Cryomancer
Arcane
Returning for Gothic 2 is a huge epic mod which adds hundreds of hours of gameplay. Also adds interesting factions, like Necromancers, Gurus, Templars and water mages. The game was made in Russian and poorly translated with machine translation to english.
Considering the story events of Gothic 1, is pretty hard to join G2's Water mages. To become a necromancer, all you need is to ask Xardas for apprenticeship, do intellectual stuff like reading books, alchemy, learning languages, etc till you get 30 INT and a bit of mana, them kill a "sheep of Innos" in the initiation. Water mages in other hands, are the unique guild which requires chapter 2 in the game and becoming a NOVICE of water mages require multiple quests and very high persuasion skill to persuade Saturas, also requires 40 INT instead of the usual 30. This is not a blind run, I already played Returning as a necromancer and water mage.
However, at end game, an water mage is quite powerful. See the video bellow.
For this lets play, I'm using bellow optimal graphical settings, because I'm running in Archlinux with WINE, I also don't have a good GPU and since I have no interest in replaying the entire chapter 1, I'm using an old "perfect" save, with most important early game stuff learned. That said, the following water mage spells are :
And there is a HUGE problem with water magic in Returning. By some reason, they decided to remove ice explosion and lightning ball is a pure TRASH spell. And worse, you need that spell fully charged to kill some enemies, as damage resistance in G2 is by flat amount. I already suffered a lot with that spell. A comparative of lightning ball and spear of darkness, the 3rd tier for for necromancers
The devs din't took away the game breaking fire blast from fire mages, but took away a similar spell from water mages by some unknown reason. I searched a lot in rpgrussia for a freaking way to restore such spell but sadly din't found. That said, for this run, I will not waste my time with such awful spell. I will buy lots and lots of scrolls and rush towards chapter 4.
The run :
The first thing is to start as an blacksmith apprentice, pick the piece of ornament in upper city and deliver to water mages. After it, I become a novice of water mages and started to read every book in my inventory and that I can find, then, learn alchemy, ancient languages, buy an magical belt which gives +5 int, pay Saturas to raise my mana till I need to spend 2lp / mana point() need to save
LP) and pay the warrirors to train my HP till about 700. Contrary to normal gothic, you don't passivelly get HP in this returning in hard difficulty, you need to spend LP to raise hp. Then did some quests for the city alchemist and learned his alchemical recipes.
After it, talked to the head Paladin and started the chapter 2.
Contrary to normal Gothic, you NEED to do the DLC part in the beginning of C2. After entering in the expansion area, I finally could become an water mage. So I cleared a bit, returned to Khrorinis to sell my hunted animal stuff, moved back, payed for the extremely important alchemical recipe of intellect, and proceeded to clear the area going towards pirate camp. Din't learned a single tier 2 spell.
With my relative low INT and spell power, in order to damage some enemies, I need to cast small lightning to reduce their spell resistance and then ice arrow. And some of them require scrolls of higher tier magic, I could learn how to cast death to the undead, which costs a high amount of mana, but is a circle 2 spell which deals damage comparable to tier 6 spells but only works against undead. So yes, I will be using circle 1 spell from a long time.
After learning how to mine gold, I bought every high level scroll from the water mages that I could because I will need it. I did everything as normal on the expansion, got the bandit armor after clearing the canyon, visited all temples, freed the slaves in the mine but countrary to the normal game, after you defeat Raven, he don't die, he just teleports and fleed, now is part of the VoM. On VoM is not surprising, you just need to gather reports about how mining operations are there and I also did a quest necessary to melt magical ore and make higher grade runes.
Contrary to normal G2, runes have 3 "tiers", the most basic runes can hold spells of circle 1/2, the "senior" runes, of 3/4 and the higher of 5/6. Is absolute necessary to learn how to do that. You need to find a bone in a cavern, talk to Xardas to interrogate the undead, get information, dig the ore and give the ore package to the a guy who will teach that vital skill for you. Also learned how to shapeshift into a bloodfly in this chapter but din't proceeded with anything, din't learned how to speak the demon's language or anything important for the Keeper's quest.
