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Skill: Runic Boulder, Stone Armor, Stone Spikes, Jolt, Impulse, Short Circuit, Seal of Finesse
This is my fourth play in this game btw, I'm trying to maximize magic damage with raw stats and better gears since there are not much useful items except in the late game. But I feel like debuff and buff spells in the mid game are unfair to players. Also, the necessary skills to support energy for mage are in Treatise III which bother me a lot, it will take a lot of time to level up (or find a book if you are lucky). For example, Rune of Binding and Unlimited Power.
Now try to get from Magic Mastery the Dissipation passive mainly for the Resistances it gives thou free Energy is also nice, and next get the Seal of Cleansing spell which has various uses vs all enemy caster types, it helps you remove all those debuffs that Proselytes and Undead cast on you, or to remove Burning from yourself and/or ground in front of where you want to walk, or to remove the Resonance and Impulse debuffs that the enemy Electromancers give you, or to remove Stone Armor or Stone Spikes of enemy Geomancers, etc. It's also good vs bosses like Wraithbinder and his Wraith type minions he summons, or to get rid of both the Revenant Commander debuffs he puts on you and his own buffs like Seal of Reflection and Against the Odds, and in general i find Seal of Cleansing very good vs all annoying boss stuff like Adrenaline Rush, Thirst for Battle, Seal of Shackles, etc. And finally where i wanted to get at is get Seal of Reflection for yourself, it at least prevents all debuffs of Brigand mages and Proselyte and Undead casters, while the damaging ones that get reflected even help you kill.
Also as a mage you can get to a 5 or 10 point threshold in PRC, mainly for more spell range thou Accuracy, Armor Penetration, and Miracle chance are also good, and if you do and get to Brynn maybe consider for your switch loadout one of the Crossbows types with lower dmg but lesser penalties and Bodkin bolts, basically allowing you to make use of your innate Accuracy for a couple of shots before the enemy caster is in their or your casting range, thou i guess this last example is better for melee or hybrid builds, but might as well share it too.
Lastly imo it was a mistake to go with both Geomancy and Electromancy, sure they both are Control focused but their ways are different and you kind of just delayed your power spike from one or the other magic schools. Also in general trying to be more than one thing (or worse a bit of everything) kind of just makes you mediocre even if you know what you are doing. Maybe in a future playthrough with a more focused approach you will reached Seal of Shackles to see how that is, well you will but unpleasantly when you will fight Magehunters.
You can buy all lvl 1 magic Treatise from Scribe inside the dilapidated castle in Mannshire, all lvl 2 from Brynn's Printhouse and all lvl 3 from the Occultist at Rotten Willow tavern that's some 10 tiles on the upper road leaving Mannshire. And if you get to Brynn get gear from the Alchemist above the Well at the Docks and after you "deal" with the Leatherworks Bailiff.
Bcs you shuld to know about few principles.
- stoneshard is more kind of 'surviving game' and less 'dmg dealing game'. You also should spend some of your lvl up's points into skills that can make your charecter to live longer
- there is a big variation of builds. Some of them are more smooth then other and also there are some of not playable in any phase. Geomancy+Electromancy is pretty specific build with smooth early\late game and rough mid. In t1\2 dungeons, as you said recently, you have a big quantity of knocks (spells that trigger it you are able to learn in the first few lvls)
- usually you should hybriding mages with physical tree. For example 'geo + staff' is a great playable build unlike from other compearing physical trees. If you wanna mix two magic trees you also had to know that the character get +2,5% on your and -1% on other elemental school magic dmg. Suppose you've goten 2 from each geo and elec, that's only +3%. It isn't effective at all. In early game you don't feel these percentages in oposide to mid game
- in t3\4 dungeons (mid game) enemies seem more stroger with high resistances against your's 'so usefull' knocks and low growth of % dmg. At the same time enemies have a lot of annoying skills.
- there is some convenient enemies for every build and not. Necromancer vs your mage like example.
- after 20 + lvl with overwhelming stats and hight lvl equipment, your run will be smooth again.
