Magicka - a few questions

[CPA]

Okay, finally finished King's Bounty Crossworlds two nights ago and decided to start up Magicka.

Fun, so far, but like many players, I'm having a hard time remembering and understanding the spell sequences. Most of the time I'm just mashing buttons. I have come across a nice exploding fireball spell with earth, earth, fire, fire, but otherwise I'm lost. I have a few questions:

- Is there a way to hotkey the spell combos?
- If I scroll to a spell iteration, is there a button that I can click and the elements will quickly populate or do I have to manually click each one in the proper order?
- Do I need the books to cast the spell in the book? Does the book just give me the proper sequence that attaches to my mouse wheel scroll?
- What is the weapon for/do? I don't seem to be able to use it.
- How do I create steam? Is it another element that's attached to a key or do I have to press water and fire elements at the same time?
- Is there a way to pause the game during combat?

I want to continue the game (finished Chapter 3 last night), but I will end up giving up if I don't feel I have any control over my character. And right now, I don't.

 

[Elcs]

Trying to answer them simply:

No - I used macros on my G700 mouse and G15 keyboard
You must select the spells in order. No other way (except external macros)
No, you can cast all spells without afaik.
Weapons give certain buffs, you have to use your weapon in the tutorial.
Steam is fire and water iirc. Either way will create it.
Space bar is pause, again iirc.

I haven't played in a while but it is pretty crazy

 

[CPA]

Trying to answer them simply:

No - I used macros on my G700 mouse and G15 keyboard
You must select the spells in order. No other way (except external macros)
No, you can cast all spells without afaik.
Weapons give certain buffs, you have to use your weapon in the tutorial.
Steam is fire and water iirc. Either way will create it.
Space bar is pause, again iirc.

I haven't played in a while but it is pretty crazy

There are a couple spells that require steam as an element. Does that mean I need to press water and fire simultaneously to get it?

Tutorial? What tutorial?

 

[zinfamous]

yeah, I find it frustrating that you can't hotkey spell combos, but that is the point of the game. It is meant to be confounding, and test your coordination in heated moments.

Half of the game seems to be finding inventive ways to dispatch yourself and your teammates--totally by mistake, of course.

It annoys me, but I don't see any reason to change it.

 

[zinfamous]

There are a couple spells that require steam as an element. Does that mean I need to press water and fire simultaneously to get it?

Tutorial? What tutorial?

I have this same question. never could get steam to work....

 

[Red Storm]

Steam is Water, then Fire. Or Fire, then Water. You don't have to press them at the same time, just one after the other in any order.

 

[Martimus]

You do need the book to cast the spell stated in the book.

If you are having a hard time, you can encase yourself in strong stone (edddd shift rightclick) and you will give yourself some time to think about it while you are relatively safe. I combine this with the staff of life which has regeneration and keeps healing your stone tomb while enemies beat on it.

My favorite spell to cast while in the stone to kill all the enemies around me is a steam lightning AOE spell: (fqasss Shift rightclick) This will kill your stone shield, but will usually kill all enemies around you as well (does around 1500 damage to everyone within maybe 10 feet of you)

Another awesome combo that lets you just avoid all the fights if you want is combining timewarp (re) and haste (asf), which lets you run around faster and slows everyone else down. You can avoid all but the boss fights with this combo if you want.

Also I believe hitting escape during combat pauses the game.

 

[zinfamous]

Steam is Water, then Fire. Or Fire, then Water. You don't have to press them at the same time, just one after the other in any order.

every time I do that, the "steam icon" never pops up, and the spell never does what is "supposed to do"

ergo, I never get a Meteor Shower. Just a boulder on my head, or something like that.

 

[Martimus]

every time I do that, the "steam icon" never pops up, and the spell never does what is "supposed to do"

ergo, I never get a Meteor Shower. Just a boulder on my head, or something like that.

You have to press space to cast a book spell. Center clicking is a good way to die in most cases.

pressing qf or fq will give you steam. Just be careful when stringing Steam and fire or water. You often end up making an extra steam on accident (for example doing fire-steam by pressing f for fire and qf for steam will end up being steam fire, and not fire steam. The reason for this is that fq is also steam, so pressing the q before f in making the second steam will actually make the first spell a steam spell)

 

[Red Storm]

You have to press space to cast a book spell. Center clicking is a good way to die in most cases.

pressing qf or fq will give you steam. Just be careful when stringing Steam and fire or water. You often end up making an extra steam on accident (for example doing fire-steam by pressinf f for fire and qf for steam will end up being fire steam, and not steam fire. The reason for this is that fq is also steam, so pressing the q before f in making the second steam will actually make the first spell a steam spell)

This quote perfectly explains why I both love and hate Magicka (but love a little more).

