Last time we checked in with the Magicka devs, they were debunking the ancient technique of "water bombing" and the frustrations of losing character control. Come take a seat at the Arrowhead campfire and listen to tales of PvP glory and fights to the death.

Another week, another Dev Diary! This time, we're going to talk about the various PvP modes—the different ways you can blast your friends to oblivion. Game modes have been a hot topic of discussion, both on the forums and here in the office. Without further ado, let's get into this.

When pondering what game modes we should have in Magicka, we took a good, long look at other games and the solutions they adopted; we also listened closely to the solutions posed by the Magicka community. Certain things about PvP seem fairly obvious: for example, we always knew we would need a classic Deathmatch mode. You know, the standard kill-people-until-they-all-die game mode. Creating the mode was a relatively simple matter of establishing a time limit and a kill counter. Throughout development, we reserved the word “Deathmatch” for this normal everyday meaning: it’s a very well known expression, and it means a very specific type of game mode which all players easily recognize.



But there’s more than one way to blast your friends to giblets. Considering a slightly different flavor of PvP, but something still quite familiar, we turned to the Brawl game mode. Brawl is largely inspired by Super Smash Bros., which doesn’t count how many kills you’ve scored, but instead gives each player a set number of lives. There was some question early on if this was really different enough from Deathmatch for it to be included, but after much heated discussion, we decided to implement it. Once we started playtesting, we found that it made for very different gameplay experience compared to Deathmatch, especially when playing four-player Free-For-All. It was definitely unique enough to warrant its own game mode, but familiar enough that players would immediately feel at home with it.

The final game mode we’re offering is a tribute to our awesome community—and the individual who created the very first Magicka PvP tournament. We call it Krietor’s Tourney mode. For those unfamiliar with his history, a forum member by the name of Krietor made a mod for Magicka shortly after it was released, implementing the rudimentary PvP functionality that was left in the game (which, for reasons of time, we had to cut before the main release). Instead of just publishing the mod and calling it finished, Keritor followed through and kept improving the mod for a very long time. He introduced an interesting tournament style which included a time limit, and set up timed rounds. Whenever someone scored a kill, the playing field was reset, with everyone healed up to full strength, and stripped of any spells or other effects. This introduced structure and fairness to an otherwise chaotic PvP environment. He also implemented a system whereby Magicks were unlocked based on how far the tournament had progressed. As you got further into a match, more powerful Magicks were unlocked. This made for very interesting tournaments—and we thought it a brilliant idea to implement these ideas in our official Magicka PvP release.



The official version of Krietor’s Tourney mode will feature the same basic functionality as Krietor's original home-made version, polished and refined a bit so it fits perfectly into Magicka PvP. Each round has a certain time limit, and whenever only one person or one team remains (yep, every game mode supports team play), time stops, and everyone is replaced at their spawning positions to begin the next round, with all remaining spells and effects removed for a clean start. This means that no matter who won the last round, nobody will have an edge from one round to the next. Magicks will be unlocked after certain time intervals, and the order and time at which they unlock is unique to each PvP map. The goal of Krietor’s Tourney mode is to make matches as fair as possible, while at the same time keeping things very interesting. (By contrast, randomization is basically fair, but when it comes to competitive multiplayer, randomization rarely generates interest.)

These three new game modes come with lots of new settings, and the lobby we have in the current version of Magicka has no way to represent the various options. So we've reworked the lobby to include PvP. When designing the new lobby, we tried to make it as flexible as possible, so we can easily add more features and options in the future.

It's our hope that these three game modes will satisfy the community’s PvP cravings. We all really enjoy them ourselves, and feel that each game mode contributes its own little piece of fun. We hope that this introduction of PvP will bring an exciting new facet of Magicka to light!

It's been a very busy year for PC news at E3. All last week we were bombarded with new trailers, announcements, screenshots and interviews from LA. We got to see some of the most exciting games of the next few years demoed right before our eyes. You can find all of our E3 2011 posts right here. If you don't fancy clicking through five days of madness, we've compiled the biggest stories of this year's conference into one post with links to all the best trailers, screens and stories of the show.

