Would NOT Recommend Magic

[Swindle]

With 29 hours in this game, beating it 5 or 6 different times, twice in a row now on Hardcore difficulty with relative ease as both a Stealth play style and a Warrior play style and then finally trying to go for three times in a row going full board Wizard I would not at all recommend it. With Wizards Robes, a Ring of Arcane Intellect, staves that almost never get used because most of them require Combat Mastery of some proficiency, and just going all into the magics and Arcane Mastery at +2 of three... Magic is ridiculously underpowered! At least, not as powerful as I expected. In the game you can have the highest Endurance and wearing the best armor wielding a lightening shield and I still got absolutely 1 hit by lightening. So naturally I assume this would be the case for Orcs and Goblins who, according to the Bestiary of Ashan, are weak against Lightening and resistant to Fire. Still takes 2 to 4 bolts of Lightening to kill an Orc and 2 to 3 to kill a Goblin. Maybe it's something to be said about the difficulty I set it to but I know of nothing that's resistant to steel and on the hardest difficulty I found it relatively easy to kill their chieftan using the Earthfire sword. Probably the most powerful spells in your arsenal are going to be Heal, Sanctuary, and Mind Control. Telekenisis is practically useless except to grab a crappy staff at the start of the game that's marginally better than the starter one, because everything you can do with Telekenisis you can do with your hands and not waste the Mana! Towards the end of my playthough with Wizard I found the Inferno spell to be fairly powerful against the Undead but it eats up so much mana so quickly that you honestly run out of mana potions in a hurry! The final straw being driven down to 3 left from 20 at the beginning of Spider Temple with all the undead. Magic is so excrutatingly underpowered, especially when literally any melee enemy can pretty much one hit you! Other mages can one hit you! What is this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥?! You're telling me these people are more better at magic than I am? With almost full Magic Affinity, the higher tier spells, and gear that only increases the amount of Mana you have? The damage magics are worthless! And if you're going full Wizard, it's all you have! So don't go full Wizard, I promise you you'll regret it.

[SADevil]

Mage in Dark Messiah is my favourite class. Though it doesn't uncover it's true potential until getting mana regeneration skill. But until then mage have staff that stuns several enemies at once, Freeze spell to make them slip and Telekenesis to quickly kill enemies with some clutter. Also it's better to get only most effective spells to not waste skill points on worse ones. My usual mage build has Telekenesis, Heal, Fireball, Freeze, Sanctuary and Inferno.

Though it needs to be said, that I don't consider any difficulty above normal as fun (and fair), because they by deafult require health skills which undermines potential diversity of character builds. Playing as assassin on hard difficulty I ended up in fighter's armor with a sword, because it's too punishing to play as anyone else. It only tells about poor design of harder difficulties than about weakness of particular class.

So I decided to play Dark Messiah only on normal so I can have fun and not struggle with dozens of oneshotting enemies.

[Swindle]

I have to disagree. As I've said in my original post, I found the game to be quite easy as both a stealth class and a warrior class. In the Stealth class I had: +3 Combat Mastery, +3 Archery, +2 Critical Hit, Spotting, Burglary, +3 Stealth, Poison Resistance, Stamina, I think a point or two of Endurance and I feel like by the end of the game I had +3 Strength. Ganted what I WILL say about playing Stealth in Dark Messiah is that yes... Sometimes it is slapping spiders with daggers.

There are quite a few parts in Dark Messiah that CLEARLY favor a Warrior BUT those parts can still be over come relatively easily if you've played through this game a few times and know what to do. Actually the parts with the Pao Kai's greatly favor the bow as you take agro off Liana almost instantly and can herd it to where ever you need. As for Cyclopses and other enemies Warriors are SUPPOSED to have a tougher time with, just stand somewhere they can't get to and shoot them down or use the environment to your advantage.

