How To Magicka: Gameplay Basics / Spells / Robes / PvP / Combat Guide

Overview

This guide includes: the controls and the element system, robes and their usage, a list of the best spells, tactics for combat and how to play PvP, the magicks and how to play online.Good ‘luck’!

Element System/Spell Types – 1

　

There are also two additional elements:
Ice and Steam

Combine Water with Cold to get Ice, combine it with Fire for Steam.

Spells aren’t formed after random rules, there is a brilliant yet simple system behind it.

The element priority (precedence)

It might look a bit confusing at first, but it’s simple.
Elements with higher priority just overlap the other elements with lower priority.

• Cast F (fire) and you get a fire spray, but if you add lightning, you get a fire lightning, instead of a fire spray with lightning.
• Cast SR and you will get a beam, since S has the highest precedence. But if you add Stone (would be SDR then) you will get an explosive missile. Obviously because Stone has higher precedence than arcane and cold.
• Cast QWR and you get green glowing ice shards. But if you add Shield(-> QWER), you will get awesome healing ice walls.

There are several factors that influence the appearance of your spell and many indicators that let you recognise ANY spell. Do not think with letters, think logically, remember the element priority and the element colors.
Most importantly, the cast type. It affects the spell type your element combination turns into.
For example: ED force casted turns into a stone wall, but if you self cast it you get a stone armour. Read more about cast types in the ‘Controls’ section.

Force Cast:
– Missiles (projectiles) – D, DR, SDF, DQR, DDDDD
– Ice shards – QR, QWR, QRQRA
– Walls and mines – ED, EFDS, QREDSQ; ES, ASRE
– Beams – S, W, QFAS
Area Cast:
– Earthquakes, ice spikes, novas – D, DRD; QR, QRS, QRAS; S, W, ASF, WR
– Character surrounding walls and mines – ED, EFDS, QREDSQ; ES, ASRE
Weapon Enchanting:
– Earth Fissures – D, DF, QSDQQ, QRD
– Walls or mines in a straight line in front of your character – ED, EFDS, QREDSQ; ES, ASRE
– Enchanted weapons (horizontal swings) – S, W, ASR
– ice swords – QRQRQRQRQR, QRAS, DQR

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You can have water and lightning in the same combination!
QFAAAAR for example, Cold turns Steam into Water resulting in QAAAA.
You can also cast QRAAAAF. Ice is turned to Water by Fire, the result is the same.

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An element, that appears multiple times in your combination, should be alternately casted with other elements.

An element, that appears only one time in your combination, should never be casted at the end.

FFFDE for example. The burning stone wall.
The flaws of this combination are:

• Shield is casted at the end of the combination. When you are in the heat of a fight you could easily press fire or stone too often and displace Shield.
• Fire is casted three times in a row. This slows down the conjuring, because there has to be a certain delay between casting the same element in a row.

The proper way to cast this spell is EFDFF

• Shield is now at the beginning of the combination, what makes missing it nearly impossible.
• Fire is mixed with stone and is only casted twice in a row!

　

Element System/Spell Types – 2

　

Element/Spell/Combat System Terms

• Elements are .. well, the elements of the game. QWER, ASDF – You make spells with them.
• Element Combinations are the Elements conjured into your Spell Bar (the bar underneath your character)
• Cast Types are important. They affect the final look and function of your element combinations. For example: ASFE area-casted(shift+RMB) surrounds your character with deadly mines, while selfcasting (MMB) the same element combination gives you an immunity aura.
• Spells are the Elements formed to Element Combinations and casted with the Cast type of your choice.
• Spell Combinations are the usage of mutliple spells to create destructive awesomeness. You could also call them tactics.
• Magicks are special element combinations, that have to be casted with the space bar.
  Haste for example: ASF + space bar
  If it is not casted like this, it turns out as spell, instead of a magick. Magicks are often confused with spells or “skills”.

Missiles and especially spam do very high damage and can be used to insta-freeze. Simply fire a QSDF/SDR volley. Spam is extremely overpowered in PvE and very useful in PvP too. It’s possible to cast up to 8 missiles per second.

Normal missiles like DDDDD or DQRQRQRQR are good for delivering high instant damage from afar. Note, that pure stone missiles like DDDDD can hit multiple targets, while ice crystals like DQRQR can only hit one target but do some more damage.

Ice Walls are probably the most used spells in PvP and many consider them overpowered. They do insane damage and force players to protect against them. Though you can still avoid them easily by just walking away or putting up a shield.
They are also extremely useful in PvE, since most mobs are melee fighters and run straight towards you without protection. One QRQREAS is enough to kill most mobs.

Stone Walls are a multitalent. They do high damage and are good for status effects. They distract mobs in PvE (they usually first attack the walls and ignore you) and can trap opponents in PvP.

Novas, ice spikes, earthquakes

Earth Fissures are useful in PvP, but are rather useless in PvE.

Beams are a decent choice in PvE, but the other spell types are better. Beams are totally useless in PvP, unless your opponents are donkeys. While they do relatively high damage, they are too easy to avoid.
You may wonder what “don’t damage instantly” means. Well, when you hit a unit with a beam, there is a short delay before it actually damages. Their long range and ability to combine with other beams simply can’t make up for the other weaknesses.

Ice Shards are… well, they are lame. Hitting single units is extremely hard. The increased damage when charging doesn’t make up for the overall charging time.

Sprays are by far the worst spell type. Their damage is extremely low, mainly because you simply can’t include “good damage elements” like arcane or stone. Their range is pathetic and so is their effect. For example: QQQQQ area casted has a way stronger effect than the same combination casted as spray. Also, sprays increase the burning damage slower than fire missiles and other fire spells.
　

Controls

　

Hold down the left mouse button to move your wizard in the direction of the cursor.

If you haven’t queued up any elements when force casting, your wizard will do a basic wind push.
This push can push light units like goblins and some medium units away from you and can also push back projectiles!

This cast type creates:

• Missiles
• Ice Shards
• Walls and Mines
• Beams
• Lightning, sprays
• Storms

Area Cast

If you haven’t queued up any elements when area casting, your wizard will do a wind push around him! This push can do the same, as the push above, but is slightly less powerful.

This cast type creates:

• Earthquakes
• Character Surrounding Walls and Mines
• Novas, ice spikes, earthquakes
• Areal lightning

Using Weapon / Enchanting

If there are no elements queued, your wizard will use his weapon.

This cast type creates:

• Earth FIssures
• 4 Walls or mines in a straight line
• Enchanted Blades
• Ice Sword

Enchanting weapons has two main steps:
First, your character will put the elements on his weapon. They disappear from the element bar and are now stored in the weapon (not removed by nullify).
The next time you press Shift+LMB without queued elements in the bar, your character will cast the spell!

You can also re-enchant your weapon.
Let’s say you want to get a fire stone wall. EFDFF.
You enchant the elements but you missed the shield. You have FDFF in your sword, but no Shield.
Now you just have to conjure shield and re-enchant the weapon.
Ta-da, now you have the spell correctly on your sword and can cast it!

Cast Magicks / Boost Shields / Break Free

When you have the elements for a magick queued, you can cast the magick by pressing space bar.
Revive for example. WA + space button won’t get you a nova or a beam, it will revive one of your team mates since it’s a magick. Magicks are covered in the magicks-section.

Another function of the space button is boosting shields. Hammer the key to increase the shield’s duration and hit points. Shields are covered in the section “Shield – an important Element”.

The third function of the space bar is breaking free from enemy grip.
When you are grabbed hammer the space bar or cast an earthquake.
Units that can have grip on you are zombies, trolls and some other units.

Self Cast / Staff Ability

Self-casting casts spells on yourself.
It’s necessary for removing harmful status (-effects), healing and casting auras and armours.

If no element is queued when self-casting, then the current staff’s active ability is activated instead (if the staff has an active ability and it’s not on cooldown).

TAB – opens the inventory, where you can see detailed descriptions of your staff and weapon
CTRL – Block, blocks lightning and low physical damage
ESC – opens the Menu ingame and goes to previous pages in the book.
　

Shield – an important Element

　
Pure shields create barriers on the ground. They reflect beams and can absorb a lot of damage.
The amount of damage a shield can take is affected by how much the shield is boosted.
The more you charge it, the more damage it can absorb.

Shield is used to “bind” elements.

A single Rock for example can be an earthquake or a stone (or an earth fissure). These things disappear very quickly after casting them.
But when you add Shield to the stone you will get a stone wall. This stone wall is a plain wall of stone on the ground but lasts much longer than a thrown rock or an earthquake.

Another example. A beam, let’s say one Arcane element.
You cast it and have to hold down the key to keep casting the beam.
But when you add Shield, you will get mines. Mines lie on the ground indefinitely until they are triggered and explode.

