Arcanists

Arcanists

Genre	Strategy
Release	27th February 2008
Multi-player	Yes

This page is for objective, encyclopaedic content. There is a separate forum page to discuss tactics and strategy.

Arcanists is a turn-based strategy game. Players take turns to utilise one of sixteen spells, chosen by the player beforehand, in order to defeat their opponents. Members have many more spells, clothing and abilities than free players. Arcanists can also be played at www.arcanists.com, although account management and server switching is still done via the main FunOrb site.

Gameplay

Basics

Arcanists character

You play as a wizard who can deploy various spells, most of which deal damage, protect you, or summon minions which you can then command. Each player starts with 250 health and, unless they have used a special ability (Soul Jar), will die when it hits zero. After the player dies, he/she may still spectate the game. After each player has had 60 turns, the game will automatically draw, saying the game was out of time. Some players stall in order for this to happen. Playing the tutorial will help you to get the hang of movement, aiming, and firing, and is recommended before joining a multiplayer game. It is worth noting that you can customise your spell book: non-members, new players, and new members won't have access to the full range of spells, but can still benefit from examining the options available. You can also customise your appearance and unlock more clothing items by completing achievements or purchasing them with orb coins on the Orb Downloads section of the FunOrb website.

Movement and Direction

All of the basic movement actions have alternative keys. Note that these vary between the localised FunOrb sites, as assumptions are made about the keyboard layouts players on each site will be using. This table documents the keys for the English-language version:

Move	Key 1	Key 2
Left	Z	Comma
Right	X	Period
Long jump or Down (while flying)	Enter	Ctrl
High jump or Up (while flying)	Backspace	Shift

The mouse is used to target and fire most weapons.

The cursor keys are used to look around the battlefield, although this will cause the camera to stop automatically following the active player or minion. On your turn N and C will loop through your team's minions and your Arcanist; on someone else's turn, N and C will centre on the active player and return the camera to auto-follow mode. Pressing Q on your turn will skip the current go and move on to the next player without you doing any action.

Under certain circumstances, you may find yourself with the ability to fly, or controlling a flying minion. In this case high jump becomes movement upwards, and long jump becomes movement downwards. If your Arcanist has mounted a minion, you have to control the minion rather than the Arcanist. Something important that you must remember is that you cannot attack while mounted on a minion, you can attack but any attack WILL hit the minion, even a bomb will get stuck on it.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to jump from one location to the next if your character is facing the wrong way, as turning around may mean you fall from where you are standing. To change direction without moving, choose a weapon and target it in the direction you wish to face.

Spells

Main article: Arcanists/Spells

Maps

Arcanists features 9 distinct maps to fight in: one for beginners, and one each for every spellbook except Seas and Cogs. All the maps except Grassy Hills contain an Armageddon spell that starts firing and continues firing from both sides of the map while slowly converging inwards after all the players have moved 10 times.

Grassy Hills These green slopes are where all young Arcanists train to become great mages. All that can be found here is a clean battleground in which to test your skills. Armageddon Spell: None
Giants' Mountains Steep slopes and rugged terrain. Stay here too long and the volcanoes will erupt! Armageddon Spell: Volcano The volcano's power is affected by the current turn's player's familiar.
Elven Isles These living islands offer much in the way of places to hide, but watch out, as the ancient magics guarding the area will start raining comets down! Armageddon Spell: Comet
Goblin Caves The dank caves of the goblins are a common battleground. Intense mining has disturbed the deep and the ground is liable to erupt from under your feet! Armageddon Spell: Fissure
Murky Swamp Amid the witches' huts and rotten trees, Arcanists battle to control the arcane sources of magic within the swamp. Keep hidden, as the high concentration of power draws storms in from afar. Armageddon Spell: Storm
Graveyard The gentle slopes of the graveyard are covered with the remains of past Arcanists who have failed in this arena. Evil spirits haunt this place, sending bolts of pure chaos down onto anyone who disturbs them. Armageddon Spell: Rain of Chaos
Sky Castles The angels of the sky have opened their heavenly gates to allow Arcanists to engage in battle between their castles in the clouds. Choose your tower and allies carefully to achieve victory in this realm. This map might be based on the Castle Wars minigame in RuneScape. Armageddon Spell: Sky Ray
Mos Le'Harmless Make your way to the islands of Mos Le'Harmless to get your hands on some 'rum', but watch out for the monkeys - they might just rain on your parade. This map is based on an island in RuneScape of the same name, and shares its theme tune, Life is a beach!, with RuneScape. Armageddon Spell: Monkey (not a spell from any spellbook, but based on the Book of Nature) When the Armageddon starts, each player will in turn have a monkey summoned and placed in one of their minion spaces. These monkeys are controllable, but have a pathetic jump height, and will refuse to walk into water. On the "owner's" turn, the monkeys will all fire thorn balls at him or her. The monkeys can be zombified, in which case the zombifying players gain ownership of them, and therefore extra thorn balls thrown at them on their turn.
Arcane Crystals This map will provide a very different style of gameplay; imps will surely find their home there... This is a members-only map. It has unique dimensions — it is half as tall and twice as wide as the other maps. To accommodate the wider mini-map it rearranges the spell book layout. Armageddon Spell: Variant of Arcane Arrows The Armageddon Arcane Arrows fires considerably more arrows than the normal Arcane Arrows, and it fires them from below the waterline. The target is initially random, however the server may later begin to target the player whose turn is starting. The arrows, dealing Arcane damage, do not damage the player whose turn was starting when the spell was cast.

