Introduction
So you've followed Nezu's guide for mage equipment, assembled yourself a pretty mage set, tackled arenas, asked various questions in Ask the Experts or over the unofficial Discord server, and now you want to challenge the real deal, the stuff for big boys : 100 rounds of Item World and PFUDOR Grindfest. Yep, this is the guide for you. If playing arenas as mage is more or less easy, Item World and Grindfest is an entirely different world. If you don't play properly, you will be crushed, brutallized, defeated repeatedly and your expenses will be awful.

In this guide, you will learn how to actually play mage like the big shots of HentaiVerse. You will probably not reach the same level of performance than them, but at least you will have a rock solid base. In this guide, we will assume that you have already acquired all the bases to play mage decently: a decently forged mage set, the related hath perks, at least 2-3 levels of Daemon Duality as well as being familiar with blasting monsters in the arenas.


Prerequisites and general warnings before even the actual gameplay

Before even getting started with how to actually play, there are a few things that you need to be aware of, if you don't want to find yourself losing to your delusion or imagining things that are practically out of your reach. PFUDOR Item World and PFUDOR Grindfest are on an entirely other level of difficulty compared to arenas: you cannot afford considering them lightly. Here is a list of things you should keep in mind:

• You are playing with the big boys. That may sound stupid stated that way, but even then I still see way too many players who don't get something just that basic and think that they can try harder challenges with their "cute" setup. Forget about your beginner mage set, don't think that you can make do with a half assed setup, don't think that you can afford being a cheapskate. You have to be very serious about it and have the means to invest in serious monster blasting stuff, be it equipment, hath perks or consumables.
• Redwood and Katalox are shit. Sorry to break it to you and put it so bluntly, but this is the truth of harder content. Due to the absurd odds of monsters resisting your casts (be it Imperil or your magical blasts), they will cripple both your damage output and your efficiency at casting Imperil. It's either you play with a Legendary Hallowed Oak Staff of Heimdall, or a matching Willow staff of Destruction. At the very worst you may use a Peerless Willow of whatever for non-holy for the sake of Peerless counter-resist and proficiencies, but even then you'll still be subpar.
• Penetrator 5, Spellwaver 4 or bust. And Juggernaut 5 on all your armor gear. You really, really need the maximum amount of counter-resist, cast speed in order to survive.
• Cast time is your worst enemy. Every action you take is an opportunity for the monsters to unleash their insane amount of damage. You will have to do your absolute maximum to leave them the least opportunity to strike you.
• Holy is a money pit. Did you think that purchasing your holy gear was ultra expensive? How cute: this is only the beginning. Item World will remain half decently doable. PFUDOR Grindfest is an absolute mad expense in elixirs, bubbles gums and flower vases. And you will likely not even be able to go all the way until round 1000 anyway, thus you will cripple your stamina efficiency and worse: your crystal drops. Holy is not about efficiency, it's about comfort and lazy wiping. Maybe you will eventually drop a valuable Legendary/Peerless by bruteforcing and drinking energy drinks like mad, but it really requires a lot of farming.
• Elemental is the safest, Dark is the all-rounder Rolls Royce. Ideally, Imperil Wind/Elec is the best at clearing PFUDOR Grindfest, thanks to its faster cast, its lower spell costs and the lower required prof factor. Dark is a bit slower, a bit more mana consuming, will have a bit less Dark EDB, but it will also allow you to blast schoolgirl arenas the fastest. THe very strongest dark players will even be able to play with a 4 phase + 1 cotton robe setup.
• Not everyone can perform like the HV big shots. It's not because you see someone blasting stuff like mad with their holy set that everyone can do the same. It's not because you see someone who has a PDWD along with a Cotton robe and 4 phase, that everyone can afford doing that. Keep in mind that your average player will probably never be able to reach such levels, just because his credits and his EXP multiplier aren't big enough. There is a huge gap between a Catgirl with lots of awards and your average Gold Star member.
• Your Monsterbation setup can have a huge impact. If you want to improve, you will need to analyze how you play, what works well and what works less well. Sometimes a tiny change in how you play will have a huge impact in your experience.
• Don't give up. Learn and improve. Even if you follow this guide seriously, you may not perform all too well. Your first experience may be discouraging.
• If you have the time after arenas, but really don't have the means to play Grindfest, play Isekai instead. If what you're really after are credits, and maybe even Legendary drops, Isekai may be preferable for you. Keep in mind that Grindfest is mostly useful to obtain crystals and chaos tokens to upgrade your monsters.

In-battle gameplay advice
And now here are things of do and do not for battle:

