Magician DDs
Comprehensive Guide to Magician DDs

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DD Types:

DD - Direct Damage - These spells do direct damage to the target, decreasing the target's current HP by the damage caused by the spell. These are typically Evocation based.

Shock - Shock Direct Damage - These spells do direct damage to the target, decreasing the target's current HP by the damage caused by the spell. Additionally, they contain a 0.5 ft knockback component, which pushes the target in the direction that the caster is facing, and in doing so increases the chance of interrupting the target's spell. These are typically Conjuration based.

PBAE - Point Blank Area of Effect - These spells cause direct damage to all targets within a specific radius of the caster, usually 25 feet.

Bolt - Line of Sight Direct Damage - These spells do direct damage to the target, decreasing the target's current HP by the damage caused by the spell. However, they follow a line of sight restriction, and have a travel time between the caster and the target. As a result, there is a chance for these spells to "miss" if there are objects in the way (including pets, players, walls, trees, etc). These are typically Evocation based.

Rain - Area Based Direct Damage - These spells are called rains because they are just that: they do their damage in waves. When cast on a target, a rain engulfs a region around the target and does damage in this region in a series of up to three waves. A rain can only hit any one target up to three times, and can at most hit up to four hits. It works out like this: One target gets hit three times; the fourth wave is wasted. Two targets get hit two times each. Three targets get hit once, and one of the three targets get hit a second time. Four targets each get hit once. They are Evocation based.
Note: Rains CAN hit the caster of the rain, in addition to mobs

Anti-Summon DD - These direct damage spells are virtually the same as normal DD spells, except they have a restriction to their target type: The target must be considered "Summoned". Additionally, they are harder to resist than normal direct damage spells. They are Evocation based.

TAE - Targeted Area of Effect - These spells work like PBAE spells, except the spells affect a radius around the target and not a radius around the caster.

DD Resists:

Fire - Spells with a Fire resist check against the target's fire resist. The higher the resist, the less likely Fire based spells will do damage. Many mobs, including fire elementals and creatures born of fire, are completely immune to the effects of fire spells.

Magic - Spells with a Magic resist check against the target's magic resist. The higher the resist, the less likely Magic based spells will do damage, or affect the target. Almost every creature is affected by magic-based spells. However, many creatures, including golems and some dragons, are flagged immune to magic, and magic-resist spells will not land. This does not mean that mobs are spell-immune, as fire resist spells can usually still land.

Evocation vs Conjuration Specialization

This is an age old argument, so I'm going to discuss it exclusively related to DD spells.

Magicians should specialize in the spells they use most. At first glance this seems to be Evocation. At higher levels though, our chief DD spells (Shock of Steel, Shock of Fiery Blades, Black Steel, and Sun Vortex) are Conjuration based, while all bolts, rains, PBAEs, and the anti-summon line are Evocation.

At lower levels, Evocation seems to be the main choice for specialization. At higher levels, the Magician should specialize in the spell he uses the most (if it's Sun Vortex, for example, the Magician should specialize in Conjuration).

Critical Damage

Critical damage is done only after Magicians purchase the Spell Casting Fury AA (also known as SCF), and a successful critical blast is performed.

Spell Casting Fury
Level 55 - 6 points in General Abilities
2 / 4 / 6
Increases chance to perform critical nukes to 2%, 4%, and 7%.
With level 1, spells have a 2% chance to perform a 33% critical blast. At level 2, spells have a 4% chance to perform 66% critical blasts. At level 3, spells will do double damage 7% of the time. Over time this ability will provide a significant increase in magician DPS.

When discussing critical damage, most players ignore Spell Casting Fury 1 and 2 (which only perform a 33% and 66% critical blast, respectively), and only discuss Spell Casting Fury 3 and higher. The rest of this discussion will only discuss SCF3.

Critical damage does double damage over the base damage of the spell. It does not do critical damage to focused damage from Improved Damage focuses.

For example, Firebolt of Tallon does a base 2000 damage at level 65. With a critical blast, the spell will do double damage over the base 2000 damage, for a total of 4000 damage, or 100% more damage than the base.

Suppose a magician is wearing an Improved Damage IV focus item, and a critical blast is performed on Firebolt of Tallon. The base of the spell is 2000 damage. In this instance the Improved Damage IV focus does its full effect for 20% extra damage, and will add 400 damage to the spell. The critical blast will add double damage to the 2000 damage base. The final damage done is 2000 + 2000 + 400 = 4400 damage, a full 120% more damage than the base.

If a spell is partially resisted, then critical blasts will apply to the partial resist damage. For example, if Firebolt of Tallon does 1200 damage to a partial resist, and a critical blast is performed, then the spell will do 2400 damage.

Contrary to a popular rumor, no stat affects critical blasts performed by SCF. Criticals are a fixed percentage rate that never varies.

Version: 2004.09.20