Spell Book
Some staves do one thing. Others do whatever you have learned to do. This page is the second kind: every working the Mage’s Guild teaches, what it asks of you, and where to get it.
Getting a staff
Adept staves carry no working of their own. They cast whatever you have bound to them, drawn from what you know, and they burn Soul Dust doing it.
The first one is the Mage’s Guild Issue Staff, and Rowan the staffwright hands it to every recruit the Guild takes. To get there you have to be admitted: start beneath the stairway in the Rusty Spoon, pass the trials set there, and you are sent into the Guild’s induction, which ends with Rowan, a staff, and your first working. The full route is on the Spells page. Once you have graduated, the Porter by the village spawn takes you to the Guild whenever you like.
The issue staff is level 12 and upgrades twice at the Enchantress, at levels 22 and 32. Four nature staves fall as legendary drops in the wild and climb further, each devoted to one school. Anastasia the Robewright, by the Guild benches, sells two more that never upgrade: the Novice staff at 12 to anyone the Guild counts Friendly, a touch better than the issue staff, and the Adept staff at 24 to the Honoured, between the issue staff’s second and third rungs. Her robes carry a little potency and haste to match.
Soul Dust
Monsters that die fighting leave a little of whatever kept them going. Soul Dust drops from naturally spawned hostiles, never from spawners or farms, and it is the only thing a working costs. It cannot be made, only found.
It can be pressed. Four grains in a two-by-two crafting grid make one Dense Soul Dust, and one dense grain in a grid splits back into four. Costs run on a ladder of 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 16 and 32, so anything from four up is whole dense grains: a 16-dust working is four dense. A working that costs four or more burns dense first and makes up the rest in loose. The cheap ones never touch your dense. Jupiter will show you the pressing herself, once you have flown her circuit and found her tomes.
Opening the book
Right-click an enchanting table while holding an adept staff. The book lists every working there is. The ones you know are shown in full and can be clicked to bind; the ones you do not are present but blank, so you can see there is more without seeing what. Click a working to bind it to the staff, then right-click to cast it.
Binding lives on the staff, not on you. A staff can hold one working at a time, and you can change it as often as you like. Its icon wears the working’s sigil so a bag of staves reads at a glance.
Some workings need something pointed at. Look at it and press F, the swap-hands key, which an adept staff borrows while you hold it. A rune appears over your mark that only you can see. Press F at nothing to let it go; it also slips if the target dies, leaves, goes out of range, or after thirty seconds.
Where workings come from
Two things have to be true before you can cast one: you have to have been taught it, and you have to be high enough level for it.
| How | Which workings |
|---|---|
| Opening the spell book for the first time | Rush, Flash Heal |
| Rowan, during the Guild induction | Lesser Shroud |
| Jupiter, by the Academy, after flying her Wind Chasers circuit | Gale Step |
| Jupiter again, after finding the five tomes on Ascension Island | Lesser Mage Armor |
| Carter, for gold, once Bramwell the Academy guard has sent you to him | Detect Hostiles, then Detect Ore |
| Archmage Xarath, from level 30, after his lesson and his test on Torii Island | Skeleton Warrior |
| Rowan, after Rhoswen the verdant guard sends you to Purgatory Isle | Empower |
| Maudra the Tomekeeper, by the benches, sells tomes for gold to Guild members: read one and it is yours | Flames, Distract, Shards of Ice, Mend, Mage Armor, Healing Burst, Arcane Torment, Blink, Stasis, Cleanse |
| Corvin the vampire, from level 26, after striking one of Torii Island’s dead with his Fang | Devour |
| Ysolde the vampire, at the end of the vampires’ chain, after the hill on Purgatory Isle | Shroud |
| Not yet taught in play | Everything else, for now |
Jupiter’s circuit is a string of hoops round the Guild’s islands and a lent staff with the wind already in it. Through every hoop inside fifty seconds and the step is yours; run out of time and you ask her again. Once you can fly, she sends you to Ascension Island, the high one past the Academy, where its keeper left five tomes behind. Tomes are bound to their owners and not to be touched, so the job is to find each one, come close enough to read the spine, and report it. All five and she teaches you the ward.
The Guild is opening its doors by degrees. The workings marked not yet will be taught through quests, tomes and the Guild’s ranks as those arrive, and this page will say where as each one lands.
The workings
Every working belongs to a school. Healing, Sorcery and Trickery potency on your gear make that school cast harder; adaptive potency raises all three a little; spell haste shortens cooldowns. The book shows your own live numbers.
