I had maxed out my skills at 23 unless I added more MEM but I pretty much had the important stuff. It was time to start investing in skill boosts or phase increases. But first, we need to hit level LVL 5 for out new abilities and to get loot for some new gear. I started with 7 quests and had 1 down. My quest rewards were worth a total of 1 gold and 8 silver. So 108 silver. Seeing as my previous gear upgrade was worth 8 Silver I was ready to buy some fancy clothes and maybe some skill boosts from the mages guilds.

You can train, buy, or level your skills. Different skills each had a little upgrade tree. Training skills allowed you to slowly accumulate skill exp to buy improvements. Both money and skillpoints let you boost one particular aspect for a fixed price. Training had diminishing returns, as did money, but not points. Spending skill points to level skills was a linear increase. The problem was skill points had a lot of uses and you couldn't get them back. Training and skills points obviously sort of rose steady with your level. Gold was a bit of a wild card. Since you had so many options for gold use and there was a lot of variation in gold farming efficiency you could boost skills well beyond your level.

Training could be decoupled from levels a little bit by fighting monsters with limited exp values. Low level monsters with resistances to skill effects let you get skills much higher than naturally raising them as you leveled. However the time invested was significant and only players paid attention to levels. If you weren't involved in PVP or other player interaction over-clocking skills was a bit pointless.

In any case first I needed to farm that sweet, sweet gold. My next quest was against a draconic direwolf. This guy was a single beastly bossy fella. It was probably the single strongest enemy I'd faced but then I was sort of tilted towards one on one fights. Well I would be anyways. The difference was small now, but it would increase soon, as I entered higher Talent Phases.

I pushed over to the cave to throw down. Wolf dragon? Obviously had a cave. And luckily for me a hoard. A nice bonus.

Draconic Dire Wolf Level 10 400 EXP

HP 400

STR 25 DEX 25 CON 25

Skills: Flame Slash 100 | Toothy Maw 125

I actually lucked out quite a bit here. He was just short of one hitting me if he got into melee range. Now my major issue here was simple. I had plenty of single target disable. But he had 400 health. I had to be very mana efficient to win.

I opened up as always with Quicken and Boost. Then I followed up with Stagnation, my first time using it. The wolf was fast but Stagnation was a 50% debuff. With all my bonuses in play it triggered for 16.8 seconds. I'm glad I took this because it was going to last the whole fight if I had my way. My obvious next move was Envenom, for 12 seconds and 14 DPS. However, That was 40 + 70 + 44 mana and I had only account for a third of his health. Also boost was gone. I immediately triggered Worldstep as the wolf had started approaching during my Envenom cast.

As soon as he arrived I was back at max range. But I realized that if I was just kiting my range was weak. I cast Reach so I could actually hit. Then I had to step again. Followup since Worldstep didn't need reach. I now had 2 spell casts before I had to Worldstep.

This was a good time to drop Infect and Fester as a combo. Not only did I drop his STR for lower damage, though it wouldn't save me from being 2 shot, but his DEX with slowed him down again. Then it was time for Worldstep. This was my last caste under Quicken so time for Splash before it becomes a 2s Cast spell.

Now for the math. 168 damage from Envenom, 160 from Infect/Fester. Fester was actually a bit of a misfire, it could hit 3 targets so it cost the same as Infect without stat damage but it dealt the same direct damage. Regardles, 40 more from Splash. We now had 368 damage. Or we would when the dots finished. That was also 40 + 70 + 44 + 20 + 25 + 25 + 20 + 25 = 269 mana.

I had 104 mana left and I need to wait out 8 seconds. Less if I did some more damage. All my spells were on full cast though and Reach exhausted on Splash. I probably needed to wait out at least the 3 seconds of splash. Then I'd have 5 more seconds to wait plus I needed to deal 40 more damage. I actually needed 8 more seconds for Envenom, too. That means I'm waiting on 60 damage in the last 2 seconds. Basically no way I can skip those while also cast Worldstep.

I cast Fireblast followed by Worldstep which is 3/8 seconds. I take a hit from Flame Slash but Concentration lets me keep casting. Then I drop Lockdown to run out the timer. It costs me pretty much all of my mana. You forgot I had Concentration didn't you?

