Magic damage is the pits

[evilwillhunting]

The old CRPG (and RPG for that matter) standby is that a mage is the weakest character in the beginning but potentially the most powerful character you can play.

Perhaps I'm just playing the game wrong but the mage (NPC spoiler so will just call him/her the mage) just isn't cranking out much damage. Not nearly as much as my fighters.

Area of affect spells like fireball should be doing a heck of a lot more than 10-12 points of damage, for instance.

[Fistimus Maximus]

Originally posted by evilwillhunting:

The old CRPG (and RPG for that matter) standby is that a mage is the weakest character in the beginning but potentially the most powerful character you can play.

Perhaps I'm just playing the game wrong but the mage (NPC spoiler so will just call him/her the mage) just isn't cranking out much damage. Not nearly as much as my fighters.

Area of affect spells like fireball should be doing a heck of a lot more than 10-12 points of damage, for instance.

yeah so far ive found basic magic missile spam/thunderclap for cc are the key spells I use. Also spellburn spam for mana. One benefit is leveling fire gives fire resistance to you don't suffer damage from spell burn

[trismegistus]

Mages aren't really stellar damage dealers in this game. I've tried a few builds and the best option for damage seems to be stacking as much +INT/spell aptitude as possible and spamming Swarm of Gnats. The good news is that they are still powerful because they can drop Poison Globe and Thunderclap (best spell in the game IMO). Also the Fire tree is pretty lackluster

[Du-Vu]

I feel like having uses for spells outside of combat would’ve helped balance wise, if they were feeling like fireball was too much damage otherwise? But if damage is all it does, it really should be more

[interpol99]

Thunderclap absolutely breaks the game -- 15-20 damage to every enemy on the battlefield, plus they are stunned and muted. In terms of high-level spells, it dominates the other options, since you can stunlock the entire battlefield while dealing lots of damage. Sometimes it even cascades, so your mage can stunlock every opponent, then cast other spells too.

At lower levels, spamming swarm of gnats is your best option, since it deals good damage, has low cost, and can trigger cascade 3-4 times easily. This deals a lot of damage if you have a high intelligence mage.

When I got the mage, I gave him/her swarm of gnats, thunderclap, and a bunch of other spells, but those were the only two I actually used.

Note that there are a few spells that can be used outside of combat (buffs, invisibility), but I agree that this aspect of the game is under-developed. It would have been nice to have, for example, a spell that opened locks. Some of those non-combat spells could be used to replace spells that are currently "reskins" between the different schools of magic.

[WolfWings]

The biggest thing is this magic system is based around casters being Macross Missile Massacre[tvtropes.org] builds with the cascade mechanic, not a Wave Motion Gun[tvtropes.org] like in most fantasy systems.

I can drop out 35-40 damage per round on any single target anywhere on the battlefield by the time the pickaxe can be used, which is on par with Roland when he only gets one attack due to moving, and generally battles have always been over by the time he's out of attunement since, again, maxxed int.

Even my main PC that is one of the healers will fling off multiple heals a round, instead of just regrowing one dude's arm worth of healing like in most fantasy games. So I never feel like casting a heal has a bunch of leftover wasted potential.

[Du-Vu]

It's less that magic missile/swarm of gnats, thunderclap, or healing feel like bad options, it's just that they feel overwhelmingly like the best options, especially with maxed-out cascade. And with so many other spells, that's what feels like a bit of a waste. The variety ends up being superficial, you're not rewarded for experimenting.

Most of the other spells seem strictly worse, which makes progression disappointing. Some spells or even whole branches/classes (like fire magic and by extension the battlemagos) end up seeming like kind of a trap by comparison. A lot of the wizard's power in Dnd isn't just their numbers but also their versatility, and so far I haven't seen a way to really achieve that here.

[WolfWings]

To be fair this is also a game where the crowbar, shovel, AND pickaxe have exactly a single use ever at any point in the game.

I don't think I've seen a more murder-hobo-only RPG in multiple decades, it's so dead-set it's ALMOST an Undertale-like pastiche by accident.

[IlluminaZero]

Mages aren't so bad later on although I admit that early game it sounds like a nightmare. Doubly so since the game gives you a Thief BEFORE the Warrior. Mage - Theif as a team has overt anti-synergy as a team with how the game is designed.

At present though the meta is basically gnats spam with max aptitude+cascade with prioritization of CC and summons (I heard Ooze is good for tanking and setting up backstabs)

[Fistimus Maximus]

Game is pretty easy, once you become used to the mechanics. Only used ingame characters, One massive tip is don't level up till you need mana/health recharge. Barely ever rested which was handy in bigger map/ area.

[KYODAI]

Does anyone know how to cast spells out of battle?
I'm on steam deck and built the cleric up as as healer to cure diseases etc but can't for the life of me work out how to heal up outside of battle aha