A good mage build?

I've been messing around with a mage build of something like, (Staves, Psionics, Nerconominomics, Astrology, Magic Training, Blood Mage, Ley Walker) Does this sound like something that might work or does someone else have a better idea?

 

Weapon skills are mostly useless later on if you aren't going to train them up. My mage wears 2 shields.
Haven't used Necro at all or Astrology past the first point, but Psionics doesn't get an offensive move for a while. Going to be hard up at the start.

 

I was thinking that with all three ranks in Ley Walking, plus maybe the "The Mana Torus" ring, I would have enough mana to keep Mark of Chthon on all the time so I could cast Deathly Hex with no blowback.

 

Ive been doing theme-focused mages, and I have some skills I cant live without. So I have been doing artful dodger, magic training, ley lines, perception and burglary, leaving my last 2 skills to make a theme build. Staff + astrology = celestial monk. Unarmed + fire = Prince Zuko. Golemancy plus fungal arts is a summonee. Etc.

 

I have found that you neeed about 4 mana regen to keep mark of chthon up constantly so you can spam deathly hex with no risk. But I have also found that the damage dealt to you by casting deathly hex increses by 1 for every 4-5 spell power you have.

So keep in mind that you will be constantly needing to get more necro resist as you get stronger.

 

The only magic on my current character is Promethean and that is really all that i needed. Other magics may provide utility but with fire magic its not needed as everything dies :/ Then just get Magic Training and Ley Lines and fill out the rest with whatever you want, though Artful Dodging is useful for the leap skill to get away from the enemy.

 

I dont use magic training or any weaponskill anymore. Bloodmagic and leylines is enough to never get out of mana using the fireball all the time. You dont even need to max leylines if you find enough items with manareg. Instead of a weapon i wear 2 orbs.
The bonus from magictraining isnt enough for me, i better like to take skills that give me something useful like artful dodger for the jump, burglary for the lockpigs/ disarming traps and archeology for the nice skills and also for the disarming.

 

I've been having an easy time of it, after perfecting my Mage-style build on Dwarfish Permadeath.

Promethean, Psionics, Leyline Walker, Magic Training, Viking Wizardry, Burglary, Staves

I first get Promethean up to Rune of Exploding (2), Put one into Leyline, further take Promethean up to Obvious Fireball (4), another couple into leyline for max mana regen so that I only need 3 mana regen on equipment later to max that out at 6.

From there I add more Psionics up to Nerver Staple (4) or even just to (3) for the healing shinies, and especially the Psychokinetic Push skill (2) which can be used for many thing including: Pushing items off islands to the other side, pushing away groups of mobs, and pushing traps to move them. The last one I just figured out.. who needs to disarm traps when you can just move 'em out of the way!? Eat it you dirty traps!

After that it's all cheese. I took Staves because numerous ones have magic power bonuses, which helps your spell damage. That's good because you'll be spamming a LOT of Obvious Fireball, which makes short work of even the biggest zoos. It also has yet more spellcasting stats at the top, if/when I want to bother with it. Popping out a Wyrmling summon spell can give you a backup tank soaker for anything that sneaks by. Got Burglary for all the Lockpicks, which you can just summon and dump into the Lutefisk box when you're plenty stocked up.. to sacrifice for random decent items later.

Viking Wizardry was the swing build I took this time, basically the spot for a level 1 buff spell. It was to help finish off junk that came too close in the early game, with the first skill. Later, it has some more AoE spells and that's what this build is about. Another good option is Astrology here because it's level 1 buff helps not only for the reflective damage & stun, but because your sight will be extended 2 more squares. That extra sight can help you see where more monsters are, in groups, when you first spot them and place your Fireball better for more effective damage coverage.

I've just finished dungeon level 5 and it's been cake so far. The only time I came close to death was accidentally running over one of those really nasty acid traps, before I realized that I could use the psychokinetic push to just push them down hallways.

 

I'm not sure how the passive level up stats compare, but I'd say Blood Arts >>>> Magic Training.

If you get it to level 3, you get 4MP back on each kill and the buff that comes with it is the same as the maxed out Magic Training stat boost, 4 Sagacity (lasts 25 turns).

The higher your magic power, the cheaper your spells too, so later in the game when your stuff is only costing 3 or 4mp, getting that same return (especially on AoE spells) means you'll cast for 20 mana in a room and get back pretty much all of it in the space of a few turns.

It also helps in Going Rogue where mana comes back every 9 rounds normally.

 

I recently killed Lord Dredmor with this build:

Math (!!!), Psionics, Ley Walking, Blood Magic, Astrology, Magic Training, Promethean

I use the Curse of Golden Ratio as my main weapon, I just kite my enemies and I'm swimming in gold! There's no way to spend it as Braxx keeps refusing to have nice mage items.
The recursive curse is nice but not really necessary as afaik the gold curse stacks.
I use the accurate math teleport whenever an opponent stands right next to me (e.g. almost everytime I kick in a door) and the fireball for the monster schools.
The 3 supplementary magic skills leave me with enough mana regeneration + reduced mana costs to continually cast the goldcurse.

