The Psyfighter - Countering Mages with Melee

Section 0 - Preface

Many people are archaic, and refuse to adapt to new situations. This guide is to outline how a melee fighter in standard medium armor is capable of countering a magic user. While almost entirely dependant on actual player skill, this build enables someone to effectively absorb more magic than they normally would, while retaining the speed and utility required to hunt down a mage, and your capabilities as a full blown fighter.

There is something very special and unique about this build. Read all the way through and you'll find it.



This is the video to show what Psyche is capable of.

Section I - Character

Note that like most builds, this is versatile. I chose to go with the Alvarin clade because naturally they are the fastest, which is essential for hunting people down.

There are generally 2 options when rolling a melee fighter. The first is the Alvarin clade (Veelas / Sheevras). These specialize in being fast, and able to stickyback people easily.

The next is a Thursar Khurite, who at maximum weight, have 206/207 HP, while still being very fast.

Remember that this build is intended to maximize psyche, so size was reduced to minimum. Dexterity is maxed to maximize speed. Constitution was maxed because that's the only sensible thing to do. Strength was set at 64 to use steel and cronite swords.

Type I: Health

Age 22 Thursar / Khurite

Stout
Minimum Size
Strength 62 + 5
Dexterity 104 - 5
Constitution 116 + 5
Psyche 61
Intelligence 10

Type II: Speed

Age 22 Veela

Stout
Minimum Size
Strength 62 + 5
Dexterity 120 - 5
Constitution 100 - 5
Psyche 68
Intelligence 10

67 Strength is optimized for using steel and cronite 2h greatswords, your main asset when chasing down a lightly armored mage. You may raise this at the cost of psyche if you wish to use heavier weapons, but I do not recommend it.

It is entirely possible, depending solely on player skill, to use spears that require much less strength. All of these extra strength points can be dumped into psyche. Unfortunately for the thursar, his psyche is capped at 72.

!Important! The thursar/khurite build has 20 more HP total, but has lower PSYCHE! Choose wisely.


Section II - Skills

These are only the primary skills. You are responsible for knowing all of the secondaries.

Swords 100
Combat Maneuvering 100
Aggressive Stance 100
Defensive Stance 100
Ecumenical 50
Anatomy 100
Endurance 100
Agility 100
Armor Training 100
Taming 75 (can be replaced with survival if you have a supply of pets)
Creature Control 75
Mental Training (For mental focus) 100
Remaining points can be dumped into heavy armor training, or vitalism, as seen fit.
With 100 armor training, and just 2! points put into heavy armor training, my equipment weight on the thursar/khurite is exactly 14.

Section III - Skills Explained

Now some of you may not have seen it, but that is fifty points in ecumenical, and no other magic skills. This is intended. The reasoning for this is very simple. You are a 67 Psyche character with 10 int. You have enough mana to cast a very important spell: MAGIC REFLECT. You do not need any of the other magic skills because you are a fighter. Not a hybrid. This magic reflect is intended to mitigate 50 damage back to the caster. In the heat of battle you aren't going to have time to re-cast magic reflect, as it is a 3 second cast.

This is somewhat of a risky spell though. If you are low on HP due to physical damage, you run the risk of reflecting a friendly heal. Use at your own risk.

Taming and creature control is added for 2 reasons. Firstly, as a mage I can say that I despise pets. The fact that they don't de-aggro and they do good damage really hurts a mage. It is simply added DPS. There is nothing better to spend points on, anyway.

As a Psyfighter, you specialize in speed. Having a pet who you can constantly send on a mage REALLY screws him over if he decides try and escape the pet. People have complained that mages don't have to manage their stamina. This is completely debunked if they are forced to try and escape a pet.As a Psyfighter you have higher stamina, and are just as fast as a mage, and now you have a mechanic to burn them constantly, in a way they cannot counter.

Note that you are able to have 100 armor training + heavy armor training. This means that you are equally as armored as your average fighter. You also have aggressive stance. This means you're a full blown fighter. This means that the you are more than capable of going on par with fighters also. The difference between the Psyfighter and your average fighter is damage bonus. Player skill easily can trumpt this. I can also imagine that someone would be capable of making a Thursar/Khurite version of this build to close the HP gap between Alvarin and Thursars.

