Starlear's Warrior Mage spell recommendations

Updated for DR 3.0 By Starlear, 9/16/2013

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.

Let's start with some basics 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, as we will have a hard time avoiding blows in them.

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.

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. There are in my opinion a few must-have spells, which I will cover in detail. Beyond that, 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 spellbook.

Swirling Winds (SW): Prerequisites: Zephyr or Tailwind.

Increases your Reflex and Evasion skill. This will help keep you alive in combat.

Tailwind (TW): 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): 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): 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): 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.

Damaging 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 good damage types - impact is difficult to defend against for most things.

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.

........more to come soon!