Armucis’ Spear Mage Guide
The Warlock Discipline is one Mages can choose to specialize in by wielding a Spear as their main weapon and concentrating on single target techniques. Warlocks use a fighting style adapted from Muse and Soldier teachings, hence the culmination of this training is meant to reflect this hybrid between Energy and Physical attacks, entitled “The Energy Warrior”.
How to train yourself:
As an aspiring Warlock, you start out as a Muse with the goal of becoming a Mage later on. However you balance this energy training with physical training and increasing your Strength as your primary focus. This allows you to wield more powerful weapons and deal more damage with attacks channeled from your spear. Aside from a primary focus on Strength, you can choose to train other aspects of yourself for the following reasons:
Intelligence for increased energy reserves and improved defense against energy attacks. Especially since you are in the frontline more often than a regular Mage, you are more prone to running out of steam, it’s worth investing some points into intelligence if you find this happening a lot.
Dexterity for further increased damage, in tandem with Strength, you can keep scaling up your damage by training your Dexterity once your Strength has hit a plateau and become difficult to increase.
Concentration for improved accuracy. Your powerful attacks and combinations will fail to get the job done if they cannot connect to their targets. It is always important to increase your concentration in order to make sure your accuracy is on part with the opponents you are fighting, never forget to put some dedication to this aspect of yourself.
Charm is not of high interest to you. It improves loot, and decreases the chance of inventory breaking when injured. But other than that it’s mostly useless to you.
Sense for increased critical hit rate. As a spear user you are not shy to walking up to your opponent and engaging them in melee combat. To hone your Senses will allow you to wear down your target with critical strikes, making you a bigger threat once you’ve closed the gap. As useful as this is, do not make this a priority, as most of your other aspects have a bigger impact on your performance overall.
How to fight like a Warlock:
The first step is the simplest! Don’t use a staff and wield a spear. During battle, do not shy away from joining the frontlines and aiding Soldiers, Knights and Champions to thin the hordes that attack you. Your focus is on single target damage and disruption, so techniques like Energy Burn, Lemming’s Bolt and Energy Doubt are essential parts of of your combat kit. Additional training in arts like Skill Mastery and Cross Defender Soul will further improve your skills with a spear in addition to the usual trainings that Muses and Mages undergo. While most of your techniques are single target and mid-range, you do have Area-of-Effect and Splash Damage options in Wind Storm and Magfire and long range options in Meteorite Strike and Elemental Spike.
Now go out there, and show them the might of a Spear-wielding Mage!