Hastur's Razor

[OzzyKP]

So what does this spell do? The description in the game is very confusing.

 

[Jarlaxle135]

I second that.

 

[nealhunt]

It takes all the damage to all the units in the caster's and any adjacent tiles and redistributes it so everyone has the same damage.

It has pretty limited uses, but it can occasionally be great. Instead of waiting 5 turns for a couple highly damaged units to heal, you pop Hastur's razor and you have 1 turn because each unit n your stack is only a bit damaged. It's good for evening up stacks to help against Assassins. You can probably think up a few other specialty uses as well.

 

[Ahriman]

Heal spell (on high priests).

 

[arcticnightwolf]

Which unit is able to cast this?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Which unit is able to cast this?

Hemah ( OO unique hero available at arcane lore )

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Does it affect enemies too?

 

[arcticnightwolf]

Does it affect enemies too?

And friendly units?

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

And friendly units?

I know it affects friendly units... I cast it once and was trying to figure out wtf happened since my whole stack became damaged

 

[it-ogo]

It affects all enemy, friendly and neutral units in the same way and may cause a war. In practice I did not meet situations when it is good.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Yea, seems like the only time it would be good is if:

1. You're alone and have a few key units damaged in your stack that you want to partially heal

2. you're heavily damaged and surrounded by fully healed enemies.

In practice, 1 is questionable because I think individual units have different health pools because when I cast it I almost killed my casters while my melee types and heroes were only slightly damaged.

2 is very situational, you'd have to be at the ass-end of a losing battle before it would be worthwhile... ie if you're defending a front line city and a new super stack just moved in. I guess I can see it being used with your attack stack too... you can move it up next to a target city and flash-heal your units before you attack and can then keep moving.

 

[MiKa523]

I know it affects friendly units... I cast it once and was trying to figure out wtf happened since my whole stack became damaged

Yeah...casting it after throwing tons of fireballs and stuff at the enemy stack isn't that smart

 

[OzzyKP]

Interesting. Good thing I've never used it then, hehe. Thanks for the info.

 

[odalrick]

I got curious and read the source for Hasturs Razor. It doesn't work anything like I thought.

It collects the health of all nearby units (9 tiles), healthy or not and then randomly assigns that health to those same units. The quirk is that the same source health can be used more than once.

That is, if there are three units affected, Adam 99 damage, Bob 40 and Celia 0 damage, after the spell they can have any combination of those values.


I really don't see any way for it to be worth an Archmages time to cast, though.

 

[OzzyKP]

Oh wow, that is even less useful then.

 

[odalrick]

How much less useful than not at all could it possibly be?

 

[nealhunt]

It collects the health of all nearby units (9 tiles), healthy or not and then randomly assigns that health to those same units. The quirk is that the same source health can be used more than once.

Wow. That's new. And annoying.

At least the "damage spread" had a rare use (I have used it in a game more than once but it was uncommon). This is just... I can't even think of a theoretical use that isn't far-fetched.

Thanks for the info.

 

[odalrick]

What if your stack of doom parked outside a city last turn and got hit with a mass of cats?

Pop the razor and some of your units will get the health of the city defenders, and some of the defenders will get the health of your units. A net win.

Actually that might work well with some assassin support.

The problem is that I'd much rather cast an Archmage spell instead, like Domination or Fire Elemental (twincast). Or even Vitalize.

It would be good for Cultists, instead of their current "Take any coastal city" spell. Especially if it is given some bias.

 

[kouji71]

Hastur Hastur Hast-...

 

[Fafnir13]

It would be good for Cultists, instead of their current "Take any coastal city" spell. Especially if it is given some bias.

Leave Tsunami alone. Ring of Fire can be just as potent and is not dependent on the cities geographical location. For that matter, all direct damage spells are really powerful with enough casts making any city easy pickings, even for a green army. Just the way the game works.

As for the Razor, I've never used it. Any benefit it gives is locked away under a nebulous description and, like others have said, I would much rather make use of an normal archmage spell.
I think something like a beefed up version of wonder (or whatever that chaos spell with a random effect is called) called "Dream" would be much more thematically appropriate for Hemah. Make it an auto/random cast for that matter. It's not like he can control what happens with his dreams. The lore mentions everything from horrible monsters spawning to normal people becoming heroes. It would be great if the game could better reflect that.