[Guide Contest Winner] Feoh Archmage

Feoh Archmage guide


Why Archmage?

Do you want to play in a party and level very efficiently at AoE spots? Do you want to pvp in every form (1v1, Group vs Group, Clan vs Clan)? Then do not choose Archmage, choose Storm Screamer.​

On the other hand, Archmage can be a good option if you own a Valakas mage weapon or want to play mainly olympiad. Regardless of your choice, the following guide will cover what you want to know as a Feoh since there are lots of similarities between the different classes.​

Creating a character

There are two options for creating a mage:​

1) You can create a Dark Elven Wizard and make 85 with Balthus. The strength of dark elf mage is it has the highest INT which is your most important stat. Dark elf mage has the highest burst potential (damage over a short period of time).​

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2) Creating a Kamael Mage without Balthus will allow you to keep Expert Casting (the description is wrong, magic cooldown is reduced by 20%) and Abyssal Power for the cost of not learning (be very careful with it) Weapon Mastery. The result will be higher dps, higher enough to be worth taking this route. Your casting speed will be lower specially in the beginning when you miss Stat (WIT) bonus items/skills but do not worry too much about it. As you stack up you will gain enough casting speed and for olympiad you will have several options to fine-tune your casting speed such as: SA, Hat, Bracelet, Sub/Dual class skills, APs.​

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Additionally for solo leveling you should create an Orc Mystic without Balthus, make it a Dominator and do not learn Drum Melody keep Victories of Pa'agrio. After awakening you should change to Iss Sword Muse or Iss Hierophant.​

Leveling up

If you make a Kamael you will have to refuse the Balthus quest and level manually 1-85 (follow the quests and stay on the quest locations or kill raids untill you reach the next quest - or use fortune pockets).​

85-99
Leveling in a party

Instances:​

Kartia's Labyrinth (85+)​

Baylor (97+)​

AoE locations:​

Fairy Settlement (~85~92)​

Isle of Souls (~91~96)​

Orbis Temple (~93~98)​

Guillotine Fortress (~95~98)​

Land of Chaos (~97~101)​

Leveling solo

Mage is the best class for leveling solo, utilize your jumps, air rider and debuffs to keep distance.​

You can level very quickly just by doing Kartia's Labyrinth Party (entering requires a party consisting of at least 2 characters though). If it is not enough you should visit some of the party locations and train mobs there, mainly​

Fairy Settlement (~85~92)​

Isle of Souls (~91~96)​

Land of Chaos (~97~101)​

One by one xp:​

The Cemetery (~96~99)​

Phantasmal Ridge (~99~102)​

99-105
Leveling in a party

Instances:​

Nightmare Kamaloka (99+)​

Atelia Instance (100+)​

Altar of Shilen (101+)​

AoE locations:​

Atelia Fortress (~99~105)​

Superion Fortress (~100~105)​

Elven Village (~102+)​

Leveling solo

Instances:​

Nightmare Kamaloka (99+) (2+ characters for entering)​

Atelia Instance (100+) (5+ characters for entering)​

AoE locations:​

Atelia Fortress (~99~105)​

Superion Fortress (~101~105)​

Equipment

Set

Ultimate Eternal Magic Type / Transcendent Eternal Magic Type​

Weapon

Up to +16 overenchantment: Dark Helios Retributer​

From +17 overenchantment: Dark Helios Buster or Dark Helios Caster and Eternal Sigil​

Note:​

You may want to choose buster/caster + sigil for more physical defense.​

Caster has higher, Buster has lower damage variation. This means you must choose whether you want higher damage potential or more stable damage.​

For PvE use Bloody Helios weapon​

Special Abilities

Mystic​

Soul or HP+Mystic​

Sigel​

Augment

+15% M. Skill Critical Damage​

Attribute

Fire​

Belt

Ruler's Authority / Chief Monkey Belt (Event)​

Hat

INT + M.Atk​

Earrings

Blessed Antharas' Earring​

Lindvior's Earring​

Replacements: Olympiad Earring, Special Ceremony Mental Earring (available only from players), Istina's Earring (normal/wizard/warrior), Enhanced Octavis' Earring (Warrior), Enhanced Octavis' Earring (Wizard), Orfen's Soul Earring​