Battlefield 3 gets a release date, beta plans announced


Battlefield 3 was spectacular at E3 this year. It was one of the best looking games at the show. The EA conference tank mission demo stole our war-obsessed hearts and made us all go "ooooh!" at the screen. In terms of actual news, however, the October 25 release date is a big deal. Battlefield 3 will get a couple of weeks head start on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (out November 8). There will also be a Battlefield 3 beta in Septermber.
Far Cry 3 revealed


Far Cry 3 is coming. The sequel plans to combine the lush jungle environments of Far Cry with the open world of Far Cry 2. Ubisoft promise that the AI has been altered this time so the action happens when the player wants, not when an overzealous patrol comes within a mile. The lawless island will be fully explorable, and the game is built in an upgraded version of the powerful Dunia engine that fuelled Far Cry 2's enormous world. Check out our Far Cry 3 E3 preview for more.
Arma 2: Free announced


We went to E3 expecting more information on Arma 3 following the announcement in the week leading up to the conference. What we got was entirely unexpected. Instead, Bohemia announced Arma 2: Free. One of the best military sims ever made will be free to download this month. The only caveats are a downgrade in graphics, and a lack of mod support. You'll still be able to jump into 50-player missions with your friends. Think of it as the best demo ever.
Modern Warfare 3 could get dedicated servers and mod tools


The fact that Infinity Ward and Activision are even thinking about adding PC specific features like dedicated servers and mod tools to Call of Duty is big news. While it faces stiff competition this year in the form of Battlefield 3, Call of Duty is still one of the biggest games in the world right now. If its creators start paying more attention to supporting the series on PC, that can only be a good thing.
Star Wars: The Old Republic raids revealed


The Old Republic's raids were shown for the first time at E3 this year. Tim dived in and got to see the improved UI and a raid set on Alderaan. You can read all his thoughts on the new raids here. Bioware released some footage of the Eternity Vault raid on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic site. They also released an in-depth dev diary detailing a whole mission set on Tatooine from start to finish.
XCOM returns


After a year of media silence, XCOM re-emerged from its alien cocoon this year a changed animal. The trailer wasn't great, but Graham reported distinct improvements when he saw the game behind closed doors. Check out Evan's overview for a summary of changes that have been made to XCOM in the past year.
Bioshock Infinite trailer and demo amazes


This year's Bioshock Infinite E3 trailer was impressive, but the behind the scenes demo Graham saw was even better. He saw a world full of big ideas and exciting gun fights, a battle of philosophies on a gorgeous floating city. Read all about it here.
Mirror's Edge 2 plans hinted at, could use Frostbite 2


While not quite exactly confirming anything, EA games president Frank Gibeau made it quite clear that EA plan to bring back Mirror's Edge. What's more, it could be powered by Battlefield 3's Frostbite 2 engine. We don't expect a sequel anytime soon, with DICE hard at work on Battlefield, but the prospect of a new Mirror's Edge game further down the line is still exciting.
John Carmack on Rage 2, and the power of PC


It's no understatement to say that John Carmack is one of the giants of the industry. The multi-talented engineering wizard has been building state-of-the-art engines for years. When Carmack starts talking about his predictions for the future of the gaming industry, it's a good idea to listen. We spoke to Carmack about his work on Rage, and his thoughts on where the PC is at. His says the PC is "an order of magnitude" more powerful than the consoles, and that he's keen to change his development approach to one in which id design more efficiently for the PC first, and then move to consoles afterwards. Coincidentally, this is the same approach taken by DICE with Battlefield 3.
Mass Effect 3 gets release date


Not to be outdone, Mass Effect 3 got a release date of March 3 2012, which feels like a long, long way away. It's looking good, though. Check out Josh's hands-on preview for more
World of Warplanes announced


World of Tanks developers, Wargaming.ne, revealed their next MMO at E3 this year. It's called World of Warplanes,and will follow a very similar 'free-to-play with microtransactions' pricing structure to World of Tanks. As with WoT, players will be able to build up their own hangar of warmachines, purchasing planes and upgrades with real and in-game cash.
Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 revealed


