New players - Try the bow! -Feedback from a new mage.

The following is one players experience. There is no need to flame me or tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. This is my reflection of the first two weeks of play.

Veteran MMO player here:


I create my Avatar and hear the oracle mention which path might be easier. I had it in my mind I wanted to play a mage before I installed the game. Knowing little of the current game play and just that the game had been in development for a few years is all I knew. I did a quick google to find a mage guide/build but came up short.

Off I go, following the path of truth. Starting out in blood river I tackle the first 2 quests thrown at me. One of them appeared to bug and never game me the summoning whistle in my backpack (another player I talked to had the same issue). If we both deleted this item, I find that doubtful since I'm told its a zero value no sell item.

No worries, the dagger quest continues and I fight my first few monsters. The quest I follow quickly has me hoping from town to town, skipping many of the scenes in between. Sure I could have stopped anytime, but I was on this quest....

The quest bugs out at an NPC Chancelor (name?). Enough searching the net brings up a bypass by turning off zoom on npc chat function. Off I go to finish the quest and earn that nice big chunk of xp.

I think this is over a couple days of on and off playing. I met a single player. All zones were empty. The player I did meet made a set of +1 to +2 cloth armor for me and tossed a couple tips my way. I still had the starter sword/shield.

*New Player Mage Info Starts Here*


As my adventure level starts to rise I begin unlock my first tier 3 spells. Focusing on fire at first. After a couple days of this my damage seems low to me. I am no longer progressing on harder difficult. At this time I've moved to more active towns (Owl's Nest) so I'm seeing players. I join a guild and get a loaner home. A suggestion is made that death/air is a better combo. So i use my fire but turn xp over to level up some death/air as I mix in a spell here in there.

On the 5th day I finally realize about unlocking my deck. Sure I should have read more. Takes me another day to get a better understanding of that. By now I have tier 3 and 4 spells into the 60s in fire/death/air. The reagent costs is crazy. I go out and hunt for an hour and lose money. I'm told to stack my spells higher, so I kite monsters around until I'm at 3-4 stacks only to see my tier 3 or 4 spells hit for 14-20 dmg.

As I discuss my issues more I realize I need +attunement gear. It would take a great sacrifice to save any money to put toward gear. I'm often hunting and have to go to a skull 1 or 2 zone and use only tier 1 and 2 (no reg cost) spells to earn enough coin to replace reagents.

I make a couple low end wands to gain a total of 25% reagent reduction. I mix in more 1-2 tier spells so I'm not casting as many high tier spells. I am still not breaking even on gold/reagent cost. I am enjoying the game despite and drop a load of cash on a bundle. I set the lot up w/ greenhouse provided by a guildy. Farming mandrake and nightshade to supplement my reagent costs. This helps dramatically. It should, I just spent hundreds of RL dollars.

As I express my issues again, I am told I should be selling my ore/materials and buying better gear. I will say that I dont have stacks of ore to 1000 to sell to buy vendors. I dont see any buying 10 or 20 at a time. And if I wanted to search for such vendor, how many hours of my life would I spend looking for a place to sell off materials I would rather save for crafting.

So yup, i wasted a few gold on crafting recipes, to make things like my wands, some food and recall/teleport scrolls.

2 weeks in, Adventure level 55 and I literally had 5 gold the other day. I'm like something has to change here. A friend I made is doing well with a bow. When we are able to hunt together his damage is outstanding on single targets. So I decide to give it a try.

I craft a +2 bow - I only put points into the range atk base lines. Immediately my damage is going up by massive ammounts. The arrow costs? 1440 arrows for 120gold. Wait, what....for me to cast 1400 spell I would spend thousand in reagents. My auto attacks are doing as much damage as my 3 stacked spells!

24 hours later after switching to bow - I have 18K gold in the bank. I've saved all my gathered resources and I'm able to hunt much harder content. Using a low end bow w/ no active bow -skills simply auto attacking.

Expressing this to the guild - oh thats intended, thats balnced, mage is supposed to be hard.
Ok, hard to tell dedicated fans anything might be off in "their" game. But after listening to some long speeches of what I'm doing wrong.... I came to the conclusion that most of these folks have not played a newly created mage. They have one character and their bow/melee. So their info is purely speculation.