• Two hours of Featherweight Shard on your staff. Let's go over the very basics first. You may or may not be used to do that for arenas, but it's really not an option here. You need every, single, bit, of cheap enchancement as possible.
• All draughts on at all times. Even if your spirit bar is full, you're not safe from being sparked. And when it happens, you'll be glad not to have to chug a spirit potion, or even worse: an expensive spirit elixir.
• Scrolls on at all times too. Seriously, use those like if they were toilet paper. The only exception: the Scroll of Life. You may not have it activated at all times, as they are more expensive less cheap than the others, but at the same time not using them may increase your consumption of spirit elixirs.
• And use Scrolls of Absorption too. No, they are not useless. They don't make any difference in arenas, sure but in late Grindfest, you'll know that you may have avoided to get sparked by an overpowered magical attack when they trigger. Scrolls don't have any cast time (reminder: your worst enemy) and this one can save your ass for a dirt cheap price, so why not using those?
• Health Potions and Health Gems are Godlike. Why? Zero cast time. Health Potions should be used first in your healing rotation. It should be Health Potion -> Cure -> Full Cure -> Health Elixir -> Last Elixir. healing with Cure will likely have monster attacking you (and probably curing for naught), Health Potion is instant and guaranteed to have you back on your feet.
• Don't waste your gems when things start to get hot. Every single gem is a Godsend when you're starting to have a bit of difficulty. Health Gem, Mana Gem, Spirit Gem, Channeling Gem. Every, single, of, them
• Prioritize Health Potions potions over Health Gems. Do you have both a health Potion and a Health Gem available at the same time, but you need to heal? Good, use the Health Potion first. That way, it will be on cooldown and available again faster, while you still have the Health Gem available.
• Prioritize Spirit Potions potions over Spirit Gems. You can even go as far as waiting for your Spirit Potion to have full effect before using it, instead of using the Spirit Gem. The correct use of Spirit Potions and Spirit Gems is critical in late Grindfest, as a bad use of those will likely increase your use of Spirit Elixirs, which are not exactly free (900C each) and also tend to be the one resource that may be blocking you from proceeding further if your spirit is empty and both Spirit Elixir and Last Elixir are on cooldown.
• Use Health Potions and Health Gems only when all monsters are still alive. If you've blasted away 5 monsters out of 9, just use Cure normally, as you clearly won't receive as much damage anyway.
• Channeling Gems are for Imperil, Regen and Arcane Focus. Therefore not for your T3 spells, unless you're playing Holy. After being imperiled, most (if not all) of the monsters will be one-shot anyway even without powering your T3 with a Channeling, and they wo'nt be a threat anymore.
• Try to renew Regen and Arcane Focus when nearly all monsters are currently dead. Those two spells have a huge cast time (your worst enemy) and you really don't want to have a full round of monsters punching your face while renewing those two buffs. Arcane Focus in particular, is nearly guaranteeing you to get sparked if you make the mistake of renewing it against a full around in late Grindfest. And you really hate being sparked in late Grindfest.
• Setting keybinds for Imperil 2, Imperil 5, Imperil 8 is faster, but more dangerous. There are often players who recommend to hover the monsters that you want to imperil before activating the spell rotation. The problem is: when you play that way, you're ruining the very goal of playing as mage, which is playing fast. So this is a matter of taste: you can either keep doing it, or you can use keybinds to go faster, but at the expense of training yourself at some "discipline" to avoid imperiling to death.
• Imperil "bottom to top". Why? You may trigger a Channeling while casting Imperil (or healing between Imperils). As a result, you really, really want to optimise your Channeling so that it always lands on 3 monsters at once. So always starting to cast Imperil on Monster 8 (or 7 in a round of 7), then Monster 5, then Monster 2.
• If you go for "all monsters imperiled before the blast", always recast those who resist first before casting on new targets. It is again a matter of optimizing the Channeling effect that you may trigger while casting Imperil and healing. If you recast Imperil on the targets that have resisted first, you will be able to use Channeling on a full group of 3. Whereas if you do your bottom to top mindlessly, you may end up using a Channeling to imperil only one monster.
• But blasting anyway is also fine. You may also choose to deliberately leave alone the monsters that resisted Imperil and cast your T3 spell once you have finished your Imperil casts. With a bit of luck (and a lot of firepower), those that aren't imperiled mpay still die within 1-2 blasts. The problem: sometimes it may take up to 4-5 spells to kill those monsters.
• Hover the top monsters first. Even if some have Coalesced Mana in the bottom. You don't care the mana expense: that's not your problem here. Why hovering those first? To make sure that every single of your blasts hits as many monsters as possible. You don't want a T2 spell to hit only 2 monsters in the bottom while it could have hit 4 at once if you targetted the top.
• If your T3 is still on 1 turn of cooldown after 3 successful Imperil, use Cure and then blast your T3. When playing Imperil mage, make sure to always do your first blast with your T3 spell, else your T2 will cost a lot of cast time while leaving a lot of alive monsters, potentially leaving you in a very tedious time to clear the round.
• It's not a shame to flee Grindfest before the end. First, not everyone is even able to make it to the end. Second, perhaps it is preferable for you to play Grindfest at IWBTH difficulty instead of PFUDOR. Third, because you are technically able to finish it, doesn't mean it's always worth the effort. In particular, if you're spending dozens of thousands of credits in consumables to go until the end (in which case I'd say that you're amazingly tenacious), you're starting to spend more than the value of what you drop. Keep in mind that the 5000 Credits final reward for clearing round 1000 is barely enough to make up for the use of 5 Spirit Elixirs.
• Flower Vase and Bubble Gum are mostly for Holy mages. You don't need those as elemental or Dark mage. Sell those items if you're not a holy mage. If you're starting to use them as elemental/dark because "it's getting too difficult", well it's up to you, but keep in mind that those items are ludicrously expensive and they won't enhance your experience that much. Sell them to buy forge upgrades or levels of Daemon Duality, really. or to buy Spirit Elixir and Last Elixir.

Those are only general guidelines based on personal experience
Frankly, I have never played Holy myself, nor elemental mage past my beginner build. But I do have read a lot about the experience of players who have, so I have a rough idea of how it goes for them. I am but a mere "humble" Dark mage who has a mighty PDWD and a 3+1+1 setup (3 Phase, cotton robe of the demon-fiend, cotton shoes of the curse-weaver) who is quite used at throwing nuclear boogers at monsters, so take my advice for what it's worth. I do welcome criticism and various experience that you can post in this thread, to adjust those pieces of advice.

Have fun, and become masters of playing mage!

This post has been edited by KitsuneAbby: Feb 13 2024, 05:58