Wizard Tactics

[mirrizin]

So, I've been playing archmages for a while, and was wondering about how different people played them.

At the moment, I always maximize arcane power, manathrust, and flame. I put a point into time prison (mostly for the thieves quest and occasional use,) and then generally push into water or fire.

Initially, water attracted me because Freeze came to be useful for keeping melee monsters at bay while doing supplemental damage. Tidal Wave is the ultimate crowd-buster, and ice storm generally finishes off what corrosive vapor starts, especially aided by tidal wave. Manathrust and flame are then great for picking off whatever is left. It's a pretty well rounded school once you get into it, methinks.

Lately I've been maximizing fire, which seems to lead to a "ballistic missile" strategy of blasting them with all kinds of area effect spells before they get close. Pits become barbecue pits.

Though as I just lost a firemage to a hasty decision, I'm now wondering about the merits and demerits of diversifying across schools. It seems to me that earth isn't good enough by itself to justify heavy investment (lack of good attack spells,) while Air has that stupid Feather Wind spell that seems next to useless (and I'm stingy with class points.)

Thoughts?

[Susramanian]

Some disorganized Archmage thoughts:

I'm a pack rat, so I love Feather Wind. But if I had to play through the whole game with only two spells, they would be Inferno and Probability Travel. The combination is ruinous. I highly recommend them to any would-be Archmages.

I haven't used Tidal Wave since it got nerfed down to radius 1. Is it still that way?

I also like putting a few points into Regeneration. It's cheap, with a short cooldown and saves you a lot of healing potions.

Metaflow, while hard to get at, is well worth it. I use it to do a Inferno + Chain Lightning + ANOTHER Inferno + ANOTHER Chain Lightning combo. Lots of fun!

I find the damage shields to be not worth it. My primary defense on a high-level Archmage is lots of health and Probability Travel. Avoiding exposure to damage is better than absorbing it.

I would recommend 4 points in Phase Door and Teleport, though I almost never use them now that I'm running Probability Travel full time. I should probably shut up about that spell before it gets nerfed

Manaflow has let me pull off some awesome stunts, usually also involving the aforementioned use of Metaflow.

[Patryn]

In most points I totally agree with Susramanian.

I use Freeze(1)+Lightning(5)+Manathrust(5) as nukers - yeah, I do love beamspells.
Inferno(5)+Vapor(5) for packs. In combination with Ice Storm(5) you can simply walk through those neverending jellies.
The firebreath-stun-thingy on max is a livesaver too. Though I used it rarely, I would hate to not have it in those situations where I actually casted it.

Those offense spells combined with the nearly absurd mobility given by Probability Travel makes your mage a walking (or rather: tunneling) weapon of mass destruction. Hop in, incinerate everything, hop out, watch those nice "kill" pop up everywhere.

As for the utility spells:
Obviously I take phasedoor (4) - that equals 5.2 and thus gives full utility. Same goes for Teleport allthough I never use it, it might come handy if you have to get rid of some boss *fast*.
Probability Travel is the one spell I love. I would most likely sacrifice one of my eyes to get that one in real life.
In the endgame I'm pushing Disruption(?) Shield right now. Some extra survivability is always nice and the target assignment works before encountering a battle too if used with sense.

Of the heal spells:
Regeneration is the most useful, because its cheap, has low CD and it can be used proactive. Means: If you know youre about to enter a tough situation (eg hopping through a wall in LoS of some ranged guys to get a well placed inferno), you activate it beforehand.
Heal itself... well... instead of using a turn + mana for a mediocre heal you can drink a healingpotion aswell and save the mana...
Restoration: At least 1 or 2 points in it are important but more is useless since you never get more that 2 debuffs at a time.
I like 1 point in the bear summon too, to lure out some monsters or use it as decoy (works great in combination with PD).

Since my mage now mostly reached his dream build I push Stone Prison right now to get it targetable. After that I will put some more points in Flame to have a third powerful nuke and complete the nuke-CD-combo - but thats relatively minor.

