Magicka Wizard Wars: The Complete Guide v2.5

This guide covers everything from the very basics to the advanced tactics.

(Guide in construction!)
LAST UPDATED: 1/11/2015

Foreword

This guide is not complete yet. If you didn't find what you were looking for, write a comment and we will add it! Remember that this game is still in development, and some things might be outdated because of the recent patches.

This guide brought to you by Auron Darkmoon and w!z@rd, creators of the highest rated Magicka steam guide along with our new collaborators: loopuleasa and H4wg
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=118999253
If you already know the original Magicka and want get an overview about the main changes you should have a look at this guide by loopuleasa.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=186380147#160038
Special thanks to:

• Flash for the duelling guide
  
• Maelstorm for the spell numbers guide
  
• zzcorrode for the warding guide
  
• Captain Bonkers for the spellcasting speed guide
  
• Ceko for the M:WW skill trainer
  
• Devil's Advocate for the Item Build guide
  
• Rusty Eyeballs for the quick spell tips and tricks guide
  
• Argotha for the many useful tutorial videos
  
• TranceAcademy for the weapon showcase video
  
• Jensen for the Emote video
  
• Pendragon for the Robe and Items steam guide.

Basics - The Elements

Water

Water is an element that does knockback, wets enemies but does no direct damage.
Wetting enemies is part of many strategies. Wet enemies receive increased damage from lightning spells and casting lightning spells shocks them. Wet also accelerates chilling from cold.
Fire removes wet status.
Water's incompatible with lightning.


Life

Used for healing and regenerating life. More effective if used on allies than on yourself.
Arcane is the opposite of Life.


Shield

Shield is the absolute foundation for defense and it's what gives the games counter mechanic.
It's used to create walls, wards (auras or armors), mines and element storms.


Cold, not to be confused with Ice

Cold spells are used for slowing down your enemies. If you use a cold spell on a wet enemy the slowing is more efficient.
Slowing is applied gradually the more cold the enemy receives and at 100% cold the enemy becomes frozen. Frozen enemies cannot move until they break out of it and they are also invulnerable to all kinds of attacks except for strong physical attacks (like DDD projectiles, or some weapon specials) that fatally shatter them.
Cold deals only low amounts of damage.
Fire counters and removes cold.


Lightning

Lightning is a good but risky burst damage element.
Lightnings can zap multiple targets and stuns them briefly. Lightnings arch from target to target in a small range and can be unpredictable. The caused damage is doubled when the target is wet, but afterwards it removes the wet status.
If the caster is wet when a lightning spell is cast, he will be shocked for 300 damage, wet status will be removed and spell won't be cast.
You cannot move while casting lightnings.
Earth and Water are opposites to lightning.


Arcane, also known as Death

A simple damage dealing element. Simply gets your enemy a bit closer to death. It has the property of being bursty.
Life is the opposite of Arcane.


Earth, also known as Stone

Earth deals physical damage (like weapons do). It can be used to shatter frozen enemies into a thousand pieces, unless the physical damage in your spell is too low and the frozen target will take no damage at all.
Earth is also responsible for quakes, barriers and all earth projectiles.
Earth is incompatible with lightning.


Fire

Fire spells can ignite your targets which deals damage over time. Fire by itself deals a base damage too even without the burning effect present. The burning damage is the strongest after the burning starts and gradually becomes weaker (burning ticks for 30-20-10 damage). Fire spells can refresh the fire on a burning enemy, making it stronger again.
Water and Cold cancel Fire.


There are two additional "pair" elements in the game that are formed by combining the base elements and they work slightly differently than their individual components.

Steam: Steam is a hard damage dealing element with a short range.


Ice: Ice deals ice physical damage different than Earth physical.


You can combine up to 3 of them to invoke spells.

Note that the following incompatible elements cannot be in the same spell:

+
+
+
+
+

If you have queued one or more elements that you don´t want in your spell then you can cast the respective incompatible elements to remove them. This is pretty difficult to do and requires training, but it will save your life one day.

Or you can just repeatedly spam A and D and make fun zappy noises.

The two cast-types

There are two ways to cast a spell in Magicka Wizard Wars:

With the right mouse button (short: RMB or "normal cast").
Spells cast this way will trigger in the direction the wizard is facing.If you press RMB without elements queued your wizard will perform a melee attack with his weapon.

With the middle mouse button (short: MMB or "self-cast").
Spells casted this way will be 360° spells that often also take effect on your own wizard.
The exception are spells that contain the shield element and at least one other element. These spells become resistances/immunities to certain types of damage and status effects.
Pressing the middle mouse button with nothing in your spell buffer does nothing at the moment.

These keys are rebindable. All of them, including element keys.

Basics - Spell Types and Spell Priority

Based on what elements you use in your spell, its appearance and behaviour is determined.
Every element has its own base appearance and a priority. A spell will have the appearance and behaviour of the element with the highest priority in the spell.

Depending on the cast mode (self or normal cast) the spells will differ as well.

If you wish to see a video to complement this guide section, check out Argotha's entry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofnQNB2RS0&feature=youtu.be

Sprays

- priority 1

Elements for sprays are:

Water
Cold
Fire
Steam

Sprays are short ranged, continuous spells. The elements in the spell and their effect are applied every second to the target you are spraying as long as he is in the blast.
If you use a spray spell with MMB it will trigger an area of effect blast of that element in all directions around you. Range depends on quantity of elements.

Beams

- priority 2

The elements for beams are:

Arcane/Death and Life



Beams are instant long range spells that increase in damage the longer they hit a target. You have to keep RMB pressed down to keep firing the beam and you can aim with your mouse. Beams are tricky to handle because they just follow your mouse and they don't turn instantly.
If you use such a spell with MMB it becomes a 360° blast, with the exception of Life, which just regenerates you faster and faster.
Spells like these are exponential and ramp up in damage/heals the more you channel it while not getting interrupted.

Lightnings

- priority 3

The element for lightning spells is... you guessed it, lightning:

Lightning



Lightning arcs can jump from target to target and mini-stuns(shocks) everyone and everything who is hit for a moment. If cast with RMB the lightning will be cast in 3 round bursts in a direction and jump from target to target.
If you cast such a spell with MMB the range becomes a lot shorter but the lightning arcs in every direction and for way more damage.
The amount of lightning elements in the spell influences jump range.

Ice Shards

- priority 3.

Ice shards revolve around the ice pair-element:

Ice

A spell of this kind casted with RMB shoots multiple shards of ice that deal physical damage and have the additional effect of the third element used in the spell. Keeping RMB pressed down charges the range, cone, damage and accuracy of the spell.
If casted with MMB it lets spikes of ice erupt from the ground around the caster, dealing damage.
Ice shards are handy for breaking through defenses because they can break through walls and still deal damage.

Projectiles and Earthquakes

- priority 4

The element used for both is earth.

