It depends on the situation. It might save your ass from a fighter's devastate with some good timing.

Actually, probably not. I like to use Mana Burn in PvP and as much as I'd love for the CD to go down, I kinda see why they put such a long CD on it.

Edit: Then I must say you have not been using mana burn correctly in PvP and taking full advantage of its use. Just manaburning them randomly doesn't help, at all.

I mainly use manaburn for archers. See an archer use SP stone? Manaburn their ass. SP has a CD just as long as HP stones. Archers will have to wait before they can use an SP stone. Meanwhile, they are forced to auto attack. Unless you like to stand next to an archer, then you should be able to gain enough distance to save yourself (either by escaping, or by killing them off).

Manaburn is also useful in killing someone when they have little HP left. I often don't like trying to fire another skill to finish them off because of the casting time. Manaburn is instant and it often helped me finish people off before they can use a HP stone.

Of course, I have misfired manaburn many times myself. Really takes a lot of attention to use correctly. If that's not done, then of course it's useless.

I can't speak for anyone else but I do think that balancing view-points and classes are in ''everyone's'' interest, not just the Mages or the Archers etc. We're just not as pro-Mage as you seem to be because you seem to veer right off the edge of class-balancing while not acknowledging any of the strengths that the class has.



You answered your own question. You suffer because it is a party-game, which means that it's not supposed to be easy to do things by yourself.



Soloing is really only easy in the earlier levels. Also in every other MMORPG I've played, it's supposed to get harder and harder to solo the higher you go.



It's not ''bullshit'''...were you even there when there was a massive blowout about Archers not being partied and Mages being created in mass-numbers? The only Archers getting partied were the ones with friends and established grind-parties. Until the third AoE, and later on with the cap-raise, things were pretty bad for Archers who wanted pick-up parties, they just were nowhere near as good as Mages for grinding. Suggesting to move to a new server is kinda extreme...what with the problem of losing everything and all.


EDIT: lateeee Dx


And Mana-burn is a good humiliation move to kill someone with when it does happen :D

Depends. If you time it so that you burn their SP right after they use a stone, it can be useful if it's a close fight.

Defend? What you're wanting is for the Mages to have a bit of everything.

I wonder how many others out there would think it is too.

Eh? Let me respond to you the same way you've responded to the suggestion of playing an Archer instead of a Mage. I will not switch to a new server because I enjoy playing in mine, already. I've dealt with it cause it's been like that for me for a long time already. So don't make those suggestions.

We are basing this on stats and performance itself, not how people are kind enough to accept either/or. And even if we would base it on both views,
No one ever said "Mages are wanted more than Archers ALL THE TIME. You may want to read some posts again.

Yeah. 2 minutes lol. Plus, it looks gay too xD

EDIT:

late post again >.> D;

Mana burn is not entirely useless. During wars, I've been pummeled with mages mana burning me and purging my buffs that have screwed me up. DD axe fighters use a LOT of SP and we eat SP stones like candy. Of course, a smart one will use an SP pot but not all of us tote those around. Stones do have a CD time... and a mage that purges a cleric's pt buff will do quite a bit of damage. I was in a war where my cleric's mdef pt buff was purged and we were up against a couple of strong capped mages. Yeah, it hurt... best part was that nobody in our pt knew he had been purged of that buff so we were all hurting harder and wondering why.

That being said, it's not anywhere near as spammable as those flame thingies in DT make it out to be...

Mages can purge party buffs?! Does it only work if you purge the cleric (source of buff)? And when purged, does it take away EVERYONE'S mdef buff in the party?

Because I've never done that before and never thought about doing it since I didn't know you could..

Edit: now that I think about it, that's pretty logical. Not sure why I never thought about it like that before. Gewdgewd... >=D

^You should see a Mage spell-stealing a Shield-Block buff xD