Mages - What spells?

[Zambaku]

I'm a bit curious about mages, what spells are a must-have?

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm a bit curious about mages, what spells are a must-have?

All of them?

Seriously, magic missile, phase door, teleport, teleport other and all detections you can get, then later everything else, you probably get to point where you can learn more than is available in your books pretty soon.

[Zyphyr]

By level 15 or so (depending on starting Int, luck with item drops, +1/-1 pots,etc), you will usually be able to learn every spell available to your level.

For those lower levels, my normal selection priority is :
1)Attack (I am playing blaster oriented, not Ranger with lousy archery)
2)Detection
3)Escape
4)Other Utility (Light, Cure Poison, Disarm Traps, etc)

[Tibarius]

I play gnome mages, focusing only on spellcasting - avoiding melee or shooting. From my experience must haves are:

magic missile => killing with it from char-level 1 to about char-level 13
frost bolt => killing with it from char-level about 13 to char-level 25
acid bolt => killing with it from char-level about 25 to char-level about 35

phase door => no must have, in the beginning the mana is required for the magic missible spell, later on you can afford to buy scrolls, anyway i do not use them, except if i am alone with one single monster in a huge room and i need to get distance between me and the monster

detect stairs => knowledge about stairs is essential for survival

stinking cloud => no must have, only useable at low levels because of low damage, better avoid groups of monsters which could require this spell

light => no must have, i always get it because i am too lazy to wait until i get either phial of galadriel or rod of light

detect monster => knowledge about nearby monsters is essential for survival

teleport => no must have, if things are going so bad that you risk to teleport to an unknown location then you are in trouble, but sometimes this may be better than certain death. But instead to use the spellbook i rather prefer a staff of teleport, because that can be used when blinded or confused

satisfy hunger => must have if you are too lazy to buy food

lesser recharge => no must have, comes handy if you have powerfull wands like dragonth's breath, but not reliable enough, backfires too often even if you got 0% spellfail

stone to mud => required preparation spell to dig tunnels you can kill in, or to get towards the nearest stairs

identify => essential to learn the secrets of unknown stuff

frost ball / fire ball => come handy if you face hordes of lower level monsters, sometimes used if the target is resisting acid bolt

haste => required as long as your speed from gear is low (that is i keep myself permanent hasted)

teleport other => must have if you face stuff that you cannot handle, better to teleport the target away than to teleport self (if you keep your position your escape route to the closest stair is still intact)

mass sleep => not used yet, maybe i should toy around with that spell in the next sessions

detect enchantment => not much used, if you can handle the monster you see what it drops if it is dead

cure poison => for the case that something gets you with a breath attack

[Remuz]

Please forgive a question from someone who never got any mage past level 15.

You list your attack spells up to level 35 (acid bolt). What do you use after that?

[Tibarius]

@Remus:

I haven't got much experience with chars above level 35 - at that char level i am usually moving around in dungeon levels between 40 and 60. Too many big and nasty things lurking there who just 'shrug off' my acid bolt attack and thus require around 50 bolts or more until they die - if they die

Two times i found a new spellbook Raal's Tome of Destruction. That offers new opportunities. Until now i found the stunning effect of the shard ball very usefull. Low(er) damage but important side effect of stunning targets leaving them im-mobile for a couple of rounds. Ice storm with around double the damage of frost ball and most of all meteor-swarm. No experience with the rift spell of that tome until now.

But compared to the damage output of fighter classes that all sux. In combination with only having around 150 hps at that char level without using stat pots of constitution. The other day i played a half-orc paladin (hoho) and just found this first special dagger 'narthanc'. I delivered around 200 points of damage per round. Quite some more than meteor swarm does and around 3 times more than my acid bolt. On the other hand - Ar something the golden killed my paladin within one attack round without the chance to even react - that can't happen to a wimpy gnome mage who flees to the stairs at the first sight of trouble *g*.

Cheers,
Tibarius

[artes]

There's a spell which destroys almost all objects except artifacts. I think it was fire ball or mana storm or something. If there is a lot of objects laying around I use to bomb them with it because I'm to lazy to identify everything.

Maybe you'd like Banishment too. You can banish from the level all creatures that are of the same letter, like Z. It makes the game really easy.

[Timo Pietilä]

There's a spell which destroys almost all objects except artifacts. I think it was fire ball or mana storm or something. If there is a lot of objects laying around I use to bomb them with it because I'm to lazy to identify everything.

Maybe you'd like Banishment too. You can banish from the level all creatures that are of the same letter, like Z. It makes the game really easy.

the big weapons mage gets are:

Mana storm (mana-ball, destroys anything except artifacts at floor, costs a lot, can't get 0% failure, hurts monsters a lot, no resist)
Meteor swarm (bolt-like spell which shoots multiple bolts which all explode like ball-spell, no resist)
Rift (gravity attack, can phase door opponent. No resist.)
Ice storm (stuns opponents, some resist)

Even bigger are
destruction (like the scroll)
Banishment (same)
Mass banishment (same)

[Zambaku]

Thank you for all the answers, you guys are really nice =)

[buzzkill]

Thank you for all the answers, you guys are really nice =)

eeek, no praise~

[dos350]

excuse me , ive found mages to be pro leet at dmg, because u can abuse targets that lack resist, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~

then again , ive had 0 successful mages!~!