Mage Gear Mechanics

[Segan]

When using Magic Staffs/Wands and Robes, which spells are affected?

Some specific questions:

1) If I have Staff of Air equipped, which reduces the cost of Air Runes when casting a spell, does it also reduce the cost of combination runes, like Mist Runes, which are Air + Water?

2) If I have Air Acolyte gear on, which increases minimum damage for Air spells, does it affect all spells that use Air runes (like Water Strike, which uses Air + Water + Mind)? Or does it only affect spells that are 'obviously' Air-based, like Wind Strike, Wind Bolt, and Wind Blast?

I'm assuming the answers to both of the above question is 'no'. But in that case, I wonder about the current balance for magic in the game.

3) It seems to me that having a full Air-based setup and using only Wind-based spells is the ideal choice. The time needed to prepare Wind-based standard magic should be MUCH lower than for other magics.

With the right staff, Wind-magic should be almost free to cast, needing only the secondary runes to be crafted; while other magics need at least one primary element to be crafted, and possibly both + combination crafting in order to be efficient.

Am I wrong?

[Huillam]

Just checked #1 with an Air Imbued Wand casting Water Surge: no reduction.
I assume that #2 follow the same rule.
Except a bare minimum of 1 Air Rune even if you were to theorically drop the total to 0 (at least that's usually the case).

Late game you'll probably use Ancient Magicks: Even Gust (requiring a total 35 runes, 32 with the wand) doesn't require too much work to be sustained days long and the damage output is far higher than standard magic.

[Oktober12th]

I have a lot more experience with Alt Magic that Combat Magic, but in reference to that skill:

Reductions in rune costs to a specific element (such as Wind) has zero effect on combination runes.

Reductions to standard runes can reduce the cost to 0. Such as casting a fire-based ability like Superheat 3 with a Mystic Fire Staff reduces the rune cost to 1/4/0/1.

The advantage to combination runes come in the near-to-max levels of Runecrafting where you have huge bonuses to quantity produced and doubling chance. Making a standard Wind rune gives 16 or 32 (+8 random if using a potion that procs) and around a 75% chance of not using the blank rune (or around 65% if you don't have a crown). Then you take those runes and combine them AGAIN for another 16/32+8 from the 16-40 originally made, and still have a good chance to not use the originals.

In that situation you can make HUGE quantities of runes extremely quickly.

I was Runcrafting today for Summoning and I make around 100k runes and only used 500 blanks at most. In the end, you have the option of practically burring yourself in runes of any type you want to use.

I'm not sure if that directly answers your questions but it might make some of it a little clearer.

[Segan]

Thank you guys for the answers.

Oktober12th, it more or less does answer question 3. There's still the "problem" of mass production not making use of the staff's prominent effect. But it's not really much of a problem if you can make so many so quickly. I didn't realize the production rate was that ridiculous at max level.

I do feel the balancing for low level is still off.

[Oktober12th]

Originally posted by Segan:

Thank you guys for the answers.

Oktober12th, it more or less does answer question 3. There's still the "problem" of mass production not making use of the staff's prominent effect. But it's not really much of a problem if you can make so many so quickly. I didn't realize the production rate was that ridiculous at max level.

I do feel the balancing for low level is still off.

In many ways I agree, the low level is off. But after having gone through it, you can scream through those early levels so fast if you choose too that balancing the game against them would be nearly impossible. This is especially true once you get good at some aspect of a skill and then you have have the option of nearly instantly mastering others using your Mastery XP.

For example, many people use Dragon Javelins to make money. At first this seems insane with the number of steps and some of the odd things involved. But when you can just take your spare Smithing XP from making bars and pour it into the Javelin tips you can take them from level 1 to level 60+ before you even make your first one.

It can sometimes feel a little 'off' especially right at the start, but it smooths out after a little while as the skills begin to interlock more.