Earth


Projectiles can be charged in range and damage by keeping RMB pressed down. They are used for medium to long range attacks. When a projectile hits something (including the ground) it creates a small explosion of the other elements used in the spell.
If you cast such a spell with MMB it becomes an earthquake that knocks everyone affected to the ground and also applies the damage or status effects of the elements that are used in the spell.

Shield-centered Spells

- priority5

These kinds of spell are created by using the shield element.

Shield

Next section is dedicated to the shield element and its spell types.

Basics - Shield-centered Spells

As you might've guessed, this element is quite versatile. It is the basis of all the counter-play that makes Magicka resemble a fighting game more than anything else. Arguably, the shield element is the most important element of them all.

The E Shield:
+ or


A shield that reflects beams and blocks sprays. Projectiles and Lightnings pass through it as well as players. This spell is the only one with these attributes.
RMB creates the shield in front of you while MMB creates a dome surrounding you.

Pro-Tip: You can despawn other E shields by spawning yours on top of them, which nullifies both.

Barriers:

Earth Barriers
+


or

Ice Barriers



Barriers offer good protection against sprays, projectiles and lightnings.

Projectiles that are combined with other elements as well as shards can easily break a barrier.
Barriers can contain any additional element with a priority of 2 or lower.

Ice barriers basically work the same way as earth ones but they deal damage when they are erected and do nothing when vanishing.

Mines:
+


Mines explode when someone steps on them and starts leaving. They can also be cast right under the feet of someone for ultimate destruction. Mines can be triggered by projectiles, sprays, explosions of mines, walls and MMB AoE damage spells.
Mines deal a good amount of damage. They can contain any additional element with a priority of 1.
Mines offer no protection.

Elemental Walls:

+


These kind of lightning storms deal damage to anyone or anything who is inside them. They offer protection against lightnings.
The additional element needs to have a priority of 2 or lower.


+

Where ? is any element with a priority of 1.

This kind of spell creates a wall of that element that deals damage and status effects. Using only 1 additional element instead of 2 will cause the elemental wall to be small but deal more damage. For example:

deals more damage than while covering a smaller area.

Players can walk through that cloud.

Wards (Auras and Armors):
+


Everything with a shield in it that you cast with MMB becomes a ward.
Wards protect you from the kind of elements that are used in the spell.
If you use an element once in a ward you get a 50% resistance against it and immunity against the status effect it causes. Use it twice to get a 100% resistance to that element. The exception are ice wards and steam wards, wich give 100% resistance against the combined element as well as 50% resistance to each of the base elements.
Additionally, partial water wards make you 50% immune to Steam and Ice attacks.
Casting a ward does not remove any status effect.

Shield Capacity:

You have a limit as to how many shield spells you can have at any given time. You can have only 1 of each up at any given time:

1 x E Shield (either normal or self cast) or one Earth Barrier or one Ice Barrier

1 x Elemental Storm or Elemental Wall

1 x Mine Set

1 x + Ward

Note: Casting a shield spell on top of another shield spell (regardless if an enemy cast it) overrides it by removing it and placing the new shield spell on top. That means you can remove mines by casting a barrier on top of it. The only shield that can pass through is the pure shield, which is only despawned by another pure shield.

Despawn Timer:

Each shield has a time limit. When that limit is reached the respective shield-based spell dissipates.

Mines last forever, unless you cast another one.

Basics - Status effects

There are 6 status effects in Wizard Wars: Wet, Cold, Frozen, Burning, Knocked down and Pushed.

Wet
A wet player takes double lightning damage or chill damage only from the first shock/blast.
A water ward can prevent this status but it does not remove it.
Wet status can be removed by using fire on yourself when you have no fire ward on.
It is also removed when hit with a lightning or cold spell.

Cold
The cold status slows a player down. It scales from 1% slowdown to 99%. 100% Slowdown induces the Frozen status. You can increase the slowing effect on a player by casting additional cold spells on him/her if he doesn't have a cold ward on.
A cold ward can prevent this status but it does not remove it.
Cold status can be removed by using fire on yourself when you have no fire ward.

Frozen
A frozen player can´t move or cast at all. The ice also protects against damage but when enough physical damage is dealt at once then the frozen player will take tenfold damage and shatter for an instant kill.
The status is removed by spamming the left mouse button.

Burning
A burning player constantly takes fire damage. The burning damage is the strongest when the burning starts and constantly gets weaker. Casting additional fire spells on a burning target refreshs the burning damage
A fire ward reduces the damage taken by burning.
A fire ward can prevent this status but it does not remove it.
The bunring status can be removed by casting water on yourself when having no water ward or casting a cold spell when you have no cold ward.

Knocked down
A knocked down player can not move or cast. When a player is knocked down while charging or casting something his actions will be canceled.
An earth ward can prevent this status from happening.
It is removed by waiting until your player stands up again.

Pushed/Airborne
Being pushed by mine blasts, walls or water means that you can´t cast spells or do anything at all unless you've recovered back onto your feet.

Basics - Magicks

What are Magicks?

Magicks are a special kind of spell. You can only cast them when you have enough "focus", super-energy, mana or whatever you want to call it. It is the yellow bar at the bottom of the screen. The 4 icons above it are the icons for the Magicks. If they are colored that means you have enough focus to cast the spell. If they are grey then you cannot. You need as much focus for a Magick as it is shown on the bar that extends from the start to the right end of the icon of the Magick.

When casting a Magick the necessary amount of focus is consumed.

Focuse can be gained by killing imps, capturing points, dealing damage, killing enemies and you also get focus over time, passively, but only a little.

How to use Magicks?

To activate a Magick you have to press the key on the keyboard that is displayed in the upper left corner of each Magick-icon. On default they are set to 1 for Haste, 2 for Revive, 3 for Summon Death and 4 for Meteor shower.

You can also click on the icons to activate the Magicks but this is not recommended because it usually takes longer.

What are these Magicks doing?

Haste
Needs 25% focus. Your wizard moves incredibly fast for a set amount of time.
Use this spell to escape from critical situations or hunt down enemies who try to flee.

Revive
Needs 75% focus. You revive everything in the area of effect. Use it to revive teammates. This is especially important when you are out of spawn tokens*.
Revive also restores 500 life to anyone alive in the magick's cast radius.
You can also use Revive to bring an enemy back to life just to kill him again, you monster.
*Spawn Tokens are not in this guide yet.

Summon Death
Needs 75% focus. Summons Miss Death at the target area and she will attack the closest target to her and executes a slash with his scythe that deals 1100 points of damage. 550 points of the damage are physical damage that can be blocked with a earth ward. The remaining damage is Magick damage that can´t be blocked.
When Death is aiming for you then you can activate haste and run away until he disappears or you can beam her with a WWW beam until she dies.
Death takes damage from life and is immune to arcane damage.

