The warcaster in Alter Aeon

Note:
I use a lot of game terms. I suggest you are somewhat familiar with the game before reading this.

What is a warcaster?
A warcaster, by my definition, is a powerful mage who can handle soloing very well.
This often means being a mage warrior, or mage thief, but it doesn't necessarily have to be so. As I said, it is a master of the elements who can handle a lot of things.

What are the benefits of a warcaster?
As I previously stated, a warcaster is an exceptionally good mage, meaning that if something goes down, she will probably be one of the survivors. A pure blaster mage, such as mage cleric or necro mage, will usually have poor hitpoints. This is of course depending on level, a level 32 mage and level 25 warrior is most likely having slightly lower hp than a level 36 mage, and only level 20 warrior, but which have higher levels all over. Then again, it comes down to what equipment you're wearing.
I'm providing this guide seen from my viewpoint and current understanding of the game, and things might change in the future, making this article irrelevant.
I will try to make this article from how I made Elvina, my warcaster, and how I plan to make her in the future --- even more awesome than she already is, and you can join the party if you're willing to spend the time on it.

Disclaimer: a good warcaster is hard to get up and running, but it is an interesting and powerful alternative to the other solo combinations.

The beginning, what happens?

If you've played other characters in Alter Aeon, you know the basics of running forward, doing quests, and warcasters are no different. You should learn some basic elemental damage spells, and monster lore, but try to save your practices.
Actually, I take that back, do not save them. Spend them wisely … on stats.

An example pulled from Elvinas adventures:
You fail to cast the spell …
You fail to cast the spell "fireball"
You conjure and throw a bright red fireball at the Headmaster!
The headmaster's punch *** devastates *** you!
You fail to cast the spell …
You conjure and throw a bright red fireball at the headmaster!
His punch massacres you!

I didn't put many practices into fireball, only one or two, but now I think I'm very good at it, but I don't use it often. (reminds me, I need to use greater fireball more).
This led to a few deaths because I couldn't kill my enemies fast enough, but eventually I become good enough at it that it was no longer an issue.
However what I sacrificed in fireball, I spent on stats.
I have my constitution at 26, and intelligence at 25, however I need to get wisdom up, it's only 23.
Dex is also another important factor, my dex right now is 20. Strength, as I plan to be able to hit soon, is not as important. Get it to 16 or something if you don't feel like hitting, and instead focus on charisma.
Charisma is so overlooked, but I find it very important for a mage to be able to make the first move on the enemy, or actually, choose to not engage if it she so desires.

I created Elvina for pk purposes, but I find I don't pk with her all that much, however that isn't to say she can't do it.
It is all dependent on the mob or player, but the most powerful move I have right now is hand spell charge, which deals charge damage, as well as high zap, fire, and a little poison damage. I charge with sickening touch too, but I'm low level necromancer, so I don't deal much damage.

Equipment:

Eventually, I want to get a whole bunch of equipment sets, but these are what I have in my eqset list right now:
magemana: a magecast set maxing out magecast, and mana. It does not focus on regen at all.
Note: I am going to make a mageregen set, for magecast with regen. Right now I have some regen pieces instead of mana pieces in my cast set.
regen at all, it is for long bursts of blasting.
Mageregen is useful for killing mobs fast, or when it's dangerous to switch sets. A perfect example here is the hobgoblin mound on Archais, where the amount of enemies are overwhelming, and if I use regen, my spells aren't that powerful, and if I go into magemana, my mana will run out eventually and I will be swarmed. Mageregen here.
Pk: if you're not into pk, you don't need this. It consists of a lot of randoms, and while I'm not casting at highest castlevel, I have many different saves, and can stand my ground against other player's attacks.
Regen: a perfect regen set has good manaregen, and does not pull too much from your hp regen. Aside from the obvious, regen should also have as much mana as possible, so that you don't have to switch into magemana and still have to regenerate 50 more mana, like I do. Also, keep in mind, a mana regen piece with mana regen 3.0 might actually be better than mana regen 4.0. In your regen, your int and wis should be as high as possible. Try to wear different pieces if you aren't sure, then check your regen and mana, and decide what's best for you.

