How to protect yourself from exploding electric ice wall?
Whenever I try to cast this spell (EQRQRAS) with shift (to surround myself with it), I get killed every single time. I've seen people on youtube cast it, and stay alive so I tried casting this with various types of shields, but nothing helped, I just get instant death. Is there a way to cast this without dying?
Solution 1:
You can survive the above spell by using a Magic Immunity Aura.
Immunity Auras (aka Resistance Auras) are created by self-casting Shield with any elements other than Rock and Ice (example: [ES] selfcast would make you immune to arcane damage) You will see a glowing half-circle above your head that changes color among the immune elements, and a dashed-circle pattern on the ground around you indicating the area the aura covers. Any creatures (including yourself) within the area take no damage from the immune elements. Including more than one of an element type in the cast will increase the AoE of the aura, although this isn't very useful unless you are trying to share it with fellow wizards, as it renders monsters who come near immune to your spells of that type as well.
Typically, a personal immunity aura with only one of each element type is used. Be careful when including Life in an immunity aura, as it will render you unable to be healed by any means until you change the aura or get rid of it. Auras will be replaced by a self-shield [E] or Rock/Ice Armor [D/QR+E] but they will naturally fade over a period of around 20-30 seconds. They can be refreshed at any time by being cast again.
REMEMBER: These block MAGICAL damage only. Normal hits or rocks will still deal full damage.
Let's take a look at some basic Immunity Auras:
[SAFE] - Easy to remember and effective against all three basic magic damage types. Provides resistance to Arcane, Lightning, and Fire damage, as well as rendering you immune to the "On Fire" status effect. If you used [SAFFE] the aura would extend further away from you, or if you used [SSSSE] it would protect a very large area from arcane damage, but no other elements.
[SARE] - Also quite easy and useful, trades out resistance from fire for cold resistance, which prevents you from being chilled or frozen.
In your case, either [SAFE] or [SARE] or even a simple [SAE] would block all damage from the spell, as it only emits Arcane and Lightning damage.
Those two basic ones should allow you to counter most spells novices will throw at you, but there are other, more advanced immunities as well.
[SARE] Arcane, Lightning, Cold | Prevents Chilled, (does NOT prevent Frozen status effect)
[SAFE] Arcane, Lightning, Fire | Prevents On Fire
[QFSAFE] Steam, Arcane, Lightning, Fire | (does NOT prevent Wet status effect) Prevents On Fire
[QFQSE] Steam, Water, Arcane | Prevents Wet
The following combinations are only possible due to a bug in which opposite elements can be included in the same spell by tricking the system. Basically, you disguise a water element with fire to make it steam so it can be in the same spell as lightning. At the end you add a cold to change the steam back into water, but it doesn't cancel the lightning unless you try to add more elements.
[QFAER] Water, Lightning | Prevents Wet (Very useful in Thunderstorm)
[QFQFASER] Steam, Water, Arcane, Lightning | Prevents Wet - The most elements you can be shielded from at once, but be wary of fire damage or being chilled while using it.
Also remember that these Immunities are MAGICAL resistance only, any physical hits or rocks will still deal full damage.
Sources: Magickapedia, personal experience.
http://www.magickapedia.net/index.php?title=Spell_Combinations#Resistance_Aura
P.S. Link to the video is now up
Solution 2:
If you're inside that ring when the Arcane explosions go off, you're pretty much always dead.
It does more harm than good and will often end up instantly killing you, but I can confirm from memory that this wasn't always the case. It seems the spell casting system was revised so that spell combination has that unfortunate side effect. Maybe intentionally, it was pretty overpowered. In the video, you can clearly see that the Arcane explosion from the spikes does no damage to the player, which is no longer the case.
Some workarounds you could try:
Use it to enchant your weapon, then do a swipe with it. This casts the spikes in a straight line away from you, so you'll take less damage, or none at all if you run away from it.
Cast it normally and backtrack to avoid the explosion damage.
Cast it as an area effect, then quickly teleport out of the ring using the Teleport Magick (ASA).
Try casting it without Arcane, which makes it not explode (i.e., safe to stand in), but also, of course, weaker. You can add additional Lightnings to make it last longer.
As for your original question: It is actually possible to survive the full blast, but not reliably. If you use the Epic Robe, which has Arcane resistance and increased HP (Gamer Bundle DLC), have full health, cast a self shield at the right time and keep boosting that as the explosions go off, you can emerge from the ordeal, but very much scathed.