this post is recycled from the survivor boards. it is an update to this vn boards post on a template called the "martyr mage". i should mention that the no war OG stuff below is by me, but the martyr mage guide on the vn thing is not by me.
also known as the martyr mage, the vitamancer, or the war cleric, the no-war OG is a very challenging, and in my opinion, one of the funnest mage templates to play.
is life without war magic the life for me?
if your chief complaint about playing a mage is fluid management (keeping your health, stamina and mana at usable levels), or you are still cheesed about the great nerfing of all drains, then this is not the template for you.
if you are looking for the ultimate in challenging templates, you are bored with blowing things to bits with your battle mage, or wish there was someone to provide support for your hunting expeditions, this template might be worth checking out.
why on earth would i do this to a mage?
1)to learn the intricacies of fluid management: playing a no war og for 30 levels is like getting a doctorate degree and a blackbelt in fluid management. once you get the hang of the no-war og, keeping your fluids topped off on your battle mage or war caster will seem like child's play.
2)because sucking the life out of monsters and spitting it back at them is gross... but surprisingly fun.
3)after taking so long to kill monsters, using war magic again will make you feel like a god.
so what do i do?
there are only two hard fast rules for rolling your no war OG:
first you need to spec life magic. it is your first line of offense, and your first line of defense, so you want your life magic skill to be as high as possible. you will use protects to keep you from sustaining damage, drains to weaken your enemy and recover your fluids, and lifebolts to kill your enemies.
second, don't take war magic. if you take war magic, you can't really call yourself a no war OG. if you think a mage isn't a mage without war magic, this is not the template for you.
what about attributes?
that is a matter of preference, but you will generally want to max out focus and self and favor endurance over strength. the higher your health, the more damage you can do with lifebolts and drains, and stamina will serve as the reserve for both health and mana.
here are some good starting examples:
balanced: 40 str, 50 end, 10 cor, 20 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
aggressive: 30 str, 70 end, 10 cor, 10 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
extreme: 10 str, 100 end, 10 cor, 10 quick, 100 foc, 100 self
for my no-war OG, i went with 100's for endurance, focus and self.
as you decide between strength and endurance you are essentially choosing between armor and firepower. more endurance means more health and stamina, harder hitting lifebolts, higher capacity for draining, and more reserves to be converted to mana. more strength means armor and possibly the ability to melee. armor will help protect you, but so will your life protects. you may want to get a set of lighter armor and then bane it to make up the difference in AL. also, losing health just a fact of life for the no-war og. if you get hit, just drain it back, that ought to teach them not to hit you.
ok, what skills should i take?
to be a no war OG, the only skill you must have is life magic. spec'ing creature is worth considering for a number reasons, but your main one will be magic yield, since having your lifebolts and drains resisted will get you killed quickly.
not taking war magic leaves you in a unique position. you are a mage, with all the assets and liabilities that go with it, but you have an extra 16 credits at creation. with those extra credits you could do one of the following:
1) specialize a bunch of other mage stuff: like critter, manaC, magicD, or lore
2) train a bunch of other not-exactly-mage stuff (attributes permitting): like lockpick, meleeD, or even a weapon. note: you will probably end up with a high endurance and focus, so armor tinkering and/or alchemy (trade health and mana potions) might be nifty choices.
for my no-war OG, i chose to specialize life magic, creature magic and manaC, and now that she's in her 30's she has enough credits to specialize magic defense (after dumping lore) with her protects and banes at level5 she really only gets chewed up by war spells and chain casters, so MagicD is her next line of defense.
just how does a mage with no war magic kill stuff?
naturally, drains and lifebolts are going to be your primary weapons. you will use lifebolt (martyr's hecatomb) for your ranged attacks, and drains at short range, or when you are getting mobbed. there are a few basic rules to keep in mind with these tools:
life bolt basics:
1) lifebolt dumps a quarter of your current health into a bolt and deals a percentage of damage based on the amount of health drained from you.
2) the more health you have, the more damage your lifebolt will deal. lifebolts as less than half health are both dangerous and ineffective.
3) the higher the level of the bolt, the more damage you will deal.
4) you lose the health the instant you fire the bolt. if the bolt is resisted or misses, you still lose the health.
5) damage is based on your health at the moment you fire the bolt, so if you get clobbered during your wind up, you aren't going to do as much damage.
drain basics:
1) drains deal damage to a target, up to a certain limit, then return a percentage back to you.
2) the amount of damage a drian does is limited by the health the drain returns to you.
3) the less health you have, the more damage you will deal.
4) the less health your victim has, the less damage you will deal, and the less you will get back. i call this this the law of diminishing returns.
5) drain health I drains a maximum of 30 health returns 200% of the health you drained (to a limit of 60), so it will return a lot more than you drained.
6) drain health III drains a maximum of 75 health and returns 133% of the health drained (to a limit of 100), so it will do a lot more damage than drain I, use this drain to knock enemy's down and give you a little back.
