What can I do to survive as a mage?

[nordetsa]

Been playing a dozen DEWZ or so, and I can't even progress till the Lair. I feel it is ridiculously hard trying to survive as a caster-class. A group of orcs prove to be a real nuisance. Once the orc mage casts invisibility I have no way of hitting that mage, except with blindly casting mephtic clouds with 21% chance of failing that. If the level is a wide open space, then I just don't know how to deal with 3~4 orcs coming at me.

Even if I get past that stage, those unseen horrors are really driving me nuts. I cast mephtic clouds, but then they are nowhere to be seen, yet they hit when I try to escape, and 3~4 hits is enough to kill me. And they seem to appear a lot earlier on ver 0.11 (floor 10 and 12 was when my 2 DEWZ met their death by getting hit by unseen horror)

What should I do? Spam summon imp? They have tendency to blink away and i don't think they prove be that effective, especially in narrow corridor. Mephtic clouds was good, but it takes time to lower the failure rate and yet I have to deal with group of orcs as soon as floor 3 or 4. And uniques. How should I deal with them as a DEWZ? Just run away? Even killing Ijyb proved to be really dangerous, and Sigmund and others are nightmares. I just try to bypass them, but that means I have to go down a level without getting xp, which could be much more dangerous (in one instance when I saw Duvessa, I went to the next floor, only to discover Menkaure waiting for me).

[Petro]

Running away sucks, but its necessary for a DEWZ. Alternatively try focusing your skills more with micromanagement to make sure you can reliably spam mephitic cloud or useful high tier imps.

[BlackSheep]

What are you training right from the start? Are you using Conjure Flame at all? When you summon imps, are you spamming the hell out of them or just summoning a pair and hoping that's enough?

You have a damage spell that reaches the edge of LOS. You shouldn't be fighting groups of orcs at all, but instead pulling one at a time into an area that's favorable to you. If things start to get overwhelming, run for a corridor, Conjure Flame to block it, and head up a level.

Unseen horrors early are a nuisance, but can be handled in a few ways. Blocking corridors works on them, though I'd do that by swapping places with some imps unless you know they're not next to you. You only need to deal with them until you get to the Lair. After you finish L, you should be plenty strong enough to deal with them.

[nordetsa]

I think it gets relatively easier once I train poison magic/conjuration a bit to make mephtic clouds safer to cast, but I'm talking about floor 3 and 4. At that stage I just learned that spell and it's failure rate is 21% or so. The spell I can reliably use at that stage would be magic dart/summon imp/blink. I find none particularly helpful when orc mage cast invisibility, or when a unique decides to chase you.

[nordetsa]

And I learn conjure flame after memorizing mepthic clouds. Should I learn conjure flame first?

[Petro]

Probably not, no. Although if you focus more on conjuration you'll be able to use both. You don't want to be loading points into every tangential magic skill (poison, fire). A few levels is fine, but nothing above that.

Also, remember to command imps to attack or else they'll just blink around before leaving.

[Galefury]

Generally all the things you would do to survive without spells still apply: go to a corridor, try to fight enemies one by one, retreat immediately if you know you cant handle something instead of engaging, use your consumables early.

A few things about spells: Mephitic cloud is very loud (like fireball!). If you cast it at that first orc you see, all his friends will come out to play. Plink him with a magic arrow instead, then retreat and make him follow you, because he will shout, calling his friends to *his* position (not yours!). Kill, repeat. Blink is nice. You don't have to fight those orcs, you can blink to get out of melee range and run away, possibly to stairs and come back to the level by a different set. Imps kill most things and also help with getting away from stuff. Conjure flame and a spear are quite nice against many enemies.

Against unseen horrors, if you are in a corridor flame clouds will keep them off you IIRC, and polymorph and powerful attack wands help with getting rid of them permanently. If you are in the open, read teleport, carpet the area with mephclouds, and hope for the best.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Try walking away more often. Invisibility wears off. You can also shoot magic darts at invisible things with Z.

[crate]

I feel like wz is honestly not the greatest background for a "spellcaster" in the sense you probably mean here, though a lot of people will disagree with me. If you want to primarily kill things with spells I would instead suggest one of summoner, conjurer, or any of the elementalists.

You can do this as a wizard, and I suspect most people play wizard this way, but I no longer believe that it is really the best way to play a wizard.