I'm done w/ my mage for now - I will use bow to level up my character and if I choose I'll drop bow for mage after I've aquired the gold/materials to fully gear out the mage. And of course I have some nicely trained mage spells to mix in where needed. But my main source of damage is bow.


Overview: I dont feel any playstyle should play for 100 hours and be so poor they can't continue to hunt on a level thats productive to their experience range.

 

@Chris dont let new players make this experience and choose a FOTM character!

@scubaman the system promotes hybrids like mages with shields, chainmail chests and bows, using death, fire, douse, heal all together without any siginificant malus.

I stick to my authentic mage and yes its a hard way

 

Starting with a mage build is damn hard. It helps that there is a new 10k exp daily bonus because it takes a lot of the sting out of the exp cost of using offensive/defensive spells.

I believe that new mages should start out accompanied by a familiar just like the sorcerer class in NWN (Neverwinter Nights). These creatures are very useful for scouting & secondary damage. The current pet system is too complex and expensive for a beginner plus it doesn't scale well once you reach the upper adventurer levels so it's not a realistic solution.

Familiars should be less powerful than pets but should scale in power and health as the mage avatar levels. NWN had the familiar at 5 levels lower than the avatar level so that's one good balancing factor.

 

I played pure mage builds in earler builds, so I'm not sure how balance has changed since then. But I remember that the tier 1 fist spells and tier 2 Arrow/ray spells without reagent cost were decent for damage. And you also get attuement when you level the cheap spells up.

Also it sounds as if you have split your exp between a fair number of schools. I would chose a few active skills to level and put my exp into those and into the relevant passives. My (possibly outdated?) experience is that fire is a fine school for PvE. Air and Death may be better at the moment but I'm sure there will be more balance fixes in the future so I wouldn't use that to decide what character to play.

But no doubt the mage part is the hardest by far for beginners. If I started a mage today I would probably level a melee tree as well and keep using a weapon isnstead of wand untill the mage spells eventually overtake the melee atatck in power.

Good luck! Keep experimenting with deck set ups to find something that works.

 

i initially startet with a pole and some magic, but early switchet to a staff (what is unfortunately less efficent than 2 wands, but i care about my look as i am a viking wizard )
Vodalian is right to use the fist and Arrow Spells. I still use a build with no or lets say less reg costs due to only have ice fist and ice arrow as main damage glyphs.

I stack a lot, but not everytime.

I also used Air a lot in the beginning, that was a "mistake" regarding to costs @scubaman try another primary magic school to do damage at beginning.
Air is supposed to be used somewhat later when you do better at all, cause the Lightnings cost a lot, but they are also powerfull due to stun effects.
Stundorn likes Stun effects

Using Water (Ice) and Air is not that bad, i additionally cast Meteor Shower (allways stacked to get better damage) and defense myself with defensive stance, Fortify defenses (but dodge is also fine), douse if fiery mages are around and i use all 3 stat buffs and celestial blessing (although they added negative efto them)

But if you like Archer, use a bow, why not. I remember Bow Mages or Chainmail Shield Mages are the most powerfull chars, maybe still are, butto me they aren't pure mages anymore they are hybrids and hybrids is maybe the way to go for this game, its sad imho, but it seems it will not be nerfed.

diametral effects were gone and people arguing about they want to endlessly progress and have not that much negative effects.
they dont want deth decay, they dont want negative buff effects, they want the buffs last longer, they want faster travelling and what else.
I dont want that, i want an authentic RPG and i choose a "class" although its classless.

To me classless means you build a class out of all possibilities. To them classless means, choose all and everything and build a JAck of all Trades - that and referring to that PvP is the worst about the game. I avoid it, because i have fun with the other parts of it.

But if i remember... i'm still annoyed about these facts

 

Most mages use reg free spells as their base dmg. Thst helps offset costs pretty massivly.
Also sticking to humanoid mages.. u can pick up a lot of regs.