Meteor Shower
Needs 100% focus. Lets a rain of burning rocks fall from the sky on a large area. Each meteor deals about 750 points of damage and induces burning. The explosion of each meteor also has a pushing effect.
When casting you should remember that the area of effect is a lot bigger than the targeting image that you have to place.
Players can see where each meteor will hit the ground shortly before the meteor actually hits.
When a metorshower is casted in your proximity then run for your life and try to evade the meteors, or cast an appropiate ward and try to heal.
Note: The meteors are laid out in a grid, so you can predict where they land.

Second game update added 4 new magicks

Teleport
Needs 25% focus. Teleports you a fixed amount in front of you (10 meters). Very good for dodging and getting into an advantageous position.

Stone Prison
Needs 25% focus. Summons a 360 rock wall around the targeted area and captures/sucks all nearby targets inside. Thewall lasts for a couple of seconds. Can be used offensively or defensively. In a team environment, you can set up some nukes on 2-3 guys caught with a well placed prison.

Tactical Dragon Strike
Needs 75% focus. A dragon passes by and leaves a fiery barrage starting from the targeted area towards the endpoint. Click and drag to set the line of fire. Damage is significant and can melt all wizards who have no fire aura in mere seconds.

Thunderstorm
Needs 100% focus. A thunderstorm is summoned that wets all targets in its area and sends bolts of lightning every second. Lightning auras won't negate the damage completely, meaning each bolt does at least 300 damage. However, if you are in something like your rock pijamas you will get 900 damage per bolt. Rock armors during thunderstorms are bad.

More Magicks in the latest updates:

Midsummers Blessing
Needs 25% focus. Summons a green pillar that radiates healing pulses. Everyone in the area of effect is healed. Life auras and the life stat of your wizard have an effect on how much health you gain per pulse. It´s great in fights of a bigger scale.
In point of surving Thunderstorm, Meteorshower and Hail it can work well, too. Put on a fitting ward and place this Magick directly next to you. This way you can survive inside of the storms instead of running away.

Nature's Call
Needs 50% focus. Summons a flying toilet from the sky that deals 400 points of physical damage and pushes players away. After the impact two imps with toilet brushes spawn from the outhouse. They deal physical damage and their attacks wet players. The greates positive point of this magick is how halarious it is. :D
Don´t underestimate is though.

Mighty Hail
Needs 100% focus. Summons ice shards that fall from the sky and deal physical and cold damage. 500 damage in total. Two hit´s can freeze a player. One hit is enough on a wet player. If you get hit by a falling ice shard while you are frozen you are instantly dead if you don´t wear a full earth ward,
The area of effect of each shard is smaller than the one of a meteor but they are more numerous. The best ward to survive a mighty hail is !EDR. You recieve only 300 points of damager per ice shard in this ward.

Tornado
Needs 50% focus. Conjures a tornado that moves along a random path and throws everyone high in the air who gets caought in it. You best aim by placing the spell directly on a player.
You can resist this by wearing a !EDD ward. Flying targets can be hit with lightnings and they take 200 points of damage when they hit the ground. Tornado can be used for some nasty combinations or just to give you some time to heal while your enemy is airborn.

Conflagration
Needs 50% focus. It throws a surge of fire in the direction you cast it, dealing 500 damage and setting targets on fire.

Tidal Wave
Needs 50% focus. It creates a violent surge of water in front of you that deals medium water damage and washes away everything and everyone in the area.

Basics - The Mastery System - Unlocking Magicks and Gear

The Screen of the Masteries looks like this:
At the top of the window you have a display for how many mastery tokens you have available right now. In this screenshot these are 35 Tokens.
The mastery tree has its root in the middle at the dagger. Starting from there you unlock new magicks and various new gear by unlocking further perks in the mastery tree by spending tokens.

The mastery tree is seperated into 10 branches. Each one contains gear and magicks that are fitting for one of the 8 elements as well as health or speed stats. The price of each perk increases the further it is away from the center. The most expensive perks cost 140 mastery tokens.

Most of the items or items with similar effects can be bought form the store. The exception are magicks. In the store you can find scrolls that let you use magicks a few times, but only unlocking them in the mastery tree lets you use them without such a limit (The limit of needing to spend focus still applies).

How to gain mastery tokens

There are various ways to earn mastery tokens:

• 25 Mastery Tokens are earned at ever level-up.
  
• The daily chest has a chance to contain either 50 or 100 mastery tokens.
  
• Sometimes you randomly gain mastery tokens after a match. These are usually low amounts.

What should I unlock first

As I already mentioned you can get most of the gear with similar stats from the shop by spending crowns. So the focus lies on the magicks instead.
The most usefull magicks (by my standards) are revive, teleport, haste and coflagration. 3 Of these can be obtained early. Teleport however lies at the end of the speed branch.
Regardless of this recommendation you should get the stuff first, that you really want and that is fun to use for you.

At last I´d like to mention that it takes really long to unlock everything in the mastery screen.

Gear - Your equipment and your stats

Elemental Affinity and Stats

In Wizard Wars you have 8 stats which refer to the 8 elements. In the game you can see which stat does what by holding your cursor over its icon in the gear-screen.

You also have stats for the maximal health of your wizard, the movement speed and the melee damage per second.

• The default elemental affinity for all of your elements is 50.
  
• The default health is 1500.
  
• The default movement speed is 500.
  
• There is no default melee damage because it depends entirely on your weapon.

Elemental affinity in a given element increases the effectiveness it has while giving you resistances to it at the same time.
Further details will be added as more testing is done.

Items

Robes, Staffs, Trinkets and Rings change your element affinities and stats. They always have a positive and a negative effect on your stats that balance each other out. The changes are always affecting the same pairs of elements. There is a logical connection behind it that does not let you specialize in staying alive or damage dealing (or similar roles) because the decrease of the other element weakens you in the same aspect.

• Water and Cold = Crowd control and Incapacitation
  
• Life and Shield = Survivability
  
• Lightning and Earth = Burst damage
  
• Arcane and Fire = Damage over time

Example: If you increase Lightning by 15 point your earth stat will be decreased by the same amount.

Weapons have the stats "damage" and "cooldown".
Damage is obviously the damage the weapon deals with one strike. The displayed damage stat for a weapon is only the physical damage. Some elemental weapons deal additional non-physical damage.
The cooldown is how long you have to wait after a melee attack to perform your next action. A lower stat is better here.
Your melee damage per second stat is calculated by dividing the damage with the cooldown.

Here's a guide by Devil's Advocate that goes over the various item builds people are using right now.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=213199297

Gear - Robes

Just check the in-game shop to see what robes are available.
Here we will only post what robes you cannot buy from the shop.

Chest Dropped Robes:

All robes in this section have a chance of dropping as an Epic drop from daily chests.

