Just wondering what everyone considers the 'must have' feats for paladin magic. I'm plotting out my newest character's spell choices up through 50 just to figure out what spells to get when.

I've got stuff up through 20ish, by which time I should have around 100 in most magics, including arcana.

I'm not sold on the mastery skills, but I think the attunement ones are a solid bet. Deep attunement, raw channeling, efficient channeling, efficient harnessing.

Not sure about either of the scroll feats.

You recall proficiency with the magic feats of Sorcerous Patterns, Deep Attunement, Raw Channeling, Efficient Channeling, Improved Memory, Magic Theorist, Dedicated Cambrinth Use, Symbiotic Research, Physical Matrices, Mental Matrices and Survivalist.

Thats what I use. Your milage of course may vary. I used to use the Mastery Feats, as they're handy, but once you cap everything their value bottoms out quick.

Samsaren

Not necessarily Paladin specific but... here goes. Mileage will vary. I've tried to put my experiences with my high end magic (moon magE) and low end magic (cleric).

* Mana feats. *

I would say mana feats are largely contingent on playstyle. If you use large holy mana rooms then they are less useful, if you find yourself casting a lot of spells in low mana rooms, they could be more useful. I tend to use cambrinth to offset mana issues instead of relying on feats.

Raw channeling is a must. I can't even imagine trying to use cyclics without it. Unless you can afford some large worn cambrinth, you could potentially charge to keep up, but doubtful.

Efficient channeling, depends on class. I've never really needed it. But if I had to keep up a cyclic and didn't have the mana, i would pick efficient channeling.

Deep Attunement - Don't need it on my moon mage, don't need it on my cleric either. Chaos symbiosis made this relatively obsolete. By the time you start needing tons of mana to train spells, you can swap over to chaos symbiosis to use less mana. (200ish magics.)

Efficient Harnessing - Don't use this either, I regularly harness 30+ mana on my moon mage, I should think about picking it up. But again, this can be mitigated by harnessing / charging in correct mana amounts.

Cautious Harnessing - Absolute must for moon mages. Everyone else... not really. Most people that harness will prep/wait 18 seconds/harness, to avoid holding mana for a long time.

Dedicated Cambrinth Use - I used to view this as a no but its recently a must have. I really like using my cyclics at the same time when I'm buffing/casting/training using cambrinth. It's quite a pain to have a cyclic draw mana from your cambrinth when you are in the middle of casting.

* Scroll feats *

Both are a must have, timing can vary. If you don't want to train sorcery you can skip magic theorist. For a paladin improved memory is really great. You can memorize two cleric spells (if no sorcery) to cover any weaknesses in spells/strengths a paladin might have. (e.g. ghost shroud!)

* Research Feats *

These are more end game feats. I use them on my moon mage because physical symbiosis are harder to cast then chaos symb. 60%ish more difficulty which means less mana. For example shadow servant is 55-60ish mana even with Spring symbiosis. Also, it teaches Augmentation with every spell cast. Plus you get a minor stat buff (or skill boost). With the stat cap I skill boosts are probably better at this point.

But, research is also super buggy so it can be annoying to use. (Stat boots randomly drop off and you get spammed by losing agility if you cast a spell with a symbiosis multiple times.)

* Other feats *

Masteries...

I honestly don't think any of the masteries are worth it unless you have some sort of milestone you need to get to, like bridging the gap for esoterics. Spells just don't do enough to justify spending a feat to put an extra 5 mana into. Masteries may also be useful when casting sorceries to help bring the backlash rate down. But likely diminishing returns based on minimum backlash for the specific spell.

Faster targeting - Useful, more end game and PVP.
Faster battle - Meh, pretty fast already.
Cautious Casting - Can be useful. Useful on my MM because something makes spells less consistent. It could be astro predictions or sorcery related backlash, but really hard to tell. I still manage to fry my nerves on backlashes so not entirely sure this one is useful. Also nerves are fried constantly from low level sorc bashlash. Already constantly healing, I'd pass on this one.
Injured casting- Not worth it. Unless you are in the habit of being near death and have a spell casting escape tool.
Group stuff - Maybe for a paladin.
Improv Rituals - Useful if you constantly cast rituals.

I had sorcerous patterns on my moon mage since 100 sorcery. I have very very low backlash rate with centering/pfe. My cleric has forgone sorcerous patterns since 100 sorcery (175 now) and has been using clear vision and aura sight. I have yet to get any serious backlashes.

I'm getting pretty bad backlash on substratum at 5 mana (plus spring symbisos) casts.

My stance is now, sorcerous patterns isn't needed and will largely be out shined by the individual spell/tier backlash rates.

>> Talking about mana efficiency things from the perspective of a magic prime has no bearing on the life of a tert. The available mana difference is absolutely staggering.

Meh, everyone has to find a good mana room. Chances are if you dont have enough attunement skill then you also wont be putting much mana into the spell, so it really evens out.

Here are the feats I have: Basic Preparation Recognition, Faster Targeting, Faster Battle Preparations, Faster Matrices, Augmentation Mastery, Targeted Mastery, Utility Mastery, Warding Mastery, Deep Attunement, Raw Channeling, Efficient Channeling, Team Player, Area Casting and Group Supporter.

>>Brycole83: Meh, everyone has to find a good mana room. Chances are if you dont have enough attunement skill then you also wont be putting much mana into the spell, so it really evens out.