You see what I mean?

Shield is needed for all types of walls, mines, storms, armours and auras.

(^ this picture doesn’t include elemental storms)

Force-, Area-cast, weapon enchant: stone wall
Self cast: stone armour

Stone walls and armours can be enhanced by adding other elements.

ED + FFF for example.
A burning wall with clearly visible flames.
Stone walls are useful when your opponent plays offensive. They will keep him on distance and disrupt his spells.
You can find informations about armours in the “Protecting Spells” section!

You can selfcast combinations containg ice of course, but I don’t recommend it, because ice armours are weak and increase the burning damage your character suffers when on fire!

Raw ice-walls are kinda useless, because they barely do any damage and decay very quickly (a full ice wall, Shield + 4x Ice lasts for about 3 seconds)
However, correctly combined with other elements, ice walls are the most damaging spells in Magicka!

EQR + ASR for example.
While it’s decaying, huge Lightning and Arcane damage is inflicted to any unit nearby. Also chills.
Then it explodes and causes even more damage.

May sound a bit confusing but its actually easy.
The only physical elements are stone and ice – the rest is non-physical, Beam Elements are Life and Arcane.

Auras can protect you against non-physical elements:
Water, life, cold, lightning, arcane, fire and steam

!! Auras do not protect against physical damage !!

E + ASR (selfcast) for example.
This aura protects against lightning(A), Arcane(S) and Cold(R)!
It also protects against ice-crystals (DQRX)

Force cast, area cast and weapon enchants result in mines!

Arcane based mines are powerful against light and medium units, such as goblins or wizards.
The explosion does massive instant damage and catapults the unit(s) into the air, which deals physical damage when they fall back to the ground.

The safest and most powerful way to use mines is area-casting them twice!

Or, just cast them somewhere, wait for players/monsters to walk over them or detonate them by throwing spells at them.

Elemental storms are walls, but unlike ice and stone walls, element storms aren’t obstacles. Units can pass through them without problems.
When going through a storm, you will be affected by it. For example, if you run unprotected through an EF storm you start burning. When running through AER you are slowed down by cold and damaged/stunned by lightning.
The rules of opposing elements apply here too:
– Cast an earthquake and all storms containing lightning will vanish.
– Cast cold at storms containing fire or steam and they will vanish.
Storms, especially with lightning are good in PvE, but are rather useless in PvP, since they can be avoided very easily.
　

Status effects

　

Caused by water and steam. Is recognized by dark, water dripping clothes.
If someone’s wet and tries to cast lightning, each lightning element damages the caster for 250 lightning damage.
It is impossible to cast any spell involving lightning while being wet.
Wet units will take twice as much lightning damage and can be frozen by cold.

The element needed to cause this status is cold. It’s recognized by white-blue robe.
Movement as well as all animations are slowed down to a third of the usual speed.

Caused by fire. It’s recognized by burning clothes/body.
Burning damage starts at 40 and will stack up to 1200 per second.
Burning is the opposite status of Wet and Chilled.

You need water and cold to cause this status. First you wet them, then you chill them.
Is recognized by a layer of ice.
Frozen players can’t move but can cast teleport and self-cast spells.
Frozen units take tripled arcane and physical damage
The frozen status can be removed by selfcasting fire, but frozen units are unfreezed after some time automatically.

Unfortunately there is no castable poison element anymore. The only unit that uses poison as element is the necromancer (the unit that summons zombies).
A poisoned unit is recognized by stooping, a green health bar and throwing up occasionally.
Poisoned units walk slower and take 50-150 damage over time.
This status can be removed by getting in contact with life spells.

Naturally caused by Fafnir in Chapter 11.
The only way to remove this status is casting Nullify or waiting until it loses effect(15 seconds)
Confused NPCs will go wild and attack random units (allies and enemies) around them.
Confused players have a mixed element palette and will run in opposite directions.
Is recognized by yellow question marks over the unit’s head.

Can only be caused by the magick Fear and can only be removed by casting Nullify or waiting until the effect wears off.
Scared NPCs will run away from the caster not minding if they run towards lava or edges, etc.
Scared players behave the same but can still cast spells/magicks etc. They can’t affect the direction their character moves.
A scared unit has blue/purple/white lights over it’s head.

Can only be caused by the magick Charm and can only be removed by casting Nullify or waiting until the effect wears off.
Charmed NPCs become allies with the caster and fight the caster’s enemies.
　

Robes – 1

In Magicka there are many robes with different abilities, resistances and weaknesses. This part of the guide explains them a little and gives advice how to make use of their strenghts.

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• Has only 400 HP
• Ability: Can teleport backwards quickly
• Moves as fast as a normal robe with haste
• Holding the block button makes you invisible (enchants and auras can still be seen)

This robe has enormous potential and is one of the strongest if the player is able to make use of its advantages.
The teleport can be used to escape from dangerous attacks or to move close to your enemy quickly (turn your back to him before clicking the button for the ability) and then cast a icewall, mines or a prepared enchant.
Thanks to the additional speed, both avoiding your enemys attacks and attacking is easier.

The weakness of the robe is it’s low HP. You should use fire armors to avoid getting burned down easily. Also you should avoid using auras, because a low amount of phayiscal damage is enough to kill you. So what to do against a EQRASR wall? Simple: teleport away from it.

This robe has a very special tactic, the ice armour of death! For more details on this go to the Combat Guide – Tricks, Tactics 2 chapter.

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• Resistant to pushing effects
• All recieved physical damage is reduced by a small amount
• Slow movement
• Low attack damage
• Ability: Shield bash; you move fast forward for a short moment and knock your enemy down if you hit him.

With this robe it is hard to kill others but getting yourself killed is easier (since you deal less damage and suffer more from lightning) The ability is quite pointless but the short speed boost can be used to escape from the explosion of a wall or something.

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• Has 2000 HP
• Resistant to Fire and Cold status
• Completely immune to Life, Poison(status) and Panic(status)
• Weak to Arcane and Lightning
• Regenerates HP slowly
• Immune to pushes by water and air
• Slower than normal robes
• Active staff ability: Dashing forward

The weaknesses don’t really matter because auras normally make you immune to them or your armor absorbs the damage anyways. The negative side of this robe is that you can’t heal yourself. You can buy time to regenerate by playing defensively though.
With the ability you can move quickly but uncontrolled. It may be useful to escape from attacks or to run behind a obstacle to cover from attacks.

The key to kill this robe is damaging it over and over again, since it can’t heal quickly.
Fire walls (EFDFF), ice walls (especially QREASR) and ice swords (5x QR on sword) work quite well. All of those spells can be casted through shields, when you stand near one. Also take advantage of the slower movement!

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• Has 5000 HP
• Extremely slow movement
• Immune to Poison
• Staff ability: Poisons enemys and “friends” who are close to your character

Another very strong robe. Due to the insane amount of HP compared to normal robes it can take a lot damage. Together with auras, armors and healing it can be nearly invincible if the player is fast and knows what he is doing.
The low movement speed may be annoying but with cannonballing* you can still move around very well.
[*Cannonbaling: See “Combat Guide – Part 1”]
You may also use items and magicks that speed up your character. These magicks are Haste and Performanceenchantment. Items with speed boost are Knife of Counterstriking and Grandfather’s Clock.

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• Has 1300 HP
• Resistances to Arcane, Life and Physical Damage
• Staff ability: Inceases damage by 11% for a few seconds.

With it’s increased defensive and offensive capabilities this robe is basically a good alrounder. When playing you just have to use strong healing spells due to the resistance to life. QWER area cast works fine. The sword is rather bad though, so you might want to pick up a better one.

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• Good ranged weapon
• Staff ability: Throw a grenade that deals 1400 points of damage.

All stats of this robe are just average but its weapon can deal a nice amount of damage to unarmored enemys on high range.
Also its grenade can come in very handy as it instanly kills most unrmored enemys and nearly destroys armors. You can also push the grenade with the forcepush to your enemy before it explodes. Tactic: throw your grenade and immediately cast QREASA.

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• Healed by Arcane
• Weak to Life
• Staff ability: Summons an undead creature that fights for you

Absorbing Arcane damage is incredibly useful as it is used in most common attacks. Your enemy will have to think more about his attacks what makes him slower. Spells that contain life will be very effective against your robe, if you’re unarmored.
You also have to get used to this robe because you have to replace arcane with life in your protective and healing spells. For example:
Instead of ASRE aura you have to use AWER when playing the necromancer.
As healing spell you should use QRES as area cast.

As you can see, the Necromancer can easily avoid its life weakness while having great benefits from it’s arcane absorption. There is one problem with it: A bug sometimes causes the typical Icewalls of doom to kill you when they destroy your armor. Switching to a fitting aura still works fine.

