RyzomVault Magic Guide

[Mekos]

Here is a guide from beta that is still rather helpful:

http://ryzomvault.ign.com/?dir=guidebook&content=magicguide_drakes

Magic Guide
By Drakes

So you want to be a Magician? Well, you’ve got some learning to do – but don’t let that scare you off! Once you take the time to understand Ryzom’s inventive new magic system, you’ll be glad you did – and on your way to fame and fortune on planet Atys!

First, this guide is based on my own experiences with a Zorai character created during the Beta 3 Test with all three Action Packs set to “Magic”. This will award you with the title of “Apprentice Magician” and yield you the “Big Magic Pack” with the following starting abilities listed and explained below:

Default Attack Action – Your basic melee fighting option.
Self Healing 1 Spell – A minor healing spell, usable only on yourself.
Acid Damage 1 Spell – A ranged nuke, causing minor acid damage.
Healing 1 Spell – A minor healing spell, usable only on others.
Root 1 Spell – A ranged root spell, stops your victim in their tracks for a short time.
Fear 1 Spell – A ranged fear spell similar to a stun as your target is too afraid to attack.

If you would like your character to have another ability such as crafting or foraging, use up no more than one slot for it. At least two Action Packs have to be set to Magic to start off with your ranged nuke and heal other spell. I do not recommend putting a pack toward fighting if you want to be a mage – you’d be better off starting with the 3rd set of starting spells (root and fear) in my opinion.

Once you choose your starting location, go find a cozy little spot to stand for a few minutes. It’s time to edit your spells so you can level faster than you could with the standard set you have now. Ryzom’s magic system is different than any other – you can make various versions of your spells however they suit you best (within the guidelines of the system, of course). This guide will show you how to make the basic changes quickly and easily, while giving you an understanding of the system itself. Let’s start off with your current nuke spell, Acid 1. I’ll walk you through editing it so that you can cast it without it costing you ANY sap (mana) at all:

Click “a” on your keyboard to bring up your Skills & Actions window.

Click the orange bar titled “Magic” to show your complete spell list on the right side. On the right side click the “New Action” button.

Click the recessed square on the window that pops up to see the list of spell types you may create.

Select the icon next to “Atysian Missile Spell Blueprint”. This represents your nuke spells.

Click the recessed square next to “Effect 1” in the window to see a list of the type of damage or effect your spell will perform.

Click the icon next to “Acid Damage Spell Effect”. This represents the type of damage your spell will do.

You will see that your Acid 1 effect has an orange “+3” next to it. This means it “costs” 3 points to create the spell as is. Down below in the new action window you will see an orange and green dot with “Cast Impossible” below it. To make a spell usable, you have to use “credits” to even out the cost to 0. You can have more credits than cost, which will increase your chance to cast the spell without failures, but you can never have more cost than credit. The most normal version of a spell credit is to have it cost sap (or mana)...

Click “Add Credit” in the window to bring up a list of credit options you have available. You will see that you have 3 general ways to add credits to your spell: sap cost, range decrease or timer increase. Later, you will see health costs in there (which takes away some of your health to cast a spell). I never, ever increase a spell’s timer…I’m too impatient for that. Draining your sap increases your down-time to regenerate it, so whenever you can you should try to decrease your range only. It’s by far the easiest way to add credits to a spell with minimal negative effect on your level progression.

Choose “Credit Range 3 – Power 3”. Notice that on the far right it shows “-3”, just enough credit to offset your spell’s cost of 3.

At the top of the window, rename your spell. I use a very basic but easy to understand system:

A – Acid C – Cold R – Rot Db – Double c – Close Range
S – High Sap s – Low Sap r – Far Range H – High Health
h – Low health # - numbers represent spell level.

High and low versions of sap and health represent their costs. If something has a high sap cost to cast, I’ll put an upper case S in the spell name.

For this spell, I would name it “A1c” meaning “Acid 1 Close Range. You can do this any way you want of course, but I came up with this system because no way would a spell named “Double Cold 4 High Sap Low Health Close Range” fit into the spell’s name.

Click “Learn The Action” at the bottom of the window to place this into your spell list.

Move the newly created acid up to replace the old version on your quick bar. Arrange your spells on the quick bar however it works best for you. I prefer to use the keys for spells as opposed to clicking on the icons, as the icons are small and easily missed at times. Personally, I remove the default attack action icon from the bar all-together. If you ever need to attack a creature with your fists, you can just double click it. Hopefully this guide will help you enough so that will never happen.

