First Steps as a Mage

This guide takes a spellcaster from a fresh world to the gear needed to beat Act II, then to the gem, reforging and augmenting routine that carries a mage to the end of the pack. It is based on a community guide written for Soulrend’s Discord and is meant as a follow-up to the general starting guide there.

The order below is a suggestion. Several steps happen at the same time, and a class with an easier start can skip ahead. Which gear drops and which structures are nearby depend on the world seed.

Before you start#

• Pick a magic class. See origins and the Magic Equipment quest chapter (Magic Equipment).
• Bring an Explorer’s Compass to find the village and tower below.

First steps#

Find a Mossy Mounds village#

Use the Explorer’s Compass to locate a Mossy Mounds village. This kind of village has many crops and useful crafting materials. Loot these:

1. Rice (if the village has none, look in swamps).
2. Carrots, tomatoes or beetroots.
3. Onions.
4. Brown mushrooms.
5. Potatoes.
6. Sweet berries or any other berries.
7. Pumpkins.
8. Melons.
9. Flax, which crafts into string.

Plant what you took in a small greenhouse so the crops keep coming.

Cook Stuffed Pumpkins#

Find or craft a Cooking Pot and place it on a campfire. Cook a Bowl of Stuffed Pumpkin from:

That makes 4 Stuffed Pumpkins. Some classes need 8.

First gear#

Handing in the Stuffed Pumpkins unlocks the Magic Gear questline. The route is Wandering Magician → Scarecrow → Wizard.

Wandering Magician set#

Craft one set (two for some classes) from:

• 16 Leather
• 7 Arcane Essence, which is crafted from lapis and amethyst shards
• 1 Cinder Essence

Cinder Essence. The author gets the first one from a mage tower, which also supplies much of the rest of the early magic loot. There are other towers for most magic classes; the Pyromancer tower is the one used here.

1. Open the chest at the top of the tower, which holds gunpowder and charcoal.
2. Go down to the basement. If the Pyromancer inside carries Legendary spells, consider leaving it alive.
3. Loot everything useful. Required: gunpowder, a ghast tear, a blaze rod, paper, candles, ink, Apothic gear (items with colored names), an Inscription Table, books, cauldrons, scrolls, runestones, gems and Arcane Cloth. Charcoal, a brewing stand and bottles are optional.
4. Kill sheep on the way for wool and meat.

Blasting an Arcane Essence in a blast furnace also makes Cinder Essence.

Scarecrow set#

Craft these, then combine them with the Wandering Magician set at a smithing table:

• 4 Grotesque Ingot. These need the 4 Stuffed Pumpkins and 8 Arcane Cloth (craft one, then claim the 8 Arcane Cloth reward from the questline; the cloths cost 32 Arcane Essence and 4 wool).
• 4 Hay Bales.

Wizard set#

The next set needs:

• 4 Arcane Cloth (32 Arcane Essence and 4 wool).
• 4 Enchanted Ingot (160 Arcane Essence, 16 wool, 4 Arcane Ingot and 4 iron, gold or copper ingots).

Crafting an Arcane Ingot also unlocks a quest reward that can give Mithril.

These three sets are the first gear, enough to finish Act II – First Steps.

Pre-endgame gear#

• With a Mithril Scrap or Mithril Ingot from the rolls above, move on to your class’s pre-endgame set.
• Without one, mine Mithril Ore with a Netherite or Dragonbone Pickaxe.
• After the Warden, the Sky Arena sells Mithril Scrap for Sky Arena Keys (Sky Arena).
• Some structures hold a pre-endgame piece for your class. That is random, so craft whichever pieces you miss.
• The Magic Equipment chapter lists the later set for each school:

• Pyromancers, Electromancers and Cryomancers also need the Dragonslayer questline before they can craft their pre-endgame set (Dragonslayer).

First weapon#

Craft a Graybeard Staff from a wooden shovel, Arcane Essence and an iron ingot (Graybeard Staff). Then open the Magic Academy questline, which lists the first staff for every class.

Spells#

Crafting stations#

See Magic Stations for details.

Scroll Forge#

A scroll takes ink, paper and an item of the spell’s school.

Recipes for the school items you craft yourself:

Eldritch spells also need you to learn to read them first. Craft an Eldritch Manuscript from an Echo Shard and 8 Ancient Knowledge Fragments (also from Ancient City chests) and use it.

The Spells page covers all schools.

