The Archmage Guide Part 3

Archmage Spells, Tactics, and Morales

Archmages do, indeed, use more than one Lore of Magic. Though this has no actual in-game effect, the Archmage's mechanic being based on the type of build-up a spell creates based on whether it is an offensive or support spell, but it is nice to know that the Archmage really does have quite a breadth of knowledge. Among the Archmage's spells, the Lores I was able to recognize were mainly of Life, Light, and, of course, High Magic though there is even one spell from the Lore of Metal.

Unless otherwise noted, all damaging spells are Spirit based. I chose to leave out the "numbers" since these are quite varied based on your spent Mastery Points, levels, and stage of beta we are in.

A Quick Intro to How Ability Levels Work
I'll try to keep this short, but most don't understand this about the game so it's needed. The level of a spell is not the level of the character casting the spell. Rather, spells level in a different way. Up until level 10, they gain a level each time you do. After that, they only go up in level every even level thereafter. This means that at Rank 40 the max level of any skill linked to a Mastery Line will be level 25. The remaining 15 levels come from putting points into the Path linked to that ability. Most abilities with an effect that grows as you level are linked to a Path, Lambent Aura, and it's reflections on other healers, is an exception as it is always at full level.


Level 1
Healing Energy
-With a quick spin of your staff healing energy surges into your ally, immediately healing them and healing them for over twice as much over 9 seconds.
**This is a basic Heal + HoT, the HoT portion is about 2.6x the value of the Heal. This is a much more viable spell now that they, recently, reduced it's casting time and upped the HoT portion's value.

Radiant Lance
-A prismatic beam of light lances from the tip of your staff dealing a moderate amount of damage to the target.
**Currently you don't have much use for this spell once you get all your DoTs and Channel DD, the same tends to go for the Shaman version... it just usually isn't worth casting even without your mechanic..nevermind with it. Most AMs eventually drop this off their bar.

Level 2
Law of Conductivity-Your hand crackles with electricity as energy courses through your target, dealing a high amount of damage to them over 15 seconds.
**Your only DoT without a secondary effect. It is also the weakest DoT you have.

Level 3
Lambent Aura
-You raise your staff above your head and it shimmers with prismatic light, a soothing aura surrounds your target, healing a high amount of damage over 15 seconds.
**Does not benefit from Mastery. All healer's get a basic HoT and it is always considered at full level.

Level 4
Radiant Gaze
-Twin beams of radiant light shoot from your eyes, burning the enemy and making it difficult to see. Deals a high amount of damage over 9 seconds, also reduces all damage the enemy does by 5% and reduces their chance to critical hit by 5%.
**Great spell I mean, come on..it's eye lasers! Probably your highest ticking DoT as it does the same amount of dmg as other DoTs but over 9 seconds. The debuff component isn't very noticeable, but it's a great spell when combined with Golden Aura.

Level 5
Searing Touch
-A searing beam of pure white flame leaps from your outstretched hand, connecting with your target and searing them over 6 seconds. (hits 4x for a moderate amount).
**Mythic recently changed all channeled DDs to deal their damage over 6 seconds. It just feels like you're wasting time. It may look efficient in it's damage, until you consider that you aren't regenerating any AP while you channel it. Which effectively increased the total AP cost of this ability by 75. It used to hit 4x in 3 seconds.

Level 6
Transfer Force
-You slowly transfer the life force of an enemy into an ally. Dealing a low amount of damage to the enemy over 24 seconds, healing your defensive target for the amount of damage dealt each "tick".
**One of the few unique sort of spells the AM/Shaman receive. But it's pretty weak currently.

Level 7
Prismatic Shield
-A prismatic shell surrounds each member of your party briefly before imbueing itself into them, raising all of their resistances.
**It's one of your few buffs.

Dissipating Hatred
-You drain the hatred out of an enemy, making them find it more difficult to bring forth the urge to harm you. They deal 50% less damage to you for 15 seconds. If you actively harm them in any way for the duration the detaunt immediately ends.
**Great ability, learn to use it and it will save your tail. One important thing to note is that DoTs already on the target will not cause this to be removed. I have frequently had to do 1on1 fights where I loaded the target up with DoTs, used this, then spam healed myself and repeated the process until I won.

