[Tarislar]

Stun vs Physical depends on hits in SR5. 

GAH,  I know,  maybe its the lack of sleep.

[Tarislar]

You are both very correct. I was looking at the costs and since he has low magic and it would be more utility with his firepower coming in courtesy of Ares (tm), I would only get a combat spell focus because it's thousands of nuyen cheaper and the availability lets you get it at Force 4 at char gen as opposed to Force 3 for the power focus. 

As someone above mentioned, better to use spells for utility when your Magic is low.
You can still do some good things w/o combat spells
That said, the Direct Combat spells still have use against really bouncy/armored targets that won't be wounded by bullets.
Even 2-3 damage from a Stun/Mana bolt will add up over time.

[Hibiki54]

It's tough to make a decent burnout mage. However, unlike most min-maxed mages who go for stats and raw spell casting, you can spend money on decent foci at creation.

[NovaHot1]

You are both very correct. I was looking at the costs and since he has low magic and it would be more utility with his firepower coming in courtesy of Ares (tm), I would only get a combat spell focus because it's thousands of nuyen cheaper and the availability lets you get it at Force 4 at char gen as opposed to Force 3 for the power focus. 

As someone above mentioned, better to use spells for utility when your Magic is low.
You can still do some good things w/o combat spells
That said, the Direct Combat spells still have use against really bouncy/armored targets that won't be wounded by bullets.
Even 2-3 damage from a Stun/Mana bolt will add up over time.

Yeah. The spell list is like Heal, Improved Invisibility, Physical Barrier, and Mana Bolt.

Firepower brought to you by Ares was referring to the Predator and Alpha he'd likely use

[Xenon]

It doesn't work well for Indirect Combat, Mental Damage, or other spells that mainly use Force.

Reagents can be used to lower the limit as well.

If you have magic 6 you can cast a force 12 fireball and then use 6 reagents to lower the limit to 6 (so you only keep a maximum of 6 hits). This ensure that your overcast fireball that will annihilate pretty much everything in the area of effect (DV 12 + net hits up to 6, with a AP of 12(!)) only will cause stun drain on the magician (in this case DV 11 (stun)).

[Top Dog]

Reagents can be used to lower the limit as well.

If you have magic 6 you can cast a force 12 fireball and then use 6 reagents to lower the limit to 6 (so you only keep a maximum of 6 hits). This ensure that your overcast fireball that will annihilate pretty much everything in the area of effect (DV 12 + net hits up to 6, with a AP of 12(!)) only will cause stun drain on the magician (in this case DV 11 (stun)).
[/quote]
I know, it's in my own emergency toolbox (haven't had to use it yet). But it's not really relevant to the Mag2 character we're discussing here.

[Xenon]

Fair enough