Necklace

Blessed Valakas' Necklace​

Replacements: Valakas' Necklace, Istina's Necklace, Frintezza's Soul Necklace​

Rings

Ring of Creation​

Ring of the Truth Seeker​

Replacements: Baium's Soul Ring, Queen Ant's Soul Ring, Enhanced Istina's Ring(Wizard), Ring of the Truth​

Note: Ring of the Truth Seeker and Ring of the Truth do not stack.​

Shirts (L2Store)

Shiny Elemental Shirt + 10​

Magical Reflect Shirt +10​

for Olympiad/Ceremony of Chaos​

Pa'agrio's Shirt + 10​

Eva's Shirt +10​

Physical Reflect Shirt +10​

Agathions (Event)

Bracelet: Evolved Taurus Lv1-5​

for utility: Gemini Lv++, Sagittarius Lv++​

Charms (Stage 1 is sufficient):​

Agathion Charm - Anakim (L2Store)​

Capricorn Agathion Charm Overenchanted (M. Crit. Dmg)​

Aquarius Agathion Charm Overenchanted (M. Atk.)​

for utility: Virgo Charm lv12, Aries Charm lv12, Leo Charm Lv++​

The charm macros consist of 3 lines:​

1) equipping the utlity charm​

2) using the skill​

3) equipping the primary charm​

Bracelet

Dimensional Bracelet Stage 6 INT Overenhanced​

Replacement: Advanced Aria's Bracelet INT+4​

Talismans

Talisman - Insanity​

Talisman - Seven Signs​

Talisman - Abundance Lv. 4 (High-grade) (L2Store)​

Sayha Talisman (L2Store)​

Venir's Talisman Stage 12 (Can upgrade to 15-16, next step is 20 afterwards) (L2Store)​

Talisman - Wind: M. Critical Damage​

Cloak (in order of power level)

Cloak of Cold Darkness​

Nevit's Cloak of Light (L2Store)​

Cloak of Darkness​

Exalted Cloak​

Soltkreig Cloak​

Brooch

La Vie En Rose's Magnificent Brooch Rare (L2Store)​

Augment

Obsidian or Amethyst/Blue Cat's eye Lv3 (L2Store)​

Jewels

Sapphire, Obsidian, Amethyst, Blue Cat's Eye, Opal and Cat's Eye or Garnet or Diamond or Pearl or Emerald or Greater Aquamarine (L2Store)​

Dyes

3x Lv. 5 Legendary INT Dye (Charisma) INT+5 CHA+5​

replacement: INT+5 and any (or no) second effect​

4th slot (L2Store)​

Normal	Olympiad
Woundrous Orc Dye	Wondrous Kamael Dye

Revelation Skills

Disparition​

Unbind​

Sub class skills

M.Atk Lv4​

P.Def/M.Def Lv4​

M.Accuracy Lv4​

As Kamael mage (and for olympiad in general) you might want to learn Casting Speed Lv4.​

Why not to learn M. Critical Rate? Maximum critical rate is around 1 in 3 which does not require more than 300 m. critical rate.​

Dual class skills

Normal: M.Atk Lv2 and Special M.Atk​

For olympiad you can choose between various setups. The most standard one is Physical Trait and Mental Trait. However if you are lacking casting speed you should choose as much casting speed as you need since having capped casting speed is very important for olympiad. If you are losing even when you have the control over your games and are not getting much debuffed you should try increasing your mana from dual class skills.​

Ability points

Normal	Olympiad

Skill enchant (normal/olympiad specific)

Volcanic Destruction Power​

Elemental Burst Power​

Chain Blaze Power​

Arcane Comet Strike Power​

Quadruple Elemental Blast Power/Chance​

Elemental Final Storm Power​

Elemental Crash Power​

Elemental Spike Power​

Ruin Chance/Slow​

Mass Ruin Chance​

Meteor Power​

Magical Charge Chance​

Magical Evasion Chance​

Death Howl Chance​

Crystal Form Recharge​

Air Rider Empower/Time​

Burst Casting Shield/Magic Shield​

Ignore Divinity Chance​

Ultimate Body To Mind Power​

Hell Binding Chance​

Mass Hell Binding Chance​

Death Breath Slow​

Death Fear Chance​

Mass Death Fear Chance​

Empowering Echo Acumen​

Death Lord Power​

PvP/PvE

Mage is a ranged AoE class. Your role is to Mass Ruin/Ruin, Shadow Snare and nuke, as an Archmage you do not have access to as much crowd control as a Storm Screamer.​