Vizier Robe


Stats:
-30 Fire / +30 Arcane

Arctic Robe


Stats:
-20 Water / +20 Frost

Pyromaniac Robe


Stats:
-10 Arcane / +10 Fire

Enchanter Robe


Stats:
-30 Arcane / +30 Fire

Electromancer Robe


Stats:
-30 Earth / +30 Lightning

Ranger Robe


Stats:
-30 Lightning / +30 Earth

Pink Astronomer Robe


Stats:
-20 Life / +20 Shield

Lab Rat Robe


Stats:
-20 Earth / +20 Lightning

Giveaway Robes:

Purple Warlock Robe


Stats:
-10 Fire / +10 Arcane

Origin:

• Awarded to original Magicka owners

Flipper Robe


Stats:
-10 Cold / +10 Water

Origin:

• Awarded to the E3 Humble Bundle Purchasers

Ceremonial Robe


Stats:
-10 Life / +10 Shield

Origin:

• Awarded to original Magicka owners

Speedster Robe


Stats:
-100 Health / +4% Speed

Origin:

• Redeemed via Alienware giveaway codes

Knight's Robe


Stats:
-200 Health / +8% Speed

Origin:

• Redeemed via Indie Gala giveaway codes

Groovy Daft Techno Robe


Stats:
-10 Earth / +10 Lightning

Origin:

• Redeemed via Gamespot M:WW Giveaway

Blueberry Miner


Stats:
+10 Earth / -10 Lightning

Origin:

• Redeemed via a Rock Paper Shotgun Giveaway

Bundle Unlocked Robes:

Purple Grimnir Robe


Stats:
+10 Lightning / -10 Earth

Origin:

• Apprentice Starter Pack (or higher) purchasers obtained this robe.

Blue Valkyrie Robe


Stats:
+200 Health / -8% Movement Speed

Origin:

• Wizard Starter Pack (or higher) purchasers obtained this robe.

Green Steam Engineer Robe


Stats:
-300 Health / +12% Movement Speed

Origin:

• Archmage Starter Pack purchasers obtained.

Discontinued Robes:

Founder's Robes


Stats:
+200 Health / -8% Movement Speed

Description:
"As the Wizard Wars erupted, few rose up to lead the troops. Mostly because the fee was so high, but also since few wizards even keep money. The ones who did though recieved these elegant with exquisite attention to detail."

Origin:

• Green Founder's Robe is obtained with the purchase of the Starter Wizard Pack.
  
• Yellow Founder's Robe is obtained with the purchase of the Founder Wizard Pack.
  
• Red Founder's Robe is obtained with the purchase of the IMPressive Founder Pack.
  
• Blue Founder's Robe is exclusive to developers, only.

Origin:

• One-of-a-kind robe. Belongs to Fredrik Wester, PDX CEO.

Yellow Grimnir Robe


Stats:
+10 Lightning / -10 Earth

Origin:

• Starter Wizard Pack purchasers obtained this robe extra when the game launched.

Purple Valkyrie Robe


Stats:
+200 Health / -8% Movement Speed

Origin:

• Founder Wizard Pack purchasers obtained this robe extra when the game launched.

Red Steam Engineer Robe

Stats:
-300 Health / +12% Movement Speed

Origin:

• IMPressive Wizard Pack purchasers obtained this robe extra when the game launched.

Gear - Staves

Just check the in-game shop to see what staves are available.
Here we will post what staves you cannot buy from the shop.

Daily Chest Dropped Staves:

The Elder Staff
Stats:
-15 Cold / +15 Water

Description:
???











Runner's Stick
Stats:
-150 Health / +6% Movement

Description:
???

Discontinued Staves:

The Excelsior Line
Stats:
-100 Health +4% Movement Speed

Description:
A walking stick made for traversing the land of the dead. A real beauty, and the compass in the handle will sure come in handy too.

Origin:

• Alpha players received this as a prize for signing early to the game.

Founder's Staff
Stats:
-15 Earth +15 Lightning

Description:
These fine staves were specially made by the (Junior) Grand Staff Maker for officers in the Wizard Wars. Like most wizard staffs its very comfortable to lean against after a long walk, and it fries faces like nobody's business.

Origin:

• Founder's Staff is obtained with the purchase of the Founder Wizard Pack.

Gear - Weapons

Weapons in Magicka Wizard Wars must not be overlooked as their damage output and potential for making your foe dead before he makes you is significant and, frankly, I think most of you will have your fare share of either frustration or exhilaration when you lost or won that close duel just because of your well timed weapon swing, or your opponent's.

At the moment, the available weapons are fairly basics, all with advantages and disadvantages over another. Some have lower swing rate, but more one-hit burst damage. Some have higher damage per second over prolonged exposure to stabby-stabby frenzies. Others have an increased reach, while sacrificing their close-up damage.

They are all sidegrades, meaning there is no best weapon in this case, unless the latest patch messed with the balance a bit too much.

Weapon Abilites:

A weapon ability is a special move that is used when a weapon is completely charged up (do this by holding down RMB). Weapon abilities are generally far more powerful than a standard melee attack. In addition, abilities can modify a weapon's mechanic, for example: The weapon Gungnir's ability allows it to be used as a ranged weapon, hurling the spear across a large distance.

Video of most of the Weapons and their abilities

Thanks to TranceAcademy for the video.

Daily Chest Dropped Weapons:

Lightsaber


Stats:
245 Damage / 0.7 Attack Speed / Short Range

Weapon Ability: Whirlwind
???

Description:
???


Heavy Metal Axe


Stats:
???

Weapon Ability: ???
???

Description:
???

Discontinued Weapons:

Vendetta Dagger


Stats:
87 Damage / 0.25 Attack Speed / Very Short Range

Weapon Ability: Throwing Dagger
Quickly throw your dagger across a medium distance for 340 damage.

Description:
A long, slender dagger that's perfect for slicing and dicing up close, or at a distance.

Origin:

• Alpha players received this as a prize for signing early to the game.

Founder's Sabre


Stats:
210 Damage / 0.60 Attack Speed / Short Range

Weapon Ability: Rush
Dash forward with your weapon held high. Skewers anyone who gets in the way. Does two attacks, of 377 damage each.

Description:
These high quality blades were forged to be carried by officers in the Wizard Wars. Lightweight and perfectly balanced, they are easy to swing and tremendous to use for showing off. If you're not an officer, don't try to fence it.

Origin:

• Early founder pack buyer's received this as their prize.

The Bad Idea


Stats:
???

Weapon Ability: ???
???

Description:
???/i]

Origin:

• Was on sale in the store for a limited time.

Gear - Emotes

Each robe type has an emote attached to it that you can use after you've bought it by either pressing the emote button (default "P") if you have the said robe equipped, or by typing the /command for the emote if not.

Here is a video, courtesy of Jensen, showing all the emotes.

Spells - What are the best spells?

In Wizard Wars there are no "best spells". Every spell has its own strengths and weaknesses and you have to decide what you need to use when. I don´t say that all spells are equally good: There are spells that are inferior.

For example: deals more damage and has a bigger range than .

This means: You should use spells with 3 elements per spell. Even if you have an element multiple times in your spell. Don't be shy use as many as your diabolic heart desires.

An exception to this is when you have to cast something very quick or when you want to move quicker while casting, since having a spell with less than 3 elements means you move faster.

