Guide for Starting the Wizard

[limitedwhole]

The wizard is arguably the most powerful character in Dungeon Lords. While he cannot wear heavy armour, this is rather superficial compared to the raw killing power of his spells which will destroy vast fields of enemies before they can harm you. While the war witch uses more types of magic better and has access to heavy weaponry and heavy armour, she lacks mightily in the spell power deparment. understanding the wizard amounts to understanding how to fight with her and how to use the basic mechanics of dungeon lords to your advantage.

To begin with, in order to maximize you advancement points you should not invest in things unless they are a prerequisite for a class, until you have attained the maximum class learning bonuses. This requires you to play the character with a minimum number of skills while you advance you class. It is important to try and attain your advanced classes as soon as possible in order to start advancing skills. Since Intelligence is like a learning bonus for all skills, one should also raise their intelligence before raising skills. By doing these two things, we maximize our advancement point usage and will end up far more powerful than a character that simply advances skills haphazardly. If you are familiar with the RPG pretext that by hampering yourself of power early, you enhance your power later, this is true of dungeon lords.

We will be perusing the following line of class advancement in this order.
Mage, Adept, Enchantress, Sorcerer, Wizard

By choosing mage early, we gain access to a few low level offensive spells. Even without points in Arcane magic these spells will work. We will be able to enchant our weapon with ice in order to freeze enemies which is very helpful and we will be able to shoot a low damage ranged attack. Also adept is easily attained and does not force us to trade in a staff we will receive for a mage's guild quest in order to get mage status. He also has a bonus to learning Arcane magic. We will need to learn three ranks in order to achieve Enchantress class.

By taking Adept next, we receive a bonus to Celestial magic. This is will help us to more cheaply attain the three ranks needed for Enchantress. Adpet also will help us raise our armor and shield skills eventually although we are not interested in doing so until we have maintained master class.

Once we have the necessary requirements to achieve enchantress, we will get another bonus to Arcane Magic. This is very helpful for attaining the sorcerer class which requires 7 arcane magic. We will also receive another bonus to Celestial magic which we can use once we have attained master class to flesh out our character. This class also gives us a bonus to thief skills which will let us advance our thief skills much cheaper.

Sorcerer grants us bonuses to Arcane Magic, Nether Magic, and Magic Weapons. This will be very helpful to cheaply advance to Wizard.

Finally Wizard offers us bonuses to Arcane Magic, Nether Magic, MAgic Weaponry, Scribe, and Alchemy.

Race:
The female elf is the superior character for this build. She has an amazingly low cost to advance her intellience skill and DEX and AGI can be advanced in small amounts early very cheaply to help us fight in teh early dungeons. Primarily we will want to dump all our points in Intelligence early before even beginning on our skills as this will net far better returns over the course of the game. She also has good inate resists. While her STR and VIT are expensive to advance, we will only be advancing these skills to teh minimum nescessary for wizard class.

Early Heraldry:
Select the Astrologer Heraldry. The MAgician heraldry is better for our character but we can select this heraldry once we complete the initiation quest for the mage guild and there are no other good choices, while when we complete our initiation in the Temple guild, we will have the hieruphant as an option and will want to pick that.

Early Weaponry and arms:
Since the Fargrove dealers don't offerbasic clothing, if your clothes are about to be destroyed remove them, that way we can repair them once we get to fargrove. We do not want to put points in armor until much later.

You can reload the first chest that you come to to get a good weapon. I suggest the Elven Spear. It has a long range and once we have a good strength, the bonus to strike will cancel out the penalties for being unskilled. It also has a much higher damage than the goblin staff, and we will not be putting points into magic weapons to activate the sleep ability of teh goblin staff.

Use the goblin staff early though until you get your strength up. It can always be found on the goblin wizard in the shacks due east of your starting point.

We will also want a bow, a short bow will do fine. Typically a goblin will dorp oen of these for you.

Finally we will want a fast shortrange weapon for when we get swarmed and the enemies get in to close for out spear to be of much use. A shortsword dropped by a thief on switch will do.

You should reload the chest in the first shack in order to get a second cure poison potion. Being poisoned early is equal to death.