 

[zinfamous]

You have to press space to cast a book spell. Center clicking is a good way to die in most cases.

pressing qf or fq will give you steam. Just be careful when stringing Steam and fire or water. You often end up making an extra steam on accident (for example doing fire-steam by pressing f for fire and qf for steam will end up being steam fire, and not fire steam. The reason for this is that fq is also steam, so pressing the q before f in making the second steam will actually make the first spell a steam spell)

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

all you need is qfaas i think. or it might be qfasaas. something like that. It's called a steam lightning beam and it kills everything. I think it wets the monster and shocks them at the same time.

I also like to spam an area of effect water spell (qqqqq then shift+m1), then aoe cold spell (rrrrrr then shift+m1), then spam asasasas which is something i can't remember.

1. hotkeys. there's a macro tool i think. or use your mouse macros. or autohotkey. I think it's better to do the spells manually though.
2. you have to manually press the keys to make the spells.
3. Need the books. They're also used for quick reference in case you forget the spell.
4. weapon is for killing. It's better if you cast a spell on it first. I think it's something like qfas hold ctrl then mouse 1. Play around with the different elements. I personally like that combo because it's easy and strong. You can get a machine gun later also.
5. steam is fire then water or water than fire. can't remember exactly.
6. No pause

Sorry haven't played in a while so I'm a little rusty on the exact button combinations.

If you want to get the dlcs for cheap you can go on green man gaming. They give you .25 for each game review they approve. So you can do 4 quick game reviews and the next day you should have enough credit to get that new swamp dlc for free. That's basically how I got it.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

every time I do that, the "steam icon" never pops up, and the spell never does what is "supposed to do"

ergo, I never get a Meteor Shower. Just a boulder on my head, or something like that.

For the spellbook spells, I think you have to hit spacebar after you cast the elements. Not mouse 2.

 

[zinfamous]

yeah, but while casting any spell, that little icon for each key will pop up after you press it, showing your string of elements before you hit mouse1/2/3 or space or whatever--which casts the spell.

every time I try this, I can never get a steam icon--I only get fire or water. fq or qf in whatever order, I still get the individual element.

I suppose it just doesn't show in the icon string, but as always either fire or water? It is possible that I was indeed using the wrong mouse button instead of space. it's been a few weeks since I played, and haven't spent a lot of time wiht it.

 

[greenhawk]

1- no in game hot keys, that is part of the game.
2- part of the game, need to select the components in the correct order
3- books are needed for those special spells (activated via space bar). without them you can not cast that spell (important when playing the instant action maps and not the campain. The scroll wheel allows you t scroll through the known spells so you can work out what needs pressing/selecting.
4- The weapon is for melee attach / activating spells you have placed onto the weapon. shift+left click uses it IIRC. On a side note, staffs are right click to use, and they have a cool down period on them.
5- steam is as mentioned. the 8 elements are all there is. You just have to press one then the other to use it. The trick is that a lot of the components if pressed multiple times or entered in the wrong order will cancil out previous elements so wrecking the desired spell. A bit of a problem when in a hurry (and why it is fun).
6- I think their is, esc or the pause key IIRC, but it is different for campain vs instant IIRC as well.

but I will end up giving up if I don't feel I have any control over my character. And right now, I don't.

personal taste. Personally, I was about to give the game up as a waste of money before I relised just how fun the spell system was. That is the game maker for me. Without it, I would think the game is crap and would want a refund. Though the first expantion/DLC personally is definitly bad vs the original campain.

As to the game spell system, their is about 4 ways to spells, and the same components do different things.

ie: you have standard, spell area, spell self, embu weapon. (can not remember which is which at the moment but right click, shift +right click, and shift+left click).

ie: shield component as a example.
normal - gives curved wall in front of you
area - gives large dome over you
self - gives personal shield
weapon - gives long straight shield from where you are standing.

timing is everything as well.

if wet (ie: can not use electricity in spells), you need to case fire on yourself to dry out. Doing it a second time casts you alight and you run around dieing until put out (or it goes out itself leaving little health left from full).

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

yeah, but while casting any spell, that little icon for each key will pop up after you press it, showing your string of elements before you hit mouse1/2/3 or space or whatever--which casts the spell.

every time I try this, I can never get a steam icon--I only get fire or water. fq or qf in whatever order, I still get the individual element.

I suppose it just doesn't show in the icon string, but as always either fire or water? It is possible that I was indeed using the wrong mouse button instead of space. it's been a few weeks since I played, and haven't spent a lot of time wiht it.

Steam doesn't pop up the way the other elements do. Rather if your last element was fire and you add water, the previous fire turns into steam. Similarly with fire on top of water.

 

[Aikouka]

Didn't really see the need for a new Magicka thread, so I'll cast Raise Dead on this one!

QRDSR!

:whiste:

So, I finally started playing Magicka, and I have to say... playing this game single player can be incredibly frustrating at times. It's soooo easy to screw up, and a single miss-click can mean utter doom. Combine that with two deaths = you're done, and it's hair-pulling time! A few times I've hit barrier + life and then middle mouse button instead of right click. A barrier that stops life... not so good!