It really does matter what skillset placement you have when evaluating the magical feats. As Samsaren mentioned, rank-for-rank, magic-tertiary characters have much less attunement to work with, even in rooms with awesome mana. Second, since we don't earn nearly as many spell slots, we have to use them more judiciously.

Keeping that in mind, this is how I rate the feats for Paladins. (Your mileage may vary depending on play-style.)

Essential: Deep Attunement, Efficient Harnessing, Raw Channeling, Efficient Channeling
All of these feats will help you get the most out of your limited attunement. (You can hold off on learning the channeling feats until you start using cyclic spells.) Raw Channeling is practically essential for the effective use of cyclic spells.

Temporarily Useful: Augmentation Mastery, Warding Mastery, Targeted Mastery, Utility Mastery
I found it useful to get the mastery feats for my favorite spell types, because they increase the amount of mana I can put into spells, letting me cap spells before my ranks alone would allow it. As I outgrow these feats (with rank gain), I plan to replace them with other options.

Useful in Group Settings: Group Supporter, Team Player, Area Casting, Faster Matrices
Skip these if you primarily play alone.

Useful to Sorcerers: Magic Theorist, Sorcerous Patterns, Improved Memory
If you don't plan to use sorcery but like to use holy spells from scrolls, you might want to take Improved Memory.

Possible PvP Applications: Faster Targeting, Faster Battle Preparations; Basic Preparation Recognition, Advanced Spell Knowledge; Legerdemain, Alternate Preparation, Silent Preparation
The "faster feats" shave about 1-2 seconds off of the time it takes for spells to be fully prepared. Whether that's worth spending spell slots is up to you. The recognition feats give you advanced warning about what kind of spells your opponent is using. The last two feats are for trying to hide your own spell preps (if you're into that); Silent Preparation requires knowledge of Alternate Preparation and is useless unless you have actually learned one of the stealthy spell preps.

Useful at High Levels: Symbiotic Research, Mental Matrices, Physical Matrices
If you don't want to use magical research, you will need to use symbiotic casting in order to efficiently train your non-combat magic skills at high ranks. Of course, you can do this with no feats, but these feats will allow you to add buffs to your stats.

For Ritual Spell Users: Improvised Rituals, Faster Rituals
You need the Improvised Rituals feat if you want to use universal or realm-attuned magical foci. Otherwise, you can skip it. Personally, I am underwhelmed by my current ritual spells (Seal Cambrinth and Alamhif's Gift), so I did not take any.

I personally have no use for the other feats, although I know some people are fond of taking Dedicated Cambrinth Use to power their cyclic spells.

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>>2dumbarse: Not sure what the skill check is for this in M3.x, but I never saw the spells my opponents were pepping when I was fighting even matches. I'm told even magic primary HLCs fail the check a lot. I wound up dropping it as a consequence.

I'm not sure that there is a skill check as long as you are seeing the prep (that is, you have enough perception to see stealthy preps).

My Empath has both of the recognition feats and sees all the spell names for spells that she sees being prepped.


>>2dumbarse: On another note, when I tested area casting it seemed as though the penalty that was supposed to be there for people not in your group wasn't taking effect. In other words, when I cast area, everyone got the full effect of my courage. Unless that's changed, that makes team player unnecessary.

If that's the case, it should be bugged.

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<<I could've sworn someone bugged it recently in another forum (Magic?).

Reasonably certain it was Iliena, but I don't think it was bugged officially. Just an 'is this working as intended or am I missing something?' kind of post.

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>>The only thing that beats training a magic tert character at low ranks in training Debil on a Thief sub-20 circles.

I do not disagree. When I did a thief in 3.1, I ended up holding off on debil until I earned Khri Prowess and Ambush Stun. Luckily I train enough weapons that debil has caught up.

Samsaren

>> I'll second this. Training magic on my Ranger sub-200 ranks was one of the most frustrating things I've done in this game because of constantly running out of mana and harnessed mana leaking within second of harnessing it, causing twitches in combat and out. Even with the mana management feats it remained frustrating.

You really shouldn't be harnessing mana when training magic... Cambrinth is more efficient, even if you pick up the harness feat. You should be using all tools available to assist you with training magics if training magic is that terrible for magic terts.

>> It really does matter what skillset placement you have when evaluating the magical feats. As Samsaren mentioned, rank-for-rank, magic-tertiary characters have much less attunement to work with, even in rooms with awesome mana. Second, since we don't earn nearly as many spell slots, we have to use them more judiciously.

Cool, good to know.

And to be fair, everyone has trouble training magics. (Or takes lots of effort). Even on my cleric I have to take steps to not drain my attunement to 0 when training magics. It's not just a paladin issue.

Is there some sort of hidden equation where magic terts are less effective then magic prime even if attunement skills are equal?

>>Is there some sort of hidden equation where magic terts are less effective then magic prime even if attunement skills are equal?

To quote Armifer, which you quoted already, heh, "rank-for-rank, magic-tertiary characters have much less attunement to work with". So, Yes. And the difference gets especially silly when you add things like Persistance of Mana. Awesome spell.

Which goes back to my first comment being, speaking from the point of view as a Magic Prime talking about preferential feats for a Tert gives you an awful skewed view of things. Take a few weeks with a F2P magic tert, its eye opening.

Samsaren