Mages have quite an arsenal of spells. Here is a complete list of the non-PA spells that I suggest you buy/do not buy and explanation for why you should or should not.
In the beginning you can only buy Light and Find Person (plus Create Food for druids). Light is one of the most useful spells in Tibia as it allows you to see your surroundings in the dark. However, Find Person is not too good, as it only tells you the direction where the person is (e.g. "Mr. X is far to the south-west" or "Mr. Y is just beside you"). I suggest you buy Find Person spell only if you are sure you are going to need it. Druids should get Create Food, as the food you can make by casting it often allows you to recover more mana than you spent to the spell.
1 - Light Healing will be very useful, at least for some time, as it will take time before you can cast Instant UH and even then, you won't always be
needing to heal 200+ hit points every time you get hurt. I personally do not see Intense Healing too good when compared to Light Healing, but if you insist on getting a better healing spell, then buy it. Ultimate Healing is the strongest healing spell you can have. Buy it!
2 - Scorpion poison does over 100 hit points damage, so Antidote may save your life one day. Antidote rune isn't too useful. Normal Antidote spell takes so little mana that you'll only need runes if you plan to go to an area with a lot of poison fields that cannot be avoided. You can buy it, but if you have financial problems, then leave it for later.
3 - Great Light is quite good for mages, but if you think you can survive with normal Light spell, then you can skip this one.
4 - Magic Shield won't work too well in the beginning, as your mana is still quite low. However, it may prove useful to have when you get more levels. Druids should buy IH rune spell. You can carry them with you for safety or start selling them to knights with low magic level for reasonable prices.
5 - Destroy Field comes useful if you need to dispel any poison/fire/energy fields that are blocking your way. I suggest you buy it, even though it may
not seem too useful.
6 - Invisible helps you to kill some monsters (especially hunters). Buy it.
7 - Poison field can cause weak poison damage or block monsters in tunnels. Not too useful, especially if you play on a non-PvP world where the field disappears in the matter of seconds. Fire field can cause up to 180 slow fire damage to a monster (90 to a player). A great buy if you are not on a non-PvP world. Energy field is only good if your opponent keeps standing on it. Then it causes up to 70 damage to a monster (35 to a player) each few seconds. If the enemy moves away from the field, it causes additional 40 damage (20 to a player) and then stops. Buy if you see this useful.
8 - Poison Wall creates a wall of poison fields. Can block or trap some monsters. Buy if you see this useful. Druids should grab UH rune spell immediately. They can be sold for good profit or used to save 80 mana when in danger. Chameleon makes you turn into an item that you point it to. It doesn't help anyway, but it sure is fun! Unless you are low on money, buy it. Fire Wall creates a wall of fire that can block some monsters that are not immune to fire. If you are not on a non-PvP server and see this useful, then buy it. Energy Wall works the same as poison and fire walls. Buy if you see it useful and are not on a non-PvP world.
9 - Light Magic Missile is far too weak. Your normal attacks are usually stronger than LMM shots and
you'll be able to buy Heavy Magic Missile really soon, so don't buy it. Heavy Magic Missiles will most likely work as your strongest and most accurate attack for quite a while, so buy it as soon as you can.
10 - Fireball causes only 20 damage to a monster (10 to a player) in a small area. Don't waste your money, unless you want to use the Fireball runes to have fun without hurting anyone too much. Great Fireball causes quite good damage on a large area. Buy it. Firebomb can trap some monsters. Be careful, though, for some monsters are immune to fire. Buy it if you are not playing on a non-PvP server.
The sage Albus, using an invisibily spell,
fights the cyclops with fire runes.
11 - Firewave for sorcerers costs 80 mana and causes up to 30 damage to a monster (15 to a player). Not worth it unless you want to have fun. Energy Wave for sorcerers is really strong, but takes a lot of mana. It won't be too useful, but good to have in case of emergency. And when compared to other non-PA instant attack spells, it's clearly the most useful.
12 - Energy Beam for sorcerers takes too much mana and does too little damage to be too useful. Great Energy Beam for sorcerers is good, but the damage is a bit too random for it to be useful. Energy Wave doesn't take too much more mana, is wider and causes more damage, so GEB(Great Energy beam) is somewhat worthless. Buy it only if you have too much money and are too impatient to wait for EW.
13 - Creature Illusion turns you into a monster. It's fun, but that's it. I have heard of some very effective ways for high level paladins and knights for Convince Creature runes, but they are hardly useful for mages who can summon monsters normally. Summon Creature is quite worthless in the beginning, but as you get more levels, you can summon quite strong monsters to fight on your side. I suggest buying it, even though you will gain only half the experience from monsters that your summoned creatures kill.
14 - Explosion can cause quite good damage, but it cannot be used accurately against players. It's also the strongest non-PA attack spell for druids. Buy
it only if you really think that HMM is not strong enough.
15 - Sudden Death for sorcerers is a must buy! Only sorcerers can create SD runes and they should be honored for this skill.
I suggest that you buy all the PA spells. If you do not have money for everything, you may leave sorcerer spells Animate Dead, Cancel Invisiblity, Soulfire and Ultimate Explosion (and Energy Bomb, if you are on a non-PvP world) and Druid spells Envenom, Animate Dead, Mass Poison and Paralyze for later.
