Aisha - High Mage - Elemental Master Skill Guide [Updated 2/13]

A detailed guide to Aisha, High Mage, andElemental Master's skill set and abilities. This guide will give you a run down on her abilties, what they each do, and my personal opinion on each of them. This is to be read to supplement your personal playstyle, not determine it.

Introduction/Terminology

Updated for 2/12 balance changes. New additions are in bold


This is a guide to detail the skillset for Aisha and her Pyro Elemental Master Path. This should only serve as a basis to help you pay the way to leveling your own playstyle, not determine how you should play. Due to the current design of the game, there's really no "PvP/PvE/hybrid" build due to the amount of SP available for skills/passives, so you can be pretty flexible in what skills to take and still function well.

Keep in mind that this guide is a bit self opinionated, especially when it comes to my personal notes on some skills. Take everything you read with a grain of salt when you make your skill choices if you think that is a turn off.

To start off, I'll go over a few terms I'll reference in the guide for better understanding.

Mana Return How much mana you gain from an attack. Skills have differing mana return depending on what they are, some more than others. This isn't too applicable in Aisha in general because she has little to none, but this is present in other characters if their guide references it.

Mana Break: Spending a minimum of 100 mp to force KD upon yourself. Players do this to interrupt a combo or even skill that's being done on them, avoiding damage they would've taken otherwise. It is done by holding down an attack button (and your mana bar would turn green), and any attack you take while the bar is above 100 mana will result in a mana break.

KD/Knock Down: Refers to an enemy being in a state of knocked down onto the floor (or floor'd, KD') As you progress into dungeon regions, enemies will gain damage reduction when they are knocked down. This discourages blindly attacking and spamming attacks which lead to KD. Players have complete invincibility frames when knocked down (making it very undesirable in PvP) As a general rule of thumb, these are the damage reduction in each region (with some exceptions based on the enemy).

Ruben: 0%
Elder: 10%
Bethma : 20%
Altera : 40%
Feita : 50%
Velder: 60%
Hamel: 70+%
The numbers are not exact, but you can see that the damage reduction will scale up incredibly high, especially in Altera and it becomes incredibly important in to not knock down (especially on bosses) to maximize damage output and to not tick off your party. Some enemies also have attacks that are exclusive to waking up from a KD.

Damage Reduction: A flat reduction to damage which is applied after all damage calculations are made (armor, modifiers, and crit), but can be bypassed through attacks which ignore defense (such as wind element, Raven's Core, and Battle Mage's energy spurt).

Launch/Launching: Refers to the enemy being tossed into the air as a result of an attack. Unlike KD, this does not results in a damage reduction until they hit the floor (where then they would be in a KD state.) It's possible to catch after a launch to prevent a KD. As a general rule of thumb, randomly launching targets can disrupt your party's combos, or even make certain skills miss entirely.

Super Armor: A state where someone is immune to hitstun, launching, and KD. This can cause some skills to work better, or perform worse depending on what it is. While under super armor, an enemy cannot be pushed or dragged by skills or attacks (with some exceptions) or launched, making it ideal for some skills to get max hits. Subcategories are Freeze and Petrify.

SA (Super armor) proc: Exclusive to bosses and mini bosses. Some bosses will force a super armor state after a certain amount of hits, while others will do so at a HP-threshold. This leads to them unleashing a small aura which launches nearby players (and dealing 0 damage). Afterwards, they will gain super armor for a couple of seconds. Some parties plan their skilling accordingly to minimize disruption and maximize damage/hits.

Freeze Enemies are frozen in place, where they gain super armor but are unable to act for the duration. The duration is affected by water resistance (some bosses will have max resistance and will be immune to freezing). Players affected by this are KD afterwards.

Petrify Enemies are turned to stone, where they gain super armor, a 10% damage reduction but are unable to act for the duration. This is essentially the same as freeze, except it's adding on a 10% damage reduction on the enemy. The duration is affected by light resistance (to date, no bosses have absolute resistance to light, but duration will still be shorter as listed). Players affected by this are KD afterwards.

