>>However, despite this, I seem to be able to cast the spell at min-prep about 90% of the time

While you might be getting a bonus somewhere, spell success when casting at your personal cap isn't binary. There's some wiggle room for when you'd backfire (or not).

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

For training use symbiosis to reduce mana costs with a trade-off of weaker effect. For buffing in combat try spreading out your buffs a bit so they don't all have to be recast at once. For TM and devil don't worry about big casts unless you can afford them. Cyclics need feats to beused well and it's worth considering using them less than your cap especially TM and debil ones.

I'm going to disagree with cyclic debilitation needing a lot of mana. EE is an awesome spell, and only requires a tiny investment. It's really focused on OP's level range, 20ish, and that's where I was when the spell went on preview. I could cast it, and it was awesome.

Obviously you'll want 100 arcana to pick up the appropriate feat(s), but other than that, it's great.

Agree on TM though.

Thanks for the input so far, everyone.

How do you guys use cambrinth and harnessing to make your mana usage more efficient? Do you just harness half the mana at the beginning of the prep, and then prep it for the other half? Or do you break the harness into chunks of some size/periodicity? How does cambrinth play into this, especially prior to being able to charge it worn? Do your tactics for harnessing/charging cambrinth for spells change when talking about targeted or debilitation spells?

I saw Deep Attunement mentioned. I am getting close-ish to the 100 ranks in Arcana (it's near my other magics, at any rate), and it was one of the Magical Feats I had been eyeing. What other feats are suggested for a War Mage? I know we don't quite get enough spell slots to learn every spell possible, but it seems like we get well more than enough to learn every spell I would care to learn. So do War Mages tend to go Feat heavy?

Thanks, again.

>>How do you guys use cambrinth and harnessing to make your mana usage more efficient?

Unless I am being lazy (or need to invest my RTs elsewhere), I prep at minimum and harness in increments of 10-20 (someone starting out might need to use smaller amounts, both for their own management and because they're not casting at 80-100 preps). I don't really charge cambrinth in combat settings because the RT investment to charge is a lot longer than directly harnessing, and it's not like I'll be holding the mana that long anyway so the risk of nerve damage is rather low.

>>I saw Deep Attunement mentioned. I am getting close-ish to the 100 ranks in Arcana (it's near my other magics, at any rate), and it was one of the Magical Feats I had been eyeing. What other feats are suggested for a War Mage?

Raw {and Efficient) Channeling is a game changer for cyclic spells, so if you ever want to keep a cyclic up without having to keep a cambrinth charged to draw from or continually harness more and more mana to keep it running, definitely get raw. Efficient makes each cyclic pulse cost "less" mana, and with some cyclics those savings can really add up.

Sorcerous Patterns and Magical Theorist are pretty much necessary if you want to cast sorcerous magic (of the capital or lowercase s variety).

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

Aeduin,

I'll place at the end of this both my magics, and spell selections so you've an idea of what I'm doing. As others have said, EVERY spell I cast, unless it is 10 mana or less, I prep at the minimum and use cambrinth to fill the rest. At the moment, that means a lot of holding armbands to cast, but that's the price I'll pay for 3 weeks until I can charge worn. Anywho, Every spell is the same, Prep [spell], Charge remaining mana, invoke, cast. This includes TM (currently casting STS @ 35ish manas). The only exception is debilitation, because I'm casting Tremor at 17 manas and don't care yet.

For Cyclics, I don't actually bother at this point. Pools are filled easily enough without, and I am planning to hold off on diving into cyclics until a cyclic TM spell, debilitation is just too easy to bother with spending slots on EE at the moment. Once you ARE to where you're using Cyclics a lot, Dedicated Cambrinth use can be handy, as you can charge up pieces, then use the special INVOKE's (invoke spell for example) so that the cyclic cannot pull the mana I'm dedicating to spell casting.

The primary reason everyone is suggesting things like Harnessing mana (I don't, but only because I'm a combat monkey and avoid nerve damage like the plague), or Cambrinth is efficiency. Prepping a spell at high mana and 'straight casting' is brutal on your attunement. Harnessing up chunks costs far less attunement per mana, at the cost of RTs and potential for nerve damage. Cambrinth is even more efficient mana per mana, however it costs in larger RTs, as well as requiring items. You can also supplement your attunement with feats like: Deep Attunement (bonus to regen), Efficient Harnessing (cheaper costs to magical actions), Efficient Channeling (10% reduction in cyclic costs). PERSONALLY, I suggest Deep Attunement and Efficient Harnessing for ALL magical guilds, and Raw and Efficient Channeling for anyone choosing to embrace Cyclic spells.

Hopefully, this helps with some clarity. As promised, my ranks/spells/feats are listed below.

Samsaren

Elemental Magic - 177.86
Arcana - 156.45
Attunement - 151.92
Summoning - 145.64
Augmentation - 135.34
Debilitation - 119.68
Warding - 94.94
Targeted Magic - 91.23
Utility - 89.40

In the chapter entitled "Aether Manipulation", you have notes on the Ethereal Shield [es], Substratum, Elementalism, and Expansive Infusions [ei] spells.

In the chapter entitled "Earth Manipulation", you have notes on the Tremor [trem], Sure Footing [suf], Stone Strike [sts], and Anther's Call [anc] spells.

In the chapter entitled "Air Manipulation", you have notes on the Zephyr, Tailwind [tw], Swirling Winds [sw], and Quick Infusions [qi] spells.

You recall proficiency with the magic feats of Faster Targeting, Targeted Mastery and Deep Attunement.

>How do you guys use cambrinth and harnessing to make your mana usage more efficient?

There are two dimensions of mana efficiency. First, as Samsaren mentioned, a staight prep of 20 mana costs a higher percentage of attunement than does harnessing 20 mana, which in turn depletes more attunement than charging cambrinth with 20 mana. The second dimension is that efficiency decreases the more mana you use. Harnessing 40 mana is more than double the attunement cost of harnessing 20 mana twice. This is another huge benefit of chunking, your attunement stretches farther if you work with smaller quantities even before accounting for regen pulses.

I hadn't thought about the perils of nerve damage! Yes that's something you need to worry about more at lower skill levels... At this point in my mage's carreer (80ish), I have enough attunement skill that harnessing mana briefly isn't very dangeous and it's easy enough to carry nerve tonic in the event I do something fantastically stupid or get stunned at a bad time. I used to use cambrinth in combat, but since you can no longer train down cambrinth roundtimes it is not worth it once you can safely harness. Very large cambrinth remains indispensable for buffing since none of our buffs are battle spells and you have a huge preparation time to work in.

---

Re: Life mana Spell preps

You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.