Ars Magica 2 community spellbook

TangentialThreat

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Jul 29, 2019
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Now with organization!

The arcane compendium is pretty clear on how to create spells, but it is not always clear on what spells actually do and how to put them together. I have not been able to find a decent guide to spellmaking so I'm making one. Here we have a list of useful and interesting spells that will serve as examples for your own.

This is based on the 1.1.2b version of Ars Magica 2 from the TPPI v 2.3 pack by Mithion.

Every spell is composed of shapes followed by components followed by modifiers.

Utility

>Projectile | Light

Creates an inconspicuous purple sparkly light that hangs in the air. This is a bit dim unless cast at at least half moon (press c by default) but you will use it constantly while mining and for lighting up distant ceilings, and constant use equals easy leveling.

>Self | Divine Intervention

Ever forget your linking book? Cast once for poor man's /home. Cast twice for /spawn.

>Projectile | Forge

Converts sand to glass, cobble to smoothstone, wood to charcoal that instantly appears at your location, and live villagers to emeralds. Go forth and destroy the village!

>Projectile | Create water

Exactly what it says on the tin, creates a water source block at the target. Works in the nether too. Experiments trying various ways to combine this with freeze effects to create a cryogenic preservation spell were never quite satisfying.

>AoE | Freeze

Freezes nearby water, including flowing blocks. Gives you a nice platform in the ocean and lets you turn waterfalls into bizarre ice sculptures.

>Zone | Duration | Duration | Duration | AoE | Grow plants | Harvest plants

Creator: CaseyRobinson

Creates a zone that constantly applies a bonemeal-like effect to the ground and harvests the results. This will produce blue orchids, tamra root, and also desert novas if cast in the desert. Lasts a long time.

>Projectile | AoE | Plow

I could have made a hoe, but I didn't. Handy for when you need to make a big field ready.

>Projectile | AoE | Charm

Causes livestock orgies as if they'd all been fed their favorite food, and turns enemy NPCs to your side.

Movement

>Projectile | Mark | Self | Recall

Creator: aloy99

Fires a projectile that marks a location, then recalls you to that spot. This is basically a wizard's enderpearl. You may want to add range and velocity added modifiers after mark. I am not responsible for cases of motion sickness, suffocation, pizzaification or other unfortunate accidents.

>Beam | Range | Range | Range | Mark | Self | Recall

Clouds and treetops are convenient targets for this instant long-range grappling hook because you won't suffocate if you land inside them. It is still very cheap. I find beam spells unreliable though.

>Projectile | Mark | Piercing | Self | Recall

Piercing lets you place the mark spell underground or inside a wall on purpose. You teleport through solid blocks and effectively swim through land if you spam it, but you take suffocation damage.

>Self | Haste | Leap | Slowfall | Gravity | Duration | Duration | Duration

Creator: duaiwe of Reddit

This is an important part of your 3D maneuvering gear. Try making a running jump or using it to get on top of a tree so you can use the grappling hook spell. The gravity component makes you fall slightly faster so you spend less time stuck in midair.

In combination with either of the grappling spells above and longfall boots you'll be ready to fight a Titan in no time.

By the way, slowfall is bugged and if you've been in the air a while and then touch the ground an instant after the buff runs out it is the same damage as a fall from cloud level with no buffs.

>Self | Fling

It took me a while to figure out how to do this one right. Casting it just once does almost nothing but also costs next to nothing. The faster you spam it, the more efficient it is. You will be launched high up into the air where you can deploy an Extra Utilities hang glider or grapple a cloud. Also gets you unstuck from clouds.

>Self | Haste | Swim Speed

Creator: duaiwe of Reddit

Add night vision and water breathing for the full experience. This one lets you get around underwater better.

>Self | Flight | Duration | Duration | Duration

You really want to cast this on at least half moon. Smooth, creative-mode flight at a heftier mana price. Press space twice to use. Levitate is similar but slow and not usually worth the trouble.