| Working | School | Level | Cost | Cooldown | Target | Learned from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detect Hostiles | Trickery | 8 | 1 | 4s | Yourself, 30-block sweep | Carter, 250 gold |
| Rush | Trickery | 12 | 2 | 8s | Yourself | First opening |
| Lesser Mage Armor | Trickery | 12 | 1 | 16s | Yourself | Jupiter |
| Detect Ore | Trickery | 12 | 1 | 4s | Yourself, 12-block wave | Carter, 500 gold |
| Lesser Shroud | Trickery | 12 | 1 | 12s | Yourself, 10s | Rowan |
| Gale Step | Trickery | 12 | 1 | 2s | Yourself | Jupiter |
| Flash Heal | Healing | 14 | 4 | 10s | Anyone but a monster | First opening |
| Flames | Sorcery | 14 | 3 | 10s | A cone along your gaze, held up to 4s | Tome, 900 gold |
| Distract | Trickery | 14 | 2 | 20s | Your mark, creatures only | Tome, 900 gold |
| Shards of Ice | Sorcery | 16 | 3 | 12s | Your mark, 1.5s channel | Tome, 1200 gold |
| Mend | Healing | 18 | 1 | 4s | A friendly player, or yourself | Tome, 1500 gold |
| Empower | Sorcery | 20 | 4 | 25s | Yourself, next 5 strikes | Rowan |
| Mage Armor | Trickery | 22 | 2 | 20s | Yourself | Tome, 2200 gold |
| Healing Burst | Healing | 22 | 2 | 10s | You and allies within 8 blocks | Tome, 2200 gold |
| Blink | Trickery | 24 | 2 | 8s | Yourself | Tome, 2600 gold |
| Arcane Torment | Sorcery | 24 | 4 | 16s | Nearest hostiles, 2 to 4s channel | Tome, 2600 gold |
| Cleanse | Healing | 26 | 3 | 12s | Your mark, or yourself | Tome, 3000 gold |
| Stasis | Trickery | 26 | 3 | 14s | Next melee target | Tome, 3000 gold |
| Devour | Sorcery | 26 | none | in the swing | Anything under a fifth of its health | Corvin |
| Skeleton Warrior | Sorcery | 28 | 8 | 30s | Conjures a servant, 3s channel | Xarath |
| Implosion | Sorcery | 30 | 16 | 30s | Everything around you, 2s channel | Not yet |
| Healing Allay | Healing | 30 | 8 | 45s | Conjures a servant, 3s channel | Not yet |
| Greater Mage Armor | Trickery | 32 | 4 | 24s | Yourself | Not yet |
| Sorcerer Allay | Sorcery | 34 | 16 | 45s | Conjures a servant, 3s channel | Not yet |
| Shroud | Trickery | 36 | 3 | 40s | Yourself, 20s | Ysolde |
| Annihilator | Sorcery | 40 | 16 | 60s | Conjures a servant, 3s channel | Not yet |
| Sanctuary | Healing | 42 | 8 | 60s | A sphere at the cast spot, 6s | Not yet |
| Decoy | Trickery | 44 | 8 | 30s | Where you stand, 12s | Not yet |
| Starfall | Sorcery | 46 | 16 | 40s | 8 blocks around your mark, 10s | Not yet |
Costs are in Soul Dust; the cooldown is before haste and the staff’s own floor. Sorted by level, so the page reads as the road ahead.
What each one does
Trickery wins fights the other two never notice happening.
- Detect Hostiles: every enemy within thirty blocks answers at once with a click from where it stands. Direction and rough distance, one snapshot.
- Rush: Speed V for three seconds. Potency holds it longer.
- Lesser, standard and Greater Mage Armor: a ward that eats nine tenths of every hit before your armor sees it, until its budget or its clock runs out. Fifty health over ten seconds, seventy-five over twelve, or a hundred and ten over fourteen.
- Detect Ore: a listening wave out to twelve blocks. Iron, diamond and ancient debris each sing as it crosses them; the delay says how far.
- Lesser Shroud: for ten seconds ordinary creatures cannot find you. Anything with a declared allegiance sees straight through it, and any damage you deal tears it.
- Distract: for eight seconds the marked creature cannot hold you in its mind, and drifts toward something else to resent.
- Gale Step: a hard shove along your gaze with two soft seconds to land it. The staff’s cooldown floor is what you feel here.
- Blink: sixteen blocks of not being where you were, along your gaze. It will not pass through walls.
- Stasis: hold a second to load the staff; your next swing freezes what it hits solid, two seconds base and up to six with potency. Elites shrug it, bosses refuse it.
- Shroud: twenty seconds of the wilds counting you as theirs.
- Decoy: a false you, wearing your face and gear, that every hostile within twelve blocks is taunted onto for twelve seconds.
Healing keeps other people alive, which is harder and better thought of than keeping yourself alive.
- Flash Heal: six to ten health to whoever you have marked, at once. Healing ignores PvP consent; you can mend anyone.
- Mend: a second of care over somebody’s whole inventory, fifteen to twenty-five durability back on every damaged thing in it.
- Healing Burst: you and every clanmate or party member within eight blocks mend four to nine health each.
- Cleanse: strips every ailment it knows the name of, puts the fire out, and leaves a moment of regeneration.
- Healing Allay: a small kind thing that circles you and mends when you run low. It tends; it does not fight.
- Sanctuary: six seconds where the world is not allowed in. Hostiles cannot enter, arrows from outside die at the shell.
Sorcery is the loud school. It will not pretend otherwise.
- Flames: hold to pour flame along your gaze for up to four seconds; everything hostile in the cone burns every half second.
- Shards of Ice: hold a second and a half and three shards circle you; release and they fly at your mark, shattering soft blocks on the way.
- Empower: your next five landed melee blows within twenty seconds carry the working’s weight, plus seventy percent at base.
- Arcane Torment: hold and motes gather, three by two seconds and five by four; released, each hunts prey of its own choosing.
- Skeleton Warrior: three seconds of asking and a warrior answers, dressed to your strength, fighting whatever fights you.
- Implosion: two seconds of gathering, then a shockwave that breaks blocks and hurts everything living from one purse, dying with distance.
- Sorcerer Allay: a small cruel thing that hangs at spell range and burns your quarry with firebolts.
- Annihilator: a wall with a grudge. Its roar drags every enemy within sixteen blocks onto itself.
- Starfall: for ten seconds an eight-block region around your mark is under falling stars, each homing on a hostile of its own choosing.
- Devour: not cast, carried. Bound to your staff, it makes the swing hungry: anything under a fifth of its health takes five times the blow, and a killing blow drinks eight to sixteen health back, more the more was left. Half of all that against players. No Soul Dust, ever.
Conjured servants answer to Q while you hold the staff: aggressive, defensive or passive, and they follow you between fights.