The only thing I'd do differently is ditch astrology, even though the radiant shield is very useful in the first level. Maybe get Archeology and trade in artifacts for experience (as I don't need to sell them for gold with this build).

Mathemagic and Psionics are imo the most useful magic arts.

 

You think kiting is better than blasting them in one hit with Obvious Fireball?
Zoos are dead in seconds. Bosses dead in two seconds.

Magic Training isn't for mana regen, people. It is for an easy 4 Sagacity which gives you spell power.

 

on harder difficulties fungal arts is required as a mage, the mushrooms will help your mana immensely

 

My preferred mage build so far is this:

Staves
Vampirism
Astrology
Promethean Magic
Mage Training
Blood Magic
Ley Walker

The idea is pretty simple; survive the first floor long enough to get Vampirism level 2 (to be able to surve the rest of the floor easily), then start working on passives (usually I take Blood Magic level 2 next) and Promethean Magic.

On Going Rogue + Permadeath, I find that around floor 4 you're basically set for cruise control to Fireball anything into oblivion without ever having mana concerns. My second run at this build just ended a few minutes ago, on Floor 7 to a CTD in the monster zoo on that floor (~250k score) and were it not for the crash I can't see anything stopping you once you're maxed passives with Fireball and Radiant/Syzygy up permanently. Use the whelping for health, tripping traps and getting out of opened doorways that have monsters directly at the front easily. It clears out monster zoos in about ten seconds without any real risk (barring what happened to me with the crash I guess).

If I get a crash free run next time I think it will be an easy GR+P full clear.

 

I don't think any non-melee spellcaster -ever- needs staves. You should still benefit from the stats of any item (if I'm correct).. and that is what you want. You'll just be penalised when you actually want to hit enemies with those weapons.

Personally, I'm fond of this build:
Mathemagic
Psionics
Astrology
Promethean
Magic Training
Ley Lines
and then either Alchemy or Blood Magic. Although I'm leaning towards the latter.

I do notice that I have a tendency to grab a lot of passive skills first, but I've come to realise it's probably better to focus on getting a few key spells and -then- focus on making them more efficient/powerful.

 

I built some sort of rogue-mage that worked really well. The strategy is very simple : dominating everything with Promethean spells, while eating strange magic mushrooms.

Staves
Artful Dodger
Promethean Magic
Blood Magic
Ley Lines
Burglary
Fungus Arts

I have to admit that I've been really lucky. I was able to buy a molten orb pretty early and got tons of Sagacity/MP refill mushrooms. Basically, when I entered a room, I threw Obvious Fireball in the middle and all the enemies got killed (on Dwarvish Moderation).
I still managed to run into an acid arrow trap that killed me, though :/

 

My build is Golemancy, Promethean Magic, Blood Magic, Ley Lines, Archaelogy, Alchemy and Magic Training.

Animate Blade Being is a great starter spell while you are levelling up, kiting enemies into the thing just takes abit of patience and practice.
Putting points into leylines till maximum, then 1 point into blood magic for the additional regen. Then it's straight into Promethean until you get obvious fireball, which is basically your main spell.
Then magic training to full to power buff your fireball.

As long as you keep your magic power consistently high, fireball never goes out of date and can carry you through the whole game.

Downsides to this build:
Early mana issues until the first level... Bit tricky till you get explosion runes.
Mostly kiting based and quite tactical until you get fireball.
Makes the game boring, once you have fireball you can lolnuke everything in one or two shots.
Very easy to blow yourself up.

 

My current build is: Mathemagic, Psionics, Magic Training, Blood Mage, Ley Walker, Alchemy and Archaeology.

Main combat spell is Golden Ratio (the amount of Zorkmids you get from it is faceroll), with Sleep and Push for CC and Teleport for mobility. I would've gotten Golemancy instead of Ley Walker (which is rather useless IMO), but funnily enough I just can't stand the idea of the Moustache Golem (yes, I'm OCD like that), especially when it's not spelt the British way (D8). My next choice would've been Promethean Magic, but it didn't fit with the theme I was going for.

Main problem with this build is extreme vulnerability at the beginning, but I was lucky enough to find a good weapon to bash things with until I got Golden Ratio.

 

@Rikkard:
of course I'm blasting zoos with fireballs

@Embolus:
we seem to be playing the same style =)

 

So in conclusion:

Obvious Fireball ftw!

 

Promethean is super overpowered and it's a shame the other magic trees hardly have any offensive capabilities. Alchemy is also amazing with a mage because you can turn crappy water into decent water (although with promethean, blood magic, and mana regen items you never go oom) but more importantly you can craft multiple health and mana potions at a time.