>Contingency: Fall | Self | Slowfall

Ars Magica 2's version of a parachute. Longfall boots offer higher survival rates and there are better uses for the single contingency you can have active at once.

Mining

>Touch | Dig

Instantly digs the block in front of you. Crescent moon can break any block a stone pick can, and full moon can break any block a diamond pick can.

>Channel | Dig

An advanced version of the above, creates a short invisible mining beam that rapidly slices through dirt and stone. Requires less rapid clicking.

>Projectile | AoE | Dig

When cast at crescent moon it will provide a poor man's tinker's construct hammer that digs a 3x3, 5x5 at half moon, and 7x7 at full moon.

>Zone | Projectile | Dig

Here we have some deep magic. This creates a zone that causes you to involuntarily spam projectile dig spells, and the effects of multiple zones are stackable. Basically, spam this combo until out of mana and then slice a mountain in half with an exploity uncontrollable magical mining gatling gun. The same principle works on damage spells...

>Projectile | Zone | Gravity | Duration | Duration | Duration | AoE | Dig

Creator: Exadi

Far, far faster than a normal quarry and very cheap to cast, this digs a giant square hole straight down to bedrock or until it hits a fluid. Careful where you cast this as it can easily eat your base.

>Projectile | Piercing | Piercing | Piercing | AoE | Dig

This is a revolutionary mining technology brought on by the community's increased understanding of spell grammar. Carves a 3x3x7 hole. Kind of uneven when fired on a diagonal.

Defense

>Self | Heal | Regeneration

Heals you up and gives you a regen effect. This will probably be one of your first spells.

>Self | Dispel

Removes unwanted status effects, like cave spider bites but also night vision if you accidentally applied it in a certain dimension.

>Self | Regeneration | Shield | Duration | Duration | Duration

You'll shrug off most kinds of damage and heal constantly.

>Projectile | Heal | Regeneration

Allows you to heal injured livestock and friends. The heal component does mild damage to undead.

>Projectile | Dispel

Heals the sick, disempowers the evil.

>Contingency: Health | Self | Heal | Health | Health | Health

Contingency spells make stuff happen when their conditions are met. Contingency: Health triggers when you are down to about two hearts. You will then be healed up back to nearly full. The health runes make the healing effect much stronger, and come after the component they're modifying.

>Contingency: Damage | AoE | Blind | Disarm | Entangle | Summon

Warfare in FTB is often kind of fast-paced. This is an automated opener. As soon as you are damaged by anything (fall, cactus, griefer) you will inflict crippling debuffs on everything nearby and summon minions of your choice to help beat them to death. Don't use minions that carry weapons like skeletons or they get disarmed too.

>Contingency: Health | Self | Divine Intervention | Heal | Regeneration | Dispel

This is a spell to make you a semi-immortal coward. If your health is critically low you heal, teleport to your bed or spawn, start regenerating, and dispel unwanted status effects like poisons. It won't protect you from instant kills and radiation effects cannot be dispelled. Note that Contingency: Death is unreliable except for revenge spells.



Offense

>Projectile | Disarm

Your basic expelliarmus. This causes the targeted player or NPC to drop what they're holding, and also works on skeletons, zombies and zombie pigmen. Dark mages drop NONE affinity tomes. Disarm is a good early target for self-defense because of its position in the talent tree and overwhelming effectiveness against other players.

>Projectile | Mark AND >Projectile | Recall

A poor man's portal gun. Mark a spot with one spell, and then send enemies to that spot with recall. Handy for getting things into a dark nexus. Costs tons of mana across dimensions.

>Projectile | Light | Mark | Piercing | Piercing | Piercing

Put your enemies six blocks under by firing this straight down and then hitting them with a separate recall spell. If it is an NPC they suffocate and their items pop up to the surface and if it is a player they probably escape but take some suffocation damage. The floating ball of light serves as a grave marker so you remember where you buried them.

