It’s that time again—time to talk about another enigmatic DK Online class! Today we’ve got the Shadowmage, who has emerged to take the spotlight for our latest class reveal. Shadowmages and Sorceresses are closely related, yet they are worlds apart in their chosen arts. Though the Felynx are kin to the Elves, they turned their back on the Elven elemental magic to study forbidden dark sorcery, and thus the Shadowmage was born.
So there’s definitely a stark contrast in the lore, but how about the gameplay? Shadowmages depart from their Elven cousins (and the rest of the DK Online cast, for that matter) by being a primary support class. And though the term may be thrown around a lot, we really think “jack-of-all-trades” applies perfectly to it. The Shadowmage has a ton of debuffs in its arsenal to throw on hapless enemies—and just as many buffs for allies.
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Name a status effect, and the Shadowmage can probably sling it. Poison, silence, paralysis, bleeding, slow, shock, and MP loss are all nasty tricks that an opponent can suffer at the hands of a capable Shadowmage. They can also throw tons of helpful buffs out for the party, like increasing max HP, defense, evasion, regeneration, magic power, movement speed, and certain elemental resistances. When the party goes up against a debuff-happy enemy (or an opposing Shadowmage), they can even put up a buff that increases resistance to a variety of foul status effects.
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So you can tell that a smart party will definitely want to bring a Shadowmage along to perform at peak effectiveness. That isn’t to say that they aren’t capable solo fighters either, but they have to take a more tactical approach to combat than their comrades. Shadowmages don’t have much in the way of “spammable” spells, so they achieve competitive dps by weaving their direct-damage and debuff-applying spells in tandem.
Our Favorite: One of the Shadowmage’s high-level talents is Delusion, which grants a massive boost in HP and MP regeneration to all nearby allies for a short duration on a very long cooldown. It essentially gives the party a major shot in the arm, to be used only in dire situations when all else fails. We like this ability not only because of its awesome utility, but also because it highlights the dual nature of the class. Shadowmages can be just as beneficial as they are harmful—it all depends on how you want to play the class.
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That wraps up the class spotlights (for now)! We hope you enjoyed learning some more about the denizens of Latos, and keep a look out for more dev blogs focusing on other aspects of DK Online as we move along toward closed beta.
