Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Help/Tips/Tricks The official "ULTIMATE MAGE" guide

MAGE GUIDE


NOTE:sorry for mistakes in grammar


INTRODUCTION:If you have a wish to play as a mage,this guide will help you.In my guide I will introduce you with true power of mage.

WARNING:SPOILERS(but nothing serious,things like battle tower and dragon form)




STAT POINTS:

Ok first of all
We are talking about classical mage without silly swords,clubs...
so no melee fight

-First 4 points in spirit
-Second 2 points in intelligence and 2 in spirit
-when your intelligence reach 15 you will stop puting points in intelligence
-All your points in spirit until you reach "54 spirit"
-From this moment each time you get new level you gonna put 3 points in intelligence and 1 point in vitality
-When you reach "50 intelligence" all points in vitality
-When you reach "30-40 vitality" do whatever you want(though I propose you to put points in vitality,intelligence and spirit)

High spirit will allow you unleashed your magic force

SKILLS:
MAGE:


-Magic Missile
Shoots a couple of missiles(Your main DPS skill)

-Fireball
A fireball which damages enemies around the target(not useful becaose of 15 seconds of cooldown)


-Mana Efficiency
Lower the amount of mana needed to use a spell(A MUST HAVE)


-Polymorph
Turns the enemy into a ladybird(Bah,I don"t find that useful,but 1 point if you want)


-Confusion
The target stands still for a couple of seconds(you points are better spent elsewhere)

-Magic Blast
A couple of quick attacks(Strong but 15 seconds of cooldown and it hits only one target,so NO)


-Mana Leech
A successful attack on an enemy turns a certain percentage of the damage into mana.(You will have plenty of mana)


-Destruction
Increases the damage of your magical attacks.(MAX IT)


-Firewall
Creates a wall of fire(BURN BABY BURN,MAX IT)

-Healing
A healing skill

-Way of the Battle Mage
Temporarily increases your magical damage(not useful)



PRIEST:

-Summon undead
Summons undead(SKIP)


-Summon Ghost
Summons ghost(SKIP)

-Fear
It causes the enemies to retreat for a while(SKIP)

-Hide In Shadows
It allows you to become invisible for a given period of time(SKIP)


-Charm
It lets you to charm an enemy so that he will fight on your side(MUST have on the begining)


-Summon Mastery
Increases the damage done by your summoned monsters(SKIP)


-Curse
Curses the enemies around you,lowering the damage they inflict and their defence(SKIP)


-Blind
You can blind an enemy(SKIP)


-Life Tap
Sacrifice a part of your health and gain mana(SKIP)

-Master Herbalist
Lowers the amount of components you need to prepare potions(MUST HAVE,oh my god,I just love that skill)


-Summon Demon
Summons a high level Demon(Why not)


-Way of the Wise Wizard
Temporarily increases your defence against magic(SKIP)


OTHER SKILLS:

Wisdom(on the begining)
Lockpick(MUST)
Mindread(If you want,put 4 points in it)





BEGINING-BATTLE TOWER

Ok
you will need to use few different spells till you get your battle tower

-Magic missiles-your main DPS spell
-Charm-your crowd control(XP penalty)
-Wisdom-becaose of charm XP penalty
-Lockpick-MUST
-Destruction-need only 1 point
-Firewall-1 point as soon as you unlocked it
-Mana Efficiency-MUST

This will get you to battle tower
Talk with your trainer,unskill your points and train few skills

BATTLE TOWER-END
from now
you will use:

-MAGIC MISSILES-main DPS spell(MAX IT)
-Mana Efficiency-MAX IT
-Destruction-MAX IT
-Firewall-at least to level 10
-Master herbalist-MAX IT
-Summon Demon-at least to level 10
-Lockpick-MAX IT(level 5 I think)