Another exception are spells than only have a certain effect when they are casted without additional elements, example:

A simple shield that reflects beams and blocks sprays. No other combination has this trait.

If you want to see at a glance some spells and combos that are pretty widely used, check out this guide by Rusty Eyeballs
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=230682517
If you want to know the exact damage and effects of all the spells then you should read this guide by Maelstrom:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=186749357

Spells - High Damage

This chapter deals with the most commonly used and most effective spells that bring the HP of your enemies to zero as fast as possible.

(DDD)
Simple sheer force. A charged rock deals around 600 points of damage and can shatter frozen targets. If you stand directly in front of a wall you can shoot the rock over the wall.


(ASE)
A wall of lightnings that constantly deal damage while someone stands in them. Preferably a slowed enemy that is knocked to the ground. ;)


(SES)
These mines deal a lot of arcane damage. Place them under your enemy and activate them with a spray or projectile. BOOM! Activating them with something like SSS (MMB) also works well for additional damage.


(!SFS)[MMB]
This spells is great for killing imps or dealing damage to closeby wizards. It´s also nice for activating the SES mines that are explained above. Make sure to not unfreeze a chilled enemy with it.


(ASF)
This spell deals a lot damage to people that are not protected against these three elements while also inducing burn status and stunning your target a bit due to the lightning.


(SSS)
A simple beam that deals a incredible amount of damage if you can keep it aimed at a vaild target for some time. Use it on enemies that are slowed, knocked down, frozen, stunned by lightnings or unable to evade or defend against it in any other way.


(EDF)
This wall deals huge fire damage when it detonates. You can make it explode with your own spells instantly if necessary. The wall needs to survive at least half a second before its destruction will deal damage.


(ARA)
Use this lightning on a wet target to have a doubled chilling effect as well as doubled lightning damage. The ministun is also nice.

There are more spells that deal a high amount of damage but most of them are inferior to the ones above in some way or just hard to make use of.

[More coming soon (?)]

Spells - Crowd Control

This chapter deals with spells that are used too keep one or more enemies busy without dealing much damage. They are mostly used to flee, protect a positon and block paths.
Most of these spells are based on the pushing effect of water. Using a water ward is effective against them.


(QED)
A wall that pushes everyone close to it away when it explodes. You can use it to push yourself and an enemy on the other side of the wall in opposite directions.


(QQQ)
A simple spray that can keep one or more targets unable to do anything. Push your enemies against a wall so they can't get pushed out of the sprays range. It´s also usefull for pushing your enemies into mines or lightning walls.


(!DD?)[MMB] *? = Fire, Cold, Water, Arcane
This spell knocks everyone around you to the ground and has an additional effect depending on the last element. This is especially good on enemies that are slowed by cold. This spell does not work against players with a earth ward.


(AER)
This wall of lightnings can be used to slow or even freeze enemies while also applying the stuns of lightnings to them. It even deals some damage. Overall a good spell with multiple uses.


(ES?) *? = Fire, Cold or Water
Mines are generally good for crowd control because they also have a pushing effect that disables casting and deal some damage. When a enemy is hit by the explosion of mines you can try to lay the next mines directly under him to deal more damage and keep him pushed around. Just make sure to not get hit by your own mines.
Being pushed by most mines is prevented by a full earth ward. If you want to push a target that has such a ward you should use water mines.

(QER)
This ice wall pushes enemies away that are directly in front of you and deals some damage at the same time. Moreover it helps against being hit by crowd control effects because it blocks water and cold spells.

[More coming soon]

Combat - Defense and Survival

The most important spells for staying alive are simple barriers, walls and wards.

Wards

You should always have a ward active and change it depending on the spells your enemy uses. They are a key element in surviving because they reduce the damage you take a lot and can prevent status effects like burning.
It´s also recommended that you always have wards with all 3 elements per spell used. Why using a only 50% lightning resistance when you can have 50% lightning and 50% arcane resistance?

Blocking attacks

Sometimes it´s better to not change your ward but defend against incoming attacks in another way.
The main spells for this are:


Casted with RMB it creates a shield that reflects beams and blocks sprays. Remember that projectiles and lightnings ignore this kind of shield. This one can also be used with MMB.


Casted with RMB it creates a wall of earth that blocks pure earth/ice projectiles, sprays and beams for some time but the wall can break.


Where ? is Q, S, R or F. Use this walls to block any attacks of the same element as the wall. EDF blocks DF projectiles, while ED would just break.


Where ? is A, R, F or Q. However this does not work with Q and A combined as well as Q and R combined because the spell will behave differently. This spell creates a storm that blocks lightnings. Elemental lightnings can destroy storms of their opposite element so you still need to choose wisely. For example a ARA lightning is completely blocked by ER, while it would destroy a EF storm.
I´d also like to mention that you should avoid using A in this way of blocking if you are not burning right now to prevent self-shock damage because of wetness. Your enemy will want to use lightnings while you are wet or he will wet you right before using the lightning. Its also good to react to ice shards like QRQ with a storm (that doesn´t contain A) because the next spell is very likely to be a lightning.

Healing

In mid-battle it usually takes too long to heal with channeling the beam on yourself. A faster way that also gives you some protection is the following:
Cast (RMB) in the direction your enemy is coming from. Cast (RMB) in the direct opposite direction. Now use MMB to detonate.
The arcane area spell will make the healing mines and wall explode which should heal you. The healing wall that you put up in the beginning also offers some protection.
Note that it´s often a better option to run away and heal up somewhere safe.

Regenerating with lightnings

This is a very specific way of healing. You put up lightnings (RMB),
activate a ward (MMB) and walk into the healing storm. The immunity to lightning damage will negate the damage and stun of the lightnings while the life element in them regenerates your health at a good pace.
Your should also put up a wall or shield in front of you to avoid damage and being pushed out.

Removing dangerous storms, walls and mines

Elemental walls, storms, mines, etc. are commonly placed right in front of or ontop of players. Knowing how to defend against them, or use them to your advantage is a curcial ability for survival. Simply warding against such attacks is not always the best choice, since it will make you vulnerable for other attacks or knockdowns, wich are common at such a close range.
There are two alternate ways to deal with those situations:

• Overwrting: Place your own mines, walls or storms over those of your enemy. This works only well if those of your enemy are in front of you, not ontop of you. For example you can remove arcane mines (SES) with your healing mines (WEW) to turn the damage that you would take into healing. However at such a range it is also possible that your enemy will be healed, too. Using walls like the ice wall (QER) can push the foe away while also overwriting the threat.
  
  
• Removal: You can remove storms and walls by using selfcasted spells of the opposite element. For example a firestorm (EF) can be removed by casting a cold AoE (like !RSR). Walls (like ESD) have a arming time before their explosions deal damage, so you can remove them in the same way if you react fast enough. Mines can not be removed that way without triggering them.
  Please note that cold lightning storms (EAR) are not fully removed by any fire spells; You´ll need to cast !FFF twice to remove it. Water (!QQQ) however works better for removing it, but it does not remove the chilling effect that may already affect you.