---

For your specific problems, they are probably tactical problems. Magic dart will never miss an orc wizard even if it is invisible (if it does it is a bug and you should report it), and the orc wizard turning invisible should not prevent you from knowing exactly where it is (orc wizards never have both blink and invisibility). However trading magic darts with orc wizard spells is still dicey in some situations, particularly if you get confused without curing or something. Unseen horrors move like bats, so if you experiment a bit around bats then you can figure out how unseen horrors will move and act accordingly.

If you dislike being fragile then you can play as another race. Some to consider, in no particular order (and some of these are easier than others): Dg, Dr, Hu, SE, HO, Na

[SchwaWarrior]

I feel like wz is honestly not the greatest background for a "spellcaster" in the sense you probably mean here, though a lot of people will disagree with me. If you want to primarily kill things with spells I would instead suggest one of summoner, conjurer, or any of the elementalists.

Yes, Wizards are good at being proficient with many different types of spells early on, but a specialist mage will be more effective at a certain method of attack, so they're safer to play. Being able to start out with Blink is pretty nice though, but then again, if you play safely then you might not even need it except to skip over some lava or water occasionally.

Don't forget that as you progress through the game, any character can eventually turn into any other character, depending on how you raise him/her up, and which items show up! It's totally reasonable to play as an Elementalist for example, and by the time he's at like XL 15 he's more like a Wizard than his starting class. I suspect the majority of players do this very thing when they play straight casters.

If you dislike being fragile then you can play as another race. Some to consider, in no particular order (and some of these are easier than others): Dg, Dr, Hu, SE, HO, Na

Let me translate: Demigod (Dg), Draconian (Dr), Human (Hu), Sludge Elf (SE), Hill Orc (HO), Naga (NA). Out of these six I would argue that Hill Orc is the best in terms of robustness, as well as being extremely balanced and quick to level up; even with some bad aptitudes in magic they can still become very excellent casters, you just have to work a bit harder and longer at it is all. Oh, and they get Beogh, which is sweet.

You may want to give the Demonspawn a try if you're in a good mood. They take FOREVER to level up, even more than Elves, but you get a whole bunch of amazing, permanent and un-removable mutations over time! If you're a huge mutation fan like me they're definitely worth taking for a spin, though they're also probably more suited for 15-rune runs than 3-rune runs.

[Konebred]

Naga ice elementalists of Vehemet are pretty fun to play. You get see invis and poison resist, as well as a decent poison spit. The armor spell helps on early levels when you are forced to melee. Veh gets the throw icicle up fairly quickly, and you have extra stuff to eat like kobolds due to the rP. Throw a few levels in stealth to avoid early uniques and you are good to go.

[nordetsa]

I feel if i can survive floor 3~6, then I can at least do something about it. But I just can't get past them. What would you do if you come across 2 orcs, 1 orc priest, and 1 orc mage? Picking one by one is impossible, and very often orc priest & mage deal a lot more dmg then may magic dart, so I have to avoid them, which can be hard because I will not always have a corridor or nearby stairs available. Do I just have to ignore them as best as I could?

[crate]

How to handle that situation depends very much on the terrain around me and the level map when I find this orc pack.

[nordetsa]

I mean, what happens if orcs are so close together that attacking one will inevitably startle others and start chasing you? If there's orc priest or mage in the group, then I don't think going to a narrow corridor works. And what if I meet them in wide open space?

[Deimos]

Try stairdancing. It's how I kill orc packs that contain priests or mages. Bring them up one at a time, use multiple stairs if necessary to split them apart.

[nordetsa]

Try stairdancing. It's how I kill orc packs that contain priests or mages. Bring them up one at a time, use multiple stairs if necessary to split them apart.

How would you stairdance with orc priests and mage around? They'll smite or confuse you everytime I move around the stairs.

[Deimos]

Priests seem to use confuse fairly rarely (or at least it has a very low spellpower), so I wouldnt be too worried about getting confused the couple turns you're down there. Plus you probably already have a cure pot. Priests? That's a time to pull them away. Go down another set of stairs and shout (t-t) until your satisfied the priest has moved. Resume.

[danr]

Play as a Spriggan. Being able to run away when you are out of MP is a real life-saver.

I've posted this elsewhere, but I'm really starting to like Wizards again, at least SpWz. I've found the starting spellbook lasted me very well until Lair:7, which is when I finally got the book of Conjurations from Vehumet.

