Growing the perfect Mage

[Merkin]

Growing the perfect Mage

It’s gotta be the Faerie.  The combination of highest starting INT, great speed, and quick SP regeneration, makes the little blue guy the premier magic slinger on Dominus.

At character creation, put the max 17 pts into INT, you want to max this ASAP.  Then 9 points into PIE, enough to give you a bump in available SP’s, and in realms skills.  10 into VIT, for the HP bump and the remaining 14 into SEN (more important for the Mage initiative than SPD).

So, he looks like this:

STR: 25
INT: 77
PIE: 44
VIT: 40
DEX: 55
SPD: 60
SEN: 59

At level-ups, it’s going to be 3 INT, 2 PIE, and 1 SEN until you max INT at level 8.  Then 3 PIE, 2 SEN, and 1 SPD.  This will keep your Mage moving along nicely in Wizardry, spell points and initiative.

For skills, it’s all about the Magic, baby.  Anyone who puts weapons or soft skills into a Mage is a fool.  You’ve got a lot of Magic realms to develop, that should be eating up all of your skill points.

Start with Wizardry, 3 points each round. 3 each into two of the realms; I suggest Fire, Air, Earth, and Divine, giving Water and Mental a pass, or at most, if you find a spell for one of these two realms, putting just enough points into the realm that you don’t hurt yourself with backfires. You’ll have plenty of time to come back and fill in the blanks later. Try to keep the four realms you’re concentrating on balanced out.  Fire and Air are your most immediate friends, but later on, when Earth and Divine come into their own, you’ll want a lot of skill and SP’s to back them up.

You get your spells at the following levels for a Mage:

Spell        Mage Level  
1      1
2      3
3      5
4      8
5      11
6      14
7      18

There is a lot of discussion about holding back on acquiring new spells, to have more choices at highere levels. I don’t think this is wise, with the one minor exception of holding off on your pick when you reach second level.  You don’t want to starve your Mage of things to do, and by mid-game you can acquire pretty much every spell you want, including the higher level ones.  I also dislike planning strategy around “cheats” (i.e., I know what spells will be in Arnika, so there’s no need to pick them). I want to develop the best “honest” caster that I can.  Found/purchased/stolen spells are gravy, but I don’t rely on them.  If you aquire a spell that you already know, hang onto it for your Samurai or Bishop, they’ll be wanting it soon enough.  Here are the spells I pick, and when.

           
Level      Spell lev.      Spells to pick
1      1st      Energy Blast, Sleep
2      1st      None
3      2nd      Enchanted Blade, Missile Shield
4      2nd      Web
5      3rd      Fireball
6      3rd      Noxious Fumes
7      3rd      Whipping Rocks
8      4th      Element Shield
9      4th      Armormelt
10      4th      Crush
11      5th      Summon Elemental
12      5th      Portal
13      5th      ?
14      6th      Banish
15      6th      Firestorm
16      6th      ?
17      6th      ?
18      7th      Nuclear Blast
19      7th      Asphyxiation
20      7th      ?
21      7th      ?

At the “?” levels, this is the time to either fill in the gaps in your education picking those spells you haven’t found/bought/stolen, or holding on to it because you see one at the next spell level you want. I would suggest Mental spells as being more useful overall than Water, but your call.

[Merkin]

Growth and development:
Practice, practice, practice.  Your spells that can be cast out of combat should be practiced almost non-stop, throughout the game.  Every time you rest, cast all buff spells at full power.  It’s doesn’t matter if they backfire, you still have a better chance of getting a skill-up than by casting it at low/medium power.  You can tell if a skill-up is possible in a particular spell by its color.  White means you have a chance to improve.  Blue means you don’t, it’s already been cast too recently. And red, of course, means it cannot be cast at all.

Combat strategy for Mages:

Plan your spell attacks carefully.  You have to keep in mind enemy resistances, spreading your casting around, sequencing, coordinating with other casters in your party, and providing maximum support and opportunities to your fighters.

In general, you want to try and keep your buff spells up continuously, so you don’t have to waste combat turns casting them.  Lead in combat with your de-buff and immobilization spells; Sleep, Web, Armormelt, etc.  This does a couple of things.  It shortens battles considerably, it lets your fighter types get the maximum swings in, and it prevents a HUGE amount of damage to your party.  After you’ve cast those, it’s time to hit the area effect spells…Noxious Fumes, Fireball, Whipping Rocks, Magic Missile if you’ve got it.  Although it does less damage than Fireball and Whipping Rocks, Noxious Fumes has become one of my favorites, because of its combined damage/de-buff.

