A guide to the water mage

Why a water mage over a fire or a dark mage?

That is a good question. Water magicians was not a join-able faction on Gothic 2 and on Gothic 1, you can only become one at chapter 4. Water magicians have the best "spammable offensive spell", Ice Lance. Fireball deals more damage? Yes. Lightning bolt can easily stunlock even black trolls and has few enemies who can resist it? Yes. but Ice Lance can freeze enemies. That means that once you get the spell, early on, you will get a far easier time VS packs of enemies, where you don't have enough damage to OHK most beasts even fully charging your spell. In late game, you also will have a lot of cool spells. You will be able to TAME even shadowbeasts and adds to your party, summon golems(unfortunately not a ice golem). In General, Water magicians has the best control over the battlefield.

And Fire Magicians/Dark Magicians are too common on fantasy RPG's.

The starting as a water mage - Getting Learning quickly

You begin the game without any water mage spell and AK. The fastest way to get AK is to pick Healing Herbs and deliver to the Fire Magician on Reddock. He will teaches AK to you. If you are not playing with the alternative balancing (AB), you can after leveling just 3 times, get 20 AK and then go to the Beliar Shrine on Cape Dun and learn the cheapest main offensive spell by just 5 LP. If you are playing with AB, then will take far more time to get a offensive spell. You will need to get learning quickly. This perk is a must have for any magician. Because gives +1 LP / level, that means that each 10 level ups will have the same benefit of 11 level ups and you will level up AK anyway.

With AB, this perk becomes a prerequisite to learn offensive spells, but the AK required is dropped from 100 to 50. So, similarly to Gothic 1, you will only start to use offensive spells around lv 5~10(swamp camp/old camp) AB makes the game more akin to G1 in other things.

After you reached around 100 AK, you should start to get mana. At least 300 mana. You can increase 44 per level(11 LP spended / level) Potions contrary to G1/G2 doesn't regen a fix amount, potions now regen a amount scaling with your mana bar. Looting every mushroom and resting often can make you save a lot of mana potions. If you decide to try free cities, remember of looting everything. More potions you have = less time on melee (where you are awful).

You should also search for tablets soon as possible. Here is a video showing how to easily get then.


IMPORTANT If you are playing with AB, i recommend to save up all tablets to once you reached 250 AK. Because AB implements diminishing returns past 250 AK to avoid you being OP.

Ice lance -> Where to get

Contrary to Innos fireball and Beliar's lightning bolt, you don't learn water magic by praying in shrines. To learn ice lance, the easiest way is by talking to Porgan, the Druid in the road to Montera, just pick the south road and he will be in a cave. There will be a lot of bandits o north road. Ice Lance is a amazing spell. You can freeze enemies by charging but not all enemies, really large enemies and high level enemies will not be frozen.

Mid to high level gameplay - Getting mana regeneration and water mage perk

After you had a decent amount of mana to make most encounters profitable using magic only (ie - Not costing more mana worth of potions than the enemy loot) and reaching around lv 20, you goal should be getting 200 AK(AB) or 250 AK(vanilla). Why it? Because it allows you to get mana regenenration. Making the use of magic far less expensive.

There are many places where you can get mana regen.

• Karrypto - Vengard you will only have access to Vengard after you find the teleport stone on Gotha. Be sure to pick the demon artifact. He will be important for the MQ independent of your side
  
• Saturas from Al Shedim - You can find Al Shedim by moving northeast from Mora Sul.
  
• Sigmor from Bakaresh - In order to reach him, you need to have at least 75 reputation on the city and if you try to "cheese", he will be aggressive towards you. He also asks for money to train you

And the Water Mage perk? Saturas from Mora Sul ruins and , Vatras, the prisoner on Lago.

If you are playing with AB, both, Mana Regeneration and Water Mage perk will costs a lot of LP. Without AB, they will cost far less. So, if you are not playing with AB, feel free to try get dark magician perk and fire magician perk but a advice. If you have freed a lot of cities on the desert, Tizgar can refuse to teach you and become hostile.

My end game stats

Useful spells

Some useful spells

• Ice Lance - No need to explain why is amazing against everything except ice golems
  
• Tame - Not useful with low AK but with high AK, you can have shadowbeasts in your party. Be sure to learn "heal other" from Innos magic if you plan to use a tamed beasts. You can give potions to humanoid companions but not to beasts.
  
• Frostwave - If you can time well, you can freeze a lot of enemies. But has a long casting time.
  
• Open locks - Amazing, allow you to unlock harder picks without investing into thieving skills. relative easy to obtain with AB and end game spell without AB.
  