>Projectile | Dig | Ignition | Piercing | Piercing | Piercing

This spell does have legitimate uses in certain high-level dungeons where a block breaking spell that can shoot holes through walls and ignite multiple things is actually a sane and rational part of your casting bar. It passes through seven blocks, trying to dig all of them and ignite their neighbors. It will continue to pass through and try to reach interior blocks even if the outer blocks are indestructible.

>Projectile | Watery grave

The compedium was a bit vague on this component. It makes the target unable to float in water and sinks them about 40 blocks down. Zombies drown if the water is deep enough, but a player can just barely escape. This is kind of useless on land but could be a hilarious and deadly prank if combined with a recall spell set to the middle of the ocean.

>Projectile | Attract | Ignition

The pulling effect of attract isn't strong, but if cast on the ground it creates a fire that draws nearby enemies into it for really low mana cost.

>Projectile | Zone | AoE | Fire Damage

Creates a zone of deadly burning fog. Zone spells create a spot where a spell is repeatedly cast. For fun, add Ignition after fire damage.

>Rune | AoE | Lightning Damage

Creates a basic shock rune close to you that damages the first thing stupid enough to step on it and anything nearby. This doesn't really work unless cast on at least half moon and can't be cast directly on a monster. Oh, and the rune it creates replaces a block if it strikes it from the side. Any block, even bedrock, can be deleted if it can be attacked from the side. Like many other spells this has griefing potential; I would rather you didn't use my invention to be a dick.

>Projectile | Summon

You must throw in a filled phylacteryl during spell creation. If you press "make spell" in creative it summons a skeleton. Summon spells last a long time. The Hell Cow from the Moo Moo Farm dimension is probably the strongest obtainable summon. It makes an excellent tank, distracting bosses for quite a while even without buffs. Vanilla nether mobs (blazes, wither skeletons) don't seem to work.

>Chain | Lightning Damage

Cheaper and more instant than a projectile but with less range, zaps the target and their two nearest neighbors. Also looks cool.

>Projectile | Velocity Added | Blind | Entangle | Disarm | Mana Drain

Completely disables the target for a few seconds by rendering them unable to see, shoot, or move. Also refunds part of the mana cost from their mana pool. Live test subject commented that he was glad I was on his side.

>Projectile | Lightning Damage | Entangle

Don't tase me, bro. Keeps the target from running off while you inflict armor-piercing damage.

>Chain | Lightning Damage | Rune Procs | Rune Procs | Rune Procs

Targets nine entities instead of three. This is an inefficient use of mana compared to casting a version without the rune procs three times.

Silver-Level Unlocks!

Some of the most powerful spell components cannot be purchased with skill points. You discover them by creating a spell with related components and attempting to cast it. You don't actually have to possess enough mana to succeed at casting this combination or meet any prereqs (not sure this is intended) so you can borrow a set of spell unlocks from somebody else on your server.

I found a few of these combinations by accident, most of them from various sources on the internet, and all the rest of them by looking at SpellUnlockManager.class.

The targeting shape isn't actually important, but don't try to leave a targeting shape out of the recipe. I'm just picking what makes the most sense here.

Order of components doesn't actually matter!

Mana Shield Unlock:

> (Self) | Shield | Reflect | Life Tap

Mana Link Unlock:

> (Projectile) | Mana Drain | Entangle

Firestorm Unlock:

> (Projectile) | Fire Damage | Ignition | Storm | Solar

Blizzard Unlock:

> (Projectile) | Storm | Frost Damage | Freeze | Damage

Starstrike Unlock:

> (Projectile) | Magic Damage | Gravity | Astral Distortion

Moonrise Unlock:

> (Self) | Night Vision | Ender Intervention | Lunar

Daylight Unlock:

> (Projectile) | True Sight | Divine Intervention | Light

Spellmaking With Advanced Components

> Projectile | Firestorm | Storm

This only costs 8 mana more than a pure firestorm spell, and 8 mana is worth it for the Adele reference and dramatic look.

