A guide for Battlemage?

[salsero71ita]

I'm reading here and everywhere around but I've not seen yet a guide! I search and read many guides for other caracters but I'm interested in that one!
Someone has made one? Or can help me? I'm around level 18, normal Egypt, melee caracter with sword and shield, I've pumped STR and a little DEX, so what skills I've to raise?
Thanks from ITA, Miki.

[Mad_Bombardier]

If you are truly a battlemage, I'd skip DEX except for just enough to use weapons (don't even bother with DEX based armor). You are best sticking with clubs/axes rather than swords for damage anyway. Once you have enough STR to use your weapons and armor, start pumping INT (elemental dmg bonus/energy regen) and working on your fire skills/spells.

[RDespair]

I'm not sure about that any more. Although a Str/Int based Battlemage has advantages (ability to use a staff & mage equipment, higher fire damage), after using one myself, I think I would have rather gone with Str/Dex. You can get good spell damage results just out of your equipment and skills (Earth Enchantment & Volatility) plus the two fire spells a Battlemage might use, Eruption and Volcanic Orb, both deal a noticeable amount of physical damage which will benefit from high Strength. Personally, I think I'd rather go with Str/Dex now - more choices for which weapon you want to use plus in version 1.2, Dex seems to be more important for melee than it once was (I think they tweaked the def/off stats on a lot of monsters).

[CGameProgrammer]

Volativity and Earth Enchantment together give (on average) +178% Fire Damage, if I remember correctly. An Intelligence of 260 would only increase that bonus by +40% (to +218%) which is not very significant. An Intelligence of 650 would make it +278%. I really don't think it's worth increasing Intelligence for this, since the payout is so small. And it doesn't actually affect energy regeneration by a large amount either.

[Nerhtal]

The only downfall of basically a dual wielding Battlemage is the fact you in general dont bother with VO/Eruption (and even Volativity)

But this is the pure melee approach.

I had a small guide on my views on the abilities in Earth and Warfare i deemed the good, the bad and the ugly. Hmm im to lazy to dig it up... it was in response to someone in gameplay too i think.

[Nerhtal]

Try this thread

Check mine, and other peoples posts on this thread and see if that helps you in any way.

Also have you decided how much battle and how much mage you want to be? My personal Battlemage is purely melee offensive, supplementing the melee abilities with the defensive abilities available in Earth as passive or low energy abilities with good uses like Stoneform/Heat Shield.

Earth Enchantment/Brimstone maxed is a must though at the end of the day imo.