Robes – 2

• Absorbs Cold and Ice
• Weak to Fire and Steam
• Resistant to Life

When this robe uses a EFQASF aura it is completely immune to all types of magical damage ( you can still get wet though). You still have to be careful because you can be pushed away by water and take pysical damage. In general I recommend using EDQ or EFD armour, since it protects from the problems when using auras.
For Healing: just cast a DQRQRQRQR on yourself when having no armor. QWER works good too.
For attacking you can use a mix of cold and fire as you can be immune to both at the same time with this robe. Most players have troubles to protect against both. Either they burn down or get slowed down and become easy targets for lethal attacks.

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• Absorbs fire damage
• Weak to Water and Ice
• Resistant to Life
• Immune to steam
• Deals slightly increased fire damage

This robe has a quite useful immunity as you can be immune to fire and cold at the same time.
In general you should use ESDR as armor and ASRE or QFEASR as auras. With this combination you should be able to defend well. For healing you should keep yourself burning as long as possible. With that you may be able get a regeneration of more than 1000 HP per second. WEDF walls work fine for instant healing.
For attacking you should work with a combination of fire and cold. You can be immune to both at the same time, so you don’t have to worry much about hurting yourself. Just make sure not to remove the status effects you put on the enemy with these opposite elements. Attack with fire when your enemy uses cold immunity and use cold if he switches to fire immunity. Walls (EFDS, QREDSQ) and enchants that knock down (DF, DR) work fine too.

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• Absorbs lightning
• Resistant to Life
• Weak to Earth
• Deals slightly increased lightning damage

This robe is… like an improved Cyber Robe. You are healed by lightning, but you’re not weak to Water and Arcane. The lightning absorption restores nearly no HP though. The earth weakness is annoying since your enemies don’t need to use DDDDD to instantly kill you; DDD is enough.

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• Resistant to Fire, Life and Physical damage
• Weak to lightning
• Ability: Casts a double chain lightning that deals 150 dmg per lightning.

This robe has good resistances and a weakness that is easy to cover. The ability is not that good: 600 damage on a wet enemy if both lightnings hit him; thats weak. In general you should play it like a vanilla robe but it has a better survivability.

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• 30% resistance to everything exept steam.
• Ability: Teleports a random target to a random location

This robe has aweseome resistance of 30% to everything including physical damage. That is a nice base. The ability can be nice in versus: When your only enemy is trying to heal himself with a QWER circle teleport him out of there and finish him. Also if you need to escape you can just teleport your enemy away from you. Or you can just mess up your enemys strategy and movements. There are many things you can do with this even though the effect is random.

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• Weapon gives haste to everything it hits
• Ability: Confuses a single target

This robe is a nice supporter for teamplay. You can haste your allies and confuse your enemies what can be extremely annoying.
Sadly it is a bit hard to target with the ability and it has a rather short range.

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• Ability: High ranged area push

This robe is a basic one but its ability can be used to deflect missles or to smash an unarmored enemy into the next wall.

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• Staff Ability: Conjures a tornado in front of you

A basic robe without any special advantages. The “staff” ability is nice though.
Tornados have the characteristic to destroy walls. It can be useful for defense, by destroying your enemys walls (like EQRASR) before they can deal serious damage.
But be warned: You can’t do anything while you’re playing sax.

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• Has 1200 HP
• Resistant to physical damage
• Takes 50% more fire damage
• Staff Ability: Timewarp

This robe may be useful for slower players because the timewarp can help to keep up in speed with faster players. The resistances and additional HP are nifty as well. The fire weakness is not that bad since burning damage needs time to become serious. Just avoid to burn for a “longer” time; more than 2 seconds. Don’t even think in your dreams about running around with this robe and an ice armour.

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• Standard stats (1000 HP, no weaknesses/strength, etc.)
• Goofy default items.

This robe is obviously a reference to the popular site http://reddit.com.
As said above, this robe doesn’t have any weaknesses or strengths. It’s like the Vanilla Robe except the look and the default items, which are the most notable things about this robe:
Staff of Reddit Protection:
Upon activation, this staff randomly spawns Arcane or Healing mines mixed with another random element (not: E, W/S, D) infront of the character.
Votal Sword:
This weapon is obviously made out of two arrows which resemble the up- and down-vote buttons on Reddit. Hits of this sword will cause random status effects, including burning, chilled, bleeding.

(more coming soon, maybe)

The popular Cyber Robe – In Detail

Cyber Staff
No active or passive abilities. It’s completely useless.

Cyber Disc
Throws a bouncing disk that deals 300 points of arcane damage per hit. Can hit multiple targets.
Instantly kills unprotected cyber robes.

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Lightning selfcast:
– Heals ~270 HP

Lightning Arcane selfcast:
– AS: 839
– ASA: 938
– QFASF: 1259
– QFAS: 2159 + wet status
Important: neither of those combinations work if you have immunity to Arcane (ESxxx)

Wet lightning casting [not recommended]:
– Heals really fast
– You have to wet and dry yourself. This needs additional time.
– You can be frozen easily while doing this
– You can’t use lightning for offense while using this method

Lightning-Ice-Walls:

Deals some damage to enemies in range. You need to stand close to the walls to be affected.

Can be casted a bit faster. Can also heal your teammates with ‘normal’ robes.
– The walls give some protection while healing.
– Fully heals.

Teamplay: Healing with thunderbolt:
A lot of people like casting thunderbolts at each other. This instantly heals a cyber robe completely but only works in Multiplayer, since you can’t cast thunderbolt at yourself. If you play alone you can use thunderstorm.
You need to have the magicks unlocked.

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The Cyber robe has two weaknesses: Water and Arcane.
And you don’t need to protect against lightnings.
Armours work the same for Cyber Robes but you have to use different auras than other robes.

Both weaknesses are covered. Also protects against steam. Lightning can still be absorbed but you can’t get wet and therefore can’t use wet lightning casting to heal yourself. Earth-Ice-missiles are deadly! be careful!

Immunity to arcane and cold. You shouldn’t use this aura because Steam-Water-missles can do high amounts of damage against this.

Same as above just for fire and steam instead of cold. Steam-Water-missiles are a bit less dangerous here but Earth-Ice missles are still deadly.

All of the auras allow your lightning absorbtion but only the the first one covers your water weakness. Therefore it’s recommended to to use armors more often than auras.
For more informations about armors please read the “protecting spells”-section of this guide.

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“Every experienced player I know says that this robe sucks…. and I agree with them.”

So you may ask: Why does this robe suck?
Even tough you can avoid exposing your weaknesses they are still there!
In PvP:
If your armor breaks and you don’t cast a proper protection in the exact right time one more missile usually means your death.
The popular icewall of doom – EQRAS (and variations) – are harder to survive with the cyber robe because the lightning takes effect before the wall explodes. The explosion itself deals a lot more arcane damage than lightning could ever heal your character. So the lighning just destroys your armour.
Moreover it’s hader to survive when using auras, since they all leave more weak spots exposed than normal robes would when using an aura.
Other robes have better chances here in general.

In Co-op (challenges and storymodes):
This robe works well here because most enemies are either too weak or don’t use such a wide variety of damage types like opponents in PvP.
If your team keeps your weaknesses in mind while playing there should be no problem.

So our statement “this robe sucks” mainly applies to the versus mode. It does not completely sucks but it’s for sure a bit harder to play properly.
It’s in any case worse than the normal robes due to the previously mentioned flaws.

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I would recommend the Electrobe Robe. You deal increased lightning damage and normal healing spells still work (area cast QWER -> full health). Moreover the Cyber Robe’s arcane and especially the water weakness can be extremely annoying. But it’s a lot better regarding lightning absorption.
It’s up to you to decide if you want
– high regenaration by lightning but lower HP and water/arcane weaknesses or
– increased lightning damage and normal healing possible but less lightning absorption
For versus you should really prefer the Electrobe.

Many people think they can. But that’s wrong.
A normal robe can instantly heal ~6500 HP with QWER.
A cyber robe can gain health by casting lightning while being wet. So you have to cast 1x water on yourself and then 4x lightning (4×250=1000. Cyber robe has 900 HP). It depends on how fast you can smash the A button. 4 in a second is not that hard. But you have to consider that you also need to dry yourself afterwards. So in total it may take a bit longer.
QWERA is the faster way.

[Did we miss something? Tell us and we will add it.]

Magicks – 1

Magicks are special element combinatons and have to be casted with the spacebar!

All magicks can be acquired by looting luggages in Challenge and Versus.

Revives one player with 10% of their maximum health.
In team PvP it will only revive your team mate, no opponents.
Useless when playing alone.
Is automatically given to the players in the original adventure, all DLC campaigns and challenges.

