The Drunken Lizard Pub

I just finished my first play through with a mage character, and spent some time thinking about which attack spells are most useful. Since I'm a little anal retentive, here are the results of some calculations of spell efficiency:
Of course, maximizing mana efficiency only matters if you're more concerned about mana than time - that is, if you're not worried about baddies smashing you flat while you sling spells. What with Haste, Invisibility, Dense Nimbus, and Hide in Shadows, though, that can happen a lot.

So clearly, Abyssal Freeze is awesome, but probably everybody already figured that out. Also, in terms of mana efficiency, it's always worthwhile to use Fireball or Compress Atmosphere if you can hit at least two targets with it - you do much better than with A.F., even. Mass Boil and Supernova should probably be saved for 3-4 or more targets, though. Other than one particular fight in Talushorn, I'm not sure how often this comes up.

So Ice Lance and Mystic Hammer are great, but if you find yourself running out of MP in fights, consider saving them for when you have to do a whole lot of damage in a small amount of time. Or for resistant enemies, of course.

Did I miss anything?

SpottedShroom wrote:So clearly, Abyssal Freeze is awesome, but probably everybody already figured that out.

That was basically also true in Book I - Deep Freeze was the best of the lot there too: did the most damage, and Taurax seemed to be able to 'save' less often vs. Deep Freeze too.

Question - what do the parenthetical numbers mean in the 'MP Cost' column?...

That's the tier of spell - tier one costs 9 MP to cast at level 6, tier two 29, tier three 39.

A useful list. Thanks for that!

To go along with it, here's a list of which enemies have resistance to elemental and magical attacks. (Is it even possible to block damage from the physical type attack spells? I've never seen this happen, but I haven't used them much either.)

RESIST ELEMENTAL
80%: Prospector
70%: Mortikus
60%: Pyrus Dragonel
50%: Vaxia
40%: Snow Wolf
30%: Buccaneer, Devilmander, Lycanthrope, Shebara, General Ghorr
20%: Red Wolf, Shadow Assassin, Jawbreaker, Taurax Legionnaire, Captain Rukka, Sparrow, Zeblin
10%: Black Mold, Liche, Brimstone Spider, Taurax Scout, Taurax Spearmaster

RESIST MAGICAL
100%: Vaxia
70%: Mortikus
60%: Brimstone Spider
50%: Sparrow, Liche
40%: General Ghorr, Skeleton Marauder, Drowned Corpse, Skeletal Archer
30%: Shadow Assassin
25%: Blackcoat Privateer
20%: Prospector, Pyrus Dragonel, Snow Wolf, Buccaneer, Devilmander, Lycanthrope, Shebara, Red Wolf, Taurax Legionnaire, Captain Rukka, Black Mold, Taurax Scout, Taurax Spearmaster, Phase Hunter, Mire Troll
15%: Cursed Undead

Looking at the spell chart, it looks like the real winners are Abyssal Freeze and Compress Atmosphere (assuming physical damage is indeed never resisted). Use AF on any enemies not on the first list; if they're listed, or if you have at least 2 next to each other, use CA.

I see an error on the list: Fireball does Physical damage, not elemental. I killed him with a mage by casting a couple of fireballs on him, none resisted.

Huh. Yeah, go figure. I've seen at least one other person say the same thing, so I'll take you guys' word for it.

Come to think of it, I'm not positive about some of the other types, either. I used Mass Boil against a bunch of creatures that ought to resist magic according to Slarty's list and none of them ever saved - maybe it's physical as well? I just figured since it's an extension of Fleshboil, it's the same damage type.

Noru wrote:I see an error on the list: Fireball does Physical damage, not elemental. I killed him with a mage by casting a couple of fireballs on him, none resisted.

I have a real conceptional problem with this, if it's true - it strikes me that having Fireball as "physical" damage instead of "elemental" is a bug.

(Or, could it be both?! - "elemental" damage on the primary target, and "physical" damage on the secondary targets?! If so, that would be kind of cool...)

The damage, what is shown in the text field clearly says physical damage. I killed the Prospector and 2 beholders (those has big resists) with Fireballs easily, none were resisted.

The "him" in my previous post refers to the Prospector, I forgot to change it, when I edited out the name from the first sentence

Also, Compress Atmopshere is tier 2, as listed, so it should cost 29 and not 49.

Good point, and fixed. I'm not sure how worthwhile it is to keep this up to date, though, since I'm hoping to move this information and much more into a wiki soon. Maybe I should PM BasiliskWrangler rather than just hoping he responds to my topic here.

Cheers for an excellent list. Helped me immensely when tinkering with a new character concept.

Ummm... might want to recheck your calculation on Sunder Flesh.
Should be a bit higher in the list...

Eh, math :)

SpottedShroom wrote:

Farwalker wrote:Ummm... might want to recheck your calculation on Sunder Flesh.
Should be a bit higher in the list...

Eh, math

The difference, in Book I at least, was that mobs were much, much more likely to 'save' against Sunder Flesh than against Abyssal (aka. Deep) Freeze - has anyone tried to test that in Book II yet?...