Running away

Activate Haste and run for your life is the best method of escaping.
Make sure that you don´t burn to death while running. You can also put up some barriers, walls and mines while escaping to stop your enemies or block long ranged attacks. Some effective chase breakers are water walls/barriers, freeze or water mines, freeze storm.
Escaping without haste is harder but possible.

The right positioning

Standing with your back to a wall is a horrible position because you have no room to evade backwards and it makes retreating harder. This makes you an easier target for any kind of attacks.
A bad position can easily be changed by using the teleport magick.
Another method is to use QQQ to push your enemy as long and as far away from you as possible so you get some room between yourself and the wall as well as some time to heal up.

Combat - Surviving Magicks

Reacting when someone summons death

If Death aims for you and you have more than half of your life you can activate a
earth ward and put up some healing walls and mines. Half of Deaths damage will be absorbed by your ward and most of the remaining damage will be healed up by your prepared healing spells. This works only if you have enough time before Death reaches you.
You can also turn Death against your enemies by using the Brainwash magick. This only works well if you have it already equipped or the summoned Death is still very far away.

Surviving a meteor shower

In a meteor shower you have two options: run or endure
Depending on how well the enemy placed the magick, you will have to think fast and choose one of them.
The best way to escape if you have 25% focus is to cast haste or teleport and get out of there. Running is possible without haste, unless you are deep in the middle of it or you are blocked by something or you are slowed down/knocked down.
In that case the best chance you got is to cast earth-fire ward and hope not more than 3 meteors hit you.
+

Surviving a tactical dragonstrike

This magick deals fire damage and magick damage. You can simply use this ward to get immune to half the damage it deals:
+
The fire of a dragonstrike destroys all walls instantly. Players standing inside it will be vulnerable to attacks with projectiles. Especially DDD. For this reason you´ll still want to get out of a dragonsrtike even if you have fire immunity.

Surviving a thunderstorm

The best option is to run out of it with haste or teleport out of the area of effect. But compared to meteorshower you can survive a thunderstorm easily. First get immune to lightning damage:
+
This way each lightning will deal only 300 damage to you. (Magick type damage). To make up for that you can either use midsummers blessing if you have it or a healing lightningwall:
+
If you want to cast it while being in the thunderstorm you will be wet. But the wetting effect of thunderstorm isn´t permanent. It´s in constant time periods. You can make use of this to get dry and then cast the healing lightningwall even in a thunderstorm. You need to be fast though.
Other healing methods or combinations of them work well too.

Just like for dragonstrike you are vulnerable to attacks while trying to endure a thunderstorm. Make sure to put walls and shields up.

Surviving a mighty hail

Again the easiest way is to run or teleport out of it. And also again there are methods to survive it. The best ward to endure a mighty hail is:
+
It wil make you immune to the slowing/freezing effect and protect against some of the damage.
Mighty hail deals 500 points of damage per hit in total. 200 of wich are magick damage, the other 300 points are physical damage. So with the ward above you will still take 350 points of damage from each hit. Healing and evading are necessary. With some practice you can fight without problems inside of a mighy hail, tough. It´s fun. ^_°

Combat - Offense

Obviously you can´t win a battle without going for the jugular.

Some general tips for damage spells;

• Always use combinations with 3 elements. The reason can be found in the "Spells" chapter.
  
• Aim properly. If you don´t hit you are wasting potential damage.
  
• Use attacks that ignore the ward of your enemy. Shooting rocks at someone who is immune to physical damage is pointless.
  
• Never use lightnings when your allies are close. Lightnings are uncontrolable and will propably fry your allies too. Maybe your allies may even work as a shield for your enemy agaist your lightnings.
  
• Same thing applies for other forms of damage. Try not toget your teammates caught in the blast.

What makes an offensive strategy a good one?
Simple:

• It should include multiple of kinds of damage. When you use only one element your enemy can simply ward against it.
  
• It has to make your enemy unable to protect against the type of damage you're going to use.
  
• It has to incapacitate your enemy in any way that prevents him from casting well

It's enough if your attack matches at least one of these conditions. But multiple are better.

Breaking through shields and walls

Shields are a common way to defend and you will often have the problem that a shield is between you and your enemy. What to do in such a situtaion?
Shields can be penetrated by projectiles and lightnings. Don´t try to stick to beam attacks when your enemy puts up a shield. Change your kind of attack, the used elements can stay the same.

For example: Change from a fire beam to fire projectiles.

Walls are a bit harder to work around. If your enemy stands close to the wall you can use lightnings wich will chain over the wall to your enemy. Another option is to use ice shards or elemental projectiles wich can break the wall. Steam sprays and various selfcasted spells also work great for breaking walls if you are close enough.
If you are close to the wall of your enemy you can put a different shield-spell over them to overwrite the wall with stationary lightnigs or mines wich are both no hindrance for attacks. Especially if the enemy is directly behind the wall such spells can deal good damage.
Alternative most walls can be broken with aoe spells if you are in range.

Freezing

Slowing and freezing your enemy are great options to include in your offensive rotation. The slowing makes it easier for you to hit your enemy while he is severely impaired from casting. When you hit a frozen taget with enough physical damage it will take lethal damage. So far the only spell that can do that is a charged DDD projectile and some weapon specials.
You can also place storms or mines directly on a frozen target so he will instantly get damaged as soon as he gets out of the freeze status.

Shattering with weapons
If a weapon can shatter your enemy or not depends heavily on his earth affinity. If your opponent has -50 earth, then a lot of weapons will be able to shatter him; some even without charging. However, any weapon that doesn´t deal earth damage has no chance of shattering at all. A player with a +50 earth affinity can´t be shattered at all.
When assuming the enemy has default earth affinity, then the only weapons that can shatter him are: Gungnir, Earth Elemental Chrossbow, Chakram and Spear of Longinus.
Bearbed Axe, Earth Mace, Horn of War and some other weapons still deal some damage to frozen targets, but they don´t cause the target to be shattered.
These listings of weapons may change depending on balance changes and new weapons.

Water and pushing:

Water is a good additional tactic very synergetic with lightnings and frost because the wetness doubles the lightning damage and increases the freeze rate.
Other water strategies can be usefull because while being pushed a player can´t queue elements, cast spells or do anything. This give you time to set up your next spells in an advantageous position while your enemy is wet and recovering.

For example:
Push your enemy against a wall with , get close while doing so and place some mines under his feet to freeze him up or a storm on top of him to dish loads of damage.

The pushing effect of mines, walls and water can also be used to push enemies back into elemental walls like EQF.

Using opposite elements in your attack patterns:

In general that means: When your enemy has a cold ward then switch to fire. He will change to a fire ward and you will start using cold. This way your enemy will be forced to use up more time in battle to remove statuses and change armors than he would normally.
Keep up the pressure on your enemy and his health will wither away.