Doubles the caster’s movement speed for 10 seconds.
A hasted wizard is followed by shadowy, white-blue trails.
Can be acquired in the tutorial and will be awarded automatically if it’s skipped.
Can be found in Dungeons and Daemons in the library on the left.

Summons a Phoenix, that revives all players, mates and opponents with full health.
The phoenix hits the ground, about 2 seconds after casting the magick.
Its landing impact affects a radius similar to size the shield bubble and causes 400 fire damage in the area. It also knocks down the units and sets them on fire.
Note that you can of course avoid the instant fire damage and burning with fire armour/aura.
Located in chapter 8 at the end of the eastern path after fighting the small waves of Goblins and Cave Trolls on the large stone bridge.

Instantly moves the caster a short distance forward onto firm ground.
Can be used while grabbed, frozen, knocked down or flying. Will not teleport the caster onto frozen lava or water.
Can be acquired in chapter 7 at the end of the broken walkway. Book can be seen in chapter 1 too.

Covers the ground in front of you with slippery grease for about 1 minute.
Starts to burn when it’s hit by a fire spell. Walking on greasy ground has the same effect as walking on ice.
Located in chapter 1 at the base of the tower across the lake shortly after hearing someone scream. Freeze the lake to get there.

Nullify removes queued elements, all auras, all armours, all walls, all missiles, all active magicks (such as haste or Vortex) and all status effects.
It does not remove spells on weapons or missiles, being charged.
It does not differentiate between friendly and hostile spells/etc.
Found in chapter chapter 2 on the altar in the area after the roadblock.

Summons 5 to 6 zombies. You an only control 16 zombies at a time.
Zombies will only move if there are enemies around.
They usually surround one or more targets and bite on to them. The bitten unit will get poisoned.
You can shake off zombies by casting earthquakes or hammering the middle mouse button. NPCs usually can’t get free on their own.
Can be acquired in chapter 9 in in the run-down church where you fight the necromancers and other undeads.

When casted it causes a 10 seconds lasting snow storm that covers the screen with a snow effect.
It is a weather affecting magick that can only be used outdoors.
Similar to Rain, Blizzard will cause the cold status to all units on the whole level.
All water and lava surfaces will also be completely frozen.
At the beginning of chapter 6 go across the small lake on the east.

Casting Thunderbolt will conjure a bolt of lightning causing 5000 lightning damage.
Thunderbolts can be avoided easily by casting area stone walls.

It will hit random* targets in the direction the wizard faces.
*{It will first hit elevated units and units with metal armour.
But it will always hit shields and stone walls first, no matter what units are nearby. }
Found in chapter 3 in the middle of the Stonehenge where you battle 3 Druids and some Tree Spirits.

Conflagration causes a wave of fire emitting from the casting wizard. The wave moves quickly in the direction he is facing.
It causes 600 fire damage and burning.
It will not melt frozen water or lava.
Can hit units behind various obstacles, but can’t go through pure shields.
Can be acquired in chapter 4 inside the burning building you are forced to go through.

The Vortex appears as small purple/black ‘portal’ on the same height as the caster.
It emits a weak pull on nearby units. Sucking in objects and living things makes it grow.
Vortex sucks in all units, all walls, all items (magicks, weapons, staffs) and all missiles. Beams can go through the Vortex without problem.
Is automatically given to the players in chapter 12 after defeating Assatur.

Magicks – 2

Rain is a weather modifying magick that can only be used outdoors.
When casted, the screen darkens and the entire map will be covered in rain for 17 seconds.
It will cause the wet status to all unprotected units on the map.
Found in chapter 2 in the small cave that is guarded by some goblins.

Fears all enemy units in a range close to an 1x D earthquake.
Feared units will run away from you and have a purple/blue light over heir head.
Feared human wizards will run away too but are still able to cast spells.
The fear effect lasts for about 6 seconds.
Found in chapter 9 in the first room of Vlad’s castle on the left lying in a bookshelf.

Targets random unit on the screen.
Confused players will have reversed directions and an altered element palette. ( see first section)
Confused NPCs will go wild and attack random units next to them, no matter if allies or opponents.
Effect lasts for 15 seconds.
Is given to the player(s) automatically after the tutorial.

This magick can only be casted outdoors and lasts for 17 seconds.
When casted, the screen will darken and fireballs will fall from the sky.
One Meteor Shower drops an average of 35 fireballs.
The fireballs will hit completely random locations and harm enemys as well as allies and the caster himself.
A direct hit will deal about 10k physical damage. But direct hits are unlikely to happen, instead the fire balls will just set units on fire.
Is given to the players after the tutorial if the host owns the Wizard Wars Survival Kit DLC.

Instantly kills random unit (including the caster) on the casters screen with animation of blue screen.
Does not target anything above 100k hp.
Quite annoying because it can also target the caster and allies.
Automatically given to the players after the tutorial, no matter if it was skipped or not.

Makes the caster invisible.
NPCs can’t see invisible units and therefore won’t attack them.
This spell is quite useless in PvP because players can still see the shadow and queued elements.
In chapter 11, take the east path where the third snow troll appeared and go along the cliff.

Invisibility ends after: casting spells/magicks, attacking with the weapon or activating the staff ability and after taking any damage or touching a unit.
Invisibilty is not removed by: walking around, queuing elements into the spellbar.

Summons an inactive elemental, that does not attack or move until it’s activated.
Each human player can have up to 60 inactive elementals at the same time.
But only 16 active elementals at the same time. The number of elementals being active doesn’t affect the number of inactive elementals you can have.
There are Arcane-, Cold-, Poison-, Fire-, Life-, Water-, Steam- and Lightning Elementals.
Elementals can’t be awakened by ice, stone and shield.
Elementals have 4000 HP and move at the same speed as basic wizards.
Each elemental is also immune to damage from it’s own element and (for example) casting fire on a fire elemental will heal it.
Can be acquired in chapter 11.

A charmed NPC will become allied with the casting wizard and will attack emeny units.
A charmed unit has red hearts over it’s head.
The wizard has to be looking directly at the target unit.
Charm has no noticeable effect on human players and it lasts for 15 seconds.

Found in chapter 9, in the first room of Vlad’s castle on the right leaning against the wooden boockshelf next to the couches.

Tractor Pull is an environmental spell that pulls everything (equipment, exploded bodies and units) toward the caster. Pulled units will also be knocked down most times.
Reduced effect on allies. Does not affect armoured wizards and units like trolls.
This magick cannot be found in the original adventure, only in “The Stars Are Left”. Smash the door and shoot a big rock(5x D) against the tree. The tree will shake and the book will fall down.

Allows you to make a blue and an orange portal.
Any projectiles, lasers, enemies, and minions that touch one of the Portals will be immediately teleported to the other one.
Obviously a reference to Portal and Portal 2.
Can only be acquired in The Stars Are Left in chapter 3.

Tornado summons a swirling brown twister with a radius of 2.5 in front of the moves away in the direction the wizard is facing.
Tornados last for 15 seconds and their direction can be manipulated well by air-pushes.
Can be casted indoors.
Does not affect armoured wizards and trolls/etc.
Can be found in chapter 4. When entering the scene you will see a shipwrecked boat. The book is between the trees.

Magicks – 3

Slows down time for everyone including the caster for 15 seconds.
Along with the slowmo-effect, the game scene also loses 80% of its usual color.
Located in chapter 5. Follow the left path after leaving the camp.

This magick summons Death which proceeds to kill the unit with the lowest percentage health.
The direction the wizard is facing (or the position of the cursor) is not relevant!
While Death is chasing it’s target, the screen will lose 80% of it’s usual color and time will be slowed down (same effects like Time Warp). Death himself, won’t be slowed down.
When he swings his scythe the screen will completely darken and all units touched by the scythe will die.
Automatically given to the players after defeating Death in chapter 10.

Doubles the caster’s movement speed for 6 seconds.
After the 6 seconds, the speed will decrease for 4 more seconds until you can’t move for a second.
Means, the spell, overall lasts for 11 seconds.
As long as the spell is active, all your spells and other actions are more powerful:
faster played animations and faster moving, more damage by any kind of attack and increased resistance.
A “performanced” wizard is followed by red/orange light trails.
This magick can only be acquired in Challenge and Versus. It’s part of the “..” magicks pack.

The projectiles do pure cold damage. IF all hit, it does ?? damage.
This magick can only be acquired in Challenge and Versus. It’s part of the “..” magicks pack.

The direction can be changed by calling it in one place then calling it again in another place before the bomber flys over the map.
Damage can be avoided by self-casting QFEASF or ASFE. EFD works also.
Is automatically given to the players in the Vietnam Rescue Mission.