Game Modes

There are two styles of game: team and free-for-all (FFA). A team game requires an even number of players: the top half of the list of players form the red team and the bottom half form the blue team. The host of an unrated game cannot start a team game with an odd number of players. In rated games, however, the teams are divided by who waits the longest and shortest for the game to start.

Although nothing prevents people from forming informal teams in an FFA game, the handling of turn order between the two styles has an important difference. In FFA the turn cycles through the players, but in team games it alternates between the teams and so offsets a lot of the advantage which would otherwise be gained by eliminating a player from the opposing team. In a 2 v. 2 team game, if one person dies, their teammate gets double turns to even the difference. In a 3 v. 3 team game, if two people of the same team die, their surviving teammate gets triple turns.

Rating

Main article: Rating

Awards

At the end of a game, certain awards are given out to the players who did certain things during the match. In a rated game, players who get awards usually get wands; however the number of wands gained seems to vary greatly. It may depend on you, your team's, and your opponents' ratings; how many awards you each received; and whether or not the average rating of the game is less than the level for your prestige hat. As a general rule, more awards are given in games with multiple opponents and many turns.

Note that the meaning of the awards has not been officially published, and so is intelligent speculation for the most part.

Award	Meaning
Most Damage	The player who caused the most damage.
Most Powerful	The player who used their spells most powerfully.
Most Minions	The player who summoned the most minions.
Most Kills	The player who killed the greatest number of people during the match.
Most Skillful	The player with the most successful hits.
Minion Master	The player who used their minions most powerfully.
Most Wet	The player who fell into the water the most times. (Minimum - 2 times)
Most Useless	The player who caused the least damage to their opponents, and healed themselves the least.
Most Resilient	The player who moved across the map more often from one side to the other.
Most Cruel	The player who caused the most damage to themselves or their team.
Most Honourable	The player who caused the least damage to themselves or their team.
Most Annoying	The player who repeatedly used the same spell.
Most Fit	The player who moved around the most.
Most Bouncy	The player who jumped around the most and who bounced the most.
Dragon Master	The player who used their dragon most powerfully.
Imp Master	The player who used imps most powerfully.
Zombie Monkey Killer	The player who killed the most zombie monkeys on the Mos Le'Harmless map. Only available during Halloween.

Wands

Wands are like a form of currency in Arcanists, and they can be used to buy spells at a rate of 5 wands to unlock a spell book (gaining all its level 1 spells) and 2 or 3 respectively for level 2 and level 3 spells. Like rating, they can be gained only in rated games, and so are available only to members. They are gained by winning or by achieving awards. However, players with prestige hats can only win wands while the match's average rating is above a certain number, and players who leave the game before the end will not only lose rating but also fail to receive their wands.

Prestige Hats

Prestige hats are an optional series of icons which players can earn after purchasing all spells (or getting enough wands that would allow them to do so). The spells are traded in for a prestige hat, and the player is left with the initial spell sets (most of the arcane and flame books) and the Book of Cogs, which is only unlocked by obtaining a prestige hat. They have to repurchase the lost spells with more wands. Each Prestige hat makes gaining wands more difficult. To make sure players don't accidentally buy prestige hats and lose all their spells, you must hold 'CTRL' and then click the buy button (right) before you can actually buy the hat. Gaining the first five prestige hats will unlock the Lord of Wands achievement. Gaining all ten prestige hats takes time and persistence but is a huge milestone, and gives you the Wand Hoarder achievement.

