While browsing these boards for a while all I ever see are posts about Ice Shard mages, Meteor Shower mages, Fire Spiral mages, Gust of Wind mages, etc. So a while ago I decided to try something different, a melee mage. Sure you can melee far better by choosing a class that is inherently suited for melee, so if you want to race through the levels and difficulty levels with ease go play one of the other classes, if instead you want a challenge for a change, read on. My character is currently level 100 and almost ready to finish Platinum (although I might need some more levels before I'm ready for Niobium), I've only ever played SP though, so my experiences and this guide might be different for MP, especially hardcore MP. Although I haven't been to Niobium yet I feel my build will be strong enough to handle it eventually, and I wanted to share my experiences with you all which is why I'm writing this guide now.
1. Stat Distribution
2. Skill Choices
3. Spell Choices
4. Equipment
5. General Combat Tactics
1. Stat Distribution
Our main focus with this build will of course be melee, so I recommend you put all points into Strength. With each level-up a BM will get 1.6 points of Strength and 3.0 points of Mental Regen. We will need the Mental Regen for our (few) spells, but 3 per level is quite enough for this. Strength with give you hitpoints, damage, attack rating and defense rating. All of which are invaluable for this build.
2. Skill Choices
I recommend the following skills: (between brackets is the level to choose them at)
Magic Lore (1)
Meditation (1)
Weapon Lore (3)
Agility (6)
Sword Lore (12)
Constitution (20)
Fire Magic (30)
Parrying (50)
I choose Fire Magic because you'll be using Flameskin (see section 3), some of you might value Trading more, but personally I've never been much of a fan of Trading since you can get all items as drops as well.
As for leveling your skills, I recommend:
Agility: Max until at least level 100
Weapon Lore: Max until at least level 100
Meditation: half your level
Constitution: half your level
Parrying: 25 points total
Fire Magic: 25 points total
Sword Lore: everything that's left
Agility is your most important skill here, and also the reason why you're going to get your *** kicked in the early levels. Levels 1-30 were very hard for me, I had to drink a lot of potions to stay alive because 1) I had a hard time hitting things, and 2) I had lousy defense so things hit me all the time. So your first priority should be to increase your Attack Rating (AR) and Defense Rating (DR) with items as much as you can, later on you can swap the things in your sockets to increase your damage instead.
Weapon Lore: I don't think I need to explain this one, more damage is always good
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Meditation is needed for the buffs you will use. Lots of BM specific items have high mods to Meditation, Mental Regen and Regeneration Spells, so more than half your level in Meditation is not needed, you will get the rest from items.
Constitution is of course important but half your level will usually be enough, once you get your defense up high enough you won't really get hit much anymore. Also if you look for Paternus set items you will see some have really high bonusses to Phys.Regen and Strength, so they also increase your hitpoints.
Fire Magic and Parrying I only took to 25 points total just so you get the highest boost with the fewest amount of points spend into them. Both are nice to have a few points in, but not essential to keep very high. Fire Magic will only be used to reduce the regen time of your Flameskin and to cast it a bit faster. Parrying will give you a nice boost in DR, but since you already have your Agility maxed and are using Flameskin+Stoneskin you don't really need more points.
Sword Lore is something you will only need to spend 1-10 points in in the beginning to max your attack speed. Also Paternus's Sword has a requirement of 12 Sword Lore to use. However on the higher levels your Agility will start to hit diminishing returns at which point Sword Lore becomes very important. I recommend you stop increasing Agility at level 100, and start putting points into Sword Lore every level thereafter to keep your AR high.
3. Spell Choices
Early on in the game I suggest you read a few Cataract of Agility runes to increase both your AR and attack speed. Both of which will be sorely lacking at low levels. Later on you will have maxed attack speed with only a few points in Sword Lore, and combined with high Agility you can stop using it altogether.
