my personal "what is this?-whatever" spells list. I started this thread in hope that it helps to make up sephi & gang's mind, what to and do not do with magic sphere.

anyway, w/o further ado:

1. AirI -fair winds - even if I own adepts, they have something better to do than pushing ships
2. Air III - do you want to spend your lategame limited units - archimages - in summoning ?

3. Water II - water walking - well, the only time I feel I REALLY, REALLY need it happens when cultists say "lets go! hey, sarevous! wanna yoin with us??"
4. water III - see: Air III

5. earth III - see: air III

6. fire I - blaze - I pick it up because of it is must for fire II.
7. Fire III: see air III

8. nature I - treetop defense. do you want you precious adepts/mages to leave alone in wilderness? no.
9. nature III. there are druids for it. Your archimages have
something better to do.

10. metamagic I - floating eye. scouts have birds and that is it.
11. Metamagic III - see: air III

12. Mind III - with exception of one well known strategy - not worth of using promotions in the case of miss.

13. Shadow III - see: air III

14. sun III - see:air III

15. enchantment III - battlestaff preparation only applies to archimage himself, not to the group.

16. Entropy II - even granting extended "life" after winning, pit beast is useless because of usually needs time for healing.
17. entropy III - there are cheaper and more efficient ways to reduce health and resistance of group of enemies.

18. law II - see:entropy II

19. spirit III - trust - by that time you're winning anyway and usually have nothing to achieve via diplomacy.

20. creation II -fertility - allows to swap some recources. why???

do you notice the trend ? 3rd sphere is most useless ( for me) yet to achieve access to 3rd sphere demands micromanagement and time, not worth of effort.

dear sephi & gang: it is time to change that isn't it? ;)

yes it is time and it will change, i hope your read the posts about the new magic system :)

I use the various Elementals. And completely disagree about Fertility and Tree Top Defense. Tree Top Defense Fortifies your ENTIRE stack instantly. Fertility is used if You have multiples of one resource and none of another, you cast it til you get the missing resource.

You did see the threads where Wildmana is reworking the entire spell system like removing elementals and making them built in cities and replacing them with more worthwhile spells did you you?

I use the various Elementals. And completely disagree about Fertility and Tree Top Defense. Tree Top Defense Fortifies your ENTIRE stack instantly. Fertility is used if You have multiples of one resource and none of another, you cast it til you get the missing resource.

You did see the threads where Wildmana is reworking the entire spell system like removing elementals and making them built in cities and replacing them with more worthwhile spells did you you?

yeah, I have read those threads. don't hit me. :)

if you have ideas for new spells feel free to post them in those threads, i wonder what sephi is up to do with the new spell system

With all the affinities of Meta III, those summons do seem to get very powerful (I've certainly had Djinn be base strength 25+ in vanilla FFH).

The ones I disagree with. ;)

Nature III - Druids requires you to be neutral, and requires a different researchpath. Even if I have them, my druids are generally busy capturing units with their command promotions, not vitalizing.

Metamagic I - Much better range than birds. Especially useful for the water magic specialist amurite leader, whose adepts can scout the whole world very early.

Enchantment III - If you can spare the promotions, this essentially doubles your archmage's firepower on crucial turns. I admit I don't use it often, but I'd say it's powerful enough.

Entropy III - Deals some damage and gives -10% strength, what's not to like?

Apart from being revamped, summons in general should be more useful with the decreased amount of units in the late game that's coming.

Also these Fire III summons are good usable. When my army stands two tiles away from an enemy city, they cast fireball to reduce the culture defense bonus. In the next turn, when the army is directly near a city, I let them cast Fire III. If there are some strong units in this city, like Heralds with +100% strength, they eat my 20 or 30 fireballs for breakfast. But 4 or 8 Fire Elementals do really damage to them.

I can agree for most of your lvl1 or lvl2 spells.
But the trend I see is mostly that you don't know how to use archmages.
and especially you don't know how to use summons.

You are only interested in Valor and summon spectres or flesh golems it seems. (and creation III -birth IIRC-)

Most of the summons are : free high-strength fighters that you don't even care if they die in the fight. That's huge. You just have to tailor your mana nodes to the summon you use.

I think the reason fair winds is not that useful is that I never have to fear from enemy fleets. I never have stacks of fleets more then two ships. If I ever needed 10 ships at the same place I would invest in an adapt to make them more efficient. Fire III is nice.

