Casting

What it is

You’ve threaded a spell. This page is about firing it: tapping or charging, pushing a charge past full, keeping rhythm, switching spells and reading the spell panel beside your hotbar.

How to use it

Pressing the cast key

R casts your selected spell. Change keys in Controls, under Wildercord (see Controls).

A cast fails, and nothing is spent, if you have no Cord, the spell’s row is locked, it’s still recharging, it’s empty, or you can’t pay. If you’re short of mana but have a Heart Circle, press again within two seconds to overcast.

In creative, spells cost no mana, but cooldowns still apply.

Tap or charge

A player with raised hands charging a spell, its magic circle behind the shoulders

Tap R and the spell goes off at once.

Hold R to charge. Your hands rise and the spell’s magic circle draws itself behind your shoulders. A full charge takes a second and a half and adds +40% power (a half charge adds +20%). You walk 40% slower while charging, and mana is only spent when you let go.

You can’t start a charge while the spell is recharging.
Held too long without overchannelling (12 seconds), the charge fizzles.
A Focus of Haste fills a charge faster. See Casting Gear.
The direct “Cast spell” keys only tap.
Your first full-charge release earns the feat Full Charge.

While you charge, only you see a reticle for the first shape: a ring on the ground for areas, or a dotted line for things that fly.

Overchannel: holding past full

A caster at the third overchannel stage: the circle cracked and shedding sparks, the screen's edges closing in

Keep holding past full and the charge overchannels, climbing a stage every 1.2 seconds.

Stage	Extra power (on top of +40%)	Surge chance
I	+20%	7%
II	+40%	14%
III	+60%	21%

Your heart sets the limit. Anyone can reach stage I, 2 active Heart Circles reach stage II, and 4 reach stage III. Cracked circles don’t count.
It drains spare mana, about 15% of the spell’s price each second, but never the mana the spell needs. Short of spare mana, it just waits.
A surge can twist the spell into wild magic. See Overcasting.
Let go on the beat. The moment the charge fills, and each time a stage lands, is a beat. Let go within about a third of a second for +10% power.
Don’t hold too long. At your last stage the circle reddens and shakes. Hold 3 more seconds and it tears loose: the spell fizzles, you’re dazed for 1.5 seconds and lose 30% of your mana. It never costs health.

Sigil tracing

A glyph of violet strokes round the crosshair while a spell charges, with a gold path traced along it

While charging, a faint glyph made from the spell’s runes appears round your crosshair. Hold sneak to steady the camera, then trace the glyph with the mouse in one line from the bright dot.

A good trace adds up to +8% power, and a perfect one removes 60% of an overchannel’s surge chance.
Not tracing loses nothing.
Turn it off or change Trace assist in the Magic visual settings screen (its key is unbound by default).

Incantations

A charging caster with three glowing syllables in a line of script over their shoulders

Every rune has a spoken syllable. While you charge, your spell’s syllables rise over your shoulders as its incantation. Anyone near can read it. A tap is silent, so only charged spells give away what’s coming. Choose whose incantations you see in the Magic visual settings.

Cooldowns

Each spell has its own cooldown, so you can cast one while another recharges. It’s about a second per 20 mana, from half a second to twenty, and Rapid, Vow, Celerity and Flow change it. Cooldowns are kept when you log out or die. Full rules: How a Spell Is Read.

Mana

Your Cord sets your starting pool and refill rate (see Cords).

Meditate to refill twice as fast: sneak and stand still on the ground while wearing your Cord.
Mana Crystals, Heart Circles, enchantments, potions, ley lines and more all stack. See Mana.
You come back from death with an empty pool.
Mana you spend on spells condenses toward your next Heart Circle.

Damage limit per cast

A player’s spell deals at most 96 raw damage per hit. Against each target, one cast can deal at most 12 + twice its mana price, up to 512. Burns, echoes, pulses and linked hits all share that allowance. Each target has its own, so area spells still work on crowds. A new paid cast starts fresh.

Rhythm

Cast again right as your last spell comes off cooldown to cast on the beat. Each beat adds a step, up to three, worth +8% power each (+24% at three).

The beat lasts a quarter of the spell’s cooldown, between a quarter and half a second.
The next cast can be any spell.
Too early, too late, or missing the beat drops you back to nothing.
A gold ring closes in on your spell badge as the beat comes.
Three on the beat earns the feat In Rhythm, which the 7th Heart Circle asks for.

Leaning

Spells grow your affinity with their elements. Once one element reaches level I and has a quarter more points than any other, your magic leans toward it: your Heart Circles take its colour and you earn the feat Leaning. Leaning is just a label; the power comes from each affinity’s level. It can change if another element pulls ahead.

Switching spells

A Copper Cord holds 2 spells, Amethyst 3, Echo 4, and the Tome of the Fifth Page adds one more.

Tap V to move to the next spell.
Hold V for the spell wheel.
Click a spell’s row in the Cord screen.
Bind “Cast spell 1” to “Cast spell 5” to cast a spell directly. They’re unbound by default.

The spell wheel: four spells in a ring around a centre showing the pointed spell's mana and cooldown

On the wheel, point at a spell and let go of V to pick it. Let go without pointing and the wheel stays open: click a spell or press its number. Right-click or Esc closes it.

The HUD

The spell panel to the right of the hotbar: a badge with the spell's number, rune icons and a cost, a mana bar with a gold mark, and the mana count

The spell panel sits beside your hotbar while you wear a Cord.

Part	Shows
Badge	The spell’s number: gold if you can cast it, red if you can’t afford it. It shades while recharging, and a ring shows your rhythm or charge beat.
Dots	One per spell; the selected one is gold, the tome’s violet.
Top row	The spell’s runes and its cost (red if you can’t afford it, a heart for Blood Price).
Mana bar	Your mana, with a gold mark for this spell’s cost.
Bottom row	Your mana, then your charge (“FULL”, “✦I” to “✦III”), the cooldown left, or your passives’ drain.
Above	The spell’s name, ♪ rhythm notes, cracked circles, your Shield, and the climate where you stand (▲ stronger, ▼ weaker).

Tips and counterplay

Read other casters. A charging caster shows their circle and speaks their incantation. A cracking, trembling circle means they’re overchannelling, and a Jolt stops a caster mid-charge.
Tap to hide your spell, charge for power. You can’t have both.
Spells show their element as they form. Area spells prepare where they’ll land, so watch the ground. See Magic Circles.

A Zone preparing at the ground point the caster aims at

Short spells keep rhythm best, because their beat comes round quickly.
Big impacts shake the camera. That follows the game’s Screen Effect Scale setting.