This build is also easily modified. If cronite is not easily accessable to you, you may have to invest some of your Psy into strength to be able to use steel, but that would lower your mana pool, meaning you may want to invest 25 points into Mental Training / Mental Focus. You also decide to drop taming/CC all together and just invest completely into Mental Training. I would NOT recommend going with mental offence, or vitalism, as the extent of your magic use is for magic reflect, and maybe the occaisional purify.

Section IV - Conclusion

I recently re-rolled my prototype character (which was very effective) for this build because I was silly and maxed his size, which only really granted me a 2% damage bonus at the cost of around 10 total psyche.

I truly believe that if people want to counter mages, this is the build they will follow to some degree. Every skill is intended to bring the Psyfighter on par with the mage, and give the fighter the advantage. Between all of the mobility, armor, and utility (taming/survival), no mage is safe. There can be no more excuses that mages are overpowered.

The 72Psyche Psyfighter takes 21% less magic damage on average than your standard fighter from normal mages
The 72Psyche Psyfighter takes 25% less magic damage on average than your standard fighter from hybrids
The 72Psyche Psyfighter takes 14% less magic damage on average from a 121 Int slag mage using flamestrike
The 72Psyche Psyfighter takes 18% less magic damage on average from a 121 Int slag mage using earthquake

92 Int mage versus Psyfighter: 35.2 average damage per TL
92 Int mage versus standard fighter: 44.4 average damage per TL

50 Int hybrid versus Psyfighter: 32.7 average damage per TL
50 Int hybrid versus standard fighter: 43.2 average damage per TL

121 Int versus Psyfighter; 58.2 average damage per Flamestrike, 64.3 average damage per Earthquake
121 Int versus standard fighter: 67.3 average damage per Flamestrike, 77.5 average per Earthquake

If you play as a Psyfighter, your susceptibility to magic is going to be negated in many ways. You will receive essentially a "defensive stance" against magic, retain your abilities as a melee fighter, retain your speed, and have extra utility against magic that most of your standard fighters do not have. Of course, this doesn't mean you should be a dumbass and run into a group of mages. You're not a god, afterall.

For the general concept behind how a Psyfighter works in combat, here are some scenarios.

Let's look at 1v1, with players on an equal skill level.

Versus a fighter - Psyfighter takes more damage from the fighter, and deals the same as a hybrid. In an even fight, a psyfighter is capable of disengaging, and using mindblast, giving him a magic damage advantage. Also capable of corrupt to disable the fighters heals. Fighting another fighter solo is his weak point, but he is not very disadvantaged because he is only lacking the damage bonus, and a few HP.

Versus a mage - Psyfighter is capable of casting magic reflect before the fight, granting him an increased protection and a possible source of burst damage to the enemy mage. He is capable of casting corrupt to disrupt the mages spells, and cancel healing. Retains a his DPS against the mage by utilizing swords. Also has mind blast, which deals full damage to mages in the event the mage is low and running away.

Versus a hybrid - Psyfighter takes less damage from the hybrid in melee, and does more to the hybrid. He resists the hybrids magic 40% of the time, if it is cast on him. He is also capable of corrupting the hybrid, and if timed correctly, it will disrupt the healing the hybrid has. A hybrid is where the psyfighter really excels, because he is capable of negating every single advantage the hybrid has. The downside is that his mind blast is ineffective against the hybrid, because the hybrid has strength and intellect that are on par.

Did I mention you also have a pet?

Now let's look at group fights:

Versus the fighters - Psyfighter retains his 13 weight armor, recieving much less damage than a hybrid would, and equal damage that another fighter would in the same armor. Doing damage purely depends on his skill. The disadvantage is that he has to land an extra hit, (with his faster sword) to retain the DPS the warrior does. Luckily for the Psyfighter he brought a pet, which can get the attention of the fighters, and soak up extra damage, while dealing some extra out. In the event that the Psyfighter were to get low and a fighter were to try and finish him, the Psyfighter retains the movement speed and armor of a regular fighting, giving him the same equal opportunity to escape as the normal warrior has.

