Mage 201: Managing the Multi Mage Party

[Brude]

I restarted with 4 mages on "hard" difficulty, one in each school, and put more deliberation into the builds of each Mage. As you might guess, it's tricky for the first 3 dungeon levels but after that it's absolutely viable. In fact, it's a little scary how quickly even high health mobs die.

(Note: I originally intended this to be a reply post to another thread, but it got a bit long, and I realized that it can also be used as a basic guide to Mages in general, Mage builds, and spell damage in Grimlock. For single or double Mage teams, go for Insects with a maxed Willpower and a 12 or so Vitality. The rest as follows.)

For this party to work, you've got to know the maps and dungeon levels well. That means knowing the environment like the back of your hand so you can use traps, teleporters, pillars, and door switches to your advantage (there's nothing funnier than kiting a skeleton onto a trapdoor, triggering it, and watching the sap drop out of sight).

For me, it was a little bit of a learning curve, but eventually I looked at it like a different kind of puzzle. (And the solution you're looking for is: how do I kite them where I want them? How do I get more range? How good is my positioning right now? Because if you ever get cornered and are forced to tank, your guys are pretty much dead).

You've also got to be comfortable with the interface enough to sidestep and dodge while clicking runes on four characters. If you can run circles around Spiders and never get hit with your regular melee based party, and dodge the tiny Herder's poison bolts every time, you should be good to go.

Finally, understand that unlike most other base stats, Willpower only matters at level up. Pay attention to who is going to level next, and move all the +Willpower gear to them you can. Then distribute it as needed. Rinse, repeat.

(I'm also not completely sure, but I don't think Willpower effects base spell damage much, if at all. It is only used to calculate Energy, and Energy only affects how many casts your Mage can do before going empty. Different schools also have different Energy requirements. From lowest to highest: Earth, Ice, Fire, Air.)

I always build my parties with at least 1 of each race, because I think that's more fun. I tried to build a group that would capitalize the most on racial starting stats and subsequent magic school bonuses.

For skills, the goal of this party, once you get 10 points into Spellcraft for the casting speed bonus, is to put every single available point into a primary spell school.

Suggested Frontline:

Minotaur Earth Mage:
Minotaurs start with high health, and the Earth tree has even more +Vitality bonuses in it. This is a great fit for a frontline, cloth wearing "tank." Early on they can take a few hits, and are a little better at shrugging off poison attacks from creepy crawlies. They have a horribly low Willpower, but that's mitigated by the fact that Earth has the lowest Energy requirements out of all the schools (almost half of Air and Fire's per cast).

Unfortunately, more mobs are immune to Earth magic than any other school in the game (3 types of Skeletons, 2 types of Herders, and Wardens). Throwing a couple of points into Fire helps early on, but a better bet might be 3 points into Ice, giving your Earther a cheap, long range attack against those monsters for the entire game.

Lizardman Air Mage:
Scaley boy's decent starting Dexterity stacks well with the bonuses found in the Air tree. If the Minotaur is your stand in fighter, this guy is your rogue. With tree and gear bonuses he'll have an absurdly high Evasion score for a Mage.

This Evasion comes at a price. Lightning Bolts have a huge Energy requirement -- roughly 40 per cast, the highest in the game -- and Lizards start with a lower Willpower than Humans or Insects. The alternative is to make your Air Mage an Insect, put him in the back line and make him a glass cannon with high starting Willpower and low Vitality. Of course, then the tradeoff is that his +Dexterity bonus have little benefit outside marginal elemental resistance.

Suggested Backline:

Insect Ice Mage:
Your Ice Mage could be almost any race, but the Insect's high Willpower meshes well with the bonuses from this school. I gave mine a low starting Vitality of 12 and pumped the rest into Willpower. With the exception of a single optional encounter, back liners should never be getting hit so defensive stats, and to a large extent Vitality, are meaningless.

Human Fire Mage:
Humans are the jack of all trades, starting with even stats, but with Fire giving a fairly useless Strength bonus. On the bright side, this guy can be the party mule, carrying the heavier items, and equipping a good throwing weapon in his offhand to make the most of his bonuses.

