Starlear's Warrior Mage spell recommendations

Updated for DR 3.1 by Starlear, 5/2/2014

So you want to be a Warrior Mage? Awesome. It's a pretty diverse and rewarding guild to play, and there's lots of viable ways to do it. Additionally, I personally feel that the flavor added by committing your character to an element and having a familiar both add roleplay opportunities that are hard to match in other guilds. There's a lot to like here and I hope you enjoy it.

This is a guide for new mages, as well as those returning from a long absence. A lot has changed and a lot of the things you remember may be different. Don't be ashamed if you don't know something.

Let's start with some basic things.

Race

Warrior mage abilities make use of all the Attributes. In DR 3.0, ALL of the stats are important to us to some degree, with Charisma being the LEAST important. The reasoning for this is that Charisma as a stat, while useful in that it gives you additional spirit health, better prices from haggleable vendors, and influences how often your familiar will drag you out of danger in combat, is only an influential stat in one of our contested spells - Mark of Arhat, which as of 3.0 is a spirit vs will contested spell. Keep this in mind when choosing a race if you're trying to min-max, and choose a race where the stats you want to favor are easier to train.

Keep this in mind when picturing what kind of mage you want to be - do you want to be a two-handed weapon swinging mage? You will be using a lot of strength and stamina. Slash and dash fencer? Lots of agility and reflex. ALL mages will make heavy use of all three mental stats, and Stamina is going to be important to you no matter what in combat. Ultimately, the most important choice is picking a race you feel comfortable roleplaying.

At the end of the day, any of the races can be viable Warrior Mages. Since just about all of the stats are important for us, don't let the numbers necessarily be the sole influence for you.

Equipment

Most Warrior Mages tend to favor Chain Armor. It offers good protection and absorption without the huge maneuvering penalties associated with heavier armors. As stealth is not something our guild focuses on regularly, it is uncommon to see Warrior Mages wearing Light Armor but for those that wish to try and pursue stealth, it can be an option - however, you can hide nearly as well in a well-made set of chain as you can in leather and contrary to popular belief, a full set of leather can indeed be more hindering than a full set of chain. Brigandine and Plate are both much heavier and more protective but as a guild with armor as its Tertiary skillset, it is generally more trouble than it's worth to pick these heavier armors - you will have a hard time avoiding blows in them and the extra protection and absorption is not enough to offset this. You *will* take more damage overall.

Weapons generally come down to personal preference, and you can make pretty much anything work. For a new character, swing roundtime and Fatigue will be at a premium, so you should look up your local forger and see about getting a nice lightened weapon made. Regardless of the weapon's type (that is, the skill it trains when you use it), a lightened weapon will be easier to swing more quickly, be more balanced and therefore more accurate, and be less tiring.

I recommend that you train at least one ranged weapon in addition to any melee weapons you pick. While a lot of your damage will be done with spells, it's always good to have options for when spells are not a viable choice.

To get a full list of all the weapon skills, you can type >EXP WEAPON 0 in-game.

Summoning and Aethereal Pathways

Summoning is the Warrior Mage guild-only skill. It is trained at low-skill by having a familiar out and at high level through the use of Aethereal Pathways. Aethereal Pathways are abilities exclusive to the Warrior Mage guild that reflect their mastery of Targeted Magic. Essentially the mage can modify the way Targeting works in different ways that are useful in a variety of situations.

Elemental Charge

Pathways use Elemental Charge as a resource to power them. To gather Charge, you must first ALIGN yourself to an element. For example, to align myself to fire, I would ALIGN FIRE. You can change your aligned element at will, but it requires you to have no remaining Charge to do so.

To gather Charge, cast spells from the spellbook of your Aligned element. You will gain a small amount of charge for each cast. You will lose the same amount of charge for casts of your opposed element. You can choose your opposed element with enough Summoning skill (Example: Fire is traditionally Opposed to Water. With enough skill, I could Align fire and decide that I wanted to be Opposed to Aether).

