How viable is Magic in the Ashlands?

[aquila]

I tried it out in the last run in the mistlands and Magic felt underpowered, you had to sacrifice one or even two foods slots to get the required Eitr, have to wear super weak armor and still have to get reasonably close to cast spells, as opposed to sniping from far away with the crossbow and good armor

Have they made it better in this patch? should I skill for magic right away?

[Nerevar]

magic is as OP as it always was. you just need to level your elemental magic a bit and not fall for the noob trap that is mage armor. as the extra regen is not worth it.

if you just wanna use some fireballs once in awhile 1 eitr food is all you need assumeing you did bother to level your skill up to atleast like 33+ which thankfully doesnt take long to do overall. this reduces the eitr cost to the point that you can cast like 3-4 fireballs with just 1 eitr food which is all you need. the regen with rested alone takes care of the recovery so you can keep wearing heavy armor.

if you wanna use blood magic too you need 2 eitr foods and rely on the magic bubble fulltime to stay alive.

[Dod Brackle]

Just spend 200 years mindlessly leveling your stats. This is going to be your response from everyone to everything balance related in this game. Most of the magic in this game is bad. Many of the weapons are bad. It is a sad reality and it has been this way for a very long time now. Mistlands was the real kick in the teeth and reality check that it's not getting better any time soon if at all. Do not feel bad if things feel bad.

You are probably playing the game at a very reasonable pace and keeping up with the content as you should be. It is hopefully something the game fleshes out in the future but given this game's development and devs I would not hold my breath.

[FriedEgg]

It's good fun, viable at higher levels, but kind of risky at low level. Bubble up, use the feather cape to leap over enemies, or up on to a rock. Just be aware of surroundings. You don't take fire damage from ground fires with a bubble, so just keep the bubble up. Also most enemies don't actually do fire damage, just watch your step. Kite in small circles rather than into more terrain.

The summoned skeles are more effective than they are in mistlands, because they can actually follow you in ashlands. They take quite a lot of fire damage though, so die a lot. They're still good for distracting valkyries and morgens (although not always reliably tbh). They do last longer with a bubble, but don't worry too much about keeping them bubbled. Just replace them when they die. I have to replace mine a fair bit, but they help share the agro. Look for quiet patches to reset and set up for the next fight, and always know your path back to safety.

Ice staff seems pretty good in ashlands, the slow is super useful against asksvin and voltures. Fire staff just starts (more) fires everywhere, that then kill your skeles, so I prefer ice staff. Fire staff is better for taking out spawners and turrets etc, and it does have good knockback for emergency crowd control. You probably still want a sword and shield with you, unless you can guarantee you won't lose the rested buff. Losing rested buff is the biggest issue I have with full magic. I use 1 stam food and 2 eitr foods. Idk if that's optimal but I want the magic. You die very quickly if you forget the bubble. The advice in another reply about not bothering with mage gear is probably good advice.

Yes you need to level blood and elemental magic a bit for them to be effective. There are tuorials on youtube for how to cheese it. Level 30-40 should be fine. You can basically afk level blood magic with a greydwarf spawner farm. And you can level elemental magic up to 30 in about an hour of shooting a golem with the ice staff. It's a faff though. Idk why it's so slow to level. I can see why it's a barrier for some people.

[Zombits]

Magic makes it easier , especially in solo .

[Darren Daulton]

Originally posted by Dod Brackle:

Just spend 200 years mindlessly leveling your stats...

Yeah because leveling skills in a survival RPG is somehow a bad thing?

I think this is not only an extreme exaggeration , it's a terrible take.

Then, instead of offering any helpful advice you double down and claim " game bad, devs bad?

Think about it.

Magic is viable , and so is mage armor. Along with stamina health, eitr regen , and straight eitr potion you will have a decent arsenal at your disposal with ample eitr at hand. I use a bow and sword as back-up.

And yeah, the higher you can get your skills the better, almost everything gets faster and or uses less stamina.

I use two eitr foods.

[Zombits]

3 eitr food, nothing less. They give an acceptable amount of stamina at this tier .

walk around Ashland like your the boss now. raise 4 skeletons with protection . wild staff being main weapon, with fracturing for his good knockback at charging askvins or anything, but it's a secondary.

I only use frost for boat trips. every other staves are either too slow or obsolete.

[BillHicks]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

magic is as OP as it always was. you just need to level your elemental magic a bit and not fall for the noob trap that is mage armor. as the extra regen is not worth it.

if you just wanna use some fireballs once in awhile 1 eitr food is all you need assumeing you did bother to level your skill up to atleast like 33+ which thankfully doesnt take long to do overall. this reduces the eitr cost to the point that you can cast like 3-4 fireballs with just 1 eitr food which is all you need. the regen with rested alone takes care of the recovery so you can keep wearing heavy armor.

if you wanna use blood magic too you need 2 eitr foods and rely on the magic bubble fulltime to stay alive.

Cmon the robes are fun!

[BillHicks]

Originally posted by Darren Daulton:

Originally posted by Dod Brackle:

Just spend 200 years mindlessly leveling your stats...

Yeah because leveling skills in a survival RPG is somehow a bad thing?

I think this is not only an extreme exaggeration , it's a terrible take.

Then, instead of offering any helpful advice you double down and claim " game bad, devs bad?

Think about it.

