ArcheAge Begins: Assassin and Mage Heroes Guide

At the time of this writing, there are 32 heroes for players to choose from in ArcheAge Begins. Among those 32 heroes are five classes, giving players a great amount of freedom in teambuilding for both PvE and PvP situations.

This guide aims to inform you of each hero’s skills, strengths, and weaknesses without having to consult the (slow-loading) Guide section of the game. Each hero within a class is different, and knowing what each of them does will help you know what you want before popping open one of those hero scrolls.

Here we’re going to be going over the two spotlight classes: Assassin and Mage — or primarily physical and magical damage dealers, respectively. Every team needs at least one, but which one fits your needs? We’re going to find out here soon enough!

One note here, though, is that the number of times a hero attacks using a skill is not listed. How skills change with levels (marked with “with talents”) is mentioned, just not the number of attacks. This was to keep the guide easier to use for new players.

This information is best paired with the Knight, Warrior, and Musician hero guide I’ve also worked up if you want to try to match up synergizing heroes. Its layout is identical, and it packs the same type of informational punch as this side of things.

Assassins

This is the bread and butter physical damage class of ArcheAge Begins, but don’t take that to mean all these heroes do is deal damage.

Most Assassins pack in some sort of utility, whether it be crowd control (CC), debuffs, or buffs. These factors are what you have to take into consideration more than their direct attacks.

Tahyang

Tahyang specializes in AoE physical damage. Three of his five abilities hit multiple enemies when talented, with Rain of Arrows having a very large range at max level.

All of his skills culminate to make Tahyang a ranged AoE Assassin with one form of CC.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage; deals harsh physical damage and deals damage to two enemies with talents
• Serial Shot — Deals physical damage; deals harsh physical damage to up to 3 enemies with talents
• Shock Arrow — Deals physical damage and stuns enemies for 5~7 seconds with talents
• Rain of Arrows — Deals AoE physical damage; range gets wider with talents
• Aim for the Wrist — Reduces enemy accuracy by 15%~25% for 8~16 seconds with talents

Melisara

Melisara deals a fair amount of AoE damage, has two skills that inflict bleeding, and can restore her own HP. That all sounds pretty good, right? Heck yeah, it does.

The unique part of her kit is her self-heal in Healing Kiss, but she squarely fits the role of melee self-sustain AoE physical + DoT Assassin.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage with a guaranteed crit on the fourth hit; each attack will be a critical and deal harsh damage with talents
• Shadow Strike — Deals physical damage; becomes AoE and causes bleeding with talents
• Strike Down — Deals AoE physical damage and inflicts bleeding for 9~17 seconds
• Swiftness — Grants 15%~33% movement speed to allies in an area for 20~30 seconds
• Healing Kiss — Gradually recovers her own HP over 6~18 seconds

Ixion

Another AoE-focused ranged Assassin? Yep, that’s exactly what Ixion is — and he’s got some utility to boot.

Ixion is a ranged AoE utility Assassin with an enemy defense debuff, a movement speed debuff, and a self-buff that increases the damage on his two non-Normal Attack primary damage skills.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage; the last hit becomes AoE with talents
• Dead Shot — Deals physical damage to enemies in an area; reduces hit enemy defense by -15% for 6 seconds with talents
• Rampage — Deals AoE physical damage
• Focused Fire — Buffs himself to increase the damage of Dead Shot and Rampage for 20~40 seconds
• Set Trap — Reduces the movement speed of enemies in an area by 25%~30% for 20~33 seconds

Catherine

Catherine is one of the most popular Assassins in ArcheAge Begins, in part due to her kit but also because she is very clearly a succubus. Her portable stripper pole is a powerful tool.

With her charm and stun, Catherine is a melee self-sustain AoE Assassin with two forms of CC. Be aware she will charge the backline in a fight and make herself vulnerable.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage; becomes harsh physical damage and AoE with talents
• Onslaught — Deals physical damage; stuns the target enemy for 6 seconds and deals damage to enemies in an area with talents
• Spirit Drain — Deals continuous damage for 3 seconds and restores 75%~125% of the damage as HP; with talents, this attack hits 2 targets and also reduces movement speed by 35%
• Adept Shadows — Grants herself 10% critical damage for 9~21 seconds
• Song of Enchantment — Charms enemies for 10~15 seconds

Kaelyn

The quintessential elven ranger, Kaelyn is yet another Assassin that packs a heavy AoE punch — but her skills are not purely offensive.

