Dungeon Siege II - Combat Magic

Fantasy game art from Dungeon Siege II. Combat Magic in Dungeon Siege II was considerably changed from the original Dungeon Siege. There are far fewer spells, and many interesting spells were discarded. However, the revised list is thematically stronger, and players didn't really miss much after the vastly improved visuals were added. The themes of Combat Magic are Fire, Lightning, Death magic, Curses, and Summoning creatures that use ranged magic attacks. As you get to summon some pretty demonic-looking creatures and curse opponents with a variety of effects, Combat Magic could be considered "dark magic", but they backed off from calling it this in Dungeon Siege (although there are references to it as "dark magic" in the source code), and didn't try it in Dungeon Siege II either.

Combat Magic Skills

• Brilliance: Through intense introspection, adventurers may extend their mind beyond physical constraints, vastly multiplying their capacity for magical energies.
• Devastation: Combat Magic is an exercise in precision. The more accurate a mage's motions and the more practiced his incantations, the more energy and destruction he can channel into his attacks.
• Debilitation: There is power in disease and decay. Mages who study it risk their health and sanity, but learn to inflict crippling curses on their foes.
• Searing Flames: Convectus the Red spent a lifetime communing with Lava Spirits and learning the secrets of the inner flame. His students are still famous for the intensity of their fire magic.
• Amplified Lightning: Dwarven mages were known to revel in the power of conducting electrical energy. They had to develop techniques to increase how much of it their bodies could withstand.
• Summon Alacrity: Mages who study this skill can accelerate the metabolism of the creatures they summon and agitate them to a frenzy, drastically increasing their attack rate.
• Grim Necromancy: Practitioners of this discipline commune with dark forces and master spells that tear the life out of their enemies. Many mages wonder if any end is worth such means.
• Quickened Casting: When the legendary archer Alamus became too old to string his bow, he sought a new life in magic and learned that principles of battle meditation could drastically increase the rate of his casting.
• Vampirism: While most death mages are content with the ability to tear the life force from their victims, some have secretly learned to channel some of that stolen vitality into their own restoration.
• Ignite: No one can truly say they have bested a mage trained in these arts, as the lingering flames continue to burn deeply long after the battle is over, and the unmistakable scars will always tell the tale.
• Arcane Fury: Overexposure to elemental channeling often results in the mage becoming a conduit for the raw power of mana itself, which, though painful, can greatly increase the intensity of their attacks.
• Arcing: It is said that the mage who created the Galeblade was capable of channeling so much energy into his lightning spells that arcs of it sometimes jumped from his primary target to other nearby foes.

Combat Magic Powers

• Energy Orb: The Elven mage Arinth could summon a ball of energy that hovered above him and shot fire at his enemies. He later perfected it, learning to weave additional types of energy into the orb.
• Flame Nexus: Convectus the Red communed with Lava Spirits, learning to summon and launch them as weapons in battle. The Spirit gleefully reaches out with tendrils of fire to burn any nearby enemies.
• Detonation: The greatest power of the fire mage is a dangerous weapon. The mage recklessly gathers more energy than he can control, releasing it in a massive conflagration that burns his enemies.
• Corrosive Eruption: Enemies caught within this noxious cloud are infected by gasses that rot them from the inside out. Corrosive fumes violently erupt from victims when they die, burning and poisoning nearby foes.
• Harvest Soul: A deadly attack invented by the vilest mages in history, this dark ritual creates a gigantic scythe that cuts away the life force of the mage's enemies, allowing his allies to absorb it and heal themselves.
• Chain Lightning: A favored attack of young Combat Mages, Chain Lightning hurls a bolt of lightning that shocks the nearest enemy then jumps to other nearby foes. The bolt deals reduced damage with each jump.
• Gathered Bolt: The mage gradually builds up a massive electrical charge on the ground, causing a tremendous bolt of lightning to crash down, devastating all enemies it hits.