Elements/Details

Fire


Fire is one of the game's damaging elements, but unlike arcane, ice or lightning it doesn't deal much initial damage. Instead, ignites targets, making them take continual damage over time until the flame either dies off or gets doused with water or frost. Being on fire is quite disturbing so a strong burning effect can cause most less pain-resistant beings to panic - run around wildly and completely nonsensically. Using fire spells on cooled lava or frozen water will cause them to shift to their previous state.

When used properly, fire can be really powerful, but those damn wizards don't like to wait and often underestimate it. If you don't want to be ignorant, listen, my young Padawan, and become aware of fire's might. The first most important thing to know about it is that flames work even when you don't shoot, so you can grill multiple creatures at once. There are lots of enemies which can't be bombarded by spells all the time, for example shooters who hide behind a meat wall, melee fighters who chase you (don't shoot, run!), mages who use different shieldings... um, like, well, nearly everything. And don't forget about lots, lots of enemies which are weak against fire. By keeping strong flames on all your enemies simultaneously, you can create a hell on earth and deal massive amounts of damage. Next of fire's advantages is that wizards can easily get rid of it - when you accidentally hit yourself with your own instant-damage spell, you won't have any way to save yourself, while fire can be doused, often just before it kills you. The panic effect is a powerful crowd-control - it makes your foes behave senselessly, which often means they will run into lava, water or fall of ridges. Of course in an epic fantasy world there are lots of badasses who don't give a heck about fire and will still try to murder you without losing concentration.

Fire mage's pocket spellbook

 * Force-cast Arcane Fireball
 * Area-cast Arcane Fireground
 * Force-cast Hellfire Hailstone
 * Force-cast Fire Beam
 * Force, or weapon-cast Thermal Lance
 * Force, area or weapon-cast Volcano Wall <- Jolthazar the Angry's Badass Seal of Approval
 * Force, or area-cast Thermal Mines (SAFFE)
 * Area-cast Igniter's Wrath

Cold


This element is a great way to make your opponents hate Christmas. Though it deals some damage, it is a poor choice for nuking - cold is a crowd-control element. A dry creature attacked with cold spell will become chilled which slows every single thing they do. If the target is wet, it will become frozen - this means being shackled in a block of solid ice which of course makes them completely immobile, helpless and easy to nuke down with cold blood. Cold has the ability to freeze water and cool lava so that wizards and other beings can walk on them. It can't be used in tandem with fire (it would also make no sense - fire and chilled/frozen effects negate each other) while using it together with steam or water will make the elements link an create, respectively, water or ice.

Cold is perhaps the most useful crowd control element and definitely the most loved one. Unlike panic, chill effect will neither make your enemies kill themselves nor completely disable their ability to do anything "productive", but it's better in all other ways - it works against nearly every creature in the game, lasts longer and slows hostile mages' casting abilities so that they can't thaw themselves as quickly as they can douse flames. That's not enough? Then you should use cold on wet foes. You need to use water first, but it's worth of it - frozen enemies take few times more physical or arcane damage and can do literally nothing but cast fire to thaw themselves. If they are not casters - huh, they're doomed. Frozen enemies thaw quickly, though, so you should keep striking them with next waves of cold magic (or get a sidekick ally to do that for you).

Cold is very useful against melee attackers - even if they are able to reach you with a powerful slow effect active, you can avoid their languishing attacks by calmly walking away. When used against shooters, it can only make them easier to catch. NO, chilled arrows DO NOT fly slower. Does your magic university not teach basic physics or what?

Frost mage's pocket spellbook

 * Area-cast Shattering glacier <- Jolthazar the Angry's Badass Seal of Approval
 * Force-cast Arcane Coldball
 * Area-cast Arcane Coldground
 * Force-cast Cold ray
 * Force-cast Cryo Lance

Earth


Magicka is a game about wizards - deal with it. But if you want to play in a warrior-style, earth is the element for you.

Earth is the second most versatile element in Magicka - it is useful in defense, nuking and crowd control as well as increasing other elements' capabilities. Overally - earth rocks. Captain Lame Pun strikes again. While most other elements are all around shooting one thing (flames, water, electrical discharges, some vaporizing-nitrogen thingy etc.) earth comes in three forms - boulders, quakes and crusts. The first ones are projectiles shot in a straight or parabolic line. Though a fully charged 5 boulder can be an awesome weapon by itself, boulders are usually charged with other elements to create versatile elemental bombs - a way to deliver some wonderful gift (like giant burst of fire or arcane explosion) on a great distance and to multiple friends at once! Quakes (force-cast earth) make the ground shatter and tremble, knocking enemies back. Crusts are formed into stone walls or armors used to block enemy attacks, projectiles and enemies themselves.

One type of spell worth noticing is a self cast mix of and  - better known as stone armor. These protective shells absorb three most popular damage types - physical, arcane and lightning, make the wizard impossible to grab (you won't be eaten by any dumb mountain of meat!), difficult to throw into the air and more resistant to falling damage (it also includes knockback negation). It also blocks healing (you can still cure poison), slows the wizard down and shares his fire damage, so use it wisely.