Charge can also be gathered by doing SUMMON ADMITTANCE. This will sit you down on the ground and you will meditate with a Roundtime (Generally in the realm of 10-15s). When you finish the meditation you will have gained Charge. You can continue SUMMON ADMITTANCE until you are told you are at maximum charge.

Each of the Aethereal Pathways has an element associated with it. Using a pathway of your aligned element will make it cost less charge to use. Using one from your opposed element will make it cost more.

Elemental Domains

A recent new addition to the Warrior Mage toolbox are Elemental Domains. Creating a domain is the process of aligning an area (basically any room) in-game with a particular element. This has a few effects:

- It doubles your charge gain from casting spells when you are aligned to this element.
- It doubles your charge cost from casting spells if you are opposed to this element.
- It negates environmental penalties for a spell (Ex: If I cast Rising Mists in the middle of Summer, in a Desert, with a Water Domain present, it will lose the seasonal and locational penalty associated with it).

To summon a domain, the syntax is >SUMMON <ELEMENT> DOMAIN, where <ELEMENT> is the name of one of the elements. There is at least one easter-egg element available that is not one of the traditional six.

The primary use of an Elemental Domain currently is to have an easier time maintaining your Charge level through casting alone, enabling more freedom with the use of Aethereal Pathways.

Pathways

Focus Damage (Fire) Increases damage from targeted magic.

Focus Quick (Air) Decreases targeting time for spells.

Focus Ease (Water) Reduces the difficulty to cast targeted spells.

Focus Power (Earth) Increases the Potency of spells.

Focus Accuracy (Electricity) Increases the accuracy of targeted magic.

Focus Secrecy (Water) Reduces the chance that your targeting matirx will be spotted.

Focus Precise (Air) Makes it easier to target specific body parts with spells.

Focus Defend (Earth) Makes it harder to direct targeted magic at you.

Focus Conserve (Fire) Decreases minimum mana cost of targeted spells.

Elemental Barrage (Electricity) Simultaneously attack with a melee weapon and a targeted spell.

Perceive Pathway (Aether) Detects aethereal pathways in use nearby.

Training Summoning

I have found a good way to train Summoning out of combat is to simply practice magic with Cambrinth. Cast as high as you can without backfiring, until you run out of mana. When you are out, Summon Admittance two times and then turn on a Pathway that is for your Aligned element. Pathways by element can be seen at the page for Aethereal Pathways. Continue magic training and when you are out of mana, simply Summon Admittance to gather charge. This will keep your Pathway running almost indefinitely and you will mind lock your Summoning skill fairly effortlessly.

You can also in combat, repeatedly cast spells of a particular element to gain Charge and continually fuel a Pathway.

Common Misconceptions

Your alignment does not negatively impact your ability to cast spells in any way (ex: You are aligned to Fire, and go to cast a Water spell. That spell will not be "weaker", it will not cost any more mana, or any other differences in any way from if you were Water aligned). The ONLY difference is that if you're casting a Water spell while Fire Aligned, by default, you will lose a small amount of Elemental Charge. You will not be weaker in any way, despite the messaging that the spell diminishes you. That's just the messaging for losing charge. Charge doesn't make your spells better or worse, it is used to power pathways and to initially summon your familiar.

Because of this, there is absolutely no mechanical benefit to only learning one type of spell and never the opposite element. It can be fun RP, and sometimes you might get something like a Title out of knowing say, all the fire spells and zero water spells, but it will take away from your effectiveness to neglect spellbooks completely. Whether the sacrifice in effectiveness is worth the gain in Roleplay to you is a personal choice with no right or wrong answer.

Spells Choices

See Warrior Mage Spells for full listing of spells.

Warrior Mages have a variety of spells available to them, and all of them have their niches that they are useful in. I'll give a brief summary of a spell, and give it a rating (which you should remember is my personal opinion and you may disagree with, so don't write something off just because I don't like it) of * to ***** and explain why I feel that way.