• Summon Goblin - A distraction. Unfortunately you can no longer have multiple summons. Create goblin skeleton on G2 was the best circle 1 spell.
  
• Summon Golem - IMO is best than the summon demon. Is easily available without AB and end game spell with AB. It draws enemy attention, deals damage, soaks damage and can be summoned without a great cost.
  
• Hailstorm - End game spell with and without AB. Can decimate hordes of Orcs without great problems.
  
• Time Bubble - Another end game spell. Za Warudo!!! Just kidding. The spell doesn't stop the time, only slows down the time in a AOE. If comboed with Hailstorm can make sure that nobody will interrupt you while you are wreaking havoc.
  
• Fireball OR Lightning Bolt - Only to deal with frost immune enemies like Ice Golems.

See how quickly Orcs die with Hailstorm

Why i recommend to play with AB?

Alternative Balancing(AB) forces you to specialize your character. Without AB, fire/dark/water mage persk who increases a lot spell duration/damage can be obtained with just 5 LP. AB forces your character to specialize and makes you feel more like a water magician instead of a generic magician.

Also raises the mana cost, LP cost and adds pre requisites to some spells. If you wanna a challenge, play with AB, if you wanna a power fantasy, play without AB.

My first G3 run without AB, i ended as a fire magician since i failed to locate druids despite preferring water magic and once i got rain of fire, i literally become too bored to continue playing. The problem is that since G3 is a unfinished(but still amazing) game who was released before the date that he should be launched, it forced PB to make some mistakes. For example, Rain of Fire, a Circle 5/6 spell on both previous Gothics, can be obtained pretty early on. And due the low mana cost and mana regen, i could free cities just by pressing a button once few secs and letting enemies walk into their incinerator. Any intelligent enemy should run from the rain of fire and once has distance, fire bow/crossbow at the mage casting the spell but no, i cleared many cities in few minutes with it. AB made it a end game spell. That can't be obtained only with AK.

This end game spells now costs way more mana. Believe or not, this character bellow is lv 32.

Eqquipment

You are not very gear dependent to be a water magician. Some artifacts can boost your maximum mana. I recommend use then but once you have mana regen, change everything who gives +mana to +defense.

Armor in Gothic is not like in other games where a armor absorbs the same percentage of the damage, doesn't matter if is a kitchen knife or a two handed warhammer wielded by a 8 feet(2,4m) tall Orc. Armor since Gothic 1 absorbs a flat amount. That means that for example, if you deal 15 damage and the enemy has anything above 15, you will deal no damage. Pack of animals who are very deadly can become much more manageable at CQB if you have a good armor.

And Robes offer good protection. I recommend to have a Water Mages Robe or a Fire Mages Robe BEFORE adventuring into Nordmar

How to find Ice Explosion

Ice Explosion is not a easy spell to find. Is the unique spell who Saturas can't teach you. In order to find the spell, first you need to find Nefarius



His location in the map


After finding him, you need to escort him on WEST, inside a Cave. Clear the cave and

If you liked water mage experience on G3, you should check G1 and G2 + returning mod

Gothic 1 despite having problems to run on modern systems, is the unique another Gothic game who allows you to be a water magician.

On Gothic 2 you can't become a water magic. You can join the ring of water, but not the circle of water. On Gothic 1, there are two ways to become a water magician. Joining on New Camp and being promoted at chap 4 or joining old camp, then on chap 4, you will be accepted on the new camp by lore reasons.

But on G1, you can join in swamp camp or old camp and purchase runes on new camp, having a similar experience to a water magician early on. G1 has a completely different magical system and allows you to have multiple summons. Only be adviced that swamp camp restricts you to circle 4 and magic on previous gothic games requires that you have trained circle 5 to cast spells of circle 5..


Or play Gothic 2 + RETURNING as a water magician. Sadly, base Gothic 2 offers no way to be a water magician. NoTR made water mages far more important but din't implemented water magic as a joinable faction. The mod returning gives this option. Sadly, the translation to english is not good and there aren't many guides in English.

[Cyanmurder]

Im killing folks with meteor, dont need to be no water mage. I toss a meteor, everything is dead, even bosses.

[Cryomancer]

Yep. In the desert.

[Moonman]

Which, if I remember right, are in the hashishin land right?

[Cryomancer]

@Moonman probably with water mages...

[Moonman]

Porgan doesn't teach me ice lance. Is it because I'm playing with alternative balance on? If that's the case, where can I learn ice lance?

[Cryomancer]

Thanks. I will up date.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

You should mention where to learn Ice Lance. Porgan is the teacher one can meet early on the roads around Montera. He is a druid, though, not a water mage.