I'm looking for some spells that would be good for a black mage character. Anyone have any suggestions?
Good Spells for Pure Spellcaster
- Thread starter PalletTown
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TheShepard256
Well-Known Member
There's always the classic Grease + Fireball combo - the former knocks all enemies over (causing them to waste a turn standing up) and applies a vulnerability to Fire damage that the latter, as well as any companions with Fire damage moves, can exploit. Crackle Powder sets up a similar situation but with Stun instead of knocking over and vulnerability to Lightning damage, but it requires a ranged weapon to use and there are fewer companions that have Lightning damage moves.
I mean it depends if you want to be a Generalized spellcaster with a mix or narrow yourself down to a single elemental type. You got a lot of options for decent ice, fire, lightning, mental, blight, "arcane" and even lust mage. Granted I don't think we have a good at will for lightning yet. But everything else you can get plenty of options for a full collection of spells, sans ultimate, as long as you have mirror stance and depending on whether you are okay with including white mage/charmer spells on top of black mage and generic.
You should include if your starting a new character or are some level seven mage, it would help narrow down where to start.
I'll be listing off spell that are useful or could find use from level one to seven.
Some powers such as Crackle Powder or Grease will be use to purely power up storm and fire attack's and can combo along with companions like Berserker Agutia or the many fire based companions sets. They can be use all game once you get them as a stun or knockdown is always useful.
You can always use other power for support and just use your recharge slots for spells or do what ever mix you want, those are just all the spells you should look for depending on the level. Some spells are always going to be useful through out the levels such as Fire Ball and Grease but some such as Roaring Storm can be used for quite a while due to lack of options but it can function as a pseudo Flames Within with extra chip damage for spells.
I know most of these are pointing towards a offensive damage mage, but you picked black mage for a reason no?
Some powers such as Crackle Powder or Grease will be use to purely power up storm and fire attack's and can combo along with companions like Berserker Agutia or the many fire based companions sets. They can be use all game once you get them as a stun or knockdown is always useful.
You're better of sticking to what you have to get to level two unless you want to get White Fire to kill Effigies a little bit harder.
I'll start with the fact that for an encounter power you will be using Roaring Storm, not much else to use for a few levels anyway unless "pure spellcaster" can be bent to include support like Smoke Bomb or Smite Evil as an attack. Back on topic Roaring Storm is a good power as it's passive damage and it boosts your damage potential and overall accuracy, you can combo it with Crackle Power starting at this level along with Crackling Cloud or Lightning Spike for a more storm mage approach. While it has the same encounter power you can also go for a fire mage setup with White Fire, Molten Blast, and Grease, as you are already bring along Cait that's two sources of fire. Entropic Winds would be better if not for the pyromania of early game Cait and her burns.
You can get Celestial Frost and Rime Veil to use with one being a decent power against the kitsunes and the other being a maybe encounter power replacer, nothing else is gotten this level well in the areas you have access to at least. Zoe gives powers that are "magic" but most of the ones you would want are stances.
Magic Missile is now available and could work well with Roaring Storm, you just have to get Mirror Stance which is hard but possible. This level is also the level you are replacing more stuff like Molten Blast with Fire Ball and Crackling Cloud with Arc Cannon once the foxes are dealt with, Soul Arrow is there for healing if you need it along with Leech and Shatter exists. Counter Spell can be use to counter other mages, it could be useful.
For your Ultimate unless you are going Kitsune Abjure is a fine "spell" to pop when you need it. This level has a bunch of spells locked into what I would consider a level six area i.e. KhorMinos and the Rift, this is also technically the level to do the Kitsune Den. you do get some spells like Bark Skin if you want to be tankier, or Mind Blast which is technically on this level to do varying amounts of damage.