Once you have everything set, head on out to gain level 5 by using your Acid 1 and Root spells. Your acid spell still can be cast at range, it’s just a little less than it was before – so you can’t be terribly far away from your target if you want to nuke it. Start off with creatures that are close to the town’s edge, and if you need to you can run back to town and have the guards protect you.

Use your healing spell if you get hurt, and sit down to rest between battles to recover any sap or health loss. Make sure you quarter your targets to sell for cash later.

Once you attain level 5, head back to town for training. Find the Magician Trainer, then click again when you see the icon has “Develop Skills” on it. A list of skills that are currently available (based upon your level) pops up. There are spells, of course, but there are also choices to increase your Constitution (health), Metabolism (health regeneration), Intelligence (sap), Wisdom (sap regeneration) and other skills such as crafting and prospecting.

The first thing you need to get is the spell named “Cold Damage 1”. This gives you a spell similar to your Acid 1 spell but (of course) does cold damage instead. At the bottom of your window you see “Magic 40”... This is how many points you have to spend on items in this window. Cold Damage 1 costs 6 points, so you have enough to buy it. Click the spell, and then click “learn” on the window that pops up. This spell is now available in your spell list.

The other things you should spend points on now are Self Sap Gift 1 (a spell to rejuvenate some of your sap), Constitution Training 1 (increase your health by 50 points) and Intelligence Training 1 (increase your sap by 50 points). You’ll have 9 points left over, but you’re good to go for now.

Adjust your new Cold 1 spell the same way you did with the Acid 1 spell before – so that it requires no sap to cast. At the early levels there are only 3 versions of the types of damage your nukes can do – acid, cold and rot. Play with all 3 (once you have them) to figure out which mobs are less resistant to any of them. From my experience, acid works best on “furry critters”, cold works best on crabs and insect mobs, and rot works best on dangerous plants.

This concludes the walkthrough part of this guide, but there’s still more information you’ll need to understand as you gain higher levels. Here are some key items of note that will help you to level faster and have more fun (with less downtime!) than if you don’t use them:

Every time you gain a new spell, tweak it by editing it to have less range and as use as little sap or health costs as possible. You may also wish to create other versions of the same spell – like one with a long range for pulling mobs, for example.

As you progress, you’ll see credit items added to the skills available from your trainer. These increase what you already have available in your credit list when editing spells. The most important of these is the Range Credit – get them whenever you see them available. They will help you to remove or reduce sap, health and timer costs on your higher-level spells. You’ll probably never have a need (or desire) to get any of the timer increases, but you may find a need down the line for sap or health credit advances. Get these ONLY as you find a particular need for them – it’s the range credits that you want ASAP.

At higher levels you’ll see new spell effects available from your trainer. Bomb, spray and ricochet are examples of these. While fun to watch and interesting, they don’t play much of an important role – mostly they’re a cool way to “impress the noobs”. They can be useful, however, as group healing spells – but since their action cost (in the edit menu) is so expensive, it almost seems a waste. I suggest avoiding these until you simply have so many points you have nothing better to spend them on.

This is very important. You can make your heal and sap other spells with no costs at all. Use your editing tool to create them simply with a range credit equal to their cost. This way you can heal up your teammates (or simply be nice to others) without creating downtime for yourself. Two (or more) magicians in a group make downtime all but nonexistent. People will get used to standing near you so you don’t have to move around to top everyone off.

For your heal and sap self spells, I found it best to make your heal spell use straight sap as a cost, and to use your sap spell ALSO use sap. You will be able to heal your health up quickly, but your sap healing will come back a little slower (you’ll always gain sap with each casting, but since the gain is random, you may gain very little with some casts and a lot with others). Some people work back and forth with spells that use the opposite costs (a heal self that uses up sap and a sap self that uses up health). While this DOES work, you have to toggle back and forth between the two spells and by nature it’s impossible to heal both abilities all the way up to max. The way I do it works just as fast, has less (only one) spell switching and will get you up to max in both attributes without having to rest.

Create separate quick-bars for soloing and group hunting. Leave all of your most commonly used spells in the group on the top bar, so you can quickly hit the number keys for them instead of having to hit shift. Keep those top lines similar to each other so you’re less likely to hit the wrong buttons.

Get Stamina Gift 1 early on in your career. This may sound minor, but I’ve been in several large groups of mostly magicians where I was the only person able to heal stamina. Stamina’s important for your melee friends (keeps letting them use special actions to increase their damage output), but sometimes monsters cause stamina damage as well as health damage. Get at least the first version of the spell to help everyone out. Determine on your own the need for you to raise the skill higher.

Good luck with your Magician!

[kasumi2k]

http://sor.warcry.com/index.php/content/compendium/spells/index.php

New SoR - WARCRY Magic Inventory