Combat magic

Probably the most well-known and popular field of study that draws upon multiple magical disciplines is combat magic. Conjuring defensive force fields, throwing around fireballs, telekinetically hurling objects at opponents and disintegrating obstacles are all examples of combat magic. Although virtually all magic has some sort of possible combat application, the term ‘combat magic’ normally refers to spells that focus on fast casting time, overcoming the opponent’s defences and which require little preparation to be made effective. Some disciplines are more conductive to this than others: projection, negation, animation and conjuration are the easiest fields to apply to these spellcasting principles, followed by alteration and dimensionalism.

Combat magic is deceptively simple. On one hand, most combat spells have rather modest shaping requirements and can be learned quite quickly by a dedicated mage. On the other hand, the very traits that make these spells so potent in combat inevitably come at the cost of mana efficiency and safety features. Combat magic places extreme demands on the mage’s mana reserves and getting it wrong is more likely to hurt the caster. This, along with the inherently lethal nature of fighting for a living, means that combat magic is considered quite hard to master. Many mages know how to cast a combat spell or two for use in emergencies, but they would not dare call themselves combat mages.

Despite this, combat magic is very common everywhere, and popular as a specialty. Even people who are not very suited for it often direct their energies into the field. Battle has always been the most glorious of occupations to many, and many more don’t get to choose whether they want to fight or not. Most states also enthusiastically encourage people to focus on this discipline, as there is always demand for more battlemages somewhere.

### Kyron's class

Combat magic isn't really a category of spells as such, more like a way of casting magic. To use spells in combat, you need to cast them fast, and you need to overcome your opponent's defenses. This means they inevitably require a lot of power and that you shape the spell in an instant, which means that classical invocations are useless.

Chanting a spell takes several seconds, if not longer, and most of your opponents will kill you before you finish. Especially in the aftermath of the Splinter Wars, when every fool is armed with a gun and educated in ways to effectively combat mages.

A lot of combat spells used by mages of old relied on people being awed by magic, or unfamiliar with its limitations. Today, every child that want through elementary school knows better than to be scared away by on obvious illusion, much lass professional soldier or a criminal. Most of the spells and tactics you will find in the library are hopelessly obsolete.

Also, it is somewhat hard to focus on spellcasting when someone is trying to kill you. As a consequence of all this, nobody casts combat spells as classical invocations anymore. Instead, people use spell formulas to cast specific spells quicker and easier.

Using classical invocations effectively in battle would take years to learn the right chants and gestures.

There are plenty of magical disciplines where great shaping skills are an asset, but combat magic is mostly about power. Most battle mages can't even make a simple magic missile transparent, much less one of the higher level force spells. It doesn't hold them back any, since the benefits are so marginal.

### Magic Missile

Magic missile is a very versatile spell. The major variants are:

* **Smasher** - it takes the form of a shining bolt of force that travels in a straight line, delivering concussive blasts of force to whatever it impacts. It is a very simple and effective spell.
* **Piercer** - you can sharpen it into a point that will pierce things instead of batter them.
* **Cutter** - sharpened in into a line to cut things.

In addition, animation magic can be used to make the missile home in on the target (like with many other projectile spells).

### Swarms

A set of multiple missiles created with a single cast is called a **swarm**. As few as three missiles are called a "swarm" in the text. Swarms of magic missiles, as well as some kind of fire projectiles (presumably "pocket meteors", a fire spell taught to Zorian by Alanic) are mentioned in the text.

### Transparent force spells

A perfectly cast force spell is completely transparent. The lightshow you usually see is magical leakage resulting from an imperfect spell boundary. The speed with which combat magic is cast virtually guarantees that some mistakes in constructing the spell boundary will be made, and even if no mistakes are made the large amounts of mana pumped into the constructs can easily distort or unravel some of the pieces.

### Wards

Wards are fairly useless once the fight starts, since they are slow to cast. But they are absolutely essential for a mage who expected to get into a fight. So long as you weren't ambushed or otherwise surprised, and actually knew something about your opponent's spell repertoire and specialties, you could really ruin their day with a few choice wards.

This was the reason why humanity had been steadily encroaching on monster-held territory with every passing year - most magical creatures only had a handful of inborn magical tricks and abilities on their side and once you knew what they were you could devise a perfect counter for them in advance.

Unfortunately, you can only stack so many wards on top of each other before they start to interfere with each other and the whole edifice collapses, and some of them inherently interfere with each other's operation, so knowing how to combine them effectively is a bit of a specialist skill.

## References

1. ↑ Disciplines of Magic (Worldbuilding Post)
2. ↑ chapter 2
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 chapter 7
4. ↑ chapter 28
5. ↑ chapter 101
6. ↑ chapter 34