Aisha Skills

Since the skill tree revamp, keep in mind on how skill selections work. Each section will have a chart showing her skill tree. If it's in the pink column, you can get the skill as long as you invest SP into it. If it's the two on the left side, you can only choose one or the other. You are free to choose any coulmn at any time; you are not committed to one side. For the sake of simplicity, some of Aisha's skills work exactly the same so they're consolidated into one section. I will list the differences.



Lightning Bolt
MP: 200
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Unleashes a short bolt of lightning in front of you, dealing continuous magic damage and knocking down enemies at the end of the skill.
Yrs' Note: This is now a starting special active for Aisha. It deals respectable damage for it's mana cost and its ease of use, but for EM there are probably better choices. This is ok for leveling since you get SP resets after each job advancement.

Chain Fireball
MP: 80
Cooldown: 7 seconds
Shoots three fireballs in front of you dealing magic damage, with the last one being the strongest and knocking down enemies. The fireballs can pierce
Yrs' Notes: The damage is relatively ok for its execution and mana cost. It is considered a normal active now and you will not have invincibility frames throughout. After the 2/12 update, the skill benefits from both freezing point study (increasing it's damage and inflicting frostbite) or fireball study (increases range and reduces mana cost) With freezing point study, the damage is fairly comparable to Chain Burst (unnoted) and it's dealt in less hits. .

Flame/Ice Wave
MP: 30
Cooldown: 4 seconds
Swiftly swings your staff to summon a trail of fire/ice which travel forward. The attack is seperated into two hits, physical from the staff hit and magic from the trail. Will inflict burn and frostbite respectively.
Yrs' Notes: This active is relatively weak when compared to other actives out there. The burn and frostbite are negligible because both durations are affected by their respective resistances. As of right now, Ice Wave isn't working properly that you can't cancel it's animation early.

Strength/Wisdom Aura
MP: 24~65
Buffs you and nearby allies, increasing their Physical Attack or Magic Attack by a percent amount.
Yrs' Notes: Since Aisha is the only class with access to these buffs, it makes her much more valuable from a support standpoint. For EM though, there's absolutely no reason to take the strength aura. Because of how exclusive these buffs are, the damage increase is really significant and you can't really afford to skip out on buffing yourself just to accommodate physical classes.



Gust Screw
MP: 200
Cooldown: 9 seconds
Summons a Pillar of Flame where you stand, dealing moderate magical damage and launching enemies into the air.
Yrs' Notes: After 2/12, the skill's damage is bumped up and is one of Aisha's strongest skills throughout her entire skillset. It is still offset by the launching mechanic and would require a larger target or super armor to ensure max hits. The range also leaves much to be desired for field clearing, but it's still a steady bossing skill.

Binding Circle
MP: 100
Cooldown: 17 seconds
Pauses everything in an area around you for one second (2 in awakening).
Yrs' Notes: Leveling this skill up only increases it's effective range, and using it while in awakening will give you max range regardless of it's current level. This pause is different from super armor; they will unfreeze immediately after a hitstun so it's only really good for catching. Using it while they are in super armor will prevent them from breaking free from hitstun, and can essentially work as a pseudo freeze/petrify. After the 2/13 update, it's radius at level 1 is signifcantly smaller, but max level radius is the same as before the update. It no longer gets an increased range in awakening.

Teleport
MP: 20~6.6
Teleports a fixed distance forward. You are invincible for a brief moment in your landing location. Can be used in the air.
Yrs' Notes: Aisha is inherently the slowest character in the game, and this skill is her means of mobility and avoiding damage. As you level this skill, you will gradually reduce its cost from 20 to 6.6 mp (before skill rings). This ability has a overheat duration of 2 seconds where each consecutive use will increase it's cost by 50%...why they have this for PvE I'll never understand but at least you can troll your party by nonchalantly walking to check points.


Gust/Ice Storm
MP: 300
Cooldown: 18 seconds
Summons a massive pillar of flame/ice where you stand, dealing magical damage based on how close they are to the center, and launching them into the air.
Yrs' Notes: This...sucks in damage. It's damage potential is actually lower compared to Gust Screw (even in awakening!) if you consider the fact that this costs 300 mp. Other than that, it works exactly like Gust Screw; It requires a super armor target to get max hits or else they'd get launched too high, and you have to be close to them to get the inner damage potential. You could get more hits on a much larger boss by having the inner/outer hitbox overlap, but then we're looking at a situational skill. Will inflict Burn or Frostbite respectively, but these effects are negligible since they are affected by resistance.

