Hi, I just came back to ladder slasher after about a year and a half. Lots of new content added since I left. The new version of slasher was just a month in when I left. I have tried the catacombs a few times the past week, but had a few questions that still confuse me about it. I typically play just a caster magician. The few times that I tried, I got frustrated and quit early because I ran out of mana so quickly casting my fire spells. Staying in games and swinging for zeros with my staff after my mana ran out just felt like leaching. After about a week, from my experiences, it seems like casters have mostly been relagated to being a healing class in the catacombs. I have been working on my fire proficiency and would like to continue, but feel like I can only do that solo in the arena. I would rather be playing multi, but don't really want to be relagated to a healer. Any suggestions, or are my perceptions wrong? Looking for enlightenment.

Is there any way to regain mana in the catacombs, besides the random healing rooms, or spending a long time raising my fishing/cooking skills?

You can buy stuff that will give you mana; e.g Fishes

get some heal charms. you will always run out of mana when you use charms for damage. unless you plan on stocking up on comfreys and fish (can be costly), stick with healing. no one wants a damage mage in catas I'm pretty sure. there's just no real way to maintain damage beyond a few waves, so you'd have to leave the game to regen your mana. get yourself some heal charms and equip them in main slot (acc slot only gives 75% effectiveness). when you're not busy healing yourself or others, hotkey to weapon (even if it only has intelligence on it) and deal damage with that, because if you're not hitting or healing, you're not gaining exp.

What you said is true - in catacombs healers are only truely usefull for healing (unless you have alot of mana spare and you're about to level maybe).

What most players do in catacombs is have heal mastery on the weapon/armour/main charm, and thne use an ee heal in the acc slot. The acc charm works at 75%, but also only costs 75% mana. this is the most effective way of healing. A healers job is simply to keep the group at around 75% health, but make sure you attack with your weapon while not healing else you won't get exp.

Proficencys don't level up very fast in catacombs either - two climbs of level 50-71 in catacombs only got me 17% of the way to level 2.

If you want to work with a group, try to kit yourself out with as much hm as you can.

If you want to have all the drops and work on your profiecencys, arena is the way to go.

Thanks guys. This is as I thought then. I think i'll stick to the arena for now.

Cloudfire, you said get all heal mastery gear. This adds more effectiveness to healing than a high int setup? I remember that points to int adds to charm effectiveness, but I don't remember the rate. I thought it was 1 to 1. But then again, I don't know the cap on +% to heal mastery.

Also a question on proficiencies, if anyone knows. When does it add the effect? Does it add a hidden amount to the ee on your charm damage, or does it add into effect on top of ee on a charm.

It's kind of too bad that casters are this way, but I suppose it is meant that way to make the catacombs harder and more of a team effort. I am not currently in a guild, but I could see where it would promote more teamwork within guilds and groups. Just seems weird that melee classes can work on their killing skills at all times, both in the arena and the catacombs, but mages are left to make a decision. Healing or damage, and if you want to go damage, you're stuck alone.

There isn't any cap on heal mastery, but for best results hm should equal int. On a mage this will pretty much always mean stacking up on HM, since they have such large base int.

for pure healing, +HM is generally much more effecient than +int

Njaguar has said he has plans for making offensive mages more viable in catacombs but i suspect that update is a while off.

Proficienceys add a passive x% enhanced effect to that item type (1% per prof level). IIRC it doesn't show up on your character screen but is always there.