Lots of stuff to cover, Oma should be available now with her Thunder Clap encounter power which does good storm damage and I mention it first her due to it being new. The underground and rift are now open which means you a plethora of option to choose from such as Jade flame for a ok single target fire and holy move, Celestial Smite for a ok single target storm and holy attack, Cold Snap can now be stolen easily from the bird in the rift, Psyshock is also there I guess but it does use presence. From trainers and vendors you can now use Leaping Bolts which could go well with crackle powder, or you could use Flash Fire for decent single target damage and some status effects on the enemy and you also buy Earthward as for a defensive At-Will spell. you can also buy Psychic Blast for a new At-Will spell, Grand Final or Vitality Reap for a new Encounter power, Dischord for a single target storm power, or Primal Scar to stack both multi damage and a bunch of elemental weaknesses. you can get a few items such as the Harp of Waves to use Aria of Waves spell, or you could get the Crown of Winter to use the powerful Dawnbreak spell.
Well Flames Within can now be used and it's an encounter spell which can buff your other spells. You can steal Toxic Shock, Thunder Scream, and Addling Beam and use them this level.
You can always use other power for support and just use your recharge slots for spells or do what ever mix you want, those are just all the spells you should look for depending on the level. Some spells are always going to be useful through out the levels such as Fire Ball and Grease but some such as Roaring Storm can be used for quite a while due to lack of options but it can function as a pseudo Flames Within with extra chip damage for spells.
I know most of these are pointing towards a offensive damage mage, but you picked black mage for a reason no?
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I know that's a really good combo, but its a bit boring
Good suggestions. I'm planning on crit stacking, so my at-will will be equanimity. That rules out dawnbreak (personally, I find dawnbreak to be absolutely insane for charmers) and roaring storm. I'm actually not too much of a fan of roaring storm since you can't stack stances, it's a major threat magnet, and if your knocked out of your roaring storm stance, you can't re-up it.
If crit-stacking, Hana gives a ring after becoming lovers that gives bonus crit chance against all enemies after a crit (You'll have to get fucked by the leothrans in her dates to access it annoyingly, just surrender when encountering them unless you enjoy wasting time for the more consensual option).
I don't think there's any spells that really have any valuable effect on crits (at least not any I can think of where pure damage wouldn't be better) Celestial smite pretty much overpowers all of them if you combine it with primal scar, but I suppose using Flames Within with leaping bolts and crackle powder could be good for AOE.
No you don't. You can also just talk to her about Her Tail to reveal that she's got a cock.
I don't recall seeing that talk option.
Wait no, I do, but it didn't seem to achieve anything?
Here are the spells I like to use as a magic enthusiast.
At Will: Great Heal
Rechargeable 1: Leaping Bolt
Rechargeable 2: Fireball
Encounter: Roaring Storm
Ultimate: Revive
Okay! So the game plan is to use Roaring Storm first or after your rechargeable spells. If you use it first it can buff your spells early on but if you use it after your other spells are on cooldown it helps fill up your turn if you don't need to heal.
From there you use Great Heal to keep your team up and Revive is there in case your tank falls on their face.
Generally with this strategy you blow as many AoEs as you possibly can as often as you can. You're dealing Storm/Fire damage because unfortunately I don't know of any AoE Holy spells. Luckily Storm is rarely resisted and it is a very powerful element to lean on. Roaring Storm will allow you to keep doing damage even if you are tied down healing until your stance is interrupted.
Whatcha people think?
At Will: Great Heal
Rechargeable 1: Leaping Bolt
Rechargeable 2: Fireball
Encounter: Roaring Storm
Ultimate: Revive
Okay! So the game plan is to use Roaring Storm first or after your rechargeable spells. If you use it first it can buff your spells early on but if you use it after your other spells are on cooldown it helps fill up your turn if you don't need to heal.
From there you use Great Heal to keep your team up and Revive is there in case your tank falls on their face.
Generally with this strategy you blow as many AoEs as you possibly can as often as you can. You're dealing Storm/Fire damage because unfortunately I don't know of any AoE Holy spells. Luckily Storm is rarely resisted and it is a very powerful element to lean on. Roaring Storm will allow you to keep doing damage even if you are tied down healing until your stance is interrupted.
Whatcha people think?
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I have a very similar set except with Arc Cannon and Jade Flame/Celestial Smite instead of Leaping Bolts and Fireball. Though I have gone back and forth with replacing Arc Cannon with Leaping Bolts, and I'm not sure which is better tbh. Better primary target damage vs an even spread. But since I have a single target spell I usually go with Arc. Jade Flame and Celestial Smite are mostly interchangeable, the damage calculation is identical and both do half holy damage and the other half either fire or storm. The effect on Smite to stun an enemy weak to either holy or storm damage is better than the fire resistance buff Jade Flame gives, but I'm currently running Flame anyways because I figure running all storm spells might get dicey if I run into storm resistant enemies.