[marvalis]

How do I play my mage:

Before I go down the stairs I cast my detect (4/5). It always last one more turn so you can immediately see all surrounding monsters.
If I see monsters that can attack me, then I cast stone prison (2/5 now for the increased duration).
Then I cast vision (4/5) to show the entire map or half of it. If my detect has run out because I had to cast stone wall, then I go up the stairs again, rest, and cast detect, and move up again so I can see where all the monsters are.
Then Its just a matter of using phase door (4/5) to get anywhere I want on the level.
After a quick rest I get in position and cast inferno (5/5) and phase door away.

With those tactics, nothing can ever touch you. I also pump stamina after magic, and go for health (2/5 atm) for +40 hp each skill level.

* Single targets I freeze (1/5), manathrust (5/5), flame (1/5) and lightning (1/5).
* When there is a nice line, I just use manathrust (5/5), with some lightning (1/5)
* For boss fights I lure, phase door, wait around a corner, freeze, manathrust flame, phase door, repeat till dead. Bosses that cant be frozen I just manathrust and phase door. For melee bosses, I use inferno if possible then it only takes two casts.

I have icestorm (1/5) and fireshock (1/5) as utility spells but I rarely (have to) use them.

Archmage should be called invincimage.
Im looking forward to probability travel now. (Wel, I just tried it and it takes 200 from my 295 mana lol, so I dont even have enough mana to cast inferno with it on)

[Gwai]

Archmage should be called invincimage.

The RNG hears. I predict an oncoming death.,

[marvalis]

this is a good start

http://i53.tinypic.com/2czyc6q.png

damn naga's.

[Final Master]

It seems that I take a unique approach as compared to most other players.

First, the beginning

Race
Just about any race will do for an archmage actually. Though, the better ones are probably dunadan, skeleton, or elf. Dunadan for the large stats and a racial regen effect (I don't know if it stacks with regeneration the spell); skeleton for the large amount of 100% resists and stat gains; and elf for the pure reason of greater speed.

Class
Archmage
Well... you wanted to know about them, right?

Stat point distribution
A great and well respected roguelike and TOME specific player Lord Dimwit has a philosophy. Always, no matter what, get as much health as you can. With this incarnation of TOME he couldn't be more correct. HOWEVER, if you are attempting the route that I will describe further down, raising magic first, then constitution will allow you through sear damage and field control get by with slightly lower than maximum hp for the majority of the game. If you do max out constitution first before magic, you may find yourself very resilient, but having a hard time keeping from getting too overwhelmed as you spells won't pack quiet as much veracity as they otherwise might. From there, I recommend putting a few points into strength so that you can wear the Helm of Hammerhand; then the rest into wisdom for extra mana. Following my route, you'll be playing with a lot of sustains constantly on.

Level
I like to gain 1 or 2 levels in the trollshaws before leaving and heading to carn dum. Gaining a couple of levels first allows; if you find the trapdoor on your way there; to gain phase door 4 before going down to the basement of the theives den. Gaining level 4 phase door allows you to send the merchant into one of the rooms with the door locked, and makes him unkillable by the enemy as long as you don't open the door. The reason behind this is that none of the enemies nor the merchant have the ability to open the doors.

I like to head early to carn dum because although the enemies there are high in level, the only enemies you have to watch out for are thunderers and stone throwers. Other than these two giant enemies, most everything else is melee. With long hallways and open rooms (lightning/chain lightning-corrosive vapors), it is pretty easy going. Along with gaining almost 15 levels before reaching the boss at the end, you will gain better equipment than if you were to do the old forest, amon sul, or the trollshaws. Plus, the artifact gained is of immense help, and is, in my opinion, much better the earlier you get it.

Second, I like to do amon sul, that way we can get the shades staff. Most everyone knows the workings of amon sul and of the shade so I won't go into any detail about it.

Third, I like the old forest. Easy, huge open layouts, no ranged enemies, lots of exp and massively long corridors make the old forest very easy for archmages. At this point I am typically at or close to level 20.