Firestorm is a very powerful component that bypasses the normal restrictions on how fast damage can be dealt. Basically, it does a fuckton of damage over a few seconds in a 3x3 area and kills any non-boss mob before they can cross it at the price of also vaporizing most of the drops. Does not light flammable blocks on fire ever. Radius runes to not increase the radius, although duration makes it last much longer. Some variation (probably without the rain) will be your primary offensive spell once you get it.

> Projectile | Starstrike

This would not be a bad spell if Firestorm were not such an awesome spell. With no other modifiers and at crescent moon strength it does about 6 damage (3 hearts) in a 9x9 square but only if your target has a clear path to the sky. There is also a bit of a delay between when it hits and when the star falls.

> Self | Starstrike

The saving grace of Starstrike is that you can have more than one star falling at once. Cast this every half second while walking backwards and you will annihilate hordes of zombies that are trying to chase you in a somewhat efficient manner.

> Projectile | Blizzard

Enemies freeze in place and take about 20 damage (10 hearts) for the duration of the spell in a 3x3. Sometimes destroys drops.

> Contingency: Damage | Self | Firestorm | Blizzard

You asked for it, so here it is. This is a spell to discourage harm.

Coming soon: Boss strategies and summoning!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things that are in various stages of broken:

Slowfall. This is afflicted by the fall damage accumulation bug that I've seen in a couple other mods that try to have this feature. If it runs out while you've been in the air a while and you're a tick away from touching the ground safely, you take damage as if you'd been falling full speed the entire time you were in the air.

Projectile mark plus light, then self recall. I've had some trouble reproducing it but I've had two testing worlds where teleporting myself inside a ball of light caused a CTD and an unloadable world.

Random teleport. If cast at full moon it moves you a very short distance for a very high mana cost.

Ender Intervention. Works on NPCs, but when attempting to send my little brother to the Nether the server crashed and when it restarted he was on the roof of the nether. Test subject retrieved eventually. Haven't retested this bug in a while...

Harvest. Causes wildly excessive drops when it strikes a Thaumcraft flower, and possibly other plants.
 
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KKeys

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This is a great list, never knew about the zone/projectile/dig but man that's fun. Gotta try some more spells with zone in the future, thanks :D
 

Exadi

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Here's AM2's quarry:

Projectile (I guess this is optional if you don't mind starting it at your feet)
Zone
Duration x3 (3 is overkill, it digs 179 layers in its lifetime)
Gravity x3 (1 might suffice, not sure if stacking it is necessary for the zone to always dig a layer every time it ticks)
Area of Effect
Dig
Telekinesis

On augmented this can dig 179x7x7 blocks and costs 320 mana. All you need to do is figure out how to collect the drops (that's what telekinesis is for but you have to stand in the quarry and you'll need something like a Remote IO setup or Force bag to deal with all the junk. Lava immunity is also recommended).

For a strange hole you can add in Random Teleportation. The zone will teleport itself around and give you a hole with lots of sheer drops but a bit more interesting than a normal quarry hole and might be fun to explore I guess?

I just wish there was a spell component to delete dropped items. I tried Ignition but it treated the fire as blocks and couldn't dig down, it just replaced a 7x7 with fire which was kind of cool in its own right but not what I was looking for. If recall worked on items it would be amazing.

Edit: Speaking of recall... http://i.imgur.com/nMnjshl.png
One spell cast did this. Judging by the buffs on that hecate it even reached a cursed earth spawner I made in one of the holes from testing various dig spells. Just thinking of dumping all those mobs into a Well of Suffering from Blood Magic made my face match the spell icon. Admittedly it's a flat world so there are probably a few more mobs than usual in range. See if you can guess how I did it, but I'll tell you if you give up. :p
 
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Yusunoha

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qgirQGF.gif


but seriously, I didn't know Ars Magica had these powerful spell combinations... it makes me really want to try it out myself aswell
 

Builderb0y

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>Self|Fling|Velocity added (optional, but recommended)

Will allow you to jump up and over a wall for an extremely low mana cost. Can be spammed for higher walls, and a single velocity added makes it scale with casting mode.
 