Now I think I covered my Warrior build in the post above but, in depth, it's: +3 Combat Mastery, +3 Strength, +3 Endurance, Telekinisis, Heal, Sanctuary, and Stamina. I rocked the Orcish Cleaver for most of the game until I could cleanse myself of my demon taint and wield the sword you can find in the Temple of the Spider which is the strongest sword in game. And honestly, when it came to Cyclopses, it was surprisingly easy to hit them in the eye with your sword.

When it comes to dealing with the final dragon boss and killing Arantir, it was RIDICULOUSLY EASY as a Rogue to just stand behind the pillar and shoot it to death with The Bow of Fiery Rage! The Warrior/Paladin was a bit more time consuming as I had to run out into the open, popping Sanctuary in my wake, and wait for the dragon to come down to attack me and then try my damnedest to hit that bastard tail! The thing about that game on Hardcore difficulty is that even as the most heavily armored warrior, there are still things that'll one hit you. Mages gave me particular difficulty as they'd just one hit your ass with a FIRE ARROW! ...WHAT!? And unless you have the fireshield it's completely unblockable so you have to run and plant your foot in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥'s chest ASAP!

At any rate, I do agree with you that trying to get all the spells was a mistake, entirely. Fire Arrow is the worst spell in game in my honest opinion, it is entirely worthless to even try to use other than as a suppliment for archery to take down weak planks to kill with the envrionment. I was just extremely disappointed with magic at Hardcore difficulty for the reason I discussed up top that it's just incredibly underpowered compared to both Warrior and Stealth.

[SADevil]

I can't exactly argue with that. High difficulties are just too tough and punishing to invest only in mage skills. Because without mana you have to participate in melee fights which is death for such low health build. But on normal I find it to be pretty fun.

I guess difficulties weren't properly tested on variety of character builds.

Also some skills are not worth it. Critical hits and Burglary are just a waste of skills (and a big one), and poison resistance is not such a big deal due to antidote potions. So on hard it really comes down to just plain warrior or assassin later becoming a warrior. It was fun to backstab almost everyone in necromances' fortress but then you deal with ghouls there are no stealh option. Just invest in health, put on best armor, take a sword and a lightning shield and just go kill everyone without a problem.

[Swindle]

Well, again, if I was able to get all those useful skills WITH Critical Hit, Burglary, AND Poison resistance then it's really not THAT big of an issue at all, honestly. I understand that these are all quality of life skills that make the game more enjoyable and take some of the strain off of you but as someone who REALLY likes to dig into every nook and cranny, I find my self wishing I had Burglary on every character, but deciding against it because I know better. But at the same time, 9/10ths of the places you burgal into are just like "...Bread and a mana potion... Two things I've been full on, this whole time. At the same time, I also do all the bonus things to get the extra skill points which probably has something to do with it. But like I said in the original post, I very much agree that a lot of this game (at the very least, regarding the skill options) is not very well thought out at all.

[Swindle]

And further more, as a mage, why would you ♥♥♥♥ with these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ gimmicky staves which are also incredibly poorly thought out, putting points into Combat Mastery... when you could just use swords any way! If the developers intend for you to mix combat points into magic, and then make magic utterly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ worthless... Why the ♥♥♥♥ bother with magic at all then!? Again! The game much favors the Might over the Magic portion of Might & Magic.

[SADevil]

But at the same time, 9/10ths of the places you burgal into are just like "...Bread and a mana potion... Two things I've been full on, this whole time.

Exactly! Most of the time it doesn't give that much of the benefit. In best case it can provide better weapon before it can be obtained other way, but I can't remember it being a big deal.

Using staff I defeated orc shaman and his guards without too much problem. Power swing with staff stuns everyone it touches, so next kick knocks them out, then just finish them off. Also it has good attack distance. While you don't really kill directly with it, you finish them off on the ground one by one. Well, at least I could do it on normal (didn't try it on hard). And better sword requires better strengh which good mage should not have.

I guess I don't have that much of experiense with hard difficulty, so can't really argue on that matter.