Mana Shield
MP: 30
Cooldown: 8 seconds
Summons a shield of mana to partially absorb incoming damage based on your max hp.
Yrs' Notes: Aisha has one of the lowest hp pool (and if you consider her overall movement, avoidance) in the entire game. This shield to an extent helps reduce some of the incoming damage, but depending on the circumstance it might be more of a burden than help. I don't see a point in taking this in PvE since everything is pretty much telegraphed and you have teleport (on top of this using up a skill slot). In PvP, this can be activated while you're in hitstun to redirect some damage, but in some cases you might be better off saving that mana for breaking instead. The shield's hp is based off of your max hp, and the damage that it absorbs will be dealt to the shield instead. After the 2/12 update, the shield reduces less incoming damage while retaining it's original durability value throughout the level, essentially making it "last longer" through combos.

High Mage Skills

Meditation
Cooldown: 65 seconds
Enter a meditative state to increase mana regeneration for 5 seconds. Canceled when attacked.[/u]
Yrs' Notes: You have a good source of mana from this skill, mostly used for skill chaining or to get mana in PvP. The huge cooldown will make it be preferable for crutch moments in PvE. This gives 1/3rd of the listed value in PvP.


Cyclone
MP: 80
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Performs a physical staff hit to summon a small cyclone which travels forward slowly, dealing multiple magical hits. Targets are pushed accordingly to by the cyclone.
Yrs' Notes: The amount of hits it deals is far too much for it to be usable in PvP , and the damage it too low and too slow for it to be good in party play because your party would typically knock them out of the cyclone anyway. It also has a habit of not working properly if you use it pointblank; I mentioned that they get pushed by the cyclone accordingly...where they hit in accordance to the position of the cyclone is where they'd get pushed (if they get hit by the left side, they get pushed toward the left, and vice versa). Combine that with the cyclone being summoned a little bit ahead of you, and using it point blank results in them immediately being shoved back into your face and not getting dragged.

Infinite Energy
Increases your maximum mana.
Yrs' Notes: It's up to you how much mana you feel that you need due to SP allocation.. Because of the new meditation, you have another source of mana aside from storing up, but the usefulness of having a higher map cap is debatable in the PvP aspect of it as well as PvE (considering how much SP you need to spend per level). This sort of thing can also work against you in PvP since some skills burn off mana based on your max.

Magic Missile
MP: 200
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Hurls an orb of magic which tracks down the closest target and then homes in, dealing magic damage on every passerby. Will dissipate after 6 hits. Hit count is increased by 2 during awakening.
Yrs' Notes: The missile will always focus on one target first and circle around it with a fairly high inertia. Because of that, the initial lack of hitstun makes it unsafe to use in a 1v1, and fairly hard to follow up because of the inertia turn. In PvE this would be acceptable to use given you have enough damage to kill enemies in one hit.

Chain Lightning
MP: 200
Cooldown : 13 Seconds
Hurls an orb of lightning which tracks down a target within range, ricocheting between it or toward another enemy up to 3 times, dealing damage on every pass.
Yrs' Notes: One of EM's better skills for clearing spread out enemies or buffed enemies, and decent for 1v1. The damage is fairly high on a single target, but you'll see it increase significantly when you get more bounces. The initial tracking is extremely fidgety; they have to be directly in front of you for it to home onto anything. 2/12 changes up its tracking slightly so it can pick up new targets if they walk within range, but also reduces it's "extending" range if it kills a target.


Fireball Study
Reduces the mana cost of fireballs, while increasing its range.
Yrs' Notes: Aisha's fireballs cost more mana than it returns, and leveling this passive will allow her to break even on the cost. The range increase will also become apparent when maxed, especially on KD fireballs. Compared to iceballs, this is the preferable passive if you want to keep pressure and have superior spacing.