It explodes on contact with any unit or environment and causes 6000 arcane damage and 2000 fire damage (8000 in total) in a small area somewhere in front of the caster.
The red ball will spawn over the caster’s head and will fly for 1 to 2,5 seconds in the direction he is facing.
Damage can be avoided by casting a QFEASF or ASFE aura.
Seen in the cutscene in chapter one. Can originally be gotten in The Stars are Left in chapter 2.
Can be acquired in chapter 2 of The Stars Are Left. Talk to Edgar, the guy near the fire, until he says you’ll get a book, if you stop bothering him. Then go to the shop in the crashed goblin ship
(“Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe”). The shopkeep will give it to you.

Similar to the normal spell version but has a longer range and causes 800 lightning damage (1700 to wet units).
Can be found in The Stars Are Left in chapter 2. After killing the cultist and his “pet” from the cutscene, go north and open the gate. You will need the Detective Robe to open the door.

Corporealize will cause all ethereal units to become corporeal and therefore attackable!
The only use for this is in chapter 12 when you have to defeat Assatur.
But you can also corporealize other units in ethereal form, but usually they become corporeal on their own. Those daemons for example.
Automatically given to the players after Defeating Fafnir in chapter 11.

This magick can only be acquired in Challenge and Versus. It’s part of the “..” magicks pack.

Allows the caster to float/levitate over water, lava and normal ground.
The effect wears off after 30 seconds. Make sure to recast it often when walking over water or lava.

Causes Rain along with Thunder Bolts hitting random locations in the map for 17 seconds.
One Thunderstorm causes an average of 35 thunderbolts.
The thunderbolts have the same effect like the magick thunderbolt.
Found in chapter 8. After passing the first stone bridge you will see a stone wall on the left of the way. The magick is in the hole in that wall.

Magick Description: “Same old weather lost its intrigue? The creators of ‘Rain’ and ‘Thunderbolt’ now bring you the all-new Magick: ‘Thunder Storm’! A combination of rain and multiple thunder bolts makes this the ideal spell for destroy everything in the vicinity, including yourself!“

Protecting Spells (auras & armours)

We’ve made a video showing most of the spells shown in this and the four following sections.

All spells in this section are for protection and have to be self-casted!

The reasons to prefer armours are:

• All armours prevent beeing pushed away by water or air-pushes.
• Unlike auras, armours protect against all types of instant-damage until they are destroyed.
• Armours protect against instant damage of all types AND of status effects caused by them
• They protect against being grabbed by units like Snow Trolls and from being eaten by units like Shoggoths.

The only downside is that armours slow down your character.
The more stone the more slow-down, but also more pyhsical damage absorbtion.
And you can’t heal when wearing an armor.
But that’s easy to evade. Just put on an aura, heal, and put back on the armor again.

• absorbs 1500 points of damage dealt by all kinds of attacks
• phyiscal damage dealt to the armor is reduced by 30%
• protects against cold
• completely absorbs ice-crystals (dissapears after absorbing)

My favourite armor!

• absorbs 1500 points of damage dealt by all kinds of attacks
• phyiscal damage dealt to the armor is reduced by 30%
• protects against burning

• absorbs 1500 points of damage dealt by all kinds of attacks
• phyiscal damage dealt to the armor is reduced by 30%
• protects against wet

• absorbs about 1500 points of damage dealt by any kind of spell
• phyiscal damage dealt to the armor is reduced by 60%
• does not protect against burning or other status-effects

This armor is a good protection against rocksnipers, but heavily slows down your character!
I don’t recomment this armor for frequent use!

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Auras are inferior to armours.
Unlike armours, auras can only protect you against non-physical elements.
You should only use auras, when you need to heal.
Replace the armour with the aura and cast the healing spells (I like qwer).
Then put back on the armour again.

• Lightning
• Arcane
• Cold
• Stone-Ice-Misseles

• Steam
• Lightning
• Arcane
• Fire

Also known as ASFE. But QFEASF is much better, since it also protects you against Steam.

• Steam
• Water
• Lightning
• Arcane

useful in PvE when there is thunderstorm, but other tactics should be preffered when you play PvP.
Note: As already explained in the section “Element System/Spell Types – 1”, R(cold) will turn QF(steam) into water, thus leaving behind QF Q E A S, which will make you immune to both, water and lightning.

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• deflects beams
• perfect defense against rocksnipers, but
• knockback effect when your character is directly hit by projectiles
• wears off quickly, but is easy to recast or boost

Damaging Spells (stone/ice walls)

Do not self-cast any of these spells in this section!

All spells in this part can be area-casted, force-casted and enchanted (“row-casted”)

Ice walls are the most damaging Spells in Magicka.

They are good for causing instant damage and killing rather than for distracting units.
They break after a very short time (full ice wall, EQRQRQRRQ, lasts for ~4 seconds).
Then they explode and unleash their full power (if you have arcane in the combination)

• breaks after ~1 second and explodes
• causing very high, lightning-arcane-cold-damage
• cools down nearby units

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrcVB31EMkQ

• breaks after ~2 seconds and explodes
• causing extremely high, lightning-arcane-damage (higher than QREASR)

• breaks after ~1 second and explodes
• causes some arcane damage
• has high pushing effect when exploding
• causes wet status

effective against goblins and other little units (also unarmoured wizards),
even more, if they are close to a wall or any obstacle

• breaks after ~2 seconds, does not explode
• deals average lightning damage, (still more than a beam)
• stuns small units

The best spell I know so far for killing Vlad is QRQREAR (one lightning-element replaced with a cold-element)

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Stone walls last much longer than ice walls, but cause less damage.

They are easily to destroy, by casting ice shards (QRQRQRQRQR force cast) at them.
In challenge and adventure they can be used to distract enemy units.
In PvP you can use them to trap your “friends” and/or to keep them on distance.
Stone walls knock down enemys, if they hit directly.

Note: There is a huge difference between walls with Q/R/F only and walls with Q/R/F + S.
If you cast water at an EFDFF wall, you will extinguish the fire, while casting water at EFDSF won’t do anything, since the arcane “binds” the fire and protects it.
Adding more arcane to the combination does not increase the explosion range, but slightly increases the damage.
The other difference between walls with and without arcane is, that arcane walls will damage for a short time when they’re casted and when they explode.
“Normal” walls without arcane won’t explode but the effect (setting units on fire/wetting them/chilling) is caused the whole time.

• fire goes out after ~11 seconds, wall breaks after 30 seconds(if unaffected)
• sets all units next to it on fire
• fire extinguishes and the wall loses the fireeffect if water or cold is casted at it

• cold vanishes after ~11 seconds, wall breaks after 30 seconds
• chills all units near it
• cold vanishes and the wall loses the chill effect if fire or steam is casted at it

• The water wears off after 15 seconds, the wall breaks after 20 seconds
• Same range as the fire/cold-walls
• pushes back light units (light wizards, goblins, etc.) in its area
• wets the units
• water vaporizes and the wall loses the water effect if fire is casted at it

This wall works even better, when the target is close to a wall.
It will push it back against the wall over and over again dealing physical damage.

[more spells will be added]

Damaging Spells (missiles & spam)

Force cast the combinations in this section!

Missiles are, on stone based, force casted spells.
The simplest missile is D.
But a plain stone is quite boring, right?
To get “better” missiles you can add elements like steam or arcane.

Those ‘enchanted’ stone missiles explode on impact but can’t break through barriers.
The explosion will go through barriers (like stone walls) though!

The range can be increased by adding more of the range affecting element (usually arcane).

Okay, and what’s spam and how do I do it?

It’s just very fast casting of missiles like qdsf or sdr.
You have to press the keys at the same time!
And of course, don’t charge it. Just press the force cast button (RMB) and immediately release!

Missile spam is powerful and quite easy to learn.
It’s useful against larger groups of units as well as against single units.

• wets and damages all units in explosion range
• does about 500 steam-arcane-damage, 1500 damage to frozen units

insta-kills unprotected cyber robe
Even more effective, when you cast qsdf and dsr alternately.
Note, that units with arcane protection won’t take any damage (they’ll get wet though)

Q – little finger, S – ring finger, D – middle finger, F – index finger

• cools down and damages all units in explosion range
• does about 250 damage, 750 damage to frozen units

S – ring finger, D – middle finger, R – index finger

• wets and damages all units in range
• does about 300 pure steam damage

Q – ring finger, D – middle finger, F – index finger

• damages and sets all affected units on fire
• does about 350 arcane-fire damage

Note, that units with arcane protection won’t take any instand damage. But they’ll burn.