Earth mage's pocket spellbook

 * Force-cast Big Bad Boulder, AKA the Big Bad Bitch <- Jolthazar the Angry's Badass Seal of Approval
 * Self-Cast Earthbound Suicide
 * Self-Cast Light Rock Armor
 * Self-cast Super Heavy Rock Armor
 * Force, area or weapon-cast Major Stone Wall



Shield
Remember - feed your shield with spacebar or it will be sad.

Shield creates stuff. Walls. Mines. Storms. Armors. Nothing more can be said about overall properties of this element. 'Cause it is the first priority element, wizards only care about what do they add to it and not about shield itself. Because it relies nearly completely on other elements, it can be considered the most or least versatile element of all. Pure shield creates force fields which reflect literally everything, but lose their health over time and need to be boosted (by hammering spacebar) to last longer. Unlike other high-priority elements, shield is not the only thing that determines the spell's final effect. Shield is its own opposite - this means that you can only have 1 charge of shield per incantation.

Combining shield with spray elements or lightnings and area/force/weapon casting them will result in spawning storms, which look more like walls, but have different name to be distinguished from ice/earth walls. So you have walls of fire, lightning, cold's white-cloud-o'-somethin' etc. Everything can pass through them, but it will hurt. A lot.

Combining shield with beam elements and a/f/w casting them will result in spawning mines, which work exactly in the way their name suggests. No, the won't give you gold, they go boom! Arcane mines, apart from dealing damage, also emit a strong shockwave which provide touring flights for everyone who is dumb enough to step on them. Life mines only burst life magic, so you can use them as health packs.

Combining shield with projectile elements and casting them will create armors and walls which block...also projectiles, attacks, enemies and every other junk which could go through. Yeah, pretty much the same. And... well, that's the only function of stone walls and they do it quite well. On the other hand, ice walls are not very durable and quickly shatter by their own, but unlike earth ones they can be infused with lightning. Also, if you infuse them with arcane, which makes them explode while shattering, then you will WANT them to shatter more quickly.

Combining shield with spray, lightning or beam elements and self-casting them will create protective auras (wards). That way, instead of that arcane beam dealing you 9000 damage, it deals your ward 9000 damage instead. Just remember that you'll get knocked down if someone melees you. Adding more of an element to the aura will only increase its range and not duration, so when you charge them up playing solo, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Wardmage's pocket spellbook

 * Self-cast Storms Walker
 * F/a/w cast +  Rotten Weather
 * F/a/w cast Snowstorm Mines
 * F/a/w cast Energy Crystals of Doom <- Jolthazar the Angry's Badass Seal of Approval
 * F/a/w cast Hurricane Wall

Arcane
Arcane is the game's third most versatile element. Pure arcane spells are good only for buttkickin' - they do nothing but damage everything in their way. If you're new to fantasy games - arcane is the kind of pure magical energy which all these flashy magick bolts and beams are made of. In magicka, it has the property to make things go boom - when you stuff something with arcane, it will get puffier and puffier, and in the end it will explode, also dealing some damage to its pals standing next to it. Don't forget about the arcane mines - the most boom-going spell type in Magicka! Arcane also heals some creatures like undead, but it still can push them back or throw into the air due to the shockwave. It cannot be used in tandem with life. It would also have no sense to use them together as they work in opposing ways - arcane damage would be instantly healed and healing would be instantly reversed by arcane damage as there are no creatures healed or damaged by both arcane and life.

Arcane by itself can be used as damage source, but you can nuke things down much better with beams. They are what happens when you link lower-priority elements with arcane. Beams are unaffected by gravity and shot in easily predictable, straight trajectory. This, comined with their nearly unlimited firing range, makes them excellent long range spells. It's also impossible do friendly fire yourself with them and, unlike earth bolts, they can contain lightning. Unfortunately, they can hit only one target at a time, adding more elements makes them last longer rather than strenghtening and wizards rotate terribly slowly when channeling beams, so these spells have much lower damage potential at close to medium range. At least compared to novas, bolts and barrages.

Arcanist's pocket spellbook

 * Area-cast 1-5 Arcane Storm
 * Sword-cast Explosive Arcane Walls
 *  + 4 Arcane mines. ' Nuff said.

Life


Compared to fire, arcane or lightning, life may sound a bit lame. You can't use it to nuke down anything*. But you will love this element. Oh, how you will love.

Magicka has no health potions, first aid kits, health-replenishing nom-noms or any other healing collectibles. Life magick is the only thing that can keep a wizard alive during his save-the-world quest. It works much like arcane, with the exception it doesn't create any shockwaves. This means you can create healing spells in any forms you want except lightnings, storms and sprays, including life wards which make you impossible to heal. Makes sense. Unfortunately, other elements linked with life don't have reversed effects - this means no healing flames which would heal wizards over time and no cold-based speed buffs. The only reason* of linking life with effect-elements is to thaw the frozen, and douse the burning and dry the wet. Mixing life with shield, earth or ice enable wizards to create interesting healing spells - they heal incredibly fast at the price of being often AoEs and thus healing also monsters around (but hey, that's better than dying, isn't it?). Life cannot be used in tandem with arcane. It would also have no sense to use them together as they work in opposing ways - arcane damage would be instantly healed and healing would be instantly reversed by arcane damage as there are no creatures healed or damaged by both arcane and life.

