Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Wartune mage guide

[last update 10 Dec 2013]

Wartune is a "free" mulitplayer online game. Many items in Wartune are available for free, but it is much easier to get those items by spending money (called "Balens" in game). If you do not plan to spend a lot of money on the game, be prepared for extremely hard fights and dundgeons at high character levels.

You can play Wartune either via Facebook, directly from www.wartune.com or from other websites that hosts Wartune e.g. www.r2games.com.

Facebook accounts are locked to your Facebook identity. Started normally it will run in a frame from within Facebook with a sidebar of ads. It can be ran as a standalone frame (open frame in new window) without the ads sidebar to give you more game screen space, but if you need to purchase Balens or VIP subscription it must be ran in the Facebook frame. If you find the Facebook popup messages troublesome, you can either use Maxthon which allows you to pop out your flash game in a separate window, use an ad-blocker, or use the Wartune mini-client exe ( http://www.wartune.com/news/wartune-news_news-wartune-mini-client.html ).

About the Mage

Archers are essential for high level dundgeons due to their ability to slow ("deep freeze"), debuff ("scatter shot") and do massive critical damage. If you are starting up, rather choose to be an archer. And if you are not an archer, make sure you have a lot of high level archer friends. Mages are nevertheless interesting to play because they excel at healing and mass damage, making them a good team member for most occasions. I think knights are hard to play because they have to tank and so have to be really strong (i.e. they probably require more cash then others).

Balens

A lot of players spend considerable amounts of money constantly. If your funds are limited, consider only buying items only when they are at a discount e.g. in events, shop specials, or mystery shop. Every 1-2 month or so you can buy clothing x 3 for 895 & wings for 1395; and VIP cards at a slight discount (be cautious when buying VIP cards because you might not play this game for very long). If a recharge event comes up, which is actually quite a rare event, make good use of it because it's amazing how quickly balens disappear.

Try not to buy fashion cores because you can get fashion shard/cores from Spire dundgeon runs. You can also get clothing, cores and charms from events. Delay upgrading your clothing until there's an event (which seem to come around every 1-2 months, coinciding with the clothing discounts at shops) that rewards you for upgrading your clothing. Because cores are free, try to use fashion cores to upgrade level 1-2 clothing and lv1 wings (lv1 wings need 5 cores). When upgrading level 2 clothing with fashion cores be prepared for multiple failures to upgrade. It is excessively expensive to upgrade wings above lv2 because there is a risk of failure if you don't use charms (causing you to lose your lv2 wing). If you use charms, 5 charms are required to upgrade lv2 wings to lv3 wings (and 10 charms to upgrade lv3 wings ....).

Try to save up soul crystals, whips, and refinement crystals as you can use them in some of the events. Save the socket rods for high levels (lv55 arena gear or legendary sets). Don't use crypt keys unless you can complete level 100 of the catacomb. Save up as much crypt tokens and insignia as you can. You will need a lot of them to get high level equipment. It may be a good idea to skip the lv50 or lv60 rings and amulets because it doesn't take long to get from lv40 to lv70. It might be a good idea to get the crypt mount first before you exchange your crypt tokens for rings & amulets because in the long run the lower level rings and amulets will become useless. Save some tokens because you will need to exchange crypt tokens for scrolls when class wars come up. Also save up the high level potions for class wars.

For lv6 gems, you only need to buy one lv6 MATK transposer scroll. After you synthesize a lv6 MATK gem, you can convert it to other types of lv6 gems in Blacksmith. Same for lv7 gems. Unfortunately lv6+ scrolls are not free but they can be bought with bound balens.

Levelling

It is a difficult decision whether to level fast or not. Initially try to level fast as much as possible to level 40 or so. AFter that, the less cash you have, the slower you should level so that you can build yourself up with astrals and excel in battleground and arenas. The high levels (50+) are populated by super-boosted cashers with extraordinary looks ("aliens"), so rather get as much honor as you can before you reach lv50. Strategies to avoid levelling including not doing bounty quests and avoiding staying during the guild's Tree of Ancient events.

Etiquette

Players are humans with feelings, and most players play to win. While some would help, one should not ask the higher level characters for help in Spires (and to a lesser degree Tower of Kings), because they get less rewards when they team with a lower level character. Rather team with characters of similar level. The higher levels also receive very little reward for doing a low level multiplayer dundgeon. If high level characters do help out, please send them roses as a token of appreciation.