- use consumables that make your run easily
- random do exist
That's why i said that this build is specific. Anyway you can play on whatever you want but you should always remember about game's core mechanics.
Generally speaking:
Pyro = pure damage mage
Geo = crowd control mage
Elec = debuff damage mage i.e. if you can't apply Resonance on the enemy you can't do any damage at all
Of the 3 mage builds, Elec is the hardest because of that Resonance problem. This also means, Jolt is useless if you can't apply Resonance with it, since Resonance is what gives that -10% control resistance that you are trying to make use of, but you can only get that Resonance chance up by investing in a lot of Elec spells. Thus, Geo + Elec is doomed to fail.
And if you go mainly Elec, the nice thing is a pure Elec doesn't need Geo at all; you would have your hands full just casting Elec spells and Magic Mastery seals, no time to use Geo spells at all.
This is more like the Geo game. Eventually you will have 1 turn downtime on your Runic Boulder i.e. you can chain-cast Runic Boulder, then whatever spell, then Runic Boulder again, perma-knockbacking and stunlocking just about any enemy inside a dungeon, no need to use Jolt at all.
Elec doesn't rely so much on perma-knockback but it is helpful. Instead, the knockback is just to buy time to put enough Resonance on enemies so Short Circuit will shock every enemy to death.
I guarantee you, when you know what buffs you're getting e.g. from Magic Mastery, you'll understand why the enemies have such good buffs... One good example is Seal of Insight, all pure mages need this spell, just stand on a good location and initiate magic missile bombardment.
I think you should restart your character, and try to level Perception to 15 first and see how it feels for you. Don't worry about unlocking abilities via stats (Willpower), because as DacianDraco said, you can purchase treatises from I to III at various locations, they aren't rep-locked either so you can buy them whenever you like. They just cost a hell of a lot of money, but as long as you keep grinding Osbrook dungeons (and Mannshire when you're high enough level), money won't be a problem for you.
You can also use Runic Boulder to hunt down any Thrush or the other bird (forgot its name) that gives you good quality meat. It will save you some money, every little bit counts. Or kill ducks along the river for free food.
Early on when playing any mage, don't worry about getting magic power gear, just focus on survivability. Use a staff when casting spells, swap to a 2h mace or something when enemy is 1 tile away from being adjacent to you, so you have a beat stick to beat down injured enemies.
Seal of Insight will give you huge magic power boost, huge energy restoration, miracle chance and stuff. What you get from Seal of Insight will beat any equipment you can wear at the level you learn this ability.
The only time you will have a hard time grinding is when you've learned all your Tier III spells but can't find your Geomancy Treatise IV... Since I suggest you to max out Perception as soon as possible, instead of putting points into Willpower.
The reason for my suggestion is simple: if you want to attack first without alerting your enemies (since the location for Seal of Insight is random), you need a healthy distance before enemies will detect you. And also, Geomancy spells are loud, so casting these spells will alert enemies to your location. Lastly, even though you are the king of CC, eventually there will be enemies that can charge you from 4 tiles out, which means your effective range will be from a minimum of 4 tiles out to whatever your max range is. Therefore, if you want to maximize your effective CC range, you should max out your attack range.
Geomancy has a passive ability that lets you drop all active Geo ability cooldowns by 2 turns every time you cast a Geo spell, and you will be casting a lot of Runic Boulder anyway. And if any enemy gets to 5 tiles away from you, you can explode a Runic Boulder adjacent to that enemy and petrify him for a few turns. I always use that ability as my last line of defense.
But if say, you prefer to max Willpower instead of Perception; no problem as well. You can unlock Tier IV spells more readily. In that case, aim to get Overwhelming Power than Boulder Toss, because Overwhelming Power is literally OP. The 140%-stun-chance kind of OP. (If fully buffed with Runic Boulder etc, possibly 170% chance to stun, maybe even higher.)
Geo is the easiest mage build, even compared to Pyro. Because Pyro is weak in the rain, whereas Geo has no elemental weakness in any weather. Geomancers can buff themselves with Runic Boulders which give them more magic power and Geomantic Power amongst all the buffs, which means with the right setup Geomancy can get to supreme damage, second only to Electromancy at its finest.