Metamagic III is really nice and works extremely well with mind III. I do not ever remember failing with Mind III getting plenty of national units using it.

Blaze is probably the spell I would call useless. And most of the tier III summons are not very useful.

does anyone realize that fair winds gives a bonus vs archers to the whole stack?

If it does, it's not in the pedia. Aren't you confusing with Wind Wall ?

Water II aint that bad. Cast it on that turn when your Mage isn't doing anything else and get the permanent bonus. It allows you to escape to where many other units can't get to you. Standing on a lake and spamming Fireballs or Maelstrom to soften up your opponents is pretty nifty, and it's on the way to Water III - Water Elemental which is a great spell mainly for it's potential dmaage split in two and then attack twice more. Get a Strong Water Elemental and they'll split again. Very nifty for when you've got a small water channel to defend.

As well as speeding boats, Air I Fair Winds ought to be a counter against Blizzards. We don't have a counter against Blizzards yet and this makes sense thematically and gives a minor improvement to underpowered spell.

or maybe make "fair winds" castable on any friendly naval units on surrounding tiles, not just same tile.
I mean having to enter the ship in a city in order to cast fair-winds...

Or maybe if it were a permanent promotion. Or at least permanent while the adept is on same tile as the ship.

I think it would be cool if all level I spells did something at the time you research KoE. Most level I spells are highly situational or are only good in the lategame.
Fire I: Blaze. If Smoke had a higher chance to become a flame it would actually be useful. Right now you wait and wait and wait and nothing happens.
Life I: Sanctify. Very Situational. A spell you can live without if the AC gets very high, but absolutely useless in all other situations. I think you could keep the spell and add another that's good but not overpowering. Something like a +1 :health: bonus for the city if you keep your adept in the city. Or +10% against demons and undead for all units in the stack.
Law I: Loyalty. Even more situational. The situations in which the spell is useful are rare. I could imagine a spell that reduces the crime rate in the city law adepts are put into. Something like -10 crime -5% maintenance. By having mana as a balance factor you prevent that they are put in every city
Nature I: Treetop defense. Only useful for elves and against elves. You could give the opponent units are promotion that grants -x % poison resistance. Would be synergistic with nature II.
Spirit I: Courage. Very situational. You absolutely need it against dragons and if you fight the horsemen, but otherwise? Flavorwise the effect should be quite good in every situation as the morale of your troops is an important factor in war. How about enabling a weakened version of the fear promo for high level units of any race? Instead of 50%+percentage depending on the difference between the unit strengthes just the unit strength differences.
Shadow I: Blur. Very situational. The AI rarely has much first strikes, but against horsemen and some other big barbarian units it is quite good. I think you could add a spell that grants invisibility to the caster and the ability to enter enemy borders. This way you could use your adepts for spying and exploring which is IMHO quite fitting for the shadow spell sphere. As casting removes invisibility you can just use it for one single sneak attack not a continuous annoyance.

If it does, it's not in the pedia. Aren't you confusing with Wind Wall ?

if Wind Wall is the other spell allowed with Air I than that's my point. a spell doesn't HAVE TO be always superuseful, but a promotion should be roughly comparable to others and Wind Wall makes Air I very useful to attack archers. others such as Fire I are way worse, Law I used to suck bad before Justice was added. oh, and I do agree that poor Saverous needs waterwalking to tag along with cultists, stygians and the like.

I had an epic use of Water II once. Back in the day when the AI actually used ships, I had a stack of Archmages/mages, shielded by some ships, crossing a body of water to support a new war. The ships were intercepted, destroyed, and I even lost an archmage or two. The remaining ones ended up fleeing across the ocean flinging water elementals at the pursuing fleet. The enemy ships were finally destroyed halfway across.
I like the spell a lot. If it could be used on other units, I'd like it even more. Making it effect an entire stack would be overkill, but one or two units besides the mage doesn't sound too bad.

Perhaps water walking could apply to all units in a stack, but have a turn limit of some sort (so, for instance, units would have the water walking promotion for 2 turns, but would not be buffable with it for 4 turns afterward), so that they could cross smaller channels and oceans, but no walk on oceans indefinitely.

Perhaps water walking could apply to all units in a stack, but have a turn limit of some sort (so, for instance, units would have the water walking promotion for 2 turns, but would not be buffable with it for 4 turns afterward), so that they could cross smaller channels and oceans, but no walk on oceans indefinitely.

apply to all units but - there is bigger and bigger chance after every turn that somebody sinks. in oceans and deep oceans - this chance is even bigger.