Kaelyn is a ranged AoE Assassin-support, able to put out damage while cleansing her allies of damage over time effects and reducing incoming physical damage. This makes her great against DoT teams or heavy physical attack teams, but means she’s not so useful against other compositions.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage; deals harsh physical damage to 2 enemies with talents
• Storm of Arrows — Deals physical damage to enemies in an area; with talents deals additional physical damage to enemies over 3~6 seconds in a smaller area
• Survival Instinct — Makes allies immune to bleed, poison, burn, and disease for 6~10 seconds
• Explosive Arrow — Deals AoE damage
• Evade Lethal Strike — Reduces incoming physical damage by 5%~10% for 12 seconds

Jergant

This big guy is one of the strangest Assassins in ArcheAge. His direct damage in itself isn’t all that fantastic, but he does pack a bunch of damage over time skills along with two defensive skills.

Jergant is one of the tankier Assassins thanks to his Spectral Revenge skill, which makes him a prime frontline fighter. He’s a ranged AoE DoT Assassin with a defensive streak. That’s a mouthful.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage; deals harsh physical damage and becomes AoE with talents
• Bleeding Arrow — Deals physical damage and applies bleeding for 6~12 seconds; becomes a harsh physical AoE with talents and deals poison damage instead with talents
• Cannon Blast — Deals AoE and poisons enemies for 6~15 seconds
• Focus — Makes allies immune to immobility, slow, sleep, blind, fear, hit list, launch, physical skill bind, stun, fall, charm, and silence for 6~10 seconds
• Spectral Revenge — Deflects 25%~75% of incoming physical damage from himself for 9 seconds and restores as much HP as damage deflected

Lupinlulu

The closest to a traditional rogue you’re going to get in ArcheAge Begins, Lupinlulu is one of the few single target Assassins and he’s worth it with the right team composition.

Lupinlulu boosts his own critical rate and critical damage while also being able to penetrate enemy defense and spawn a clone to take the heat off. He is a melee single-target burst damage (crit) Assassin with one stun, and all his damage skills deal damage multiple times for more chances to crit.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage; deals harsh physical damage, and increases his critical strike chance by 5%~10% and critical damage by 20%~50% with talents
• Shadow Step — Teleports behind enemies to deal physical damage; stuns for 3~6 seconds with talents
• Thrash — Deals physical damage; causes bleeding with talents
• Daru Double — Resets his threat value and summons a taunting Daru Double for 5~10 seconds
• Detect Weakness — Buffs himself to ignore 5%~10% of enemy defense and attacks for 9 seconds

Aello

The only rare Assassin at the time of this writing, Aello is unique among her peers due to her heavy emphasis on applying and maintaining poison on any and all enemies she can reach.

Three of Aello’s abilities are AoE and three apply poison, making her purely a melee AoE poison Assassin.

• Normal Attack — Deals physical damage; deals AoE damage with talents
• Poison Spray — Deals AoE physical damage
• Deadly Poison — Inflicts poison on an enemy; inflicts poison on one enemy and deals physical damage to surrounding enemies with talents
• Apply Poison — Applies poison to her normal attacks for 20~30 seconds which has a 20%~33% chance to poison targets
• Weaken Poison Resist — Poisons an enemy for 6~10 seconds

Mages

While many Assassins have a fair amount of utility under their belts, there are a few Mages that are almost entirely suited to supporting instead of damage dealing. They are, after all, magic users.

Unless you’re going for an almost solely magic damage team, you’ll want to pay attention to each Mage’s utility skills to see whether they fit on your ideal team.

Aranzeb

This guy is definitely not the most impressive-looking Mage and he is the first one you get, but Aranzeb is no slouch with his signature Rain of Fire, sleep, and ally buffs.

Aranzeb is a ranged AoE utility Mage with a sleep that’s appropriate for both physical and magical teams but fits best on magic damage-heavy teams.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; deals harsh magical damage and becomes AoE with talents
• Rain of Fire — Deals AoE magic damage; the radius becomes one of the longest in the game with talents
• Disorient — Puts enemies to sleep for 8~16 seconds
• Aranzeb’s Lineage — Increases ally magic power by 15%~25~ for 12 seconds
• Improved Cohesion — Increases ally accuracy by 15%~25%

Eanna

She may be a Mage, but Eanna is anything but purely offensive.

Eanna has two offensive skills and three support skills, and while her standard attacks do automatically critically hit, she is not fated to do tons of magic damage. She is a ranged support Mage through and through.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; deals harsh damage and automatically crits with talents
• Hell Spear — Deals AoE damage; deals harsh magic damage and reduces enemies’ magic resist for 9 seconds with talents
• Order of the Dead — Decreases damage taken by allies by 5%~10% for 12 seconds
• Depths of Death — Increases damage taken by enemies by 5%~10% for 12 seconds
• Barrier — Shields an ally for 20%~30% of their HP for 24 seconds

Aranzebia

Aranzeb’s damage may almost all be piled onto one skill, but Aranzebia is a little different. She has the typical Mage utility but can put out more damage than her male counterpart.