IF you think that C2 was too rushed, C3 was way more rushed.
The first thing that I did was to learn the third circle of water magic from Saturas. Din't learned a single spell of the 3rd circle as I don't need. I have plenty of scrolls to spam fire rain upon the seekers. So I did everything as normal, talked to Xardas, talked to paladin Master, talked to Pyrokar, teleported to "the circle of sun", nuked the seekers with fire rain scrolls, picked the amlet, repaired it freeing the blacksmith, started the dark order quest, started other returning only quests, talked to Vatraz, got his relief talking to Saturas, got the book which Xardas said that would convince him to participate the ritual, watched the 6 minute long debate between Xardas and Pyrokar and ended the chapter 3.
At chapter 4, I just assumed the bloodfly form, got into the DLC area again(in returning you return multiple times there) and finally could learn circle 4 spells and the loved lightning strike. After learning the circle 4 spell, I could finally engage against more powerful enemies with less problems. Also used the remaining fire rain scrolls to farm a bit of XP via orc genocide but saved some to time of need(like clearing the swamp camp which has lots of powerful undeads). Ice golems are quite powerful. They can cast ice spear(2nd circle) and their melee attacks are quire powerful and can stunlock most enemies. IMO on melee, they are a bit better than demons(not archdemons) which necromancers can summon.
Now, my objectives are :
I will rest from returning from a few time and then, update this lets play.
If water mages have the WORST offensive circle 3 spell, they have the BEST circle 4 spell. Lightning strike is quite good as it has a fast projectile speed, casts fast , BYPASS WALLS(ALLOWING YOU TO CHEESE BOSSES) and reduces the enemy magical resistance. Even at end game, you will some times use this spell to cheese some enemies or lower their resistances.
Considering the story events of Gothic 1, is pretty hard to join G2's Water mages. To become a necromancer, all you need is to ask Xardas for apprenticeship, do intellectual stuff like reading books, alchemy, learning languages, etc till you get 30 INT and a bit of mana, them kill a "sheep of Innos" in the initiation. Water mages in other hands, are the unique guild which requires chapter 2 in the game and becoming a NOVICE of water mages require multiple quests and very high persuasion skill to persuade Saturas, also requires 40 INT instead of the usual 30. This is not a blind run, I already played Returning as a necromancer and water mage.
However, at end game, an water mage is quite powerful. See the video bellow.
For this lets play, I'm using bellow optimal graphical settings, because I'm running in Archlinux with WINE, I also don't have a good GPU and since I have no interest in replaying the entire chapter 1, I'm using an old "perfect" save, with most important early game stuff learned. That said, the following water mage spells are :
- Circle 1 : Ice Arrow / Small lightning
- Circle 2 : Call snow wolf / ice lance
- Circle 3 : Lightning ball / Ice block /
ice explosion - Circle 4 : Lightning strike / Create Ice golem
- Circle 5 : Waterfirst / Ice wafe(AoE ice block)
- Circle 6 : Storm / Geyser
- Circle 0 - Novices and non mages
- Circles 1~3 - Mages
- Circle 4/5 - High Wizard/high mage
- Circle 6 - ARCHWIZARD
And there is a HUGE problem with water magic in Returning. By some reason, they decided to remove ice explosion and lightning ball is a pure TRASH spell. And worse, you need that spell fully charged to kill some enemies, as damage resistance in G2 is by flat amount. I already suffered a lot with that spell. A comparative of lightning ball and spear of darkness, the 3rd tier for for necromancers
The devs din't took away the game breaking fire blast from fire mages, but took away a similar spell from water mages by some unknown reason. I searched a lot in rpgrussia for a freaking way to restore such spell but sadly din't found. That said, for this run, I will not waste my time with such awful spell. I will buy lots and lots of scrolls and rush towards chapter 4.
