Made by JemyM
For comments/changes/fixes: jemym@home.se
Version: 1.0
Introduction
------------
When I started to play Lionheart, I spoke out loud "I should play the game as
a mage".
Then my friend told me that regardless how I did, melee would be what counts
in the end. Regardless the amount of mana, regardless the power of spells,
enemies cannot be picked before they are in close range. I should try to get
at least some kind of weaponry, and a load of armor. Spells are just for
backup.
I ignored this advice. I ended the game as a level 45 fire mage, and even if
I only had 200 points in fire, all the bosses I had encountered where
wuzzies.
When I saw the same comments on the official board, I decided to write this
guide to prove that there is no reason not to play mage, if you wish.
Playing Lionheart as a hardcore mage is not the one and only true path.
The truth is that its probably possible to become just as good if you become a
ranged fighter, a melee fighter, an unarmed fighter, a divine enhanced fighter
or even a necromancer.
But mages in Lionheart can become very powerful with some patience, and with
this guide you will become more powerful than most players melee-oriented
characters.
Optimizing a Mage
-----------------
This guide will help you to create an extreme mage. It contains a few spoilers.
I tried to reduce them, and avoid storybased spoilers, but you will get spoiled
about some items, and there are also a few exploits mentioned here.
FIRE is the way to go when playing Lionheart as a mage of the thought branch.
Personally, I wasnt to fond of this, I actually focused on Electricity when
playing the game, but had to switch to Fire at one stage simply becouse I was
overwhelmed with the bonuses you can get as a firemage.
There is one main reason for this: +% Bonus. No other path in thought magic has
as many item-types that grants bonuses for fire magic and fire magic only.
When I finished the game I did a total of 232% firedamage!
This means, that a fireball that should do 45 + 1-10 damage at 200 points
actually did 104 + 2-23 points of damage.
The highest you can get with electricity with items and perks is 147%. The best
with cold is 167%
Creating your character
-----------------------
RACE + RACIAL TRAIT:
Lets start with the race and Racial Trait. The two options here are:
* Option 1: Demonkin / Diabolism
-10% cost with tought is a really cool bonus, if you can stand the horns in
your forehead. You will use one path of Divine magic thou, perhaps two, so
think twice before picking this combination (HEAL is the important thing that
will be more expensive here... In return all of your combat focused stuff will
cost less).
* Option 2: Sylvant / Wind Ancestory:
First ignore the -1str/+1agi part. You can as well up Strength 1 and lower
Agility by one, and it will be the same. What the skill really does is to give
you +10 AC and lowers your carry limit with 20. This is not a big deal
(as I will discuss later). As a sylvan you get "bad reactions" they say.
In fact, I have only found one single shop owner (focused on archery!) that
refuses to sell special items to you if you look tainted...
So dont bother about that.
So why are Fiery Ancestory not a good alternative? You will meet lots of
cold-damage monsters in the game. They are outright annoying, and you will
(with the items) have lots of fire resistance anyway, and do one hell of a
damage, so the cold sensitivity makes this trait not worth it.
ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 1 (2 with Wind Ancestry)
Perception: 9
Endurance: 6
Charisma: 9
Intelligence: 9
Agility: 3 (2 with Wind Ancestry)
Luck: 4
I will soon go into detail why I picked theese attributes, but lets
continue to the next screen.
PERKS:
As Perks I suggest "Skilled" and "Gifted".
SPIRIT:
Now, I advice you to pick what you feel for. You pick wont affect your
game, so pick spirit according what personality you want your spirit
to have.
The only advantage is that if you pick the demonic spirit you will
get +1 to all thought magic, and the elemental spirit will offer +1 to
all divine magic. This bonus is so tiny that you can as well ignore it.
TAG SKILLS:
Divine/Fortitude, Thought/Fire, Thought/Protective
WHY?:
Now lets go back and explain why we have picked this character.
Strength: 2 (1 +1 for gifted)
Strength will only help you carry items to a shop owner. Besides that
there's no need for strength at all. When you start your game, try to
find a simple weapon or belt that gives strength bonus so you can use it
when its time to carry loot to the shop owner, besides that strength is
worthless for you.
Perception: 10 (9 +1 for gifted)
While the game doesnt tell you outright this, perception is one of the
three attributes that affects your mana each time you level up. As a mage,
its obviously a very important attribute. There are also situations where
a high perception gives you opportunities you wouldnt have otherwise.
Perception also increases your speed with magic.
