[evilbutterfly]

dragoniaz, when choosing a mage, you have to pick the one that fits YOU. Squeek, for example, is a cleric, because he likes partying with people and being a support character. Tosh and I are fire wizards because we like to see huge numbers pop up when we hit things (currently I can do more damage than Squeek against ice monsters, and he's 20some levels ahead of me). Other people became ice/lightning wizards for lightning, because killing squads of enemies is fun. A few people went for ice because freezing stuff is also fun. Lightning lets you kill groups of enemies, which makes leveling a lot easier, at least at first. Clerics get heal, which lets them whore zombie mushrooms (and later zombie lupins) for exp, but later on there aren't many/any zombie monsters that you can hit with heal. This means you're stuck to playing support and depending on other people or you have to keep fighting zombies even when you're a high level. Ice wizards have a hard time because most of the high leveled areas (below the Ant Tunnel, El Nath) are ice-based, so they do half the damage. Later on though there are more fire places (like Zakum's quest), but those aren't even in the game yet.

And if you're looking at 3rd job, here's the breakdown: I/L mages have the highest overall attacking spell (thunder spear or something like that), and their magic comp spell does high damage AND freezes. They get a decent mob attack, too. F/P mages get AWESOME mob attacks, and their magic comp has pretty good damage + it poisons enemies, making it great. Clerics (I forget the name of them in 3rd job) get crazy support skills, including one that increases the exp you get. I've heard that most people won't even play unless they have that buff on them in a party, because otherwise it's just too slow. As a cleric, you would HAVE to party with people to level up at this point, since your attack is so far behind everyone else's that you can't do anything by yourself.

PS: If you wanna see all the skills of 2nd and 3rd jobs and compare them yourself, here you go: http://www.hidden-street.net/characters/magician.php