S – ring finger, D – middle finger, F – index finger

• not a good missile for spam
• is more useful with more water elements: QSDQQ -> much stronger (areal) knockback
• does about 250 (water-)arcane damage

Q – ring finger, S – middle finger, D – index finger

spamming at its best.

Damaging Spells (others)

Do not self-cast any of these spells in this section!

All spells in this part can be area-casted, force-casted and enchanted (“row-casted”)

Some of the spells are not soo powerful, but can be used for awesome spell combinations.

Force Cast

• is faster charged than stones
• uncharged, it does about 1500 damage, 8000 when fully charged
• vanishes on impact, does not burst through walls

Can be easily avoided by casting a cold armour

Area Cast

• does about 500 physical damage in a wide range (good against little units)
• knocks down everything
• only Shields can block the range

Weapon Enchant

• does about 1000 physical damage in a row in front of your caster.
• knocks down enemys that are hit by the line earthquake
• damage area is not affected by normal shields (shields stop the line earthquake though)

Does +100 more damage if you replace the rock with another ice element, but removes the earth fissure

• does high areal Steam-arcane-lightning damage
• wets all units in its range
• can be used as beam

• These three spells have the same properties but cause different status effects:
• EAFAF sets units on fire
• EARAR cools them
• EQFQFAA wets them (and therefore causes more lightning damage)

These spells are a bit useless in PvP because they can be easily destroyed (or whatever) by casting earth quakes, but they are part of some diablolical tactics.
In PvE though, lightning storms are the sh*t. Especially EARAR can perfectly be used together with Steam Spells to damage multiple monsters at the same time and teo freeze them

Strong beam that instantly explodes if crossed by another beam.
Does Steam, Lightning and Arcane damage.
Pushes little units such as goblins or unarmoured wizards around.
I don’t like beams and don’t recommend them in any of the game modes..
You can find a spell type comparison in the chapter “Element System/Spell Types – 2”.

High damaging ground ice spikes, that also wets units in its range.

• area cast this spell!
• the elements must be casted in that exact order

For maximum awesomeness cast it alternately with QR QR QR A R.

Healing spells

Do not self-cast any of these spells in this section!

All spells in this part can be area-casted, force-casted and enchanted (“row-casted”)

• most effective when area-casted
• units inside the circle will get 6000 HP, 3000 outside the circle
• easy to cast. Just press the upper elements at the same time

• units in the affected area get 2500 HP
• very easy to cast
• safer to heal revived team mates (the ice in QWER tends to kill them sometimes)

• removes status effects like burning or wet.
• quite useless unless you are a rocksniping camper
• will result in a lame aura when self-casted

• heals when rocks are destroyed, so it should be casted twice
• more protective than the healing ice wall
• depending on the additional element you can add nice effects to annoy your enemy while healing yourself.
• As additional element are usable: Fire, Cold, Earth and Steam. Water might end deadly for yourself!
• you can cast all three elements at the same time with three fingers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKJ_bGrPojM&feature=youtu.be

Combat Guide – Tricks, Tactics

The tactics and tricks here don’t really have proper names…

Selfcast push trick

Selfcast a missile, like ddddd or dsf and push it away:

• conjure the elements for the missile (ddddd or sdf for example)
• selfcast it
• immediately do a force push

The missile will fly over obstacles like stone walls and can also reach higher platforms.
Useful when fighting rocksnipers!

Stone boost trick

works only with “pure” stones (3x D minimum)

• conjure the stone elements
• force cast the spell
• immediately do a force push

The stone will fly much further and cause a bit more damage. It can also break through walls when the force push comes in time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC09qAtAtuQ

Works only with light, unarmoured wizards.
There are several different canonball versions.

• cast QWERQQ in the reverse direction you want to fly.
• queue the elements for the ice armour, QR E D QR QR
• self-cast the elements, when the wall explodes

When you hit/touch units you will inflict icy physical damage and knock them down.
Note: the ice armour steps are optional, you can just use this for escaping or going right into combat.

• put on a simple shield (E selfcast)
• cast ED in the reverse direction you want to fly
• cast QWDQQ in same direction

• put on an aura, I usually use ASRE
• cast the same elements you used for the aura as mines in the reverse direction you want to fly. To activate the mines, you can:
  • step on the mines
  • cast the mines again at the same place
  • cast ED over the mines
• Before hitting the ground, conjure a stone armour, DEDDD

Note: in which direction you fly is random after all

• put on an aura or a simple shield
• turn your character depending on the direction you want to fly to *
• selfcast dwqqq

*[Hint: The angle you have to turn your character is different depending on your robe. With some you fly sidewards, with some backwards or other directions. It needs a bit of practice to figure out the right angle but it works well.]

• go towards a wall or any environmental obstacle and
• force cast QWDQQ in the reverse direction you want to be pushed

Notes: Basic shields (e force or enchanted) can be used as obstacle as well.
A good way to escape (almost) hopeless situations but also to “fly” right into combat.
Since you don’t fly very far you don’t have to selfcast shield, just make sure you don’t blast yourself into the next wall.

• cast a normal shield in the reverse direction you want to fly
• cast QWQQQ in the same direction

Use less water, if you want to fly shorter. This method takes a bit longer than the environment cannonballing but is quite acurate.
Another advantage of this method is that you take no damage by crashing into a wall most of the time. (The damage is displayed but not applied)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pEDjYxzhaY
(lame video :p)

The only thing, that you have to mind is that there must be at least one obstacle between the rocksniper and you. Obstacles can be “natural” obstacles like the pillars in Havindr Arena or normal shields (E) or stone walls.

Many rocksnipers do it the “charge behind own shield”-way. Means, they cast a normal shield or a shield bubble, charge their rock behind it and wait until the shield wears off.
The only thing you have to do now is boost the shield, go next to it and cast an icewall inside it.

The other rocksnipers usually do the same but without any shield to protect them.
Here missiles with splash effect come in handy:

The rocksniper camps somewhere and waits for you to step into his sight.
But there is a pillar between you and him what makes it impossible for him to get a direct hit.
Now you just have to cast exploding missiles. I like QSDFSS + SDRSS to freeze the rocksniper.
If the rocksniper has no aura or armour he will get minishocked by the explosion and release the charged stone.
If not, he will either keep charging the stone or release it, in order to be able to recast his protection.

Thunderstorm

The easiest way to survive Thunderstorms is the QFQFEASR aura, that protects you against Steam, Water, Lightning and Arcane.
But since it’s an aura it won’t defend you against physical damage. It also doesn’t protect you against cold, what makes you a perfect target for ice crystalls (DQRQRQR)!

The safer way is to cast stone walls around you (EDD area-cast) and instead of the aura cast the water immunity armour (QED)!
The thunderbolts will always hit the stones before they hit you.
This tactic protects you not just against the thunderbolts. It also protects you against missiles.

Thunderbolt

Defending against Thunderbolts is similar to defending Thunderstorms:
You can again just cast an aura with lightning immunity (doesn’t have to be qfqfeasr).
The safer way is to keep the armour but cast stone walls around you.

I’ll update this video with a better one.

Safe Places in challenge maps

On the right of the map there is a bamboo wall and a rock. Move next to the rock and cast a shield bubble. Cast an aura and boost the shield to the half. Cast ES-mines in the reverse direction of the stone. Conjure EDD and step on the mines. Before you land on the rock, put on the armour!

Stand next to one of the crates and cast a shield bubble. Put on an aura and boost the shield.
Cast ES-mines in the reverse direction of the crates and step on them.
Ta-dah! You are on the crates!
From this point you can hit distant units with missiles. Monsters that stand next to your crates can be killed with lightning (QFAAAAR, AFAAA, ARAAA)!

On the top right of the map there is a wooden scaffold with a little ledge next to it. Move your wizard behind this scaffold! From this point, you can only hit monsters with lightning and the self-cast push trick, but you can revive your team mates and cast some magicks.
Once there, you can only go back by teleporting or suicide!

On the right of the start-spawnpoint there is a house. This one is tricky though, because it’s too high for catapulting on it like you can do it in the Vietnam Survival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lk4dZY_vTI

More tricks comming soon.

Write a comment, if you know good tricks or informations I can add to existing tactics! 🙂

Combat Guide – Tricks, Tactics 2

To pull this off you need TWO sources of speed, these can be the Rogue Robe, the magicks Haste or Performance Enchantment, the weapon Knife of Counterstriking or the staff Grandfathers Clock.

Then cast an ice armour, EDQRQRQR

Due to your high running speed the spikes on your ice armour do about 2500 damage to all unprotected units!
This tactic will NOT damage units with physical damage or cold protection!

(left: cold aura, right: phyiscal damage aura)

You may also cast EQRQRQRQR (shield, 4x Ice) if you are fighting Daemons, since you can damage them with the ice spikes even when they are immaterialized! This armor lets you run slightly faster than EDQRQRQR, but is less durable.

