Hi! This is my first guide, and I hope it will prove useful to you! If you like it or have some suggestions on how to improve it please leave a comment!

It will cover the basics of leveling up mages, how to choose which mages to promote to apprentices and which to graduate, and recommendations for best factions for each element and some of my favorite element combinations for apprentices

The maximum level cap of a character depends on the tier of the wand that they have and the path they took to becoming a teacher.

Each level of a wand adds to the max level cap

Tier 1 wands – max level 3 (for initiates)
Tier 2 wands – max level 5 (for initiates)
Tier 3 wands – max level 6 (for initiates)

When you promote your students into apprentices or teachers, the level cap increases by however many levels the wand tier allows (i.e. 3, 5, or 6).

Each promotion adds a multiplier to the max level

The final max. level depends on whether they were apprentices before becoming teachers, or they went straight from initiate into becoming a teacher.

Initiate -> Staff
Tier 1 wand: 3 -> 6
Tier 2 wand: 5 -> 10
Tier 3 wand: 6 -> 12

Initiate -> Apprentice -> Staff
Tier 1 wand: 3 -> 6 -> 9
Tier 2 wand: 5 -> 10 -> 15
Tier 3 wand: 6 -> 12 -> 18

Each wand tier also adds trials to your students, with each additional one being of higher quality & difficulty and bringing a higher XP reward.

Tier 1 – 3 trials (2 bronze, 1 silver)
Tier 2 – 4 trials (+ gold trial)
Tier 3 – 5 trials (+ platinum trial)

Completing the trials will help level up the student faster. The trials also award their XP again after the student is promoted. For example, a level 5 student that has a tier 2 wand, is fully trained and has completed all 4 trials, will typically shoot up straight to level 9 after being promoted to apprentice thanks to all the trial XP being awarded again. This XP will be granted again if the student is then promoted to staff after being fully trained as an apprentice.

It's not always necessary to complete all the trials before promoting a student into an apprentice – they will reach max level cap often without the need for all the trials to be completed, and the students can still complete the trials as apprentices and gain that extra XP.

However, promoting students into Staff will lock all the uncompleted trials.

There is one more reason to try to complete all the trials for students that you want to promote or graduate anyway. Each time a character is made apprentice, hired as staff, graduates, or retires, they manifest a relic.

The relic’s maximum level depends on how many trials (and their quality) the character has completed, whether they are a student, apprentice, or mage, and their wand tier.

Completing as many trials as possible, will therefore manifest relics of a higher maximum level when you graduate or promote your students.

I now have a guide going into great detail on relics

Whether an initiate is a good candidate to become an apprentice is decided in two steps:
1 – Is their race a good pairing for their wand element?
2 – Are their wand random skill(s) a good pairing for the role that you want them to fulfill?

If they do not satisfy both criteria – graduate them and try again.

Both of these points will be discussed below.

Mages are considered fully trained when they reach their current level cap and max level in their skills. Keep that in mind when equipping relics that boost max skill level, as this will both make the mage more powerful but slow down their training considerably.

In the early game, you will want to promote several students straight to teacher positions in order to perform more tasks. You probably only need 6 of them, air is not as useful in the early game, and having 7 staff costs more in resources to promote.

The next step is equipping your existing staff with Tier 2 wands to raise their level cap.

In mid-game, you will want to start training apprentices. The question then is should you specialize in one skill or multi-skill them?

Specializing in the same element as the wand gives a +3 bonus to that element and -1 penalties to the opposing elements, and allows the mage to use their ultimate spell twice a day. However, this is most useful outside of combat. Having a Pyromancer (specialized in fire) and Thundermancer (specialized in lightning) is useful as a pyromancer will cook fast and help kill nasty creatures such as Fog Incarnation and Breathstealer quickly. Thundermancer will speed up the research.

It can also be useful to have a mage specialized in nature, especially in the early game, to help with harvesting rare resources from nature and tending to plants.

For most situations it is beneficial to choose two elements for your apprentices, as it increases the number of tasks that they can perform out of combat, and gives them two sets of spells to use in combat.

The main considerations when choosing a second element should be:
1) Which skills are boosted by their wands?
2) Which role would you like them to serve in combat



Each wand tier provides some random boosts to the element caps, in addition to the main element. When you have a Tier 1 wand two other skills will be boosted. You should consider choosing one of them as a target for your apprentice. If you don’t like either choice – graduate them.

With wand tiers 2 and 3, you will have even more options when choosing an element to boost. In a perfect scenario, there will be an element that got bonuses from two wand levels and is thus the best choice to apprentice in (such as choosing lightning in the second picture above).

The reasoning behind this is that many combat spells of the secondary element really come to power when the second element is at least level 4 or ideally level 5. Apprenticing in an element gives +2 boost to the base stat of 1, so unless there is another +1 or +2 from the wand the mage will have inadequate skill level in the secondary element. With relics then you might be able to boost this skill even higher, giving you a mage that is very powerful in two elements at the same time.

