A balanced 4 mage party?

[Thirtyeight]

I want to play a group of all mages, but I'm worried about things like elemental resistances. Does anyone have a suggestion for a 4 mage party that will not run into scenarios where I won't be able to progress, or progressing will be a slog?

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Just add the synergy element to each of them

Pyro/Geo
Geo/Pyro
Hydro/Aero
Aero/Hydro

Make Pyro and Aero battlemages if you want. Make Hydro into a Summoner if you want. Plenty of ways to do it.

[Senki]

You could make a party of 2 necromancers and 2 mages with pyro/geo and hydro/aero with some summoning on one or both of the necromancers.The necromancers will deal physical damage and kill the enemies that have high elemental resistances.But if you want a magic damage only party then 2 pyro/geo mages and 2 hydro/aero is probably the best option but you're gonna have some issues with the hydro putting out fires and fire not letting the hydro mages freeze the enemies faster and mages are just weak in general in the first 2 acts compared to physical classes.

[gregfromthepeg]

With 4 mages, elemental resistances shouldn't be an issue as you should have all magic schools at least twice. The only thing is you will want a couple of them to have shields and 1 point in warfare for shield bounce for the occasional enemy who is extremely magic resistant and you have to use physical. As Senki said, also have one mage with necro as one of the magic schools to have another physical damage option.

[Chaoslink]

Elemental resistance isn’t really an issue to begin with. Beyond full immune enemies, the natural 30-40% resistance can be safely ignored.

[Thirtyeight]

The thing is, my current party is focused entirely around fire/earth/poison. I was worried there would be times i'd be in a difficult spot since I know you face fire-based enemies.

[LukanGamer]

just respec if need be and should easily have enough money to get skillbooks

[gregfromthepeg]

You should be ok. As Chaoslink said, unless an enemy had 100% resistance against all 3 schools, you can still win.

[Cacomistle]

I think if you go 4 mages, you should avoid having a primary ice mage (or avoid having a full pyro mage, but I think since a lot of hydo's strength is increasing magic armor restoration and your characters probably all have int armor, its not as useful as it otherwise might be, and I kind of just like fire mages better).

Honestly though I tried the party and I found it kind of boring. It felt like either long drawn out battles with tons of crowd control, where I didn't have the sustained damage to finish anything off (but 4 mages gives you a lot of cc, armor restoration, and all 4 characters are ranged so you're never really at risk). Or I used source spells and 1 shot everything the first turn. But that's just me, I really hate all the damaging source spells because it feels really dumb to just win the fight with 1 spell cast.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Thirtyeight:

The thing is, my current party is focused entirely around fire/earth/poison. I was worried there would be times i'd be in a difficult spot since I know you face fire-based enemies.

Yeah, you should try to have something like Pyro/Geo, Geo/Pyro then Aero/Pyro and Hydro/Geo or something. You'd still have a Pyro/Geo focus, but have access to Aero/Hydro in a pinch.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Thirtyeight:

The thing is, my current party is focused entirely around fire/earth/poison. I was worried there would be times i'd be in a difficult spot since I know you face fire-based enemies.

Yeah, you should try to have something like Pyro/Geo, Geo/Pyro then Aero/Pyro and Hydro/Geo or something. You'd still have a Pyro/Geo focus, but have access to Aero/Hydro in a pinch.

Is there really a reason to go for a hydro mage if your party is mostly focused on fire damage? It seems like it would be hard to get use out of anything but the support spells, and the imperssion I got is its not worth putting more than a couple points in hydro if all you're looking for is a bit of healing and magic armor restoration.

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by Thirtyeight:

The thing is, my current party is focused entirely around fire/earth/poison. I was worried there would be times i'd be in a difficult spot since I know you face fire-based enemies.

If you still haven't escaped fort joy, there is a fight after escaping the fort, but still on the first island where enemies will heal from both poison and fire, and the earth damage is likely to catch them on fire. I would do as chaos advised and make sure you have at least some access to hydro and aero.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Yeah, you should try to have something like Pyro/Geo, Geo/Pyro then Aero/Pyro and Hydro/Geo or something. You'd still have a Pyro/Geo focus, but have access to Aero/Hydro in a pinch.

Is there really a reason to go for a hydro mage if your party is mostly focused on fire damage? It seems like it would be hard to get use out of anything but the support spells, and the imperssion I got is its not worth putting more than a couple points in hydro if all you're looking for is a bit of healing and magic armor restoration.

Yes, very much so. Certain fights like the big one in the Black Pits area are nightmares for fire mages. Having access to water magic is huge in those fights. The supporting spells alone can make the effort worth it. Even in a Pyro/Geo focused team, I'd have Aero 2 and Hydro 2 each on at least 3/4 of my team. Being able to switch to them in a pinch would be very useful and you can still use Geo as a main focus without using Pyro, alongside Hydro/Aero spells.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Is there really a reason to go for a hydro mage if your party is mostly focused on fire damage? It seems like it would be hard to get use out of anything but the support spells, and the imperssion I got is its not worth putting more than a couple points in hydro if all you're looking for is a bit of healing and magic armor restoration.

Yes, very much so. Certain fights like the big one in the Black Pits area are nightmares for fire mages. Having access to water magic is huge in those fights. The supporting spells alone can make the effort worth it. Even in a Pyro/Geo focused team, I'd have Aero 2 and Hydro 2 each on at least 3/4 of my team. Being able to switch to them in a pinch would be very useful and you can still use Geo as a main focus without using Pyro, alongside Hydro/Aero spells.

But I would view that more as having a couple either aero or hydro on all the mages so they always at least have support spells.

The way you worded with hydro/geo sounded more like a hydro focused mage, like a mage that goes 5+ points in hydro. And that doesn't seem worth it to me, because most fights they'd never get the chance to cast a water spell.

Or ofc you could be a super tryhard and just go respec before all the fights that are hard for pyro mages. But I at least wouldn't want to play that way.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

The way you worded with hydro/geo sounded more like a hydro focused mage, like a mage that goes 5+ points in hydro. And that doesn't seem worth it to me, because most fights they'd never get the chance to cast a water spell.

Or ofc you could be a super tryhard and just go respec before all the fights that are hard for pyro mages. But I at least wouldn't want to play that way.

Kinda. I personally would have a character built to focus it. They'd still use their Geo primarily, but yes, they'd still have it there and ready.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

The way you worded with hydro/geo sounded more like a hydro focused mage, like a mage that goes 5+ points in hydro. And that doesn't seem worth it to me, because most fights they'd never get the chance to cast a water spell.

Or ofc you could be a super tryhard and just go respec before all the fights that are hard for pyro mages. But I at least wouldn't want to play that way.

Kinda. I personally would have a character built to focus it. They'd still use their Geo primarily, but yes, they'd still have it there and ready.

You probably understand the game better than me cause I don't take it seriously enough to play on tactician. So I'll take your word for that being effective.