Water\air mage: what school should I level up first?

[Zeretrelle]

I checked the spells list but the description is kinda vague and I have no idea how do they really fare on a battlefield and how useful they are, so I'm a bit lost.

Currently I have air=2 and water=1 and 2 points left.

I'm playing with a friend(fire/earth)+ Madora.

TIA

[Songbird]

Get both to lvl 3 and then decide if you want more hard cc(freeze)/healing oriented spells or more displacement(invisibility, remove environmental effects)/offense oriented buffs. Overall both schools do roughly the same damage.

[A Big Hairy Monster]

Since you're pairing with a friend who's taking Fire/Earth, I'd recommend the following, based on my experience with spell progression:

Start with Air 1 and Water 1 and pick up Blitz Bolt, Teleport, Rain, and Minor Heal. You can pick up other stuff if you want, but get those ASAP. Then I would recommend the following order: Water 2, Water 3, Air 2, Water 4, Water 5, then Air. I would, however, actually also recommend investing spare points into a 3rd (or even 4th) element at rank 1 to pick up some basic off-element attacks. The reason being that you will VERY quickly find that there are alot of elemental-themed areas in world, and being unable to do anything because something is immune to both your elements sucks.

Reasoning: I've actually found that Water is very, VERY useful for most enemies in the game, much moreso than fire or earth - very little that isnt actually water-element is immune to freezing. Rain/IceShard or Rain/BlitzBolt is fairly easy to get the AP to use as a single-turn combo, and makes for fantastic CC, though it does mean your partner does less damage. Even if you aren't using rain, Ice Shard, Piercing Ice Shard, Blitz Bolt, and Lightning Bolt all have very good CC % chances.

Likewise, Teleport is vital for keeping people away from the squishies, and does fantastic damage to boot (Pro Tip: If you teleport an enemies REALLY close to another enemy, they BOTH take crushing damage). Minor Heal is also vital for keeping people alive, and you can get Strong Regeneration pretty fast too.

However, that said - there actually arent a lot of super necessary spells in the air tree. Theres some that are useful, certainly, like Air Shield, Invisibilty, and Tornado, but they are mid level, and water has many many more useful skills at low level, including having a variant primary damage spell - there's actually two Ice Shard spells, Ice Shard and Piercing Ice Shard, though the game actually calls the book and scroll Ice Shard for both spells - keep an eye out and actually read the spell description! If you can get both, a hasted mage can easy double-whammy any foe for an almost guaranteed freeze without needing to use rain - and if your aim is good, maybe more than one.

In addition to shards, Water has all sorts of things withing the 1-10 range: a summon, two heals, a cleanse, a water shield buff (that actually shields hp damage even though the spell doesnt say it!) , one of the most important ground-effects in the game (rain), an actual terrain wall spell (very rare, ive Never it seen on a vendor - I had to craft it w/ level 5 crafting), and a few other sometimes-usefull spells.

Air on the other hand, has buffs that can mostly be acquired elsewhere, or can be done without. Things like shocking touch (youve got blitzbolt), invis (why would your mage need that - they should be way in the back), immune to electrical (dont stand in ground effects in general, folks, and air shield is better anyway), air shield (water does fine, unless you really want the electric immune). Tornado is actually very useful, but you dont actually need it IN combat much - so ranking up the skill to make it cost less AP isnt really important right away. Its got some good higher level stuff, but that can either be done A) with scrolls as needed, or B) after you've maxed water anyway, since you can do that by like lvl 11 or so. Maybe earlier depending on how willing you are to save up.

[A Big Hairy Monster]

Oh and as a tip to a fellow Water Mage - get someone in the party to have crafting 2, and then find like crafting gear to level 5 (even if you just carry it in your backpack as-needed). There are, in fact, spells that DO NOT APPEAR in the vendors as skill books, but they DO appear as scrolls, and CAN be made into skillbooks if you have crafting 5.

Spells I've found that are either super-rare or just dont appear on vendors, but are confirmed by me to be made into skill books:

Summon Undead Warrior (an earlier version of undead decapitator, Witchcraft)
Twin Flare? (i forget the name) (a double-tap version of flare - the one fire elementals use, Fire)
Ice Wall (Water)
Piercing Ice Shard (common as a scroll, but just called 'Ice Shard' - look at the description and see if it says chance to pierce)

[Alvin the Elf]

Originally posted by A Big Hairy Monster:

Oh and as a tip to a fellow Water Mage - get someone in the party to have crafting 2, and then find like crafting gear to level 5 (even if you just carry it in your backpack as-needed). There are, in fact, spells that DO NOT APPEAR in the vendors as skill books, but they DO appear as scrolls, and CAN be made into skillbooks if you have crafting 5.

Spells I've found that are either super-rare or just dont appear on vendors, but are confirmed by me to be made into skill books:

Summon Undead Warrior (an earlier version of undead decapitator, Witchcraft)
Twin Flare? (i forget the name) (a double-tap version of flare - the one fire elementals use, Fire)
Ice Wall (Water)
Piercing Ice Shard (common as a scroll, but just called 'Ice Shard' - look at the description and see if it says chance to pierce)

Thank you. I did not know this. What is the formula for crafting skill books?

[Lambchopz]

Originally posted by A Big Hairy Monster:

Oh and as a tip to a fellow Water Mage - get someone in the party to have crafting 2, and then find like crafting gear to level 5 (even if you just carry it in your backpack as-needed). There are, in fact, spells that DO NOT APPEAR in the vendors as skill books, but they DO appear as scrolls, and CAN be made into skillbooks if you have crafting 5.

Spells I've found that are either super-rare or just dont appear on vendors, but are confirmed by me to be made into skill books:

Summon Undead Warrior (an earlier version of undead decapitator, Witchcraft)
Twin Flare? (i forget the name) (a double-tap version of flare - the one fire elementals use, Fire)
Ice Wall (Water)
Piercing Ice Shard (common as a scroll, but just called 'Ice Shard' - look at the description and see if it says chance to pierce)

I can tell you for certain that both Twin Flare (I also forget the name, unfortunately), Undead Warrior, and Piercing Ice Shard do have a chance of appearing at vendors. In both of the games I'm playing I've found multiple copies of all three. I haven't found an Ice Wall book, though I would assume they also have a small chance of appearing. It definitely appears to be a rarer spell, even in scroll form, so if you do happen to find a scroll for it's definitely wise to try and make it into a book.

Just a general tip for everybody if you weren't aware, vendors restock every time your party levels. So if they didn't have the skill book you wanted the first time, try again after you've leveled up once.

That said I still think it's good advice to take advantage of Skill Book crafting.

@Alvin -

To craft a blank skill book, combine two blank scrolls of the same element. To write a spell into the book combine it with a scroll, and it will become a book of whatever that scroll was. Blank skill books will occasionally drop from enemies as well.

You will also need a Magic Quill and Ink which is Quill + Ink for the normal Quill/Ink + Pixie Dust. You can get a quill by combining a feather with a knife.

Edit: Scratch that I don't think you actually need the magic quill/ink to make the blank books, it's just for writing random spells onto blank scrolls. Still probably good to have one.

[Alvin the Elf]

Thank you, good sir.

[Zeretrelle]

Cheers, guys. it was really helpful