EArly:
Put all your starting points into INT.
Level up to lvl 5 or six if you can stomach it at one of the shacks. Put the difficulty on hard and encounters on frequent once you get to teh shacks and let them come to you. This is an excellent tplace to elarn how to fight. The length of your weapon will allow you to keep mobs at bay as long as you hold the door. You can strike through the walls of the shcak without getting hit, by using the superior length of a polearm or staff. Notice that when you move forawrd or backwards slightly your weapon has more range. The other strikes where you swing the staff sideways have less range. Practice using the long range poke strikes. You should be able to get allot of health potions and fill up your bag with good gear for sale here. Identifying your goods takes a few reloads but is worth it to make sure everything you picks up is ID'ed. You'll also be able to collect many nether kataals here, which can be mixed to make nether spells for use or in order to make money.

Go ahead and invest your early ponts into AGI and DEX to get them up to twenty. We will need this as a prerequisite for enchantress class and it will help you fight early on. It will also raise your strike and parry so that the penalties you get from not having skills don't matter much. Next you can raise you strength a bit to get more damage and reduce the penalty for the elven spear so that you can start using it. Do not raise it past 20 as that is a waste. You really don't need to raise it past the elven spear requirement at this point. You can put a few points in VIT as well for more HP. The remainder of your points should all go into INT. Do not put points into Honor. Quests will give you honor and if you need to raise your honor when getting your enchantress class you can do so then with saved points. Do not put any points into skills! Let your stats do the work and keep pumping INT. Once we have 20 STR, 20 AGI, 20 DEX, 20 VIT we have what we need stat wise for enchantress so don't put anymore points in. Just keep pumping INT. You should use this startegy at least until you get to fargorve. I put no points into skills until reaching fargrove. Even then, keep pumping INT. The only skills that are required for Enchantress are 3 Arcane Magic, 3 Celestial MAgic, 3 Nether Magic, and 3 Rune Magic. These are the only skills we will have wanted to purchase when we get enchantress! BE suren ot to purchase Celestial magic until after you have gotten the ADept class. Try to hold off purchasing these skills as long as possible. You want as many points in INT as possible before purchasing these skills. You can save up your points for quite a while with this build to make sure you have enough for the enchantress class.

You should repeat like formulas while advancing to Sorcerer and Wizard class. Buy as few skills as possible while pumping your INT. You will need to do a little hunting to make this build maximize it's effectiveness. When you receive wizard you want a massive INT, and as few skills purchased as possible. Once you have that start working your skills.

Whether to start working on theif skills after getting Enchantress is a question. You will recieve no further learning bonuses so they are as cheap as you will ever get learning bonus wise. However, you are better served spending those points on INT and the prereqs for your classes. While passing up early chests will make you a little poorer, it will not hurt you in the long run. Any items you would find in a chest early can be found just as well later on.

Hope you have enjoyed this guide.
Brian

[Claudius]

I appreciate the character idea and the guide. It inspired me to make a focus magic based character. The only problem is that I no longer have the patience to level up...as I have gotten dull from so many abilities on my other char.

Anyhow good idea and guide. I would like to see more guides to various classes with explanations how to play them and why they are fun or effective.

My one problem I have is with the early going. I may just be rusty or expecting too much but I am having hard time. You mention using the pole weapon (SPECIFICALLY). I waited untill I got elven war spear from the chest by the fire. Then I killed at the 2 huts and staked my claim. The problem with the elven war spear is that I have -7 proficiency. I can't hit anything with that (not to mention the speed penalty).

Maybe I am spoiled and can't play at beginning anymore? I don't know. I guess all that xp and stuff at moonbeast, ancients, and minotaurs can goto the head

claudius

[limitedwhole]

As for long term gear, I would invest in only light armor. MEdium offers poor returns for how much you would need to invest and would hamper our ability to develop our other magics. Low level rune and celestial spells can be used for further protection for when we get into melee.

good armour would be

Ninja's Black Belt OR Thieve's Belt OR Warder's Belt
Ninja Boots
Robes of Regeneration or Bladewitch Pro-Magic
Ninja Gloves
Kasa or Day, Dreams, Night, and Speed (Having all four and switching them depending upon the situation would be nice)
Ninja Pants
Druid or Naga Shoulders (pick whichever looks nicest)

For shields the light shields are rather weak. Goblin shield offers some protection and elevn wood shield is better shield wise but still simply. Onemight rather test the spell shields and not put any points in shield developement.