TACTIC:
Spam magic missiles and when warriors come close cast firewall



PROTECTION:
your main objective in Broken valley is to find full nightbringer armor
In Orobas Fords to find even stronger nightbringer armor
FIRST TIME YOU HIT LEVEL 26,27 OR 28 GO TO STONE FLYING FORTRESS AND FIND ARCHMAGE ARMOR


MUST FIND
Most important items will be "+1 to magic missiles item"
try to find at least one of them

You will need loot of money and skill points so here you some useful mindreads



I hope I help
GOOD LUCK


NOTE:I am thinking to create battle mage guide

Finish game with my ultimate mage and I must admit that he was best character I have ever play

I am finding the summon ghost spell to be awesome. it provides massive and long duration heals, and it also distracts some enemies.

It dies very quickly
and demon is much better

it does die rather quickly in the late game... early game it didn't. But around level 20-25 I respected and dropped it. Self heal is not nearly as good as its heal, but at least I can actually cast it instead of having it die on me and nobody to heal me.

With my build,you really won"t need ghost but if you think you can afford skill points then take it

I'm going a totally different way, kinda pure mage too.

There is no such thing as ultimate mage build anyway, depends on your playstyle too.

Also you should reconsider the magic blast/fire ball thingie...

I for one decided from the beginning already I would not invest points in fire ball, seeing it is not mana efficient and not so strong, I went for magic blast right away. It actually is a better dps than magic missile, more efficient, but long cooldown (but that also counts for fire ball, which is not as strong/mana efficient).

I even consider it my main spell, and magic missile is just to fill the cooldown (especially when magic blast reaches lvl 4, at char lvl 15 :o 4*130 damage for 60ish mp, magic missile doesn't even come close).
Magic blast also gives a stun effect which always comes in handy.

Fire wall seems to be much better aoe than fire ball anyway, provided you can get close safely. Worked neat so far in combo with hide in shadows (lvl1, mana drainer though, 90mp for 10 secs).

But usually as mage I want to go one on one on strong opponents, so no need for aoe, xcept with opponents I don't want to get a hit from, can't dodge archer/some magic blasts.

I don't see the use of charm either, xcept for losing xp. There s always a way to distract one opponent from a group, so I can go one on one. Might play a bit slower, sure, but more xp.

I also always invest points 2 in int 1 in spirit/health, in begin even only in magic, and ofc some str/dex for gear. As pure dd mage one of my objectives is not to get hit. Most magic, and all melee is dodgeable by movement, archers are a pain and some magic blasts too, so I focused gear on that. Melee = dodge by movement, always. So, some basic health to keep me alive when I fail some dodging, or to survive archer dude(s) ^^
also, afaik spirit only ups mana... int increases your damage and magic resistance, and mana regeneration.
So, to me, the old int in D1 which was so useless is now spirit in DII.
Although it was only useless because using charms to increase mana was much more efficient.
Seeing charms so far in DII that prolly won't be the case, but ya, more damage done and better mp regen requires less mana anyway, seeing you also have mana efficiency skill and destruction, I don't see any reason to up my spirit like a madman.

Also other than prefering an equipment with wisdom increase on it (I'm using a +2 wis neck) to a slight stronger equipment I don't see the use in investing in wisdom. You'd need to reach lvl 50 compared to reaching lvl 45 to get back what you invest, with bonus of more stat points.

Imho skill >>> stat, especially for mage.

And for last, seeing I barely use potions, I'm not investing in master herbalist. The alchemist tree and plants allover the world are mooooore than enough ^^.

Naja, there are different ways of playing, and I think this balancing I'm doing fits my playstyle pretty good.
Ohyeah, in the begin, use bow. Unless you have patience n wait for mana, or use potions :o. But in the begin spells are low, and bows are kinda strong ^^.

Now at lvl 15 I haven't used my bow in ages. Just my two one-handed weaps (best for magic damage afaik, although I'm still a bit confused how this works, because I don't see much difference in skill damage, maybe it is just magical melee damage? :(), to finish them off if I feel like it :), especially melees, wait till they are close, jump, n slash = dead, saves some mana .