Brothers in Arms has gone mad. Gearbox unveiled a brand new direction for the series at the Ubisoft press conference, surprising everyone. Furious 4 replaces existential angst with axes and tactical squad combat with chaotic hyperviolence. It's a bold move by Gearbox, but will it backfire? Check out the Furious 4 trailer for a good look, and read Tim's impressions of the game.
Payday: The Heist unveiled


The choice discovery of E3 this year, Payday: The Heist mugged Tim with its foul language, feisty action and criminal sense of cool. Tim says it's like Left 4 Dead, but with cops instead of zombies. You can read his hands on with the game here. Check out the in-game footage for more.
Dust 514 to be PS3 exclusive, could come to PC


CCP are trying to realise a staggering vision. They're trying to unite PC and console gamers in the same universe. Their FPS, Dust 514 is designed to let PC players send console players on missions to take strategically important planets in the Eve Online. Dust 514 players will share the same chat channels as PC gamers playing Eve Online, and will be able to join Eve's player-created corporations. Eve players floating high above conflict zones will even be able to deliver orbital strikes that will have a direct effect on the FPS battle raging below. It sounds incredible. It will release as a PS3 exclusive, funded by microtransactions, but we'll eat our hats if it doesn't come to PC within a year. You can read Josh's Dust 514 impressions here.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has 30 hour main quest and horses


We got a good look at The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at E3 this year. The footage and screenshots Bethesda released showed dragon-slaying, horse-riding and plenty of combat. Graham delivered his impressions from the show floor, while Tom delivered his analysis of the video. We discovered a few more facts about the game as well. The main campaign will be about 30 hours long, but with enormous scope for exploration. You'll be able to ignore the main quest from the start of the game, and a carriage-based fast travel system will let you travel to all of Skyrim's major settlements straight away.
Torchlight pirated more than 5 million times


We managed to get hold of Runic Games' CEO Max Schaefer on the show floor for a frank discussion about piracy, DRM and Torchlight 2. The former vice president of Blizzard North revealed that Torchlight has been pirated "millions and millions" of times in Asia, and explained why that doesn't bother him. Check out the interview for more.
Magicka has sold 600k, PvP DLC will be free


Magicka has been a runaway success story for Paradox games. Graham had a chat with Paradox CEO Fred Wester about the future of the game, which Wester predicts will sell a million by the end of the year. He also reveals that the next piece of DLC, which will add a PvP mode to the game, will be free to everyone who owns the game.

And there you have it, an overview of some of the best showings at this year's conference. What were your favourite bits of E3 2011?

A helicopter lands in a jungle glade and four wizards jump out. A vampire in aviator shades leans out of the chopper: “Oogle blurble barble ’Nam!” he says. The wizards, wearing helmets and flack jackets over their robes, nod to each other and charge off into the jungle. Magicka: Vietnam’s first moments set the scene nicely for the madness to come.

Magicka’s first expansion throws your pint sized combat-mages into a fantastical version of the Vietnam War, in which the Vietcong are replaced by gun-toting goblins, and the US forces by a team of one to four psychotic wizards. There’s a rescue mission and a survival arena to battle through, both of which ask the important question: what’s best, magic, or bullets?



It’s a trick question. The answer is napalm. As well as fresh enemies and soggy jungle environments, there are also new weapons, including machineguns and rocket launchers, but the real star of the show is the napalm air strike. Casting this ‘spell’ causes a US bomber jet to fly across the screen, leaving a streak of white-hot death in its wake.

Here’s why it’s great. To cast spells in Magicka, you summon elemental orbs, then combine them for use on yourself or your foes. Different combinations of orbs cast different spells. There’s no mana bar, or any restriction on the number of spells you can throw out. You can call in air strikes as fast as you can type.

Imagine, then, four wizards each calling in a bombing run every minute or so, throwing up protective shields and frantically healing between bombardments as an endless supply of goblins charge out of the jungle. These insane defences with friends on Magicka: Vietnam’s survival map are easily the best part of the expansion.