The run :
The first thing is to start as an blacksmith apprentice, pick the piece of ornament in upper city and deliver to water mages. After it, I become a novice of water mages and started to read every book in my inventory and that I can find, then, learn alchemy, ancient languages, buy an magical belt which gives +5 int, pay Saturas to raise my mana till I need to spend 2lp / mana point() need to save
LP) and pay the warrirors to train my HP till about 700. Contrary to normal gothic, you don't passivelly get HP in this returning in hard difficulty, you need to spend LP to raise hp. Then did some quests for the city alchemist and learned his alchemical recipes.
Screenshots said:
After it, talked to the head Paladin and started the chapter 2.
Contrary to normal Gothic, you NEED to do the DLC part in the beginning of C2. After entering in the expansion area, I finally could become an water mage. So I cleared a bit, returned to Khrorinis to sell my hunted animal stuff, moved back, payed for the extremely important alchemical recipe of intellect, and proceeded to clear the area going towards pirate camp. Din't learned a single tier 2 spell.
With my relative low INT and spell power, in order to damage some enemies, I need to cast small lightning to reduce their spell resistance and then ice arrow. And some of them require scrolls of higher tier magic, I could learn how to cast death to the undead, which costs a high amount of mana, but is a circle 2 spell which deals damage comparable to tier 6 spells but only works against undead. So yes, I will be using circle 1 spell from a long time.
After learning how to mine gold, I bought every high level scroll from the water mages that I could because I will need it. I did everything as normal on the expansion, got the bandit armor after clearing the canyon, visited all temples, freed the slaves in the mine but countrary to the normal game, after you defeat Raven, he don't die, he just teleports and fleed, now is part of the VoM. On VoM is not surprising, you just need to gather reports about how mining operations are there and I also did a quest necessary to melt magical ore and make higher grade runes.
Contrary to normal G2, runes have 3 "tiers", the most basic runes can hold spells of circle 1/2, the "senior" runes, of 3/4 and the higher of 5/6. Is absolute necessary to learn how to do that. You need to find a bone in a cavern, talk to Xardas to interrogate the undead, get information, dig the ore and give the ore package to the a guy who will teach that vital skill for you. Also learned how to shapeshift into a bloodfly in this chapter but din't proceeded with anything, din't learned how to speak the demon's language or anything important for the Keeper's quest.
Screenshots said:
IF you think that C2 was too rushed, C3 was way more rushed.
The first thing that I did was to learn the third circle of water magic from Saturas. Din't learned a single spell of the 3rd circle as I don't need. I have plenty of scrolls to spam fire rain upon the seekers. So I did everything as normal, talked to Xardas, talked to paladin Master, talked to Pyrokar, teleported to "the circle of sun", nuked the seekers with fire rain scrolls, picked the amlet, repaired it freeing the blacksmith, started the dark order quest, started other returning only quests, talked to Vatraz, got his relief talking to Saturas, got the book which Xardas said that would convince him to participate the ritual, watched the 6 minute long debate between Xardas and Pyrokar and ended the chapter 3.
At chapter 4, I just assumed the bloodfly form, got into the DLC area again(in returning you return multiple times there) and finally could learn circle 4 spells and the loved lightning strike. After learning the circle 4 spell, I could finally engage against more powerful enemies with less problems. Also used the remaining fire rain scrolls to farm a bit of XP via orc genocide but saved some to time of need(like clearing the swamp camp which has lots of powerful undeads). Ice golems are quite powerful. They can cast ice spear(2nd circle) and their melee attacks are quire powerful and can stunlock most enemies. IMO on melee, they are a bit better than demons(not archdemons) which necromancers can summon.
Screenshots said:
Now, my objectives are :
- Grind XP via orc genocide
- Do all missing quests from previous chapters, I din't even got Ulu Mulu
- Raise my mana ASAP.
I will rest from returning from a few time and then, update this lets play.
If water mages have the WORST offensive circle 3 spell, they have the BEST circle 4 spell. Lightning strike is quite good as it has a fast projectile speed, casts fast , BYPASS WALLS(ALLOWING YOU TO CHEESE BOSSES) and reduces the enemy magical resistance. Even at end game, you will some times use this spell to cheese some enemies or lower their resistances.
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