An exception to this is when there is a spell caster hitting you from a distance.  Then EVERYTHING is secondary to taking the caster out ASAP, with whatever you’ve got.  You would not BELIEVE how badly it sucks to have half your party frozen, and the other half insane and hacking the frozen ones to bits.

Another important thing to master for the Mage, and it’s more of an art than a science, is leading your target.  It is crucial that you put your Fireballs, etc, where the enemy WILL be, not where they are.  They move quick, and each monster moves at a different speed, so this just takes practice and getting a feel for it.  In general, putting the spell about halfway between you and the mob is a good place to start.

There you have it, my version of the perfect Mage.  You will be throwing spells like there’s no tomorrow, with nary a backfire in sight.  Your Mage, properly grown will probably be the kill-leader in your party through most of the game, and if there was a way to see total damage points dealt to the enemy, the Mage would be INSANELY in the lead.  The Faerie Mage; don’t leave home without it.

[KraGorn]

Merkin said:

Anyone who puts weapons or soft skills into a Mage is a fool.

Okay, where's my jester's hat  ;D

I was busy pumping Artifacts with my very-soon-to-be-demised-elf-bishop ... if you've seen my post about my recent trip back to the monastery you'll know what happened  

Edit: removed stupid question about Identify  

[Spydah]

Nother nice post, which also fills in blanks, as I do not yet have any pure caster articles in the Wiz8DB...

off to read the Priest post.

Go away for a day and what happens? Sheesh

[vesselle]

yeah spydah!

::rolls her eyes:: aww, he's just trying to justify having 10 Billion parties!!

V***V

[Merkin]

Atlus7 from vnboards gave me the ok to re-post his response to the "perfect mage" here.  While I don't agree with everything he says, he does point out some flaws in my plan, I think...dammit.

Great write-up, Muffley, although I do disagree on a lot of things you mention  --

>>At character creation, put the max 17 pts into INT, you want to max this ASAP. Then 9 points into PIE, enough to give you a bump in available SP’s, and in realms skills. 10 into VIT, for the HP bump and the remaining 14 into SEN (more important for the Mage initiative than SPD).

I disagree. IMO, you should dump 17 points into Intelligence, 17 into Piety, and the remaining 16 into Speed, thus giving you a starting Faerie Mage that looks like this instead--

STR: 25
INT: 77
PIE: 52
VIT: 30
DEX: 55
SPD: 76
SEN: 45

Dump 3 points per level up into INT and PIE, but DO NOT increase your INT beyond 95 (due to the fountain in Trynton that gives you +5 to INT). This will allow you to reach 95 INT by only level 7.

Once your INT reaches 95, start dumping 3 points per level-up into PIE and SPD. Why SPD and not SEN like you suggest? Because 100 SPD will open up the Personal Skill Snakespeed. Snakespeed is INCREDIBLE for a Mage, as it helps raise their Initiative to INSANE levels. More Initiative for a Mage is wonderful because it'll allow you to cast your spells very quickly in combat before the enemy has a chance to react. You'll garner MUCH more Initiative by maxing out SPD at 100, coupled with the Snakespeed skill than you ever would with a high SEN attribute. By level 15, you'll have access to Snakespeed if you do it the way I suggest. The earlier to gain access to your Personal Skills, the earlier you can start developing them.

Also, you'll want to be dumping 3 points per level-up into PIE right off the bat. PIE is one of the controlling attributes for your Realms (Fire, Water, Earth, etc), thus increasing the frequency at which they increase through practice. Not only that, but higher PIE means more Spell Points at your disposal. Obviously, more Spell Points means you can cast more spells before having to rest. And on top of all that (you mean there's more?  ), 100 in PIE opens up Iron Will. Iron Will will help out A LOT in either resisting or shaking off those nasty status ailment spells the enemy spellcasters will be slinging at you. I don't know about you, but I hate nothing more that having my spellcasters immobilized, silenced, etc. during combat. Iron Will helps with dealing with these negative effects, as well as helps them to resist damaging spells.

Once you max out PIE, then start working on SEN for even more of an Initiative boost.

VIT isn't really needed for a Mage who's developed this way. The low HP they get is of no real consequence because you SHOULD have a healer in ANY party who can take care of things with Heal Wounds, Soul Shield, Heal All, and Guardian Angel, among other things.

I developed a Faerie Mage along these lines, and here's how she ended up by level 25 or 26--

STR--25
INT--100
PIE--100
VIT--57
DEX--55
SPD--100
SEN--78

She had Snakespeed maxed out at 100, giving her a grand total of 48 base Initiative--the highest in my party (not counting Initiative bonuses from weapons). IIRC, every 10 points in Snakespeed adds 1 point of Initiative.