Pit beasts kick ass. Shadow III gives a HN unit, which is nice. Me thinks he doesn't know how to play this game. I would use blaze more often if it worked in those pesky ancient forests. It doesn't work when you need it most. Fair winds sucks because it has a 5% chance of wearing off. That's micromanagement.

But no mention of shadowwalk, the most useless of all?

But no mention of shadowwalk, the most useless of all?

what? immunity to defensive and first strikes and city defense is useless? anyhow all that not matter when 9.0 comes out :)

well smoke takes too long turn into burning forest, the fire has a too short duration and the new-forest forest growth is too long.

maybe FireI + windI can be combined into:
-burning => the forest burns immediatly
-gives +50%resistance to fire to the caster, 100%chance wearing of.

fair winds could be better with having no chance of disapearing.

It would be really cool if the burning lasted a bit longer. Especially for the Clan. Is it possible to have a wonder like "Everburning Flame" that stops all flames in your territory from disappearing? Or transforming them into another terrain feature like "Everburning Flames" that can only be extinguish by a spell connected to the water II instead of water I. Or Clan of Ember could get a special version of a flame that burns as long as the caster stays on the tile.

...

But no mention of shadowwalk, the most useless of all?

As in Shadow II??? Why :confused:it's a must have spell... Ever fought against a stack of 80 longbowman huddled up in a city? How else are you gonna survive attacking them?

Or am i missing something here? :rolleyes:

edit: read all posts, tesb had same thoughts :)

As in Shadow II??? Why :confused:it's a must have spell... Ever fought against a stack of 80 longbowman huddled up in a city? How else are you gonna survive attacking them?


catapults, fireballs, or ships. 80 longbowmen usually means there is at least 100% cultural bonus, which shadowwallk does nothing against, so you gotta pound it down anyways.

And first strikes? Blur.

I always thought that blur was much more useful than shadowwalk...
shouldn't they be inverted ?

shadowwalk is learning to not be seen.
blur is more difficult, it is not be clearly seen even if one see you.

(blur is a bit strong : 1 lvl spell, on 1unit, can affect a whole stack + can counter up to 5 promotions per defending unit)
If it were only available for recon or marksmen, it might be better.

Or if blur negates only defensive strike Or if it has a random chance to work, Or if it negates up to 1-2-3 FS, not all...Etc Or if it gives +10% +20% +40% against archer or against drill-promoted units...etc

dance of blade adds : +1FS chance
Blur : negates all FS : negates dance of blade + negates all the Drill promotion line + innate FS chances of Archers.

I agree, compared to death III, the T3 elemental spells was useless for a long time. 4 very Strong summons has been beaten by 4 very strong summons plus masses of still strong spectres.

however, since the 4 masterys, the situation has changed. of course, master of necromancy is the untouchable best school and should be the first one youre aiming for. the point is, you dont need it twice. 1 master of necromancy is absolutely enough. but if you have the chance to build up a second mastermage, for gods sake, plz let him be a master of elements (or make a destroyer of your first one). stacking fire- or airnodes is AMAZING, especially if you have a staff of the winds or the fire affinity staff.
a really strong virkuul +
her elemental horde +
4 SHOOTING STARS!!! +
fire/air elementals for less promoted archmages +
(tons of strenght for your favorite unit)
are truely devastating. t3 elementals are all but useless if well used.

edit: oh, and wraths and spectres are useless when youre trying to destroy your opponents army in the open field cause of the fear promotion. that can be very annoying. (its good when defending a city, but it will still not bring a decision...)

Calavente,

your comparison is faulty.
If they meet each other then blur is better.

If they meet other opponents then blur is better if the opponent has more then one FS chance otherwise dance of blades are better. Also dance of blades seems to have a confusing effect as well.

Shadowwalk as useless, really?

Once you know it affects city defense and not terrain, it is one of the best early/mid game spells around. One mage can bypass the defenses for the whole stack, and the rest can soften up the defenders with fireballs. Really, until you hit mega-culture cities in the late game, shadowwalk is indispensable for city assaults.