Below is a chart showing the average game rating needed to gain wands at the normal rate. For example: If you have the fifth prestige hat, you don't need 1250 rating to gain the normal wand rate, instead the average of all players' rating in the game needs to be equal to or greater than 1250. This means that if you're fighting someone with a rating of 100 and your rating is 1600 you would not get the normal wand rate if you win because the average of 100 and 1600 is only 850 but if you're fighting someone with a rating of 1050 and your rating is 1600 you would get the normal wand rate because the average of 1050 and 1600 is 1325.

Symbol	Prestige Hat	Average Game Rating Needed for Normal Wand Gain
	1	250
	2	500
	3	750
	4	1000
	5	1250
	6	1500
	7	1750
	8	2000
	9	2250
	10	2500

• In total it takes 153 wands to buy a prestige hat, meaning it will take 1.530 wands to buy all prestige hats, and 1.683 wands to earn all prestige hats and all spells.
• You will NOT gain any more wands if you have bought all the spells, unless you buy another prestige hat.

Achievements

Total Achievements: 91
Total Orb Coins: 275
Total Orb Points: 27500
[Secret Achievements] | [Hidden Achievements] [Halloween Achievements]

No.	Image	Name	Requirement	Orb Points	Orb Coins	Members?	Sorter
AA		Enchanter	Win a Rated game	100	1	Yes	AA
AB		Apprentice	Win 5 Rated games	200	2	Yes	AB
AC		Acolyte	Win 20 Rated games	200	2	Yes	AC
AD		Mage	Win 50 Rated games	300	3	Yes	AD
AE		High Mage	Obtain a Rating of 2000 after winning 50 Rated games	500	5	Yes	AE
AF		Arch Mage	Obtain a Rating of 4000 after winning 50 Rated games	1000	10	Yes	AF
AG		Wrath Wreaker	Deal 1,000 damage to your enemies in Rated games	100	1	Yes	AG
AH		Storm Seeker	Deal 5,000 damage to your enemies in Rated games	100	1	Yes	AH
AI		Comet Chucker	Deal 25,000 damage to your enemies in Rated games	100	1	Yes	AI
AJ		Volcanic Volleyer	Deal 250,000 damage to your enemies in Rated games	100	1	Yes	AJ
AK		Fissure Finisher	Deal 1,000,000 damage to your enemies in Rated games	100	1	Yes	AK
AL		Winning Streak	Win 2 Rated games in a row during one session	500	5	Yes	AL
AM		Winning Storm	Win 5 Rated games in a row during one session	1000	10	Yes	AM
AN		Master of Flame	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Flame	200	2	Yes	AN
AO		Master of Frost	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Frost	200	2	Yes	AO
AP		Master of Storm	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Storm	200	2	Yes	AP
AQ		Master of Stone	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Stone	200	2	Yes	AQ
AR		Master of Light	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Overlight	300	3	Yes	AR
AS		Master of Darkness	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Underdark	300	3	Yes	AS
AT		Master of Nature	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Nature	300	3	Yes	AT
AU		Master of Seas	Win a Rated game with the full Book of Seas	300	3	Yes	AU
AV		Master of Cogs	Win a rated game with the full Book of Cogs	300	3	Yes	AV
AW		Flame Arcanist	Win a Rated game, over 1500 rating, using a Harpy Flame familiar	100	1	Yes	AW
AX		Frost Arcanist	Win a Rated game, over 1500 rating, using a Frost Sprite familiar	100	1	Yes	AX
AY		Storm Arcanist	Win a Rated game, over 1500 rating, using a Storm Cloud familiar	100	1	Yes	AY
AZ		Stone Arcanist	Win a rated game, over 1500 rating, with the Pet Rock familiar	100	1	Yes	AZ
BA		Overlight Arcanist	Win a rated game, over 2000 rating, with the Cherub familiar	100	1	Yes	BA
BB		Underdark Arcanist	Win a rated game, over 2000 rating, with the Soul Jar familiar	100	1	Yes	BB
BC		Nature Arcanist	Win a rated game, over 2500 rating, with the Fungus familiar	100	1	Yes	BC
BD		Seas Arcanist	Win a rated game, over 2500 rating, with the Seahorse familiar	100	1	Yes	BD
BE		Cogs Arcanist	Win a rated game, over 3000 rating, with the Alarm Clock familiar.	100	1	Yes	BE
BG		Master of Imps	Having 3000 rating or over, win a rated game using the Full Arcane Spellbook	500	5	Yes	BG
BH		Trainee Team Leader	Win a Rated team game taking no losses to your team	200	2	Yes	BH
BI		Master Team Leader	Win a Rated team game, over 2000 rating, taking no losses to your team	300	3	Yes	BI
BJ		Diplomat	Win a Free-For-All Rated game with over 4 players	200	2	Yes	BJ
BK		Master Diplomat	Win a Free-For-All Rated game, over 2000 rating, with 4+ players	300	3	Yes	BK
BL		Master of Arcanists	Win Rated games on every map without changing your spellbook	1000	10	Yes	BL
BM		Master of Minions	Win a Rated game with 10 minion spells in your spell book	500	5	Yes	BM