Here's how:
- First, train only conjurations until Magic Dart is at ####. power
- Learn Blink and Summon Imp
- Train spellcasting until L2 spells are hunger free
- Learn the L3 spells, the order is probably not that important

Tactics:
- Blow stuff up with Magic Dart.
- If it's not going well, run away, blink, or summon an imp as a roadblock, and just get out of dodge
- Once you have the L3 spells:
- On Intelligent monsters with ranged attacks, cast Meph Cloud as soon as you see them. Kill them with MD or Imps when they are confused
- On big beefy melee monsters, you can also do that, or you can block their way with Conjure Flame. The cool thing about CF is that in addition to keeping some things at bay, the tougher monsters will actually walk right into it. As a spriggan you just keep moving away and laying a carpet of fire to follow them through. This makes Hydras trivial.
- If you just get surrounded and none of the other spells are going to help immediately, then its time to call in an army of imps.
- You can also just go with the imps all the time, but that's boring.

- Slow can also help to reduce monster damage output, speed, and make them spend more time in your carpet of fire.
- Repel missiles can help repel things, but if you use Meph Cloud properly, those centaurs won't be able to shoot straight anyway.

Like I said, this got me through to Lair 7 without much trouble, and I'm not actually a very good player.

[WhiteShark]

Generally you should be picking off orcs one by one. If you see just one orc, magic dart it and run backwards to separate it from the pack that is likely next to it. If you see a whole pack but only one of them saw you, draw it backwards so you don't have to deal with them all at once. Fight in hallways. Take cover from priests behind corners. Run if you need to, and if there are priests who you can't mephitic cloud then you probably need to.

[SchwaWarrior]

If you get engaged in open space with nothing to duck behind, and there are Priests, run the fuck back the other direction at an angle until you find one. Whip out a Teleport scroll if you have it and you're cornered (if you're not cornered nor about to die, then don't waste it), or a Blink scroll to instantly get out of Priests' LOS, or a Fog Scroll to block Priests from seeing you (they can't Smite if they can't see you!) as you run away. Watch your Minimap; the little blue dots are up-stairs, which you should be maneuvering towards as best as possible, and the purple ones are down-stairs, which will also work to elude your pursuers if no up-stairs are handy, because being forced to go downstairs via too-hard opponent is usually VERY DANGEROUS and if this happens make it your goal to locate the other two up-stairs on the lower down floor AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

What you should never ever do is fight Orcs in hallways with Priests standing behind them, out of your reach, smiting you over and over for free. Instead, either:
* Lure the Orcs to a corner so that the Priests have to get really close to you in order to even see you, putting them in your Melee range, or
* Aggro the group of Orcs so that they start wandering the dungeon for you, take the stairs back up, find a seperate stairs down and then hunt the Orcs one by one through the dungeon as they spread out and separate. Priests lose a fair amount of their threateningness once they have no allies to hide behind

Among other strategies, but I'm sure you'll find those two as the most practical.

If you're playing a Mage, too, do note that Priests cannot smite if they're Confused via Mephitic Cloud, nor can Wizards cast spells. Firing the cloud at a group of Orcs and then running is a great escape tactic, and firing at a group of Orcs in a tight hallway and then running is even better and has a high likelihood that some of the confused Orcs will kill each-other for you off-screen, awarding you the experience points for it. Straight melee, on the other hand, has the advantage of being able to mow them down in one or two hits each, as Orcs are extremely glass-like and die easily, unless of course they are Warriors, Knights, Warlords, Urug, Nergalle or Saint Roka. ^^ Hehehe.

[nordetsa]

Okay, now I manage to progress further and face another problem. How would you deal with fast-speed monsters like killer bee? I move one tile, and suddenly see 5 killer bees. Tried to blink away, but that led me actually closer to them. Should I have just ran away? They would have caught me for sure anyway, and the floor didn't had any corridors I can use (and I don't think lv 7 DEWZ can survive even one killer bee).

[Konebred]

Killer bees suck, but they are vulnerable to poison so use meph cloud. If you have to, drop it on yourself when they surround you and use a potion of curing right after to get away.

[XuaXua]

Play as a Spriggan.

My first win was with a Spriggan.

[nordetsa]

I've tried some combinations you guys have suggested, and the results weren't that good. Playing wizard other than DE left me so little mp and I died anyway, and Naga Ice Elementalist was okay, until I ran into a group of monsters and couldn't run away with no aoe spell to do something whatsoever. Haven't played Spriggan yet, perhaps that's what I should do. I think I might have been unlucky, but so far none of my character even set a foot in the lair...

Maybe I just don't seem to understand mage mechanic. I see group of monsters, try to lure them one by one, inevitably my mp burns then there's nothing left for me to do. How to manage mp in such case? You can't just run away or blink forever, and not all mage class have blink.

