ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I figured that since I've been playing for a couple of days that I would log on and say hey to everyone. I'm loving the game so far. I've just hit 15 with a bulwark and I'm thinking about rolling up an Archmage next since I just unlocked them. Any suggestions on spell choices?

A pretty standard setup for offensive spells is to get the three low cooldown beams (Lightning, Manathrust, and Flame lvl 5). This allows you to cast a low mana spell every turn, as the other two cool off while you cast the third.

Other useful talents include targeted Phase Door, Arcane Eye, and Flameshock.

Get as many (useful) spells as possible, even if you just put one point in them. The broad utility will serve you well. Aegis and Conveyance are fantastic utility trees; get targeted phase door quickly.

Don't take too much level in some talent, like Teleport. One point should be enough.
Stone skin isn't really that great, since the armor change even if you max stone skin reducing 300 physical damage to 280 damage isn't that useful, also not all damage is physical.
Essence of Speed is really great, you can outspeed your enemy, however the mana sustain is really huge, take it when your mana pool is large enough. Later, you'll find Skeleton Archer that have Crippling Shot, it's a skill that's commonly used to slow your speed by ~40%. There's a reason why it's in the Top 25 killers.

Displacement Shield is very useful against boss.
If you get lucky to meet escort that'll offer you Celestial / Light, take it immediately.
Barrier & Heal in that talent tree synergize heavily with Aegis talent tree.
Flameshock is a must, nothing beat AOE Stun (except Stun resistance oc)
Disperse Magic is also useful against Damage Shield / Bone Shield spam

You'll want some disables when you're forced to fight in small room :
Freeze, Flameshock, Blind

Freeze is great to block enemy from reaching you.

Thanks for the info. While I had already planned on some of it, some of the ideas hadn't even occurred to me. It is good so see the community is strong here . Post has barely been up and already three responses. I'm glad I found tome again.

My build was - skeleton archmage focused on fire (main spec) + frost. Freeze is very good on start, especially in boss fights, and still not bad at end (up to 1.5k damage per hit). Tidal wave and ice storm together give very good defense and should be maxed ASAP. In fire talents I did use flame (main damage-dealer) and fireflash (mostly in later game). Other good talents trees are meta (especially when you start to use fireflash), aegis (really good synergy with skeleton shield and displacement shield) and wildfire (as soon as you unlock it). You do not need lighting and manathrust. they are useful on start, but start is easy enough anyway. On end it becomes just waste of talent points.

For utility spells I recommend 4/5 phase door, 1/5 teleport and 5/5 displacement shield. with 5/5 aegis it give almost 80% chance to transfer up to 900 damage from you to enemy.