YX33A

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Well... Self - Summon is kind of basic. All powerful, no, but as a mage, you can cast spells to buff things.
Touch/Projectile - Invisibility - Shield - Mana Link - Mana Shield is a good "assist" buff, as it can make someone invisible(a big plus), gives them extra armor(note: not valid against most spells, but replace Shield with pretty much any shield effect to make it do what you want), Mana Link is a Silver tier effect(aka unlock only), as is Mana Shield. Thing is, Mana Link will allow your target to share your mana if they are within range. Mana Shield grants them a way to shrug off damage by burning mana(250 mana every half heart, I don't know what the cap per attack is), allowing them to protect themselves against many things, using your mana as a buffer.

And apply that to a powerful creature, such as a Wither, and you have a bit of a hellish summon for your foes to deal with. Now, you may be thinking, "You can't summon a Wither, as you can't get it's soul into that stupid crystal thingy", and you're right. Creative mode, however, has those "stupid crystal thingies" for everything you can make a actual summon spell with, including Bosses. Maybe the wither is too mainstream for you. Try the Lich from Twilight Forest! Or the Naga! Or the Ender Dragon! There is a whole mod full of awesome summons, actually. Lycanites Mobs are great for summons. I suggest the Nether ones for starters, as they are badass and dangerous. One summon actually is a bonus level summon, for once it dies, it spawns other mobs, still loyal to you. And yes, you can trap its soul. Just remember, it's not easy.

A useful combo is "Contingency - Death" - Mark and either Self - Recall if you died in a safe way(such as a fall that you didn't guess right) or Projectile - Recall, if you died horribly(such as falling into a big ass pool of Sludge, which causes bad things, including Wither damage{!}). Or Rune - Recall if you aren't really the kind of person to make two spells when one will do either roughly as well.

Oh, and a bit of advice: Binding was added semi-recently as a usable effect. You have to add a special tool for it to work(needs 6 slimeballs, a gold version of what you want, and two other things I forget), but I'm going to run some tests to see if the tools can be enchanted first, then added to the item(or if the item can be enchanted), and if the effects carry over into the spell. If they do, this may allow for some pretty game-breaking tool-binding effects.
 

CaseyRobinson

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Wow, did I ever underestimate zone spells. They last ages with 3x duration and can do all sorts of unexpected things.

This might be something to file under cross-mod trickery --
"Emerald Farming"
Projectile (optional)
Zone
Radius
Duration x3
Touch
Heal

Toss some Iron Golems and or villagers in a TiCo smletery and then cast this inside to keep them company. Initial testing points to about a half block of emerald per villager per cast (augmented).


This one is nice when you need more Ars flowers and have some time to idle. I haven't gotten Wakebloom with it yet, that might not work:
"Flower Power"
Zone
Durationx3
AoE
Grow Plants
Harvest Plants

You could probably add some radius to the AoE, but I didn't have that unlocked yet when I was creating this.
 

KingTriaxx

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Rune>Leap with an augmented cast makes a great back door escape method for your base, because it works even if you've lost all your equipment. Also good for boss fights when you need a breather, since you're probably out of mana.
 

Redius

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What exactly does the effect of "Radius" do? Expand the effect of AE/Zone stuff? If yes, by how much?
 

TangentialThreat

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Wow, did I ever underestimate zone spells. They last ages with 3x duration and can do all sorts of unexpected things.

-snip-

This one is nice when you need more Ars flowers and have some time to idle. I haven't gotten Wakebloom with it yet, that might not work:
"Flower Power"
Zone
Durationx3
AoE
Grow Plants
Harvest Plants

You could probably add some radius to the AoE, but I didn't have that unlocked yet when I was creating this.