Upgrading to medium might be an idea in order to be able to interchange various protection shields and the Shield of Retribution. However, that is quite an investment and one could do the same thing with celestial and rune magic spells that are not of high level.

i am not sure what the best shield strategy is, but I will test. Most likely it will be just using a goblin shield early and accepting the -1 penalty, and using spells to enhance resistances and create a magic shield that can deflect damage.

For weapon, light weapons and light pole offer the best results. Whether we really need to invest in light pole is an open question as mainly you will not need to hit with your weapons just invoke and use charges. Plan on carrying around allot of wands and staves to use for charges. Depending upon what you select as your final weapon an investement into light pole might be worth it, but i am guessing the best bet is to invest no more than the seven minimum in light weapons for wizard is the way to go and to not put points into light pole.

Brian

[limitedwhole]

The following three light pole weapons make one want to consider developing light pole. One wonders whether they are worth it though as you could use them simply for their charges and then switch to another weapon. If anyone knows what level of light pole you need to use these weapons let me know.

Spear of the Magus: 6-18 dmg, Nether Volley 7/7, Nether Strike, Stun 30%

this looks to be the sickest weapon ever for a mage.

Dragon Staff: 7-12, Fire Charge 7/7, Firestrike

I would tend not to get Light pole for this and just use the charges and switch.

Rod of Divinity: 8-20, Lightning Charge, Runestrike, Pro vs. Shadow, Undead, Demon

Another good one to have light pole for, low charges but the pro versus baddies is great along with runestrike.

As for light weapons the following are interesting.
Crypt Dagger: 3-6 dmg, sleep 25%

What makes this interesting is its speed and close range. This would be good on switch if you get swarmed so have to switch from a long range pole style attack. It also has nice utility.

Diamond Light Crystal looks interesting, but not sure it would get used by endgame. Pro Undead, and Shadow, 5-9 dmg, rune strike, and Lightning 1/1. Like a mini rod of the divinity.

Necrotic Dagger, Elevn Night Dagger, Venom Dagger, and Winter Dagger all look like nice utility pieces that it might be good to have in your inventory.

All of the sceptre are woth having multiples if you can find them or they aren't quest rewards. Mainly they are used for their charges. Scepter of Shadows looks especially powerful with 30% paralyze.

Staff of the Grove looks sick. Summons Harrowbark on invoke and has 35% sleep. Excellent weapon.

Divine Kris balde could be useful when going up against lots of undead. 6-13 dmg and Pro undead.

The elven Sword of Speed looks like a good item for the inventory or switch giving you +100 Speed. Yes 100.

There are some other small blades that do simlilar things. Lot of utility in teh small blades. Good to have several around i think.

If anyone knows what level in Light Pole it takes to wield The Spear of the Magus or the Rod of Divinity, let me know please. The Spear of the Magus is sick. 30% Stun and Nether Volley 7/7... Between the Spear and the Rod, and several sceptres for charges and a few small blades for utility, you could have a nice little armory using only the light weapons. It might even be worth a little extra effort leveling up just to use the spear of teh magus.

Brian

[limitedwhole]

For trinkets, Band of the serpents, Dark Pact BRacelet, Fang and Claw, WArd of the Serpent, and Wings of night all have invokes and can be slipped on just to invoke. Unfortuantely most of the summons are low level. Brimgulder's Horn, Cerberus Band, and Talisman of Night look like teh best End game gear. Wars of the witch or others can be slipped on to enhance resists. A good stock pile of trinkets which you can slip on and off to suit you needs loosk best.

For rings, Bruning Ring, Colding Ring, Ring of Horror, Ring of Ruin, Ring of the Undead, Ruby Ring, and Fuming Ring all have invokes.

Ring of Protection obvioulsy looks nice (haven't got it yet) with Armor 10, Parry 10, and Pro all 100%.