In any case I am looking at 400 * 1.6(level difference modifier) = 640 exp. Quite a big chunk on the way to 1600 putting me at 688/1600 exp. I finally end up with enough exp to improve Boost and Quicken. Boost now adds a 60% bonus to the primary spell component, modified by 50% from Highmage to equal 90%.

Boost now increases the spell cost to 1.85x. I know this seems like a small boost but it increases the efficiency of the effect/mana ratio due to Highmage and as an ancillary effect you technically increase your effect/cast time as well since your spells do more but both boost and the enhanced spell have the same casting time.

For Quicken I boost the duration. Quicken lasted 8 seconds and it nows lasts 12.5% longer but costs 12.5% more. That's 8 seconds to 9 and 40 mana to 45. This has a similar cast time per effect increase but thanks to Spellsage I get my spell to last 2.5% longer for no mana increase and again cast time doesn't change. All of these small effects will build up over time until I become incredibly powerful as a mage. Its also relevant to remember that Quicken has a cast time boost which means I get even more synergy. And this is all in the first Phase of my Talents.

A magic user with a more standard Template would be much weaker all other things equal. Of course in practical terms that just means grinding more so their level is more consistent with their activities. We might say that I get 25% more exp on average which sort of snowballs compared to Extraordinary or Uncommon classes. I later learned that some Unique and even Legendary classes were even better at this than me, mainly do to builds that start snowballing earlier. However its sort of a diminishing returns things. As time went on I started to get back ahead of these players. However the beta ended before I really and truly gained god like power, and my build was heavily nerfed for the live servers for obvious reasons.

Now normally I don't discuss my vendor trash with you but I believe I mentioned that this scaly doggy had a bit of a hoard. I picked up 49 silver, I mean its a draconic but its not a dragon afterall, as well as a circlet of thought. The AI controlling the game wasn't sentient like they are these days but it did sort of fiddle the loot based on your character. The circlet was mid tier relative to the monster so it was probably a high tier melee weapon before the reroll.

I should mention that the scaly doggy was getting close to having enough magical stats to start impacting my spells, so we'll see a fight where the raw HP doesn't tell the whole story pretty soon. In any case my Circlet of Thought was enchanted with +7 INT and +4 WIS and +3 CHA. Not bad. Notably this boosts my my mana recovery from 7 to ~8 and my manapool will now gain +7 more mana per level. Also INT handles offensive spell stuff so that's always nice and it boosts some social and lore actions. +3 CHA is mostly a benefit for dealing with sentients. We'll be there but not for a couple weeks.

Once I was recharged I headed out to my next quest. I had 5 to go and cleared 2 no trouble. +vendor trash/gold and +412 exp leaving me at 1100/1600. My next quest was tough. The major issue was that while dire bears are down around level 7 there were 3 of them. Stagnation and some other single target spells were a bit iffy here. And until I boosted Miasma and Pyromancy my raw AOE damage was not great. Level 8 please get here soon. Level 8 didn't do anything special per say but that was 12 skill points, which meant I'd break into another Phase for one of my talents if I focused on that goal.

Dire Bear Level 7 120 EXP

HP 200

STR 25 DEX 15 CON 20

Skills: Heavy Slash 50 | Fierce Bite 80

The unfortunate thing about my bear buddies was there were a bit spread out. I couldn't hit them all with Lockdown at once. My DoT damage kinda relied on Lockdown in a way so that was a big problem. Still we are gonna go back to basics. This would be easy if we had the mana for a smoke/copy trick but 600 HP is pretty beefy and we already ran out of mana taking down 400 health last time. Boost followed by Quicken is the obvious move here, this is gonna be a long fight. The next play is still Envenom. Can't top the classics.

Quicken now runs for 20.5 seconds at a cost of 83 mana. Ouch. I've only got 373. Of course over 20 seconds I recover 160 so we'll see how that goes. Lucky little me my bear bros all converge on their charge which means in the one second I have to cast I can now lock them down with Lockdown. Of course this is now a 4.8 second spell for 40 mana since I blew through Boost already. I've spent 83 + 40 + 44 mana so I'm down to 206. I'll add up my mana recovery once I actually run low for you guys.