From this point on, it is pretty much whatever you feel like doing actually. I recommend doing all the dungeons to get the artifacts (to sell mostly, even though some only sell for 0.50) but also to practice up on different tactics. I like going trollshaws, maze, sandworm lair, ruins then tol falas.

Talents
As a free beam effect, I personally focus entirely on getting lightning maxed out as quickly as possible. This allows you to take out multiple enemies at once, and to get them into some sort of a line is extremely easy and almost always a possibility to hit more than 2 no matter where you are.

Using the generic talent points I raise phase door to at least level 4 then following up on getting a minimum of 1 point into sense, identify and vision. Following that, I work on getting illuminate up to 3 (the blinding will work more than you think, and pretty much makes you immune from enemies that a) are not undead b) melee only); and dropping a point into teleport.

Once I've finished maxing out lightning, I like to put the remaining class points into arcane focus and always have that on. The amount of mana the sustain costs is so negligible it's almost stupid. Once arcane focus is mastered, I like to focus entirely on chain lightning and feather wind. However, before moving on to them, I drop a point into corrosive vapors. By far the best AoE spell in my opinion that an archmage has access to. Maxing out feather wind before chain lightning I've found to be extremely useful, as it allows me to carry extra scrolls, potions, and interchangeable equipment. Plus, getting it to about level 3 makes most non elite/non level 20+ enemy unit archers miss you almost always. Maxing it to 5 however seems to make you invincible to (literally) 95/100 arrows; this is including such assaults as crippling shot and pinning shot.

As you will have excess generic points while waiting to fill out health, I like to now put them into getting sense to level 4. Sense at level 4 is just great. Lets you see any enemies (even stealthed), items, and traps in a pretty good radius. Level 5 isn't necessary, however it adds about 10 squares more radius, and the duration of the sensing seems to extend to a few more turns. Once sense is at level 4, I tend to move onto maxing out vision. I like to get vision and sense to be the same level if I can, that way they both reach out the same distance. Vision isn't actually needed at all if you are okay with hauling 20 or so magic mapping scrolls with you, or you've (somehow) invested into earths eyes or some other 'vision' spell. But if you've done that, then why didn't you just take vision anyway?

Once I have maxed lightning, chain lightning, and feather wind, I take a break from the air school and start maxing out either blur or stone skin. Now, I really have something to say here on these two spells, and in conjunction with feather wind. I typically play massively plated, entirely defensive dwarven fighters. They typically edge out at 70 armor and defense with maybe 44 ranged defense. My current living hobbit archmage with maxed out stone skin, blur, and feather wind is rocking out at 55 armor, 67 defense, and 99 ranged defense. Oh, and about 34 more carrying capacity greater than my average dwarf fighter. For 15 class points, and (I believe) 90 constant mana, your little ball of magical destruction is clearly on par with most melee defensive builds. I REALLY like to atleast have one (blur or stone skin) maxed before I make my way into tol falas. Preferably blur, so that you get hit less often instead of less damage. Being hit in tol falas is like dying, regardless of hp. It really is that damn deadly if you are not more aware than a squirrel as a mage in there.

At this point, I typically have 4 in sense, vision, 1 in identify, and 2/3 in health. I tend to start to put as many points as I can into regeneration. Regeneration is really the only healing spell that I've come across that is worth even a single point. But why put it all the way up then? Well, currently, at level 5 my archmage can get healed (with regeneration alone) 30 hp a turn for 10 turns. That's 300 hp over 10 turns. That's between a healing and a greater healing potion. And because it is over time and not a big amount all at once is what really makes it good. If IF you are being pelted by some ranged attack, or some small pesking thing like insects/rabbits/snakes/worms are beating you with their little 10hp attacks and you have a bigger threat to deal with, regeneration will keep you near full for 10 turns in comparison to a single health boost that is probably greater than the life you have lost.