[BlackSheep]

If you successfully pull one monster from a group, rest after killing it so that when you go to pull the next monster, you have full MP. If you wind up being chased by too many monsters to handle, run upstairs then go down another set and explore from there.

To save MP, pick up stuff off the floor and throw it at weaker enemies. Try out glowing short blades that you encounter. An early dagger of poison or electrocution can save you from needing to cast spells at tons of early enemies. If you find a sling and some bullets or stones, you can also pick off tons of early enemies without spending any MP.

ID your scrolls early. Blind reading scrolls when you're in trouble is a low percentage move. Use early ID scrolls on potions. You may be a wimpy mage, but with a potion of might you can take down early uniques in just a few hits. Early on, potions of heal wounds will almost completely restore your HP. That can turn a fight from "might die if he doesn't miss" to "win with 60% HP".

Be resourceful.

[crate]

When CAO is back up I can link you a ttyrec of one of my games that you may find instructive, if you are willing to watch it. It is a TeNe, and I have a few mistakes in it (two big ones I can think of, one which does not kill me and the second which does) but if you watch how I engage enemies you might get some answers to your questions.

[KoboldLord]

I've tried some combinations you guys have suggested, and the results weren't that good. Playing wizard other than DE left me so little mp and I died anyway,

Try running away. Even if you commit to killing a group of enemies, you don't have to stick to that decision to the bitter end. The vast majority of enemies are the same speed as you, so you can indeed run infinitely far with them on your tails. At most, you'll get poked every now and then by the slight random factor involved, but you'll be recovering hp and mp the whole time too. If you have a circuit around an impassable section of wall that is entirely in explored territory, you can 'pillar-dance' around this wall section as long as you need to in relative safety.

Furthermore, you also have stairwells to escape through. Only monsters that are currently in melee with you can follow you up the stairs, and if you're fighting in corridors as you should there will definitely only be one monster in melee with you when you start running. You'll take a hit from that monster, but you should be able to survive a hit from most things, and once you're upstairs you can pillar-dance a bit, Blink without any risk of ending up in melee with another monster, or blast it with Mephitic Cloud.

If you're trying to kill a single enemy and running out of mp in the process, either you're trying to kill something way too hard for you, or you're using the wrong tactic. An early orc warrior in plate armour will easily tank your Magic Darts until you run out of mp, but a dozen imps will wear him down eventually and Mephitic Cloud will keep him confused. Or you can get him to follow you to a corridor, drop a Conjure Flame in front of him and then behind him, and then hit him with Mephitic Cloud so he confusedly moves into them. A centaur shoots too hard to try to kill with Magic Dart and will easily maneuver around imps you try to block with, but Mephitic Cloud works almost every time. The wizard has lots of starting spells, and they're all ideal for slightly different challenges. Using the wrong tool for the job is at best inefficient and at worst lethal.

Also don't be afraid to concede failure if your attack doesn't go as planned, and make a strategic withdrawal rather than sticking out the fight to the bitter end. Come back rested back to full mp and see if another tactic works better, or perhaps lure them over to more favorable terrain, or even just hope you roll better on damage. If you always safely withdraw before you're directly threatened, you'll get them sooner or later.

and Naga Ice Elementalist was okay, until I ran into a group of monsters and couldn't run away with no aoe spell to do something whatsoever.

Naga are remarkable in that they are the only race that is slower than normal. This is a particular challenge they have to deal with. There was probably a way out of whatever situation killed your naga, but I'd have to know more to figure out what that way might be, and certainly naga have more complicated issues managing crowds than other species.

[Lasty]

As a wizard, you start with several of the best spells to handle any kind of dangerous situation you'll find before the end of the lair. Mephitic Cloud completely disables and sometimes kills every poison vulnerable creature you'll find during that time, including all uniques you're likely to see aside from Grinder and Menkaure. Summon Imps by itself can kill anything during that time provided you summon enough of them. Conjure Flame can provide impassable barriers to most opponents, and outright kill the rest (and also confused mobs that stumble into it). If you find yourself dying a lot to a certain type of monster before the end of Lair, use this decision tree:

Can I poison it? If so, use Mephitic Cloud, problem solved. If not, are you near a narrow corridor? If so, use Conjure Flame to kill enemies willing to walk into it (including all zombies and skeletons and oozes and jellies) or to block the corridor to gain space to either escape or kill with Magic Dart*. If not, summon imps like crazy and order them to attack. At this point, your enemy should be dead or invisible. If your opponent turned invisible, drop a Mephitic Cloud at the point where it went invisible and/or leave, depending on whether it has ranged attacks and is in range. If you get trapped during this process, cast Blink.

