Understanding the interconnected nature of the magical Talents is crucial to making the best decisions for growing your power efficiently. There are a number of basic or "raw" aspects following which there is a vast array of "composite" aspects. The basic aspects are as follows:

Earth Water Air Fire Darkness Light Force Life

Some Elder Magic and Basic Magic exist outside of the aspects but otherwise nearly every other Talent is an aggregate of raw aspected magic. The single composite Aspects are listed below:

Steam (Fire/Water) Mud (Earth/Water) Ice (Air/Water) Poison (Dark/Water) Healing (Life/Water) Shadow (Light/Dark) Lightning (Light/Water) Lava (Earth/Fire) Dust (Earth/Air) Sound (Force/Air) Fortification (Force/Earth) Smoke (Fire/Air) Wave (Force/Water) Corrosion (Fire/Dark) Decay (Earth/Dark) Body (Life/Force)

These are the double composite Aspects, consisting of 3 raw Aspects:

Acid (Poison/Fire) Illusion (Shadow/Sound) Wood (Life/Mud) Curse (Life/Decay) Filth (Decay/Water) Death (Life/Poison) Discord (Sound/Dark) Storm (Lightning/Air) Ash (Dust/Fire) Protection (Body/Air)

Burnishing (Healing/Light)

Tarnishing (Corrosion/Life) Disease (Decay/Life) Miasma (Air/Poison) Blood (Life/Shadow) Hardening (Fortification/Fire)

The Elder, or sometimes Primal, Aspects are as follows:

Time Space Arcana Abstraction Planar Dominion Thought Gravity

These Aspects are constrained rather than broadened by composition and cannot be combined with themselves. The Aspect composed of Abstraction(or Metamagic as the Primal Talent is named), Light, Fire, and Body is called Praestigia, commonly called Glory, and provides primarily versions of Metamagic abilities limited to the combined Aspects while pure Abstraction applies to all Aspects. Similarly Dominion and Burnishing combine to form Magesteria or Leadership which is greater than Burnishing but more specialized than Dominion.

Although Talent choices are somewhat constrained by finding young Dungeons you still want to consider the synergy of your Talents. The Eruptor had Igneomancy and took Ash because of synergy, vs tasking Acid. Both passive boosts and things like domain spells should be considered when making Talent choices. The Miasmist might take Decay instead of Blood because none of us possess Light magic. I took Filth because Air/Dark/Water and and Earth/Dark/Water are quite similar. This paid off later, from chance mostly, because Wood is Earth/Water/Life and Forest is Wood/Darkness. In some cases certain parts of a composite aspect may become apparent at higher tiers. Spells could gain new thematic effects or just raw numerical buffs for their tier up bonus. Specifically Forest Heart, or Heart of the Forest, if we're being snooty, gained mana reductions for darkness and life to complement the existing earth and water bonuses.

In previous fights I sometimes omitted mana reduction effects on party members for whom it did not impact battle performance. Slime Pool is Decay(Darkness/Earth) and Water and thus would have cost significantly less than the default cost under domain effects.

There is some degree of effect from Aspects on the nature of the abilities. Tenebramancy, Darkness Magic, is associated with composites that have damage over time. Fire, sometimes referred to as Heat, is typically associated with environmental effects which are similar to damage over time but usually shorter and non-compounding. Life is associated with health gain. Water is somewhat more associated with mana than other Basic Aspects. Earth is more defensive in nature. Air and Light are most associated with movement. Force is associated primarily with protection.

The abilities of most Low Magic are widely known but things become less clear as you get deeper into magic and a similar lack of knowledge pervades the higher tiers of nearly all Talents. I am going to provide a description of the first Tier of the 4 most basic Aspects below.

Pyromancy Firebolt 30 dmg Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 40 mana Flare 20 dmg +1s distract Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 40 mana Fireball 40 dmg Sphere 4m Ranged 20m Cast 2s 70 mana Fireblast 50 dmg Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 2s 50 mana

As you can see here Pyromancy, at least at the first Tier, is incredibly basic. Primarily pure destructive power. Additionally higher tier and composite Aspects are usually a bit stronger. Compare this to Igneomancy.

