Spell Mastery
What it is
The spells you use grow with you. Each one climbs five ranks, takes a trait you choose at each rank after the first, and carries your own sigil at the heart of its circle.
| Rank | Roughly | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Kindled | Your first cast | Your sigil in its circle |
| Practised | Half an hour of real use | First trait, a fine ring round the circle |
| Adept | An hour or two | Second trait, deeper colour, its name spoken when cast, can be inscribed for a friend |
| Master | Three to four hours | Third trait, a second ticked ring |
| Mythic | Many hours | Fourth trait, a slow shimmer round the circle |
How to get it
A spell is its exact runes in order. Bolt · Fire and Fire · Bolt are different spells. Change a spell and
you start a new record, but the old one is kept: change it back and its rank and traits return.
Casting alone teaches nothing. A spell grows from what it does:
- Hitting foes. More for a big share of their health, more for a kill. Runebound count half again, bosses double, players half.
- Helping allies who are hurt or fighting. Helping yourself counts only when you’re in danger.
- Moving or working the world grows slowly, a little per useful cast.
What’s around you matters:
- Danger counts more: low health, crowds, a boss, a dungeon. Up to three times as much in all.
- Variety counts more: a kind of foe the spell hasn’t hit lately is worth a quarter more.
- Farming counts less: the same foe in the same place soon earns almost nothing. Bosses don’t wear out.
- Practice is capped: dummies and the practice arena teach at half rate, and only partway to Practised.
Scrolls, imbued items, glyphs and passives don’t grow mastery, and nothing grows in creative.
How to use it
Choosing traits
At Practised, Adept, Master and Mythic you’re offered three traits and pick one. The choice opens next time
you open your Cord (K). The offer depends on the spell’s runes and how you’ve used it: a fire spell cast
often in the rain may be offered Undying Flame. The same spell always gets the same offer.
Each rank allows one change of mind for 3 XP levels: Re-roll the offer, or Unbind a chosen trait and pick again.
Traits are modest. Together they add at most 20% damage (half that against players) and take at most 15% off price and cooldown.
| Trait | What it does | Offered to |
|---|---|---|
| Thrifty Weave | Costs 10% less mana. | Any spell |
| Quick Return | Its cooldown is 10% shorter. | Any spell |
| Ready Breath | Charges 15% faster when you hold it. | Any spell |
| Bellsong | A clear bell rings out each time you cast it. | Any spell |
| Starlit Circle | Specks of starlight drift up from its circle. | Any spell |
| Deep Hue | Its circle burns in a deeper, richer colour. | Any spell |
| Lingering Mark | Leaves a small residue of its magic where it lands, at most once every 8 seconds (a faint glimmer when none can be left there). | Any spell |
| World-Tuned | Strikes 15% harder while your world’s quirk on one of its runes holds where you cast it. | A harmful spell with one of your world’s quirked runes, cast often where its quirk holds |
| Second Wind | Cast in danger, a third of its mana comes back. | Any spell, cast often at low health |
| Far Reach | Its bolts, beams and aimed shapes reach 20% farther. | A spell with a bolt, beam or aimed shape |
| Emberborn | In the Nether it costs 15% less mana. | Any spell, cast often in the Nether |
| Starborn | In the End it costs 15% less mana. | Any spell, cast often in the End |
| Tidesworn | In water or rain it costs 15% less mana. | Any spell, cast often in the rain |
| Deep Delver | Underground it costs 15% less mana. | Any spell, cast often underground |
| Keen Edge | Deals 6% more damage. | A spell that harms |
| Leaping Spark | A hit has a 15% chance to leap to one more foe nearby, at 40% strength. | A spell that harms |
| Final Word | Deals 12% more damage to foes below a third of their health. | A spell that harms |
| Opening Strike | Deals 10% more damage to foes at full health. | A spell that harms |
| Grave Ward | Deals 15% more damage to the undead. | A spell that harms, cast often against the undead |
| Spiderbane | Deals 15% more damage to spiders, bees, silverfish and their kin. | A spell that harms, cast often against spiders and their kin |
| Giantsbane | Deals 15% more damage to bosses. | A spell that harms, cast often against bosses |
| Ashen Ire | Deals 12% more damage in the Nether. | A spell that harms, cast often in the Nether |
| Voidwalker’s Ire | Deals 12% more damage in the End. | A spell that harms, cast often in the End |
