Spells
Spells are cast by runemages by drawing symbols in the air, and are their primary method to deal damage.
Casting Spells
While you press the trigger button on your weapon hand, the wand draws a pink line in the air in front of you. Use the A button to confirm a rune. If the cast is successful, the corresponding spell appears on the tip of the wand, and can be used by pressing A again. If the rune wasn't drawn correctly, blue sparks will burst from the wand, accompanied by a "pop" sound, and no spell will appear.
There is no cooldown on casting a spell - a runemage can fire spells as fast as they can draw them.
Spells can be cast without needing to find the corresponding rune. As long as the mage draws it correctly, it will work, even if the page for the spell rune is not yet in their journal.
Spell Damage
The damage of your spells is dictated by the base damage of the spell and how accurate a rune is drawn. The most accurate cast will deal up to 20% more damage than the sloppiest cast that will still be recognized.
A small blue explosion can appear when confirming a spell - this indicates that the spell is 10-20% more powerful than the worst cast. This is called a Perfect Cast.
Shortcuts
There is a bit of leeway for casting spells - they don't need to be drawn that accurately to be recognized. Some straight lines can be curved, some corners can be cut, and the runes can sometimes even be downright sloppy. Over time, the community has created different ways to cast the more common spells which can differ greatly from the actual rune but are still being recognized by the game, the best example for this being Greater Affliction.
These shortcuts are faster than drawing the normal rune, but can result in less powerful individual spells and many shortcuts won't produce Perfect Casts.
Have a question, or think you may have found a new method to casting a spell? Hop over to Espiticus' Discord "The Guild" and say hello.
List of Spells
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Research needed: Which spells belong to the same Runic Type? (Talent: Runic Diversity) |
Spell runes can be found on Spell Pillars located throughout the world, while the runes for the Rituals can be found on scrolls inside the City of Highsteppe.
Projectile spells
- Affliction: Spells that deal damage over time to a single enemy.
- Arcane Explosion: Spell that deals damage to multiple enemies in a large area.
- Decurse: Removes some negative status effects.
- Fireball: Deals damage to a single enemy without additional effects.
- Fireworks: Creates a Firework explosion that has no effect.
- Frostbolt: Deals damage to a single enemy and slows the enemy.
- Light: Creates a projectile to use as a light source.
- Mana Shield: Applies a damage reduction buff on a friendly target.
- Polymorph: Turns a single enemy into a harmless chicken.
- Pushback: Deals damage to enemies and pushes them back.
Ray spells
- Arcane Ray: Ray-type spell that deals damage to multiple enemies while they stand in it.
- Ice Lance: Ray-type spell that deals damage to multiple enemies. Stronger when used against slowed enemies.
Note: Ray-type spells, as well as the beam part of the mage Super, will ignore the weapon adjustment.
Rituals
- Resurrection: Revives a dead player while out of combat.
- Teleport: Create a teleport to one of six quick-travel points.
- Triplicity or Contamination: Unlocks at level 30. Depending on your chosen talent, it either duplicates spells for 8 seconds, or creates a projectile spell that increases the duration of DoTs.
Why Don't My Spells Work?
Runemage is a difficult class to get the hang of. Don't expect the spells to work consistently right off the bat, it takes many hours of playtime to be able to spam fireballs like the Mages you see hanging around in the city. Try to start slow, speed will come with time.
There can be a variety of reasons why spells don't work:
- Your rune is angled in 3D space. The game uses your head angle to choose a plane on which to do the spell recognition. Try to keep looking straight ahead and draw on an invisible blackboard right in front of you. Adjusting your wand position may also help.
- The spell's proportions aren't correct. While the size of the spell or its location on the virtual plane in front of you doesn't matter, it is important to get the proportions right. Try drawing over the runes in your book, but make sure to get the angle of the book right.
- Your rune isn't flat. 3D space has, well, three dimensions, which can make it tricky to draw flat things without any guides. After you drew a spell, step to the side and view it from the side - it should be flat like on a 2D plane. When trying to draw large runes in 3D space, they will have a noticable curve to it. Try drawing them smaller, about as big as your palm, this will help reduce the curve.
- Don't use shortcuts until you got the hang of casting. Some shortcuts are faster, but more difficult to cast, so stick to the runes in your book for now.
- If you spells work more than half of the time, you most likely just need practice. After a while, muscle memory will take over, and spell casting will become second nature.