The rescue mission is more staid. You’re dropped into a jungle and instructed to save a number of prisoners of war. Side objectives ask you to destroy ammo dumps and topple radio towers, but these extra objectives never force you to veer too far from a narrow path. Armed goblins and the occasional ogre with a minigun try to stop you. Often by standing slightly off screen and shooting you, which is especially infuriating given how powerful the new guns are.

It takes about 40 minutes to play and is extremely difficult, especially if you’re trying to run it solo.

Play with friends, and it’s possible to overcome the difficulty spike and enjoy the game’s terrific sense of humour. The deliberately mangled speech and the constant war movie references are a recipe for good comedy. When combined with the new toys and the endless survival map, Magicka fans who play often with friends will be happy with the £3.49 price tag. If you were expecting to play through alone, however, you should give this one a miss.

Graham's been speaking to Paradox CEO Fred Wester in Magicka's weird language about the game's success.

"Fredrik Wester: It’s now sold close to 600,000, and we’re still selling ten to fifteen thousand a week. We’re probably going to pass a million by the end of this year because we’re seeing no steep drop-off in the purchase rate."

That's a lot of accidental friend-murdering. Read on for Fred's thoughts on the game's crippling early bugs, details of the free PvP DLC, and why Paradox might release a standalone PvP-only Magicka in the future.


Magicka began with a miniscule development team of seven people. Fred explains Paradox's process for bringing developers on board:

"PC Gamer: Does the company have any overriding philosophy to the type of games you make? Or is it purely that you’ve stumbled across a market and you want to service that market?

Fredrik Wester: It’s a mix. Obviously we’re looking for certain types of games. We’ve been working with TaleWorlds now since 2006 on the Mount & Blade series and I chased Armağan Yavuz for two years before he signed with us. I was thinking “This is so perfect because it’s niche and hardcore and even though it’s an RPG it’s still the same style that we want to do”. The Magicka team came to us and said “Can you do this game?” We were blown away by the whole concept. If we can choose ourselves we pinpoint companies we want to work with and we take it from there. Cyanide for example: they’ve done Blood Bowl, and they’re making Game of Thrones: Genesis. I’ve known Patrick, the CEO for many years. I contacted him in March saying “We have this idea and we want to do this game with you guys” and he was like “Great”."

Fred took to Magicka immediately, and described the game to Graham as "sort of Monty Python in gaming." Monty Python, if watchers had their televisions turn themselves off for the first three episodes, anyway - Magicka's bugs were game-breaking until a few weeks after release. Fred's aware of the game's issues, and diplomatically describes it as "somewhat buggy." How do Paradox mean to stop that happening again?

"PC Gamer: There’s been problems with bugs in a few Paradox games. Is that because you don't have a big enough Q&A team, or is that a budget constraint?

Fredrik Wester: Our biggest challenge in the coming two or three years is quality assurance. We’ve been - I wouldn’t say sloppy - but inexperienced on how to deliver a fully polished product. We’re still learning. We’ve hired a new producer who comes from DICE and has a lot of experience on the Battlefield series. It’s a totally different approach to the whole gaming scene.

I agree with you both Hearts of Iron 3 and Ship Simulator Extremes should have been released in more polished states."

Paradox aren't done with Magicka. After the release of the gloriously unhinged Magicka: Vietnam pack, they're experimenting with payment models. Fred confirmed PvP DLC - which they've "put a lot of effort into" - will be free for owners of the original game. Rather than a flat fee, players can purchase cosmetic items for minimal cash. In a departure from the normal 'stupid hat #1, #2 and #3' cosmetic items, these will serve a visual purpose for dedicated teams. Fred explained players can dress their wizard as RPG archetypes like the tank and healer to denote their preferred battlefield role. "It doesn’t do anything for your character, it’s just a visual feature."

The PvP DLC will be out June 21st, but might be the precursor to something more substantial, as the developers have had so much fun with it:

"Fredrik Wester: It might've been that we put even more effort into the PvP parts of Magicka because it's so solid. I would like to do, in the future, a standalone PvP-only online game for Magicka. That’s just a dream at the moment, but we’ll see."

