I/L or F/P?

I/L has a harder time leveling in third job than fire poison. That being said, most people I know end up regretting making a F/P and wish they made an I/L instead. This is because I/L can grind in shoalin 5-6 (the most optimal exp map) with little attention due to the fact that they freeze monsters. A F/P on the other hand has to constantly move to reposition since they will get knocked around by monsters attacking.

F/P is better at bossing in general, but I/L is stronger at Neo tokyo (and can actually compete with normal attackers in terms of DPS on a boss like Nibergen because it is weak to thunder).

F/P is also slightly stronger, so if u want to just sell leech, it's probably the better choice since you require less TMA to 1hit popular leech monsters.

 

Shoalin is for levels 125+, though you probably want to start at 130+.

Second question is yes.

Funding doesn't change anything other than what level you can 1 or 2 hit a monster. An ice lightning can 1hit everything a fire poison can 1hit, it would just be a few levels later.

 

I came out with some general questions to help you to decide to be a (ice) or (fire) mage:

1) Would you prefer skills with crowd control (ice) or no crowd control but just damage (fire)

2) Would you like to to zap monster (ice) or poison monster (fire)

3) Do you like the animation of the blizzard skill (ice) or a meteor skill (fire)

4) In general, do you prefer the element ice (ice) or fire (fire), OR would you want like to try something new? [Maybe you can reference/compare from other games you played]

5) If you got a pet, would you prefer it to be a fire type (ice) or ice type (fire)

6) Since its your first account, do you prefer safety over grinding (ice, cause u can freeze them) or you dun really care and just want the extra damage (fire)

Some other general and fun questions that may or may not be useful to helping you to make your decision (There are more but I cant think of any right now):
1) Do you like hot food (fire) or dessert (ice) better
2) Do you prefer summoning huge chunks of ice onto monster (ice) or summoning huge flaming rocks at monster (fire)
4) Are you a hot temper, easy to anger person (Fire) or a cool guy (ice)
5) Do you like winter (ice) or summer (fire)
6) If you dress your character up, Do you prefer cooler colors like blue (ice) over hotter color (fire) like red and orange

In the end I think just pick a path and try it out. Reach 2nd job, see if you are having fun with the mechanics, if you are you can continue with the current path you have chosen otherwise consider switching.

 

f/p can fart

 

Let's emphasize this part a little bit. You can get from ~80 to 120 in a day on an FP if you wanted to.

 

I/L got Implemented electricity and drank too much CFC
F/P just ate too much spicy food and sweet potato, also they carry a lighter