Naja, only lvl 15 and not dragon yet here :o. Always happy to get more insight in spirit/int and weapon magic damage.

Its your playstyle
but I still think that magic blast is crap for pure mage(15 seconds of cooldown and only one target)
for 15 seconds I will do 5x more damage with magic missiles
you know 1 second of cooldown is more useful than 15 seconds

but If you are willing to fight 1 enemy every 15 seconds.....you style .....
I am hardcore player who can stand against whole army
and why to bother to max magic blast if you still use magic missiles to fill time

I like my mage build a lot so far since I don't need as much mp and can kill everything I come across (even several levels higher) very quickly. I have fireball and magic blast as my main spells and use a bow instead of magic missle but I don't take bow skills but focus on magic. I usually start out a battle by using magic blast and fireball to thin the ranks and finish up with my bow. I don't usually need to use any more spells after the initial spells since my bow does almost 3 times the damage magic blast does in the time between spells. At my current level my magic blast does 600 damage, my fireball does 300 damage to each enemy, and my bow does 100 damage. During the time I am waiting for my spells to cooldown I can do about 1500 damage with my bow. I just got my Battle Tower and reset my skills to get rid of some wasted points and put them into magic blast and fireball and haven't tested them yet so I probably will only do about double the damage with my bow now.

The reason why I use the spells at all is because I can pretty much kill any creature with magic blast and fireball will kill a group of creatures and they still do way more damage then one shot from my bow.

Nice style
but I see you are battle mage not mage
but still
good build
and good luck
I hope you will try my build one day

Im playing without magic missles aswell. I started this weekend using ur guide but found myself using a lot of potions and healing spell. And i didnt really get to spam magic missles on big packs and i had to hit and run, i found fireball a lot better for hit and run. So i started the game all over and lvled differently. Im lvl 24 now. with 66 spirit and 61 int and only got like 12 vit( including gear)

fireball,
magic blast,
magic efficiency,
destruction,
firewall
and way of the battlemage.

With magic blast i 1 shot single mobs. And with fireball i bring packs of mobs down to 10-20% hp, where my creature with magic blast, and magic missles finishes them off.

Strange
I didn"t have any problem
Every begining is hard
but spamming MM is still powerful
and why did you take healing spell
you could just take master herbalist and have 500+ healing potion so you don"t need to "hit and run"
and did you take charm
very powerful spell at the begining
You can turn most stronger enemy to be your ally so everybody is paying attention to him not you while you spamm MM

I didnt take charm while lvling. And i found the healing skill really nice. I have never been a big fan of using consumables i like being totally dependant on myself only. And since im a bit of a powerplayer in games aswell. I did not want to waste 5 points on herbalism either and rather spended them on dmg moves. I also did not like using charm since the charmed mobs give less xp after the charm wears out and i kill them.

@Raven.rpg and other Mages

nice guide(s)! I should try in future your guide and see what MY preferences are, because I think every guide is personal, bBUT, also full of experience-time and that's very good to learn from!! I always will learn from other players with my mind open and not afraid to spend a lot of time in training and try a few things out (skills and so on) in the game and than make decisions how I will play futher.

Personally I prefer more variation. So I combine Mage-spells (Magic Missle, nice) and also Ranger skills and some warriorskills. I know too: most of the time, I have read on fora etc, it's better to "specialize" in specific skills ... but maybe I can make a nice combination of skills from mage, ranger and others ...
But I love Magespells al well ! But also love play with a weapon like a sword ...

Success I wish for all Mages & players of Divinity II : Ego Draconis!

GReetings,
Michael

Thanks Joram
About melee weapons Archmage hammer is your choice if you are mage
and about other skill....well if you have enough skill points to spend take Evade,regeneration...

Thanks for this guide I used to for myself and made a few changes.