Cleric's pocket spellbook

 * Force/area/weapon cast Healing mines
 * F/a/w/self cast Panacea
 * F/a/w cast Panacea mines
 * F/a/w cast Life Crystals of Redemption <- Jolthazar the Angry's Badass Seal of Approval

Lightning
Lightning is like a celebirty - loud, exaggerated and famous. Lightning magic is dangerous, it does not require any strategies and deals all of its damage INSTANTLY so it can be very useful when you have no time to think. It is also a vital part of several high-damage spells.

Lightning is a damage element. Well, it causes shocking, but this status effect ends its duration along with the spell so it isn't a good method of crowd control against more numerous enemies - a wizard would need to cast at all of them at the same time. Most lightning-based spells shoot lightnings in some directions, for example, area lightning casts shoots numerous lightnings in every direction while Energy Crystals of Doom (they contain lightning) shoot them into close enemies. These lightnings may be the same but when climate doesn't matter and it's all about efficiency, it's an advantage as lightnings hop from one target to another. This makes it easy to hit fellow wizards with a damaging spell, but if your wizard fights evil solo, then he can damage multiple targets at the same time (no, not multiple enough to keep a whole army shocked). Also, if some target is in the spell's range, lightning will find it itself which makes targeting easier than when shooting beams. This element is liked because of its property to double the whole spell's (whatever it contains) damage against wet enemies and increasing it by 50% against armored ones. Lightnings can be infused with elements, but well, there are only three elements with lower priority than lightning and one of them is the lightning's opposite so it can be only infused with fire or cold. Lightning also has one great disadvantage. When a wet wizard tries to use lightning magick, every charge of this element is instantly self-casted as the water on the wizard catches it. Remember, what is the effect of combining "wet" and "lightning"?. Yes, this means huge trouble if a wizard tries to use a spell containing lots of this element. Like, ironically, a full lightning ward - x4. Lightning can't be used in tandem with water (you need to use steam to make foes wet and strike them with lightning at the same time) and earth (yes, this means no ball lightnings).

Water


Water is used mainly for its wetting effect and using it without cold or lightning has got nearly no sense. Wet enemies take twice the normal damage from lightnings and are frozen when attacked with cold which results in changing to an immobile and very fragile block of ice. Also, wet wizards can't use lightning magic as trying to do that results in self-shocking. Being wet can also protect a wizard from an enemy's single tries to set him on fire and doesn't generate an aura which protects nearby monsters from this element. Spells containing large amounts of this element shoot water at high pressure causing it to push enemies back or even throw them into the air! When combined with fire it creates steam while when combined with cold it creates ice. Water can't be used in tandem with lightning.

Steam


Steam is one of the two "hybrid" or "secondary" elements, created by linking water with fire. It has the properties of these two - it deals damage like fire (it does not cause burning, though), wets like water and is a spray element like both of these. But steam is unique in one way - it is a spray element, but unlike other ones (fire, water and cold) it isn't the lowest possible priority element, it's higher than lightning. Also, unlike water, it is not opposite to lightnings and some sadistic wizards combine steam with it to wet and strike the enemy with lightning at the same time. Yes, this means the spell deals twice the normal damage to anything not resistant to being wet. In other ways, steam behaves like all other spray elements. When used in tandem with cold, steam degrades to water.

Ice


Ice is one of the two "hybrid" or "secondary" elements, created by linking water with cold. It is mainly used as powerful damage element. Most of the time, it creates or shoots various ice spikes and spiky things. Well, in fact, ice never creates something not including spikes. Ice is a projectile element like earth but it behaves differently - instead of shooting one, strong, concentrated missile, it shoots lots of smaller shards which also pierce enemies. Single shards deals little damage and doing some more requires hitting multiple times. This can be easily done when enemies are numerous because piercing effect allows one shard to hit several targets, also standing very near to one target causes all shards to hit it. Before releasing, shards (like boulders and elemental bombs) can be charged, this causes them to fly faster and, primarily, makes them be shot in a more narrow cone, allowing to shoot all of them into single targets. They can be infused with other elements to create elemental barrages. When used in tandem with fire, ice is degraded to water.

Ice is a high priority element but it's very often used in combination with even higher priority elements - shield and earth. The first combo creates ice walls which are very fragile compared to rock ones and last shortly, but are great when infused with other elements (example - Energy Crystals of Doom). The second one creates "ice boulders". They differ from rock ones in only one thing - adding ice charge to a boulder gives it much more damage than an earth charge. This was used to create the Nightmare Hailstone which deals really insane damage - sometimes over 10 000 fully charged! It is merely useful when not fully charged, though, as earth-based boulders are much faster to cast (well, it's only needed to hammer D key like mad). It's great against forest trolls which remain passive until the wizard comes close and are killed with one blow.