Help a novice get a grip on his magic?

[Thereddic]

So after far longer than I probably should have, I finally decided to pick up the game. Being a fan of challenge, I chose hard difficulty. And being a fan of casters in general in RPGs, I chose to roll a wizard. There's just one problem.

 

I haven't cast a single spell.

 

Well, to be fair I tried to cast spells a couple times. I DO make use of Arcane Assault since there's no reason not to. I tried Fan of Flames or Eldritch Aim into Parasitic Staff on the first group of bandits after the tutorial level, but that was about as successful as a bard who dumped charisma. After a few attempts I just snuck past and got to town where I picked up the first couple companions. Now combat effectively boils down to:

 

1: send in the fighter first

2: wait for him to be surrounded

3: spam Arcane Assault around the fighter.

 

Which is all fine and functional, but it isn't why I chose to be a wizard. I want to be using my list of spells more. I want to be controlling the battlefield. I want to be making enemies explode. Maybe I even want to get a bit battle mage-y and pull out a mace to smite some heathens. I dunno. Point is, Wizards are supposed to be versatile CC freaks who dictate the course of the battlefield. Instead I feel like I have shoot light and shoot bigger light a couple times.

 

The problem is twofold. One: As much as I love playing casters, I really do not deal with spells per day rest. Especially when I only have...what, 2-4 spells before I need to charge up? The second problem is that...well even if we assume the spells I cast ARE super strong, I have yet to feel the need to use any of them. Fighter man is great for holding attention and my wizard friend and I have more then enough Arcane Assaults to melt everything we meet.

 

What's the point of all of this? Well, There are two questions I want to ask, one related to the above and one more general.

 

The first question is: With my issues making use of any of my resources as a Wizard, I've been considering swapping to a Cipher or a Chanter to make use of infinite spells at the price of having to charge them. Would this be a good idea? I feel like once I have more spells to play with or maybe just once enemies start being strong enough to provide an actual challenge, I might start getting more into the swing of being a wizard. I can't be certain of that though since I just naturally lean on being a resource hoarder. I've only just arrived in the first town, so I'm at the stage where both finding more challenging encounters that will force me to use my spells or rerolling before it becomes too much of a hassle to start from scratch.

 

The biggest drawbacks to rerolling I've heard is that I'd be going Cipher or Chanter since I want magic. It's hard for me to make a point here since I'm obvious not all that familiar with the game but from what I understand, Ciphers are mostly focused on mind control abilities with a bit of damage thrown in, which sounds like it can get kinda one note. They ARE apparently the best class to interact with the game from a lore perspective though (and based on the story so far, I can see why).

 

Chanters are supposedly more versatile, but aside from person I talked to on another forum, the general consensus on Chanters seems to be that they are very passive characters and they mostly excel in long, drawn out fight or through summons, neither of which really sound like areas I'd want to focus on, although their versatility is appealing to the red mage in me.

 

The second is more obvious but also more vague. Simply put, is there anything I should keep in mind as I play through the game? Like, I heard somewhere that you should try to hold off on leveling until you reach a certain point though I don't remember anything else about that. Also skills. Since everything seems to have a chance to get involved in dialogue, what are some skills that I should look into? Lore is supposedly useful but that's all I know thus far. Also, how common are Grimoire drops? The idea of finding new spellbooks off of my enemies is actually one of the more interesting aspects to the wizard for me. it sounds fun to find new magic tricks to play with.

 

Also since I know it's going to come up, my current spell list is: Fan of Flames, Slicken, Parasitic Staff and Eldritch Aim. I'm level 1 but have the exp to get to level 3 when I'm ready.

 

Thanks in advance!