Freezing Point Study
Changes all combo fireballs into iceballs, increasing it's overall range and allowing it to inflict frostbite. Damage increases as you invest SP into it.
Yrs' Notes: Leveling this passive allows you to deal a massive amount of damage from iceballs. However, the the cost of 4 mp per iceball is a deterrent from mindlessly spamming this. After the 2/12 balance, iceballs have comparable range so it's more usable like fireball study, except the mana return is lowered so you'd end up losing mana on hit even with a necklace. The damage on ^X and >>^X is also readjusted so it has the same original multipliers. This passive also changes circle fire to iceballs, but this is purely cosmetic.


Circle Fire
MP: 40
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Summons three rotating fireballs around you, dealing multiple magic hits. The fireballs start off dealing 50% of it's listed damage, and then deals 100% of it's listed damage in the outermost rotation.
Yrs' Notes: The max hits you can get with the outermost fireballs are one each (3 max since there are 3 fireballs). Every other hit beforehand would be 50% of what the skill actually states. The damage is average and ends up being monsterous on large bosses, and it can function as a launch reset (the limit is 3) in PvP. Getting the outermost hits in PvP/small target is tricky since it requires a corner and positioning (or super armor).


Blizzard Shower
MP: 250
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Summons a blizzard shower, creating an initial field which freeze enemies and randomly dropping ice shards into the area to deal magic damage. The shards will freeze enemies for up to 3 seconds upon contact.
Yrs' Notes: With the intial freeze aura being present, the skill has a reliable way of freezing enemies now. The shards are an addition to that for damage. Not much else to say except it does its job for freezing enemies for your party, and still RNG dependent if you want it to deal damage.

Blaze Step
MP: 300 mp
Cooldown: 32 seconds
Ignites your feet for 5.5 seconds, dealing a strong initial hit for targets who first come into contact into you and rapid continuous hits after. Your movement speed is significantly boosted and you have super armor and 100% damage reduction while this is active.
Yrs' Notes: The initial damage alone is strong enough to make mince meat of anything that even touches you in PvE, you'd literally run over them. Getting max hits from this skill isn't an issue on bosses either since you don't get knocked back by super armor procs. Damage potential it's one of EM's strongest skills assuming you're hugging the boss the entire time, second only to blizzard shower

Elemental Master Skills

Shining Body
MP: 20
Cooldown: 13 seconds
Covers yourself in a field of magic, increasing magic defense and absorbing magical projectiles for a few seconds.
Yrs' Notes: Specifically meant for PvP. There's little to no use in PvE, and the few times it does doesn't justify using up a skill slot for it. The absorption makes for a crutch against some classes like Rena or DC, and the magic defense can be used to mitigate some damage from some abilties. 2/12 balance lowers the SP cost on it, making it much easier and definitely worthwhile to invest if PvP is something you're looking for.


Chain Burst
MP: 100
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Fires 10 fireballs in front of you in multiple directions to deal magic damage. The last fireball will be larger KD.
Yrs' Notes: The damage is there and is comparable to other skills out there, but the cooldown kind of puts a damper on it. For the most part, you need either for the enemy to be super armor, or pressed against a corner to get max hits.

Water Cannon
MP: 100
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Unleashes a jet stream of 10 bubbles in a straight line in front of you, dealing damage with light hitstun.
Yrs' Notes : Compared to Chain burst, this is more spammable with the lower cooldown. It also has a tendency to return more mana than chain burst, and is less situational since everything is linear. To offset this, the overall damage is also lower.

Encouraging Aura
Increases the duration of your accelerator skills, as well as reducing the mana cost for accelerators.
Yrs' Notes: Because of how incredibly powerful the accelerators are now, this is a great boon to increasing it's duration and making it more mana efficient.

Abundence of Energy
Your accelerators now inflict a debuff to enemies. Magic accelerator will lower their magic defense, Physical accelerator will lower their physical defense. Lasts for 1/3rd of the buff's duration
Yrs' Notes: Lasts longer now and a bit more feasible as it levels up. It still has the same problem as before where it doesn't stack with Runeslayer's magic chain and ends up overwriting it for a weaker effect. Aura accelerators no longer have delay or invincibility frames, so it may be hard at times to apply this debuff.

