Why Not Bring a Mage?

[Tenzek]

I see a lot of topics discussing how worthless a mage is and how you're better off without one.

I felt like I had the opposite experience, and I am wondering what was different about how I used my mage.


1) What element did you choose primarily?

2) How far and when did you take Spellcrafting?

3) Did you train more than one element, or did you focus your training?

4) Did you give your mage a spear so that he could contribute something when you didn't want to spend mana on a spell?

5) What difficulty did you choose?

I played on the hard difficulty setting.

I took my mage's Ice line to ice shards, then SC to 2 so I could equip something. Next I got up to the ice bolt, then I took SC to 10 where I left it. The rest went into Ice.

I realized that giving him a spear early on helped him in gaining experience, so I did not see him fall behind as so many complaints I have seen on these forums have described.

Later in the game he was able to cast often enough that I could drop the spear, and I found him to be an extremely powerful and useful member of the group. Even just the control that the Ice line provided was worth it, but his damage output was also quite high. In the end, he was the character with the largest experience total gained out of the 4.

Has anyone else found their mage to be useful, or would I be surprised at how much better it would be if I dropped him for an archer next time?

[Disasterrific]

In terms of raw damage you might have been better with an archer but that's just min/maxing talk. I played with a fire mage and an air mage and felt like they were very powerful.

[Bees]

I split mine between fire, ice, and a little earth.

I took spellcraft to 18.

Fire to 24, Ice to 18, Earth to 7. (All of my skillpoint items went to him.)

I never bothered with weapons, just two wands/orbs as I acquired them. He still ended up with the most xp.

I played normal. Now that I'm replaying on hard, I'm going with two mages: one for ice and one for air.

[Tenzek]

In terms of raw damage you might have been better with an archer but that's just min/maxing talk. I played with a fire mage and an air mage and felt like they were very powerful.

Probably not, given that in the end, ice bolts froze things long enough for my rogue to get in at least 2 backstabs while a target was disabled.

[Spathi]

BRING IT!

yeah mage is more powerful, the only problem had is running out of mana so need to save some and wait for the mace to land

[Baroque]

I went mostly fire and spellcraft, but the spellcraft was larely useless after Light (i didn't spoil the spells). Fire was very useful, I found myself casting the fire resist spell before entering most rooms, just in case of an uggardian. It was nice to have at least 1 buff, and greater fireball was pretty powerful. I don't get the mages are unpowered thing honestly. Maybe it's just how people are speccing. Try greater fireball.. Not only does it hit hard, you can toss it down halls as a light source to see what lies ahead..

[Saice]

For me it was about speed and investment needed until fully effective in the group.

My first party had a fire mage pure spec with just a dash of Spell craft for light got near the end of the 3rd floor and just felt everyone in the party was doing more unless I wanted to rest after every other fight.

For me the two things the put the nails in my mage's coffin were downtime either in combat because lack of energy or forcing the part to rest. The other was the spell system it self. While I did like it I found it overly slow. at least with say DM that had a simluar spell system you could use the key board to enter runes in making it fairly easy to do while still fighting with the rest of your party. In most fights I could cycle through my whole partys attacks in the same time it would take me to open the spell window key in the runes and hit cast. At min your need three clicks 1 to open 1 for the smallest spell and 1 to cast in that same time I can have the other 3 do their attacks so unless that spell is doing the same damage as the three other party members its just not worth in my book.

Mind you looking over the spell system it was clear they would ROCK near end game once you got to your improved spell versions and your party resist buffs. But that just to me was a long term investment for an unknown time frame I had no idea how many floors were in Grimlock and after 3 of them (which at the time I was hoping was about one fifth) I did not see mages really blooming until mid game.

But YMMV I am not suggesting mages are bad or broken just IMHO not worth the time for the payoff. Maybe if they add a Character Export/Import function for modders and we get some nice epic length dungeons out I will change my mind.

[Disasterrific]

Getting early willpower made a significant difference to mage effectiveness.
My fire mage had way more mana than the air mage, thanks to willpower boosts and the

SpoilerShow

fire orb

, although I do believe the mana costs on lightning are more expensive.

[Bardamu]

Easy to decide:

Spellcraft to 10 is correct, to wear Zhabduls orb. Until level 6 it should be 5 (the other orb and Shaman staff)
Spells: Ice for Frostbolt (you can bring it further to lengthen freezing of enemies, but the damage isnt so good).
Rest Air (damage), fire may be ok to, but Ugguards resist it, and they are the best mobs to grind and you haver to fight them often.



Earth isnt good, cause the poison bolt is later combined with a poison cloud (better poison bolt). If Mobs die in the cloud, you dont earn any experience for killing them

[NakedGranny]

Earth isnt good, cause the poison bolt is later combined with a poison cloud (better poison bolt). If Mobs die in the cloud, you dont earn any experience for killing them

this.

and the downtime. Mages may seem "powerful" compared to easy mode monsters, but the truth is that they're just the weakest characters in every way. Freezing may be nifty and helpful sometimes, there's discussion of abusing Invisibility for solo runs, but in the end the truth hurts. Earth is a horrendous mistake on the developers' part, as implemented, and spell variety is pathetic overall in any of the schools. if you don't have a ranged Rogue in the party, there goes 25% of your spell selection!! the damage is absolutely in no way worth the energy cost, and Mages are easily killed, and can't carry as much.

it would be nice to say they're worth a slot on the team, but frankly, you could finish the game with a single character, so what sense does that argument make??