There's one noteable (and annoying) mob that's immune to Fire, but you can take a few points of Ice for those guys or just use throwing weapons to get some XP while the rest of your group blows them apart. During these encounters, it's more important that Fire Shield remains up on your party at all times.

If you choose to make your Air Mage a backline glass cannon, move this guy to the front and give him a 14 Vitality so that he can take some hits.

The simpler alternative party is to make your frontliners a Minotaur and Lizard (ie, a high Vitality toon coupled with a high Evasion toon) backed up by two Insect glass cannons (high Willpower, low Vitality). Pfft, who needs humans, anyway?

Traits & Skill Selection:

Regardless of race, I took the same traits for every character:

- Strong Mind (+2 Willpower)
- Skilled (+3 points)

Some other traits (like Aura, Healthy, Evasive, or the Insect racial) are tempting, but don't scale. Flat bonuses are better at the start of the game but offer neglible benefit from midgame onwards.

For skills, I always put two points into Spellcraft at the start to get the Willpower bonus, then the remaining points into their primary school. This gave everyone their first basic attack spell at level 1, with the exception of the Earth Mage, who can start with 2 points in Fire or use fast melee weapons in the short term.

Party Arrangement, Or How to Click Runes Like a Pro:

If you played through, you know the spells and the runes. Yes, it's a slightly awkward system, but I found it helpful to place my Mages on the screen in terms of what overlapping runes they used and what kind of damage they did.

Earth and Ice use some of the same runes and seem more oriented to utility (a mob that's frozen solid is the perfect candidate to get hit by Poison Bolt). Both Poison Cloud and Bolt use runes that Ice utilizes too.

On the right side, I put my Air and Fire. These also share a few runes and both do big burst damage.

So the party makeup, left to right, top to bottom, looks like this:

Earth / Air
Ice / Fire

Utility left, burst right. This kept me organized during the more frenetic fights, as well as built muscle memory, both of which helped immensely throughout the early stages of the game.

It also goes without saying that before opening any door or moving down any shadowy hallway, I made sure each mage had their primary nuke preselected on the interface, afterwards moving to single rune short range spells as mobs got close or were frozen.

How to Play Early Levels When You Have One Spell and No Energy:

The trick is to play your all Mage group like they're, well, bad Fighters. Equip them with swords, daggers, spears, shields and throwing weapons.

It's important to manage Energy across the team so that you're not forced to constantly rest. For each encounter, I designated one or two Mages as the spellcasters and had the rest use physical based attacks. Then I just rotated the roles. Whoever had the most energy cast, while the other guys used spears or throwing weapons as they regenerated Energy. This way, everyone got XP and the whole team wasn't going dry after fighting a couple of Snails. Then you just kite, kite, and kite some more. If you do it right, nobody will take damage.

I also tried to balance points between early Spellcraft and pumping primary schools for more damage. In short: When in doubt, go for damage. You definitely want to get 8 and then 10 points in Spellcraft as soon as you can, but getting nukes early on one or two characters helps Immensely with tougher monsters.

It also helps if you stagger the points a bit, ie, giving Air and Fire their speed bonus from Spellcraft first, so they can more rapidly throw out high damage short range attacks, while Ice and Earth go for the long ranged nukes in their tree as quickly as possible. (This also works well as Earth and Ice require fewer points in the tree to get their nukes).

The spider level is by far the most challenging. Take it slow, go room to room, close every door behind you, and pull mobs out of hallways to bigger areas where you can two step. Equipping 1 bomb in each Mage's casting hand will let you rapidly do burst damage while conserving energy, afterwards leaving them free to cast as normal. For bigger rooms packed with Spiders, you've got to take your time and watch their movements. Very often, it's possible to pull one mob out, burst him down, then run back & slam the door shut before the others know what's going on, or wander out and end up helping their buddy in the middle of the fight. When you're rested and ready, open the door and pull out another mob.

