Mage 201: Managing the Multi Mage Party
Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 5:01 pm
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.
(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.