You my have noticed that I haven't talked about taking a stunning or knock back skill yet. I've found, that with cautious use of chain lighting and corrosive vapors and phase dooring about or making the enemies phase about, stuns are not really needed. However, I do currently have freeze at level 5, now, at character level 35. I didn't take it until level 30, and I've really started to find that I didn't need it at all. I also haven't taken flameshock for a second reason that actually also applies to freeze. Look at all the enemies with the huge resist or immunity to either fire or cold. I've found that if an enemy has cold resist higher than 50 it will never get frozen, and no undead are ever frozen (or blinded). Well, to be honest, other than u and U and n, undead and D's are really what I want to freeze. And, they almost all have 50+ resist to either cold or fire. I've found very little that is resistant or highly resist to lightning, and those that are almost never have a high acid resit. So, corassive vapors, flame 1, then lightning, chain lightning, phase them back to the back of the cloud and keep going. I know that almost all resists are generated randomly, but I don't think I've seen a random generation of resist acid and lightning both at greater than 20%, but I have seen plenty that resist both fire and cold 20% or one fire or cold at 40%+ a LOT.

I also haven't spoken of temporal or meta magic yet. You can choose one at level 10, unlock the other at level 20, ect. They are both rather unique schools of magic compared to what you can do out of the box. Meta is for some very cool tricks with mana regeneration (when used with the arcane school), and temporal is about manipulation of turns. I haven't fiddled with either one of these schools much, but I do know that the star of temporal is essence of speed. Now, I'm not totally sure how the speed system works right now in 10b, or how much of a difference EoS would make, but a sustain of 200 mana is a TON, especially if we are working arcane focus, stone skin, blur, and feather wind. That is well over 300 mana off the top gone. I would definitively say that the combination of the four I have mentioned is greater than a level 5 essence of speed on it's own.

So with the extra category points I like to increase air and water mastery levels by 2 each, having them reach 1.50 mastery. It might not seem like a big change in the listed numbers, but the effects are far greater than what the game tells you.

I hope that this helps those that want it, and I will probably add more to this as I go.

Enjoy

FM

[darkgod]

Reall neat post FM !
That makes me pround of ToME4

You should (all) start to put some of this stuff on the new wiki and fill it up

[Patryn]

@FM:
Interesting way to go. But in your playstyle and build there could be a lil' bit of optimization:
Manathrust: Instead of maxing Lightning first, I would recommend to go for Manathrust MAX. Why? this way you have two beamspells very early instead of one. Flame you hardly ever need anymore (it has its drawbacks: damage over time, not instant, not a beam, many fireresistant mobs). With both Lightning and Manathrust at max nearly nothing non-elite survives getting hit by both.
Water Mastery: You put 2 categorypoints in Water? One point already kicks your lvl5 spells to an effectice lvl of 7. In case of vapor this grants in addition to extradmg also an extra turn of duration, making its duration longer than its CD. The 2. cat. point just enhances it to 7.5 which should grant a bit extra dmg but no extra secondary effects. Propably the cat. point might be spent sowhere else for higher reward...
Talking of that: It seems you calculate for a lvl50 char (one cat point for Combattech (you want the health and hvy armor?, then 2 each for air and water). The way the game is now, you most likely won't reach lvl50 unless you grind excessivly.

[edge2054]

@FM
Freeze
100% cold resist mobs can still be frozen. Though there's a certain kind of mob with 100% cold resist that I've never seen fail a save so maybe that's where this impression comes from. I think Burning Shock might actually work the same though the damage would be reduces to 0.

Illuminate
Many more mob types should be immune to this spell this beta then just undead. Also you grouped it in with the paragraph about generic talents and it's a class talent.

Other then that good post. A lot of interesting points.

@Patryn
You don't have to spend a mastery to pick up the basic weapon tree, just 50g.

For my 2 cents to this thread.
Even 1 point in Time Prison can be a life saver.
Essence of Speed maxed out makes you half again as fast as 90% of the creatures in the game. Granted the cost is 250 of your mana but it's a viable tactic.
Someday I'm going to goof around with an Invisibility build and see how that does... maybe today.

[Finguld]

I like stone wall and from there you can teleport to Angolwen if things get dangerous.