The Elven Ring of Renewal can invoke restoration and has a whopping 30 regen bonus.

The warding ring can invoke sanctuary and has 10% Pr0 all.

Finally the vampire ring has Strike +5, Dmg 10%, Speed 100, and Regen 30.

Lots of resist rings to switch on and off as you please. With rings as with trinkets a tool kit approach seems best.

Ring of Protection, Elven Ring of Renewal, Vampire Ring, and WArding Ring look like the best end game gear. You could switch off the Warding ring for other invokes as needed.

[limitedwhole]

I appreciate the character idea and the guide. It inspired me to make a focus magic based character. The only problem is that I no longer have the patience to level up...as I have gotten dull from so many abilities on my other char.

Anyhow good idea and guide. I would like to see more guides to various classes with explanations how to play them and why they are fun or effective.

My one problem I have is with the early going. I may just be rusty or expecting too much but I am having hard time. You mention using the pole weapon (SPECIFICALLY). I waited untill I got elven war spear from the chest by the fire. Then I killed at the 2 huts and staked my claim. The problem with the elven war spear is that I have -7 proficiency. I can't hit anything with that (not to mention the speed penalty).

Maybe I am spoiled and can't play at beginning anymore? I don't know. I guess all that xp and stuff at moonbeast, ancients, and minotaurs can goto the head

claudius

Thanks for the reply Claudius. Leveling early does require at least anight's play which can be boring. If you get lucky though, giant spiders will invade teh place and you can get 800 Exp a pop, not mention some valuable kataals if you can get them form teh edge of the shack.

As for the elven spear...did you make sure it was elven and not the normal polearm? i don't remember what that starting penalty was for teh elven polearm, but once you put four points in STR ( ithink) the penalty goes down to -2. The weapon has +1 Strike however.

The elven polearm is the superior choice for going through the sewers and theatre I think as it can be used to hold a doorway and their are lots of them. When I get surrounded or caught in open areas, I swithc to a shortsword as it is a faster blade.

Also, if it gets dull, it is not nescessray to level up to 5 or 6. Four would probably be sufficient, but that would just mean more leveling up later. Really all you need to enter the sewers is 14 STR, 20 AGI, 20 DEX, and a crap load of INT.

[limitedwhole]

Ugh, vampire ring is only available with cabalist quest. Nix that. Too bad. Will have to check this gear agianst eth quets pages. haven't found most of it. My gear still sucks at this point.

[Claudius]

I reloaded the character and got the elven spear again. This time the penalty was -3 (with a fighter or adept..don't remember rather than -7 for mage). So I think I hit my first bug in my game or else I simple read a 3 as a 7 as unbelievable as that sounds.

I have a new theory for character building (initially). My new method is to NOT build intelligence first because it doesn't help me fight. I was dying too much. I DON'T raise the stats affected by intelligence (right side of screen )either. So I might have -2-3 penalty for equipment but at least I have 25 dexterity. This way I do fewer reloads. My plan is to get strength high enough to bash chests while keeping dex, agi, vit at around 17-25. Then I will enter the dungeon. I won't raise a single right side ability untill the two trolls and then I will pump intelligence as high as it will go. You don't need arcane magic for horn of galdryn dungeon so I will take xp and pump int in there to. Finally, I will kill the shade in Lake Lohr along with the mushroom men with lvl 1 arcane magic (guess I got to spend a point finally). That gives acess to the moonbeasts where you can raise int to as high as you have patience before building your char how you want.

ps. you can raise agi, vit, dex, str for same cost whether or not you have int as they are not a learned skill.

claudius

[limitedwhole]

Claudius, don't forget you can use scrolls rather than raise your arcane magic. The shade will go down with scrolls, the mushmen will go down with bow, and the theatre exit will be beaten by straffing arrows. While raising AGI, DEX, and VIT is fine, it will mean you must do leveling later as it nerfs several INT purchases. I plan on enetering the sewers on my restart with 14 STR, 14 VIT, 20 AGI, 20 DEX, and everything else in INT. This gives me a headstart of about 30 INT. That will results in a massive saving when i start raising my skills. The idea to to raise your vitals in order to get through the sewers easier and then level at the moonbeasts sounds intriguing. But that may be even more deadly than taking your chances with the goblins in eth sewers. With little or no magic, the moonbeasts will be hard. Goblins however go down easy with basic weaponry.