As a general tip for all classes: always try to look for new and good equipment, even if you can't use something you find, keep it. Either you sell it to someone who wants it, or you become high enough level to use it.

One last thing:
Tricky decisions.
I illustrate a situation with a fictional example:
You just found an exceptional random, and you get the achievement reward. With thumbs crossed, you identify it, and see that "holy shit, it is just what I need!".
You have found a random with magecast, onbody, 12 AC and con by 2.
Aside from walking over to your dog and pulling him in the ear "you furry bastard, you aren't as awesome as me", you now unwear that level 5 newbie equipment with 10 mana and magecast, and replace it with this super cool piece.
Gandor appreciates your sacrifice of a flaming cloak for flaming newbies.
You just made a bad choice. You should have kept that other piece. Why? Because you don't always need the extra armor and hitpoints. In well run groups, where you are safe to blast, wouldn't 10 more mana be more useful?
I could pull 200 random cases out of my ass, but I won't. I am just saying that most situations require some sorta eq for optimal experience.

Skills and spells:

We've covered stats, and shown you the importance of having good stats.
As a side note, Elvina is going to take a break in leveling when she reaches 100 total top four levels, and train a lot of practices.
Why? Well first there's my pride, I just can't stand being a tot 105 and not being able to solo things a tot 105 solos.
But enough about stats and looking awesome, now it's time to look awesome in another way.

I have said a few times before that lots of situations requires different methods to deal with them. This includes wearing fire save gear when dealing with a mob that deals fire damage.
This is assuming, of course, that you are high enough level, as a lot of these spells and skills is not only mage, but warrior, thief, and cleric as well.

Before I start with the list, a few things in mind:
A lot of spells can be cast using scrolls or wands, or by wearing equipment with spells on them. Similarly, they can be brewed using the brew potion skills.
I have considered for a long time to learn brewing, but I haven't done so yet. I don't have the patience enough to track down all the spell components needed for brews. I know a few players, particularly Sneaky from what I've seen, that I have given the nickname brewmaster.
Every time I grouped with Sneaky (a player name, so not referring to a thief), he brews and hands out healing and sanctuary potions, and he uses it all the time.
However keep in mind, you can brew powerful things which you can't get elsewhere, such as regeneration and enhancement.

Secondly, you decide if a situation is absolutely required to have a skill or spell. It is a balance between convenience. For example, if you hardly ever run underwater ruins, you can be satisfied with using water breathing potions or gear, but if you often run areas underwater, you might want to consider getting water breathing.
The same applies for protection from evil, if you often run areas with evil mobs, it might be worth learning.
However! The reason I provide this list is to show some of the most common cases in the game.
Without any further gibberish, here we go:

High end elemental damage:
For a mage, I'd be laughing my ass off if you told me you never learned different elemental spells.
In the end, the high end elemental spells are (not counting minion spells):
Firefield, greater fireball, fireweb
Ball lightning, chain lightning
Cone of cold, frost bite, icebolt

Crystal damage:
Shard storm is, in a lot of cases, a very, very powerful spell. My only problem with it is that it is an area spell, but you can use the low level shard spell, but with less effect, for one target. Shard storm works very well on large targets with little Armor and low normsave.
I personally don't use crystal spear, but you are sadly required to learn it in order to learn shard storm.

Parry and dodge:
Learn it as soon as you can, and put as much practices into it as you can. Having high dexterity will help the parry and dodge effect.
Parry and dodge is crucial for a mage who is supposed to tank all the mobs when soloing.

Sanctuary:
Also an important spell, this will greatly reduce physical damage, and while it might not be necessary to have it up all the time, it is a key to running mobs that hit hard.

Elemental shields:
If I'd have to pick two shields to start with, it'd be ground and ice shield. Many mobs can throw fireballs, and other things. Again, it is not needed all the time, but ice shield and fire shield has a second effect, and that is that they can deal elemental damage to a mob, every time a mob hits, it can stun it for a very short time. Of course, it won't stun it all the time.
I chose ground because it's very good to have up when you cast chain lightning, as you won't take as much damage from the lose bolts.

Crystal coat:
A short lasting spell, but this gives some protection from normal damage, in other words it will add to your normsave, and most mobs do some kind of normal damage. The normsave does not work against mobs that do nonorm damage, usually etherial.
Furthermore, it gives you some elemental save in each category.