A charitable crumb of DLC has been released for Magicka. The Nippon DLC adds a katana that cuts through armour, a bamboo stave that wards off elemental attacks, and a kimono robe for your wizards. Half of all revenue will be donated to the Japan Relief Support program to help victims of the Japan earthquake. The DLC costs $1 / 59p and comes with a bonus wizard's cowl for the Demoman in Team Fortress 2 if you buy before June 5. You can buy the Nippon pack now on Steam.

In the last Magicka Dev Diary, we got insight into the fine art of balancing PvP for a game that gives you so much freedom when it comes to spellcasting. Now, the dev team from Arrowhead tells us what their beef is with crowd control abilities, and why fights in the Magicka arena are never over 'til they're over.

Welcome to another Dev Diary! This time around, we’ll be talking about our thoughts on water bombing, and the efforts we made to balance the game. In our opinion, water bombing (see the above video) is a valid tool for the Magicka player to use when fighting in PvP, and as previously mentioned, it’s no small task to strike a balance between elements that are used for their effects, against elements which are used for their damage. Many a coffee cup was upturned—and many Bothans died to bring you this information!



Looking at the second tournament held by Kreitor, we saw water bombing as a very potent tactic. Water bombing was basically casting one earth together with four water, creating a powerful projectile blast that knocks down other players, then locking them down with a water beam. We all know that being knocked down pretty much sucks, since you completely lose any ability to defend yourself.

When experimenting with water bombing, we noticed a few things. First of all, the push from the water came from the direction of the player casting, not from where the water bomb landed. This might have been good for balance—making sure that you can’t just knock people out from behind their shields—but on the basic level it didn't make sense, because really you should be knocked away from the explosion of water.

We also noticed that you might fly a long way, sometimes even suffering a fatal landing. We changed the way water bombs affect wizards, so that even when you are knocked back by water, you are always standing. You can still be knocked out from behind your shield, or knocked into mines, but you're not completely defenseless. You can always just put up another shield.



This change brought with it another change, this time to the water beams. It is now very, very hard to use a controlled beam of water on someone, without them sliding to the side and out of the beam. By no means does this make the water beam useless! But it's no longer so easy to pin someone against the wall, or squirt them off a cliff.

Many of us have played generic MMOs, and we all know how irritating it can be to lose character control. It’s simply no fun. Playing a game should never mean standing around, waiting for your enemy to finish you off. We designed the game to always offer a way out, no matter the situation. (For example, if you're frozen, you can always just thaw yourself.)

So it's our goal with Magicka PvP that it should never be completely impossible for you to recover from your situation. This means that until you finally die, there is no reason to give up: there is no "I’m gonna lose" moment, where you just release all control and wait passively while you're finished off.

This has created a lot of interesting situations, such as where the attacker expected their attack to be deadly, but the attack didn't quite kill their opponent. This can result in a turnaround, where the heavily injured player grabs initiative. As you can see, Magicka PvP is a lot of fun, and you'll all be enjoying it very soon!

Magicka taps into the curiosity in all of us; we can't help but want to know how two elements will react together. But, more importantly, how effective will the result be at killing stuff? Soon, however, enemies won't just include monsters and your "buddy" who always seems to friendly-fire a Meteor Storm right on your head. PvP is finally making its way to Magicka, and the devs from Arrowhead Game Studios want to tell you all about. Come and enjoy a sit-down chat with Arrowhead's Johan Pilestedt. Feel free to brew some tea while you read.

For the benefit of our fantastic player community, we thought we might open our doors a little and show you what we are working on regarding the upcoming PvP patch. The PvP patch will bring official PvP to Magicka, in the way we always wanted, and with some great refinements proposed by the community.

Today's blog post is about the Ice shards, spamming of spells and how resistances will work. I hope you will enjoy a look inside the machinery.

Taking a hard look at PvP—you know, blasting friends to bits—we noticed that spamming ice shards, often with arcane and lightning, was a very good tactic. Further testing confirmed this. Even further testing confirmed this even further. In short, just spamming the same arcane ice shards over and over was an easy way of winning 8/10 competitions. Yeah, fun stuff! But we knew that we had to do something about the balance—the question was what.