Snare is a skill which you normally have to position each time it is cast, however you can create a macro with one line in it: /useskill Shadow Snare; it will automatically put the snare on the same spot.​

Volcanic Destruction and Arcane Comet Strike are not exactly AoE, they require flat ground and the ground level of your, and not your target's, position will count when evaluating what they hit. Volcanic destruction actives Elemental Burst and the combination of the two is your greatest power, alongside Arcane Comet Strike and Quadruple Elemental Blast.​

Arcane Comet Strike should be used mainly on Burst Casting because of its high mana cost.​

Burst Casting triggers every 5 seconds a higher level m. atk boost buff (Mana Burst). The fourth level of Mana Burst lasts 15 seconds and makes you able to cast Quadruple Elemental Blast.​

Chain blaze is your weakest skill but is decent enough to fit in time to time.​

Elemental Final Storm is mostly useless.​

Elemental Spike (reduces your targets attribute defense) and Crash can be used instead of chain blaze in case you are facing a solo target but are practicly useless as well.​

Activate these toggles at all time: Fire Stance, Essence of Mana, Feoh Aura, Dual Class HP. In PvP use Embody Mana Armor as much as possible.​

Switch from Fire Stance to any other and back to it in order to increase your damage by up to ~10% (+100 attack attribute) for 5 seconds.​

Olympiad

Terms

Win condition: this includes all of your decisions. Your ultimate goal is to kill your opponent or do more damage by the end of the match. Interrupting your opponent's game plan is just as important as developing your own. Tracking your opponents protections is paramount. It is important to be creative and come up with different strategies time to time to surprise your opponent. In some cases you need to think about altering your win condition during a match.​

Tempo: the advantage of initiative.​

Protection: a protective buff, these are things like shirt celestal, shirt disparition, disparition, unbind, cats eye, Crystal Form, Flash, Shadow Evasion, etc. These effects give you immunity to damage and/or debuffs. They act similarly to chess pieces. Use them to keep your opponent away from checkmate but if you lose them faster than your opponent you are more likely to lose. Some of these pieces can revive (Crystal Form, Flash, Shadow Evasion, etc). Abuse them, as they can force your opponent to trade a more expensive chess piece for them.​

Disparition is generally the strongest protection, do not give it up too easily. The second strongest category is celestials and the third is debuff immunity.​

Disable: A debuff attack which blocks your target from certain actions. Use your protections against them. Disables are generally inexpensive therefore the strongest tools in olympiad as they help you to maintain or regain tempo, or further your win condition of winning on time.​

Cooldown: a long reuse skill giving a strong temporary boost such as Burst Casting, Brooch Buff, Ultimate defenses etc.​

Preparation

Change your dual class and ability points.
Talismans

Talisman - Insanity​

Talisman - Seven Signs​

Sayha Talisman​

One slot for Battle talismans​

Talisman - Battle: Attack​

Talisman - Battle: Speed - use it to reduce the reuse time of your cooldowns and protections. Note: not all of the cooldowns and protections are affected by it.​

Talisman - Battle: Support - use it to remove your opponents protections or reveal them from hide. Note: it doesn't affect every protection (such as unbind, disparition, Shadow Evasion). Mainly removes celestial, debuff immunity, hide and talisman effects.​

Create a macro of two lines for each battle talisman: equip and use the skill of the talisman. Pressing this macro twice will cast its skill and unequip the talisman therefore it is not needed to put in the macro the enequipment and makes the macro usage more reliable.​

Two slots for wind/stat talismans​

Talisman - Wind Defense​

Talisman - Wind Debuff Resistance​

Start the match with wind talismans and switch to Venir and Wind: M. Critical Damage after using the skills.​

Note: if you need to get rid of one talisman switch Wind Defense (against Yul Trickster Wind Debuff Resistance). The reason can be for example having only 5 slot bracelet or you are a kamael mage and need to put PA Talisman +5 WIT to fix your casting speed.​

Brooch

Sapphire, Obsidian, Amethyst, Cat's Eye, Garnet and Diamond or Pearl. Amethyst is mostly used when you are on Brooch Buff and your target uses Giant's Celestial. It is a very strong effect though and players might alter their win condition warped around it.​

Jewelry

There are three required sets of jewels:​

damage (Blessed Antharas, Lindvior, Blessed Valakas, Baium Soul, Helios),​

mental (Blessed Antharas, Special Ceremony Mental, Lilith Soul, Baium Soul, Beleth)​

stun (Blessed Antharas, Special Ceremony Stun, Frintezza Soul, Baium Soul, Queen Ant Soul).​

