Buff spells
Buff spells can be defined a few ways. In the most liberal terms, buff spells are non-attack spells that assist a player in accomplishing a certain task (e.g. hunting). These spells can be cast on a player and will provide that player with an offensive, defensive or utility benefit for a set duration. The usage of buff spells in this guide might not perfectly agree with the mechanics usage for things like MANA SPELLUP.
A guide to Buff Spells
In general, buff spells are very helpful to characters and, in principle, creatures. Often, they are used by players who wish to add additional DS, TD and AS. They can also provide the character with additional abilities, such as the ability to walk on water, the ability to avoid detection or bonuses to foraging, for example.
Some buff spells are self-cast limited (e.g. can only be cast by a character on themselves), others are available as mass spells (e.g. can be cast on an entire group) and others can be individually cast by one character at another.
There are some buff spells which be stacked, allowing a caster to provide up to a 249 minutes and 59 seconds (4+ hours) of a spell, others which can be refreshed (cast once, up to some threshold) others which can be cast once with a short duration. There are also some buff spells which are only available while a character is in the caster's group.
The goal of this guide is to help advise players about which spells their characters should basically always have running if they know how to cast them as well as advising players on the spells that are available and reasonable to ask from other characters. This guide should hopefully be useful not only to new players, who may not know what spells they should continually have up or who are not familiar with the in character nomenclature of spells as well as returning players, who may not be familiar with some of the newer classes and the spells that they can share. Hopefully, this should also help guide players who are concerned about how to ask others for spells politely and in a way that's in character.
Generic spells of interest
103, 202, 503, etc.
You want a table that looks like this:
| Spell | Buff | Stackable? | Appearance | Other names |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Defense (103) | +10 DS | No | You suddenly feel more powerful. | 'powerful look' |
Mass spells
There are three mass spells available in the game. These are all stackable up to four hours and are sometimes collectively referred to as "massies" or "a full set of massies" when they are all being offered. They are as follows:
- Mass Elemental Defense (419), often called "guards" in-game. Can be cast by anyone familiar with the Minor Elemental spell circle and adds +20 DS along with +15 elemental TD.
- Mass colors (611), often referred to as "colors" or "hues". Can be cast by rangers and adds +10 DS (with some additional DS depending on the caster's ranks in blessing lore).
- Mass blur (911), often called "blurs". Can be cast by wizards and adds +20 phantom dodge ranks.
A caster will commonly announce that they are going to cast these spells before casting them. If someone announces that they are going to cast, they are encouraging others to join their group. In this case, it is polite to join even if your character has not met the caster before, it should be considered an open invitation. Adding other mass spells (if known) is typically appreciated in such circumstances.
Note that if a caster did not announce that they are about to cast a mass spell, they may not wish others to join their group, so you should not necessarily just jump into a group if you observe them to be casting a mass spell.
Magic Items
We can discuss magic items that don't require skill checks. The blue, white, and black crystals. Quartz orbs. Moonstone cubes