Preface
Welcome to another iteration of a guide for fellow mage adepts - we will learn how to slay our foes with our powerful spells. We will use our minions as a mere meat shield - we don't need them do all the work for us like these lazy mages from Summoner Guild do. Some of us refrain from casting any type of familiar to truly focus on Arcane way. Becoming a mage is a long path, but if you keep following that path then you will be able to slay any beast in Avadon by yourself.Update 12-MAR-2025 - included arcane skill capping by wrestling
Pros & Cons
+ Ultimate jack-of-the-all-trades build, you can do all content, included soloing level 4s and parts of Time Dungeon+ High burst damage, it's very easy to secure your looting rights
+ Various utility abilities - teleport, healing, resurrecting, invisibility, walls and other useful Mage spells
+ High survivability, you can kite very difficult monsters with ease
+ You can defend yourself against PK's or griefers even with a basic PvE template
- You are forced to use a specific aspect on a weapon/spellbook (Arcane on staffs or Eldritch on books)
- Early game can be rough, you can consider leveling up your aspects and codexes on a diffrent build, such as pet-based summoner or backstabber.
- Heavily depends on RNG - even with a maxed template you can face out-of mana situations
- Requires lot of micromanagement to squeeze most of your DPS - there is very high skill ceiling in order to play effectively.
Skill Choice
Spell based Summoner- 100 Magery
- 100 Evaluating Intelligence
- 100 Meditation
- 100 Focus
- 120 Necromancy
- 80-120 Spirit Speak
- 120 Inscription (can be reduced to 90-100 on Eldtrich Armor). Alternatively Herding or Resisting Spells/Tracking/Forensic/Camping
Links progression: Meditation Rate -> Damage to Diseased Creatures -> Dungeon Damage links
10+ link slots unlocked are highly recommended. Stick to pet-based summoner with herding and discordance below that, level up Eldtrich Aspect in the meantime.
Inscription provides spell disruption immunity which is really important, fizzled casts mean lower DPS. You should aim to get 125 Effective Inscription to not burn Flamestike scrolls. So either you wear Eldritch Aspect with 90-100 Inscription, or 120 + 2 bronze Inscription links.
Early game players can also use 100 Magic Resist to get that immunity as well, at the cost of lower spell damage. 10% extra refund helps a lot at low aspect tiers. You can also pick one of utility skills like Tracking/Forensic/Camping to get extra 25% spell damage bonus. Herding is an option at 0 links as summons deal relatively high damage in early game, but later on you have to choose between spell based or pet based build.
Necromancy allows you to use classic Corpse Skin + Mind Rot disease combo and occasionally Wither in emergencies for extra mana for resummoning. Make sure to use Poison Strike as a finisher.
Summons will be used mostly for tanking, so go with Earth + Fire Elemental. Make sure to use Fire elemental's hex ability to lower magic resistance.
This build relies on stacking Meditation Rate bonuses with Material Books to get high mana regeneration. You cannot chain flamestrikes almost infinitely like on Arcane builds, but you can just hit the Mediation button and restore your mana just in a few seconds.
Arcane starting template
- 100 Magery
- 100 Evaluating Intelligence
- 100 Arcane
- 100 Wrestling
- 80 Necromancy
- 80 Cooking/Arms Lore/Focus
- 80 Meditation
- 80 Alchemy/Parrying
Aspect choice: Arcane Weapon, Blood/Void/Eldritch Armor
Links progression: Damage to Diseased Creatures -> Spell Aspect Chance -> Dungeon Damage links
10+ Link slots unlocked are required as a bare minimum. Level up Arcane Aspect to at least T10 on another template, like Pet-based summoner before even starting.
Unfortunately due to recent nerfs Arcane feels really bad to play without high tier Arcane Aspect, you cannot use material books for mana regeneration.
Due to mana refund nerfs we have to focus on mana sustain first. You can choose between following skills:
Cooking has a lot of benefits like passive mana regen, extra swing speed, mana on demand an occasional healing on top. Unfortunately it's one extra button to use, one more coolown to manage, and it has some upkeep costs.
Arms Lore is also an option, it reduces cooldown of your Leyline ability, increases chance to Hex your target and gives a small swing speed and accuracy bonus on top. You need at least 80 Arms Lore in order to use disarm for extra accuracy.
Focus gives you some damage bonus with refund overcap and charged spell chance, extra swing speed and accuracy which is really helpful below T15 Arcane Aspect to ensure 100% hit rate. It's completely passive so it's the easiest to use
Meditation is not as good as cooking, but if you combine both then mana regen is decent. Unfortunately you have to wear leather armor to get most out it. Most Arcane mages will drop it at higher Arcane Aspect tiers.
