Blade wrote:What are some good (3-4 hit KO) spells against Orbs of Fire?
Uh, assuming you've maxed out all three relevant skills, have a good int score, and are wielding a staff of cold, Ice Storm will just about do that. Probably Fire Storm and Crystal Spear, too, but you'll need archmagi robes as well as the appropriate staff. Assuming Crystal Spear doesn't miss, of course.
It isn't practical to expect to be able to roll over orbs of fire with barely half a bar of mana. They're one of the toughest monsters in the game. The best you can reasonably hope for is to chip them down while they're blasting you. Bring a way to recover mp, because they love hanging on with a sliver of red health when you cast the last spell you have mp for.
AtT wrote:is it a good idea to train SP (only) on a DE/SE EE until stone arrow is castable? then turn it off and get the other skills up (ie earth stealth dodge)
Is SP an abbreviation for spellcasting?
Anyway, no. Sandblast is a fairly powerful starting spell even if you don't find any more rocks, but it needs earth magic to get a decent spell power. And Stone Arrow is high enough in level that trying to cast it off raw spellcasting alone is basically doomed. It's worth turning off stealth and dodge to get Stone Arrow and Rapid Deconstruction online, but the typical earth elementalist shouldn't be turning off earth magic until mid-Lair or so. Conjurations is less valuable for a sludge elf because their aptitude isn't so good, but it's still worth picking up low levels as they become cheap.
Spellcasting is good for a lot of things, but ultimately you need high spell power much faster than spellcasting alone can give you.