[quindraco]

I've never built a Magician before - this will be my second Shadowrun character ever; my first was a cybered adept.  I want to be sure I'm picking my initial spells sensibly, because my gaming group tends to make character advancement a pain in the neck - our GM wants to roleplay out shopping and learning, so downtime can't be used, but some of the other players want action every session, so uptime can't be used.  So it's important to me that my initial spell selection be broadly useful, since it's likely to take a while before I can buy new ones with karma and nuyen.

I'm a Voodoo tradition mage (from Haiti - 4 ranks in French ^.^).  My current spells are Stunbolt, Stunball, Laser, Heal, Improved Reflexes, Improved Charisma, Physical Mask, and Trid Phantasm.  If it's super important, I can recover karma (we're using karmagen, not BPgen) from elsewhere to buy more spells if I simply need more than this, since my body and armor don't actually need to be as high as they are - I'll die in one hit regardless - but I was thinking more along the lines of swapping them out for other spells.

I've let the mind control spells go because I can summon spirits with the Influence power, and Improved Invisibility isn't present because between my two illusion spells I think I ought to be able to get by.  Levitate is absent because I can summon spirits with Psychokinesis.  I am not confident in any of these decisions. 

I also worry about taking Heal; in our last game, no one took physical damage unless it was stun damage overflowing, by which point healing the physical would not have brought them back.  We also have a skilled technomancer in the group; I didn't have anything to do with his build so I haven't read his character sheet, but I believe he's grabbing Command 6 and will own a rank 6 medkit, which as I understand it will mean his healing will completely outclass my own.  I get that they stack provided you use the kit first, but I can't figure out in what context I'd ever actually cast the spell.

[All4BigGuns]

If you stay on top of the healing, Heal, I believe works on non-Drain stun damage as well. Heck, with that combo of Command 6 and Medkit 6, toss in a Force 6 Heal and you should do all right for the most part on that end (dangerous for you, but you could probably manage full rejuvenation from close to Physical Damage Overthrow by overcasting to Force 12.

[Mirikon]

Personally, I think Trid Phantasm would be a better choice than Increase Charisma, unless you're going Mage/Face. There is a lot of versatility in being able to create illusions according to your whims.

[quindraco]

BigGuns:  Heal doesn't work on Stun damage.
Mirikon:  I took Trid Phantasm. 

[farothel]

heal is useful if you also have adepts in the group, as they respond better to magical healing.  If you have only streetsammies with essence 0.1, I shouldn't bother, as you take too many penalties.

Other spells depend on what you have as backstory.  A boy from the slums will have different spells than a mage who's been working in the glamour of Hollywood for instance, and I don't know the Voodoo tradition well enough to give you an idea on what spells are more logical in that tradition.
It also depends on what kind of game you are going to play.  For instance If you go to hellholes like Lagos, take Clean Water.  It's very useful in that area, and you can use it as payment to contacts (you don't know what you can buy there for a couple of litres of clean water).  If it's going to be a lot of B&E, reconsider improved invisibility.

[quindraco]

I have no idea where we'll be deployed; our group's backstory is that we're a mercenary group, so I'm assuming military engagements of some sort or other.  We're starting in Colombia, but the GM has stated his intent to make us globetrot.

My personal backstory is that I'm a Haitian voodoo practitioner who's apparently joined said mercenary group, so I was picking my spells with the intent of maximising my utility to said group.

[groduick]

I find Mind Probe, Detect Enemies (Extended), Influence (or Control Thoughts), Physical Mask, Improved Invisibility, Levitate, Heal, Increase Reflexes, Stun Bolt, an AoE elemental spell and a single target elemental spell to be a good starting point.
You can also add Elemental Wall (something solid), Shape Metal (a lot of utility there, form entering places, taking care of drones or heavily cybered opponents) and anything that adds "flavour" to your fluff

[UmaroVI]

I'd actually reconsider some of the combat spells. As a possession mage you can fight very effectively in a lot of ways by using Channeling, so I'd rather have more utility than more booms. I'd keep Stunbolt though.