Endurance: 7 (6 +1 for gifted)
Hitpoints are always fun. Even as a mage, you will take punishment, so
dont skimper endurance. Besides, Poison and Disease are two really annoying
things in Lionheart. So why not having more than 7? Becouse then you will
be able to pick the "Tough Hide" perk, which gives you some neat protection
later. You will have enough hitpoints as a mage anyway.
Charisma: 10 (9 +1 for gifted)
The second ability that affects your total mana. I dont know if it have any
affect on shop prices or speech options, since they are mostly based on your
skill Barter/Speech anyway... but as a mage you need this much!
Intelligence: 10 (9 +1 for gifted)
As a mage, the most important skill in the game. Intelligence gives you extra
skillpoints per level, Each skillpoint in a magic skill gives you bonus to
your total mana as well, so its very very important (thats why we have max!)
Agility: 4 (3 +1 for gifted)
When calculating casting speed, agility will have some effect, but perception
will also count. As you have a high perception already, you wont gain much by
having one extra actionpoint. If you wish to try, try buying the +1 agility
point later on. You wont note a difference, trust me.
Luck: 5 (4 +1 for gifted)
With 10 in luck you can reach one extra area in the game. You can permanently
rise your luck with +2 during the game, plus you can find items that
gives +3 luck (or even more) so you need at least 5 in luck to reach this
extra area. The area gives you three chests and a few undead monsters to
kill, and is not that big of a deal, but I will just guess you wish to see
that area and assume you will put 5 points in luck.
The items:
Necklace of luck +1 (Found at vendors)
Potion +1 permanent (Kill Kahn for the Dryad)
Potion +1 permanent (Help beggars with all their quests)
Gauntlets of La Mancha +1 (Help Cervantes against 'La Bestia')
Sword of Kublai Khan +1 (Kill the Madman in La Calle Perdida)
So what about the perks then?
Together Gifted+Skilled means +1 in all attributes,
The disadvantages are -10 in 1hand/2hand and ranged (as you could care less).
The thing I would like to mention thou, is that you will only gain a perk
each 4th level instead of each 3rd. When I finished the game I was level 45
and had made every quest in the game, plus killed every monster out there.
By that stage, I had no perks left to pick... +1 in all attributes compared
to having useless perks seems like a natural choice to me.
Finally the Tag Skills...
TAG basicly means that a skill rise with double the speed. This means that
you start by getting 2 skillpoints for one point, and its first when you
reach about 130 you must start to pay 2 points per skillpoint.
I like to point out that when I played the game, I did not tag fire but
electricity. Once I realised that fire was the way to go, I went for fire
instead and was able to pump it up to 200 points. You will likely be able
to pump it up to 300 with ease becouse you will start by
tagging [Thought: Fire].
Secondly, you will enjoy [Thought: Protective]'s "Magical Shield".
You will defenitly see a difference between having Magic Shield and not.
Thing is, that you will probably not use the rest of the though protective
spells, but the good part is that if you boost Thought Protective up
to 200 points you will have +18AC and +20% resistance against weapons!!!
Finally, [Divine: Fortitude] is probably a path all characters benifit
from, and simply the most useful magic skill in the game. I will tell
you more about it later on in this guide.
Lets say that I calculate on 19 skillpoints per level for 40 levels for
intelligence 10 (noting the -1 for your perk, also note that you can gain
another +5 skillpoints per level by solving quests and taking the right
perks so you will have another 2-300 points during the game). Then at least
you will have about 760 points to use before the end of the game.
Playing The Game
----------------
GRAB A BOOK:
First, I should start by saying the bad part by starting up as mage,
that will be much less of an issue later on I promise you. Once the
mana is out, showtime is over. By waiting you slowly recover mana
thou, so find something decent to do while waiting for the mana to
recover. Personally I finally read through the D&D spells, and
cleaned my apartment. :)
WHERE FIRE DOESNT HELP:
There are just two areas where fire wont do it. The first area is called
the 'Troll Pit' in the Barcelona Sewers. My suggestion is that you boost
cold or electricity up by 30 points to get past that level. Thats all you
need. There are just around 10-20 trolls in the entire game, and once you
are through you wont see more of them.
Much later in the game, you will encounter Fire Wargolems. There are few of
them, at top you might have to take on 5-10 golems in the entire game.
Theese golems are actually HEALED by your spells. There are two solutions.
The first is to use your 30 points of cold/electricity damage, which is
enough to kill them one by one. The second is to get some of the great
companions you can get late in the game, and heal them while they take
on the golems.
I must also mention one place where magic is encumbering. In the bottom of
the Inquisition Fortress in Barcelona there are magical crosses that drains
your mana. You only need to kill a few monsters down there thou, but it can
be annoying to get past that level. Once the crosses are destroyed and the
monsters are dead, that part wont be an issue again.
