Backgrounds

[JooseLord420]

I feel like since 1.0 I only ever play "experienced" (and sometimes snake eater or aestheic) when I am tryin to win and just play the other backgrounds for fun. Is the purpose of backgrounds mainly just to change up the game?

[Ocular]

yea probably, but experienced is the only good one basically.

[CattMeister]

For mages I still like to choose the lvl 2 spell on first book, rogue with far-sight and wildling/knight with +2 str.

It depends a lot on your playstyle. I also really love death's acolyte but that may not be for everyone.

[The_Random_Bystander]

I will say that I have had great results going Bookworm as Mage lately, but before that I always went with Experienced (and I would probably go with experienced for any other class too, or possibly Strong if I didn't care about spells).

[Garfield's Top Guy]

Experienced is decent if you actually need levels to survive - most of the time you should have your build more or less completed by Forest and additional levels are just filler.

Tinkerer is a good background to consider since it's full map mobility + easy fall damage avoidance if you're good at using it.

Death's Acolyte is a good background to consider if you're good enough at the game to not get hit, it's a fair trade for how much output you gain.

Bookworm is good for mage, but it only really changes how Iceball, Lightning, and Summon Monster work. Spell scaling per level added just isn't super on most spells - taking Raised by Merchant for more shopping potential works better if you're low on spells.