Igneomancy Molten Spurt 80 dmg Single Target Range 20m Cast 2s 60 mana Lava Rain 25 dmg ENV/3s AoE 8m Range 20m Cast 2s 80 mana Magma Spike 50 dmg +1s knockup Single Target Range 20m Cast 2s 50 mana Roiling Ground

5 dmg ENV/10s -10% mana cost TYP GRP (Earth) -5% mana cost TYP GRP (Heat) 1.2x MOV Cost

AoE 12m Range 20m Cast 4s 100 mana

Molten Spurt is significantly stronger than Fireblast. 30 more damage for only 10 more mana but otherwise identical spells. Magma Spike is identical to Fireblast except for a bonus 1s knockup. Fireball and Lava Rain compare more favorably. While there is 35 more damage and twice the area of effect Fireball is more bursty and 10 less mana. Pyromancy is known to become more comparable to composite Aspects starting at tier 2, though if not quite equal.

Hydromancy Infuse +40 mana Single Target Ranged 10m Cast 1s 20 mana Deluge 10 dmg +1s distract Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 30 mana Cleanse -2 marks Sphere 4m Ranged 20m Cast 1s 20 mana Refresh -10 mana/s +4 mana/s Self-Channel-Buff AoE 8m Cast 2s 40 mana

Hydromancy is relatively unique. Deluge compares relatively favorably to Flare. The most similar spell to Refresh would be Dusk. It might be considered a bit better. Cleanse is comparable to similar spells from Life and slightly inderior to those from Healing. Infuse is quite valuable for caster parties. It might compare well as the opposite of Mana Leech from Filth Magic, or Lutomancy as the Aspect is technically named.

Aeromancy Zephyr Permanent Passive +5 m/s MOV Wind Slash 25 dmg Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 40 mana Stiff Breeze 1.5x MOV cost AoE 10m Ranged 20m Cast 1s 30 mana Blow Away Push 10m Aeromancy isn't truly comparable to any of the Talents my party currenty has at least as far as Zephyr and Blow Away. Aeromancy is popular with offtanks and celerity/precision focused blitzers.

Geomancy Stone Skin Permanent Passive 5 DMG ABS Mineral Spike 15 dmg +1s distract Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 40 mana Rock Shard 25 dmg Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 30 mana Ground Pound 25 dmg 3s Stun Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 2s 60 mana

Geomancy at Tier 1 is a broad array of tanking abilities plus a generic attack abilty. Igneomancy is quite a bit more understandable when you see Pyromancy and Geomancy. You trade off some of Geomancy's control and protection abilities for the raw damage of Pyromancy. Igneomancy is often referred to as "off-control" mimicking the parlance of off-tank. The focus is on raw damage with a small amount of battlefield management.

I'm going to provide the abilities for Tier 1 Mud Magic, Limusomancy, as well so that we can get some insight into Wood and Forest Magic.

Limusomancy Clay Poultice REC +5 HP per s DUR 10s Single Target Range 20m Cast 1s 25 mana Quicksand Root 2s Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 30 mana Mud Coating 5 DMG ABS DUR 10s Single Target Ranged 20m Cast 1s 30 mana Earth Blood Permanent Passive +3 Mana/s

I called Limusomancy the opposite of Lutomancy and this is widely regarded as correct. Although Filth Magic is styled as (Decay/Water) it could also be called (Mud/Dark). Tier one Lutomancy has Mana Leech compared to Earth Blood. They both have a control ability. Clay Poultice contrasts with damaging spells that apply marks to boost DoT spells. It has Spray Filth compared to Mud Coating.

Similarly Lignumancy and Silvamancy, especially in their early Tiers are complemented well by Limusomancy. Healing, Protection, and Control.

In any case I hope I have conveyed the importance of Talent synergy well. You must be prepared to choose a new Talent reward from absorbing Dungeon Essense before the world system makes a random choice for you. You should also consider which party member will take a chance at a particular Dungeon Core. And you'll need to consider not only individual but party symmetry. Any given role has many variants that combine in different ways with every other role.

The party discussed a lot of this stuff related to party synergy once we integrated with the twins but after a while the less hypothetically include staged a coup and dragged us into the dungeon. We finally ended up on the 7th floor and were confronted with a very novel challenge. Creatures that went bump in the night instead of skittering.

Night Wolf lvl 2*4 Black Warg lvl 3*1 Health 240 Health 400 Mana 80 Mana 160 MOV 15m/s MOV 20m/s Claw Rake 40 dmg 1s Paw Smash 70 dmg 1s Rend 40dmg +5 DOT/5s 10 mana 2s Body Bash 90 dmg 2s 1s Stun 20 mana Dark Chomp 80 dmg 2s 40 mana Might Bite 120 dmg 2s 50 mana

Something important to know is that as monster levels rise creatures start to receive more powerful Aspect based bonuses. Not only were wolves faster and with higher brawn and thus raw damage but the they received more effects on their attacks like high bleeding damage and control effects. Additionally we realized we had gotten distracted by the synergy discussion and had forgotten to go to the Emporium. Focus is such a key element of adventuring and the slightest slip can cost you. Additionally at lvl 4 and higher monsters can sometimes possess control reduction or immunity. A terrifying power for a squishable backline caster. Luckily we weren't quite that deep in the Dungeon.