PICKING PERKS:
Listed are some noteworthy perks that you may pick during the game.
There are more, but I feel theese are the important ones to mention.
I havent mentioned attribute requirements as I believe you should have
the required amount after following the guide above. To get all the
following you will need to reach level 42, but only the ones up to
"pyromaniac" are important. The rest is just suggestions what to pick
beyond that point as you have all you need.
* Swift Learner (requires level 2)
The first of the "pick as soon as possible" perks. Will gain you one
extra level per 10 levels. in the end of the game this means about
+3 levels if you pick it at level 8.
* Educated (requires level 5)
The second of the "pick as soon as possible" perks. Gives you +2
skillpoints per level.
* Power From Beyond (requires level 5)
The last of the "pick as soon as possible" perks. +1 skillpoints
per level does count.
* Mental Focus (Requires a total of 100 skillpoints in thought magic)
Once you get Spirit Guide you will lessen the need for more mana all
the time. It lowers all casting costs for thought by 15%
* Spirit Guide (Requires Level 2)
Once you get Spirit Guide you will lessen the need for more mana all
the time. It gives you +10% mana for each spirit you pick up.
* Mark of Fire (Requires 40 in fire magic)
+15% in fire. Natural pick.
* Pyromaniac (Requires Level 8)
+10% in fire. Natural pick
* Tough Hide (Requires Level 11)
+5AC and +5% to all resistances. Not that bad as a mage. If you cant
pick it, make sure you have 7 endurance (max).
* Thought as Armor (Thought Protective 30 points + Level 5)
Once you get past 130 in a tagged skill it will start to cost double.
At higher stages it will cost even more. This perk is best picked then,
to give an 'free' boost.
* Mastery of Fortitude (Divine Fortitude 30 points + Level 5)
See Thought as Armor above.
* Here and Now (Requires Level 8)
This perk is best picked at a very high level. The higher the better
(as leveling will be take longer time the better you get).
TO OVERCOME YOUR SHORTCOMINGS:
Lets speak for awhile about the things you will need to overcome your
shortcomings.
The important skills you miss are: Find Traps/Secret Doors (will call
that search from now on), Lockpick, Sneak, Speech and Barter.
You will be able to boost each one of thoose during the game,
but I should say some things about each one of them.
I will also mention Strength as yes, it will sometimes be an issue
(with a tremendeous boost in mana to compensate for it). At the end
of this guide I will mention two areas where fire isnt that great and
how to get past them.
* Find Traps/Secret Doors & Lockpick & Sneak
- The first item you should try to find is a "WEAPON of REVEALING".
REVEALING means +10 lockpick and up to +60 search. The best thing you
can find is a Short Sword +60 as it weights only 4 (all extras are dead
weights) and require just one hand. It gives a supreme bonus to search
(maximum 60) and you will probably find one during the game, but you will
probably start with a worse 'of revealing' (like a +14 Long Sword or
something) and keep upgrading during the game.
- The next pick is Gauntlets of Thievery. Theese gauntlets give up to +30
in Search/Picklock. Again you will probably start with a lesser choice,
and keep upgrading to better ones.
- Helmet of Falcon + Eagle (you can actually find one that gives you both).
Falcon is +5 lockpick, +4 sneak and Eagle is +5 lockpick, +7
find traps/doors. A Falcon+Eagle means +4 sneak, +10 lockpick and +7
search. The bad part here is that it weights alot, so sell it when
you have the other items mentioned here.
- Belt of the Thief, The best ones gives +20 Lockpick & Search.
Again you will probably start low and keep on upgrading.
- Necklace of Luck +1 luck / +10 lockpick. Important here since it
also offers the +1 luck mentioned during the character creation.
- Dead of Night (Necklace) +15 sneak / +10 lockpick
- Potion of Master Thievery +25 lockpick +75 search
- Potion of Stealth +70 sneak
When I ended the game I had sold the helmet, and did not have a
dead of night item. Yet I had +110 in search and +70 in picklock once
I changed my wear, and that without using the Master Thievery potion.
So trust me = You wont be needing to put points in thoose skills.
I should mention, that there are places where you need up to 100 points
in picklock to unlock a chest. If you calculate you can reach a total of
105 without putting a single point in lockpick, but then you will also
need ALL of the items. What I am trying to say that dropping 10-20 points
on lockpick wont harm you that much.
Sneak will only be used a few times, and then a Potion of Stealth +
Dead of the Night is all that you need to get by.
* Speech
Now this is a touchy subject. I suggest you try to reach 50 as quick as
possible. You will have many opportunities to rise your speech permanent
so take them (among others a simple quest for Shakespeare gets you +15!).
