What's better (Magic)

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

Should it really be that complex?? I think I'm more confused then when
I started the thread. I don't know about most of you but I don't play to
the end every time (in fact I only finished for the first time last week).
I guess I'm still experimenting and it was probably the party I had that
made me want to "take it all the way".

One thing I was curious about also was Race. Is everyone going the Fairy
thing no matter which magic race they choose?

..seems like you can't beat the party replayabiltiy factor of W8 but it's
a bit of a shame that things in the game arn't a little more random.

[el_kalkylus]

I should have said that I think the mage is the most powerful offensive magic user in the game. It's not until level 18 (or more) that the Alchemist gets more powerful than the Mage (with offensive magic) because of the awesome spells Earthquake, Tsunami and Death cloud IMO. The level 6 spell Boiling blood is quite nice too but not enough to make the Alchemist more powerful than the Mage IMO.

[Wereboar]

I see party-building advice all the time that always seems to say the same thing: "You need a Priest and a Mage". I almost never invite a Mage, even in high-magic parties: I'll bring a Samurai instead, or use a Bishop and have her specialize in the Priest and Mage books.

Well, the correct newbie advice is "You need access to Priest and Mage spells". Magic Screen and Missile Shield are very important, especially for a first party. And the other buff spells help a lot too.

A bishop can have access to both realms, and is good in it. A Samurai is much worse; he isn't able to cast Missile Shield at a high level in time. Most of my death ironman parties died because i had only a Samurai for mage spells.