* If you escape into a corridor and lock several dangerous monsters on the other side of a conjured flame (orc warriors, for example), you can drop a Mephitic Cloud on the enemy side of the flame and hope they wander into it while you run away.

[danr]

You can virtually guarantee something stumbling into flames in corridors if it's alone, good for ogres and centaurs and other baddies that often come alone.

First, conjure flame in front of the monster to stop it attacking you. Then behind it. Then drop meph cloud on the monster. Once confused, it will go forward or backward eventually and burn. Then Conjure flame on the next adjacent square etc.

And seriously, play a Spriggan. While they are just as low on HP as DEs, they are they and can always run away, and they get really high EV. So train Dodging up to 10 or higher once your spellcasting and conjurations are at a decent level. Having an EV of 25 makes life a lot easier in the early middle game.

My current SpWz is currently one-shotting stone giants and whole orc packs with Chain Lightning in the lower levels of the dungeon. It's fun.

[cursednobleman]

As a Wizard aficionado, I'll give you my basic wizard plan.

When I first start, I only train conjurations and dart things to death until I hit level 3, grabbing a dagger or butcherable melee weapon and throwing weapons helps in a pinch here.

Once at level 3, I learn Meph cloud and conjure flame and train Fire, Poison, and Air until level 1 or two. Combat should consist of magic darts if the enemy has poor AC/HP. If the enemy has high HP, a meph cloud + darts / conjure flame + darts should be used instead. If the enemy has high enough AC that darts don't really work, use a pair of conjure flames in a corridor, then fire a meph cloud at them. If confused, they will probably stumble into a fire and die, and if they are not confused, they will not care about stepping into the conjure flame to attempt to hurt you. (I assume the AI considers a meph cloud tile just as dangerous as a flame cloud tile.)

At this point, you should go for conjure flame and meph cloud at a < 10% failure rate. This is where you branch off when you find a usuable spellbook or decide to hybridize/specialize based on your god. If you are stuck with the minor magic spellbook and can't really hybridize, train conjure flame until it lasts a good 5 or 6 turns, then train armour, dodge and shields (if possible) to tank while using conjure flame to harm enemies. Higher HP enemies (Hydras and spiny frogs in particular) will gleefully charge through flames to bite your face off, so by dropping a line of flames in front of them you should be able to deal enough damage to the enemy to kill them while only having to tank in melee range 2 or 3 turns. Leather or ringmail will make this strategy less painful.

*Bear in mind that this IS dangerous and you should be able to tell how quickly someone is burning to death. Running is safer if you can outrun the enemy in question. Also, positioning at the start is important, try to stand in a straight line from them and simply drop flames one tile in front of them.

Alternatively, you could learn call imps from the spellbook and try to mass enemies, though it would not work as well against hydras and other large creatures.

Lastly, almost all of the spells in the wizard spellbook are useful.
Mag Dart, Meph Cloud, and Conjure flame are great for damage and survival.
Repel Missiles is a nice way to bolster ranged defense.
Blink is a rather unreliable escape.
Call imps is a decent summon and good if you want to start training summons.
Slow *could* be useful, but given meph cloud, I would skip it.


Overall, Wizards are my favorite background, but the more specialized backgrounds are easier to use and have better damage spells.

[dassem]

There is some good advice in this thread. If you follow it, you'll have a win fairly soon!

I think I agree that Deep Elves might not be the easiest species; I rarely play them. You should try others and see who fits your style. For example, I tend to play all my mages as hybrids, so a little more HP helps me.
I find wizards one of the easiest backgrounds to start, assuming I don't have a series of miscasts at my first hobgoblin. Oncee mephitic cloud is online, you can confuse things (check they don't resist poison first!) and stab them safely. Conjure flame is also nice for preventing things from chasing you when you are fleeing in terror. Don't forget that your imps are immune to poison clouds...