Soul Arrow is solid, decent damage on a decent cooldown that heals you. Don't think it's commonly resisted either. Psyshock lets you do Crushing damage as a spell on a cooldown of 2 so that's an interesting utility if you need it. I used Primal Scar a lot before I switched over to spellblade to give things weaknesses. Not sure if that's still useful though.
Can confirm that it do give champ knowledge of her cock.
And it work us intended.
I personally like Ray of Frost combined with Celestial Frost (from Cait's set unlock). The combo works wonderfully with Brinter and Ice Cait since they all make use of Frigid.
Celestial Frost: [You deal [20 + (Spellpower as a %)] Holy and [20 + (Spellpower as a %)] Frost damage to a target if you hit its Magic Resistance. This spell has +25 Critical Chance against Frigid targets.]
Notably it has a cooldown of 1 turn, so you can cast it every other turn. Sadly bosses with multiple actions shake off frigid too quickly without the thief boss that doubles debuff duration. I kinda wish we had multi-round frigid spells instead of multi-turn.
Note that while I fight as pure caster the class I use is actually thief, mostly because my build has min willpower and as such most of the perks of Black Mage are useless for me.
Celestial Frost: [You deal [20 + (Spellpower as a %)] Holy and [20 + (Spellpower as a %)] Frost damage to a target if you hit its Magic Resistance. This spell has +25 Critical Chance against Frigid targets.]
Notably it has a cooldown of 1 turn, so you can cast it every other turn. Sadly bosses with multiple actions shake off frigid too quickly without the thief boss that doubles debuff duration. I kinda wish we had multi-round frigid spells instead of multi-turn.
Note that while I fight as pure caster the class I use is actually thief, mostly because my build has min willpower and as such most of the perks of Black Mage are useless for me.
...But, wouldn't that mean your spells are also dealing a lot less damage? Why are you playing a pure caster with min willpower? Unless you just want the debuffs?
There is a set (the hellhound can make it, it's called Pyromancer set) that sets your spellpower to equal your sexiness, which is in turn based on presence. Any mage using summons wants presence since it makes them stronger and presence also increases leadership, which makes your party stronger.
I found that the set makes it perfectly sensible to drop willpower altogether since outside spellpower the bonuses it provides are mediocre unless you're in the black mage class. Even the loss in focus and mental resistance isn't as crippling because presence increases your health.
I can run agility, cunning, presence for a full on blaster mage who also has great summons and buffs the team just by existing, while trading cunning for strength lets me switch to a great spellblade build.
As for black mage's passives: they're not bad but the crit perk only works if the enemy doesn't have a shield while thief gets a perk (perfect positioning) that grants roughly the same amount of crit if you want it (it gives 10 crit while the mage perk gives you half your willpower as crit chance, which is also 10 crit at level 6 if you minmax willpower).
Thief fixes a caster's awful physical resistance by having it run off your agility instead (which you will have set to high with either build) gives some bonus attack power for debuffed enemies (very good for spellblades) and the other level 7 perk: Eye for Weakness.
It doubles the duration of all debuffs you apply. All of them. Like sunder, or frigid (mandatory for a Frostheart Cait / Winter Brint team and it makes them steamroll everything) or everything else you do. It also basically doubles the damage Toxic Shock can do since that one depends on how much poison you can stack on the enemy.
As far as usefulness goes it's second only to the charmer level 7 perk which doubles buff duration.
But didn't you say you play as a pure spellcaster? What's the point of having sexiness? For summons, Black mage can buff it by 25% with it's summon perk, using that and a boon for presence + helm of heroes is all you need for a strong summon. For spellblade, song of storms or charge weapon can deal with your lacking str if you don't boon or put points in it.
I don't know how much spellpower you can get with pyro set, but I have around 200 spellpower by just equipping all the spellpower boosting gear in the game + maxing willpower, and there's little mobs in game that have a shield to worry about not hitting crits with a spell like primal scar and celestial smite or flare.