7) the range on drains is short. the effective range for drain I is essentially melee range. this is the drain to use when you are getting pounded in a mob. the animation is fast and the health return is high for such a small amount of mana.
generally, you will start your attack with a lifebolt, then drain to recover health, then bolt again. if it's still alive, then drain again and lifebolt. use drain3 when your target is at relatively high health, and drain1 when you or the target are getting low on health. at a certain pnt drain wil stop returning anything and you are just spamming you will finish your target with a lifebolt. you will want to drain for stamina and/or mana during the attack sequence. you can use stam2man and stam2health to level off to be ready for your next target.
the returns for draining mana directly will vary based on the creatures you are fighting. magic based creatures like undead, virindi and dolls are good sources of mana. melee oriented creatures like lugians and drudges are good for stamina, but not good for mana. use drains as your primary means of recovering health and mana, and keep stamina as a reserve.
when it comes to fluids, don't be obsessive about keeping them maxed. thanks to lifebolts your health is usually going to be at 50-75%, and your other fluids are going to go up and down as your fight progresses. keep a few health/stamina/mana potions (not too many due to burden) in case you are completely empty and need to recall quickly or you get hit suddenly for a lot of damage.
so what do i hunt?
in general, you will want to hunt all the things mages normally hunt, or you will want to support a group of fellows.
if you are supporting a group, you will want to toss imperils/vulns around, and heal/revitalize your fellows. You will use drains primarily to keep yourself functional. in this mode, if you are not taking loads of damage, your primary concern will be to keep enough mana to keep casting. if you are fighting creatures that you can't drain for mana, then use stamina and health drains to keep your fluids up, then stam2mana and health2mana. if you are also supporting a war caster, you may need infuse mana, which will compound your mana issues. this may not sound like much help to a group, but if your melees and war casters don't have to pause their attack sequences to heal, down potions, or restore mana, they will kill much faster. also, if you are draining the enemy and replenishing your fellows, their supplies of potions and heal kits will last longer. supporting a group of melees is the best way to help out against stuff you are going to have trouble killing, like olthoi.
if you are hunting solo, you will want to hunt the usual mage fare, golems, drudges, and stuff out in the open. you may find you level faster supporting groups of melees, but soloing dungeons with relatively fast spawns will really help you learn to to manage your fluids in the heat of battle. this is imortant becuse you will need to keep yourself afloat to support others.
how difficult is this template to play?
this template is very hard to play in the beginning, and may need some help getting to 15th level. once you can cast level 3's reliably, you are ready to solo. there is an old technique called wall-licking where you crawl thru dungeons and drain/harm creatures to death thru walls and doors. this may help you some as you get your numbers up to a playable level, or you may want to find a melee to buddy with. once you are at 80 health you should be life bolting for around 20pts of damage with full health. low diff endurance and health jewelry will also help you. raeta's necklace, and anything with life giver is big plus for low level no-war OGs.
what items will i need?
well, health and endurance are just as important to you as focus/self and mana, so look for gear that will bump these attributes. life magic buffs are also nice. rending wands will not help you, and don't waste your time with war wands. i have heard that high spellcraft wands come in handy for fighting drain resistant creatures, but i have found them to be far too slow in their windups and get resisted way too often. i don't really play with too many items on my mages, and janus is still in her low 30's and is just getting to the point where she can use different items. the only item she can't live without is her raishalra's collar.
is there anything i shouldn't do?
this template offers you a tremendous amount of flexibility in your skill selections, so while your possibilities are endless, here are a couple of moves that i considered to be mistakes with janus:
1) war wands, i gave janus a whole suite of explorer wands, and they were resisted by just about everything over 15th level. later i trained lore and tried to get her skill up to use 100 dif wands and found that it was a complete waste for me. the only war wand that i would be intersted in for janus is the weeping wand, since it has nice buffs and a very high level war spell to use in dire situations agains stuff you can't drain.
2) healing, i took the healing skill with janus and found that it didn't fit with her playstyle. naihanchi, my other mage, has war and he uses healing to great effect since he kills so much quicker in comparison. for janus, it was just something you do once everything is dead. she almost never used it during an actual fight.
3) casting heal self in combat, this spell is great to use after a fight, or on other people, but to restore yourself in battle you will want to rely on drains and low level stam2health. the exception to this rule would be when facing a missiler or spell caster that you can't get close enough to drain, then you will use heal self to recover health for your lifebolts.
4) casting harm, at the very low levels, before you put points in to endurance, you will find that hrm1 does more damage than lifebolt as a killing blow. this is pretty much the only time that will be the case. the combination of drains and lifebolts will pretty much always be more effective.
where can i read more on the no war OG?
the martyr mage guide was a big help to me as i figured out how to play janus:
http://vnboards.ign.com/AC_Magic_Shop/b5145/56311757/p1
here are some variations on the no war OG theme:
hwa rang is spec'd creature and life magic and trained in UA, healing, item, manaC and meleeD. i call him the kickboxing OG. hwa uses imperils and vulns to soften up enemies, and even debuffs creatures that he has trouble hitting. he can yield creatures thanks to his high critter skill, so he is able to land spells on creatures that would normall resist him. while imping big groups he uses drains keep himself going until he switch to melee mode. because he is also a melee, he is a lot tougher than a "real" mage, so he does better against things that mages don't like to fight, like bugs.
moy fa kuen will (soon) be spec'd life magic and axe, and trained creature item, manaC, and meleeD. he is one credit shy of specing axe, and should be essentially complete at 40th level. he uses imperils and vulns to knock enemies down very quickly, and drains stamina mostly since swinging that big axe wears him down pretty fast. he does most of his draining on the last creature standing.
hwa is an OG first and a melee second, and since UA doesn't do much damage, he uses imperils and vulns a lot more. thanks to using an axe, moy can kill faster, especially if he has imperiled a target. he does not often use vulns unless he is fighting a creature that is significantly above his level.
for both toons, if they cannot hit a creature with their weapons, they still have the option of using lifebolts and drains to kill with. both of these guys are not as powerful as a pure mage or a pure tank of the same level, but are a lot more versatile.
note: both hwa and moy do have the heal skill, but really only use it while they have their shields up and their weapons in their hands. they both drain when they have their wands up.
i would like to try a life/archer or OG crossbow template to see what that would be like, but the templates i have tried thus far have not been effective. i also have a life/dagger tank, but again i have have not found a template that has worked well for me just yet.