BN		Critical Hit	Deal 250 damage in one attack, during a Rated game.	300	3	Yes	BN
BO		Sniper	Kill an Arcanist in a rated game with a ball, bomb or bolt spell... from the opposite side of the map.	300	3	Yes	BO
BP		Paper Bag	Win a Rated game with a very weak attack.	100	1	Yes	BP
BQ		Just a Flesh Wound	Win a Rated game with 1 health remaining.	500	5	Yes	BQ
BR		Cursed Earth	Win a Rated game because the environment aided you	300	3	Yes	BR
BS		With the Fishies	Win a Rated game by knocking your opponent into the water	300	3	Yes	BS
BT		You got the Touch	Kill three or more Arcanists in the final turn within a rated game	500	5	Yes	BT
BU		Team Worker	Win a rated game using a teammate's minion to kill the last enemy	300	3	Yes	BU
BV		Fear Me!	Win a Rated game with an army of at least four Hard Water Trolls.	100	1	Yes	BV
BW		Block out the sun	Use Flurry with at least four Elves at maximum power in a Rated game	100	1	Yes	BW
BX		Hangin' with my friends	Only deal damage with minions and win a Rated game	500	5	Yes	BX
BY		It's Alive!	Win a Rated game ending as a Lich with a Zombie Dragon	300	3	Yes	BY
BZ		Claustrophobia	Win a Rated game, over 2000 rating, taking no towers	500	5	Yes	BZ
CB		Wand Hoarder	Purchase the tenth (and final) prestige hat for your Arcanist	1000	10	Yes	CB
CC		Celestial Lord	Win a Rated game in which you exhibit great celestial control	200	2	Yes	CC
CD		Ice Hot	Win a Rated game having summoned forth the greatest foes	200	2	Yes	CD
CE		An Average Summer's Day	Win a Rated game having controlled the weather blocking out the sun	200	2	Yes	CE
CF		Page Turner	Win a Rated game where you show mastery of your whole spell book	200	2	Yes	CF
CG		Cyclone of Pain	Deal excessive damage with control of nature	400	4	Yes	CG
CH		Lord of the Castle	Show your superiority of tower ownership	400	4	NO	CH
CI		Cruelty	Show how well you use your Beasts of Burden to shield you from enemy attack	200	2	Yes	CI
CJ		Blade Master	Destroy an enemy with the ultimate weapon of light	200	2	No	CJ
CK		Come With Me	Zombify the mount another Arcanist is riding.	400	4	Yes	CK
CL		Subversion	Subvert the ultimate weapon of light.	500	5	Yes	CL
CM		Lord of Dragons	Prove yourself the lord of dragons in a six player free-for-all fight	500	5	Yes	CM
CBM		Panoramic View	Win a Rated game in resizable mode	100	1	Yes	CBM
CN		Guardian of Souls	Destroy an enemy's Soul Jar	100	1	No	CN
CO		Sanctify Yourself	Exhibit your skill of sanctification	100	1	Yes	CO
CP		Icarus	Kill a player with the power of plants	400	4	Yes	CP
CQ		Indirect	Win a Rated game using no direct fire spells (balls, bombs or arrows)	200	2	Yes	CQ
CR		Crazy	Win a Rated game using only bombs	300	3	Yes	CR
CS		Throwing Arm	Kill at least 2 enemies using bombs thrown from the ground	400	4	No	CS
CT		Circle of Death	Kill a player while holding the remnants of his feeble attempt to destroy the world	500	5	Yes	CT
CU		Soul Drain	Heal excessively using the greatest powers of darkness	200	2	Yes	CU
CV		Master of Familiars	Prove mastery of your familiar in a six player game, in which all choose a different path	500	5	Yes	CV
CX		Dust to Dust	Deal excessive damage using the staff of the storm	300	3	Yes	CX
CW		3rd Dimension	Kill a player using an arcane portal to circumnavigate their defences	100	1	No	CW
CY		Skimmer	Kill a player with a skimming throw across the water	500	5	Yes	CY
CZ		Drop Shot	Kill a player with a drop arrow	500	5	No	CZ
DA		SMASH!	Punch, Bash or Whip your enemies far and wide	100	1	No	DA
DB		Axing for Trouble	Insta-Kill with the Dark Knight	300	3	No	DB
DC		Miasma	Deal excessive damage by pulling all minions into the darkness	300	3	Yes	DC
DD		Shake n' Quake	Shake the world causing the drowning of many foes.	300	3	Yes	DD
DE		Didn't see that coming	Sacrifice your windy minion and laugh at the consequences	300	3	Yes	DE
DF		Whiter than White	Wash your enemy's shields off for him	300	3	No	DF
DG		Multi Dunk!	Show your mastery of Flash or Vine Whip	300	3	No	DG
DH		Divided World	Win a Rated game in which you cause great rifts in the world	200	2	Yes	DH
DI		Mark of Fame	Defeat an Arcane Master Moderator in an epic battle of skill and arcane cunning!	1000	10	No	DI
DJ		Finally Did It	Win a game at the last possible moment	100	1	Yes	DJ
DL		Master of Monkeys	Play a Rated game and earn the most Zombie Monkey kills in the Mos Le'Harmless arena during the Hallow'een holiday	300	3	Yes	DL
BF		Champion of Magic	Win a rated game, over 3000 rating, with any full spellbook.	500	5	Yes	BF
DK		Up, Up and Up some more	Launch yourself into space!	200	2	No	DK
CA		Lord of Wands	Get the fifth level prestige hat.	100	1	Yes	CA