I used this guide , and damn ,the mage is so powerful , thanks to Raven

One question to Raven : why don't you put more points in Intelligent after reaching 50 ???

level 31 mage

spirit 60+
intelligence 90+

Mages are the most powerful characters and clear out the dungeons most efficiently. At first you can invest points in whatever floats your boat, after Battle Tower, pay to reassign points, keep all points in either magic missile, firewall, destruction and healing.

U get about 40+ skillpoints in total in the game (plus skillpoints from mindreading), needless to say if a skill max is 10, this means u can max out only 4 skills. I say u have 40+ skillpoints because u absolutely have to invest in lockpick - thats 5-10 points gone.

U get magic blast trinkets that give the odd point. So don't assign all ten points here, eight will do eventually. Very effective spell to use at range, as effective as anything by a ranger and then some.

Firewall obvious.

Healing. Incredible, esp when u r dragon and low on health, change shape drop to the ground, use healing spell and immediately go back into action as a dragon (dragons dont attack men in men form lol). Makes the whole dragon flying mission thing as easy as possible.

Still don't let high level enemies overwhelm u with sheer numbers. But usually a mage can handle guys and bosses 10 levels higher than himself.

Destruction - go for it, or don't - this is where u get to choose. I would recommend it.

U get mindreading trinkets, and shadowhiding and wisdom and polymorph.

Polymorph is extremely useful against dragons - they turn into a harmless butterfly. Same goes for bosses. A must-have for one point at least.

Shadowhiding is crucial. Just become invisible and run away or wait for mana to recover or spell to cooldown. A point is enough really.

Don't bother with wisdom and mindreading cos mindreading is rare and costs reasonable; by the end of the game u r going to be level 35 comfortably, anything else is just not needed and spoils the game when u face guys who are supposed to be last bosses but they can't hurt you - like at all!

Playing as mage - u take out as many as possible with ranged magic blast and hit any who come close with firewall, then heal.

Downside is that you get no decent armor until the Archamage set. But you will never need it really, and melee is not beyond u due to ur intelligence (the stat).

As a mage, u can't use decent armor and weapons because ur a wimp, but who cares - i sell everything i find - potions, gems, charms, armor and weapons because as a mage I didn't deed them. But u can if u want use potions - instead of investing in healing. Ur choice. But it won't be as efficient. U can invest in charms and enchanting to get 'free' bonuses for you junk, but as a mage u never really need weapons, nor can u use them if u haven't invested in strength up to 35. U will be stuck using two one handed weapons, either axes, swords or hammers. These are quite decent. U need no strenght for Archmage armor, but if u can cleverly get strength from trinkets and armor u can wield these dual wield weapons (some of them). If u like enchanting, save ALL the gems and the herbs (that's right all the grass) and prepare to have like 40k of gold to spend on runners in Battle Tower to equip them with the best armor and weapons. In Broken Valley there is that enchanter in the north-west corner of central western bit look it up on gamepressure guides. Enchanting and charming is good - but u'll never get to use the weapons as mage really, only armor. Additional armor protection is nice for a mage. Creatures (I'm not sure) consume experience. So I don't use them. Feel free to use them, they would be very helpful when u r in danger of being overwhelmed. Creatures are better than summoning, never summon, because u need all the skillpoints u can get.

I sold everything I found, all the junk, to get like 60k after Broken Valley, and loads more after. Don't really have anything to do with the money, so always choose experience instead of money. If u do the side quests and explore the whole map the game will be easier and more interesting.

Playing as a mage is easygoing and quick.

Don't worry about vitality and hitpoints, u get armor for that and trinkets. With Archamage armor, without any vitality investments (except via quests) I got 320+ hitpoints and about 700 mana.

All the best

Your way is also way more hardcore then using potions to heal:)

Mages are nice yes but is it about been most powerfull or havving fun?

In away your saying you want a character with i win button defeat enemeys in one blow wow im powerfull hehe.

If thats fun for you goahead i have np with that but dont make it sound like its only way to play hehe.

Its all about fun:)