I found a target shield that has only a -1 penalty, and it is a nice addition. I think a thief dropped it. Remember if you are playing a female elf, STR is VERY expensive. That is why I plan on only raising it to 30 for the wizard class. Vitality is likewise and I plan on only raising it to 35 for teh wizard class. The wizard though hard to start really needs no more STR and VIT.

Finally, i am not certain, but it has been reported that bashing a chest lowers the quality of goods. This can be detrimental over the course of a game, when you need to get spellbook or scrolls or for reloading for a key item.

Thief skills can be supplimented with picklocks and there is a celestial spell that slows down time. I have not used it yet, but I saw in the forums that it slows down the locks so it is much easier to pick high level locks with a low score. It might be cheaper to put 8 points into each thieving skills with a learn bonus and high INT than to purchase 70 STR you don't need at a high cost.

[Claudius]

what did you mean when you said that having points in other stats will nerf intelligence purchase?

Does that mean that intelligence is cheaper to buy when you don't have other stats?

Or does that mean that raising other stats makes purchasing skills higher cost (opposite of intelligence).

I haven't noticed either, but I did wonder what you meant by nerf?

claudius

[limitedwhole]

what did you mean when you said that having points in other stats will nerf intelligence purchase?

Does that mean that intelligence is cheaper to buy when you don't have other stats?

Or does that mean that raising other stats makes purchasing skills higher cost (opposite of intelligence).

I haven't noticed either, but I did wonder what you meant by nerf?

claudius

No I meant neither of the two. What is meant was simply that with a female elf, every point you put into STR and VIT costs an early point in INT. When it comes time to start boosting your skills for pre reqs or after attaining a tier three class, a character which has 30 less INT will lose a bundle in advancement points. Here also, you are discouraged form putting more into INT as one has already started to pump skills, so when you get up to high levels your losing allot of AP on advancement.

[Claudius]

Oh I see. I kind of like it the way I am doing it as I hate to have to reload against goblins and skeletons What I did was raise int to 40 then put the rest into other stats and some basic skills (cheap and necessary ones). Then when I kill the ancients in the tribunal I pump everything into intelligence getting it above 80 and from there I just put points in whatever I want (with paying attention to learning bonus from classes etc).

claudius

[Planet_Guardian]

I don't know what you guys are deluding yourself with. The starting out of this game requires you play melee style...even for mage characters. It's best that you start out with an Adapt (never with a Mage as it does not get bonuses to Armor skills). You don't have enough spellbooks...AND YOU WON'T for quite awhile. It's best to get the Magician Heralrdy first at character creation. Then get the +5%Magic, +5%Spell Regen Heraldry in Fargrove...in order to boost your arcane spell damage. But, don't invest into Arcane Magic skill until you have 2nd tier classes, in order to save on those ADV points. (Just play melee...I know it kind of sucks...but, at least by swinging a weapon you get bonuses to your weapon skill...and it does a heck of a lot more damage than those wimpy low-level spells).

Even if you had no bonuses to Armor...its not exspensive to raise Medium Armor up to level 7. I'll tell you what's expensive, raising a skill (critical strike Lv14-Lv15), one level, from 18,000,000ADV to 36,000,000ADV.

Melee is the only way to survive in the beginning of the game.
Using bows will not save you. Even a Rangerlord with the +25%Damage/+25%Faster Attack Speed with the best bow in the game...does not deal that much damage...and by all means it does not have AoE (Area of Effect).

Pump points into Dexterity and Agility up to 60 at least by level 8. Some Vitality...20-30 by level 8. Strength could stand to get up to 40-45 by level 8...just so you can add 1-4 extra damage on each of your weapon swings. Intelligence I start raising to 30-35 after defeating the First Troll in the Fargrove theatre. After beating the 2nd troll, Int goes to 40-45.

