GameBanshee Forums

I was referring the hardware settings of the monitor. Changing the monitor's aspect ratio shouldn't affect your desktop or resolution at all because it is a hardware setting of the monitor itself, like brightness, contrast, etc. On my monitor, the setting is called "Wide Mode" and I change it to "4:3" for old games, and "Fill" for everything else. Every widescreen monitor/TV I've used has a setting like this. Your monitor might even be able to switch the widescreen setting automatically if it detects a 4:3 picture (1:1 pixel mode).

I found the hardware settings, but I only get to choose between "Full" and "Aspect." I can't select a particular aspect ratio...

I assume that "Aspect" is the 1:1 pixel mode, i.e. the monitor will change the aspect ratio to 4:3 automatically when it detects a 4:3 picture and to 16:10 automatically when it detects a 16:10 picture.

See? No mods or windowed mode needed. You're lucky because I always have to change it manually...

Wow... This is outright brilliant. Thanks, thanks and thank you!

EDIT: I thought you could buy Ice Shards and Jump and Meditation in Mist? Am I mistaken? The Grayface patch readme doesn't mention it, so I take it the patch didn't change that?

Mist only sells level 2 spells. I know that Meditation is a level 2 spellbook, but Jump and Ice Blast are in the level 3-4 range. The most reasonable place to travel to in order to get those spells would be Free Haven. There are other places that also sell those spells, but there are fairly high level monsters in those places.

I meant Meditation as in the Skill, not the spell. I guess I'll check Free Haven then. Thanks.

Mist elemental magic guild sell spells 1-7. Jump and Ice Blast are 8 and 11 respectively, if I not mistaken (I don't remember exactly).

As for meditation, only the Self magic guilds offer that. These are located in Castle Ironfist and New Sorpigal. I recommend New Sorpigal for as much skills and magic as possilbe, that's where it is cheapest.

The Elemental magic guilds only offer the Learning skill, which all characters should get ASAP.

I would avoid Free Haven magic guilds for now because they are expensive. The only thing you should buy from the Free Haven guilds are the spells 8-12, and possibly 5-12 for Earth, since the Earth guild is located way out in Silver Cove.

The high level spell I recommend getting early is Meteor Shower (plus Expert level Fire Magic). The best spell in the game, imo. Set Meteor Shower as the quickspell, place the cursor on an enemy in the middle of a large powerful group, and then press 'S', and watch them all get owned. Same goes for Starburst.

I never use Ice Blast much, never found it useful.

Thanks for the hints. I used Ice Blast/Ice Shards? as an indoor AoE spell.

Indoors, I prefer Fireball and Rock Blast over Ice Blast.

Fireball's a staple spell, cheap, a lot of damage.

Rock Blast is physical and has an even larger radius than Fireball (both a blessing and a curse), and the damage is higher too. Plus you can bounce it off walls, so the enemies don't have to be in the line of sight, just fire it blindly around a corner. Rock Blast takes a look of practice to use though, especially outside, because it just shoots straight forward, and it is affected by gravity. So you have to aim it properly with your party view (left arrow, right arrow, pg up, pg down). Once you know how to use it, it does a crazy amount of damage.

Of course, you must use Ring of Fire if enemies get too close.

Sparks is another great spell in narrow corridors against at close range.

I never found Ice Blast to work the way it's supposed to. The smaller shards rarely ever hit anything... it's too expensive for so little damage. I think it's useless but maybe it's just me.

I have to agree in regards to Ice Blast, it's too expensive for spell points and the damage is not good in comparison to other spell options.

Thanks, I never really considered Rock Blast a valid spell. I had too many "accidents" with it. Great tip!