| Crowdbreaker | Deals 10% more damage when four or more foes are near. | A spell that harms, cast often against crowds |
| Last Stand | Deals 15% more damage while you are below a third of your health. | A spell that harms, cast often at low health |
| Nightshade | Deals 10% more damage at night. | A spell that harms, cast often at night |
| Sunlit Edge | Deals 10% more damage by day under the open sky. | A spell that harms, cast often by day |
| Bedrock Will | Deals 10% more damage underground. | A spell that harms, cast often underground |
| Thunderhead | Deals 10% more damage in rain or a thunderstorm. | A storm, wind or frost spell that harms, cast often in the rain |
| Soul Sip | Heals you for 5% of the damage it deals (at most two hearts a cast). | A spell that harms |
| Mana Harvest | Each foe it slays gives back 4 mana (at most 12 a cast). | A spell that harms |
| Staggering Blow | Foes it strikes are slowed for a second. | A spell that harms |
| Telltale Light | Foes it strikes glow for three seconds, even through walls. | A spell that harms |
| Undying Flame | Its fire burns at full strength in the rain and on the wet. | A fire spell that harms, cast often in the rain |
| Kindling | Foes it strikes catch fire for two seconds. | A fire spell that harms |
| Ember Script | Embers drift from its circle as you cast. | A fire spell |
| Rime | Foes it strikes are slowed for two seconds. | A frost spell that harms, cast often in the cold |
| Frostwork | Snowflakes of light fall from its circle. | A frost spell |
| Tidecaller | Foes it strikes are left Soaked, ready to conduct a storm. | A storm or frost spell that harms, cast often in water |
| Gale’s Push | Its hits push foes back a little. | A wind or earth spell that harms |
| Bloodletting | Foes it strikes are left Bleeding, ready for a gust to rupture. | A blood spell that harms |
| Umbral Mark | Foes it strikes are left Shadowed, ready for life magic to blight. | A void, arcane or time spell that harms |
| Static Arc | A hit has a 15% chance to leap to one more foe nearby, at 40% strength. | A storm spell that harms, cast often in thunderstorms |
| Warm Hands | Its healing and warding are 10% stronger. | A spell that only helps |
| Mending Glow | Allies it helps also regenerate for three seconds. | A spell that only helps |
| Swift Mercy | Allies it helps are quickened for four seconds. | A spell that only helps |
| Steadfast Ward | Allies it helps resist harm for three seconds. | A spell that only helps, cast often beside allies |
| Kind Light | Helping an ally gives you back 3 mana (at most 6 a cast). | A spell that only helps, cast often beside allies |
| Lantern Heart | Those it helps can see in the dark for twenty seconds. | A spell that only helps, cast often underground |
| Cleansing Touch | It ends poison and withering on those it helps. | A spell that only helps |
| Petalfall | Petals of light fall from its circle. | A life spell |
| Featherstep | After it moves you, you drift down softly for three seconds. | A spell that moves you |
| Nimble | Its cooldown is 15% shorter. | A spell that moves you |
| Steady Hands | Costs 15% less mana. | A spell that works the world |
“Cast often” means about one cast in seven in that situation. Soaked, Bleeding and Shadowed set up reactions.
On the Cord screen
Each spell row has a rank badge and a progress bar. A gold dot means a trait is waiting. Click the badge or
press Ctrl+M for the mastery panel. The readout’s price and cooldown already include your traits.
Spoken names
Rename a spell and, once it’s Adept, everyone within 32 blocks sees its name when you cast it. Turn Spell titles off in the Magic visual settings if you’d rather not see them.
Sharing a mastered spell
Inscribe an Adept or better spell on a scroll and it carries your traits and sigil.
- Use it to cast once, with those traits.
- Sneak and use it to study it. If you know its runes and your Cord can hold them, it’s threaded onto an empty row at Kindled, with the traits borrowed and working at once. As it ranks up you can keep each borrowed trait or choose your own.
- A scroll never passes on experience, can’t teach a spell you already have, and can’t pass on borrowed traits.
Tips and counterplay
- Read a rival’s circle. Everyone sees your sigil and rank rings, but not your traits.
- Move around. Fresh foes and fresh places grow a spell fastest.
- Mastery stays. It’s kept through death, travels with loadouts, and survives tying the spell into a Knot. You remember your 48 most recent spells, and any spell on your Cord.
- A server can turn mastery, traits, spoken names or inscribing off, or change how fast spells grow.