Good mage talents?

[Detective]

Question in title. The talent that gives you -1 ability for each elemental spell that fits to what you are standing on, far out man, and mnemotic seemd to be suitable at the moment, but what else?

[Hobocop]

Savage Sortilege is a must if you want to do big damage.

[Gregorovitch]

Far Out Man for the range. Also consider The Pawn (for any charcacter really). It gives 1AP worth of free movement per turn. This means you can move some distance and still have 4AP left to loose off 2 attacks. This gioves you a lot of options. Otherwise a mage has to stay put or automatically lose a cast.

[Shard of Manus]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Savage Sortilege is a must if you want to do big damage.

Great for late game, but pretty wasted on an early-mid game Mage.

[Steed]

Far Out and Mnemotic definite early picks. Later on I took Comeeback Kid (and Morning Person).

I had Elemental Affinity (-1ap cost) but found I wasn't standing in the right substances (aero/hydro) often enough to make it worthwhile. With more planning it might be worth it.

[Detective]

The slight issue I have with elemental affinity, at least for fane - Is that I made him use fire/poison. There is no "earth" substance to sit on besides oil and poison, which are easily flammable.. I mean, sure, he'll then have his fire spells have -1 ap, but he'll also turn into a flaming bone-man.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Steed:

Far Out and Mnemotic definite early picks. Later on I took Comeeback Kid (and Morning Person).

I had Elemental Affinity (-1ap cost) but found I wasn't standing in the right substances (aero/hydro) often enough to make it worthwhile. With more planning it might be worth it.

Elemental affinity is probably the only talent you need if you could only pick one. In my 4 man games, my favorite party comp is dual mages either a pyro/geo and geo/pyro or hydro/aero and aero/hydro. I never build pyro and hydro (as damage) in the same party as they compete with each other and hinder your effectiveness. Then I take a damage melee or something that does high physical damage.

For the last character, I build a utility support, a class whose primary stats are memory and wits, with only enough wits to stay first in the initiative list, usually offset by gear later game. This character uses their AP to do the things I don’t want to waste AP on the others for. They’ll set up surfaces for elemental affinity for instance, prime enemies for stuns with an extra rain cooldown or that kind of thing. They generally know every spell possible with points in every skill class they can. They don’t deal any real damage until act 3ish where they have enough points to start stacking, but they control the battlefield and allow my mages full reign to destroy everything. Overall I actually find I deal more damage than if I had a fourth damage built character due to AP saved not setting up my elemental affinity for my mages.

[duncan.j.watson]

Elemental Affinity is the gift that keeps giving. If you pay attention to it, it is amazing. I gain more AP from it then from any other ability on my pyro/battlemage. Chaoslink's suggestion of a utility mage that sets up surfaces is genius btw.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by duncan.j.watson:

Elemental Affinity is the gift that keeps giving. If you pay attention to it, it is amazing. I gain more AP from it then from any other ability on my pyro/battlemage. Chaoslink's suggestion of a utility mage that sets up surfaces is genius btw.

Right? Sure, you sacrifice an entire character’s ability to deal any significant damage, but for their 2-4 AP used to set up those surfaces, you immediately gain about 6AP between both mages on their first turn. Not to mention that you have a character that can throw buffs out constantly, can utilize a massive spell book to control the battlefield through CC effects (with mild damage) using multiple lightning spells or whatever. You can take polymorph and use spider legs to root enemies every turn. You can get nullify to remove resistance and allow your damage mages to punch through enemies that have high resistance. You clear debuffs from those allies to keep them in the fight. Even clear surfaces that are problematic. Whatever you need. That’s their role.

[Revolucas]

Originally posted by Shard of Manus:

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Savage Sortilege is a must if you want to do big damage.

Great for late game, but pretty wasted on an early-mid game Mage.

How? 30% crit is very easy to obtain. Two wands and Hothead.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Alundaio:

Originally posted by Shard of Manus:

Great for late game, but pretty wasted on an early-mid game Mage.

How? 30% crit is very easy to obtain. Two wands and Hothead.

It’s more that you can get better crit on gear later on and with the fewer talents early, you can make better use of other talents. Personally I don’t get it til the talent point near level 14. I don’t generally dual wand though, shields let me be incredibly aggressive as a mage so I prefer that.

[Revolucas]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Alundaio:

How? 30% crit is very easy to obtain. Two wands and Hothead.

It’s more that you can get better crit on gear later on and with the fewer talents early, you can make better use of other talents. Personally I don’t get it til the talent point near level 14. I don’t generally dual wand though, shields let me be incredibly aggressive as a mage so I prefer that.

I never felt the need for a shield when using a character in the party that had Leadership, since mostly the person with Leadership was usually the primary target by the enemy due to the lack of resistances the other members recieved.