UOTH - Magery Skill

Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul,
delight the heart. And they both take practice.

In my humble opinion, magery is without contest one of the most essential skills in this game. Whether as a means of combat, healing, transportation, resurrection, etc.

To profit from the full power of Magery, there are 4 other skills you should have on a pure mage: Meditation (to increase the speed of your mana regeneration), Evaluate Intelligence (to increase the damage you inflict to your opponent whether player or monster when casting offensive spells), Wrestling (to reduce the chance of an aggressor disturbing your concentration while attempting to cast a spell) and Magic Resist (to limit or avoid the potential effects of debuff spells such as weaken, mana vampire, curse, paralyse, etc.)

There is a total of 64 different spells organized in 8 circles. In order to cast any of those spells, you either need a scroll for that specific spell or a spellbook containing that spell. A full spellbook will therefore have 64 spells. If not, you can complete it by dropping on the book a scroll of the missing spell. Most of the lower circles can be bought from NPC mages, others, up to the 7th Circle can be found as monster loot, or in treasure chests. Level 8 spells can be found on Meer Eternals (among others) but are generally scribed by players.

For the first 6 circles, once you've reached the recommended skill level, you will never fizzle anymore when casting those spells. However, even at GM skill, you will still fizzle from time to time when casting 7-8 circles. You will rarely fizzle at 115 magery and never at 120.

Using a scroll will allow you to cast spells 2 circles higher than your magery allows you to (assuming you have sufficient mana to cast it). It's very pratical for warriors and other chars that do not possess high magery. It is however a lot more costly than using reagents.

Magery is movement based, hop on a boat for your training session. Stock up on regs (you want to as many of the required regs as your backpack and hold can carry).

As soon as you get a gain. Stop your boat and keep casting at that same spot as long as you gain. Once you stop gaining, move another 8 tiles. Eventually, you will stop getting multiple gains on the same tile, at which point you should start using the 8x8 method.

You will raise magery, meditation and evaluate intelligence using the above method. However, you want to start off with the highest meditation possible, especially when you hit 80+ magery as successfully casting level 8 spells will use up 50 mana points. If your mana is low, you will waste most of your training session meditating.

Try to get your hands on 100% lower reagent cost armor (reduces the amount of regs required for a spell). You could therefore train for absolutely free since you won't be needing any reagents. The same is true for the lower mana cost armor that will significantly reduce the amount of mana you need to cast spells. You will therefore spend a lot less time meditating.

You cannot enter the City of Wind until you reach 72 magery. This is one of the less crowded dungeons. You may want to raise magery on your other chars to be able to hunt there, even though you do not use magery as a means of combat.

You can unlock dungeon doors by casting the Magic Unlock spell on them. You can also unlock some dungeons and treasure chests with that spell. You however need 70 magery to unlock level 1 chests and GM magery to unlock level 2 chests. Level 3-5 chests require lockpicking.

After unlocking a door you can magically open it with Telekinesis. Likewise, when you unlock a dungeon or treasure chest, they are always trapped. You can set off the trap by casting that same spell on it. Just make sure you are at a far enough distance that so explosion won't kill you.

If you fight magical monsters or PvP against mages or fencers, always have firebomb in your bag (use an oil cloth on a liquor pitcher or bottle). If you get paralyzed, double-click the bottle. If you don't throw it, it will explode in 3 seconds, inflicting you only 7 HP damage. The explosion will break the paralysis spell and set you free.

If you're planning no making a PvP mage, you can use eval and anatomy to replace wrestling. This way, you can add healing to your template which can come in quite handy when you're low on health and mana. However, the combination of eval and anat will not allow you to perform stun punches. Wrestling is still required for that.