Inscription Table#

Slot a spell into your spellbook at the Inscription Table to use it. Click a slotted spell and take it out of the right-hand box to remove it for free.

Alchemist Cauldron and ink#

Ink comes in five tiers: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary.

A better source is recycling spells. Fill the cauldron with water and drop in a spell scroll to extract its ink, with a 75% chance of success. Right-click the cauldron with a bottle to take the ink out.

Caster mobs (Aquamancers, Pyromancers, Geomancers and so on) sell spells you can recycle and drop spells and ink when killed. The Sky Arena is one of the best places to farm them.

Arcane Anvil#

Use the Arcane Anvil to upgrade spells. It also takes Upgrade Orbs, which add to the item’s Spell Power and other stats by up to +3 per orb. Every orb is in the Magic Gear questline, and an item holds at most 3 orbs.

Different orbs combine on one item, for example +10% Fire Spell Power with +5% Cooldown Reduction. This is how to build a school combination with no gear of its own, such as Fire and Lightning or Holy and Blood.

See Runes, Orbs & Inks.

Enchantments#

Follow the Max Apotheosis Enchanting Table guide to reach these levels (Enchanting Guide). Blast Protection is favored because some endgame Epic Fight gear scales with it. The Critical Knowledge skill book is one example: its crit chance grows with Fire Protection and its crit damage with Blast Protection, so keep a mix of both.

Staves take no enchantments.

Notes on the less familiar ones:

• Invigoration adds 2 stamina per level.
• Stable Footing removes the mining-speed penalty while flying.
• Featherweight stops heavy armor from slowing winged races and Elves. It comes from Medieval Origins, as does Mirroring, which protects a helmet’s wearer from a Gorgon’s petrifying gaze and lets Dwarves see in daylight.

Gems#

Gems are socketed into gear and curios (Gems). Two kinds raise spell damage.

School level gems#

These raise the level of every spell in a school. Slot them in curios: head, back, hands, spellbook and feet.

Spell Power gems#

Gear and staff gems go into armor, weapons and staves, and you can socket several into one item.

Staff gems each give a school’s Spell Power, and a staff takes only one.

There is no dedicated Sound staff gem.

Other useful gems#

A sample layout#

The right mix depends on your sockets and school. To maximize one school’s Spell Power, the author suggests a special gem plus Spell Power gems in each piece:

Royal Family gems are very hard to farm. Keep every one you find while exploring the Overworld.

Reforging#

Reforging has many tiers; the Reforging chapter of the quest book covers them (Reforging).

This guide covers Epic reforging, which progression needs, and Ancient reforging, which is enough to beat the pack. See Reforging Tables.

Setup#

You need a Salvaging Table and a Reforging Table, plus a Sigil of Rebirth for each reforge.

1. Loot Apothic gear. Its name color shows its rarity.
2. Break it down at the Salvaging Table. Salvaged gear gives rarity materials and gem dust; salvaged gems give gem dust.
3. Put the item, the rarity material you want and a Sigil of Rebirth into the Reforging Table. You can reforge the same item as often as you like.

Mobs with colored names are more likely to drop rare items.

Rarity materials by dimension#

See Rarity Materials.

Epic reforging#

The reforging table offers three options, each using more material than the last. Choose the one that gives the most gem sockets; at this tier all three usually give 4. Do not chase better stats: at this point sockets and skill points matter more than any affix, and the materials are better spent upgrading gems.

Reforge all your gear and curios so every piece has sockets.

With these steps you can kill the Cataclysm bosses you need to open the End.

Ancient reforging#

Killing the Ender Dragon unlocks the Ancient tier, and affixes now matter. When reforging Ancient items, pick the option with at least 5 sockets and 4 affixes. Which affixes you get does not matter. Two details:

• Ignores Durability does not count as one of the 4 affixes.
• Subtract any socket that an affix itself adds. An item showing 5 sockets plus 4 affixes where one affix adds a socket has 6 sockets in total.

Take gear and weapon with at least 5 sockets and 4 affixes to the Augmenting Table.

Augmenting#

Use a Sigil of Enhancement at the Augmenting Table to reroll and augment gear. If you want one specific attribute, roll for it without losing the others, so a strong weapon depends less on luck.

Next#

• Enchanting Guide for the table setup behind the enchantment lists above.
• Gear Progression for how rarities, gems and sigils fit together.
• Magic Items and Spells for the schools.