ArcheAge Chronicles Mage Guide

The Mage is an elemental caster who fights at range with an Elemental Staff or cuts into the fight with a Wavesword. It is one of the four Early Access classes.

Who should play the Mage

Pick the Mage if you want elemental damage and chain attacks. MMORPG.com’s class preview describes “massively damaging chains” and control on the battlefield, and ties the class to Aranzeb, the last king of the elves. Classes are gender locked at launch, and Steam news has not named the Mage’s locked gender. The Mage is not a confirmed healer. Steam has not published a healing skill list.

Elemental Staff or Wavesword: which to start with

MMORPG.com says the Elemental Staff is the more traditional mage kit: fire and lightning for ranged attacks, charged spells that spread across wider areas, and Wall of Fire, which damages and staggers enemies and raises their Burn gauge. Its core mechanic is Retain, which lets you recast spells without incantations and builds Energy Core. At 10 stacks you can use Shooting Star for large area damage. The Wavesword is for a mage in the middle of the action: rush through enemies, strike in combos, then use Tidal Rend or Thundersnow.

A sensible approach is the Elemental Staff if you want to stay back and manage a chain, and the Wavesword if you prefer to stay close. XLGAMES officially reduced Wall of Fire damage for launch and rebalanced Wavesword attack power and growth scaling.

How the Mage gets stronger

Every level gives stat points. The progression post lists six primary stats: Strength raises physical attack, Intelligence raises magic attack, Agility boosts crit chance and some physical attack, Constitution increases HP and crit resistance, Endurance increases stamina and defense, and Talent supports magic attack and reduces equipment penalties. One point always buys one stat, so there is no scaling math to do before you commit. The cited Fire Mage leveling build goes Intelligence first, then Constitution (RaidDex’s level-40 spread is 64 Intelligence and 50 Constitution). That is a reported spread, not our testing.

Each weapon has its own trait tree, so the Staff and the Wavesword progress separately. Trait points come from Raeven’s Coilstones, each near a powerful boss, not from level. See skills and traits.

What launch-week sources say (Nov 4)

We do not rank the Mage yet: the sources below disagree on solo play, and most were written on the October demo. Each line links its source.

• Elemental Staff: a creator weapon tier list (16:44) rates it A for PvE and S for PvP, held back from S overall by fragility and its dependence on casting. Nerd Bird (7:25) found it decent in the demo but weak in solo boss fights, because you get interrupted while ramping up.
• Wavesword: the same tier list (15:47) rates it A for PvP and B for PvE, B overall.
• New players: Massively Overpowered’s first impressions found the Mage more forgiving than other classes for players who do not want complex combos. RaidDex reports the Mage was the most popular class in the focus group test.
• Starter build: a demo-era fire leveling setup is on the Elemental Staff page, with its sources.

What we are still collecting

Early Access is live. We are adding the following from public sources as they appear, each with a link and a date:

• How players and creators describe Retain and Energy Core in real fights.
• Whether players still rate Wall of Fire after its damage reduction.
• How players compare the Wavesword after its rebalance.