Magic is viable , and so is mage armor. Along with stamina health, eitr regen , and straight eitr potion you will have a decent arsenal at your disposal with ample eitr at hand. I use a bow and sword as back-up.

And yeah, the higher you can get your skills the better, almost everything gets faster and or uses less stamina.

I use two eitr foods.

He's not completely wrong. Magic is very much a specialist thing. I wish you atleast have some native eitr to cast basic spells.

[Leiraion]

Yea you gotta grind the skill up whenever you make a swap.
It's definitely time consuming but you really only need 30+ in a skill to start really noticing it. Set a portal in a swamp right next to one of those 4 spawner sections. Go there and don't ever kill the spawner --- good way to quickly level skills.

You can also mod to increase your EXP gain so the grind isn't as long. Up to you.

[Zombits]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

magic is as OP as it always was. you just need to level your elemental magic a bit and not fall for the noob trap that is mage armor. as the extra regen is not worth it.

if you just wanna use some fireballs once in awhile 1 eitr food is all you need assumeing you did bother to level your skill up to atleast like 33+ which thankfully doesnt take long to do overall. this reduces the eitr cost to the point that you can cast like 3-4 fireballs with just 1 eitr food which is all you need. the regen with rested alone takes care of the recovery so you can keep wearing heavy armor.

if you wanna use blood magic too you need 2 eitr foods and rely on the magic bubble fulltime to stay alive.

hmm, extra 130 % regen not worth it....

Don't know how someone can continously launch attacks and assisting spells, without.

I guess it depends on playing style. I prefer to supress threats asap instead of kiting most the time. Best defence is offence for sieges , getting rid of spawners, etc

[Faceplant]

Originally posted by Darren Daulton:

Originally posted by Dod Brackle:

Just spend 200 years mindlessly leveling your stats...

Yeah because leveling skills in a survival RPG is somehow a bad thing?

Leveling stills while playing, no, but forcing a player to grid skills is very bad IMO. No other skills requires any grind to level in this game. You use all the skills you need while you play, and they progress through the levels so that (if you don't die too many times) they are appropriately leveled to the biome.

You get magic at essentially the end of the 6th of 8 biomes, and are then you're thrown into what I think the vast majority would consider a very difficult biome.

If you think you can "walk around Ashland like your the boss" full mage, with 0 magic skill, you're nuts, and if you think it's fun to level up a new skill, and transition your entire playstyle endgame, then great, but I also consider it poor game design.

Fortunately, I don't think it's necessary.

[Zombits]

Dont go in ashland with 0 mage skills right away .

Start training in lower biomes, like plains or swamps,etc . Hit skill 20-30 at least and that is quick

You'll be the boss xD

[Faceplant]

Originally posted by Zombits:

Dont go in ashland with 0 mage skills right away .

Start training in lower biomes, like plains or swamps,etc . Hit skill 20-30 at least and that is quick

You'll be the boss xD

I did that. I spent several hours doing that, which was several hours, reverting back to earlier biomes, which was not enjoyable. Even then I didn't feel comfortable, even in mountain because it's a new, fairly complex playstyle, maintaining your shield, the skeletons, their shields, swapping out 3-4 different staves, all with much lower health than I'm used to, so feeling very vulnerable, especially when 3 wolves came up and my skelis were off doing other things.

The point is that, if you started the game with magic available, or even if magic came a bit earlier, it would be reasonable, but I already have what I need, so why waste probably 10s of hours of gametime so late in the game, doing a complete 180, just to be half-way competent.

[Zombits]

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

Originally posted by Zombits:

Dont go in ashland with 0 mage skills right away .

Start training in lower biomes, like plains or swamps,etc . Hit skill 20-30 at least and that is quick

You'll be the boss xD

I did that. I spent several hours doing that, which was several hours, reverting back to earlier biomes, which was not enjoyable. Even then I didn't feel comfortable, even in mountain because it's a new, fairly complex playstyle, maintaining your shield, the skeletons, their shields, swapping out 3-4 different staves, all with much lower health than I'm used to, so feeling very vulnerable, especially when 3 wolves came up and my skelis were off doing other things.

The point is that, if you started the game with magic available, or even if magic came a bit earlier, it would be reasonable, but I already have what I need, so why waste probably 10s of hours of gametime so late in the game, doing a complete 180, just to be half-way competent.

Swamp spawners are so fast . I raised some melee skills there to 30 and ALL of them in an evening, a while ago. Along with blood magic

You're good to go at this level for ashland . Don't wait for 70+ , it will take ages

Wolves are possibly the fastest hitting mob in this game, may not be a good place to try something new

[Darren Daulton]

Originally posted by Leiraion:

Yea you gotta grind the skill up whenever you make a swap.
It's definitely time consuming but you really only need 30+ in a skill to start really noticing it. Set a portal in a swamp right next to one of those 4 spawner sections. Go there and don't ever kill the spawner --- good way to quickly level skills.

You can also mod to increase your EXP gain so the grind isn't as long. Up to you.

When we were in mistlands I made a tree stand over the bonemass spawn. I put a roof on it, a hearth over wood iron tied into the tree, and a portal.

We'd be improving the base, collecting resources , and i'd pop through the portal and dump a full eitr bar into him.

I'd usually let him live.

When i started a full eitr bar with best foods would get him down to 80%.

When I got to 100 a full eitr bar would get him to 20-25%

Using frost staff.

was also good for bow skills.

If you haven't used a quality bow at skill 100 you haven't lived.