Pyro is the hardest mage build by far, because that build has no CC at all, and is weak in the rain.
I don't even learn Dash and First Aid on my Geomancer and Electromancer.
This is my skill leveling order:
Level 1: Runic Boulder, Seal of Power
Level 2: Seal of Finesse
Level 3: Precise Movements
Level 4: (save AP for Seal of Insight as soon as I can learn this ability)
Level 5: Stone Spikes
Level 6: Rune of Enfeeblement
Level 7: Rune of Fortifying
Level 8: Petrification
Level 9: Earthquake
Level 10: Rune of Binding
Level 11: Lingering Incantations
Most of the rune passives aren't that useful on you early on, but what is important is the more Geo spells you learn, the less backfire chance you have for them, and more Geomantic Power. Prioritize only learning Geomancy abilities, and the aforementioned Magic Mastery abilities; the latter (Magic Mastery abilities) is because Seal of Insight is what makes you godly.
From level 1-8 you will mostly have a second loadout of the biggest 2h mace you can find. That is your beat stick, every mage needs one early on. (Btw, don't purchase a 2h mace if you can help it; just use loot from enemies, the Osbrook bandit dungeon boss can drop a decent war club in the beginning.) You also wear standard light armor, don't wear mage robes yet unless it has better protection than light armor pieces.
From level 1-6, you only fight in Osbrook dungeons.
From level 7-10, you can try some Mannshire dungeons but ignore the cemetery because it is the most difficult dungeon of the three available.
From level 11-14, you stay on Osbrook and Mannshire dungeons.
From level 15 onwards, you go to Brynn dungeon.
Prioritize on Osbrook rep because you can get some neat mage robes from the tailor there once your rep is up to Respected.
If you aren't confident you can clear a dungeon once you've taken the contract, feel free to half-clear it i.e. kill the standard minions but leave the dungeon miniboss or dungeon item in the dungeon. If you aggro the dungeon miniboss at anytime, run away immediately so you don't accidentally kill it.
While you don't have your high-damage spells yet, you need to use items such as Nistrian Flame Flask to do damage to enemies. It will cost you some money, but honestly you won't need to worry about money most of the time. Be picky about what equipment you will wear, if you decided to go pure mage there is no need to buy the higher prot medium armor for mages in the Brynn alchemy shop. Spend your money wisely - on the treatises you need to learn your abilities.
Your goal is to complete as many Brynn dungeons as you can, eventually you will find your Geomancy Treatise IV, after that everything will be a breeze.
If you spend stat points (SP) on Perception instead of Willpower, the fighting will definitely be more difficult. But you will be a glass cannon powerhouse by endgame, where even the enemy with the highest range in the game can't really touch you.
It is important to remember that a lot of your spells have AOE. This means even if your attack range is say, 5 tiles; when you blow up a Runic Boulder to cast Overwhelming Power, Overwhelming Power has an effective range of 5x5 tiles; since the 3rd tile is the middle tile in that AOE, this means you can actually hit a target 7 tiles away from you with that spells.
This also means if you have 11 range (at 30 Perception), you can hit someone 13 tiles out with Overwhelming Power (this spell hits for humongous damage and insane stun chance). If you cast Earthquake, you can hit someone 14 tiles out.
I doubt wand + shield will help you all that much. If you play enough magic builds like me, you would know already that after spending all your AP into magic abilities, you only have about 5 AP left to use on everything else. This includes things like Make A Halt, Disengage and Dash (you may eventually need it). This leaves 2 AP... 2 AP in shield abilities isn't worth it.
Wands won't come into the picture until many moons later as well... So I wouldn't count on waiting for this update to make pure mage build more 'playable'...
This will be controversial, but Pyromancy is clearly the best for anyone wanting to go pure mage. It actually has the best crowd control in the form of all enemies (except the mindless undead) being unwilling to cross burning tiles, so once you get magma rain you force your enemies to walk around it, or have a nice barrier in tight corridors. You'll still suffer from ranged attackers and other mages, but there are few enemy mages that can out-mage a pyromancer.