The flower spell is interesting. For one, it can produce valuable desert nova if cast in a desert, and it gives me some ideas on speeding up agriculture.

It doesn't make aums in a witchwood forest. I am disappointed, but they are farmable anyway.

I have found a weird little exploit while casting this across the countryside. If the harvest component zaps a cinderpearl you get three dozen and change stacks of blaze powder! Zapping a shimmerleaf makes a paltry two stacks and change of quicksilver.

If bees can still do Thaumcraft flowers you can... err, have a lot of chests of blaze powder. None of the other plants I thought to zap did anything weird.
 

kaiomann

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Where does Ender Intervention teleport the players to? The same coords just in the nether or to spawn?
 

Tornado3019

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Anybody know what a good way to level up is? Is it better to cast a bad spell lots of times or a good spell a few times? Or is it somewhere in between
 

jaycron

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Anybody know what a good way to level up is? Is it better to cast a bad spell lots of times or a good spell a few times? Or is it somewhere in between
ive found that using a touch based dig spell instead of a pick works wonders for getting xp, especially if ur trying to do some landscaping, that way the xp becomes an extra byproduct
 

Tornado3019

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ive found that using a touch based dig spell instead of a pick works wonders for getting xp, especially if ur trying to do some landscaping, that way the xp becomes an extra byproduct
That's pretty good for early levels but I'm level 37 now and all I can think of is going afk with a macro clicking my mouse every few seconds to cast a spell.
 

YX33A

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Anybody know what a good way to level up is? Is it better to cast a bad spell lots of times or a good spell a few times? Or is it somewhere in between
I find that after a while, my old spells tend to give me smaller amounts of EXP, even when I keep a close eye on my burnout.

Your burnout meter(the red one) isn't just a "casting that next spell will cost you more mana" thing, it also reduces how much EXP you get from each cast.
 

Tornado3019

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It's not actually the burnout meter (i think), I can cast a spell and get 13 xp for it then when my burnout goes down I still only get 5. I did some testing with the times and it's about 6 seconds for me, after that the xp you gain from it goes back to normal.
 
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Miyuji

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Offensive spells:

Zone | Projectile | Freeze

Costs 80 mana at half moon, will do 13 damage per projectile, shoots six projectiles one per zone proc, zone will also do damage if you can route enemy through it. Moving to full moon does not raise damage, fire can be substituted for frost with same results. Lightning does more damage (8|16|16) but also runs into quicker burnout. Spell is basically spammable, and should be used by walking backwards.


Zone | Projectile | Drain Life | Drain Mana

At a higher cost of 425 Mana, this spell will heal you and still do damage equivalent to the above spell. Projectiles if they hit will also heal and return mana to you. The zone will do damage and convert to health an mana as well, but you wont get the pretty particle effects. At level 47 this spell is not spammable for long durations, So in a long fight such as Fire, Winter, or Nature, I recommend switching to this spell as health is needed. Mana recovered produces at best 30-40% return on spell cost.


Buffs:

Self | Shield | Duration | Duration | Duration

At full moon this will produce a 9m 53s Magic Shield III buff for 3000 Mana
at half moon, 1m, 56s Magic Shield II for 337.5 Mana

Self | Regen| Duration | Duration | Duration

At full moon this will produce a 7m 53s Regen III buff for 9000 Mana
At Half moon, 2m 20s Regen II for 1012.5 Mana

Self | Night Vision | Duration | Duration | Duration

At full moon this will produce a 9m 53s Night Vision IV buff for 3000 Mana
at half moon, 1m 56s Night Vision III for 337.5 Mana

Due to the initial mana costs of these buffs, another alternative is to use Rune prior to Self, and then wait for mana regeneration, then run over your runes right before summoning a boss.

Summary:

I am currently still testing out Debuffs, working out time duration on slow, and still looking for a cost effective AOE damage spell, but nothing has proven really interesting.

MIyuji.