The Essentials

• Note: I consider a lot more spells than this crucial to our arsenal - however, this is a Beginner's Guide, and as such I am only including the spells that are MOST USEFUL to a brand new Warrior Mage here. I consider the following spells essential both for the boost in survival they provide to someone who may not have a solid grasp on how to train effectively, and the ease with which they can be cast. Additionally, for this guide, I am only including spells in our guild's repertoire (That is, no Analogous Patterns).

Swirling Winds (SW) - Augmentation Spell Prerequisites: Zephyr or Tailwind. Increases your Reflex and Evasion skill. This will help keep you alive in combat.

Tailwind (TW) - Augmentation Spell Prerequisites: Air Lash or Elementalism. Increases your chance to hit with ranged attacks. Fantastic for when you're training a ranged weapon (You ARE training a ranged weapon, right?). Follows the caster room to room.

Sure Footing (SUF) - Augmentation Spell Prerequisite: Stone Strike or Elementalism. Increases balance and parry skill. This will help keep you alive in combat if you are using a weapon capable of parrying or a parry stick.

Ethereal Shield (ES) - Warding Spell Prerequisite: Any Intro TM spell. Reduces elemental damage taken, easy to train Warding with. Use when fighting other mages or creatures that use spells, and it will help significantly.

Ice Patch (IP) - Debilitation Spell Prerequisite: Geyser or Elementalism. Basic disabler spell. Will knock down and stun the target when successful. Very good for getting hits in on things you have a hard time hitting.

Ignite (IGNITE) - Utility Spell Prerequisite: Fire Shards or Elementalism. This spell ignites your weapon, causing it to deal additional fire damage. The amount may seem insignificant, but it is a lot of extra damage due to the way the spell works - this damage is applied to every attack.

Targeted Spells

Air Lash (ALA) Prerequisite: None.
A whip of air that damages the target.

Pro: Cool messaging. Easy to cast. Fairly accurate.
Con: Damage is purely physical (Puncture and Slice). Shield-blockable. Single-strike.

Rating: *** - Basic single-strike spell for physical damage. Decent accuracy and damage.

Gar Zeng (GZ) Prerequisite: None.
Blasts of electricity that damage the target. Think taser-hands.

Pro: Deals Electric, Fire, and Puncture damage. Easy to cast. Hard to miss with. Multi-strike.
Con: Damage and messaging are not particularly impressive, making the spell "feel" less cool. Shield-blockable.

Rating: **** - The multiple strikes make this a solid TM trainer, even though each individual strike will be less damaging than a comparable single-strike spell.

Geyser (GEYSER) Prerequisite: None.
A jet of scalding water erupts from the ground, and you direct it with your will at a target.

Pro: Deals Impact and Fire damage. Fairly Accurate. Cool Messaging.
Con: Shield-blockable. Single-strike.

Rating: *** - Single-strike spell with pretty solid damage and supercool messaging. Stylish and functional.

Stone Strike (STS) Prerequisite: None.
Shoot a boulder at your target, which explodes into rock-shrapnel and showers into them. Think stone-shotgun.

Pro: Deals Impact and Puncture damage. Lodges lots of little stone shards in the target, which pulse additional damage periodically and increase wound severity until they are tended out using First Aid. Multi-strike.
Con: Purely physical damage. Messaging unimpressive. Shield-blockable.

Rating: **** - The lodged shards really make this a good choice for damage-per-mana, and the multi-strikes make it a solid TM trainer.

Fire Shards (FS) Prerequisite: None.
Shoot multiple shards of flame at your target.

Pro: Deals Fire, Impact, and Puncture damage. Multi-strike. Solid damage.
Con: Shield-blockable. Harder than other spells to get the multiple-strike effect.

Rating: **** - Excellent damage with some cool messaging.

Fire Ball (FB) Prerequisite: Fire Shards or Elementalism.
Launches a large ball of flame at the target. It can explode, causing collateral damage (Which essentially amounts to launching Fire Shards at everything else at the same engagement range from you).