I take this moment to drop Boost yet again. Boost is a 2 second spell with no cost which means you want to cast it under Haste once you are actually in the middle of combat rather then doing prep. You save that 1 second and you give your mana time to recover. Now is a great time to cast Splash. 46 mana with a 25 damage hit and a 4 second, boosted by Spellsage, 5dps DoT. However with that increased mana cost from Boost comes a damage buff going from 45 to 85 and its AOE.

Unlike Fireball Splash covers the same 8ft diameter AoE as Lockdown. 255 damage for 46 mana, once the DoT finished. Amazing. Faster cast time as well. Fireball does catch up a bit later as it improves as a spell. But Spellsage really gives a buff to Splash.

160 mana left. We've sort of dealth 423 damage if the DoTs all finish. Unfortunately we can't cast Splash again for 4 seconds unless we want to waste the DoT. Boost is up for one more spell so its time for another trick. Boost does not effect Metamagic spells. In fact Metamagic spells all ignore each other. Probably for the best or stuff would get really wild. I cast Twin followed by Envenom. Now all 3 bears are under Boosted Envenom. Of course the new guys have 12 second cooldowns.

I had 4.8 seconds on Lockdown and I cast 4 spells so one more before they can all come right for me. I just blew though 116 mana. 44 to go. Now all my enemies are going to die as soon as these dots time out. 85+168 = 253. Well above their health. In fact we can skip the last 3, almost 4 but not quite, seconds. That leaves me with 9 to go.

Now we have been recovering mana at 8 a second for 7 seconds. Damn was the time that short? God bless Haste. So we really have 100 mana. What does that mean? Double Lockdown! That's 9.6 seconds. I end up picking up 468 EXP, which is just short of a level. Too bad these bears weren't up another level. I'm now sitting at 1568/1600 EXP.

I clean up the last two quests and head out, having hit the level threshold.

+432exp (2000/1600) (400/3200) Lvl Up!!!

You have gained 10HP, 21MP, and 2 stat points!

You have gained 2 skill points + 1 magic point + 2 Ability Points!

I made a commitment to increase a Talent by 1 Phase. Pyromancy is a level 3 Talent which means it costs 5 points to raise. I kick in 3 points and move on. Each Tier of Talent costs 2 more than the previous tier while Tier 4 starts at 3. I've got 3 Tier 3s, no Tier 4s, 4 Tier 1s and a Tier 2. Miasma was mis-tiered IMO and the devs agreed and raised it to Tier 2 in the live version of the game.

I end up Phasing Miasma next and then Tarnishing but we are a ways from that. I'm super excited for my 1 Phase 2 Pyromancy spell next level. Phase Change also boosts lower tier spells about half a Tier so that will be nice for Pyromancy. Miasma really takes off for obvious reasons. Phase 2 is a bit less of a boost for Miasma than Pyromancy but its already mis-tiered so still worth it.

Now we get to my ability points. Unfortunately you can only take Archetype and Basic Abilities after level 0 unless otherwise states. Some special rewards in the game may allow you to go back but its not common. You can refer back to Chapter 1 for the Abilities list but I'm only going to mention the ones I ended up picking here.

There are some tough choices even among the basic abilities, especially for a solo players. In the end I take Persuasive and Perception. I thought about Identify or Arcana but I don't expect to find super awesome item loot before level 10 or encounter too much in the way of magical stuff. I know I'm a super mage but the world gen and the AI aren't that sophisticated. They didn't appear to drop me into anywhere amazing. I later learn this was a correct guess, I was spawned far from the sort of Ancient Magical Empire areas. Persuasive does me a ton of good while Perception doesn't take off till I get an "inquisitive class" as rogue/ranger archetypes are sometimes called.

I'm headed back to the city with some sweet loot and cash to burn and I'm ready to move a bit beyond repetitive killing, so my Circlet CHA bonus, plus Persuasive, plus Charm are going to pay dividends. Almost a month has gone by so things are starting to take off. As a note for the reader every 3-4 blog entries will account for about a month with later months maybe popping up to 5 or so because things get more active then.

Entries will probably be longer, too. City time.