You will probably pour more points into speech while going up in level.
Over 85 wont be neccessary thou, unless you wish to see the
'alternate ending' which requires a whupping 180 points... :P There is a
type of armor that gives up to +25 in speech, but skillpoints weights
less than carrying a full plate on you just for this bonus...
* Barter
As a mage, money wont be a subject. In fact, if you carry loot back and
sell it, you will at an early stage note that you have all the items you
need and RARELY find anything better. I finished the game with 550000
gold that I just used to buy healing potions and spirit potions...
I guess this is one of the good/bad sides by being a mage... only new
weapons and armor costs enough to get rid of the money, the things we don’t
need…
You can go for a quest early in the game (shakespeare again) that gives
you +15 in barter. You have a high charisma that gives you cheaper prices.
And finally, you can find the helmet of "Hard Bargaining" that will up it
by another 20. Once you have that helmet, money wont be an issue.
You dont need to put points in barter.
* Strength
Ah... Yes... The only thing you need strength for is to carry loot.
Be prepared to run extra runs to the local shopowner, at least at the
lower levels. Once you find yourself a low-strength weapon of strength
at +1-3 you wont have that much of a problem. Also try to find a pair
of decent boots of load bearing (I actually had Boots of Load Bearing,
Spirit Recovery and Speed!!!) as quick as you can. Once you got thoose
items, carry limit wont be that much of an issue.
TACTICS:
If you got this far, and not dropped the guide, then let me tell you
what you have in your arsenal of spells. :)
With Fire you get four spells:
* Fire Orb
* Dragon's Breath
* Fire Circle
* Fireball
Fire Orb's are your traditional attack option. It will be your best friend
at earlier levels before you have mana for the other ones, and at higher
levels its a good '2nd spell' (see later). Its a single ball of fire with
a decent firerate, with the drawback that it can only hit one enemy at a
time. A good thing thou, is that due to a bug, the 'extra damage' actually
does damage, even if the orb did not hit the target! (this way you can
attract enemies from behind walls!)
Dragon's Breath is the first crowdkiller. It isnt used much as you must
have all targets in front of you, but its very cheap compared to the
alternatives. Use it when the mana is starting to run low at higher levels.
When you have low mana at earlier levels, it isnt that useful.
Fire Circle is the second crowdkiller. Use it to drop multiple weak targets
at a cheap price, or soften up multiple combatants at close range. If you
stand inside the firecircle you know that everyone that attacks you will be
harmed. Even if the damage isnt high, its continous, so once the spell ends
it will have caused more damage than any other spell as long as the target
stayed within the circle.
Fireball is expensive at first, but will quickly become your primary spell.
It does alot of damage (more than any other of your arsenal), it knocks down
enemies that makes them harmless for a decent amount of time, and it also
does area damage to multiple enemies. Cast it on yourself to kill attackers
that are engaged in melee against you.
Now for the '2nd spell' tactic that I mentioned before. Fireball has a long
"reloading" time each time you cast it. By quickly switching back and forth
with the other three you can fire one extra spell while waiting for another
fireball! For example:
Fireball, Orb, Fireball, Orb = Lots of damage on one opponent
Fireball, Dragon's Breath, Fireball, Dragon's Breath = Lots of damage on a
nearby crowd
Fireball, Fire Circle, Fireball, Dragon's Breath, Fireball, Heal, Fireball,
Dragon's Breath... you get the point I hope...
With Protective you get five spells:
* Magical Shield
* Poison Ring
* Halo of Frost
* Halo of Fire
* Mana Shield
Magical Shield is your armor. Yes. Here it is. Full Plate? Nonono, repeat
after me "Magical Shield". Good. At the beginning the Magical Shield wont
be that effective, but at later stages it will give you 10-20 bonus in AC,
+10-20% protection and +1 threshold against physical attacks. It will also
last 2 and a half minute so you wont need to babysit it all the time.
Just relaunch it once in awhile. (Keep it in a quickslot)
Now the other spells are perhaps useful once in awhile, but actually you are
just pouring points in protective to get Magical Shield. Thats it. Feel free
to experiment with the rest if you wish as you will get them for free.
Mana Shield is useful for bossfights for example.
With Fortitude you get five great spells:
* Healing
* Purify Body
* Resist Elements
* Divine Assistance
* Greater Resistance
Healing is the spell you probably will keep in a quickslot. It heals you,
and your allies, and therefore its simply a favorite. You will use it alot,
and the higher Fortitude is, the quicker you will get your health up after
a tough fight.