By choosing Adapt first, you probably can wear chain armor by now (Med. Armor levels 4-5). It's not expensive. *Just think Moonbeasts, Minotaurs, Iceworms, Borloths, Red Worms, Urgoth/Wylvan/Zaur Rebels, and those green things that look like Marbols from Final Fantasy games. It all equals mucho ADV/EXP.*

Once my Elf_Female_Mage/Adapt/Enchantress/Sorceror got to level 14...and I had a healthy bunch of spell books...and Arcane Magic was at level 10...pretty much anything went down with one or two blast novas. At level 30, I just ended up quitting, as you pretty much can nova anything to death on one blast nova. But, building your character into a melee machine in the beginning of the game...is the only efficient way. Afterall, when you start to level on Moonbeast Island, you won't have the spellbooks, nor will you have enough magic power to take them down at your pitiful low levels. So, just save your ADV points...and try to get the Wizard class as soon as you can. I got my Wizard class, when my character was only on level 18. It's best to save on ADV points...so rush to get your 2nd/3rd tier classes...especially for the mage classes.

That's how you build a Female Elf_Adapt/Mage/Enchantress/Sorcerer/Wizard.


Planet_Guardian

[limitedwhole]

I don't know what you guys are deluding yourself with. The starting out of this game requires you play melee style...even for mage characters. It's best that you start out with an Adapt (never with a Mage as it does not get bonuses to Armor skills). You don't have enough spellbooks...AND YOU WON'T for quite awhile. It's best to get the Magician Heralrdy first at character creation. Then get the +5%Magic, +5%Spell Regen Heraldry in Fargrove...in order to boost your arcane spell damage. But, don't invest into Arcane Magic skill until you have 2nd tier classes, in order to save on those ADV points. (Just play melee...I know it kind of sucks...but, at least by swinging a weapon you get bonuses to your weapon skill...and it does a heck of a lot more damage than those wimpy low-level spells).

Even if you had no bonuses to Armor...its not exspensive to raise Medium Armor up to level 7. I'll tell you what's expensive, raising a skill (critical strike Lv14-Lv15), one level, from 18,000,000ADV to 36,000,000ADV.

Melee is the only way to survive in the beginning of the game.
Using bows will not save you. Even a Rangerlord with the +25%Damage/+25%Faster Attack Speed with the best bow in the game...does not deal that much damage...and by all means it does not have AoE (Area of Effect).

Pump points into Dexterity and Agility up to 60 at least by level 8. Some Vitality...20-30 by level 8. Strength could stand to get up to 40-45 by level 8...just so you can add 1-4 extra damage on each of your weapon swings. Intelligence I start raising to 30-35 after defeating the First Troll in the Fargrove theatre. After beating the 2nd troll, Int goes to 40-45.

By choosing Adapt first, you probably can wear chain armor by now (Med. Armor levels 4-5). It's not expensive. *Just think Moonbeasts, Minotaurs, Iceworms, Borloths, Red Worms, Urgoth/Wylvan/Zaur Rebels, and those green things that look like Marbols from Final Fantasy games. It all equals mucho ADV/EXP.*

Once my Elf_Female_Mage/Adapt/Enchantress/Sorceror got to level 14...and I had a healthy bunch of spell books...and Arcane Magic was at level 10...pretty much anything went down with one or two blast novas. At level 30, I just ended up quitting, as you pretty much can nova anything to death on one blast nova. But, building your character into a melee machine in the beginning of the game...is the only efficient way. Afterall, when you start to level on Moonbeast Island, you won't have the spellbooks, nor will you have enough magic power to take them down at your pitiful low levels. So, just save your ADV points...and try to get the Wizard class as soon as you can. I got my Wizard class, when my character was only on level 18. It's best to save on ADV points...so rush to get your 2nd/3rd tier classes...especially for the mage classes.

That's how you build a Female Elf_Adapt/Mage/Enchantress/Sorcerer/Wizard.


Planet_Guardian

I cannot agree with these suggestions. Pumping jank like Dex to higher than nescessary levels is ust bad. Obviously you have to melle till you get out of fargrove. But you don't need anything but the bare advancement in stats to do that. By following your suggestions planet guardian, a mage would end up with 5 levels less in arcane and spellfire.