Versus the mages - Psyfighter is capable of having magic reflect up, which could negate an enemy spell, dealing damage to that mage, and also completely negating any damage towards him. On the flipside, if he is not careful he could reflect an ally spell. His goal would be to attempt to recieve mage damage, as opposed to lots of melee damage which would cause him to need a heal. Against the mages casting thunderlash on him, he is resistant to the damage, and is capable of resisting the spells more often than the regular fighters. The overall burstiness of enemy mages is reduced, and overall magic damage recieved is lowered. The psyfighter could also send his pet at the enemy mages, occupying the mage until he either de-aggros it, or it is killed by distracted enemy fighters and hybrids. In the event that the psyfighter gets low and the mage tries to finish him off, the psyfighter is capable of timing a magic reflect to buy him extra time, plus he has an inherent resistance to magic to potentially help him survive.

Against the hybrids - Psyfighter is capable of effectively trading blows against a hybrid, forcing the hybid to flee and try to heal up. As the hybrid does this, the psyfighter is capable of corrupting the hybrid while teammates pounce also, or he could just chase with his sword. If you consider the addition of the pet, the hybrid is having alot of difficulties getting heals off due to being hit often. In the event that the psyfighter gets low and the hybrid attempts to finish him off with a thunderlash, the psyfighter has about a 40% chance of resisting a thunderlash from a 50 intellect hybrid, thus greatly increasing chances at survival.

"Many people are archaic, and refuse to adapt to new situations."

Nothing like insulting your readership just prior to setting out something you wish them to read, to foster a positive engagement with the issue.

There has been a debate going on as to wether mages are overpowered. The argument many people summon is that there is no way to mitigate magic damage as a fighter. This was to debunk that myth. I also don't believe that it is insulting.

*laughs*

Well, it got my back up instantly

The rest of your guide I found quite interesting. I'm looking forward to feedback from people with more experience than I in MO pvp builds.

huh what i wrote something in here but i forgot oh well

good guide good thing people try out diffrent builds than your standard ma, fighter, mage and hybrid builds.

its true if you dnt want to get so much damage from a mage use psy, you want more speed, use dex, you want more speel damage use int. etc however most people say ahh fuck psy a few spells i can take. but than complain when they died or loose to much.

im making an sword/archer/mage user right now something totaly diffrent but how i see it it works pretty damn well and im not loosing realy any pts or anything

when people tell me a certain build is shit i just like to remember back at release where when i said im making an hybrid everyone started laughing specialy cyde who said you need to fully skill your toon what your doing is shit half half noone will use a hybrid. only a few months later everyone rolled a hybrid and it was said that hybrids where OP!

so remember play what you think is fun not what other ppl tell you is fun. it might be fun for them but not for you.

I approve of Diphraels writing.

By double tap do you mean double tapping the movement key to jump?

huh what no clue what your talking about

Xhodan I removed my portion about that from the guide, edit your posts so that it doesn't say anything about it

This is your magestomping melee build? It's pretty much a weak warrior that can reflect maybe one or two thunderlashes every fight. Why you think this makes mages balanced is way beyond me.

You're a fucking caveman, and this further proves your unwillingness to adapt to your enemy.

If I thought it was worthwhile Id be straight on that, but it's not. The whole function of mage mechanics is broken and a mess which you do not understand. Mages need to change, not warriors.

Like I said in the other thread, waste of time carrying on with this.

Worst troll I've ever seen in my life.

The psyfighter build is faster than your average warrior, mitigates magic damage with psych, could utilize a pet that negates a mages stamina regen, does *almost* on par damage with warriors, and can reflect spells. Wow. How silly of I to think that this would counter a mage. Not to mention it has the same armor a dedicated warrior does.

I agree with with Dip here
cyde i remember what you told me very well!
right back at release you told me the same exact things about hybrids. that noone will ever use a hybrid because its just a half half build and i need to fully maximize my skills. i remember when all of you made fun of me, only because i just loved to play warmages. what happend a few months after? everyone started to roll a fucking hybrid. im not saying i was the first hybrid on MO. but i know that im pretty much one of the first that acctualy used an hybrid for pve/pvp basicly as a Main.

maybe it is shit! but did you try it out? im making an sword/archer/mage right now yes some people already told me shitty build (even tho they dnt even know what race stats etc im using) but you know what? iv tested it today outside meduli and i love it. and im not much weaker than a hybrid or a ground fighter!

let people try it if they tryed it and think its shit well ok but dont come in here complain about a build, that you havent tryed!

