[Strategy] How to build a caster hero

from Elemental Forums

So i tried a bunch of different builds for pure caster and I figured out what you need to do to optimize it.

Some of the things are obvious like take spell damage stuff when possible but the trick I ended up with is how to generate enough mana to cast lots of spells.

 

Basic Concept

You need 1 rank in water magic for the spell that causes your towns to generate 1 mana per essence.

You need the racial trait that lets you build the town improvement that gives +1 essence.

This means your towns will all produce 2-3 mana fairly early on and add to that your other sources of mana like magic nodes and your base 2 and you quickly produce enough mana to cast offensive spells.


Other Character Creation Specifics

Don't take the talent that produces 1 mana per turn, it is not nearly as good as the starting item that makes your spells on the equipped champion free to upkeep. Take things like 2 HP/level, 1 spell pen/level and +10% exp, and even consider +3 weapon damage so you can cruise through the first 5 levels.

When crafting your race take all 4 disadvantages, they are irrelevant except research and you can get a better research choice from the racial advantages list.

Take the scouting racial advantage, and the magic staffs racial advantage because it gives you the +1 essnece city improvement.

Take 2 ranks in fire or air and get it up to rank 3 asap because you need to use fireball or lightning bolt to kill stuff. Lightning does more single target damage so you will need some melee units to clear out trash, fire does better aoe damage.

You can instead learn fireball from the magic tech tree but you still want 2 ranks in fire for firebolt for single target dps.

 

Mike.

 

2,617 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

well at least try a mage without fire, ofc it works if you take it :D

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't see any reason why you need the crown item. You can get plenty of mana from shards, and you don't really need spells in battle until mid-game. I would just get 2 points in fire magic since flame dart is the only spell you need. Try to get fire magic three so you can do focus + flame dart against single targets and then fireball against groups.

 

I get the staff with +25% spell damage instead and I don't take any traits for melee combat. I like getting the research bonuses and free champions to give you a strong army early on and then allow you to get a good supporting army so you don't have to enter melee combat. You want Altar blood for +10% experience or Amarian blood for the +1 initiative/air shard.

 

If you don't want to take fire magic you don't have to since you still have access to fireball in the tech tree, but you will waste lots of mana casting it all the time.

 

You really have to focus on collecting items for a good chance to get the mage items. 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

That crown probably saves me 2 or 3 shards worth of mana a turn. Maybe not essential but it might be the most bang you can get for one point. Talking about 6 free blessings without any champions. Regen, resistance, mana cost, stoneskin, experience, courage, and I think all his summons have no upkeep. That might be a bug, but that's worth half a dozen mana on top. You don't need it, but it sure is nice. If I get a champion with fire or air magic, it's even better.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

This mana production build works ok for the deathknight who goes mage for life steal (you get it at death 3).

I built one like this and it is a fun build but without the mana it is not reasonable. I took the racial trait that lets me turn all my nodes into death nodes so my life steal was huge and although I took all the mage stuff I also used weapons and armor and the HP traits so it worked out well.

Mike.