Your main spells through the medium to higher levels will be Flameskin and Stoneskin. Flameskin gives a slight increase to DR (not mentioned on the spell, but it does do it trust me), Fire resist, blocks arrows and does Fire damage to anything that comes too close. Stoneskin greatly increases your DR and raises your Physical and Poison resists.
I always have my Flameskin up (level 104 atm) for normal combat and only cast Stoneskin when I'm fighting tough mobs like Dragons. I find the increase in DR from Flameskin is adequate enough already to survive most normal mobs, but I must admit the added damage is sweet too
. Something you will greatly lack as a BM is resistances, so when things hit you, they tend to hit hard! The trick is to not let them hit you, something which Flameskin and Stoneskin are very good at.
Some optional spells which might be useful are Reiki, Ring of Ice and Phase Shift. Reiki is nice as a substitution for Life Leech runes/items, which works quite well in my experience provided you get the level quite high. Mine is around level 70 atm and it can even keep me alive with 0% Life Leech (although it's not really recommened lol). Ring of Ice is of course nice to slow things down, but I'm not using it because most things die so fast that slowing them down isn't very useful to me, although it might help at those early levels when you're still vulnerable. Phase Shift I just added because I hate walking around looking for a bridge when I can just teleport over the river instead. Get this to around level 12 to reach the maximum range of 200, anything more is wasted.
4. Equipment
Because you don't have any CA's which automatically increase your chance to hit when you use them, you should always keep an eye on both your AR and DR. Especially in the beginning you should only socket rings/amulets that increase your AR or DR, more damage is nice but you need to learn to hit things first. As your spell levels rise your DR will vastly increase, therefor the need for socketted items with DR lessens, and you can start focussing on damage instead. I suggest you will try to keep your chance to hit at around 80% and your chance to get hit at around 10%.
As equipment I recommend you get Dagowits or Paternus items, or combine them. Dagowits because it increases your weapon's magical damage based on your Mental Regen, Paternus because it increases your weapon's physical damage based on your Strength. Dagowits in general has mostly spell-related mods, Paternus on the other hand has mostly hitpoints increasing mods. I'm using a combination which works very well.
For your weapon I recommend you use Paternus's Sword, because it has a critical chance mod (albeit a low one), and because it increases both your physical and magical damage based on your Strength and Mental Regen respectively. As shield Byleth's Wall is an absolute must because 1) it raises critical chance, 2) it gives a huge boost to defense based on your Mental Regen and 3) because of the high Flameskin bonus.
If you use the equipment I mentioned above you'll want to completely avoid both Fire and Poison damage items, mainly because nothing boosts that kind of damage, so the little amount you will do will get absorbed by the enemy's resistances and will thus be useless anyway. I actually throw all rings/amulets that do Fire/Poison damage away. You might think that mobs that are highly resistant to either physical or magical damage will kick your ***, but once you get both of these damage types up high enough they won't be a problem (and you will always have Flameskin licking away at them as well).
5. General Combat Tactics
Since BM's don't have any melee CA's all we've got are our normal attacks. But to be honest I don't even miss not have an Attack or a Hard-Hit. Most normal mobs drop dead with only 2 hits from my sword, and with a high level Flameskin+Stoneskin to protect you, not even Dragons can hit you. To avoid the hassle of re-casting your buffs all the time I've resorted to only keeping Flameskin up all the time, and only use Stoneskin in special encounters like Dragons. However at lower level you will need both to keep you alive. The damage from Flameskin is pathetic at low levels, but at my level it is now quite nice, especially when it strikes with a critical. It is also very nice to keep your Life Leech going so you can concentrate on killing the things around you without needing to watch your hitpoint meter.
Tactics don't really exist as such, just wack things with your sword and recast your buffs when they run out. You will hardly ever use a potion (once you get past level 30 or so) because between Life Leeching and Reiki you will heal up very fast in case you get hit.
That's it so far, I hope all of this is helpful to some people, it certainly has been fun for me.
, as the other classes), it is so very rewarding.
Linear Mode