For the defensive layer I prefer Alchemy over Parrying. Heal potions are so good that you don't have to waste mana or cast time for healing. Panacea upgrade can nullify occasional disease. Explosion pots are a good source of damage, especially in early game when you are out of mana often. Parrying pairs nicely with Void Aspect, as you get that healing anyway.
At first you should stick to the Wilderness and try to kite some melee mobs, Lizardmans in Wildlands are perfect for that. You should go back to the dungeons once you get accustomed to the playstyle, you would be able to drop meditation and wear heavier armor like bone or even plate later on.
Endgame template - Alchemy/Parrying
- 100 Magery
- 100 Evaluating Intelligence
- 100 Arcane (80 with Inscription)
- 100 Wrestling (80 with Inscription)
- 80 Cooking/Arms Lore/Focus
- 80 Necromancy or 120 Inscription
- 80 Alchemy
- 80 Parrying
Parrying and Alchemy combination makes it incredibly tanky, it works very well in Level 4s and Time Dungeon. You don't need to waste any mana or cast time to heal yourself. Necromancy can be a very important part of this build - it's designed to fight against difficult monsters with high HP values - disease DoT will help a lot there. For group Time Dungeons runs you could drop Necromancy for Inscription, because your DoTs won't have enough time to resolve.
Endgame template - Inscription/Necromancy
- 100 Magery
- 100 Evaluating Intelligence
- 120 Inscription (or 100 with Eldritch Armor)
- 80 Arcane
- 80 Wrestling
- 80 Necromancy
- 80 Cooking/Arms Lore/Focus
- 80 Alchemy
This more offensive variant tries to combine Necromancy and Inscription. It's not worth to go below 75 Necro, as Corpse Skin and Mind Rot abilities stack additively with each other. It's not as tanky but you get nice defensive bonuses from Inscription as well. The best option for Wilderness farming, bosses and Level 3s
Aspects
Book/Weapon:
- Arcane - the best and only viable option for staff users, high tier Arcane is the only thing saving the build from being unplayable mess. There is only one downside - you need to hit stuff to restore your mana. You need to keep killing stuff, so this template might not be the best choice for overfarmed spots. You need some time to trigger couple of procs in order to get that mana regen, if you stop for some reason you need to build up bonuses start from scratch.
- Eldtrich - it's basically the same as Arcane but it gives less mana. Ignore resistance is okay but definitely not enough to be better than Mana Thief. Best in slot for book mages.
Armor:
Armor choice depends mostly on your template and type of content which you want to do. Book mages work best with Eldtrich Aspect, Arcane builds have more flexibility.Arcane users should use leather for leveling up, and bone once you have high tier Aspects and fully leveled codexes. Bone does not inhibit mana regeneration that much and it's the cheapest to craft, so you can use more expensive materials. Plate can work too, but a bad mana refund streak might make you unable to even heal itself.
- Void - One of the best choices for Arcane mages, and decent option for Summonera. Damage bonus isn't that high, but high mana sustain offsets that. Works well against targets with high magic resist, and you get extra healing and defensive bonuses on top. This aspect is definition of consistency, which counters RNG nature of mages. It's useful even if it's not your primary aspect, as you can quick switch to it when you are out of mana. If you do Time runs, then it's basically mandatory - it's the only place with high resist but low minimal resist monsters.
- Eldritch - best option for book mages as it boost not only your spell damage but summons as well. You can also save some skillpoints if you want to use Inscription in your template. Damage bonus is quite high but refund bonus isn't as reliable as Void. It's definitely decent for bosses though.
- Blood - A decent choice for Arcane builds. Dexterity bonus increases your swing speed substantially so you will get more mana. Extra Intelligence offsets bad RNG rolls as you can store more mana. Extra Damage below 50% HP has a nice interaction with all that DoT effects, all you need is to reduce HP to halfwith Flamestrikes, and then your damage over time effects will do the rest. It truly shines while killing high hp targets, as bleeds need some time to resolve. If you do Omni runs, then you should switch to it below 50% HP.
Links
- Spell Aspect Chance - it does not provide any substantial damage bonuses, but it greatly helps with sustaining mana loop. 10 Silver or Gold make a significant difference, however it's better to invest into these links at high Arcane Aspect tier.
- Damage to Bosses/Dungeon Damage links - best in slot but you have to change them for every dungeon.
- Damage to Diseased Creatures - another best in slot option, works well with all aspect combinations, however it requires Necromancy in your build.
- Spell Damage with no Followers - it provides additive spell damage bonus - I will explain what does it mean in the next paragraph. The diffrence beetwen D2D links isn't that high now, but it doesn't pair well with Eldritch armor.