In the long run, rather try get a team of friends that you can do dundgeons regularly with than try to rely on high level characters to help. Remember that high friendship levels give a lot of bonuses in dundgeons, so it is extremely helpful to have a regular team that you can build up friendship levesl with. If you do have a team, after a while, when you got to know them well, consider having a way to contact one (or more) of the team members in real life (e.g. via whatsapp) as a backup to schedule times for dundgeons. This reduces frustrations and helps the team to last.

If you leave a guild to go to another guild, always inform the guildmaster and have the guildmaster kick you rather than their assistant guildmasters. Note that if you attend guild battles where you face your old guild mates you can be blacklisted by some (particularly if you beat the crap out of them...).

In a multiplayer dundgeon, if you have to go afk (away from keyboard) or refresh during a dundgeon run, let your team mates know and ask them to wait. After you finished with a boss, wait for others to pick up boss loot before moving to next level.

Try not to plunder the same players repeatedly. Try to plunder either inactive players or find a partner to swap plunders with. Arrange a time with him where you can take turns plundering each other. Use up all your gold, remove your troops and gear and let your partner know that you are ready to be plundered. After you have been plundered you can click on the protection buff icon to make it disappear so he can plunder you again. Both of you should be able to get all your plunder attempts done in about 10 minutes or less.

In battleground it is considered courteous to let lower BR folk mine first before you attack them. If you need 3 battleground kills for event quest, you can try swap kills if you find it difficult to get kills. The top right and top left corners are usually relatively secluded and are good places to exchange kills.

Skills 

Early PvP (player vs player / little monsters) skills are Rain of Fire & Meteoric Destroyer. You will only need Thunderer from level 60 (for Moonevil dundgeon). Damnation can be useful in Tower of Kings, Spire, and some dundgeon bosses (e.g. Uranus and Yaros) but is not essential.

PvE (player vs environment) also known as PvM (player vs monster [boss]) skills are Suntoria, Restoration, Purification, Blessed Light


You can purchase double skill tree for separate PvP tree and PvE tree if you want to maximize your PvP & PvE skills early. However, by level 60 you can get most PVP & PVM skills, so it is not an absolute must. However, it is really convenient to have a second skill tree for switching skill sets. If you can't afford a second skill tree you can always switch skills by dragging the individual skill to the skill hotbar.


Dundgeon Strategy

Catacombs
If you don't have money for crypt keys, don't use them until you can beat lv100. If you have difficulty beating Fearful Faye (the "eye" boss), build rage to 100, use PvE gear (e.g. bender set), heal skills, and intelligence potions before fighting the eye. Charm, defense (MDEF, aegis) and hp astrals also help.


Summoner
Try save up as much skeleton keys as possible so you can do the summoner, preferably in nightmare dundgeons, because then you will get legendary stones as well as crystalloids. An easy way to beat the summoned clones is to start with only 1 hp (don't use hp potions when your hp runs out) and cast rain/meteor right at the start. If a team member cannot start with 1 hp (convenant or has lots of hp), he/she should tank and drop his defense and hp as much as possible (remove rings, helmet, armor, brooch, medallion, hp astral and defense astrals) while preserving attack, whereas the other members that have an hp of 1 should start fully equipped and use mass damage attack right at the start.

If you need to refresh, collect all your chests first, otherwise they will disappear after refresh. If they do disappear, check in your mailbox, and hope that they appear there.

Tarraton's Lair
Formation: 2 strongest players in front
Boss 1:  Lightning, Sun, Restore, Purification (to remove bleeds), Blessed Light (boss does AOE)
Boss 2:  Lightning, Sun, Restore, AOE, blessed light
Boss 3: Lightning, Sun, Restore, Purification (to remove AOE bleed), Blessed Light
Boss 3 casts AOE bleed that kills very quickly, so after ~3 lightnings stop using lightning and be prepared to use purification followed by blessed light.The tanks should use heal rune or shield skill if possible otherwise the boss can take them down in the next attack.