Conjurers - Choosing an element adjacent to the main one will give +2/+2 to both elements with no penalties.

Sorcerers - Choosing an element opposite of the main one (3 away) will give +1 to the main element and +2 to the element apprenticed in, with two other elements getting -1/-1. But in addition to that, there will be a special effect that the mage gets in combat.

Fire + Water – Water spells gain 50% critical chance, and criticals deal triple damage
Fire + Dark – mage gains permanent 25% dodge chance, and regains 10% health on kill
Lightning + Dark – When casting a non-attack spell random enemy gains ‘doomed’ status (50% increased damage)
Lightning + Nature – When gaining a buff from a potion or spell random ally that doesn’t have that buff gets it as well
Air + Nature - All timed effects gain +1 round duration
Air + Earth – Deal +33% more damage when below 50% HP
Water + Earth – When the attack hits gain armor equal to the mana cost of the spell

Arcanists – choosing an element 2-away from the main one will give +1 to the main element and +2 to the element apprenticed in, with -1/-1 to the opposing elements. The mage will also gain an additional relic slot. This is most useful in late-game when you have plenty of relics and will help you get a mage with 5 relic slots if used on a gifted initiate.

Gifted initiates come with an additional relic slot (4 by default). They are expensive to summon, and are best saved for late game when you can summon specific factions for specific wands with cultist convocation for the roles that you want them to fill.

There are a few schools of thought on which races pair the best with which elements. In general raven-cult are the best overall on lower difficulties in any role as it’s easier to manage their low conviction, but become difficult to manage on high difficulty. I personally like to have as diverse a school as possible, and have tried to find each faction their own niche.

The question is further complicated by the fact that in most cases you will want your mages to use two elements at the same time.

I like vivified as dark mages. Even though their spells count a percentage of HP toward damage rather than absolute HP, having a very high HP pool means that they will have plenty left over to survive enemy attacks. It also mitigates their weakness from having a low mana pool, as the only spell using it is shadow cloak. I usually keep them in the back row.

I mostly use them as sorcerers,dark+fire that helps them regain their lost HP when killing with tentacle sweep.

They could be also good as conjurers, dark + water, or dark+nature. Water benefits from their high HP pool to cast consecrating drops on allies providing high armor, and having one mage with water in combat is useful later in the game to get rid of negative effects from enemies. Nature can help with casting surging strength to boost their power and deal more damage.

Another niche that Vivified could fill is earth-mages as tanks. They benefit greatly from a high HP pool when using earth armor, but are a poor target for fire-mage’s vengeance, as I would usually do with front-row tanks as vengeance will quickly drain their meager mana pools. They also need an air-mage to cast haste on them in order to be able to put on their armor and taunt the enemy before the enemy has the chance to act. It requires a bit of planning and support from allies, but they are nearly indestructible.

Humans suffer from low power and therefore deal very little damage. However, they still make for great pyromancers and thundermancers – they will do a great job outside of combat and in combat a human pyromancer will do decent one-shots with flame-lash and thundermancer will do well in a support role, as they’ll be able to endlessly recharge others and use inspiration to provide extra speed and guaranteed criticals.

Humans can do well in other support roles too.

Air+Nature sorcerers do meager damage, but they can comfortably sit in the back row and spam haste, mass shield of wind, and surging strength on allies, without the worry of running out of mana - all the while all of their buffs get +1 round duration. High HP also means they’ll probably be fine if the enemy has splash attacks.  

Air+Water conjurers substitute damage buff to allies from sorcerers for even more defense, by providing armor and removing negative effects with consecrating drops, giving a fair amount of armor due to their decent health pool. Useful if you have no one else to fulfill the role of removing statuses, and can boost your front-line in case that you are not using earth-mage tanks (but you really should!)

Air+Lightning conjurers add speed and criticals, but I find this to be a bit too redundant.

Of the three options from above I prefer Air+Nature sorcerers by far, followed by Air+Water conjurers.

Another niche option is to use them as earth-mage tanks similar to Vivified, but unlike Vivified their attacks will deal much less damage but they'll be able to spam them nearly endlessly if under vengeance spell cast by a fire-mage

Wolfkin have high speed and decent power but low mana pools. As such the main element for them is Lightning, as those spells benefit from both power and speed, and lightning bolt has a very low mana cost. They are a good choice for a thundermancer, focusing on dealing damage rather than supporting allies (much) in battle.

If you can provide them with mana-restoring potions or (later) with relics boosting their mana, they can do decently in support roles as well, and you may even consider lightning+air conjures that can both support and deal decent damage. They could excel in this support role due to their high speed, as they get to cast inspiration or haste before the enemy turn.

Lightning+nature sorcerers could be another interesting option as they could cast inspiration and nature's strength on themselves while granting a random ally with the same benefits, and provide you with a way to swap enemy positions with swirling vines.

