what to look for in a savegame? (using kbscanner)

[BB Shockwave]

Hi!

Well, if you are a Mage, you will want the Pain Skull and the Ancient Amulet for SURE. Make sure you have them somewhere and you can find them early in the game.
Spells are the other key - generally, I'm a completist so I make sure all the spells can be found in the game. Generally speaking, damage spells are useful early on, but later you will require more subtle ways to win battles. Sheep, Target, Hypnotize work great, Trap can be a lifesaver, and even if you don't play no-loss, get Resurrection and Sacrifice. In Legend, summon spells are not strong, they are OK early on but get oneshotted easily late game, so don't bother with them. I found LIghtning very useful because of its stun ability, too. Armaggedon though - not worth it, causes too much loss to you, too.
You'll need to conserve mana in battles, so Magic Spring is very useful. Couple it with Target and slow to ensure that enemy only attacks that unit.
Phantom and Magic Shackles have their uses, too.


You should decide what units you want to use, too - I played through with a mage focusing on Chaos and Distortion with an Undead army, which makes certain spells useless (most Order spells don't work on them) and others very useful.

Oh and - crystals don't grow on trees. Max out your Mage-specific skill Alchemy that lets you upgrade and learn spells cheaper, and even so, think before you waste 30 crystals on say, the Phoenix upgrade.

[Dohi64]

thanks for the reply, though in the meantime I finished the game.

since I did everything (except for the arena of truth fights 'for real' - I did them just to see what they are but then reloaded and didn't do them again in my real playthrough), I had more than enough crystals by the end, and I only got level 1 alchemy. I didn't even want to do that but I had so many magic runes, I said why not, but it was towards the end anyway.I don't really see the appeal, those magic runes could be spent elsewhere and if you know what spells you want to use, you don't need that many crystals anyway (especially if you pick up everything, and why wouldn't you?).

I also had just enough mind runes to unlock inquisition before the final fights, literally got the final mind rune before the bridge leading to the orc base, so I could replenish my inquisitors (there were only 20 in my game at the magic academy and a few hundred in haas' labyrinth but I didn't want to go back there).

there was a pain skull in the game but it was in the castle in the land of the dead, so it was pointless by then, I didn't even bother using it. I only got geyser about midway through and it proved to be great, even though fire rain did more damage. I was looking forward to lightning and ice snake but only go them in demonis I think and they didn't prove to be that useful.