Also its not very effective to cast fire spells while your enemy is already burning. You should use more damaging elements in your spells instead. Why cast AFA on an already burning enemy when you can also cast ASA, wich deals more burst damage (assuming his ward is neutral to all those elements)? Its enough to refresh the burning status on your enemy every 3-4 seconds. This can be done quickly with a short fire beam or spray.
While burning doesn´t stack in intensity the chilled status does. For the chilled status you´ll want to keep using cold spells until your enemy switches to a cold ward or is fully frozen. The slowed animations will steal a lot of his time.

Knockdown

Knocking your enemy down can be done by using earthquake spells. Being knocked down keeps a player from moving or casting spells until he gets up. You can use this to make you enemy stay in stationary lightnings longer, make sure that Death gets him or just buy some time. A nice follow up after a knockdown are weapon swings or specials if they charge fast enough.

The closer you are the more damage you can deal!

Yeah, most spells with a short range deal a really ridiculous amount of damage. Mines, MMB AoE attacks and also using your run-of-the-mill weapon works well. On short engagement ranges your enemy also needs more time to get away from you. Try to be carefull because this works the other way around too. He can do huge burst of damage too, and you cannot esacpe as easily.
It's a high-risk, high-reward play.

Keeping your distance from the fight

In most cases, especially in team fights, keeping your distance will lead you to win an engagement in the long run. Rocksniping, icesniping, beaming, applying statuses and the like may not get you straight up kills, but it will do a lot of harrasement overall while your teammates have the upper hand and finish the job.


[more will be added later. maybe.]

Combat - Support

The support in Magicka: Wizard Wars is different from other games that features such a role in many aspects, but it does draw several similarities.
In general a support is there to keep his allies alive, to keep them safe and guarded and to keep them sharp and deadly during a fight. Sometimes a support that does his job well along with one capable wizard can win fights against 3 or even 4 opponents who are not supporting each other.


Who is the Supporter in Magicka?

And the answer is: everyone. Everyone that is in a relatively safe spot and hears the cry of help of their teammates can be a supporter.

In Magicka there is no such thing as a dedicated support. You will eventually have to use other spells to survive or turn the fate of the battle in your favor. Specializing in supporting will get you better at it, but there will be many situations that arise where you have to switch tactics.

Magicks can also be used in clever ways to protect and help your teammates.


Healing your teammates

The most direct and obvious way of helping your allies is by making them as not-dead as possible, preferably full life.

The most useful and potent spell is the good old healing beam


Its healing potency ramps up the higher the charge. Remember: for beams, you gain charge by hitting a target and lose charge by not hitting anything.
This basically means that you need time to ramp up your healing. At later stages of the beam charge you can heal insane amounts, basically letting your fellow wizard tank an entire team.

Other ways to heal your teammates are healing mines


You need to note that healing mines, while strong, deal knockback and thus interrupt your teammates. The best and most welcomed moment to cast mines near or on top of your allies is when they are doing the same thing for themself! When they will detonate the healing mines they will detonate an extra row of mines that you just place, thus receiving double the healing.

Many ways to make your teammates love you.

Other strategies are aura dependent. For example if an ally has a pure lightning aura
+

Then casting an extra healing storm is great for them


For teammates having rock armor, you can heal them quite well with healing rocks and healingshards. They will not take much damage from the physical aspect but they will get healed.


The above two work especially great when you have gear that gives +life affinity. You can also use these two spells to heal your allies that your healing beams could not reach due to shields.

Dispelling status effects from your teammates

In the heat of the battle, or even in the quiet strolls around the woods, removing your teammates status effects like wet, burn, chill, freeze (especially chill) is great for your teammate and it's also faster than them doing that for themself.

There are many ways to do that, all with different advantages and disadvantages. All it takes is a little pulse of magic to dispel their status effect.

Healing beams with an extra key element can be very useful


You need to pulse it for 0.5 seconds for it to apply/dispel the effect. Careful not to channel the beam for too long, since you can apply the opposite status effect instead.
The healing fire beam is especially usefull because it heals faster than the burning does damage while making sure that your ally will not be chilled or wet. It is great to support your allies on the frontlines rather than just healing up.

The simplest form, that works best from short range are the classic sprays

Where ? is fire, frost or water. Just remember that everyone hates being hit by water sprays, so you may want to use QFQ (wet steam spray) instead.

If you have an energy shield in between, projectile rocks work well


If there is a barrier in between or you have many allies suffering from the same effect, aoe works
+
Where ? is the same element
Where ? is fire, frost or water

The quantity of elements in an aoe determines the range, so think of everyone being caught in the blast. You can also mix the life element into such a area blast to heal your allies up at the same time.

Using magicks for support

Revive
The most important magick for support is revive. It revives a dead comrade to fight along with you once again. Especially in the team deathmatch mode this magick can turn games around.
When you revive someone make sure to get ready to heal him up again. Revive only restores 500 points of health, so the revived person can be killed easily if not supported.

Midsummers Blessing
This healing totem allows you and/or your teammates to get to full health again quickly. Also it isn´t stopped by any walls or shields as well as having a high range, so you can use it to save an ally who is out of your range otherwise.
Make sure to use protections against water sprays when you want to stay in the area of effect of this magick, because your enemies will want to push you out of it.

Stone Prison and Tidal Wave
Both of them have the same purpose: Remove the enemy(s) from the fight temporarily to give yourself or your ally time to heal up. Tidal wave does the job way more effectively since its easy to escape from a stone prison by using teleport.

[MORE TO BE ADDED]

Combat - Teamplay

Magicka: Wizard Wars is a 4 vs 4 game (but there may be coming other gamemodes later). This means that you can´t win it all by yourself exept if your enemies don't really know how to play.

Teamplay is important! There are a few key elements in good teamplay that should be obvious:

• Don´t hit your own teammates with your attacks! Friendly fire is always activated. Be especially careful when using lightnings because they are extremely hard to control.
  
• Protect your teammates that have low health! You can run forward and put barriers between the enemies and your teammate. Or can heal your teammate from a distance with healing beams.
  
• Heal each other! This is important because it is much more effective than healing yourself.
  
• Choose your elements depending on the elements your teammates use! Example: If your teammate attacks with cold or water then you should not attack with fire because the two statuses just cancel each other. (The exeption in this example is when your enemy is immune to the cold status due to his ward. In that case fire is recommended.)
  
• Do not cast a risky Meteor Shower when you have advantage, if you already outnumber your enemies. It may eradicate your own team! Use Conflagration instead if you feel the urge.
  
• Revive each other! This is especially important in the team deathmatch mode or when you have no spawnpoints or spawntokens left in the warfare mode.

Splitting your group or sticking together
In warfare mode it's generally not good to have all players of your team walk around and fight together because this way you can only capture and defend one spawnpoint at a time and you are very vulnerable to area attacks such as meteorshower, mines, lightnings and more.
Instead you should split in two groups of 2 players each or one group 3 players and one player alone. Both ways to split your team has it´s tactical advantages and disadvantages but both are good.
The exception is when all your spawntokens ran out. In that case you should stay together as much as possible.