Aranzebia is a ranged AoE Mage with heavy movement-impairing effects. If you’re about to go against teams that are mostly melee, she’s almost a shoe-in.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; deals harsh magic damage and one hit will automatically crit with talents
• Dahuta’s Breath — Deals AoE magic damage
• Earth’s Grasp — Reduces enemy movement speed by 50%~75%
• Icebound Earth — Deals AoE magic damage and makes them immobile for 3~7 seconds
• Blessing of Illusions — Increases her defense by 15%~25% for 12 seconds

Orchidna

Orchidna is a unique case among the other Mages in that she is the one and only summoner.

While she herself does deal AoE damage, her real draw lies in the Summon Monster skill, which in effect adds an extra member to your team until it dies or another is summoned. The catch? The summon doesn’t have any skills until it hits level 3.

Orchidna is a summoner with ranged AoE magical damage.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; deals harsh AoE magic damage with talents
• Summon Monster — Summons a Monster Warrior, Mage, or Musician to attack enemies for 10~20 seconds; summons get up to 2 skills with talents
• Summon Crow — Summons a crow to deal AoE magic damage
• Queen’s Wrath — Reduces enemy attack by 15%~25% for 9 seconds
• Armor of Vengeance — Deflects 50%~90% of damage incoming to her back to attacking enemies for 9 seconds

Raven

This guy’s damage is almost entirely focused around his poison effects, but Raven has a trick up his sleeve that makes him pretty worth it: his cooldown reduction skill.

Raven’s damage is nice but the fact he can eventually reduce ally cooldowns by 50% is more than nice — it’s great. Paired with the enemy ranged accuracy reduction, he can be a real pain for the enemy in a lot of matchups. He’s a DoT-focused Mage, but his real value lies in the ally cooldown and enemy accuracy reductions.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; deals harsh magic damage and one attach will be an automatic critical with talents
• Contagion — Deals magic damage and inflicts poison for 6 seconds; deals harsh magic damage and the poison spreads to other enemies with talents
• Disease — Poisons an enemy for 6~10 seconds
• Blinding Flash — Reduces enemy ranged hit accuracy by 90% for 6~10 seconds
• Time Warp — Reduces the cooldown of all skills by 15%~50%

Darcell

Darcell is one mean lamia. With two very potent crowd control skills and some potent single-target magic damage, she is an easy addition for a number of teams. Though she is most useful versus enemies specializing in physical damage.

Darcell’s two damage skills both eventually splash to other targets, albeit no more than 2 additional targets. This doesn’t sound great until you factor in the “harsh” and “very harsh” magical damage these skills present, Deadly Melody’s innate crit, and Chilling Tune’s crit damage buff.

That all said, Darcell is a ranged single-target burst Mage with two forms of heavy CC.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; deals harsh magic damage and each of its 4 hits deal damage to 1 extra enemy with talents
• Deadly Melody — Deals critical magic damage; deals very harsh magic damage to the target and up to 2 nearby enemies with talents
• Drip Drop — Launches an enemy into the air for 6~14 seconds
• Bind Wrists — Binds enemy physical skills (excluding normal attacks) for 8~16 seconds
• Chilling Tune — Increases her critical damage by 50%~100%

Ahimoth

Ahimoth is a strange case. He’s got a fair amount of damage and utility, but his biggest damage source is Hit List, which takes a few seconds to trigger and can be dispelled in the meantime.

Despite the above issue with Hit List, Ahimoth is still a potent utility CC Mage. He boosts his own critical hit and puts out harsh damage, but his real draws lie in his immobilize, fear, and enemy magic resist reduction.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; increases his own critical hit chance by 5%~10% and his critical damage by 20%~50% for 3.4 seconds with talents
• Bonds of Death — Deals damage to an enemy and reduces its movement speed; deals harsh damage to up to 4 enemies and immobilizes them with talents
• Whisperers of Terror — Fears an enemy for 8~16 seconds and reduces their magic power by 15%~25%
• Hit List — Deals harsh damage to an enemy after a 10~6 second delay
• Grim Reaper’s Touch — Reduces enemy magic resist by 15%~25% for 9 seconds

Anthalon

I’m not going to pretend I know what Anthalon’s Curse actually does because I don’t have him and any information I’m finding on this skill is conflicting.

• Normal Attack — Deals magic damage; Deals harsh AoE magic damage with talents
• Mind Drain — Stuns an enemy and deals continuous magic damage to them, recovering 50%~75% of the damage as HP
• Flames of Command — Deals continuous AoE damage
• Vitality Blade — Deals magic damage; deals harsh magic damage and bleeds to up to 3 enemies for 9 seconds with talents
• Bone Armor – Deflects 25%~75% of incoming magic damage for 9 seconds
• Anthalon’s Curse — Applies Anthalon’s Curse (random debuff) on 25%~50% of enemies within 20 meters of the target

That’s all there is to Mages and Assassins in ArchAge Begins as it stands, but that’s still a great deal of variety to pick and choose from when paired with the Warrior, Knight, and Musician classes.