Create macros to switch between them. Switch only as many of them that you can handle.​

Equip damage jewels in general and stun jewels against Yuls and Othells. Use stun jewels in conjunction with Water Stance and mental jewels for fearing.​

Mental buff weapon and buffing

You need a mental shield special ability weapon. As soon as you enter the arena take Wizard Buff and buff mental shield. If you switch to your main weapon within few seconds your HP/CP/MP will be recovered. Against summoners and mages put on spare buffs to protect your important buffs from being canceled.​

Augmented Weapons

Use R or higher grade weapons for augmentation and put Soul/Acumen Soul SA's on them.​

Mental Attack Succes rate: equip mental jewels and mental attack weapon for landing Death Fear and Mass Death Fear. Preferably stack up the Ignite level (with destruction, burst and crash) beforehand. You can land death breath during fear without breaking it.​

Giant augments:​

Giant's Celestial: Generally you want to protect yourself from the enemy's Brooch Buff. You can also use it against other cooldowns. In some situations you can use it as a tool to regain tempo.​

Giant's Sleep: Helps you regain tempo very efficiently.​

Giant's Silence: A strong disable. Note: some active skills are not blocked by it such as shirt skills and Giant's Silence itself.​

Insane Kelbim

Enables lethal options trough celestials and Embody Mana Armor. Some strategies are based on this item.​

Kiting

Movement is one of the most important part of olympiad and your win condition. It can save you from using protections, can defend you from disables and the effect of cooldowns and it can help you regain tempo. Position yourself behind obstacles and kite around them if neccessary. Magical Charge and Magical Evasion are very strong tools, learn to use them. You should generally use them shortly before your protection is over so that you do not need to spend another protection immediately.​

Match ups

Time is mainly on your side. However, other Feoh Archmages, Iss Doomcryers, Wynn Summoners can burn your HP and then finish you with Insane Kelbim. In some cases Sayha Seers and Othell Rogues might try to win you being permanently on hide casting only Insane Kelbim skill to win on damage. Use your jumps to reveal them from hide and ruin their win condition. Other than that you can always win on time so do not expose yourself unneccessarily.​

Feoh Wizard

Even though the different classes of Feohs do different things your gameplan is the same against all of them. Burn their HP/CP using Insane Kelbim (it can kill trough Embody Mana Armor) or win on time. When your opponents' protections are over you should use Elemental Burst with Water Stance and stun jewelry in order to disable them. Feoh vs Feoh can be a very tempo based match up as Feoh has disable with strong damage attached to it. The burn strategy is generally stronger but you have to be careful at all times not to get outtempoed.​

Yul Archer

Yuls will use all their protections to maintain tempo as it is their only win condition against you. Use it against them and do not try to fight too much for tempo yourself.​

Othell Rogue

Othell Rogue is a very strong disable class and you will be very desperate and have a hard time to overcome their bluffs and stuns since you have only so many protections. You will need to use every opportunity to damage them. Othells will use fake death to trade for your protections, punish them with jumps, death howl and meteor for it. They will very easily regain tempo with hide, but you can force them to use it in a bad position and get them out right after they did it.​

They might take the gamble and try to win you with Insane Kelbim and/or Bleed, it is a gamble though, since they can normally not maintain hide for the full duration of the match.​

Iss Enchanter

Iss Doomcryer​

You can try to kill them with some attack boost buffs and interrupting their heals with Arcane Comet Strike and jumps. You can win some time with good timing on fears and other debuffs. Do not force yourself into a very one dimensional strategy of only attacking them, defend yourself as much as possible and you can win on time which is often times a more successful strategy as killing them can be impossible if they do not fail or you do not get lucky.​

Other Iss Enchanters​

Against other Iss classes do not even try to kill them if you are not 100% sure you can. You do not need to take the gamble against them as you need to against Iss Doomcryer as they have no way of winning you if you do not kill yourself by burning your mana with senseless trials of killing them.​

Against Iss's full hold protection jewelry is needed.​

Wynn Summoner

This is the opposite of Yul vs Feoh. In this match up you are the one forced to maintain tempo untill they are dead else they will kill you.​

Aeore Healer, Sigel Knight

Same as non Doomcryer Iss's. Do not kill yourself, they cannot kill you. Win as much time as you can.​