Protection from evil
A lot of places have evil mobs, and in those cases, protection from evil is extremely helpful.

Remove poison
You might consider getting slow poison later on, but for now the mmost important thing is to get rid of any poison you might get. Poison is extremely dragging on mages, it reduces all kinds of regens, and it is important for a mage (and any class really) to have good regeneration all the time.

Okay here are a few skills. Note that there are far more spells that can be useful, but it depends on how you feel. Prioritizing can be hard.

Increased stamina and armored skin
To learn armored skin, you need to learn increased stamina and second wind. Unless you're planning on hitting, don't put a lot of practices on these, just enough so that you can learn armored skin, and when you do, max it!!!
I recommend you not spend any combat points you gain until now, and now push as many you can into armored skin.
Armored skin can give you up to 15% normsave, all the time, as well as some breathsave. The skill is used passively.

Defensive fighting
Defensive fighting is a key to soloing harder mobs, when using store power. It will increase your dodge and parry a lot.
Another useful situation is in groups, where you are a blaster. You go nomelee or nocombat, and before the tank can rescue you, you won't take many hits (or none at all). Since you are nocombat, as soon as the tank has engaged the mob, you are free to blast away without your defensive fighting hindering your cast success.

Sneak
Sneak, just like parry and dodge and groupcasting and other fun things like that, requires many practices to max. But when you do, and you are sneaking, you will be a lot less attacked.
You could say it works in conjunction with charisma, but it does not. Some mobs will attack players even with high charisma, but have a bad spot check and won't notice sneaking players. And the opposite. Or a combination of both.
There is a fine article on the Alter Aeon website detailing the art of sneaking. You may find the results unsatisfying even if you learn sneak, as there are many factors envolved.

Hide:
Why hide like a coward? It is for regen my friend, all for regen. Hiding and regenerating may work well, depending on how well you hide, and the mobs of course.

In combination with sneak, charisma, and hide it might be worth learning infravision, darken, and presence

Okay I think I will end the list just about here.
I can mention remove curse, valor, faerie fire, channelcasting, and more, but I am not going to. Most of the spells in the game, and skills as well, is useful if used properly. What I have listed here is the spells and skills I use on a regular bases. It might not be how you prefer to play the game, or might not work for the cases you encounter. It is just something to consider.

Summary

This article was hastely thrown together, mostly out of bordom and because I am bored, well I was bored, but I am still writing this and it feels weird for me writing verbs in passed when I talk about the future, and the future is you, reading this.

There are many ways to play the game, and here I have outlined one possible way of doing it.
I have used the word warcaster to describe my character, but it is a lose term. Fehlan once said in a youtube video that he prefered to play more like a mage even though his main class was a thief.
There are hybrids all over, but remember, if you stay and play long enough, you will be able to blast, hit, tank, heal, curse, steal, and backstab. That's the good thing with a multi class system.

As a final word, the goal of Alter Aeon is your own, weather that be having fun, or feeling super powerful, or to enjoy the extremely built areas, and the fast addition of new areas, I should say.
Even though the gods of Alter Aeon might not read this, I still thank them for the hard work they have done.
I won't even pretend I like Morpheus as the person in the game, however that does not mean I do not respect him.
The same applies for many players, you don't have to like them all, but respect them, for without the players, there would be no gods, and without no gods there would be no game.

So now that my philosophy talk is over, I will say that this article might be missing key points. If you have suggestions for improvements or additional information, or heck if you want to talk and have a good time, I am available through several methods:
Skype: andreas.andersson1996
E-mail: [email protected]
Audiogames.net forum name: thetruegamer
You can also send me a tell or mudmail in Alter Aeon. I have a lot of chars, and am experimenting with a lot of things, but here on, I declare Elvina my main. If she is not on, mudmail her and it might take a while for me to respond, because of technical issues, or anything else, but I will respond.
I will gladly help out and talk, and do what I can as long as I don't find it annoying.
Sadly, lately I've had a bad temprament, but it is rare I go off mad on someone if I don't know them.
I'll try to calm myself, please give me training in that. Haha.

Hope you have fun as a warcaster!