Level 8
Boon of Hysh
-You twirl your staff above your head as lights and colors swirl about your form, finally you slam your staff to the ground directing the healing forces to an ally, healing them for a very high amount.
**This spell used to be Fragile, meaning it was always set back by 2 seconds anytime you took damage. Though it was not mentioned in patch notes (nor were many of the lower heal changes such as 1sec Heal + HoT, instance cast Flash Heals for the Runepriest/Zealot, boosting of the normal HoT, and making the group heal fragile). I will update this when I am more sure of the intended state.

Divine Favor
T1 Archetype Morale
**Probably your best option for a T1 Morale, it heals for quite a bit and instantly and you will usually have it available.

Level 9
Drain Magic
-You reach out your hand and draw both the life and potential out of your enemy.
**This spell is a bit of a sore spot for me, in the TT Drain Magic is a very unique ability of Archmages (and another race, but they aren't playable). It's essential effect is to make a target caster nigh useless, making his magic less potent and more difficult to cast. Seeing it made into a crappily done "Mana Burn" type skill (the dmg and AP loss aren't even linked, nor do you gain the AP they lose) bugs me. Especially when Mythic insists on trying to balance it as a DD. Meanwhile, the Shaman gets a skill that *steals* 180 AP from a victim over 9 seconds. Rant over, moving on...

Level 10
Gift of Life
-You aim your staff at a fallen ally, funneling life energies into them. They stand back up where they fell with 20% of their life total.
**Note that this spell can be swiftened, so you can instant rez potentially. As a point of reference, Runepriests/Zealots get a 3 sec Rez with a 6 sec CD, resulting in the same amount of rezzes in the same time frame, but giving the AM/Shaman the potential to rez quicker in exchange for a slower base cast time.

Level 11
Centuries of Training
Racial Tactic
**Not a bad skill, especially when used with AoEs. The damage type is unknown.

Level 12
Walk Between Worlds
-The Archmage phases himself out of time and space with those near him. Every nearby enemy is detaunted, dealing 50% less damage to the Archmage for the duration, and the Archmage is uninterruptable. Lasts 5 seconds. Detaunt effect fades automatically if you attack a detaunted enemy.
**This spell is nice, but could use an update. I wanted to mention this on the thread on WHA but could not..you see, 5 sec duration sounds nice. Until you realize that 1.5 seconds of that will be taken up by the GCD.

Rampaging Siphon
T2 Archetype Morale
**The healing is, unfortunately, not based on the total damage dealt but rather 1 "hit".

Level 13
Divine Fury
Archetype Tactic
**An excellent tactic to use while soloing or when there is plenty of healing about..or you just feel like dishing out some pain.

Level 14
Shield of Saphery
-The air around the target swirls, forming a barely perceptible shield against attacks. Absorbing a high amount of damage over 9 seconds.
**First off, unlike Runepriests and Zealots, this shield only works on groupmates. Secondly, it's no more powerful despite this restriction. In fact, it's weaker since the RP/Zealot versions also do a heal once they fade. Still, not a bad emergency skill for yourself or an ally, just sometimes difficult to use if you're in a scenario or warband and aren't exactly sure if someone is in your party.

Level 15
Empowered Lores
Career Tactic
**Not a bad tactic at all, not much to say. Definitely better used if you know you'll be doing both damage and healing frequently.

Level 16
Cleansing Light
-A brief purifying light sweeps over your target.
**These spells currently aren't used very often. The buff/debuff display has been getting some updates recently but it still isn't really easy to read or quickly recognize, plus it's difficult to predict what can be removed.

Steal Life
T1 Archetype Morale
**Sometimes a better option while soloing as it deals damage and heals you.

Level 17
Bend the Winds
Racial Tactic
**Perhaps useful if you're PvEing in an area where you know you'll need the resistances. I personally prefer they'd replace the Racial Resistance Tactics and just give each race a natural boost.

Level 18
Rain Lord
-With a wave of his staff the Archmage forms a magical rainstorm above all enemies in the target's area. This rainstorm saps both strength and magic, while obscuring sight.
**Cool effect and all, but really it's not a devastating or even very noticeable debuff except for maybe in PvE where you can keep it running on a boss constantly to really add up the effect.

Level 19
Discipline
Archetype Tactic
**This tactic is new, and I haven't used it much. But it definitely looks worth using.