Purify Body is useful when dealing with snakes and zombies. It gives a
resistance against poisons and disease that is two very common and annoying
types of damage in Lionheart. Not that they are dangerous, but its annoying
when the character goes "Hugh" every second when taking 1-2 points of damage
from poison... :P
Resist Elements is good when dealing with mages, and with bosses. It gives
you a very high protection for a minute or so. At higher levels you might
use Greater Resistance instead, but resist elements is the only protection
against cold.
Divine Assistance is in some aspects as good as Magical Shield except for
the physical resistance that isnt offered at all with Divine Assistance.
However, the AC bonus and threshold is actually higher, and it even offers
extra mana... But at a much shorter duration. Use it for tough fights.
Greater Resistance is the better version of Resist Elements. It offers
protection against acid, poison, electricity and disease but nothing against
cold.
GETTING ALL THEESE BONUSES:
First lets sum up all bonuses you can get for your firemage:
GAUNTLETS: Gauntlets of Hellfire +25% Fire Damage
SHIELD: ? Shield of the Firedrake up to +20% Fire Damage
NECKLACE: Necklace of Fire Carnage +10% Fire Damage
RINGS: Ring of Fiery Death +20% Fire Damage (2 MAY BE CARRIED)
PERK: Mark of Fire Damage +15% Fire Damage
PERK: Pyromaniac +10% Fire Damage
TITLE: High Wielder +12%
Thats a total of +132% firedamage!!!
There are no gauntlets that gives bonus for electricity, no shield either.
Also there are no second perk, and the best ring gives +5% (thats 15% less
than fire). This gives us a total of +47% bonus for electricity damage
(including the wielder bonus).
There are no gauntlets that gives bonus for electricity. There are no second
perk, and the best ring gives +5% (thats 15% less than fire). This gives us a
total of 67% bonus for cold damage (including the wielder bonus).
Anyway, here's some tips upon how to get theese items:
Gauntlets of Hellfire is a bonus CD content. In the bottom left part of the
gate district, Barcelona, there is a green shop owner. When talking to him
he asks you to save his sister. Once you done this, he will give you access
to his 'special wares' that includes theese superb gauntlets. They cost a
nifty 8000 gold, but is worth every piece (besides, 8000 gold is pocket
money at later levels).
? Shield of the Firedrake: There are many shields that gives bonus to fire.
The one I finally found was a Large Shield of the Firedrake. It gives +20%
bonus. Much sooner you will likely find red small shields that gives +4-6%.
Get one. :)
Necklace of Fire Carnage: Very common items really. You will find one quick
enough, and once you have one its mostly about what comes with it. An item
can have up to three abilities, and I had one that gave both Fire Carnage
and Voodoo, and I believe thats the best one can get as you can combine it
with a belt of Voodoo to get +1 skillpoint per level.
Ring of Fiery Death: First I thought this was a quest item, but I actually
found a second one in a store later on. Extreme luck? Maybee. The first one
can be got after speaking to a goblin called Grumdjum. You dont need to kill
the dryad (you SHOULDNT as she awards you with one of the two +1 luck potions
you need) but you can lie to him that you did and you will still get the ring.
An alternative to a second ring is Magical Devotion that is more common but
just offers +5%.
Mark of Fire: You can get this perk very early in the game, but wait until
you have the important low-level perks first.
Pyromaniac: Same as Mark of Fire.
High Wielder: Now, ofcourse you shall choose to join wielders as your faction.
That faction is just built for mages, so why shouldnt you? You wont get +12%
at once thou, but first at near end of the game... But you will get +8% early,
plus lots of other bonuses for being a wielder.
There is one more, or rather two types of items that you should look for as a
mage. First there are boots and helmets of "Spirit Regeneration". Having both
of them greatly improves the time it takes to recover lost mana. Secondly,
there is a type of armor called "Magery" that gives you an even higher
recovery rate. I think the "Spirit Regeneration" rises your recovery rate by
15% while Magery rises the recovery rate by 40%. If you have all three you
will recover mana VERY quickly.
GETTING THE RARE ITEMS:
Now finally... I have mentioned many supergroovy and rare items here. How
can you find them without using pure luck? Well, there is an exploit that
you can use...
There are many grades of cheating, where exploiting things that the game
allows you to do is a softer cheat. If you dont want to cheat at all, you
can stop to read now.
When you open a chest or visit a shop owner you havnt visited for a time,
their content will be RANDOMLY SELECTED. You can quicksave BEFORE opening
the chest or talking to the shop owner, which allows you to quickload the
game if you didnt find what you wanted. It was by using this tactic I
found my set of items.