Moonevil Den - Recommended BR for party: 40k+ (normal), 60k+ (nightmare)
Formation: 1 superstrong tank or 2-3 strongest players in front
Teams: 1 mage/2 archers/1 knight (best combination for nightmare); 2 mages/2 archers; 2 mages/1 archer/1 tank (will probably fail in last boss in nightmare unless the archer has PvE set); 3 knights/1 archer (if you are desperate, you can do this in normal)
Boss 1: Lightning, Suntoria, Restore, Purification (to remove bleeds), Rain or Meteor, Heal rune
Boss 2: Lightning, Suntoria, Restore, Thunderer, Damnation, Bleed rune, Brutality rune
            Need archer to use slow & Delphic.
Boss 3: Lightning, Sun, Restore, Puri (to remove defense downs), Blessed Light, Bleed rune, Heal rune
            Need archer to use slow & scatter shot (debuff). Need 2 tanks in front, preferably knights with Apollo's shield.


Boss 1 starts with critters (that causes bleed) and will summon 4 critters usually every few rounds. So for boss 1 start with AOE (area of effect [mass damage]) spell such as rain or meteor, then cast suntoria, and if needed purification & restoration. Try to anticipate when the boss might summon the bugs and be prepared to cast aoe spells as soon as the boss summons the critters. The critters need to be killed within one round before the boss casts shield on the critters (one archers can equip scatter shot to remove the shield).

Boss 2 casts PATK buff at fixed time intervals on himself. The buff cannot be debuffed, so kill him ASAP before he buff himself up 3 times, so the archers should cast slow and delphic, the mage as many thunderers as much as he/she can, and the knight delphic as much as possible ("Delphic to the death"). Usually a suntoria at round 2-3 would suffice for the rest of the party. A good starting sequence would be to start with damnation, followed by brutality rune, 2 thunderers, and a bleed rune.

Boss 3 hits hard, aoe often, buffs herself up, and casts defense down on the team. Start the fight immediately with suntoria, and heal as much as you can. Try to have 2 tanks in front to share the damage. The knight should use Apollo's shield if available (preferably around round 3 when the boss starts to do damage to the healers & archers at the back). The archer will have to slow and debuff throughout.

Archers are absolutely necessary.  They are so essential that their br can be lower then everyone else. If the mage has PvE set (e.g. legendary lv40 set) it is possible to do nightmare moonevil with say a br 60k knight, br 65k mage, br 55k archer, and br 47k archer.

Temple of Evil - Recommended BR for party: 60k+ (normal), 70k+ (nightmare)
Formation: 1 superstrong tank or 2-3 strongest players in front
Team: 2 archers + 1  mage + 1 tank, 1 archer (with PvE set) + 2 mages + 1 tank
Boss 1:  Lightning, Sun, Restore, Purification, Blessed Light
             Need archer to use slow & scatter shot (debuff)
Boss 2:  Lightning, Sun, Restore, Thunderer, Blessed Light
             Boss goes berserk (cannot be debuffed) near last bar (so brutality + delphi at end)
             Slow & incendiary shot helps
             Need Br to be 50k+
Boss 3:  Lightning, Sun, Restore, Purification (to remove attack downs), Blessed Light
             Need archer to use slow at all costs & scatter shot (debuff) when boss is buffed to 4
             Need Br to be minimum of 55k+ (a team of 60k, 60k, 54k, 52k could do it with luck).

There's a summoner after boss 1. It is possible to get past first boss in nightmare with say a br 70k+ mage (arena set), 65k+ mage (PvE set), 65k archer (with PvE set) and a 57k knight. The strategy is:
1) Exchange mdef astral for hp or defense astral
2) Exchange mdef gems for hp / pdef gems
3) Knight should start with shield (boss does front row attack x2), followed by apollo after 2nd attack (boss will do aoe attack on 3rd round), and repeat the same sequence
4) Mages should do alternate restorations e.g. mage 1 cast suntoria right at start, mage 2 cast restoration after boss 1st attack, then mage 1 cast restoration after boss 2nd attack etc. Blessed light when needed. Purification is not really needed.
5) Archer do deep freeze with scatter shot when required

Lych's Lair - Recommended BR for party: 70k+ (normal)
Team: Any team with a mage, a knight, and two archer should do. Archers are very helpful but not essential if you have 2 strong knights (br 80k+) or 3 mages.
Boss 1: Lightning, suntoria, restoration, blessed light
Boss 2: Lightning, suntoria, restoration, purification, blessed light
Boss 3: Lightning, suntoria, restoration, thunderer, blessed light

Boss 1 casts 50% damage reflect which can be a bit nasty without scatter shot.

