[holyfridge]

I took the time this weekend to head over to an Internet cafe to rule out the possibility that what I talked about earlier was only for what I saw on my laggy computer. I found out that even on a lag free computer, I could still perform 'animation cancelling' on magic blast. I believe it is also true for fireball, ice blast, and lightning blast, but it is a lot more noticeable for magic blast.

I reread what I posted earlier, and found out that I am wrong in that the 'animation cancel' technique will allow you to 'ignore' the cast times needed for magic blast. Instead, you still need to wait for the cast time to complete, but you can command your mage to walk (in any direction) the moment the cast time is complete. The timing required for this is similar to the farming/gathering technique where you have to click with precise timing on the yellow line to finish the gathering faster, but in this case you execute the 'walk' command the moment the cast time is finished. By using this method, you can still allow yourself to maintain a distance from the mob if you command yourself to walk away and it'll look like the magic blast (which is actually just a small projectile) is coming out of your @$$ as you're walking back and getting ready to cast your next spell. As Patch described it, this makes your mage look very "jittery" (perfect word! XD).

Note that this isn't allowing you to spam spells any faster than you already can, but is more to keep a maximum distance away from the mob that you're kiting. As you all notice, if you sit back and have your mage do a full animation of magic blast, the mage takes its sweetass time after the cast time is complete to "jump in the air and shoot a blinding shot" and you're sort of "stuck" there until the animation is done and by then the mob is that much closer to you. With this animation cancel technique, you can save the mob from hitting you 1-2 extra times.

After hearing from Patch, Triumph, and Spirit how much potential damage fireball can do, I will try to include that in my chain of spells and play around more with animation cancelling, as well as all the 3rd job skills once I get higher level. Anyway, I'm sorry I'm kind of digressing from the original topic (though this will save you hp stones in the long run?) and if any mods feel like this should be its own thread, feel free to move it @0@

Yosei - I don't think it's dumb to cast frost nova while soloing since it still does a lot of damage and slows(?) too, maybe cast that first instead of ice blast? I have very little experience with enchanter spells so everything I say is in theory >.<

and since I'm already off topic and we're talking mages anyway, what spells does everyone have empowered (without any cash shop reset items if possible)? I only have around 5 left and want some feedback before I use them.