An excellent choice! Welcome to wizardry.

There's a lot of ground that could be covered, but a great starting point is the following link:

https://gswiki.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/A_beginner%27s_guide_to_playing_a_wizard

There are other, more advanced guides available on the GSWiki, as well. I'd encourage you to read the beginner's guide, then perhaps scan a few others (Whirlin's Guide is pretty good for more advanced topics, the beginner's guide to combat can help orient you to what you're seeing when you're fighting, etc.)

These guides will answer most questions - but possibly generate others. Drop on back by with more questions - there's a cabal of wizards that are more than happy to answer even the most esoteric of questions.

Hope to see you in the lands, soon!

Doug

A great question - and one that the wizard guide doesn't really speak to very well.

The short answer is no - you do not need to learn any weapon / shield skills if you don't wish to. You can focus purely on magical skills to increase your defenses while using a runestaff. Here's another link that helps explain the behind-the-scene mechanics, but the bottom line is simple: Train magical skills, and your defenses with the runestaff improve.

https://gswiki.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Runestaff

Pay particular attention to the Training subsection.

Doug

Holding a long staff in your hand makes a wizard. Just look at Gandolf the Gray and White. He used a runestaff and hand-and-half sword.. at the same time. So go for it. Be a pure and train in 2 handers and two weapon combat! Come on. Do it..Do it... Doooo itt.

Lady Nairena
Air Mage of Ta'Vaalor
Proud Member of the Eahnor Assembly

<<One thing I don't see in any of those guides is that a pure wizard will want to over train his 500's circle for really good leech CS. You can easily get 3 spell ranks a level. I'm shooting for 538 / 908 / 425 at level 25

...I just noticed with that set up you're missing out on two major DS spells for Wizards, 913 and 911. But sometimes at those levels you might not need them.


~Aulis
Forums Manager
QC'er

I don't necessarily recommend doing this, but if you wanted to tank 900s early on you could easily afford to do so. The wizard circle accounts for a large portion of wizard defenses later on, but the benefits are almost entirely rank-based. At 100 ranks you gain about 125 DS just from 905 and 913, but at level 13 you gain only 17 DS (plus some bolt DS/ETD). You can afford to do without these spells, and blur can be cast by others. A cast or two of an out of circle spell would cover the difference.

The rest of the low 900s circle consists mostly of your staple bolt spells. However, most of these are too expensive for practical use at the low end. So you could afford to do without most of them as well. You could get away with only going up to 903 at first. Maybe 904. You aren't likely to be able to afford regular use of anything higher than that for some time.

This would basically allow you to keep 400s/500s at level just training 2x. At that point you have points to spare. I'm not really convinced overtraining in 500s is a good investment just to boost mana leech CS, but certainly if you have no other priorities that take precedent you might as well. I don't see any major drawbacks to this strategy. No matter what you do you'll eventually catch up on those 900s anyway.

~Taverkin

>>I disagree, Doug.

Ayep - possibly the last one in the lands, I am. Heh. I'm not saying 'don't share' on the information, I'm simply saying a 'guide' generally isn't the place I'd put it. But - guide is used by way too many people way too differently for a good agreement.

For example, there's a pure mage article that I've been considering expanding with a lot of information about various subtleties in training paths. There's a war-mage article that really needs the same treatment. But - the one I'm most interested in working on is the Magus (called charger mage previously) article.

At any rate - I would have the information out there, too. I would hope people would read / ask questions. I would hope people would add their direct experiences and observations. What I wouldn't do is strive to put all the answers in one location and call it 'guide'.

>>There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. ;)

I must be waiting for my next life, then. Who knows? ;)

Doug

<<...I just noticed with that set up you're missing out on two major DS spells for Wizards, 913 and 911. But sometimes at those levels you might not need them.>>

this. 913 is a much better stopping point IMO. I'll take what, 20 dodge ranks + 1 DS from 905 scaling + 10 ds + 20 ETD? Over .75*5 = 3.75 CS.

As long as your MjE is = level you shouldn't have trouble leeching really.

Where are these guides located?

"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"
"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."