Pro: Deals Fire and Impact damage. Hits many targets multiple times.
Con: Shield-blockable. The area effect of the spell is entirely uncontrollable.

Rating: ***** - A must-have in my opinion. The number of targets this spell hits makes it fantastic for training TM (I would argue that it's better than Chain Lightning or Shockwave for the job).

Paeldryth's Wrath (PW) Prerequisite: Air Lash or Elementalism.
A blast of air launches naphtha in your hands (either one or both) towards your target. Additionally it modifies the engagement range of your target - normal casting will push the target away from you to missile range, while CAST PULL will yank someone from missile range into melee with you. Deals no damage.

Pro: Awesome way to get some distance between you and a foe without having to retreat and penalize your offense. Launch naphtha with TM instead of thrown.
Con: Deals no damage itself. Naphtha applied this way still needs to be ignited. Since you need to target this spell, lots of times, you're better off just casting something that will do damage.

Rating: ** - The decent utility of applying naphtha and changing engagement range are negated by the need to target this spell. It can be handy in a pinch, and it is pretty good if you can find good (IE: Not Storebought) naphtha, but it is a lot of work for relatively minor benefits (Naphtha that's not that strong, a foe that can instantly retreat if pulled to you or readvance if you pushed them away).

Lightning Bolt (LB) Prerequisites: Arc Light or Tingle.
A lightning bolt shoots out of the sky and into your target. That might....come as a shock....given the name of the spell.

Pro: Ignores shield as a defense. Deals electric and fire damage.
Con: Less accurate than other spells due to the shield ignoring bit (Making it easier to dodge). Can not be cast indoors.

Rating: ***** - A great spell, useful when you are up against something that shield blocks all your spells.

Dragon's Breath (DB) Prerequisites: Fire Ball or Ignite.
Stores a blast of fire that can be fired at a target via SPIT or EXHALE. Single shot only, works similar to thrown weapons.

Pro: On-demand damage that you can unleash at an opportune moment (like when you stun something). Hits hard. Deals Fire and Puncture damage.
Con: Single shot, then you need to recast. Relatively short duration - easy to run the buff out before you get a chance to use it. Unable to target. Shield-blockable.

Rating: ** - Solid extra damage that is best used to supplement a disabler or a stun from another spell. However, the one-shot nature of it makes learning it questionable. It's not a BAD spell, but you'll get more damage per mana spent elsewhere.

Magnetic Ballista (MaB} Prerequisites: Anther's Call and Lightning Bolt.
Will the earth into a ballista of dirt and stone which will launch boulders at a target it is POINTed at. The first shot will be more accurate and can launch two boulders with enough potency. The mage can LOAD the ballista to reload it. Each shot will cause the ballista to emit a strong magnetic pulse which will unbalance or knock over targets, having a greater effect on targets with a lot of metal armor or items. The mage can RUB the ballista to cause it to only affect the target it is firing at with enough skill.

Pro: Does a lot of stuff (Damage, Disabling). Persists, so you can fire other spells while periodically reloading for supplemental damage. You can point it at yourself. Go on. Try it. It's awesome.
Con: Needs constant maintenance to keep firing. Can knock yourself over with it if say, you wear plate, making it easy for critters to hit you. Purely physical damage. You can point it at yourself. Go on. Try it. It hurts. Shield-blockable.

Rating: **** - Good amount of damage and utility in this spell. You do need to maintain it with reloading for it to deal consistant damage, but it's slot-expensive to learn, requiring you commit to the Electricity and Earth trees to a pretty deep level.

Ring of Spears (RoS) Prerequisites: Circle 30, Tremor or Magnetic Ballista.
Summons a Ring of Spears around the caster, which periodically deals damage to targets in their range. Can be CAST or CAST POLE. CAST POLE places the ring at Pole Weapon range which will damage targets passing through that distance. The spears do not follow you when you move, and they take a bit to reform if you advance or retreat. You can't be grouped with others while this spell is active.