This is extremely awesome in PvE, but you better not do this in PvP.
1) If your opponent uses a cold aura, ASRE for example, you won’t do any damage.
2) You burn to death almost instantly if your opponent uses fire walls (EFD, EFDS, etc.)
3) Amateurs will just leave instantly or call you a hacker if you do this……..

Make sure to not use this while running through Goblin Bombers, as they drop bombs when killed.

Will add proper video soon.

Combat Guide – various Tips & more

• When you rocksnipe, don’t focus on the position of the mouse cursor. Rather look at the direction your character is facing.
• When you are playing Free for All PvP with 3 or 4 players:
  – look, that you don’t get into a fight with more than one opponent.
  – get other players in cross fire and “sandwich” them! (repeat until only one opponent is left)
  – try rocksniping players who are focused on fighting each other

• When another player spams missiles at you, recast your armour over and over again until he loses interest and changes his strategy! Hardly works if you’re in crossfire spam.
• Playing defensively is no shame, but watch out, that you don’t get driven into a situation/place you can’t escape.
• When you’re surrounded by zombies, do not try to break free by pressing thepace bar. Area-cast QWER instead to kill them and heal yourself.
• Lightning can bypass many environmental obstacles.
  In PvP you most certainly won’t be able to cause damage with pure lightning, but you can cause status effects. ARAAA for chill. AFAAA for burning. QFAAAAR for wet.

• Always pay as much attention to your partner and opponent as to yourself.
  If your partner dies, get in safety, revive and shield him from damage. Shields and stone walls are essential! Do not try to revive while being in ‘close combat’.

• When you’re surrounded by monsters use AoE spells that hits only them, not you.
  QFDDDD combined with DRDDD is awesome (area cast both of course). If you need less range replace one D with Arcane (-> QDSFDD & SDRDD). Remember that frozen units suffer tripled arcane and physical damage.

PvP Guide – defensive Stuff

Generally you should attack and defend depending on the attacks and protections of your enemy.
If your enemy is using an aura as protection then use physical damage or water spells.
If your enemy is using an armor as protection then use spells causing magical damage.
And if your enemy is attacking you then quickly change your protection depending on his attack.

But of course there is more about it.
You can predict what spell you enemy is going to use by looking at the elements he is conjuring and by the current protections of yourself and your enemy.
For example: a quick look at the enemys weapon and you will know what elements are enchanted.

Yellow and White lights are usually Ice walls
Ice walls are usually QREASR or QRQREAS, so prepare for casting an aura

Armours with orange lights are, of course, armours with fire protection.

Remember the colors of the elements! If you are not sure, what elements are what color, just look at the GUI in the bottom left cornor, where the elements are shown.

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Of course you should always change your aura or armor depending on the enemy’s attacks. But there are also other options to protect yourself:

The armor-spam
Simply cast armors with status effect immunity (e.g. EFD for fire immunity) depending on the enemys attack, as fast as you can. Don’t try to cast faster than you are used to, otherwise you will totally mess up
If you are fast enough you can protect with armors against most icewalls.
That is useful because your enemy might want to attack physically at the same time because he expects you to switch to an aura.
But in case your enemy is spamming QREASR walls you should still switch to an aura.

Auras
You should use auras only if you can’t defend with armors against an attack because auras have two disadvantages:
1 – They don’t protect against being pushed away meaning you might be pushed into a wall and die.
2 – They don’t protect against physical damage. As soon as you have an aura your enemy can
simply use a stone or icesword and you are dead.

Quick siwtching between auras and armors
In actual battle there will be situation when you have to quickly switch between auras and armors, because neither of them can protect you from all the attacks your enemy is throwing at you.
To see what is needed next have a look at the elements your enemy is conjuring.

Just a simple shield casted in front of you can stop missles, icewalls of doom and almost any other kind of attack. The exception are iceswords and walls/mines casted when standing close to the shield. This is an important thing to make use of.

You can attack with walls while being safe behind your shield!

Multiple layers of shields can be used to defend against an enemy who is making use of that.
Especially a force casted shield inside a area casted shield is easy to cast and very useful.

Moreover it nees a very little amount of time to vanish, so it can still stop attacks while it is actually destroyed.

With this you can attack and defend at the same time but it is mainly used to keep your enemy away from you.
Place lots of walls like (QR)EDSQ, ESDR or EFDF between yourself and your enemy.
At the same time you can use a aura as protection because most physical attacks will just hit the walls or your enemy might try to destroy walls with the shorter lasting icewalls of doom.
But its not completely safe:

• Your enemy might try to use enchants like dsqqq to damage you; Just look if he is enchanting something with stone and without shield.
• Your enemy might try to use the selfcast-push trick to throw missles at you.

Just switch to an armor or cast a shield in front of you when you see this.

As already said you can also use this for offense: If your enemy gets close to the walls destroy them with additional walls. The Explosions will cause damage and might start a chain reaction. Also if you directly hit units with walls they usually get knocked down.

[more will be added soon]

PvP Guide – offensive tactics

Simple:

• It has to combine strong physical and strong magical damage to go through all protections.
• It has to make your enemy unable to protect against the type of damage you’re going to use.
• It has to stop your enemy from doing anything.

It’s enough, if your attack matches at least one of these conditions.

When attacking you should always consider the enemys armor! It is no use to attack with a QREASR wall when your enemy has a ASRE protection.
In general it is also good to freeze or slow your enemy with QSDF and SDR missles before using the lethal attacks.

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Shields are a common way to defend and you will often have to problem that a shield is between you and your enemy. What to do in such a situtaion?

• Use a shield to negate the enemys shield; cast a shield bubble when you are close enough.
• Use a quick but strong attack to break the shield. Missle spamms or icemissles work well.

You can use walls like EQRDSQ, EQRSDR or ESDF (or other long lasting walls) together with the walls of the stage to prevent your enemy from fleeing.If you attack an enemy who is trapped like this the walls around him will most likely explode and deal additional damage.

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There are a few basics behind most offensive tactics:

Making your enemy switch to a certain protection to make use of it’s weakness.
For example:

First attack your enemy with fire. Continue until he switches to an aura or armor with fire protection and then use a single DR enchant to knock him down and slow him at the same time. Now you will have the time to attack with a DQRQRQRQR missle that will kill your enemy easily because he is not protected against cold. If your enemy does not switch to a fire protection he will die by the fire damage.

Combining multiple kinds of lethal damage.
The following example contains high magcical damage, freezing, pushing your enemy against walls and strong physical damage:

Use QREDSQ walls as weapon enchant to wet your enemy and knock him down. The walls also do some damage by themsleves but as soon as your enemy is knocked down you can cast a EQRASR icewall next to the first wall where your enemy is lying to freeze him and do a high amount of magcial damage.
Both walls will explode simultanously so if your enemy has a armor as protection he will die by the insane amount of damage and if he has a aura he will get pushed away by the explosions of the EQRSDQ wall. If he still does not die by crashing into a wall you should already have a DDDDD missle prepared and charged to finish him of.

Weaking/Breaking the enemys defense so he will take more damage from your next attack.
This is mainly to be used against armors, because auras cant be weakened. Here an example:

Have a strong enchant prepared e.g. EQRASR. Now hit your enemy with a DQRQRQRQR missle when he has an armor. The high amount of damage will destroy his armor (or even kill him already). Use the enchant instantly after you shoot the missle. Your enemys armor will be destroyed and the ministun of the icewall leaves him helpless to the incoming damage.

Using opposite elements in your attack patterns:
Steam and Ice is a very effective combo because the only auras for steam have no cold protection and armors will be easily broken by icemissles while the steam kills your enemy when he is trying to defend against your ice attacks. Together with the wet status and freezing this combo has a lot of coverage. Usually the missles QDF and DQRQRQRQR are used for this.
Fire and cold together can annoy your enemy as he will burn down or get slowed badly if he doesn´t take the time to remove status.
Fire + Ice and Steam + Cold work well too.

Sheer Force:
Yeah, thats no actual tactic but it works out well for players who are extremely fast at casting. Here an example on how to make use of your casting speed:
A mix of QSDF and DSR missles freezes your enemy while you can get closer to him. As you permanently freeze him he can only try to defreeze and renew his armor. If he switches to a aura as defense the small stones in your missles may be enough to kill him. As soon as you are close enough blow him up with a double layer of mines.
This is nothing for beginners because you realy need to shoot multiple missles per second.