[Swindle]

Well, as I've said. You could do with swords easier than what you could with staves. On my Warrior, long before I ever had Sanctuary, I killed the chieftan and then, to be a ♥♥♥♥, killed the four orcs. When I did it on my Mage, when I pulled out the staff and tried to block, I got all five of them on me at once so what I had to do was Mindcontrol them all until the Chieftan remained and as I've said, it took at least 12 lightning bolts (Which Orcs SHOULD be weak to) as-well-as 4 or 5 ground attacks. Magic is completely infeasible, at least for Hardcore.

[SADevil]

Fair enough. May be some day I'll try to play through the game on hard with pure mage (using staffs too) just out of curiosity.

[Swindle]

Godspeed friend. I know I'll never make that mistake again.

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

I would argue a magic play thru is more about being cleaver with items and the physics then magic itself,not that that isnt useful with other methods...it just not as obvious becus its less dependent on them or able to captalize on them as often.

Magic is all about knowing all the little oddities about the game, using freeze to rage doll pepople so you can throw them up and kill them etc.9/10 times its the most efficent way to deal with things and combining it with oil throwing or enviromental objects makes it(teleie) deceptively powerful.

[Dr. Rockenstone]

What the above poster said. I used to have the same opinion of DM's magic as the OP but I've learned that it is actually well thought out. Spells that simply deal damage to enemies won't make for a very interesting combat experience. There are many fun things you can do with spells other than just inflicting raw damage. It's what makes it so much fun.

You can have an enemy chase you to the edge of a cliff and freeze the ground just before they reach you to have them slip and fall to their deaths.

You can kill anyone with telekinesis by throwing them up in the air. This almost never gets old because of the hilarious voice acting.

You can knock enemies off bridges and cliffs and rooftops with fireballs for easy multikills.

Oh and don't forget the adrenaline! Have you tried an adrenaline enhanced Lightning bolt on a group of enemies (the more the better) I won't spoil it for you but trust me you gotta try it!

Inferno is awesome! I had my own reservations about that skill first before I finally learned to use it properly. It is best used on tightly packed groups of enemies. If you do this, your adrenaline bar will fill up insanely fast and when that happens... well things can get pretty hot. You pretty much point your finger at them and say "die". You can kill something like 4-7 enemies with one adrenaline rush. Inferno is the go to raw damage combat spell that remains effective even in hardcore difficulty. If you can't make it work you're doing it wrong. I still wouldn't advice using it all the time because you will indeed run out of mana potions that way but for a creative wizard it is not a problem.
The Sanctuary spell is recommended to be used if you plan on roasting great numbers of enemies at once. That way you can stay close to them and not take damage.

Mana management is a part of playing DM and it is made easier if you invest just one point into the combat skill. It makes Staff combat enjoyable because then you can use charge strikes. Charge strike + Staff = awesomeness. Takes a while to learn to use it though. It's not easy to aim.

Do yourself a favor and take a look at the old but excellent wizard guide by "KingGeddii".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JufLeA6Fbqo&list=PL5416BBC4ED48242D
They're fun and I learned tons from them myself.

[Swindle]

That's awesome and I think I can agree with that but I feel like my biggest issue is the loading screen hints as-well-as the Bestiary of Ashan tells you "Orcs and Goblins are weakest to lightning damage. Humans and Spider are weakest to fire damage. Good ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ luck killing the undead, there's no holy damage magic." That feels like a HUGE BLATANT LIE when it takes 2 headshot lightning bolts or 4 or 5 lightning body shots (As if, realistically, that'd matter) and LITERALLY being unable to kill spiders with Fireball until I get full adrenalin. Maybe it is the limitation of Hardcore and being very creative is the way it's supposed to be done but I was more or less expecting "RAW UNLIMITED POWER!"

[Dr. Rockenstone]

Inferno would be the spell that gives you that. :)

[therussmeister]

I didn't care much for my pure-mage playthrough either. But warrior-mage, or as I call it, Jedi--is all kinds of fun. Use the force, Sareth!

[Dr. Rockenstone]

True. The melee combat in DM is too fun to completely ignore for an entire playthrough. Your mana wouldn't last anyway doing that.