 

Thanks for the advice - I've been chugging along with the bow as stated. I did however notice something that would have helped me a good deal on resource cost that was not recommended to me yet. Obsidian Potion of Conservation - 7 days of 25% reagent cost I would assume stacked w/ my 2 wands putting me up to 50%. I'm sure I could have made up the cost of the potion and then some over 7 days. I see potion cost around ~2300 gold. (tossing this out there for other new mages)

 

If you want to reduce costs as much as possible you can buy the potion from an Obsidian Crown Merchant with a COTO, and you can usually buy a COTO for ~2100g. Of course you may be able to make more the 200g in the time it would take you to run to the nearest Obsidian Crown Merchant, but the option is there.

 

As you raise a particular Spells skill level, the % chance that you consume reagents drops. So, raising the skill higher will bring your reagent costs down. Focus on 1 or 2 schools to start off with and raise the skills to bring the costs down. The higher the damage you are doing per hit, the less hits you need to kill something.

This is a great way to save reagent costs. My main damage comes from Ice Arrow and Ice Fist. Depending on the difficulty of the area, I will use my 'Low Reg Deck', which only has 1 spell, Ice Shield, which uses regs. Basically, don't waste regs on low level creatures. The higher attunement will help with damage, which will make killing faster, which, in turn, will lower reg costs.

 

@scubaman there are also playermade wands and staffs that reduce reagent costs.

 

Yep @scubaman 's experience pretty much sums up how difficult and confusing this game can be for new (and even old) players.

I agree with @Stundorn, it is quite frustrating that the game forces you to be a jack of all trades/hybrid class to even be remotely viable. I initially just wanted to be a sword and board style fighter. Now, I am a Fighter/Earth/Moon Mage. I refuse to do any more magic than this because I really just want to be a fighter, but the Earth and Moon buffs do make me A LOT stronger. I truly empathize for anyone trying to be a straight up mage because reagents are absurdly expensive. It's veritably impossible in the beginning of this game, because loot sucks as well. Well, it wouldn't be Grind of the Avatar if it was actually fun, right!?

 

I disagree that the game forces you to be a jack-of-all-trades and I am pretty much a pure mage. I use nothing but cloth armor, I had to switch to wands for the extra power, while I prefer a Staff, yet I had no issue starting from scratch. You do need to put some thought into ways to make money, save money, gain in skills,etc., but it's not really that bad, and I enjoyed(and still enjoy) the challenge. I am, last I looked, Adventurer Level 95, I won a Town Lot and have settled on it, have payed my taxes for 3 months, I have over 300k in gold and have over 20 GM's(without using exploits.) As the developers hone the mechanics of the game there will be situations where certain types of players will excel, and others will struggle. That's when players will need to work together to accomplish a mutual goal. There are many options to excel as a mage. I can't speak for other character types, but I know other players in various chacter classes who can function in there chosen class without having to dual-class.

 

"Thumbs Up for a Challenging Game!"
Because it's rather easy to be a multi-skilled character, I've found that I enjoy the game most when I've restricted my character's abilities into fashions I want to play! ~Time Lord~

 

Until you dont want to pvp i agree.

I stick to my Archetype with 4 main magic schools (Air, Moon, Water and Life), a staff, although i am thinking of buying 2 wands and a full set of cloth armor and only the stat buffs from Sun and Earth as Extra skills.

I can manage almost all t5 Scenes below level 80.
But to solo a Boss or to fight another player i would need to make compromises, add schools and change weaponry (wands) to get better and competetive.

Me too

And although i dont want to limit others i think if things were limited somehow, and i dont talk about beyond level 100/120 by the already existing diminishing return softcap plus maybe death decay, but erlier and effectively need to make significant decisions about your Archetype from skill level 40, and at least at 80 to get then specialisations to 100 and further.

 

Working with what they have with decay and soft cap, my plans for Nystal TimeLord is to limit his amount of skills while attempting to possibly break that 120 barrier with 2 of those skills. There's a possibility that by limiting the amount of skills, could provide for one or 2 super-skills. <---<<< Similar to how our "levels work", that soft cap could possibly do the same (very unsure about that). Currently Nystal TimeLord has a limited set of skills, which has caused things that are "yellow" to him to be quite dangerous to the point he can't take on 2-3 of them, but can take one at a time with little life left. Much of that is because his only magic is Healing Touch. basically he's finding out that being a pure melee character without magic is extremely difficult when fighting solo. Archery isn't a true melee skill now, with it's magic arrows.

