Which magic schools to ignore?

[r3bs]

Hi guys, i am having the same problem as i had in MM6, there is not enough space in the party to have all magic schools at GM (if i want some physical characters at all). Since i haven't played this game yet i want to know your opinion about which schools do you think are weak.

Right now i think i want a freemage, to max primordial and air (and some dark if there will be enough skillpoints). Also i want a runepriest since he is the only one who can GM fire (fire seems to be the most damaging according to the numbers). I dont think i will invest much in light magic on him though.. It is sad that orcs cannot use fire magic, i always thought fire is more of an orc thing and i wanted an orc shaman.

Anyway, what schools do you think are lacking? Also which ones can be good at master/expert levels for utility on a hybrid?

[Samseng Yik]

Get Prime/Dark until expert. Enough.
Only in my opinions.

The Dark master has a nice antiboss spell. Just like that.

[Samseng Yik]

Orc shaman can use fire magic. Hello

[r3bs]

Well, i meant GM fire. I dont think going for master fire will make any sense since most of the spells do damage..

[r3bs]

How about implosion and that teleport spell in prime?

[Samseng Yik]

Try chainlighting , cyclone (Cyclone can cheese to win, you can avoid that).

The teleport is some neat thing, but is also a bug-fest induced spell.

Depend on you want use fire to deal damage or not. I strongly recommend your shaman get expert in Fire. Burning Determination help a lot !

[Duga]

Light - Only needed for the barrier, maybe res but ehh... rest is more or less useless, especially the GM skill.
Dark - Only used wards and detection spell.
Prime - Get expert for identify if you're playing on warrior, and then go GM or stop at expert. Until GM (implos) it's bleh.
Air - It crits for a lot, i got it to GM, not really need it. Problem is, i felt like most enemies resisted this school of magic, even at GM level.
Fire - Cool buff at expert, mucho dmg.
Earth - Must have imo, playing without this is really challenging. I'd get it up to master, since the GM spell never really worked wonders for me. Master gives you some cool -50 armor debuff which works on bosses.

Just remember, since you can only cast 1 spell per turn, combine the schools in a way where you can get defense up in 1-2 turns, then deal damage and heal at the same time. What you should split up:
Light - Earth -- Split this up as both have heals, on preferably 2 chars.
Water - Light - (Earth) -- Split these up as all have some damage mitigation spells (water shield thingie, celestial shield thingie, stoneskin) to pref 2 chars.
Fire - Air - Prime -- Most direct damage spells, don't put everything on 1 character, you won't use it.

Hope that helped.

[r3bs]

Oh wow, thanks for this rundown, this helped immensely! I think i will go freemage (GM prime-air), rune priest (GM fire-earth), shaman (GM water-air), and if needed i will level dark and light magic a bit. Do you think i can do without a tank? I want to get a scout or hunter as my physical guy.. Also, i want to gift you something, check the friend invite :)

[Samseng Yik]

Hey hey, please thanks me too.

Many players already finish Warrior mode with All Magic.
They claim All Magic is easiest among All Might/Hybrid/Magic.

So, without a tank is fine.

[Duga]

It's possible without a tank.

Also, one thing, for your freemage, consider getting focus to GM (gives you crit chance and dmg). It's especially impressive in the late game when you start critting 1000+ dmg with chain lightning (unless monsters resist it).

[Vorph]

The other responses here are forgetting that GM gives a massive boost to spell scaling far beyond what you get at master. Because of that, any school you use for damage or healing should be raised to GM. The master bonus is 175% of base, but the GM bonus is 350%. Once magic is factored in--50 is sufficient there--you're looking at ~66% more actual damage/healing from all the spells in a school. It doesn't matter if the GM spell is crap, because all your spells will be crap if you don't go all the way.

That said, I would never raise Primordial past expert. Identify is absolutely required, but Implosion does terrible damage, Spirit Beacon will most likely break your game, and Hour of Power is better to just get from a shrine if you really need it.

Dark is fairly lackluster too, but Freemages have nothing else worth putting their points into and it's not nearly as bad as Prime. At the very least, having GM Dark gives you a very large buff to dark resist that you'll be thankful for late in the game.

[Etagloc]

hmm FIRE, LIGHT and PRIME was the "best for me" Fire for insane damage. 1400 aoe crits. LIght for shield, heal and Ress. Prime has alot of cool stuff the other schools does not. Identify, teleport, dispell, and some nice all round buffs.

[maartenprins]

Water and wind seem to be the weakest in my experience.

[Skor]

I actually like implosion, because it hardly gets resisted and can hit for some good damage, while additional to the group.

[Dustin]

They've all got uses, different tools for different jobs.

Earth - Heal + Damage/Debuff. I haven't really played much with Earth, but it's supposed to be awesome. Stoneskin can provide survivability. Acid can strip 50% of a target's armor. The highest level spell operates like a Demi, doing a percentage of HP damage instead of a set #. The first level spell can root an opponent to the ground, useful if you're nuking from a distance. The only problem I see is that most of the undead opponents are completely immune to most of it's damage-dealing.
Fire - DAMAGE. Standard nuker + some decent support skills at expert level. Immunizing against status effects is usually better than curing them. The master-level fire-shield is an awesome way to hurt opponents who get lots of attacks (in my fight with the Crstal Spider, it was doing a good 150 damage a turn, passively, while my party blocked or dodged 1/2 of its attacks).
Wind - AOE Damage. Kinda lackluster damage until master-level, where it's AOE damage is king, though I guess the starting spell's ability to push enemies is useful.
Water - Support/Damage. It's first level spell can take an attack off of its target, which is very useful for multi-attacking enemies. Liquid Membrane is supposed to be one of the best support skills in the game.
Light - Heal/Support. Useful for heals, ressurection, and damage-soaking. The best character for it is a Paladin, IMO; they've got the kind of survivability that makes them good healers.
Dark - Support/debuff. Kind of a one point wonder. Infravision + secret detect are very useful (I don't know if its a bug, but it "paints" secret walls for me, so that I can see them kinda far off). Apparently Agony, the GM spell, is the bee's knees, though.
Prime - Support/debuff. At least on Expert in the party. Identify is such a useful spell that it's worth 7 skill points on its own, plus you get to shatter any groups armor, and you can rid your entire party of status effects with dispel (careful, it takes out buffs too).

[76561198058330925]

Everything in master is enough, GM spells are not really worth it, put points only for damage imo.