Chronomancer Miasmist Shieldmaiden Eruptor Treant Health 68 Health 68 Health 100 Health 68 Health 96 Mana 216 Mana 212 Mana 160 Mana 212 Mana 126 MOV 5m/s MOV 5m/s MOV 5m/s MOV 5m/s MOV 5m/s

Another important adventuring attribute is perception. You need to spot the enemy before it spots you. We were lucky in this case and had the standard 50m of preperation distance to work with. Of course our enemies were much faster than we'd encountered previously.

Quicken is the bread and butter of a Chronomancer and I obviously led off with that. With the speed involved it was key that we prepare our battlefield control quickly. The Shieldmaiden engaged Force Traps first. Ground Wall would get broken down too quickly as a lead off spell. Plus is took longer and she had yet to receive Haste. The Treant prepared Forest Heart. Roiling Ground began to form. The classics, is it too early to call them that, are the best in most situations. The Miasmist began Dusk.

The Black Warg closed to 30 meters. For the first time the heavy hitter was going to initiate on us will the backup was going to have some time to survey the field. In 10m he'd hit the invisible Force Traps. The wolves would hit the traps this turn as well so it would catch all 3 enemies. That was quite lucky.

I immediately cast Slime Pool. I wanted to Accelerate someone but it couldn't be helped. The Shieldmaiden prepared Ground Wall but this time 15m out instead of the usual 20. That would waste 33-50% of a move action for the creatures when the traps disengaged. Forest Heart finished casting while Roiling Ground and Dusk both had 2 more seconds to go.

The beasts advanced 10m to the trap line and got Rooted. They'd be stalled for 2 turns. Then they'd hit the wall which was 1s of movement and 2 of attacks, even with Absorb cast.

I Accelerated the Shieldmaiden who was almost done with Ground Wall. The Treant who had finished their domain spell began to cast Bark Skin. The Eruptor and Miasmist both had 1 more second to go.

The beasts had 1 second left in the Root.

I cast Accelerate on the Eruptor, our main damage dealer. They'd finish casting and gain Haste at the start of the next second. The Miasmist would be able to cast but lack Haste. Bark Skin was done so the Treant had to wait for mana to recharge. They had spent 80 and 34 mana while recovering 9 leaving them with 21. The Shieldmaiden ended up casting Absorb on the wall to burn beast mana. Fortification magic was Earth Aspected so she spent 40+40 and then the 50 on Absorb was discounted 5% to 48 leaving her at 32+12=44. I had cast 4 spells none of which we discounted beyond my innate reduction. 38*4=152 216-152+12-76. I had a little over 2 Accelerates left in me. Well 1 Quicken cause my Haste was over. The Miamist and the Eruptor finally finished their domain spells.

The beasts were freed from the root. Next turn they'd run to the wall.

The beasts were 20m out and grouped perfectly for a Lava Rain. Additionally since the spread was 3m it could be positioned to apply to them after they reached the wall as well. They would probably take the full damage. Although for the first tick they were out of Warm Air range. 25 damage applied. The Eruptor was hasted so Lava Rain started this turn. She had cast 100+80*.7=56 and recovered 20 leaving her at 76 mana. At least one more Lava Rain. The Miasmist lacked Haste but cast Acid Splash centered on the wall. It would hit them all once it finished. I cast Accelerate on the Miasmist. Same time as casting Quicken and then Accelerate but saving me 38 mana. She would have Haste after Acid Splash landed. The Treant was still short of mana. The Shield Maiden cast the costless Shieldwall to save her from 40 incoming damage once the beasts arrives.

The beasts made it to the wall.

The beasts had all taken 25+30+20 damage. A total of 75. Not even a 3rd of the health of the followers. But we had some time. The Miasmist and I couldn't act till another second had passed. The Eruptor had 2 seconds of Haste. She had to wait another turn for Lava Rain to clear but she had limited mana. She ended up casting Magma Spike on the Warg. He'd be stalled next turn and unable to clear the wall. The Treant waited for mana recovery as did the Maiden.

