[FST_Gemstar]

And - many would say that while spirits don't have their own edge, a spirit's magician can use edge on banshing resistance for a bound spirit. A post-edge on a banishing restistance roll can really take down a banishing mage.

Banishing is good for taking out big free/unbound spirits. Bound spirits though, it is a battle of edge and drain, favoring the spirit.

[dposluns]

And - many would say that while spirits don't have their own edge, a spirit's magician can use edge on banshing resistance for a bound spirit. A post-edge on a banishing restistance roll can really take down a banishing mage.

Banishing is good for taking out big free/unbound spirits. Bound spirits though, it is a battle of edge and drain, favoring the spirit.

This does give me a good idea for what to spend my Edge on the next time an opposing mage tries to banish my spirit... 

[bangbangtequila]

Focused Concentration is frikin' king too.
Take it at rank 5, 5 Intuition, 5 Reaction, and then improved both of those and increased reflexes for a whopping 25+3d6 initiative and a defensive pool that's going to roll more than 90% of the incoming attacks you'll ever come across, and a heal spell with a suit of full body armour make those you might end up getting hit by relatively irrelevant.

Plus you get to run combat sense at 5 all the time as well, and with levitate you're flying. Just generally fantastic. I MAY pick up Mage Armour instead of increased reaction, but still.

I would also take a fetish-attuned indirect area combat spell, like ball lightning. That, with Witness My Hate, gives you a beautiful +2 damage with NO negative repercussions. That's solid as all hell, with your average starting character sitting at roughly 8 + (5*) damage on an area spell with only stun drain at 6 value with elemental damage.

[dposluns]

Focused Concentration is frikin' king too.
Take it at rank 5, 5 Intuition, 5 Reaction, and then improved both of those and increased reflexes for a whopping 25+3d6 initiative and a defensive pool that's going to roll more than 90% of the incoming attacks you'll ever come across, and a heal spell with a suit of full body armour make those you might end up getting hit by relatively irrelevant.

Plus you get to run combat sense at 5 all the time as well, and with levitate you're flying. Just generally fantastic. I MAY pick up Mage Armour instead of increased reaction, but still.

I would also take a fetish-attuned indirect area combat spell, like ball lightning. That, with Witness My Hate, gives you a beautiful +2 damage with NO negative repercussions. That's solid as all hell, with your average starting character sitting at roughly 8 + (5*) damage on an area spell with only stun drain at 6 value with elemental damage.

You realize Focused Concentration can only be used on one spell at a time?

[bangbangtequila]

Still fantastic! A little Psyche and you're gaining MASSIVE dicepools for -1's, and Psyche is cheap and lasts for hours, low addiction tests and a quick Detox to keep you out of the weeds helps a lot.

[dposluns]

Still fantastic! A little Psyche and you're gaining MASSIVE dicepools for -1's, and Psyche is cheap and lasts for hours, low addiction tests and a quick Detox to keep you out of the weeds helps a lot.

My approach was to go with a F1 focus for Increase Reflexes (cast with reagents) and an F4 focus for one of my other stats. Then pursue initiation with Quickening metamagic to make my buffs semi-permanent. You have to be careful with Quickening as it can turn into an arms race with the GM, which is fun for nobody. So for instance ill quicken a stat increase but not a F12 Increase Reflexes or anything too game breaking. You're also lit up like a Christmas tree on the astral, as they say, so you can expect to be dealing with the consequences of that.

[bangbangtequila]

Hmmm, in that case, it might be worth it to ditch Focused Concentration and quicken a force 6 Increase Reflexes. At least with quickening I never have to get Focus Addiction. Good call.

[dposluns]

Hmmm, in that case, it might be worth it to ditch Focused Concentration and quicken a force 6 Increase Reflexes. At least with quickening I never have to get Focus Addiction. Good call.

It's an option if your GM lets you initiate at chargen (not typical I think), but Focused Concentration is incredibly versatile and Qualities cost you double karma after chargen, unlike most other things. It's a bad idea to optimize for chargen only.

[Whiskeyjack]

This assumes you're the only person doing anything to it, which is sort of a bad assumption. Again, reagents help a lot here. But so does a power focus - that's probably the biggest key.

Reagents don't help with direct combat spells.

That's wrong. They don't help with INdirect combat spells, because those derive damage and -AP from Force, whereas directs don't at all.

The whole point is setting a high Limit. Granted, of course, you have the dice pool and/or the Edge to hit it.

There's also the fact that there's generally little point in engaging in prolonged astral-only combat unless you're trying to prevent it from reporting to someone, in which case, good luck. If it wants to fight, make the spirit materialize - it loses a pass and you get to blow it to hell in the process.

no way, banishing is way more effective against spirits than stunbolts. you just need to invest in it, and in my opinion given how strong spirits are its well worth the investment.

The investment is the problem.

Given the myriad other effective ways to deal with spirits using better, less niche skills, and how relatively infrequent spirits should be as foes, the investment is generally not worth it.

[bangbangtequila]

You can take one initiation level at chargen. It is also a prime runner campaign. Maybe I will keep it then, I mean intuition boost for a chaos mage is unreal, I'll get 5 extra drain dice, five perception dice, and five initiative. That's just solid. I really recommend it.

[SmilinIrish]

Increase attribute is limited to augmentation limit of 4.  But still, 4 dice to all those things (don't forget dodge, assensing, street skills, and language).  The force has to equal the preexsisting value, so with Foc Conc 5, you can have the stat at 5, and boost 4 more.