Statue of Glory
MP: 40
Cooldown: 9 seconds
Summons a statue in front of you, obstructing targets and is capable of reflecting some projectiles.
Yrs' Notes: On paper, this would be a decent skill, if it weren't for the fact that it serves as an attack able target (and thus the other person can gain mana off of it). You and your allies are capable of walking through it, but the size of it is so small that it doesn't really do much in obstructing combos (assuming it doesn't die in a few hits). The reflect is nice, but it doesn't work on reflecting some projectiles like Runes, Stigma Shot, and reflected projectiles. There's very little applicable use in PvE outside of tanking hits (it's treated as a target for the AI).

Meteor Shower
MP: 150~250
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Summons a meteor shower near you, causing meteors to randomly fall from the sky dealing magic damage on both the pass and impact. Can be held down to increase its duration.
Yrs' Notes: Compared to it's older version, this is a lot better. The meteors fall in much larger quantities and in a larger radius (and much faster), making it more reliable for dealing damage. You'll see a huge damage output on large bosses, and it'll make mince meat of enemies that are ground level to get hit by both the impact and meteor.

Lightning Shower
MP: 150~250
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Summons a lightning storm in an area around you, generating random lightning bolts which deal magic damage and stun for 1 second.
Yrs' Notes : The overall damage is less than meteor shower under ideal circumstances (large bosses), but it's better for enemies that are directly above you. The stun is negligible in PvE, and semi-unreliable in PvP since the lightning bolts occur randomly.

Elemental Study
Increases natural mana regeneration and reduces cooldown on skills.
Yrs' Note: Preferable over affinity if you don't want to maintain a stacking bonus. The reduced cooldown is helpful for abilties like the showers, blaze step and meditation, but that's about it. Skills like chain burst would have less of an impact.

Elemental Affinity
Increases natural mana regeneration and grants a stacking buff whenever you use a special active. Each stack bestows extra magic attack and elemental resist, lasting 20 seconds and stacking up to three times. The duration is refreshed each time you use another special active.
Yrs' Notes: Good grief it took them 2 whole years to make this passive work properly. At max level, you can maintain a 12% damage buff as long as you can skill every 20 seconds. Given that every special active excluding cyclone has a cooldown of 10 seconds, you need to keep an eye out to make effective use out of this, especially on bosses. This would definitely have a weaker presence in PvP due to mana restriction.

Skill Notes

Skill Notes are a way to augment your abilties to perform better or differently. In order to use these, you must obtain a skill note book (which is acquired from a level 20 quest chain). For every 10 levels after level 20, you gain one skill note slot (max of 5 notes with our current level cap of 60).

The notes themselves are acquired through quests, random drops, or cash shop. Each one is exclusive to where they can be found, and excluding cash shop notes you can purchase them from players as well. They are one time use, and are removed from your inventory once it's placed into your note book. Skill notes from quest can always be reobtained from the respective NPC.

'Burn Baby Burn'
Found in : Random Drop from Monsters.
The burn inflicted by the final fireball now lasts 10 seconds longer.
Yrs' Notes : Burn from skills are just bleh in general. The damage is hardly noticeable even without fire resist. Especially when this is on a skill that most players skip and loses purpose later on.


Soul Movement
Found in : Random Drop from Monsters
You gain superarmor frames on start up, but mana cost is increased by 40%.
Yrs' Notes: Eh...this note is completely unproductive. Super armor doesn't really help you avoid damage when it really matters in both PvP and PvE, and takes a lot of avoidance out of Aisha.

Trauma
Found in : Toma's (Bethma) quest chain (requires level 25 to start)
Targets affected by binding circle will be affected by fracture for 10 seconds, reducing their attack speed by 20%.
Yrs' Notes : Any debuff that reduces attack speed is enough to ruin anyone's day; it messes up their handling of the character and execution of combos. But the mana cost of 120 just to inflict this debuff is pretty high maintenance, and I feel that it's more of a bonus quirk to binding circle. Not too much use in PvE though.

Strong Shields
Found in : Carmella's Quest (PvP lady), Requires level 30 to start.
Your mana shield now absorbs 80% of incoming damage, but cooldown is increased by 5 seconds.
Yrs' notes: This note is weird, and makes me wonder why it's left unchanged. I mentioned before that mana shield's hp is based off your max hp, and the damage that it absorbs (IE, you don't take), are dealt to the shield instead. What this basically does is make the shield take more damage (and thus break faster), while tacking on a longer cooldown. If your mana shield is already breaking in PvP before the 15 seconds without the note, then this is going to be counter productive.