[Merkin]

The rest of Atlus7's response:

>>Start with Wizardry, 3 points each round. 3 each into two of the realms; I suggest Fire, Air, Earth, and Divine, giving Water and Mental a pass

Here I disagree as well. IMO, you'll want to focus first and foremost on Fire and Water. These 2 Realms are home to the best offensive and disabling spells a Mage has.

Air is only good for two spells--Noxious Fumes and Asphyxiation. Sure, Sleep can be good. But it's heavily overshadowed by Freeze Flesh and Freeze All, which are found in the Water Realm. Plus, by focusing on Water instead, you'll have bigger and stronger Frosts, Iceballs, Dehydrates, and Blizzards.

Also, Water has no spells that can be cast outside of battle, thus you aren't able to beef this skill up through practice this way. Air has 2 spells that can be cast outside of battle for a Mage--Missile Shield and Shadow Hounds. By the time you have access to Asphyxiation, your Air realm should be at adequate levels by casting those 2 spells all the time.

Earth, of course, is good to focus on due to Whipping Rocks, Web, Crush, and Elemental Shield. IMO, though, Fire and Water are much more important. You should start in on your Earth Realm by gaining access to Web ASAP, and casting it at least once every combat. And if you're practicing your spells in and out of combat like you should with a Mage, you'll be able to max out Fire and/or Water very quickly. Then you can start dumping level-up points into Earth.

Divine isn't all that good really, with only two spells that really stand out--Enchanted Blade and Summon Elemental. However, as you know, Enchanted Blade can be cast outside of battle, so you can very easily beef up Divine without spending any level-up points into it. And by the time Divine is at decent levels, you'll be able to learn Summon Elemental and cast it at high power-levels. Magic Missile is good, but Fireball and Iceball are better.

Mental should never be invested in with level-up points because you'll have 2 great spells that you can practice outside of battle--Detect Secrets and X-Ray. By the time Mental is at high levels, you'll be able to learn Concussion and cast it at high power-levels.

Other than all this, I totally agree with your combat strategies. Very well said. One thing I did notice however--

>>You can tell if a skill-up is possible in a particular spell by its color. White means you have a chance to improve. Blue means you don’t, it’s already been cast too recently. And red, of course, means it cannot be cast at all.

I never knew that! Thanks for pointing that out. This will help out immensely whenever i'm developing my spellcasters. MUCH appreciated, man.  

[Runiel]

Wow!  

Excellent information Merkin!   I'm beginning a new spellcaster party (shocking, isn't it?) and this info is just what I needed. I usually end up with a Bishop (Wizardry/Divinity) in my parties along with an Alchemist or a Psionic (or both) and never use a pure mage so it's about time I give it a try. Plus, I have been missing in the utter joy of having to resurrect my mage every five steps, that just won't do...  

[[e-mail]]

I've been reading in numerous places about how it's better to cast your spell at a higher power level than at lower levels. I'm not sure if this is the best way. I read a post where someone claimed to have greater success when casting at low level multiple times.

I did some testing. I stood in front of Burz and tried casting the charm spell over and over again for about an hour. This is what i noticed. The rate at which the spell school points and the spell ream point raise is determined by two things (not including personal stats): number of times you cast a spell and the power level you cast it at. However, contrary to what I've been reading in most posts, the number of times you cast the spell is much more important that the power level. If I cast a spell at max level, it takes about 4-6 castings before my skills rise. When cast at low level, it takes about 8-10 castings. But, casting at high levels is not an efficient way. First you use up your spells points and need to regain then, usually by sleeping, before you can cast again. If you cast at a low level, you can keep casting before resting.

For spells like enchanted blade, the best strategy is to cast it at the lowest level. It will expire pretty and you can keep casting it. Especially is the early game, where you normally have only about 20-30 point in a realm, this strategy is far better. If you cast it at max power, you'll only be able to cast it once maybe. And then you need to rest. And we all know what happens when you rest. Monsters start procreating!

If any of you want to test this, try doing what I did. Cast charm on Burz for 10 mins at max power and then for another ten mins at min power and see the difference. If anyone experiences a different result, let me know.

[kiwi]

Merkin said:

The rest of Atlus7's response:

Also, Water has no spells that can be cast outside of battle, thus you aren't able to beef this skill up through practice this way. Air has 2 spells that can be cast outside of battle for a Mage--Missile Shield and Shadow Hounds. By the time you have access to Asphyxiation, your Air realm should be at adequate levels by casting those 2 spells all the time.

Actually, Air has 3 spells.  Sonic Boom can be cast outside of battle too.  You just have to be careful where you cast it... I had some people get mad when I cast it too close to them.