I just started playing this game with my girlfriend today - we are planning on going through it cooperatively. So far, we are loving it!

Any vets have any tips for a viable Wizard build? Good spells & skills?

I found a pretty good guide for her Amazon online, but haven't seen much regarding the Wizard yet.

Thanks!

Magic Bomb will get you through for quite a while and it's even still useful later on, against some immunities or for use around corners/through walls/grates. Reflection is very useful. Poison Cloud and Thunder works great too if you have the mana. (Poison Dome is useless, imo).

In later difficulties, Invisibility+Invocation is almost a must in some areas.

I agree with KrankyKat.

I also remember the fire wall spell being quite useful in certain situations.

As for builds... I think getting Magic to 55 is most important (not 100% sure, it's been a while) so that you can learn Magic Bomb, Invis, etc. After that I think my sorceress pumped vitality til it capped (at 50), then dumped the rest into magic.

As for skills, well I can't really remember sorry :(

List of skills here: http://www.thanatosrealms.com/darkstone/skills.html
Meditation, recharging and identification are useful skills for the Wizard.

Thanks for all the great replies - I definitely have something solid to work with now.

As for spells...I believe I read in the manual that if you read books of the same spell type multiple times, the power of of that spell increases. Is this a worthwhile investment?

Definitely!!

The more times you read the same spell book, the higher the magic requirement, but the stronger the effect!

Reading more spell books is definitely worthwhile...and again, in later difficulties, pretty much required. For certain spells it'll increase duration as well, which for something like invisibility or beserker is useful.

But early on if you'd rather have the gold from selling a few, why not. Example, especially as a wizard, you have no need for more than one Magic Door book really. :)

Stats, agree with twee - magic to 55 first etc.

Thanks for all the help - we're about to go on a Darkstone marathon and put it to good use!

realize this is an old thread, but for anyone with the same ?, i had a female wizard who was pretty ineffective to begin with (male warrior carried and out-leveled her), but once she leveled to the Berserker spell, she was not only fighting side-by-side, but she rarely needed potions anymore, since she was recharging her HP and MP at the same time. highly recommended, as well as Resurrect (you never know) and Magic Door (sold loot at the end of every level).

I went pure magic the whole way. Spells were kicking butt. You can stay pretty safe with invisibility. And when mana potions aren't an issue, you can just stay invisible and magic bomb things without losing invisibility.