In the team deathmatch mode you should not stray too far from each other. Healing and being healed is crucial here because other than the expensive revive magick there is no way to respawn here.


Attacking as a team
In good coordination with your team you can work with high damage spells without the risk of damaging your allies. For example: You are fighting in groups of two. You and your partner put on !FEF ward, teleport close to the enemy and use EDF and !FFF for a lot of damage. If two people do this combination it deals ~1000 points of damage in ~2 seconds. Just make sure the enemy isn´t warded against the element you are going to use.
Combinations that work well:

• Fire: !FEF ward, EDF walls, !FFF AoE. This deals a lot of fire damage. Explained above.
  
• Arcane: !SES ward, SES mines and !SSS AoE to make it all explode.
  ~1200 points of damage when performed by two players on one target.
  
• Lightning: !AEA ward, (!)AAA spamm for offense (remember that !AAA deals more damage but has a shorter range). EWA and WAW can be used to heal you allies. The lightnings can arc over you ally without hurting him if he has the !AEA ward too.
  
• Cold: !RER ward, EDR walls and !SRS AoE to make the walls explode. !QQQ can also be used for faster freezing. This does not deal that much damage but it can be used for quick freezing.
  
• Water: !QEQ ward, EDQ walls, !QQQ AoE and QQQ sprays are used to push one more more enemies away. This deals no damage but in teamwork you can easily push multiple enemies off a spawnpoint.

Note: The damage calculations are done for attacks that actually hit your target.

This teamplay strategy gets more effective the more people are using it at the same time.

Positioning

Being in the right position is important. I mean REALLY IMPORTANT. If you stand between 3 enemies at once you will quickly be fried while your allies are unable to help you.

• Don´t have an enemy stand between yourself and your ally if there is more than one enemy around. He can block the healing beams of yourself or your ally wich makes surviving a lot harder for both of you.
  
• If there is only one enemy closeby you and your ally should position yourselfes so the enemy is between both of you. This makes blocking attacks a lot harder for him as well as blocking a potential path to escape.
  
• If you are at low health get behind your ally. This can especially be quickly done by using teleport. Your ally can hold the enemies off while you heal up. In that case your roles of supporter and frontman may switch, so you have to remember to keep his health up, too.

The T-formation
This is a strategy for 2 vs 2 battles. One of you places yourself between the enemies and plays aggressively, the other one stays at a distance and acts as a supporter. The positions form a T.
Standing between the enemies is important here because that way you can place shields and walls to stop healing spells between your enemies. At the same time your ally can support without getting interrupted from the side. If you are playing the supporter and your ally doesn´t need heals you can keep one of the enemies off his back by annoying him.

At the same time this strategy has the risk that the enemy team turns it against you by adjusting their positioning into their own T-formation while breaking yours. Keep adjusting to the enemies movements to prevent that.

[more coming soon]

(Advanced section still in construction)

Advanced - Spell Notation

There are times when you want to communicate a certain chain of spells to a chat, or on a forum and for the very same reason we have decided to establish a standard for communicating spell combos.

This notation will be used extensively in the advanced section of this guide.

Check it out here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=196132827#178306

Advanced - Warding

This guide made by zzcorrode will cover indepth warding.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195583505
Here is a video made by Argotha that explains how wards work and some new player strategies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loWgl0tuh40

Advanced - Speed and Efficiency

In battle, you not only need to know what to cast when, but you also need to be fast in doing so.

This guide made by Captain Bonkers will go into details on how to improve your spellcasting input speed.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=196292690

The video tutorial made by Argotha exemplifies all of these aspects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dKzWEOfv68&feature=youtu.be

Advanced - Duelling

Check out this very good guide that covers duelling, courtesy of [Lemons] Flash:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=191429243

Game Modes - Duel

Duel is a 1v1 game mode in which both players start the game in a stasis where they cannot move and a 3 second countdown begins. When the countdown is over, the duel round starts and ends when one of the wizards dies.

Magick focus is gained gradually as time passes and is reset at each round.

First wizard to get 3 round wins by killing his opponent 3 times wins the duel.

Game Modes - Warfare

Warfare is a 4v4 game mode where each team starts with 100 spawn tokens and to win you and your team must achieve one of the following objectives:

1. (Rush) Cap all the spawn points and kill all remaining wizards on the map.
2. (Control) Drop the enemy spawn token count to 0, then kill the remaining wizards on the map.

Spawn Tokens:
Spawn tokens are drained the following ways:
1. When a player dies and spawns, one spawn token is removed. (Revive doesn't consume token)
2. When time passes in control of a spawn point, an enemy spawn token is removed.

Spawn Points:
Spawn points are the main objective of the warfare map. Control them to have a place to spawn at when you die and also holding them reduces the spawn token count of your enemy.

Capturing spawn points is done by standing on the stone ring. The number of wizards on the point affects the capture speed. Imps do not affect capture speed.

When a spawn token is captured, two defender imps are spawned for the team that captured it and remain there to defend.

Game Modes - Soul Harvest

　
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=436948857
　

Practice makes perfect

Now that you know all that information you should just keep practicing and practicing until everything becomes reflex. Here are some tips:

• Start in training mode and just cast as many spells as you can as fast as you can. Try to kill Timmy in as many inventive and effective ways as you can think of. Always vary your spells, never repeat the same two spells in a row.
  
• Practice off-line using Ceko's Magicka Wizard Wars Skill Trainer[apps.magickawizardwars.com]. It features spell canceling and a new mode where you have to cast spells that go through an active wizard bot. Great stuff.
  
• Once you're ready, start playing games and putting everything to the test. Try to focus first on surviving, then on supporting then on offense and you'll get better from there.
  
• If you have a friend or more, you should play with them and ask them to practice offense by him just switching wards and adding defenses while you attack or practice defense while he attacks you and you try to defend. It can really improve your reflexes, and you can do it every time you cap a point with your buddy.

[Yusaa]

:'(

[Xor fo xob]

im happy.

[Windy]

Yep, I hope more old school players get to know about that

[[Lemons] Auron D.]

Discord Link to Wizard Wars Revival Project:
https://discord.gg/gAbfpTZ

As windy said there is also a guide to how to still play it:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=904845972

[Windy]

It's not dead, you can still play it, there is a guide on it ;)

[Eluem]

Miss this game :(

[gsw mer]

lighning as an element should always and forever remain yellow. remember pikachu? well for having purple lighning icon i am seriously turned off this game

[UltimateNieves]

Thank you for the update!!

[[Lemons] Auron D.]

Updated the Giude to version 2.5
- Removed (a lot) old information that isn´t valid anymore. And replaced it with corrected information if necessary.
- Removed some links that didn´t work anymore.
- Added a section about the mastery system. It replaces the old system of unlocking magicks with crystals.
- Added a bit of information in the Spells and Combat sections.

[UltimateNieves]

This guide is great thank you for putting this together!