Tyrr Warrior

Kite their Berserker/Guts, then burn them to the ground.​

Eviscerator

It is similar to dagger but instead of hide they have steel mind/spallation. Having to survive the first steel mind can only be avoided with a lucky cancel, otherwise you will need proper kiting and spend some protection to trade for it. You will have to evaluate whether you can survive their next two steel minds. If the answer is no then spend all your protection to chase them down and kill them. Generally you can outlast them though.​

Against Tyrrs and Eviscerators stun jewels mixed with Lindvior and Trasken can be neccessary.​

Sayha Seer

Very similar to Othell. Their Insane Kelbim strategy is more consistent than Othell's since their hide can be maintained for the full duration of the match. Use your jumps to reveal them while evaluating where is the biggest geometrical chance of hitting them. They sometimes pop up between hides on the screen even though you still cannot target them.​

 

thx now i can be your master

 

After reading your guide, I am left with several questions:
- what's the point of evolving taurus in particular? why not evolve aries for example, which enables you to use rock if you need so, w/o having to switch agathion every few seconds, and switch to taurus (normal or charm) every 3-4mins when br is available?
- why go for int + matk hat instead of for example exalted tiara? given that tiara would give you ~2.5% damage reduction vs ~1.7-2% damage gained from the +3 int
- again, what would be the benefit of getting emerald for the extra 1-3 int, considering the low boost that gives, compared to any other of those you mentioned or diamond/pearl?
- and why not ekimus belt instead of monkey? 1% dmg vs 1% dmg reduction (which in the end is more than 1% reduction)

 

In my experience evolving taurus is better because the rhapso is more important overall, even though evolving aries is more practical.
You are not guaranteed to get any damage/defense from the tiara, while int+m.atk hat works everytime and I don't want to trade similar amount of damage for similar amount of defense anyways.
Emerald is good because stats are simply good. I would not choose emerald but it's still a consideration. I'm playing with cats eye.
Ekimus vs monkey belt is more like 2% dmg for 2% defense. Again, as dd I don't like to trade damage for defense at this rate. For olympiad you probably want to do it.
I will add more explanation and finish the rest of the class description.

 

I'll argue about Specialize for M.Atk and https://l2wiki.com/Dual_-_P._Atk./M._Atk._Increase which is a total of 17% M.Atk, calculating into 5.67% of constant Skill Power. You would take it instead of https://l2wiki.com/Dual_-_Master's_Rage trigger for 27% Skill Power, which on a Feoh you'd have 50% of the time?

 

doenst triger so often + feoh dont have the mastery of rogue to get double

 

It isn't 17% m.atk and it isn't 5.67% constant damage, but like 17,4% m.atk which is 8,3% constant damage. You wouldn't have it up 50% of the time either. I agree, it is arguable, but on average I think the full m.atk dual skill is better.

 

isle of soul is weak spot for mage better stay on fairy to lvl 95-96 it's 90% faster. You will earn even more exp after you will learn snare.

 

I said skill power not damage. And with THE SECRET TRICK BY PALKAH TM (R) (C) u can have it launch 100%

 

I used to xp in kamael before 90 in s2, after 90 till like 92-4 in s3 and if you move quickly I think you can pull the mobs together faster than in fairy and get more xp.

 

IMO in fairy is way better. More mana herbs, more mobs, more quantity of mobs.

 

imo no point in this update to get master's rage. on the new one with 105/105 with the extra 3 points mb yea but now its meh for feoh

 

15 second-long 27% skill power with 20 second cooldown (so 5 seconds of no-rage) and a way to activate it 100% when you want it? I'd reconsider

 

If that's the case and 75% of the time you can have it triggered, sure. But that's "a way", so most probably its an unintended method and basically in any other case this skill *****.

 

Finished the guide.

 

@TheDeathAngel
Is the Soulhound strategy worth it? I don't see many shiny Kamael Feohs around, mostly dark elves.

 

It's good, keeping the old cooldown.

 

Keep in mind that the L2Wiki descriptions have been fixed https://l2wiki.com/Abyssal_Power_-_Soul_Breaker https://l2wiki.com/Expert_Casting_-_Soul_Breaker and the only benefit is the faster cooldowns.

 

Pretty much that, but some kamaels were thinking it's -20%, not 10.

 

In game it actually gives 20% not 10% as in description (somewhere is mistake).