Hi there all

I'm looking for advice from the pure mages out there.
I'm wanting to start a pure gnome mage, and would like some advice on what spells to consider initially.

I've poured over the help files and prereqs and these are the things I think I'd like, but not in any order:

flame blade, fists of fury (fiery vortex)
shocking grasp, incind missile, lightning bolt, chain lightning
burn hands, colour spray, fireball (iceball, deep freeze)

eventually dancing sword, armour golem, pword spells

non-combat:
invisibility
detect invisibility
fly
word of recall

My question is: are there combat spells that are crap to avoid and which are good?

I'm not able to play heavily, so I'm likely to just dabble a half-hour here and there, and I'm not likely to get very high level either (Might reach 30 ish?). So which spells are reachable and worth it for me?

Thanks all.

I don't have a mage, pure or otherwise, but if I were to make a build, assuming i'd only get to the mid 30s level wise i'd probably want some of the following ...

Vortex
Fly
Soul Strike

(A note: Soul strike is nice but is heavy on the mana cost. Lightning bolt has always been a less mana intensive yet still powerful spell).

Make sure you get a big big big INT too.

Dreadnaught, Juba and Torak a(and Murton?) re the most notable straight up mages so they should chime in here as the resident experts.

On the INT - I have a guy now with 72 starting. I could of course make one with 74 right away, but I figure I'll get 1 or 2 INT points at some point. Good logic? (I'm assuming that the + points to INT can never bring me above the 74 Racial limit? Otherwise, stating at 74 and moving up to 75, 76 makes more sense.

Thanks man!

Gnome pure mage is best choice. I dont recommend goin that up on int to start. Why i say that? Let me try to explain.
60 int till 70 will get 20% per pract of int based spells. That means you will max a spell with 5 practs. Same as having 71 or 74 int since you will train at 24% that will leave ya at 96% if you only use 4 practs. But since we all mages want perfection you will end up using 5 too.
Yeah the power of your spells wont be as great as with max int to start but if you are consistant youll get it max.
Also I say that cause I like to have some con and wisdom on my mages. Con to get some hps to survive hits. Gnomes are very small. And Wisdom cause a lot of spells require it too and then i can train em decently without wasting practices on the long run.

Soo my advice is get int at like 65 rest on wis/con maybe a bit charisma but since you arent gettin charm spells maybe leave that out.

I agree, a good con , wis are good. As torak said 60 + int is fine.I would go just a little more wis than con though, because you plan on getting dancers, which means you will be in row 2 and not taking much damage. while wis will help on mana gains.

wow, I'm shocked at the little info on pure mages here.

I have a level 75 gnome mage/mage, with 92 int (for quality on spells)

I would suggest you level a war/war or similar and rebirth into mage/mage, since it is difficult to level with suggest.

In the old days you would suggest something on another and just area spell them when they hit awful condition - particularly with trolls and gnomes by the Troll priest. Mages leveled the fastest of all classes because of suggest and firestorm. However, now mobs stop fighting each other making this almost useless.

Hence, get a couple area spells to help you get by until you can get charm person. Work on small clusters of mobs with high damage fast. Being a mage/mage you will be able to charm Kurt (from Elip) at a low level. He has good hbs and will help you get some xp. Additionally you can charm tyelk and elin [These were my main charmies]. You can also get heeled boots from midway, walk through shao-ghul(disguised as troll) and into the temple and charm those sanc'd guards. They have low damage, but insane hps for tanking.

Charmies is the main way to level, but you can also get firestorm (tome from styxx imp) and firestorm clusters of mobs then walk in and finish them off when they're at awful condition. Possess familiar lets you walk in and look at their condition w/o being aggro'd by what you're killing with the firestorm.

Now, back to suggesting one mob on another... this can still be done, but it's more difficult, since most mobs stop fighting. How I was able to do this was in sundhaven for example. Figure out which mobs arent friendly to eachother ===> the SH shopkeepers <==
1. Bring them together, suggest blacksmith to rest, go to the armourer, summon blacksmith (he wont walk back to his room - b/c he's resting).
2. suggest armourer Kill blacksmith,... wait them out and finish with soul strike or something. This can be rough on mana and you might not get both kills. But if you dont want to run charmies this can work with practice.
--With appropriate timing you can setup multiple groups to fight at the same time.
--If you try to use combat on them while they're fighting each other, both mobs will stop fighting each other and switch to you/your-group.

A nice Mages spell is multiplicity, this lets you make a decent tank based on your hps (i think) and quality of the spell. This is most helpful in groups that need reliable disposable tanks.

-If you are mage/warrior, consider getting craft weapon... you can make unlimited dancers (which sometimes can be annoying being forced to buy weapons that become expensive when you have to buyout the shopkeeper).

-I've found armour golem and dancers to be useless for xp'ng with - they have low health and die fast. They could be useful at low low level, but i've never tried b/c charm is a solid way to go. I use dancers to take up rows to hide behind and havent found a use for AG.