Once you get to dungeon level 4, most of these concerns are moot. You won't have energy issues and quads of Skeletons will be 2 shot by a Fireball followed by a Lightning Bolt. Then it's mostly a matter of carefully dancing around Crabs and pretending you're a toreador in a bullring against those Ogres.

[Merethif]

Nice build. I'll probably check it out one day.

In "Party Arrangement" second paragraph you has wrote "Air" instead of "Ice" I believe.

[Brude]

Nice guide. I'll probably check it out one day.

In "Party Arrangement" second paragraph you has wrote "Air" instead of "Ice" I believe.

Thanks! Fixed the error & cleaned up a few typos.

[Darlos9D]

I think this post hit upon one little thing I was thinking about recently: everybody says Earth sucks since it's hard to get people to stand in gas clouds, but Frostbolt freezes them there. Earth and Ice definitely synergize well because of that.

I tend to hate to pass up Earth, because it really devalues the Shaman Staff.

[Thels]

- Strong Mind (+2 Willpower)
- Skilled (+3 points)

Some other traits (like Aura, Healthy, Evasive, or the Insect racial) are tempting, but don't scale. Flat bonuses are better at the start of the game but offer neglible benefit from midgame onwards.

Aura is actually much better than Strong Mind.

Aura provides a flat +15 Energy. Strong Mind provides a +5 energy at level 1 and then +1 energy at levelup, so at level 11 Strong Mind and Aura are equally viable. After that Strong Mind gains the advantage, providing 1 more energy at level 12, 2 more energy at level 13, and 3 more energy at level 14.

That's 1-3 points of energy on quite a large energy pool. However, at levels 1-10 you're actually behind 10-1 energy points in a smaller energy pool, so it's more in contrast. Add to that that you're saying 4 mages are harder earlier on, I don't see why you want to take a huge dump in energy for a very marginal energy bonus near the end of the game.

[Brude]

- Strong Mind (+2 Willpower)
- Skilled (+3 points)

Some other traits (like Aura, Healthy, Evasive, or the Insect racial) are tempting, but don't scale. Flat bonuses are better at the start of the game but offer neglible benefit from midgame onwards.

Aura is actually much better than Strong Mind.

Aura provides a flat +15 Energy. Strong Mind provides a +5 energy at level 1 and then +1 energy at levelup, so at level 11 Strong Mind and Aura are equally viable. After that Strong Mind gains the advantage, providing 1 more energy at level 12, 2 more energy at level 13, and 3 more energy at level 14.

That's 1-3 points of energy on quite a large energy pool. However, at levels 1-10 you're actually behind 10-1 energy points in a smaller energy pool, so it's more in contrast. Add to that that you're saying 4 mages are harder earlier on, I don't see why you want to take a huge dump in energy for a very marginal energy bonus near the end of the game.

Good points. Coming from other RPG and fantasy games, I got into the habit of boosting prime stats as this was almost always the better option over the course of a single game or series. This habit carried over to Grimlock, although it's admittedly less useful here.

In one sense, we're really splitting hairs, since as you note the energy difference is very small on what will be large Energy pools (and 15 energy isn't enough for any single additional cast from any of the primary schools; Poison Cloud is the cheapest combat spell at ~22 energy.)

In another sense, your example answers your own question -- Aura does not scale, and thus Strong Mind is a bit, well, stronger if you're trying to min/max towards endgame (although again, the difference is really negligible, but given the option I'll squeeze out extra benefits where I can).

I'm hoping that Willpower has some kind of secondary benefit, like slightly boosting spell damage. If it doesn't, then Mages are under designed and some itemization makes no sense (eg, items that boost both Willpower and Energy). I haven't tested that though, and have never seen a forum post addressing it.

If all Willpower does is increase Energy pools, it's a pretty worthless stat, even for Mages. Outside a few high health mobs, any single Mage isn't ever required to cast more than 2-3 times in any encounter. As this is more or less achieved by midgame, it might make more sense to choose defensive Traits like Evasive or Healthy (espcially for Mage frontliners) over the relatively narrow boost that either Strong Mind or Aura give you.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Thels]

In another sense, your example answers your own question -- Aura does not scale, and thus Strong Mind is a bit, well, stronger if you're trying to min/max towards endgame (although again, the difference is really negligible, but given the option I'll squeeze out extra benefits where I can).

