizer 10 (Level 150 Skill)

Spoiler: Survival Skill Tree

Safe Rest 5
HP Boost 10
Short Rest 5
MP Boost 10

And for gears, boss drops will be sufficient for the meantime. Here are some suggestions that you can farm/purchase:

Spoiler: Gears

Add: Pom Sheep Ribbon 1slot (around 20k or less) mp+250 xtal
Sub Weapon: Magical dagger (adds 300mp)(Caravan Attackers - Quest from Rina : El Scaro Map)
Armor: Anything with +matk% that you can craft/get 1slot mp+250 xtal
Boss drop Lil Empress Garb 1slot hp+500 or mp+250 xtal
Int7% matk7% player crafted gears 1slot mp+250 xtal(around 200k, if you're lucky there are 100k ones.)
Special: Magic Talisman IV NS (worth 10-20k)

 

Mages don't need to party play if you know how to time your skills properly, prorate and have efficient combos. In fact, with the right setup, mages can take down bosses really fast though some can provide hell (Like Shampy)

The best combos for a starting mage pre lv150 is:

Magic Wall > Magic Storm (Smite) > Impact (Consec) > Magic Blast (Smite) (10 MP)
150% Storm
150% Blast
Negative Proration Effect.

Magic Storm > Magic Blast (Swift) (7 MP)
100% Storm
100% Blast
Negative Proration Effect.

The first would be best pre-finale whilst the second would be for when you get it but both can be used. If you use an appropriate sub-weapon, you can use physical skills to prorate the target before using any of these finishers. You also need to rely on element for these combos so it's not as cheap as you think it is.

I recommend martial skills over dagger for physical proration for the obvious reason being dagger skills are garbage and martial skills give you Chakra, the best support skill in the game along with other disabling skills (Flinch, Tumble, Stun, Fear)

 

If u want a low budget dps build that is adaptive to lv4 magic skill, u may try thisthis. This thing give u some mobility with not bad dps (u may skip the debuff arrows if u prefer other sub weap. The main point is to use war cry of struggle inatead of charge when lv4 not yet unlocked )

 

1st char with bow will easier to lvling and farm spina by using arrow rain.

 

For mages, Imo you need to rely on 3 skills from Lv20 to 70: Magic:Arrows(Lv5 or Lv10) Magic:Wall(Lv5 or Lv10) and Magic:Lance(Lv5)
To me, if it doesnt really matter if you max these skills or not; it's all a matter of preference, which you will need to figure out for yourself.
The other skills arent as important imo. Even survival skills could also be skipped altogether.

What you really wanna pay attention to is your equipment. I wont tell you to get im7 armors and staffs, those are almost impossible to get if you are penny pinching. I suggest getting Philosopher's Ring and Yashiro Azuki's Mom Hat or Nun Hat. The focus of these equipment is on Cast Speed. Having more cspd helps you finish the casting animation of magic skills faster so you dont easily get disrupted during casting. After getting these two, you should be able to get to Lv70 with relative ease.

From Lv70 to Lv120, if you are still planning to keep saving spina, you should aim to craft Magicswordsman's Garb. Magicswordsman's Garb is basically the very last item you should get until you replace all your gears with custom statted equipment.

PS: if you noticed, i didnt mention anything about what Staffs to get. IMO whatever staff works. As long as you aren't using a staff w/ element that is resisted by your target, anything dropped from monsters within +/-5 levels your target can be used just fine.