Psychokinesis is a poor substitute for Levitate. You can lift a huge amount of weight with levitate and this is really, really helpful quite often. You can't lift nearly as much with Psychokinesis.

Mind Probe, Detect Enemies (extended), Control Thoughts [I agree about Influence, but this one is non-duplicable] or Mob Mind would probably be my next choices.

[quindraco]

I'd actually reconsider some of the combat spells. As a possession mage you can fight very effectively in a lot of ways by using Channeling, so I'd rather have more utility than more booms. I'd keep Stunbolt though.

Psychokinesis is a poor substitute for Levitate. You can lift a huge amount of weight with levitate and this is really, really helpful quite often. You can't lift nearly as much with Psychokinesis.

Mind Probe, Detect Enemies (extended), Control Thoughts [I agree about Influence, but this one is non-duplicable] or Mob Mind would probably be my next choices.

I need to go back over the capabilities of my spirits, but I don't think they have anything that'll replace Stunball.  They actually have Exotic Ranged Weapon, so if I can scrape together the nuyen and the karma for the Restricted Gear PQ I can use a sound gun, which will effectively replace stunbolt, but I don't recall anything on their ability list super-useful for taking down a group of meat enemies.  By similar logic I could try to get my hands on an actual laser gun, but unlike the sound gun, lasers are sadly illegal, and more importantly, very expensive.

I will definitely take your advice on the Levitate; it and Improved Invisibility were the two spells I was the most worried about not having, so I'm happy to grab it over Heal.  Sounds like you agree with me about Trid Phantasm and Physical Mask working as a substitute, though?

I'll look into those other four spells you mentioned as well.

[UmaroVI]

I'd actually keep heal. You can stack Heal and First Aid, an in particular while you cannot Heal Drain, you can Heal Fade which is highly useful.

Definitely skip the lasers. Spirits can get much more effective elemental attacks than that.

Great Form spirits can get AE Fear which is a very, very effective way of taking groups of meat enemies out of the fight because it's so hard to resist. That said, I might keep Stunball too, but I'd skip laser. The other thing is that Guardian spirits can be very effective just by using mundane weapons; a Guardian spirit with an Ares HVBR can use HV full bursts against multiple targets for crowd control, for example.

[quindraco]

I didn't realise my spirits could get elemental attacks.  That would definitely make Laser less enticing.  Clearly I need to more closely examine their abilities.  I also thought Great Form spirits took a metamagic?  I have Channelling and can only initiate once (GM has declared this, so I didn't bother looking up what normal karmagen rules are for this).  Channelling seems like a major win since I can still be a magician while my loa lays down some smacks, but I suppose Great Form could be worth it.

When would I heal his fade?  As I understand it, a) he'll never be in my LOS or touch range since he'll by and large stay in his vehicle(s), and b) most often his fade will cause stun damage.  I'm hardly an expert and have barely any experience with a technomancer in the party, but back when we had one in our last game, he never got out of his cocoon which was in a motorcycle so it could fit indoors (and it was tricked out to climb staircases and walls if it had to), and I never once saw him take physical fade damage.  He was an utter newb, though, and I'm very newbish as well, so maybe that wasn't indicative.

[UmaroVI]

Great Form requires Invoking; you can pick it up later. It's good times.

Elemental Attack, Energy Aura, and Engulf are all ways for spirit to do elemental damage. Energy Aura + Engulf (Water spirits can do this) is very nasty; F+4 elemental damage and the ongoing effect (note that it's not a Subdue - the spirit has to touch the target to initiate Engulf, but they can then just walk away and the target stays Engulfed and taking damage).

Anytime the technomancer threads a CF over his resonance (which he'll want to do) or summons a sprite with Rating above his resonance, he risks fade. Being able to do both of those things and not worry about small amounts of physical damage is pretty valuable to technomancers.

[quindraco]

Thanks for the advice.  We have an upcoming session for finalising characters, so I'll ask the group (including the technomancer) if they think Heal sounds enticing over some of the other options (Laser is getting dropped for Levitate, and I'm giving Improved Invis a miss).