Level 20
Blessing of Isha
-Twirling your staff above your head, you bring it down as purifying and healing lights radiate out around you, healing all party members within a long range for a moderate amount.
*The range is not listed, it seems at least 150 though if not longer.
**Apparently this spell is now fragile, there has been no mention in the patch notes about any of the recent heal changes. Luckily for you, you're an Archmage and can cast this spell instantly. Also, I'm going to be mean here and tell you that up until quite recently, we had a tactic in our healing line that made this a 2 sec cast. It was nice while it lasted, especially since that -1 second was taken off *after* High Magic was considered. Meaning, your group heal cast instantly with only ~3 Force.

Focused Mind
T2 Archetype Morale
**Definitely a viable second slot morale. It's pretty much 10 seconds of, "I do what I want". You can spam heal, run, ect. and you aren't going to be interrupted or stopped short of death and, better yet, you're casting twice as fast.

Level 21
Isha's Encouragement
Career Tactic
**Very nice tactic. There's nothing quite so nice as being able to cast 2 instant group heals or big heals in a row..sometimes even more.

Level 23
Discerning Offense
Racial Tactic
**I honestly have never used this on any of my High Elf characters. It was recently buffed from 5% to 10% with the big Tactics patch, but I still haven't found it more useful than my other tactics no matter what my career choice.

Level 24
Divine Protection
T3 Archetype Morale
**I have really never much used this since it's limited to melee only. Really, not bad, but if I have melee on me I'd rather use Arcane Suppression to get them off me.

Level 25
Wind Blast
-You slam your staff into the ground conjuring a powerful gust of wind to send foes flying. The magical winds continue to assail your enemies for a brief time.
**Very difficult to aim and the area in front of you is quite small. Also, if you aren't targeting someone in front of you, the autofacing utility will face you towards that person and make you miss those you wanted to hit.

Subtlety
Archetype Tactic
**I don't think I've ever really had an issue with healing aggro. Frequent use of Dissipating Hatred works perfectly well, without wasting a tactic slot.

Level 27
Master of Tranquility
Career Tactic
**Not bad, especially combined with other tactics that give bonuses when you crit like Empowered Lores.

Level 28
Isha's Ward
T1 Career Morale
**Absolute trash, 50% auto attack speed isn't worth not having your emergency heal or even Life Tap Over Time morales.

Level 29
Restorative Burst
Archetype Tactic
**This was nerfed slightly with the recent tactics patch, it now gives you the AP over 3 seconds. Also, notice it says "direct heals" meaning, just keeping HoTs ticking won't do the trick. Nor will group heals.

Level 30
Storm of Cronos
-Lightning leaps from the tip of your staff, striking at enemies causing them to become more sucseptible to spiritual magic.
**Short range, terrible damage, and 10 second duration(you'll find that most debuffs are a mere 10 seconds, yea i know..it blows). Also suffers from potentially missing because of auto-face if you don't select a good target.

Level 31
Hurried Restoration
Career Tactic
**Great tactic, potentially overpowered in PvE end game content. I haven't checked if the spell still consumes Force to "Swiften" while this tactic is equipped, but it really shouldn't.

Level 32
Blinding Light
T2 Career Morale
**Another situation where a potentially cool debuff is given way too short of a duration. I dont think I've ever used it.

Level 33
Master of Force
Career Tactic
**Same as Master of Tranquility, not bad at all, especially combined with Empowered Lores. Would I use 3 of my 4 Tactic slots on the combo? Unlikely, though I could see some real potential with Master of Force, Master of Tranquility, Empowered Lores, and Isha's Encouragement.

Level 35
Law of Gold
-The Archmage briefly locks away the magical potential of the target, dealing a low amount of damage and making them unable to cast any spells for 5 seconds.
**Silence is golden, it's a good spell. The damage is low enough to be rather negligible, but a silence helps. Sadly, this is probably your best anti-caster ability. You'd think the AM would be the best anti-caster around, but no such luck. This is essentially the same Silence that most casters recieve.

Transfer Magic
Career Tactic
**Possibly implemented with the recent Tactics patch in response to my vehement feedback about the spell itself. But I am very against "band-aid" tactics.

Level 36
Arcane Suppression
T3 Career Morale
**An extra knockback and silence is great for survival, this is regularly slotted.

Level 37
Run Between Worlds
Career Tactic
**Sorta an uninspired name. But if WBW was boosted in duration or made not to trigger the GCD it could become viable.