So I totally agree with you, imposing skill limits on one's character presents quite a challenge indeed! ~TL~

 

Using T3/T4 spells all the time is a great way to lose money. Bigger game doesn't bring bigger loot, so if you're only out for some coin, use T2 spells on lower level baddies. I also harvest a lot of reagents and seldom have to buy any. And it raises my crafting XP too.

Bows are overpowered (on both sides) and they recently reduced arrow cost by a factor of ten or so. So yeah, no wonder you're doing so well.

Same for me, though I do use a sword.

 

@scubaman I havent played with magic in a good while but in hopes of unturning the right stones to help ya i'd like to ask:

Are you increasing your intelligence stat?
Do you take advantage of the Stillness bonus that raises your spell crit chance? (It appears after not moving for a couple of seconds and increase sin power every few seconds while not moving)

Do you have spellbinder stance yet? (if it works. Last i heard of it a few months ago it was bugged)

 

First off, @scubaman ... that is some great feedback! I'm sure @Lord British and the crew will take notice of your experience.

Secondly, I'd like to say that in many games a pure mage build is usually the most difficult to advance (especially early on) but once you do develop them... they are probably the most powerful builds around. Being a long time gaming vet myself, I sort of understood this concept when I first started in SOTA and did not try to be a pure mage right off the bat. To be truthful, I honestly prefer a hybrid build to adapt to situations so this wasn't an issue for me, but I digress...

This game is no different in that philosophy though. The reason is simply that it has to conform to the stereotypical mage = cloth + no (or inferior) weapons. Since "magic" doesn't need ammo or extensive weapons to do damage, it creates a need for reagents to balance the cost that other playstyles would need to pay to fight. This is furthered by the fact that a mage is generally at range and therefore doesn't need as much protection gear and/or repair costs that a melee would have. They are inherently glass cannons though and if you do get hit it HURTS but that is also generally understood with this playstyle. Yes, you could argue that an archer also has this range benefit too, but it definitely is a factor when balancing against a melee and a mage definitely has an advantage when AOE hunting to grind XP or to earn gold over both melee and archers.

Once you invest the time and gold into building a mage, you will eventually get it to a point where that investment pays off. You will have a much easier time to farm whatever you want in mass much easier than any other playstyle. Maybe not as prolific at one-on-one as some other builds vs. bosses, but in terms of farming things a mage is much more efficient at end-game than most other builds.

So, I agree with you that early on there are probably better options than a pure mage. But I'd suggest that you mix in a small amount of magic and level them up while you earn some gold for better gear and stock up on reagents. Then, once you have developed enough skills to allow a pure mage build exceed, you can begin to switch over.

That may not be a great solution for some who are purists and want to go pure mage for RP reasons or whatever... but given what we have here that's the best advice I can give you.

 

Great write up!!!

Here is one secret I recall and I think still applies. You actually need to grind a bit even at that level, probably with melee (not sure if can afford arrows). Go after humanoid mobs (lots of low lvl undead) so you can sell the weps they drop. Focus on getting all your defensive passives up early, they really matter and then you can switch over to magic when you can sustain the cost better. Use magic, but stick to the non-reagent stuff at first.

 

Go long bow and mix in the magic.
There are short bows in game but they are just weaker versions of the long bow. Short bows serve essentially no function and should be removed from the game.

Magic arrow of your choice to pull the non-ranged mob (because magic arrow range is bigger then bow range and raise the innate skills then disabling shot and start backpaddeling, mix in the the bowskills of your choice and keep refreshing disabling shot, voila. Your set for the rest of the game.

Also the bigger your XP pool the faster your skills level. So as a starting player log in for 15 days in a row but don't play. Then grind it all out for several hours.

Crafting... Only raise the gathering skills. I tried curing leather but the time all crafting takes doesn't compare to the speed at which grass grows, so go outside and do that instead.

The classless system is great for balance. Devs only have to play whack-a-mole with the perceived fotm skill.

Stay away from big cities, the loading times and long distances to banks and trainers make them take to much time out of your grinding schedule.
Don't forget to do all the quests in the starting areas they give a lot of XP.

/Rant

Despite some strange Dev choices. I am still having fun.