Pro: Hits really hard. Large number of hits per pulse. The variable range is situationally useful but nice. Usable indoors.
Con: Physical damage only. Finicky about movement. Shield-blockable.

Rating: *** - Good damage, but if you advance/retreat a lot you might find it underwhelming while it reforms. Works best when you let things come to you. Of note is that the old version of this spell used to prevent engagement to you through the spears, but the spell no longer does this - it ONLY does damage, there is no knockback/advance stopping as in the past.

Blufmor Garaen (BG) Prerequisites: Circle 40 and Y'ntrel Sechra.
Stores swirling winds around your forearms that you can unleash at a target very rapidly. POINT deals puncture + cold, WAVE deals slice + cold, SLAP deals impact + cold. Multiple charges, with a small RT to fire each.

Pro: A lot of damage that is unleashed in a very short period of time. It's like re-usable Dragon's Breath. Variable damage type. High damage. No need to target. You look like this in my head when using it.
Con: Short buff duration, meaning you need to use the spell up before it wears off. Need to recast to use it again. Shield-blockable. Forgetting you have it on and then waving hello at someone.

Rating: ***** - One of our most lethal spells. When you stun someone, dump ALL your charges of it into them and they probably won't be standing afterwards. This spell is slated to be changed by the GM's due to it being a bit overpowered in PvP situations.

Shockwave (SHOCKWAVE) Prerequisites: Thunderclap.
Explodes a shockwave of air and razorlike shards of ice out from you, dealing damage and potentially knocking back targets. Can learn the Flame Shockwave metaspell to change the damage types.

Pro: Deals Slice, and Cold damage. Flame Shockwave deals Fire and Impact damage. Can knock a target off its feet or out of the room. Area Effect spell, which can be selectively cast (CAST AREA, CAST CREATURES, etc).
Con: Can knock a target out of the room. Only hits each struck target one time. Shield-blockable.

Rating: **** - Decent damage, and a nice assortment of damage types, but hitting everything ONLY one time is a bit underwhelming, and knocking targets out of the room sucks if you're hunting.

Chain Lightning (CL) Prerequisites: Circle 40, Lightning Bolt.
Lightning strikes every target in the area one time.

Pro: Usable indoors. Area Effect spell, which can be selectively cast. Deals Fire, Electric, and Impact damage.
Con: Only hits each target one time. Shield-blockable.

Rating: ** - Feels underwhelming. Shockwave is basically the same, with variable damage types and the added utility of knockback. It's by no means terrible if you are looking for something to deal damage to the entire room and don't want to go into the Air book, but if you are already investing in the Air book (and you likely will be due to the significance of the buff and debuff spells there), Shockwave is the better choice IMO.

Rimefang (RIME) Prerequisites: Ice Patch, Circle 30.
Summons an icy mist around the caster which forms blades of frost which quickly strike targets at melee range.

Pro: Pulses quickly. Deals Cold, Puncture, and Slice damage. Follows you room to room.
Con: Shield-blockable. Lower damage than some other spells to offset the low maintenance level of keeping it up. Melee range only. Blades take a few moments to form, giving the spell a bit of a ramp-up time.

Rating: **** - Solid source of extra damage at close range, but has a ramp up time while blades form.

Fire Rain (FR) Prerequisites: Mantle of Flame or Dragon's Breath, Circle 40.
Summons an ash cloud which rains fire on the entire area.

Pro: Deals Fire and Impact damage. Area Effect spell, which can be selectively cast. Consistently will damage targets at any range. Will hit targets in stealth regardless of if you can see them.
Con: Shield-blockable. Cannot be cast indoors. Ramp-up time before it begins damaging, and long duration between pulses.

Rating: *** - Good damage at any range, provided you are stationary.

Debilitation Spells

I was going to call this section "Disablers", but decided Debilitation Spells was a better title. These spells are all spells that you cast on another target to affect them in a non-damaging way. It can be a stun, a reduction in balance, immobilization, a hit to fatigue, taking extra damage from everything else, or removal of defenses.