The smaller beasts prepared Dark Chomp on the wall. They'd deal 120 damage after physical damage absorbtion. The warg landed.

The Eruptor had another second of Haste and cast Magma Spike again. Lava Rain was 5 mana too much and would not hit them all for a lot after the wall fell. She now had 16 mana. The Treant had 30 mana and a 25% discount. Effective 40 mana. Not enough for any of her spells that fit the situation. The Shieldmaiden had 56 mana. She cast Groundwall. With a 15% Earth Aspect discount that was a cost of 34 mana. 22 remained. The Miasmist cast Infect immediately. A perfect spell since we had exactly 3 enemies. She got Hasted this turn so it was take effect next turn. I began to cast Filth Spray on the Black Warg, which would stall it even further and add marks.

The first wall fell for the 2 wolves. Sadly for them the second one would rise before their next turn. The main wolf was still stalled.

Lava Rain finished. Acid Splash engaged. 25+30+30+20+5. Each beast had taken 110 damage. Then Infect kicked in. 112 damage plus 2 marks. The Warg had 3 marks plus another 100 damage from Lava Spike. It had 188 health remaining while the wolves had 128. The Miasmist was the only one with anything to cast besides one instance of Filth Spray. 1 wolf could move but not attack unless it wasted 1 second. The Miasmist deployed Fester on the 2 wolves. Everyone else waited.

The 2 wolves moved to the wall. The big boy waited out distract from my original Filth Spray.

All the wolves took 5 acid damage. Then 2 from Infect. The smaller wolves both took 4 base from fester and then 4 and 3 respectively. 7 for big boy and 10 and 11 for his minions. The Miasmist had 1 more instance of Haste and decided to cast Envenom on the most damaged wolf. I Filth Sprayed the other wolf. Luckily between Roiling Earth 10%, Mana Efficiency 5%, and Forest Heart 15%, I had a 30% reduction in Lutomancy magic costs. 14 per Spray. I had done 3 for 42 mana so next turn I could cast another. The other 3 waited.

Both wolves waited out distraction in front of the wall. The big boy Body Bashed the wall. Absorbtion's duration had run out so it was finally cleared costing him 20 mana.

Acid + Infect hit for 7 damage. Fester hit for 8 to each small wolf. Then Envenom hit for 5+(4*3)=17. 32, 15, and 7. 128-11-4-32=81. 128-15-7-7=99. 188-7=181. Acid had 15 more damage in it. We easily had 3 turns before the wolves reached us. 81-15=66. 17 a turn from Envenom is -51=15. 24 from Fester and 6 from Infect. -15 for one wolf. The other wolf was at 99-15-6-24=54. In next turn Envenom would hit the other wolf. The turn after he'd take 17. Next turn would be 17+6+24. He was dead as well. The remaining issue was the black warg. 181-15-6. Even for 4 turns 84 wouldn't cut it. 97. But the Eruptor could magma spike and I could Grime Ball. So really the fight was over.

With good perception we started 50 feet away from the beasts and began casting our domain spells plus Quicking for me and Force Traps to stall for the Shieldmaiden. Then Slime Pool and beginning Ground Wall. Then Accelerate on the Eruptor and Bark Skin. The beasts hit the Roots from Force Traps. Ground Wall was done. Absorbtion on Ground Wall. The Treant needed to wait for mana.

Dusk and Roiling Ground ended. Lava Rain positioned to hit the wolves now and in front of the wall. Miasmist cast Acid Splash. Shieldmaiden dropped a not to be used Shield Wall. Hasted Miasmist. Magma Spike on the Warg to stall.

Acid Splash hits. Second impact of Rain. Magma Spike on Warg. Ground Wall again. Miasmist cast Infect on all 3. I cast Filth Spray to stall the Warg. Treant and Shieldmaiden lacked good actions.

The first wall drops for the wolves. I cast Filth Spray on one so they can't quickly disable the second wall. Miamist casts Envenom with her final Haste on a wolf. Eruptor out of mana. Shieldmaiden and Treant recover mana.

Beasts wait out Distraction and Knockup.

Another Filth Spray, 30% discount as Water/Earth/Darkness Aspected plus Manasophy's Mana Efficiency. Miasmist beginds Envenom on the second wolf.

The wolves and warg fiddle with their 2nd and 1st wall respectively while DoTs grind them down. Eventually a Magma Spike and Grime ball clear the Warg and the fight ends.

We abandon the dungeon and resolve to finally do our shopping in town. Another wolf or 2 and we would not have been able to grind their health before they reached us. Our mana was incredibly low.