Cyde doesn't have any idea what he is talking about. Like players from beta actually matter anymore. It was a much different game back then. He calls it a weak warrior, yet it actually does 90% of the damage in melee combat as a normal warrior in exchange for extra speed, magic resistance, and utility with spells. He is obviously trolling so it doesn't even matter.

Tbh, this is Diphrael's build with diph flavor to it. That said, i appreciate someone is trying to bring new viewpoints into what can be done with what we have atm.

There's a lot of variation in how you choose to fight, the Thur/Khur polesword MA's can certainly bring the pain, but can they take it?

1. You have to be able to shut down a mage in the range and approach he is dangerous in (mostly the medium range of ~15-25 m with bursty damage)
2. 
   And you have to be able to finish him of as not to give the mage breathing room (Thus the faster characters, lighter melee weapons and an affinity for cronite)

Bows work well in the first area, horrible in the last. With mages using 6 and above armors though, the mitigation against 82ish str bows damage becomes so good that outpacing a mage with a bow requires more precision.
Swords and spears (daggers ive found to have too short range for chasing) work well in the second area, only intimidatingly in the first.
Pets require extra effort to keep track of and are sometimes unreliable, but if you can make it work...

For magic negation/reduction you can utilize full or limited hybrid skillset to keep reflects on yourself as often as you need to/can. This is difficult to play, as you have to make choices whether to cast offensive, heals, or keep reflects with a limited mana pool. And if you are unable to pace with the mana cost, you will be punished.
Psyche helps to fill in the gaps inbetween reflects, thus increasing thunderfocus survivability. Psyche is not an offensive stat like Int, which is why it can be resentful to go from a character build that is focused around having the initiative and driving power in a fight to a reactive/defensive build where your options are limited to your enemies actions. Also, Psyche is not spellproof, it helps to survive but does not make you immune. The only reason psy is useful is it means focus fire from mages now needs more shots to bring you down, but down you will go regardless of psy levels if you keep getting hit.

As far as i know, the only guild that has employed reflected fighters as an approach to combat extensively for over a year is RUS. For a while i could have sworn some of them even tried out mindblast protected and higher psy build, but attaining both protections in a build must have been too taxing on points.

I hope more of you will try out anti mage builds, even though you will still be facing physical damage from MA and melee builds for 80+% of the time.

I thought people were already doing this. I remember back during beta when magic was really over powered some people tried heavy psy builds but then complained they got owned too much in normal fights, then magic was nerfed.

I was thunderlashing just a hybrid warrior, not even an anti-mage build, and many of my spells would resist by 50%... I think people are just too close minded. Magic is NOT perfect even the devs have said, but that doesn't mean there is zero counters... You already have purify pots. Why would a fighter build be able to destroy anything it comes across? Also mounted characters are kinda hard to target until you get the hitbox thing down and even then it fizzles sometimes because it thinks you have no target.

Very slightly faster than a thur khur, but hardly to the point it makes a worthwhile difference. And it still doesn't out run a mage.
Having psyche mitigates magic damage? Is that why thunderlashes barely hit anything on a mage? Oh wait, there's barely any difference. Waste of stat points.
Utilization of pets. That's great logic - use a broken system to counter a broken system. Solves all the problems. I know let's just leave everything broken and have a who can break things with the most broken things contest.
Cannot utilize heavier weapons, and cannot utilize the best bows (which you said are needed for killing mages) but yes Ive played with a low strength character before and the damage difference isnt significant.
Can reflect one or two reflects in every fight due to magic reflect's high mana cost, and the poor mana regen you will be given by wearing full warrior armour. Number of thunderlashes Im usually hit with in a proper fight is probably 10+. Waste of skill points.

So really the only worthwhile thing about your build is the pet utilization, which I could do on my own character if I wanted. But I dont want to because the pet system is completely fucking retarded and broken, just like the magic system.

PS stop calling me a troll when I disagree with you.

I disagree with the above, but i'll wait until Diphrael posts to point out a few fallacies in the reasoning.
Not that they'd matter to change anyones mind but to give readers something more worthwhile than wine to digest.