Mage

You command the elements—fire, lightning, frost—at your fingertips. You’re a benevolent soul who freely shares “dust” with your opponents and puts them in a helpless stupor. You love the smell of napalm in the morning and the whiff of natural gas just before everything goes kablooey. You’re the spell-caster of the bunch, the Mage, the class that roasts, fries, and freezes enemies while they’re still scratching their asses.

Why Choose This Class

If you like to burn opponents from afar or crack ’em over the head with a big wooden stick, you’ve picked the right class. The Mage excels at ranged attacks, striking multiple opponents with potent spells. You can rain flame down from the sky, melt armor with hair-raising lightning bolts, flash-freeze enemy limbs—even the ones south of the equator—or hurl a ball of explosive joy at your foes. Take your pick.

Special Abilities

Ever hear the phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”? You’ve got the big stick covered. You may have to speak up, though, to be heard over the enemy screams as gouts of flame hit their naked flesh. Mass numbers of adversaries will perish, no doubt, when you bust out the special abilities.

Dragon’s Breath

Leave good sportsmanship aside, light your firecracker, and stick it right into your opponent’s face. Mash your button repeatedly to have Dragon’s Breath set your opponent burning. Dragon’s Breath II increases your damage, while Dragon’s Breath III widens the damage to other enemies. After using Dragon’s Breath successfully, Dragon’s Breath IV increases your ability damage, and Dragon’s Breath V vaporizes away enemy armor.

Dust of Dreams

Heave a handful of Dust of Dreams at your opponent to OD the senses and get the stun. Dust of Dreams II inflicts more damage, and Dust of Dreams III throws Defense Down on your target and the foe behind. Even better, Dust of Dreams IV keeps your enemies stunned an additional turn, and Dust of Dreams V makes all the abilities even cheaper.

Lightning Volt

Douse your opponents with water and then touch the battery connectors to the liquid and send shock waves through them. Lightning Volt melts armor and shields, plus extra enemies take damage on a Perfect Attack. Lightning Volt II increases damage, while Lightning Volt III jumps your lightning to an additional target. Zap enemies who hit you with melee attacks when you charge up your Lightning Volt IV, and add another bounce to your lightning with Lightning Volt V.

Funnel of Frost

Chill your foes with a blast of freezing cold exhaust from your fire extinguisher. Funnel of Frost removes beneficial status effects on a row of enemies and slows them on a Perfect Attack. Funnel of Frost II freezes your enemies’ limbs and lowers their attack damage on a Perfect Attack, and Funnel of Frost III shivers them with Defense Down for three turns. Funnel of Frost IV widens your attack cone with your Funnel of Frost abilities, and Funnel of Frost V deals additional damage to enemies for each beneficial status effect removed.

Pyre Ball

Bombs away! If you light all the fuses and drop the missile successfully, Pyre Ball strikes every enemy in combat. Pyre Ball II increases damage, and Pyre Ball III inflicts burning damage on all enemies. Anyone who survives your initial bombing suffers Pyre Ball IV and gets hit with Attack Down and Ability Down for three turns. Finally, Pyre Ball V enables Pyre Ball to ignore (but not remove) all armor and shields on your enemies.

Mage Special Abilities

Perks

Look to the end of the perks for those most valuable to the Mage. Power Bottom allows you to recover PP each time you perform a magic attack with your weapon, and Healing Wind allows you to recover HP each time you perform a magic attack with your weapon. Anything that gives you power points is a good thing; hence, invest in Apprentice to increase your max PP by 20 percent. Since you’ll be inflicting effects on opponents frequently, Lasting Impression works for you, as your status effects now last a turn longer. Mana is a Mage’s best friend, so why not invest in Counterfart and put that mana to good use with killer farts that deliver more damage than a weapon counterattack.

Gear

The Fire Wand unlocks the power of fire via an easily manipulated childproof safety switch. On a Perfect Attack, drop Combustion on your foes and they’ll keep burning and burning. You also gain three PP for each Perfect Attack that strikes a burning target. Embrace your inner pyromaniac and suit up with the Mage’s Robe of Might. Sure, you gain 20 armor for two turns after a magic attack, but, more important, you increase all your fire damage by 10 percent. A Mage’s best defense is more offense.

Combat Tactics

All battle scenarios assume you’re not taking on two clowns that can barely tie their shoes. Just use Perfect Attack and Perfect Block to crush that competition. The battle scenarios that follow give you tips for fighting bosses, mini-bosses, and annoying opponents that require more finesse and greater firepower.

Battle Scenario 1: Melee

You’re better at ranged attacks, so it’s better to avoid melee with Dust of Dreams. Spray the white stuff to distract your opponents, then consume them with your awesome power. Against a heavily armored opponent, melt off armor with a Lightning Volt or three. Given a choice of melee targets, generally you want to pound the one with fewer hit points. If you can drop an enemy, they can’t counterattack, which means less damage you have to withstand. If you know a target has a deadly special ability, then that foe should become the priority.

Battle Scenario 2: Ranged

When you can reach the enemies in the back row, there are a few more decisions to make during combat. You rarely fight four or more foes, so the defended enemy (one not able to be hit by melee) will be your ranged target. As a Mage, you are built to hose enemies with ranged damage; pile on Pyre Ball and Dragon’s Breath, or stop opponents cold with Funnel of Frost. It’s also possible to harass enemies by striking a foe with a single ranged attack to stack on a negative effect (say, Funnel of Frost III for a Defense Down penalty) or to add an increased-damage effect such as burning. While you switch to other enemies in the battle, the ranged foe continues to take damage.

Battle Scenario 3: Multiple Targets

Once you have the proper gear, you should beat almost any group of two opponents. Battling three or four opponents gets tricky; most of the time you need to break out some of your multiple-target abilities to kill off more than one enemy at a time if you want to survive. All your Mage abilities have the potential for multiple strikes, but it’s Dragon’s Breath, Lightning Volt, Funnel of Frost that you can consistently rely on to hit groups. At higher levels, you can bring Pyre Ball into the mix and really hold a barbecue block party for all invited enemies.

Battle Scenario 4: All Out

Your ultimate attack chain, assuming you have enough power points, goes something like this: Dust of Dreams, Dragon’s Breath or Lightning Volt, followed by Funnel of Frost. Dust of Dreams, if performed correctly, stuns your opponent (or two if you’ve upgraded to Dust of Dreams IV). While your enemies are out of the fight momentarily, level serious damage on them with Dragon’s Breath or Lightning Volt against armored adversaries. Continue with Funnel of Frost to deal more damage and slow down any future enemy attacks. Repeat the process until you run out of PP, and under this cycle your enemies will be lucky to have enough time to pick their nose, let alone race across the battlefield and get their hands dirty.