Boss 2 casts group bleed (-10k hp x 3 rouns) starting from about round 3 so purification is fairly essential. This boss can cast bleed rather often so deep freeze is helpful to reduce this frequency.

Boss 3 have 3 phases. The first phase she does single and aoe attacks. When her first bar of hp is gone, she will stun the team for 2 rounds and go into second phase, where she casts aoe constantly. During this second phase her aoe attacks also instantly restores rage and removes cool downs for skills that were cast in the second phase. This allows blessed lights to be cast continuously. However, blessed light need to be cast early in the first phase so that you can cast it immediately at the start of the  second phase. If possible, try to cast thunderer as well. Because if boss 3 is not  killed within a set number of turns, she will go into the third phase, where she beserks and kills everyone in one shot.

Spire

Remind your team mates to check skills, astrals, and equip before starting spire. Crit astrals are helpful for the heal mage. Strategy varies depending on battle rating. Boss 3,4,5 cast irresistible +40% damage debuff and Boss 7 slow debuff at last bar of health, so try to kill them in one shot before they reach last bar of life.

Formation: 1 or 2 or 3 strongest player in front, mages should equip suntoria, restoration, light, and one aoe (if you can't get to boss 9). If you can get to boss 9+ (br 60k+) equip purification instead of aoe. Archer should equip scatter host if the team can get to boss 8.
Boss 1: build rage
Boss 2: build rage, aoe for lizards, if low br can vulcan at end to aoe boss 3 at start
Boss 3: aoe at very beginning (use shield if the team cannot bring the little worms down with aoe in 1 round)
            slow attack, let the archer delphi the boss when the boss is below 1 bar (before half bar)
Boss 4: slow attack, let the archer delphi the boss when the boss is just above 1 bar
Boss 5: Boss starts with a regular attack. On his second turn, he unleashes an extremely strong single player attack. Then he does another normal attack, a very strong two player attack, two more normal attacks, before doing the extremely strong single player attack again. So tank should use shield if needed after 1st attack. Use vulcan (if low br) and help the the archer delphi the boss when the boss is just above 1 bar
Boss 6: use shield after boss' 2nd attack (if low br)
Boss 7: use shield after boss' 1st attack (if low br)
            Can do vulcan near last bar to help finish boss in one shot
Boss 8: Does an extremely strong AoE on her second turn and every 4th turn after that.
            Can do vulcan at end to hit boss 9 at start.
Boss 9 (Archer): Scatter shot at round 3 and every 2-3 rounds to remove the reflect shield.
Boss 10: Boss attack sequence: Single attack, Bleed attack (-12000 hp), Single attack,  Aoe attack. So do purification after attacks 1, 5, 9...
Boss 11 (Eye): Boss attack sequence: Single attack, Aoe+Debuff (mdef- attack-), Single. So do purification after attacks 1,4,7...
Boss 12: Boss sequence: Single, Single random, Pierce + Bleed attack. So do purification after attacks 2,5,8... Boss beserks after a set number of turns so shield once he beserks and try to kill this boss (vulcan) before he beserks.

Tower of Kings

Will destroyer is a good astral here.
Formation: Weakest player in front to take intercept or knight in front to do intercept. Mages rear.

Gears

PvE set gears from lv40 onwards give you +10 rage per action and are good for dundgeon runs. Arena set gear give you ignore MDEF and are good for PvP fights. The highest arena gear is lv55. Try to get legendary lv40 set gear. It will last a long time for dundgeon runs. You only need to make the lv40 clothing legendary, because it's easy to get lv50/lv60 rings and amulets, which are more effective than legendary lv40 rings and amulets, whereas it is much more difficult to get lv50 set gear. If you have lv40 set, you can skip the lv50 set and concentrate on getting the lv60 set, otherwise try to get the lv50 set.

Astrals

Mages can go either will destroyer route or critical route. Will destroyer saves you one astral slot and is more effective in duels (e.g. Tower of kings) and in the occasional instance where the mage has to tank, but does not increase healing and is less effective in fighting the world boss. Critical route need at least 3k+ crit, 2 astrals (Sniper & Determination), legendary PvE set (extra slot for crit gem), and refining gears to get crit bonus.