- Spell Charged Chance/Damage - better than spell damage links if you can get a full gold or corrupted set. If you have only few slots free then Spell damage are better. Damage bonus is still additive, so it shouldn't be paired with Eldritch armor as well
Additive vs Multiplicative damage scaling
It's very important to know how do the damage bonuses work. Most damage bonuses scale additivelyFor example - let's say that you have:
100 Eval Int - 50% increased spell damage
100 Arcane with T15 Arcane aspect - 105% increased spell damage
Enemy is cursed - 25% increased spell damage
Evil omen with 120 necromancy - 24% increased spell damage
T15 valewood staff - 58% increased spell damage
For example, you cast a spell which deal 100 damage if you don't have any bonuses
If you combine all of these bonuses you will deal:
100 * (1 + 0.5 + 1.05 + 0.25 + 0.24 + 0.58) = 100 * 3.62 = 362 damage
For example you want to upgrade your chain with 10 gold spell damage when no links. You will get another 67.5% increased spell damage, but with the all bonuses combined you will deal
100 * (1 + 0.5 + 1.05 + 0.25 + 0.24 + 0.58 + 0.675 ) = 100 * 4.295 = 429 damage
The difference between 362 and 429 damage is only 18.5% despite the fact that these links give you "67.5%" additional spell damage.
There are few bonuses which do stack multiplicatively though. The list includes guild favours, bard buffs, Damage to Poisoned/Barded creatures links and Dungeon/Boss damage links.
For example you want to upgrade your chain with 10 golden damage to diseased creatures links. You will get 37.5% more damage against diseased creatures
100 * (1 + 0.5 + 1.05 + 0.25 + 0.24 + 0.58) * 1.365 = 100 * 3.62 * 1.365 = 497 damage
Different damage multiplier links do add with each other, so there are diminishing returns when runing multiple sets of multi links. Void, Blood or Madness damage bonus are in a separate bucket, and put on top of chain links in terms of damage calculations.
Wizard's Grimoire Upgrades
Most important upgrades:Create Food - extra 25 mana every 60 seconds
Mana drain/vampire - you don't have to max this skill if your mana refund already exceeds 50% cap
Flamestrike - extra 35% damage as damage over time is way better than flat damage bonuses, even if some damage will be wasted while farming
Lightning - hinder is helpful, especially against these spectral marksmans which can one shot you
The rest is up to your personal preference:
Magic arrow/harm will help you finish monsters, Mind Blast upgrade is quite substantial, Greater Heal upgrade will keep your summons / friends / ship crewmates alive
Necromancy skills
The most important thing - DO NOT use Auto-Renew checkbox - it will burn all your symbols very quickly. You have to control these abilities manually, so you can use spell damage bonuses while you are spellcasting, and regenerate your symbols while meditating. You can replace your Flamestrike keybind with a script which will cast Flamestrike and then try to trigger abilities - I recommend setting Corpse Skin and Mind Rot as these two are the most important.- Vengeful Spirit - I wouldn't bother with Necro summons if you don't use Death Armor. I mean you can use Liches instead of Fire Elementals, but there is so little damage boost than you can just use Fire
- Poison Strike - perfect as a finisher, you can resolve up to 8 disease ticks - use this skill while the mob is on low health and has couple of disease stacks on it. It will deal more damage than a Pain Spike later on
- Evil Omen - while it's cheap it comes with a downside. Although health drain can be mitgated by Void or Arcane Armor, there might be some situations where you don't want to take any extra damage. I personally do not bother with that skill for regular farming and I use it mostly for bosses. Damage increase is additive so it falls off at later stages of progression. But if you do some easy content then you can add it to your Necro buff trigger script.
- Corpse Skin - your bread and butter, extra 30% as damage over time. Which is way better than anything else, as it effectively counts as damage multiplier.
- Vampiric Embrace - I don't use it anymore as liches lose maximum hp over time, so you have to resummon them eventually. You can use it with Death Armor, otherwise just do not bother.
- Mind Rot - surprisingly, disease damage bonus adds up with Corpse Skin, so with 120 necromancy you will deal extra 54% damage as damage over time. Combined with the Flamestrike upgrade you will deal extra 89% damage, which will melt high HP targets. That's why it's worth to use these abilities all the time, even on regular dungeon monsters
- Blood Oath - It's basicaly only worth running with Death Armor, but even then there might be better options for spell based templates. Okay for pet based templates though.
- Strangle - I do not recommend using this skill unless you go with Death Armor - the damage bonus is tiny compared to Corpse Skin + Mind Rot. Delayed damage makes everyting worse though, so it's only useful on bosses where it doesn't matter.
- Wither - good for resummoning your elementals and liches/ when you are out of mana. There is a little use on an Arcane Mage, but still it's nice if you need to res someone and not burn half of your mana.
- Pain Spike - if you have a lot of symbols feel free to use this skill to finish the creatures in dungeons. It's good early on, but it doesn't scale that well with various progression systems.
I think that's all, if you do have some questions or ideas feel free to post it in this thread
Last edited: