weapon of choice for mages?

hey people.

recently i beat the game with a meele oriented character, now i am planning to start a mage on medium difficulty. since i do not have any decent experiance with mages, i have some questions.

As the title suggest, which weapons should i use, and what weapon skills along with them?

dual staves?
dual orbs?
single stave or orb with a shield?

should i get one or more of staves/shields/dual wielding skills?

for the support, mana etc, ley walker or magic training?

if i get necro, how do i counter the self damage inflicted?

and, is demonology worth to try?

thanx in advance.

 

Without mods I would use Dual Staves. Get Dual Wield, not Staves skill. The highest level artifact staves vastly outclass the shields. And if you get hit in melee then you are probably doing something wrong anyway. (Or you opened a zoo.)

With mods it depends. Clockwork Knights mod adds a shield that make it very nice for a caster, despite lowering Magic Power. The Clockwork Deflector does what it sounds like. That in one hand and a Mirror Shield in the other would make you very capable against both casters and melee combatants. You need no skills to support this combination. It would be amazing for a pure mage.

For support I honestly suggest Mathemagics if not using mods, and Wind Magic if using them. (Both offer a reasonable cost teleport at low levels and a pinpoint accuracy teleport for a bit more cost at high levels in the skill.)

Why teleport as support? Because getting hit kills you. You play a mage, get accustomed to using the terrain to provide cover and killing things while they cannot retaliate.

Demonology is to specialized in my never humble opinion. Sure there are lots of demons out there, but there are many more monsters that are not demons. And the trade-off for the higher level skills is not worthwhile IMNHO.

I would not touch Ley Walker or Magic Training. They can be good, but you will get better use of other things. Play and see for yourself.

*Edit* To counter the necro downsides, take Astrology and keep that first skill buff up at all times. It does not negate the self damage, but it softens the blow quite a bit. You can usually get plenty of necro resistance items in the game.

 

If you have Blood Mage you won't need another skill for mana. You probably won't even need booze. Just carry a good orb or two to keep your mana regen bonus up there.

Emomancy, Psionics and Viking Magic all offer a wide array of powerful offensive skills. Mathemagics offers great panic button options. Astrology + Necronomiceconomics is killer, and if you dual wield orbs with the Pact of Fleeting Life on you won't have to worry about melee damage pretty much ever. Black Eyeliner from Emomancy plays well with a Necro build as well.

Dual Staves is awesome for the magic power boosts from the staves, but unless you're planning to go with a gish type and Vampirism I wouldn't bother with it. Take Alchemy for potions and self-made staves instead.

Blacksmithing is awesome for the ability to create your own anti-squishing rings (also known as Emerald Encrusted Gold Rings) but isn't really the best choice unless, again, you're a gish type.

Perception or Tinkering give you trap sight, which you will want. With all your just one or two traps can kill you. Definitely do something to keep up.

 

Well playing lots of different random builds I would say that your magic support skill really depends on the magic you're using. Ley Walker actually is pretty nice, it ends with a teleport, and it gives you quite a bit of mana, it'll give you even more than I get because you'll be playing DM where the mana regen should be much more noticable. The thaumaturgic tap is very useful early on and unlike blood magic you don't struggle with mana when there are no enemies around to attack or kill. It's nice in combination with cheap, deabilitating spells that struggle to kill outright like skatha's roots. Thaumaturgic Conflux is also quite nice when it triggers, which it is most likely to do if you are spamming lots of cheap spells.

The main thing Magic Training does for you is allow you to cast more spells at once before you need to replenish mana. It will give its biggest rewards where the 5 bonus from each level gives you the biggest reductions of casting cost. Mathemagic and Promethean benefits quite a bit from high savvy. The magic missile you get from it is very weak and its antimagic field is rather situational, although unlike the more useful Dampening Field of Angst you don't risk hitting yourself with it. The problem is that the ability it gives that lets you regenerate mana is three buys into the line, vs ley walker's one which is just one buy in. Also if you want , tinkering will give you some, much less but some, along with , , and , all which are very useful.
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There are two other skills you should consider though for support.

Blood Magic is excellent for melee focused magic like Necroeconomics and Vampirism as Spirit Conduit enchances their damage and the two on-kills will let you stack up some extra magic power while killing lots of things. Blood Magic is also excellent for Promethean Magic, where the AoE spells you are flinging all the time can occassionally return more mana in kills than they cost to cast. Rune of Exploding and Sanguinista, a combination available at your first level up, will leave you set to tackle the first monster zoo. Unless you are playing 1.0.10, Haematic Phylactery is also quite excellent just as a healing skill and even with no magic skills to support when blood magic pops up in a random build, it can be worth working to buy it.

Alchemy lets you make booze, and mana potions. On the sheer amounts of mana you'll be regenerating, it is pretty hard to beat a good supply of booze, especially when you're using a fruitful staff to get fruit to brew. I've found alchemy is the best support for Mathemagic where spell costs are prohibitive well into the late game and your play style is to recursive curse a few things, teleport away, and drink booze.

I'd say in general for mana regeneration Ley Walker is the nicest if you can get away with it (especially given its really useful capstone skill), Blood Magic is your next best option if Ley Walker isn't enough, and Alchemy is your last resort if not even Blood Magic is good enough.

 

thank everyone for advices, i am starting the fallowing build, it is kinda strange and modified from my initial idea, gonna try and see if it works for a few levels;

dual wielding (2 staves)
master of arms (defence)
blood mage (mana)
astrology
psionics
Promethean Magic
fleshsmithing

 

It's not really that strange, a pretty classic mage build.

 

A warning about Fleshsmithing: It's not really useful on DL2 and lots of stuff on DL3 seems resistant to its damage spells as well. The zombie also becomes useless very fast. It's a powerful late game skill, though. I just wouldn't level it early. Hopefully you read this in time...

 

thank you, certainly gonna take this into consideration.

 

Promethean Magic has one of the best summons in the game without mods. The Robot That Loves is better in most ways, but he cannot fly and the Promethean summon has good fire resistance too so you can throw fireballs all around it without worrying too much about killing it. But you will kill it. It is a disposable meat shield. (Since it flies, it cannot set off most traps though. That is good and bad. Good when nearby, bad when you need a summon to set off a trap that would hurt you too much.)

I have only ever taken Fleshsmithing one time. I never really liked what it offers enough to bother. So others can probably advise you much better than I.

If you want my opinion, discard Fleshsmithing in favor of Dual Wielding. That helps loads when you actually need to hit something. I would also swap Master of Arms for Ley Walker. If you are getting hit enough to need defenses then you should not be playing a mage. (Not entirely serious, but Lay Walker has full time benefits while Master of Arms only helps if you are unable to teleport away due to low mana.)

Hmmm. I could have sworn that Blood Mage stopped normal mana regen entirely like Vampire did for health regen. I should play that combo some more and get a better idea what I am remembering.

 

That would make it balanced. There seems to be an active effort to keep Blood Mage from ever being balanced, so you get blood MP and regenerate at your normal rate.

 

I would go for dual staff.
Take alchemy and with some luck you can get Jingly Jangly Staff relatively early.
A good Kroned Cybernetic orb also can be viable.
And I ask also. Does the penality of dual wielding staves without the Dual skill apply only to melee attacks?

 

I'm not sure vampirism stopping health regen entirely is a good idea, either. It's not necessary to balance everything good by giving it some crippling side effect. Slowing mana regeneration is perfectly fair, and haematic phylactery does do that in fact.

Also are you sure that the problem lies with Blood Magic and not with Promethean Magic? I've actually not found Blood Magic to be very overpowered except in combination with Promethean. With all other types of magic it rarely returns more in mana than than the associated spells use up, except with spells that provide buffs like Magic Steele and Pact of Fleeting life, where blood magic seems to fit thematically as spirit conduit combines well with those.

No, you do not need dual wielding to benefit from two staves if you are casting. Beserk is probably the nicest warrior skill to have on a mage who relies on casting over melee, or Master of Arms.

 

I am pretty sure Blood Magic is overpowered with almost any strong AoE, like Miasmatic Putrefaction, Tenebrous Rift, The Stars Aligned, Thaumite Swarm and possibly even Thor's Fulminaric Bolt.. It just happens that every Promethean spell has strong/ decent AoE, just about every spell will end up hitting multiple enemies if used right, and with enough even the left over flames do decent damage.

Edit: I chose the capstones of several trees, since they give an obvious example, that doesn't meant that other spells don't have enough AoE to work well with Blood Magic.

 

I thought about this, I'm not sure if I agree. I think the problem isn't actually even with AoE. The problem is that Promethean lets you kill things quickly for small amounts of mana. This is as true of spells like Summon Wyrmling and Gog's Tactical Pyre as it is of spells like Rune of Exploding and Obvious Fireball. Just about everything in promethean combos well with blood magic without significant downsides. Necroeconomics is the only discipline that does even better at that, but given its other downsides it's probably better balanced in that regard. In particular, Necroeconomics' cheapness on mana seems to come with the requirement that you melee things to death rather than flinging stuff from range. It seems everything else, except promethean, have some important disadvantages that make it hard to use blood magic to spam it. Mana costs are too high, damage is too resistable, or it doesn't kill things quickly enough.

Tenebrous Rift is quite expensive and it debuffs your spellpower (and by extension the amount of mana you get for each kill). Even when dealing with monster zoos, Sanguinista isn't going to stop you from running out of mana setting up the rifts, although it will help quite a bit, enough to perhaps allow you to set up 6 rifts rather than 4. Blood magic seems to have the biggest benefit to two vastly more useful earlier spells (Mark of Cthon and Pact of Fleeting Life).

Miasmic Putrefecation is a bit expensive too, and plenty of things resist , (whoops! just robots), and . Corpse Burst is a much nicer thing to use in combination with blood magic from my experiences, often killing things outright and returning its mana cost. Although corpse burst requires a corpse. Doesn't seem as reliable as promethean.

Thaumite Swarm takes too long to kill things to really be something I'd consider especially spammable with blood magic. It's quite spammable without blood magic powering it anyway.

I've never gotten a sanguinista return on investment with My Chemical Explosion, although Sigil of Whatever and Mark of the Black Eyeliner do seem to combine quite well with blood magic.

I've also never gotten a return on investment with The Stars Aligned, although I have with Blinding Flash. I think it might be possible though, if you could somehow surround yourself with enough enemies, combine with a teleport skill?

I did think the old haematic phylactery was utterly broken though, but that has been nerfed in 1.0.10.

 

Let me put it this way, Kaidelong.

I've beaten Dredmor 3 times while using mages. First time I played a Pyro/Math build. Second time I played an Astro/Necro build. Third time I played a Psionics/Viking build.

The only run I put more any points into Blood Magic was the first one (that was before RotDG, too, so it may not be the best metric.) I had to drink booze almost constantly on the first floor and a little bit on the second. After DL3, maybe once or twice per floor. I turned almost every bottle of booze I found into Aqua Vitae and from there into potions, the only ones that didn't make the conversion were Absinthe and Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters, the latter because I couldn't turn it into AV. I even ran Syzergy from wherever I found my first Gargleblaster to Big D.

By DL10 I was recouping about 8-9 MP per kill. Most magic skills give you abilities that can reap more than one kill per casting. Unconditional Love, My Chemical Explosion, (summon of choice here), most Promethean/Necronomics spell, ect. Pretty much the only skill tree I can think of that lacks such a spell is Mathemagics.

Also, check out this thread where Blood Mage is directly compared to Leyline Walker and Dire Gourmand, a Mod skill. Note the assumptions Loren made in calculating things out, the chart assumes one enemy killed every 3 turns.

Consider also that Leyline Walker bonuses cap out, Blood Mage bonuses do not.

Finally, ask anyone around here if they would build a Mage without Blood Mage. You will not find a one. Why? Because it would be stupid. Why pass up so much in the way of free resources?

