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[SalmonGod]

It requires you to do some quick thinking at times, especially when you get multiple types of enemies thrown at you.

For example, Rain is my nemesis. I use a lot of lightning by instinct, and when Rain goes out, I have to either switch elements or start planning a series of actions like Nullify, Dry self, slow the druids so they don't recast it, yadda yadda...

And when you have Yak men, or whatever, charging you into a corner and knocking you down, it's not just as simple as "change elements." Even moreso when the AI is actually thinking smart, and the aforementioned druids using Rain will then use cold sprays on you, since you're already wet, and freeze you solid.

There's a lot of split-second decision making and reaction in Magicka that keeps you fairly engrossed while playing. And the game is far, far, far, far, far, far easier on single player. It doesn't seem so at first, but when you've got friends all over the screen, not killing everyone becomes just as hard as killing your enemies quickly.

Rain gets me, too.  I don't know how many times I've lost because I was the last one left, and it started raining just as I was casting revive.

There's also the times enemy wizards will self-shield and cause you to reflect a beam back at yourself that explodes in your face.  Beams aren't always the best.  Beams, AOEs, walls, mines, shotguns, etc each seem to have their place.

And yetis... fucking yetis... they're fast and insta-kill you, and don't freeze easily.  So you have to adopt completely opposite tactics from everything else in the game and it's a shock.  You go from nuking everything knowing someone will live and heal/revive afterwards... to running like hell, throwing up walls frantically, trying to find more than 1/2 a second to build up an effective spell combo.  I often just start spamming rings of flaming rock wall around myself over and over and over hoping I can keep it up long enough that they'll burn to death.  Sometimes it works.

I also rarely put self-shield on anymore, after dealing with too many archers and bounced beams from teammates.  At first it seemed like a no-brainer to have on all the time.

[nenjin]

Like everything in Magicka, it's situational and has drawbacks under some conditions.

The BIGGEST reason for personal shield, to me, is that will absorb all damage from one attack even if the damage is far greater than the shield's health.

So those 5,000 - 10,000 damage lightning bolts? If you have your PS up, it will kill your PS, but not you. This is incredibly handy for a lot of situations where the enemy starts flinging strong spells at you. In a 1v1 warlock match, the PS is often the only thing that can buy you time from getting your ass beamed.

But yeah, arrows suck and remind you not to use it all the time.

Another fun fact: Healing mines exploded next to a deployed shield will BOOST that shield. We were trying to do the exploit to get the Teleport book in Chapter 1, and everyone was goofing around making mistakes. So we had like 5 shields up right where we were dropping mines and exploding them.

Eventually we were like "we need to get rid of these shields" and started whacking them with our default swords.

With 2 wizards, after 30 seconds hacking, we'd barely dented the life on one shield. It seems shields can be OVERHEALED to sick amounts of damage values.

I have no idea if this is applicable in any situation....but I had to laugh.

[Neonivek]

"For example, Rain is my nemesis. I use a lot of lightning by instinct, and when Rain goes out, I have to either switch elements or start planning a series of actions like Nullify, Dry self, slow the druids so they don't recast it, yadda yadda"

OOOOR

You could cast Water + Shield on yourself and become immune to rain.

[nenjin]

For 10 seconds. I don't find Elemental shields all that useful for stuff the enemy is doing to you. For your own hijinks, they're great. If you want them to be better, the radii gets bigger and starts helping out all the stuff you're trying to kill.

[Neonivek]

For 10 seconds.

More then enough time to kill most things.

[nenjin]

So how much multi you doing there, fella?

[Neonivek]

So how much multi you doing there, fella?

Enough to know that the #1 enemy is other players.

[nenjin]

So how much multi you doing there, fella?

Enough to know that the #1 enemy is other players.

It's da truff.

They're also the only reason to play through Magicka more than once. Without players, you can basically nail Magicka down to a few solid tactics and a few surprise challenges. With players, the game is completely unpredictable unless you all play like the Hive mind.

It's also why I won't play with random pubs. Just like Alien Swarm, people play the game SP, find their groove, go into a team environment and play like assholes, intentionally or not. I've killed more than few friends just AoE spamming out of habit. The funnest, and the hardest part of Magicka isn't winning. It's winning without doing it at the expense of everyone else in game.

Because between Vortex and Thunderstorm, the actual enemies don't really stand a chance. Neither do your friends, though.

[Neonivek]

The problem is that most players are really loose with their abilities and don't try to use finess at all because of how easy it is to cast resurection.

[SalmonGod]

"For example, Rain is my nemesis. I use a lot of lightning by instinct, and when Rain goes out, I have to either switch elements or start planning a series of actions like Nullify, Dry self, slow the druids so they don't recast it, yadda yadda"

OOOOR

You could cast Water + Shield on yourself and become immune to rain.

I play mostly challenge mode so far.  So when dealing with rain, I'm also dealing with hordes of charing satyrs or kobold arrows.  I'm very likely to get knocked down or frozen while casting that defensive spell.  Pretty often, I need to think quickly and cast some non-lightning spells to buy myself time to build up some defenses.  Since I throw lightning on almost everything I normally do, my fingers get tied up trying to do this since I'm trying to work really fast with things that go against muscle memory.

I think it's genius, really.  It's a very fresh game design approach.  They give you godly power right from the start, but you have to learn to use it effectively.

I also like how everybody seems to have signatures in their playstyle.  Everybody uses lightning beams, but otherwise I see a lot of variety online.  I lay lots of mines, frozen rock walls, and lightning/arcane shotgun blasts.  I don't see many other people doing these same things.  I saw a guy in one game who put up ice walls with lightning auras.  They would freeze and electrify any enemy who came near them.  I haven't figured out how he did it, but he was the only person I've ever seen do it and it was insanely effective.

And since pretty much everything is overpowered, there are not a lot of "best" strategies going around like in most online games.  It's very refreshing.

[nenjin]

The problem is that most players are really loose with their abilities and don't try to use finess at all because of how easy it is to cast resurection.

I can attest to the finesse thing. Last night at the end of our session, we were fighting Grimnir. My one friend just walked up to Grimnir and threw Lightning 5 at him repeatedly, which sent it arcing through all 3 of us, killing two guys. Rather than rezzing, he just kept throwing lightning. I had to run away and heal just so he wouldn't frag me. I got kinda pissed. We won the fight, just him and me, but it was not fun. There were two people dead going "what the fuck man, you didn't even need to do that."

Beams are also a very finesse thing. If you can be precise with a beam, you can avoid a lot of friendly fire incidents and and do some cool beam chaining. If you just throw beams and spin in a circle....you'll fuck everything up.

The unfortunate part about Magicka is that there's no control for people just playing the game at the lowest level. People have to want to play it a fun way, that also isn't just randomly throwing out the most powerful/destructive magicks. 

[NewsMuffin]

Well, I'd be willing to play, if someone got a game going.
I haven't played Magicka MP before, so bare with me.

[NewsMuffin]

Ok, what the fuck is with these fucking grenade trolls?
Fucking serious.
I mean, this game is amazing and I love it, but those fucking trolls with guns are way to overpowered. I just can't counter them!

[SalmonGod]

The giant armored trolls with mortars that shoot really slow?

Cold damage.  They become almost stationary.

Or remember that just clicking RMB without selecting an element has a force push effect.  This works on incoming projectiles.

[Sensei]

Cold+Arcane beam is a good way to deal with big slow enemies.