And as for T3 summons, what else would you use Archmages for? I think everyone should have a story about when they discovered the true power of water elementals. Mine was when I took out a stack of 150 mithril champions in a hill city with just Hemah, a handful of Stygian guard escorts, and the tower of elements (I was playing as Keelyn, before the Summoner nerf. Three turn puppets FTW!). What other single unit can do that? What other spell?

EDIT: whoops, there was a second page. Still, I :heart: water III

EDIT2: I should probably add something to the discussion. Spells I don't use: All the life spells, all law, entropy III, Air III (summons are supposed to lose, not win), air I. All the others have a pretty useful niche. Oh, and body III. Flesh golems are neat, but there are much more fun and less micro-intense ways to win.

I didn't say shadiwalk was uninteresting but just :
blur is better than shadowalk.
AND
Blur (and shadowwalk) are very powerful spells, maybe a bit too much.

Folket :

My comparison was not faulty at all.
if you have dance of blades and I have blur :
I negate all your "dancing blades" + I negat any FS you have, either by the unit or by commando or drill promotions !

first: currently shadowwalk has all the effects blur has. (that is why blur gets obsoleted by shadowwalk)
second: when you look at the second page of 'making a new spell system part II: spells' thread you will see that current discussions will be obsolete with wildmana 9.0 (sephi posted the new buff system in spoilers)

Yeah you're definitely right but as we have to wait quite some time (as according to the changelog for 9.0 the changed system seems not to be included) our impressions should still be interesting.

first: currently shadowwalk has all the effects blur has. (that is why blur gets obsoleted by shadowwalk)does it ?
I can't say. I never looked at it especially in WM. In base FFH it "just" negates defense % from buildings. maybe in Wm it also negates FS...
It was already powerful. Now it seems it is even more powerful.
Maybe blur and shadowwalk only on recon units or with a chance of success might be more balanced, or with a :strength: reduction to compensate the fact that you move slowly in the shadows...

Shadowwalk sucks ass. I can't believe you are actually saying it is now OP with blur attached. It still sucks. Worthless spell.

How to win an invasion
1. smash the SoD in the open field, smash their navy
2. bring 4 catapults, naval bombardment ships
3. win

notice the lack of the need for shadowwalk.

When you bombard cities, you don't bombard the culture first, so shadowwalk doesn't get to be like, "ok, now that the cultural defense bonus is gone, now I can reduce it 10 or 25% more by using shadowwalk to skip past the still standing and complete walls" So if your first round of bombardment takes off half the defenses, then shadowwalk is now half of suck, which makes it double suck.

I would much rather shadowwalk removed the city invasion penalty for recon units. It's only a return of 25%, but that's 25% you can still use after you used your catapults or fireballs or frigates to remove all defensive bonuses.

Calavente,

That is what I said,
Blur is better if you are opposed by people with dance of blades or more then one FS chance.

But if you fight against people who don't have FS then dance of blades is better.

It is normal that if you chose a situation where blur applies no bonus, dance of blade is better...

that's a non-argument.

and if you are fighting ships with ships, airI is better than dance of blades(that applies only to living units)...

but do you know many stacks without at least 1 unit with drill promotion ? or a stack without any archers ?

NeoMega : you are supposing :
1) you have access to many catapults/fireballs, enough to raze the city defense in 1turn.
or you have a sea access to the city. (blur+shadowalk needs at most 1mage+ 1adept, while 4-6fireballs needs 4-6 mages... much more economical.)
2) the ennemy city has lot of cultural defense ; if there are more building defense than CD, 1"shadowwalk" has more effect than 1 fireball or 1 cat.
3) you are at war with the guy.(a shadow, in friendly territory, with shadowalk is.... wow, incredible !, any defense due to archer range, walls, palisade, dungeon, barracks.. it is a LOT of +10%, +20%)

and then, even if you took out 80% of the defense, leaving 20%, half being building defense, 10% defense less is still nice. It's maybe not worth a lvl2 spell, but it is still nice.

In the end I think blur is OP (especially as a lvl 1spell).
shadowwalk is either worth a low quality lvl2 spell, or worth a normal lvl1 spell, but is counted as lvl2.
Shadowwalk combined with blur in 1spell is OP, but because blur is OP, not because of shadowwlak, but because of blur.

I don't like some of the buffs you gotta micro manage however most are rank 2 and you can afford to leave a mage on auto cast.

I think all the spells have niche uses. So they wont all be useful all the time. Though i wish water walk extended to the stack , thats probably the only spell ive had trouble getting much use out of (for a rank II).