Shock & Awe
Found in : Random drop in Henir's Time and Space
Lightning Bolt now inflicts stun on your target for 2.5 seconds after a certain amount of hits, and no longer KDs.
Yrs' Notes: Great note to have if you like using lightning bolt, makes it less disruptive in party play, Although the skill's damage is still pretty bad for the amount of hits it deals in PvP to justify using it

Quantitative Improvement II
Found in : Random drop in Secret Dungeons
Adds a fourth fireball to the skill while reducing its damage by 20%.
Yrs' Notes: After the 2/12 balance, the note now reduces the damage done by each fireball to compensate for the extra hits. It still deals more damage than unnoted...like an average of 6% extra damage... It's a bit of a convoluted formula since the majority of the extra hits that it adds are actually the inner, weaker rotation. You end up doing less damage unless you absolutely get all the hits. CF note, what have they done to you?





Free Spirit
Cash Shop Only
Meditation will not be disabled when you get attacked, and reduces cooldown by 15 seconds.
Yrs' Notes: A must have. The 15 second off cooldown is extremely useful, and the bonus of not disabling is a great addition as well with all the outgoing nonsense in pvp and pve.

Explosive Bubble Pop
Cash Shop Only
Increases the size of the fireballs by 20% and damage by 10%, and all of them are capable of inflicting burn.
Yrs' Notes: The size increase doesn't do that much because you still need to be pointblank to get max hits. The burn is irrelevant because it doesn't stack up with each application (it'd refresh over and over back to it's original duration) and the burn damage itself is already irrelevant. The damage increase is ok if you plan to use chain burst over water cannon


The Newest Missile
Cash Shop Only
Increases max hits by 2, and the speed of the missile by 50%.
Yrs' Notes: Great to have for PvE due to the added hits and faster traveling. The benefit for PvP is questionable since it still has a nasty habit of taking long turns (so it wouldn't reach max hits anyway) and it doesn't change the inertia so it's easily loopable with circle jumps.

Closing Statements

That's it for the guide. I could've detail more on her combo attacks and all of that, but that sort of thing is generally better for the player to discover on their own and develop their own playstyle. But if its really desired, then I could add that in (or anything else that people want)

And another thing, While elwiki is good for general reference, the number values and misc info are inaccurate for the most part.

And keep in mind that this guide is for our verison of Elsword, the one in NA. Please do not make comment saying "this is wrong" unless you're absolutely sure about it. I'll keep this guide updated as it becomes relevant in our current version assuming I'm still playing the game.

Change Logsu

12/13
Updated to reflect on the 12/2 Power Balance
The following skills have their descriptions modified
-Chain Fireball
-Gust Screw
-Binding Circle
-Blaze Step
-Meditation
-Chain Lightning
-Freezing Point Study
-Shining Body
-Elemental Affinity
-Circle Fire Note

11/8
Updated to reflect on the 11/6 skill tree adjustment.

[Star Dream]

Guide is updated for 2/12 patch.

[Star Dream]

Updated for the new skill tree.

[Star Dream]

@ Ordinary : She wasn't as bad as before, but some small changes they made to her skill really messed her up (damage tweaks, especially toward meteor call and blazestep, and meditation), while others were always pretty bleh cause of the way it's designed (cyclone, statue, showers in a fast paced environment)

I tried to keep damage values relative to the class itself, otherwise it's going to look a lot worse than it is if I compared it to say...Elsword or Raven. But it shouldn't stop you from playing a class that appeals to you. If you like the idea of using elemental fire spells, then pick up HM/EM. If you prefer staff whacking and space/time theme, then go with BtM/DW.

...unless your appeal is an OP'd class, then you're looking at the wrong class, or even character entirely.

[Nine]

this guide makes elemental master sound so terrible. You label every ability as bad or decent. Dammit, if only dimension witch existed 2 years ago, i would have chosen battle mage instead of high mage.

[Haru]

Herp Derp

[i r teething]

I am part of the influx and I must say it helped me a fair bit, thank you (:

[Frosty Bubbles]

Great guide, quite detailed, it'll help the huge influx of new users coming in soon.