In conclusion: If a skill is 1) taken by every character who would find it relevant, 2) removes more than 75% of a character's need for a specific resource and 3) needs no points put into it to make it relevant to your entire run, you are probably looking at a skill that is fundamentally broken. Burglary and Fungal Arts were both nerfed for similar reasons. Blood Mage needs it too. Maybe negating mana regeneration entirely is a bit harsh. But something needs to be done. Mages should not get 90% of their most important resource for free.

 

Ah, yes, I see how it can be a problem lower down. Especially for characters with lots and lots of savvy. Seems a rather simple solution would be to reduce the scaling? Or perhaps attach a penalty on savvy along with the righteous resistance debuff.

Nerfing the scaling actually seems like it'd be great for powering buffs better while reducing the effect of negating mana costs from AoE spells. Particularly given synergy with Spirit Conduit Vital Siphon. A trickle of steady, predictable mana from melee hits could keep those going throughout a fight.

I can't think of any way that Rune of Exploding can be reconciled with blood magic though. It's just too cheap for the amount of stuff it can kill. Perhaps get rid of sanguinista altogether and have Blood Magic give its mana entirely via spirit conduit?

Oh hey, I just checked spellsDB.xml, and it's hard to believe anyone could have gotten 8-9 MP per kill as that would require >150 . Do people really get that stat up that high? The return is (1+0.05), except on undead and vegetables, where you get 0.

With 40, you would get 3 per kill. Quite substantial but a very different different affair from each kill giving you another rune to cast.

Rune of Exploding would still be broken, though.

 

Actually, those numbers were based on v. 1.0.9b, where the progression was equal to 0.1 . 70 isn't that unreasonable, particularly for a character with Magic Training and the ability to generate their own orbs/staves. Checking my 1.0.10 spellDB I see that Blood Mage has been nerfed again, so it's a little more than half as good as it used to be.

I'm still not entirely comfortable with every summon and every melee kill coming with free mana built into it. I prefer the idea of blood mage being an ability that turns HP into MP, as it forces mages to rely on their HP a little more, and be hurt by the much slower regen speed on GR (as opposed to the barely noticeable increase in mana regen speed on the same difficulty.) The melee proc could be left in, to reward those mages that risk their hide, but the fact of the matter is, no matter what form they come in, free resources are bad for game balance.

Whatever happens, Savvy shouldn't be nerfed. It's still the most useless stat in the game, even with a decent scaling progression for spells. The idea should be to make the other two magic support skills more viable in comparison to Blood Mage, not everything that provides extra Savvy less so. By the same token, both Magic Training and Leyline Walker are decent support skills with power levels comparable to Wonderboy melee support like Berserk Rage. They definitely shouldn't be upped in power, given the generally greater power level of Mages to Warriors or Rogues.

Ideally, we'd see a total rebuild of Blood Mage. But I don't think that's ever going to happen, so we may be stuck with a watered down but still immensely powerful skill.

 

I was thinking just the same thing, but then I realized that it'd be incredibly hard to balance it against fleshknit and other healing spells.

There is a mod skill tree, Spellsword, in FAXPAX I think, that has an ability that does this though. Have you played it? The ability is on a cool down timer.

 

IMO Blood Magic is fine as it is now. BUT if you are really worried about AOE skills recouping too much mana, the simple solution is to make it proc a maximum of once per spell.

The real problem isn't blood magic, it's the way that Leyline Walker becomes useless with gear. That is more of a mana regen mechanic problem though.

For comparison's sake: Once you obtain one of the healing skills from the various trees which have one, you no longer need to carry around food. Or, if you prefer, once you have put enough points in necro to get pact of fleeting life, you can laugh at food AND vampirism and mob damage, whatever that is. In other words, you have a biased view between mana (booze) and health (food) imo.

 

What do the forums think of a build like:

Archaelogy
Blood Magic
Promethean
Unarmed
Burglary
Alchemy
Psionics

With the intention of going for tomes/orbs? Are they too underpowered? I'm finding that taking unarmed with your first level helps the early game and then you start hitting things with fire.