Finished as a mage. My build, my notes.

[Xanathar]

Finished the game as a mage, and then reloaded and finished Fathamurk, all in all a really nice game, though I would've changed some things. Below my opinions

Good:
- The turn system is fantastic, this is the first turn based game I like as the turns are really transparent
- Some really neat ideas, like, for example, cartography skill

Bad:
- Some quests are so-so. No counter anywhere for 23 monsters to kill. No way to lie in some quests which would scream for lying.
- No way to reenter Fathamurk (which btw has average loot, so no big thing in the end; as a mage I still have to find a useful way to spend all the money I have).

Character type : Mage with both Elemental and Divination skills.

Spell List
========
Must have:
- Fire Dart, to survive the early game
- Create Food and Draw Water, to circumvent one of the rules
- Dense Nimbus & Element Armor, to basically neutralize entire kind of enemies
- Compress Atmosphere, best attacking spell in the game (actually the only one worth having after fire dart)
- Lock Melt, to gain plentiful of money, access hidden zones, etc.
- Detox, saves your life
- Divine Heal, saves your life
- Haste, to improve the outcome of battles in restricted space
- Lore, one less skill to have

Really nice to have:
- Cat's Eyes, to see in the dark
- Gravedigger's Flame, when you run out of torches
- Stoneskin / Leatherskin, for protection
- Cure Ailments, for the occasional disease

Not bad:
- Abyssal Freeze, would be good if there wasn't Compress Atmosphere
- Fireball, see above, but even less good
- Trapkill, you can use firedart to trigger the traps (or just step on them and heal/cure!), but this is faster

Not worth the slot they are in:
- Dehex, I don't know what this is for as I completed both game and fatharmurk without getting cursed ever
- Supernova, there are maybe (not sure) a couple situations in the entire game where it could be better than compress atmosphere. Maybe. Or maybe not. Everytime (2, actually) I used it was a bad choice.
- Reveal Map, a burdern to keep it on. As a mage you'll have plentiful of money and no really good item to buy, so just drop the money on cartography training as early as possible.


Finally a note about alchemy: in the whole game I used a total of six potions: 2 mana potions to kill the big guy inside the forgery of Farrock caves very early in the game (I went through farrock to go from eastwillow to port kuudad) and 4 mana potions III for the stone golem.

All in all a game I really enjoyed Looking forward the III book.

[Randomizer]

Dehex is used for the rare time in the game where you get cursed since it gives several negatives.

Supernova is useful for spotting locations of hidden items in caves since those places light up when you use the spell, but you still need to search to open.

You left out invisibility to get passed potential enemies to use lockmelt without being seen or get into a safer position to fight.

[Xanathar]

Very cool use of Supernova Thanks

[SpottedShroom]

Ice Lance and Mystic Hammer are generally considered better attack spells than Compress Atmosphere. They're not as efficient a use of mana but they let you do more damage in a shorter period of time. With a high enough MP regeneration rate, it doesn't usually matter. CA is better against multiple enemies, of course.

[Xanathar]

Actually the reason I preferred CA to the others (but I admit I didn't met those two you mention in my playthrough though I suspect Ice Lance to be the same) is that I found no monster able to resist damage from CA signifincantly (it's physical damage), while most high level monster would resist abyssal freeze, supernova, fireball etc. occasionally (1 in 4 shots in some occasions).

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Ice Lance and Mystic Hammer are both Divination spells, not Elemental, which may be why you didn't have them. Mystic Hammer is, I believe, also physical damage like Compress Atmosphere. Ice Lance may have both, I don't recall.

[SpottedShroom]

Ice Lance and Mystic Hammer are the highest-tier direct damage spells. Ice Lance is Elemental and possible to resist, but does more damage. Mystic Hammer is Divine, does slightly less damage, and is not possible to resist.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

So it's REALLY been too long since I've played through Book II.

[Morgan Terror]

I've done the math on those spells once. Point-for-point, abyssal freeze is far more efficient that the later damage spells in terms of damage for expended mana. I'd suggest using that one if you've got a sub-par mana pool. Of course, the aforementioned DPS might be considered a more important feature than mana efficiency, but i often find that i don't. I'm not sure about the divine spells, and CA is a bit of an odd one, given that it's multitarget.