Level 39
Desperation
Archetype Tactic
**Not a bad tactic, but I dont think I have the room for it really. I haven't tested it very thoroughly to see if it is proactive on already running HoTs or when the spell lands, ect.

Level 40
Dissipating Energies
-The Archmage surrounds the target groupmate or himself with crackling energies that lash out and harm any enemies nearby for a short period.
**Kinda underwhelming for your final ability. It has quite a short duration combined with a long CD and requires a groupmate that is within 10ft of enemies for the duration. And all high magic does is get rid of the annoying 2 sec cast time. Hopefully this gets an update to be more interesting.

Alter Fate
T4 Archetype Morale
**Not as good as you may think since it only effects dead groupmates within such a short radius. And, if they are dead, you're usually long dead as well. It takes too long to get full morale for this to be of any real use.

Mastery Paths
One important thing to note is that the value I give for the ability/tactic/morale is the *requirement* to buy it. You must put that many points into the path and then spend another point to buy it. I chose to represent it this way since you can, technically, have 15 points in a line then go back down and buy an ability that only required 3 points.

My general impression of the Mastery Paths is that they are too strict. As a caster who specializes in "mixing it up" I'd expect all of the lines to have things for both parts of your Mechanic while having a "focus" on the aspect that line embodies. The Path of Isha is a good example of what I mean. It's meant to be a healing line, yet it has a Life Transfer DD in it. If this spell actually dealt decent damage (right now it's pitiful), you would be able to heal and then use your built up Tranquility to Transfer life through your base spell Transfer Force, and the Mastery Spell Balance Essence. None of the other lines encourage this sort of gameplay, I'll go into more detail as a preface for each line.

Path of Isha
This is your healing line. It focuses near purely on healing, with the only exception being Balance Essence. Currently, this spell, despite being useless, is the closest I've seen to an attempt to "mix it up" within our mastery lines. Ideally, you could be an Isha Archmage and focus purely on healing allies, using your built up Tranquility to cast an empowered Transfer Force or Balance Essence. Unfortunately, this is not the case and most of the abilities in this line actually encourage you to spam heal to get the most of them.

Level of Mastery: 3
Balanced Mending
Path of Isha Tactic
**Currently not working, better than the old version of this tactic that gave a flat +5% to healing done and -10% to healing taken. Right now this tactic feels like, at most, a band-aid for Healing Energy to make it somewhat more potent.

Level of Mastery: 5
Balance Essence
-With a wave of his hand, the Archmage draws the life energies out of an enemy and uses them to rejuvenate an ally.
**Ideally, this spell should replace radiant lance on your bar. Ideally, it should do more than 150 damage at rank 40 with full points in the Path of Isha. Unfortuantely, this is not the case. Note that this spell does 75% of the damage of the Shaman version.

Level of Mastery: 7
Bolstering Boon
Path of Isha Tactic
**While "in combat" you gain 10 morale per second. This results in 25 seconds worth of morale given each time you use your big slow heal on someone. As a point of reference, it takes ~15 castings to get someone to full morale. So it's not ideal for spamming for that purpose, but it's a nice boost. In two castings you more than have enough morale for a T1 ability, and 3 castings gives you enough for a T2..after that it takes much longer to build up.

Level of Mastery: 9
Funnel Essence
-Raising your arms in the air, you immediately begin channeling healing into an ally.
**The best ability in the Path of Isha currently, it heals your target for more than your 3 sec big heal(Boon of Hysh) does in the same amount of time. And it starts the healing right away rather than having to wait until the end of the casting. Note that it gains healing with High Magic, whereas the big heal casts faster. So both still retain their uses. As a side note, this ability used to be a channeled Life Transfer spell.

Level of Mastery: 11
Wild Healing
Path of Isha Tactic
**A pretty good tactic, but I think it focuses too much on spam healing, which isn't what the AM is about.

Level of Mastery: 13
Magical Infusion
-You infuse an ally with greater healing potential, causing his wounds to be easier to heal by anyone.
**I really dislike this skill. 3 seconds to give them a +25% bonus for only 20 seconds. This means, in order to be effective, you have to be in a sitaution where you know someone is going to need as much healing within a short amount of time, and yet have the 3 seconds to spare to cast this on them.

Level of Mastery: 15
Winds' Protection
Path of Isha T4 Morale
**Not a bad skill at all. For 15 seconds not only are you providing a very nice absorbtion shield, but also healing them in the process.

Part 2... ...Part 4