The suggestions I might add are:
Have a backup plan. Think about what you'll do if the fight goes wrong, or another monster turns up. How would you retreat? Most of my deaths are now caused when I realize that I should retreat one or two turns too late to actually do it.
Consider training stealth - then you can pick and choose fights more carefully. Especially for Nagas, where finding the optimal position, conjure flame, and then spit poison will solve many nasty problems.
Weapons - DE are good at bows and throwing and stabbing. The combination of mephitic cloud or conjure flame, then arrowing your victims is quite a good way to conserve MP. A nice way to inflict just a little extra damage when you've run out of MP is also helpful.
The ID mini-game - make sure you are use-identifying wands and scrolls, and using ID on potions. Speed, heal wounds, teleport, or blink will usually save you when things don't go to plan.
Needles. The orcs you are struggling with are vulnerable to poison. Drop mephitic clouds on priests in particular, then all the others, whip out the blowgun from a Kobold and poison them (several times) from a safe distance. Retreat and wait for the XP.

[Blakmane]

I found my success rate with all characters jumped up considerably when I started using shift-walk instead of normal walk to move around everywhere. This forced me to stop and consider every fight as soon as LOS was made. A really simple change but made such a huge deal. Also, after looking at your chardump in the other thread: you need to focus your skills a lot more. It is really tempting to spread skills everywhere, but usually, having one or two high-powered options is preferable to 20 low-powered options. You can only make one action a turn!

Try a DDNe of Mahkleb if you want a simpler caster. Focus exclusively on necro/earth, a bit of transmutation only if you have necromutation in a book, and charms if you get haste. That's literally all you need for a 3 rune game.

[nordetsa]

Another question, because the more I know the better.

What would you do when there's a centaur shooting arrow afar, and there's no corner to hide? Even if there's a corner nearby, I would most likely to die while moving there. Mephtic cloud's range isn't that long to confuse a centaur, and shooting magic arrow is a sure way to die. Is repel missile the only answer? I've found that spell was rather unreliable, as even one hit from centaur arrow can inflict serious dmg to a squishy wizard.

And then there would be yaktaurs and centaur captains as I explore further. What should a wizard do against ranged enemies?

[njvack]

What would you do when there's a centaur shooting arrow afar, and there's no corner to hide? Even if there's a corner nearby, I would most likely to die while moving there. Mephtic cloud's range isn't that long to confuse a centaur, and shooting magic arrow is a sure way to die. Is repel missile the only answer? I've found that spell was rather unreliable, as even one hit from centaur arrow can inflict serious dmg to a squishy wizard.

It depends on what else is going on around you (and how much HP you have) and what you have in inventory, but you might step *towards* him, fire off Mephitic, and book it for an area with better terrain. If straight running will get you killed, don't do that. You might quaff !Speed or read ?Blink. Failing all else, you might call imps and pray.

And then there would be yaktaurs and centaur captains as I explore further. What should a wizard do against ranged enemies?

Use the terrain to make sure you're only getting pincushioned by one footaur at a time. Train Dodging. Maximize your meager AC. Wear a buckler. Learn Haste. Learn Control Teleport and/or Controlled Blink. Learn Repel Missiles (and maybe Deflect Missiles; DE's magic apts are good enough that it might be worthwhile). Learn Phase Shift and/or Shroud of Golubria. Summon Butterflies or Demonic Horde.

Later in the game, the threats do get nastier, but you get more tools to deal with them. Which tools are best depends hugely on the situation.

[njvack]

What would you do when there's a centaur shooting arrow afar, and there's no corner to hide?

It depends on what else is going on around you (and how much HP you have) and what you have in inventory

Sorry to self-quote, bit It's also worth noting that in my case, I might well just get killed.

[palin]

And then there would be yaktaurs and centaur captains as I explore further. What should a wizard do against ranged enemies?

It depends on if you have repel/deflect missiles, summons or whatever.
In the case of a single centaur in the open the best way to cope without repel missiles is to summon imp and try to manouver behind it, tell him to attack and follow with Mephitic Cloud.

[ajon]

Ive been playing a lot of deep elf wizards and am new myself. Focus your skill training early on. At first i always do spell casting and then have conjuration highlighted to get extra. When you have enough for a bit I get summoning to 5 or 6. Then work on others as needed. Eventually I get summoning higher. Mephitic cloud will solve many problems for you. If you see priests always hit them with it first then deploy your imps. Then run back and get some more magic and see how it looks. Or if its not a large pack cloud and a few darts will quickly finish mages and priests. I use clouds and imps to solve even the uniques. sometimes it takes a bit but if you get enough imps going eventually everything dies. Also use conjure flame and the meph clouds in corridors. Enemies will die pretty quick if they walk into the flames. Could set a flame and when the enemy reaches it put one behind him then cloud him or cloud first then flame the open spaces before and after. I generally dont have a problem with these methods. I've even taken out hydras with these strategies if i havent gotten other good books by then.