The high wizard is a perfect example ofthe evolution in Ragnarok.

mRO started at Ep 4. And at that time wizard follows roughly this build, frost driver and JT or SG and LOV, firewall, ice wall and soul strike. All those follow a good logic system. firewall for coutering enemies to get close, soul strike to have fast cast and damage, freeze + lighting for 175% dmg and ice wall to protect oneself when casting.

But as a few factors come into play, then the builds started to change. The factors are as distasteful, bots and number of marc card in the market.

At first the marc card were small in number and hard to get ane expensive. So many people are subjected to freezing. So the typical logic is to add freezing spells as freeze=no move, no pots=dead.

But with the unofficial no ban of bot policy, botters start to evolve. Why? here is why, geographers provide good exp as they dont move and wizzies at lower lvl and casting time dont have to fear a lot. It has been proven to be very effective as they have a 200% dmg from fire. So wizzies start to abandon firewall for firebolt. firewall is not popular among botters as it isnt usable as they dont have the ai to do so yet and that goes for ice wall.

Normal bots only tele as we all know right? Then this is coupled with the marc card as a normal equipment that makes freezing obsolete. So some botters dont take frost driver and take stone curse, yes a little different but the result is there. They get stoned and firebolt lvl 10 takes a lot of damage too.

Then in the rwc a kind of build starts to emerge. In RWC there are no marc card so as we all know storm gust is for freezing only so they use the point on lvl 1 sg and the rest of points to other better skills.

That build made their way into normal woe as a fact along with the marc cards, it is a back up skill.

This is the main idea now, but with the start of a lot of balancing skills coming what we could expect? The rule is to think foward a 3 steps like in chess.

A lot of people screw ice wall and SG 10 for quag as they provide slow, - agi and dex which makes hunter weak and all charcters very vulenrable at portal in WOE.

Few people choose water ball but if sages start to get into wars that is a good skill as those like adb castles. Then what to do? some may choose to use swordfish card, but just use LoV or JT. Simple eh?

But what about the stone curse? medusa card? not effective as you sacrifice -30% cranial. However we may see it coming sooner or later if teamwork steps in, devo + +9 or 10 eq makes it a new thing. Well how to counter? Take the crus away or kill the supporting priest, no heal makes him take a lot and even with white pots he cant last long.

Also with more and more very highly upgraded eq wizzies dont have the fear of low hp anymore and the int/dex build is the key unlike back then some rather choose agi or vit.

But if ghostring card becomes more common soul strike could come back but i doubt it with 25% extra damage only for 10 points but you never know.

Ive also seen one intersting player as he dont use LoV but thunderstorm. Intersting, faster cast and i mean very very fast for the damage and size trade off. I dont have enough time to analyze the effectiveness though but creativity is the key.

Btw some choose safety wall instead of sp recovery after the yuno patch which makes it very ineffective.

Some also choose meteor storm as an addition too in high wiz. with the stun bonus coming. That goes for fire pillar coming back after the old nerf in comodo patch. They are going to have a boost, maybe it has it’s use in WOE, as there is no knockback so you take full damage and fire pillar can give a load of damage too and if they dont want to charge in, you can buy yourself sometime which cant be used in AoE spells.

A few or the high wiz skills are also rarely used such as naplam vulcan but that may be of use really in WOE for slowing down attackers a lot. soul drain can also be used effectively too but have catch as you cant use with AoE, so some AOE freaks may not like it but that does add max sp and you can get your sp back which some very fast casters can have low sp problems. Not good in WOE under siege timing.

Amplification magic power is a great spell and i see it is going to stay for a long time although it does not work on SG 10.

strangely i wonder why no one use magic crasher in theory it is a great spell to use.