We considered several different approaches to modifying ice shards, discussing different ways to balance them out. During this process, we revisited their damage formula, to see how ice shard damage was calculated. We found that the original formula spawned more and more ice shards the more ice you had charged up, and applied the same damage to all of them. For example, using 4x ice and 1x arcane would give you 12 shards, each of which would do the same damage as if you had 1x ice and 1x arcane. Now, this might sound good in theory, but experience showed that these ice shards were a little too powerful.

The solution was to divide the damage based on the number of ice shards—not in a 1:1 way, but gradually, to even out the damage. This lowered the damage somewhat, and eliminated the scaling problem. But it didn't solve the issue of ice spamming. Spamming was still effective, especially in close range, and this compromised the gameplay. After all, we don’t want every encounter determined by a competition of which player can spam faster.



Ultimately, we made the physical component in the ice shard damage depend on how much force you charged up, much like the earth element. This leveled the field a bit more, by making it worthwhile to charge your ice shards – if not to full, then at least for a second before releasing them. This promptly stopped spamming, as it was always worth more damage to charge your ice shards.

Meanwhile, the interaction between beams and shields has also changed. It used to be that if you fired a beam at someone, you could strike them even through a personal shield. The beam would detonate at that person, hurling them away and potentially doing huge amounts of damage. We've now changed this so that beams will always explode at the caster, or at the nearest merge. This means that using beams will not be the same no-brainier it used to be. You must take care when casting a beam, lest you put yourself in potentially grave danger!



Finally, resistance auras have been completely reworked. They now offer full protection to any spell containing that element. This means that if I have lightning resistance, then even the almighty QFQFASS beam won't hurt even the slightest bit. It is our hope that this change will force players to think more about what elements they are using, and adapt to different situations. To discourage players from turtling by using a resistance aura, the individual elements for a resistance aura now give a very short period of resistance, which increases with the more elements you have of the same type.

It's no easy task to balance Magicka for PvP, because we can't simply balance spells for their damage. After all, it’s a complex, dynamic spell-casting system. Many spells have a lot of utility, and the large amount of combinations available makes it difficult to predict exactly how a small change will affect the overall balance of the game. Alas, that's all for now. Tune in next week, when we talk about water bombing and loss of character control.

Paradox are releasing two new survival challenge maps for Magicka. One will be free, the other will cost $1.99. Players get to decide which map will go free in a poll on the Magicka Facebook page. RPS pointed us towards the video above, which shows off the two maps on offer. Paradox say they're set to come out on April 26 "without requiring so much as a single potato."

If you want to stand a better chance of beating the new maps, you might want to take a look at our overview of Magicka's most spectacular spells.

Paradox are releasing two new survival challenge maps for Magicka. One will be free, the other will cost $1.99. Players get to decide which map will go free in a poll on the Magicka Facebook page. RPS pointed us towards the video above, which shows off the two maps on offer. Paradox say they're set to come out on April 26 "without requiring so much as a single potato."

If you want to stand a better chance of beating the new maps, you might want to take a look at our overview of Magicka's most spectacular spells.

Magicka: Vietnam was released last week, and we love it. The best part is the glorious union of guns and spells, and the experimentation that comes from combining different elements into spectacular new magics. We've gathered ten of the most explosive, useful and entertaining spells we could find.

Since the game teaches you the special Magickas, we've omitted them from the list. Meteor Storm and Thunderbolt might be cool, but you know how to do them already, this list is about using the stock elemental effects to create wondrous and deadly new things.

1: ARSE Mines - ARSE - (shift) right click



ARSE (Lightning Cold Arcane) mines aren't the most damaging mines in the game (that honour belongs to the less catchy ESQFA mines) but they freeze enemies, do good damage, and you are never, ever going to forget what keys you need to hit to make them.

2: Hit Weak Point for Maximum Damage - QFQFSAA right click



Steam is always helpful. In fact the secret to most of the game's highest damaging spells is to combine two steam elements (QF) with an arcane element (S) and a pair of lightnings (A). You can cast this on your weapon or as an area attack and do massive amounts of damage, but it's best use is as the most powerful beam in the game. Cross the streams for even more damage! (Ignore Egon, he's a killjoy).