Mines:
Mines can do something no other attack-type can do: They deal insane amounts of magical damage while throwing unarmored enemys into the air.
When your enemy gets close enough to you cast a doubble layer of mines like EASR or EASF (shift + rightclick cast).
A few things your should know about mines:

• Mines can also be used from behind shields
• Mines explode instantly if you cast them into a wall or something

This makes mines a useful lethal attack or a strong counter attack.

Here a example for them in offense:
Have haste activated and a enchant prepared that knocks your enemy down. Get close to your enemy while avoiding his attacks with fast movement and protection switching. As soon as you are close enough cast your enchant directly at him so he will get knocked down. This will give you the time to move next to him and cast mines.

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What is written above are only basics 😛 (no, actually it is rather advanced partially). But the combination of them with your own ideas and other tactics is what becomes realy strong.
Magicka is a lot about creativity during battle. Develop your own strategies and your own style of playing. There are lots of different ways to fight and all of them have their advatages and disadvantages.

There are players who use lots of shields what makes it hard to damage them and they have strong counterattacks.
There are players who use brute force or extreme attack-speed to break trough any kind of defense.
There are players who have neither strong attacks nor a good defense but they win with well combined attacks and predicting whatever their enemy is going to do.
And there are much more…

Find your own way! ;D

Configuring Multiplayer

Usually you see the book when starting Magicka.

From this point, you can select:
Adventure, The Stars are left
Vietnam, The other Side of the Coin, Dungeons and Daemons
Challenges, Versus (PvP), Online Play

When you select a mode here, you’ll play it in Single Player Mode.
Nobody will be able to join your Lobby over the internet, but you can still play with your friends on the same computer, if they use Gamepads.

The golden stars indicate maps/levels you haven’t played yet.

When you select Online Play, the page will turn and you see this:

From This point you can:
• Browse the Server List for Adventure, Challenge and Versus servers. Apparently.
• Quick Join a random Server
• Host your own game

Servers with a black lock are protected by a password. You can only join them, if you enter the correct password.
Grey’d servers are already in progress. Means, that the host already started the game and isn’t waiting in the Lobby. You can’t join in-progress servers.
VAC protection doesn’t do anything. You only have to turn it off, if you want to play modified content!

• open the Steam Overlay (default keys are [Shift]+[Tab])
• Open the chat to your friend
• His profile picture should be in the top left corner of the window
• Right-click it and select Join
• or, if you are hosting, select Invite to game

You can also directly join and invite from the friend list!
[/list]

When you select Host, a piece of paper will pop up and you should see this:

For changing the server name, mode, password or VAC-Protection, just click the headline.
If you, for example, want to set up a password for your server, you just have to click Password and type in the password.

Magicka’s Multiplayer is quite dead though. But there is a public chatroom, where you still can find players.
Read this: [link]

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These steps are not required for hosting, but make it easier for players to find your server:

• Open these ports:
  • 7331 UDP/TCP
  • 27000 to 27030 UDP
  • 4380 UDP

• Turn off Hamachi, Tunngle or other programs if they’re running
• Deactivate all network adapters except the one you’re using to connect to the internet:
  • in the Systray left-click the internet symbol (should look like a bar chart)
  • open the network center
  • on the left, click on “Change adapter settings”
  • then select the adapters and deactivate them!

• open the Firewall for Magicka
• optionally you can also restart Steam before playing online.

If you still have unusal lag or if you lose connection to the internet often, check if your router’s firmware is up-to-date.

Also:

Never minimize Magicka when playing online.
People wouldn’t be able to join your server and would have extreme lag when already ingame.

Don’t immediately close the game, if the loading bar is stuck. Wait at least 3 minutes.

PvP Game Modes

There are three different game modes in PvP.

• Death Match
• Brawl
• Krietors Tourney

You can switch them, by clicking the down arrow and then selecting one of them.

If Teams are turned on, you can switch the team by right-clicking your character window.
After right-clicking the window, you will get a pop-up with the text “Change Team”.
When you click it, you will go from blue to red and reverse.
You can change teams as often you want!
There are a blue and a red team. Teams can be 1vs1, 1vs2, 1vs3 or 2vs2.

Death Match

This mode is the default mode, when you open a server for PvP.

In this mode, you win if you have more kills than the others, when the time is over, or if you reach the score (kills) limit before the match ends.
Deaths only affect your ranking, if there’s another player/team with the same amount of kills.

When you die, you will automatically respawn after 3 seconds with default equipment and full HP.
Luggages with equipment and spells spawn regularly (if they are turned on).

Brawl

In this mode you win, when
• you have more lives remaining than the others, when the time is over.
• all other players or the other team has lost all their lives before the match ends.

When you die, you will automatically respawn after 3 seconds with default equipment and full HP.
A player who has lost all lives before the match ends, won’t respawn for the rest of the match but can stay as a spectator.

Luggages spawn regularly (if they are turned on).
This mode is buggy, very often you lose two lives when you die.

Krietor’s Tourney

This is my favourite mode!
It’s mainly free of bugs and much fairer than the other two modes.

There are no luggages and therefore no spells or equipment, that give one single player unfair advantages. Magicks are enabled for every player over time though!

In Krietor’s Tourney you win by surviving rounds. You win a round when you are the last one alive. Your team wins a round, when all players from the other team are dead at the same time!

You will respawn if your team mate revives you, or when the new round starts.
Dead players won’t respawn until they’re revived or a new round starts, but stay as spectator.

Test your knowledge

Try guessing before you look at the solutions.

In a line, in front of your character 4 rock pillars appear, each pillar is surrounded by red stripes. Upon explosion after some seconds, the wall damages and sets units around it on fire. What’s that spell?
EFDS
cast type: weapon enchant (shift+LMB)
E+D because it’s a rocky wall,
S because there are red stripes and because the wall explodes,
F because it sets units on fire

Your character casts a small earthquake that lights green and pushes some goblins away. What’s that spell?
DWQ
cast type: area cast (shift+RMB)
D because it’s an earthquake
W because it lights green
QQQ because it pushes the goblins around (remember, water pushes little units)
Note that it can also be only one or two Q but three are most effective.

ERDS area casted. What does the spell do and what does it look like?
A Stone wall appears around the caster. Each rock is surrounded by a red/light blue stripe. They break and explode after a few seconds, damage and chill units in range.

You cast AER (lightning cold storm) on your sword, but get into a situation where an ice wall (QREASR) would be more effective. What do you have to do, to have the correct spell in your sword?
Simply re-enchant your sword. Since you already have the half of the spell in your sword, you just have to add QRS.
QRS + AER = QREASR
Alternatively you also could have thrown out the stored AER and then cast QREASR. It depends on the situation what’s the more effective way though.

Oh no! You’ve been trapped by zombies. What can you do to escape them?
Area cast QWER or
cast an earthquake or
hammer the space bar (not recommended)

Name the spell types that require shield. Hint: one of them is Element Storm.
Armours, Ice walls, Auras, Mines, Stone Walls, Element Storms, Shield Barriers.

How do you cast:
Haste ASF
Tornado DQFQQF
Blizzard RRQR

What should you do before and after reviving your team mate(s)?
If you are in a fight, cast a shield bubble first, then revive. Use QWER or WE to heal them.
If you are not in danger, just revive him and let him heal himself.

You are playing PvP and your opponent uses an ice wall with red (slightly purple) stripes directly next to you. What’s that spell and how do you react to it?
The spell is QREASR.
Ice wall -> EQR.
Red stripes around it -> S
Purple stripes -> Some blue by cold + red from arcane = purple, additional purple by lightning. -> AR.
There are multiple ways to protect against this attack. EASR selfcast makes you immune to all the used types of damage.
EDR spam absorbs all the damage (if you are fast enough) and you don´t get chilled by cold. either.

more might be added soon.

Stuff and F.A.Q.

Also check out our guide for Magicka: Wizard Wars
[link]

Link Collecton

https://www.youtube.com/user/PurpleMagickaWizard (inactive)

Problems with Magicka?

Monthly PvP Tournaments! (suspended)

Magicka’s Steam Users’ Forum
Magicka’s Paradox Forum[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Magicka on Facebook[www.facebook.com]
Magicka’s Official Website[www.magickagame.com]

Looking for people to play with?

Modding Magicka

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What is the best robe?

The best robe for adventure is the Space Robe IMO. Since the AI is exteremely dumb, it shouldn’t be too hard to avoid getting damaged. The immunites and resistance to status effects and damage are quite handy as well.
For challenge you should pick the epic robe. You can heal yourself but still have increased HP and resistance to some damage types.
The Cyber Robe as such isn’t that bad in adventure (or challenge), but is terrible for Versus.
The Electrobe is better because you deal increased lightning damage and normal healing spells still work.
My personal favourite is the Robe and Hat, it’s stylish and doesn’t have any unnecessary gimmicks.

Questions and feedback are appreciated.