In late-game when they are bolstered by artefacts, Wolfkin also can perform a role as an earth-mage, but instead of a typical earth-mage tank, their role is to fire off earth ultimate spell before any of the enemy units can act.

Their main disadvantage is poor conviction which makes them difficult to manage outside of combat that but means that they have no combat-related flaws and can fill basically any role in combat. However I focus on the ones that other factions can not do as well as they can

Earth mages – Raven cultists are able to both have good use of the earth armor due to their pretty high HP, and are a great target for vengeance from fire-mages, as they can spam their main attack thanks to their pretty high mana pool. And all of that with solid damage thanks to their high power stat. I like Earth+Water sorcerers, as their water attacks will also grant them armor and they can cast consecrating drops in a pinch to purge negative status effects and add more armor at the same time. You can also go with Earth+Fire conjurers for even more damage options or Earth+Nature conjurers to let you manipulate enemy lines (I’d probably go with this one)

I also use them as fire-mages and water-mages, especially as water+air conjurers that can do both offensive and support roles, as their air attacks also do high damage due to their high power stat. Fire+water sorcerers can also be very powerful due to their high criticals and the ability to spam fireballs under the influence of vengeance.

Shattered nature mages are very useful outside of combat due to their immunity to sporerash from Spore Shrooms and strangling by Trapdoor Vines. If you don't want them to be pure nature build, nature+dark conjurers are a good choice for a damage dealer that sits in a back row and controls the battlefield while dealing high damage.

In combat air, water, fire, and dark can all benefit from their high power stat. However, water is a suboptimal choice, as their low HP makes for poor use of consecrating drops., leaving you with air, fire and dark as good options.

Especially air benefits a lot from their power, with multi-strike dealing their power modifier up to 3 times. Therefore air+nature sorcerers could be an interesting option.

In late game they make probably the best dark mages, and in mid-game dark+fire sorcerers that have 25% dodge chance to avoid damage can be a good option too, as it helps them with survivability. Or you can go and get dark+air arcanists with an extra relic slot that shattered really benefit from and have tremendous firepower from dark and air spells.

Actually in late game, they're one of the most powerful and versatile factions, if you have the right relics to boost their stats for the purpose

• Humans – (fire + fire) cooking, hunting, killing Fog Incarnations and Breathstealers, strongest use of flame lash for one-shotting an enemy (boosted by inspiration if needed), in late game has enough mana to easily cast two ultimate spells in one combat
  
• Raven Cult – (fire + fire) strong fireball spell, best overall
  
• Raven Cult – (fire+water) high critical damage, needs relics to boost fire skill up to 8 in late game

• Humans – (lightning + lightning) research, early-game support (inspiration, best use of recharge)
  
• Wolfkin – (lightning + lightning) research, offense
  
• Wolfkin – (lightning + air) support and offense (can cast buffs before the enemy)
  
• Wolfkin – (lightning + nature) support and offense (picking off back-line enemy and battlefield control)

• Shattered – (air+air) strong offense potential
  
• Humans – (air + nature) ultimate early and mid-game support, zero offense capacity
  
• Shattered – (air + nature) similar role to humans with stronger offense potential, but needs relics to boost speed in order to act before the enemy
  
• Humans – (air + water) support for removing negative status effects and giving armour to the front line

• Raven Cult – (water + air) offense and support
  
• Raven cult – (water + fire) focus on offense and criticals

• Vivified – (dark+fire) very good in early game, can dodge attacks
  
• Shattered – (dark+fire) mid and late game, higher damage potential than vivified, can easily insta-heal to full hp after combat by drinking potions
  
• Vivified – (dark+water) good option in early game if no other character has water spells
  
• Vivified – (dark+nature) – good early-game damage and battlefield control
  
• Shattered – (dark+air) mid and late game, good damage potential and good support, can easily insta-heal to full hp after combat by drinking potions, extra relic slot

• Shattered – (nature+nature) harvesting sporeshrooms and trapdoor vines, cutting bramble
  
• Shattered – (nature+dark) somewhat less effective outside of combat than pure nature, but more versatile in combat

• Vivified – (earth+?) excellent early game frontline tank, but needs to be hastened and may run out of mana for attacks unless recharged. Can be pure earth or combined with fire/water.
  
• Human – (earth+?) secondary option for early game tank, can attack more often (under vengeance) but lower damage per attack. May need to be hastened or inspired. Can be pure earth or combined with fire/water.
  
• Raven cult – (earth+water) excellent mid game tank, strong offensive power, gains armour on attack, can purify negative statuses
  
• Raven cult – (earth+nature) tank with battlefield control
  
• Wolfkin (earth+earth) – mid to late game offensive role, can fire off ultimate spell before the enemy can act

Even though the guide grew to be pretty damn long it is by no means exhaustive and contains my personal opinions and biases, and it mostly focuses on early to mid-game. You can experiment with different builds. I also didn't cover arcanists and relics much, but now I have published my second guide that deals with them in detail, and covers some ideas for boosting your mages' power in late game.