3: Haley's Comet - DSR - right click



Bombs work differently to beams. They use Earth (D) as a carrier. They charge up as you hold down right-click (increasing range) and fly out when you release it, detonating in a burst of area damage. Useful for attacking a group of enemies at range. This little gem does strong damage and chills your enemies, letting you inflict more damage before they reach you. More Cold (R) means more damage and chill effect, more Arcane (S) means a bigger area of effect. Season to taste.

4: Stalagdeath - SQR shift right click



There are more damaging area attacks out there (I refer you again to the steam, lightning, arcane combo) but Ice (QR) based attacks hit a wide radius and come with a cool ice crystal effect. The more ice in the spell, the wider the radius. A single Arcane (S) greatly increases the damage. You could also mix in an Earth (D) to add a knockdown effect. Be careful when using this in multiplayer, the massive radius means you can quite easily 'accidentally' take out your allies.

5: The Mighty Glacier - DQRQRQRQR - right click



This is one of the few top tier damage spells not to use the steam/arcane/lightning combo. The mighty glacier is a bomb, but does no splash damage. Instead, it focuses all of its power on a single target. You don't have to train it like a laser, the combo is easy to remember (just hit D and wildly mash Q and R) it's a great fire and forget weapon, and even the toughest enemies will feel it's sting.

6: PewPewPew - QRSA right click



Beams, bombs and area attacks not enough for you? Then how about a shotgun? Still not good enough? What about an Ice Shotgun? No? What about a Laser Lightning Ice Shotgun? I've got your attention now haven't I? Combining Ice (QR) and right click will fire a trio of ice shards in front of you, adding arcane (S) and lightning (A) ups the damage considerably, while adding more ice gives you more shards. As if that wasn't customisable enough the spread tightens if you hold down the right mouse button, just tapping it fires in a wide arc for when you're cornered.

7: Fun with Acronyms! - (QF)SAFE - middle click



Typing SAFE into Magicka and middle clicking will (unsurprisingly) keep you safe by making you immune to Fire, Arcane and Lightning. You can also add a Steam (QF) to it for more immunities, although that's less easy to remember. It's not showy, but casting this on yourself means you can use your big damaging spells without having to worry about accidentally killing yourself (although some say that's half the fun).

8: Super Exploding Electric Ice Wall - EQRQRAS



For most of these entries I've tried to come up with a catchy name, but in this case I couldn't possibly create anything more brilliant than the simple description: Super Exploding Electric Ice Wall. As the name suggests it is a wall (E and right or shift right click) of ice (QR) that is electrified (A) and explodes (S). Voila: the Super Exploding Electric Ice Wall! (the second ice makes it super). It's perfect when you want to block your enemy with an ice wall. And electrocute them. And blow them up.

9: Volcano Trap - EDFFF



One of the cleverest concepts we've seen, and also one of the most likely to get you killed. Combining Earth (D), Shield (E) and Fire (F) creates a wall of volcanoes that burn anyone who comes near them. Right clicking casts them in a semicircle, shift right clicking encircles yourself and shift left clicking casts them on your weapon, letting you spring them in a line the next time you hit. Why is this useful? Because enemies trapped by them will inevitably bumble into the walls and repeatedly set themselves on fire. You can even trap them in a circle of volcanoes with you if you like, just stand very, very still if you do.

10: Life from Below! - EW (shift) right click



One of our favourite spells in Magicka. Healing mines manage to be simple, effective and very very silly all at once. They're great because it only needs two elements to cast, and standing in the middle of the mines does enough healing to fully rejuvenate a near dead Mage (making any extra Ws redundant). Then there's the icing on the cake; it knocks back enemies, but leave you standing serene in the middle of a totally lethal looking explosion. Once we figured this one out it became our default method of healing. Get used to casting it as soon as you resurrect your allies (WA and Space) which if you use the rest of these spells, you'll probably be doing a lot.

A more comprehensive guide to how all the different elements mix can be found here. These our are favourites, but what's your go-to monster zapper?