I also find that there's a heavy, heavy cheese factor in winning fights. Right now I'm literally charming the yetis (who will eat me if they catch me), freezing them and killing them with rocks. My only other solution is to raise zombies to use as yeti fodder, but frankly... WED is a lot easier to enter than whatever I mentioned above.

I also beat Grimnir through cheese. In his mental battle, I used a 5x water AoE on almost every encounter, because it will end up knocking the enemies off the platform. On the druids and Grimnir himself, I just used 5x Ice -> enchant weapon -> slice. It deals about 1200 damage per hit and goes through rock barriers.

On death, I created a wall of life stone, and when Death came in during his clone move, I had a barrier + life loaded up, I hit shift + right click (AoE), which caused the original earthen life barrier to explode along with the life mines. That just about one-shot the boss (he takes damage from life).

I really need to get my G15 software installed again. I wouldn't mind a few of the long and multi-magic magicks macroed into my keyboard. The only one that I can cast easily is Conflagration, and that's because it's QFFFQFFQ (Steam+Fire+Steam+Fire+Steam). I actually used Conflagration constantly on the undead fight at the end of the marsh. Speaking of the marsh, using life+barrier with shift + right click is ridiculously fun in that level. It pretty much one shots anything that's undead, which is 80% of the level.

EDIT:

As a note, I'm using the Epic Robes. The sword is worthless, but the staff is nice when I remember to use it. I also like the health pool that it provides even though it has higher immunity to life (i.e. less healing taken). That's not a huge deal since life mines heal for so much (life+barrier -> right click creates 3 mines which restores over half my HP). I tried the Rogue Robes, and I do really like them; however, I find that they are very hard to play with at times unless you have the Staff of War from a warlock. The staff gives you +200 HP, which almost doubles your health pool. You're also twice as fast with the Rogue Robes, and your (melee) weapon can poison mobs, which will slow them. What I need is someone to play with that uses them, so I can kill them and take the crossbow on my Epic Robes (since the sword is such junk).

 

[PrayForDeath]

I was thinking about getting this game, but after reading this thread I don't think I'd enjoy it.

 

[Martimus]

I was thinking about getting this game, but after reading this thread I don't think I'd enjoy it.

It is fun. It is like playing an old NES game, where it is difficult, but fun. Most of the fun comes from the difficulty, and making mistakes. It can be pretty funny making mistakes in the game.

 

[KidNiki1]

i never played this single player and i think that would be not as interesting to me although the dialogue is humorous.

i did play it with some friends quite a few times tho, and man, that was hilarious, exactly because the spell combos were so hard to do. assuming your friends aren't the type to get pissed off about a game, it's mad fun to accidentally (accidentally on purpose???) kill each other as you go along.

even better when your friends go afk for a break and come back to themselves being mysteriously dead. /halo

 

[RapidSnail]

Anyone have trouble with multiplayer? Cannot see any servers, even after port forwarding and opening up Comodo. The only way I can play with a friend is to join the game through Steam. Or I can randomly join a game through Quick Start.

 

[Aikouka]

It can be pretty funny making mistakes in the game.

The most frustrating thing ever is queuing up Life + Barrier, and then self-casting it. Thinking about it now, I should just try and overwrite the barrier. I had that happen a few times and you cannot heal yourself with that on you.

I was having a bit of trouble with the dwarves before Fafnir, and I think my issue was that I just never applied an earth barrier to myself. I would always die because the caster dwarves would charge up some mega strong rock and it would deal 2500 damage to me (easy one shot). It pretty much does nothing if I put an earth barrier on myself, but I'm slowed down immensely.

 

[Martimus]

The most frustrating thing ever is queuing up Life + Barrier, and then self-casting it. Thinking about it now, I should just try and overwrite the barrier. I had that happen a few times and you cannot heal yourself with that on you.

I was having a bit of trouble with the dwarves before Fafnir, and I think my issue was that I just never applied an earth barrier to myself. I would always die because the caster dwarves would charge up some mega strong rock and it would deal 2500 damage to me (easy one shot). It pretty much does nothing if I put an earth barrier on myself, but I'm slowed down immensely.

yeah, I often cast life-barrier on myself. I would just cast a new barrier to replace it if I had time.

My go to move once I had it though was to cast slow time and haste at the same time, which let me do whatever I wanted for the most part. Before that it was to cast a large Earth shield around myself, then cast Steam Lightning AOE spell, to kill just about everything close to me. Then repeat. The earth shield would usually last quite a long time since it is strong and I kept the life staff which regenerated it.

 

[Aikouka]

Just saw that they're planning on a new Magicka DLC for Q2 called "The Other Side of the Coin" where you play as "Alucart":

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/magicka-the-other-side-of-the-coin

 

[greenhawk]

Just saw that they're planning on a new Magicka DLC for Q2 called "The Other Side of the Coin" where you play as "Alucart":

while I think good, not another stupid arena map, if it is being as short as Magicka: Vietnam, I will be put off buying it.