All information for these achievements is stored on their respective pages, along with walkthroughs and tips for many of them. So, if you notice a mistake, or have a good strategy, go there!

Did you notice a missing achievement? You can help the FunOrb Wiki by making a page for it. Simply type the achievement name in this box to make a page for it.<createbox> width=30 break=no prefix=Arcanists/Achievement: preload=FunOrb Wiki:Achievement Articles/Preloader buttonlabel=Create page </createbox>

Events

• During the 2008 Christmas season, the Grassy Hills theme was covered with snow, with castles and trees having Christmas decorations.
• During the 2009 Halloween season, the Mos Le' Harmless stage had the monkeys dropping from the first turn as zombies that shot thorn bombs, which were affected by the nature familiar.
• On 5th August 2010, the first f2p achievements (15 of them) aside from "mark of fame" were released in an update alongside 17+ members-only achievements (and one hidden members-only achievement).

Trivia

• Arcanists is currently the #1 most played game on FunOrb, and has for a long time remained such. Only for a short period of time was it passed by Armies of Gielinor.
• Arcanists was voted players' favourite FunOrb game in a RuneScape Poll.
• Once a player has played 500 games the ratings menu will no longer accurately count; it will instead say 500+.
• The Arch mage achievement was previously obtained by achieving a ranking of 5000 after winning 50 rated games, but it has now been lowered to 4000 because Jagex felt that a 5000 rating was too hard for even some of the best legitimate Arcanists players to get (and as a result the previous requirement of 5000 rating encouraged illegal transferring of rating).
• The flame familiar Harpy flame graphics are reused from the Wizard Run Harpy king boss.
• The Cuckoo clock spell sound is reused from Torquing! collecting hourglass power-up.
• The Block out the sun achievement is a reference (possibly indirectly through reference to a modern adaptation) to an incident mentioned by Herodotus in the context of the Battle of Thermopylae, or a line in the movie 300.
• On Mos Le'Harmless, you can make your monkey minions fall off without using a spell. Bring one of the monkeys to the edge of the stage, put the other monkey on top as close to the edge as possible, and simply move the bottom monkey away from the edge to make the top one fall. Normally the monkeys cannot be walked off into the water.
• The Frost Giant's appearance may be a reference to Marvin the robot from the film version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• If you try to Zombify a paladin, you will get a dark knight instead of a zombie paladin.
• You can get 6250 hp by playing in a 6 player match as a lich and zombify everyone's minions and use the dark defence to give them the damage, meaning that no spell can actualy kill YOU while the minions are alive, but doing this would be close to impossible as you'd have to hide 24 creatures.