Today marks my 1,390th day logging into DNF Mobile.

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1,400 days is right around the corner now, and the 4th anniversary event is also expected to arrive this March.

I can’t check my exact total playtime right now, but in the Nexon records that were available during Nexon’s 30th anniversary, it showed about 5,365 hours. I kind of wish that was something we could check more often.

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Anyway, this seemed like a good time to put together a quick DNF Mobile update.

Male Mage Pre-registration

DNF Mobile has opened pre-registration for the new Male Mage character.

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The pre-registration period runs from January 8 to January 21, and the release date is Thursday, January 22.

The Male Mage advance classes being added this time are Glacial Master and Swift Master.

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Now that Male Mage is finally arriving, I’m sure we’ll see the remaining advance classes someday too: Elemental Bomber, Blood Mage, and Dimension Walker.

Glacial Master is a great pick for practical-minded players. Since it’s an Intelligence-based character, enchantment costs are lower, and because it comes with its own elemental attribute (Water), gearing is more straightforward too.

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As long as you understand the mechanic of building stacks with blue skills and detonating them with red skills, it’s fairly easy to play. Its range is wide as well, so leveling should feel comfortable.

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Most importantly, it has the passive skill “Undying,” which allows one resurrection in a dungeon, so there’s less pressure when you’re progging harder content. It was already known for having strong utility in PC DNF, so I’m curious to see how much of that presence carries over to mobile.

Meanwhile, Swift Master is a Strength-based character, and since it doesn’t have an innate element, gearing may be a bit trickier. Still, with the Sonic Move passive, it can cancel recovery frames and deliver a very fast-paced combat style.

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If you like combat in the same vein as Striker or Rogue, Swift Master will probably be a good fit. Its range is especially broad too, so I’m expecting it to have its own distinct appeal.

Male Mage has a small, cute build much like Female Mage, so it was also popular with fans who like cross-dress styling (?). If you search Male Mage fashion setups, you’ll find styles like these pretty easily.

The currently sold Knights of the Round Table avatar seems to be built around a Grand Magus Merlin concept, while the previously released Hidden Rare avatar was based on Uther Pendragon. The sprite work looks excellent, so I’m looking forward to seeing the other standard avatars too.

Progress Update

The best luck I’ve had this season

By the time Male Mage releases, the new season will have been going for two months. Last season was centered more on growth progression, but this season is all about the Hell Party + farming dungeon meta, and I’d say it really brings back the fun of high-roll drops.

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Even after running dungeons every day for about 50 days straight, I still have characters that haven’t gotten a single Exceed piece (similar to Primordial), and plenty still haven’t completed a full Epic set either.

My Weapon Master still hasn’t gotten even one Epic necklace, so it’s still wearing a necklace from the previous season. It really does feel like a season where luck swings things to the extreme. At the same time, that makes the dopamine hit from a good drop even bigger.

My main character originally ran a full Steel Dragon set, but Hasmar (high-difficulty content) was hitting too hard, so I crafted and switched over to a full Giant set instead.

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Since I have a lot of alts, I can gather materials quickly and also use transcendence (moving Epic gear through the account vault), so one advantage is that I can set up at least my main character pretty freely.

Anyway, after changing my setup, I could clearly afford to take a few patterns while still dealing damage, and that made combat a lot more enjoyable. It’s really frustrating when you barely clip something and instantly die for it.

Across my Adventure Group, anti-magic power is generally in the 160k to 180k range. An elite dungeon is also coming with Male Mage, and I have a feeling the entry requirement will probably be somewhere around 150k anti-magic.

Personally, the characters I’ve been enjoying most lately are Blade and Enchantress. Blade was originally a Sword Master, but I recently used a class change, and I’ve been very satisfied with it since both the damage compression and overall damage feel strong. It also clears the fastest in dungeons where you can just brute-force things with damage, like the event elite dungeon.

Failed with just 3% left... painful

As for Enchantress, I’ve finished a full sub-DPS or synergy setup, and the weapon gives a 15% movement speed boost to me and the whole party, so we just zip around everywhere. A Spitfire + Crusader + Enchantress comp can even clear Hasmar, so I’ve been putting a lot of care into raising it.

Wrapping Up

The event built around the idea that Male Mage’s arrival caused abnormal weather is pretty fun too.

That’s it for this update on the DNF Mobile Male Mage release schedule and my recent progress. Once Male Mage is out, I’ll probably level both to max first and then decide which one I want to invest in more. If you’ve been thinking about coming back, this might be a good time to start getting ready.