Stronger when min/maxing towards the endgame, yes. But why min/max towards the endgame specifically? It's not like it's a breeze before that. Overall, Aura is much more beneficial.

And yes, you do need willpower. With Willpower 10, you have 50 energy at level 1, and then 1-3 energy at levelup (let's say 2 on average), for a total of 74 energy at level 13 (plus energy from skills/items). Every 2 points of Willpower nets you 17 extra energy at level 13, so Willpower 14 would already give you 108 energy, which is quite a bit more than that 74. Willpower 16 would make it 125, which is 2/3th more than the Willpower 10 character.

[Brude]

Stronger when min/maxing towards the endgame, yes. But why min/max towards the endgame specifically? It's not like it's a breeze before that. Overall, Aura is much more beneficial.

And yes, you do need willpower. With Willpower 10, you have 50 energy at level 1, and then 1-3 energy at levelup (let's say 2 on average), for a total of 74 energy at level 13 (plus energy from skills/items). Every 2 points of Willpower nets you 17 extra energy at level 13, so Willpower 14 would already give you 108 energy, which is quite a bit more than that 74. Willpower 16 would make it 125, which is 2/3th more than the Willpower 10 character.

You're missing my main points:

- In a game that does not require long periods of chain casting, Mages do not need terribly high Energy pools to be effective. In one hard mode run, I had an Earth Mage that finished out at level 13 with over 250 Energy, which translates into roughly ten consecutive Poison Bolts. Very few mobs in this game could survive even half that. (Air and Fire are really the only two Energy hungry schools, but with a full party mobs in this game die long before they go dry.)

- You're almost always better off going for stats that scale. With additional content that allows characters to progress beyond level 13 or 14 in regular play, your flat, non scaling Trait looks far less attractive (as do the other non scaling traits like Aggressive and Evasive).

Even in the current game, we're talking about, at worst, a 9 energy difference between these two Traits. Why wouldn't you take the Trait that provides a longer term benefit?

[Thels]

You're missing my main points:

- In a game that does not require long periods of chain casting, Mages do not need terribly high Energy pools to be effective. In one hard mode run, I had an Earth Mage that finished out at level 13 with over 250 Energy, which translates into roughly ten consecutive Poison Bolts. Very few mobs in this game could survive even half that. (Air and Fire are really the only two Energy hungry schools, but with a full party mobs in this game die long before they go dry.)

I admit, I'm not terribly knowledged about mages. I know that placing 6 points in Willpower at level 1 provides for 51 additional energy at level 13. Whether that's worth it or not is up to you. It's not like they're getting a lot out of Strength or Agility.

Even in the current game, we're talking about, at worst, a 9 energy difference between these two Traits. Why wouldn't you take the Trait that provides a longer term benefit?

I would take the trait providing me a longer term benefit, which is Aura. It benefits me all the way from levels 1 to 10, whereas Strong Mind only benefits me at 12 and 13, and as you already made pretty clear, 1 or 2 energy points on 250 energy points total really aren't going to make any difference whatsoever, while those 10 extra points on level 1 or those 9 extra points on level 2 might.

- You're almost always better off going for stats that scale. With additional content that allows characters to progress beyond level 13 or 14 in regular play, your flat, non scaling Trait looks far less attractive (as do the other non scaling traits like Aggressive and Evasive).

I admit that with additional content that allows you to continue your current party, +2 Willpower is going to look better and better. Still, with the scaling, I doubt it would go up to level 25. More likely somewhere around level 17-19, which would cause Strong Mind around 7 points to be ahead on Aura. Even if it would go all the way to level 25, we're talking 14 points difference on a major energy pool, which is probably not nearly as important as the 10 point difference on the small energy pool.

Either way, LoG can be beaten with any party, really, so you can probably do it with either Strong Mind or Aura.