Ideas for improving water magic

[EverNoob]

I'm sure most ppl have noticed that water magic is weaker and less interesting than other spheres. The only time I ever use water magic is to get rid of deserts with Spring. That's it.

The main problem is the useless lvl 2 spell, Water Walking. It only grants water walking to the caster, which is pointless 99% of the time. Plus a Mage by himself on water is easy pickings for ships, sea monters, griffins, fireballs, etc.

My 2 cents for improving water magic:

Grant water walking for 1 turn to all units in the same tile. It would be useful for staging amphibious attacks or across rivers.

or

A damage spell that only affects water tiles, it could be used against ships. Give it extra range (+3) to make up for the fact that it only affects water tiles.

 

[Fafnir13]

I've caused some decent havoc with water walking archmages. Had a fleet chasing one accross an ocean, summoning elementals to slow them down.
If it had been backed up by a good army of cultists and Stygian guards, would have been quite a bit more fun, but I think I was running order in that game.

Water walking works quite well as a second level spell. Sure, it's not all powerful like maelstrom or fireballs, but spring is one of the better early spells. Balances out that way a bit. Then there are the extraneous uses of water walking. Inland lakes are great places to walk, allowing you to escape most standard units and, with the right complement of spells, still be a threat. I'm perfectly happy with it the way it is.

 

[BeijingCat08]

The problem with granting Water Walking to everyone at the moment is that the AI doesn't respond well to coastline assaults and often doesn't concentrate on ships. Even now Stygian Guards by themselves can wreck havoc on often undefended cities.

 

[EverNoob]

The question then is water magic intended more as a secondary support sphere? Cuz fire/air/earth work well as the main sphere of magic. I'm not denying that present water walking is useful in certain specific circumstances, but it lacks the "wowness" of the other elemental spheres.

Admittedly, I'm not sure one could teach the AI to grant water walking to a stack properly.

 

[BugReportage]

Turning a desert into plains is damn useful!
(Especially when malakim used to be able to build desert camps, you'd scorch the place, build a camp, then use spring to turn it into a 2 gold 2 food 2 hammer thing) (THIS WORKED AWESOME ON FORESTS->DESERT+CAMP->FOREST 3 hammers 2 food 2 gold!)

If Malakim had nomad camps they find Spring one of the most useful spells and I still think they might find it useful even though desert camps got the boot. (Try using spring on an oasis and watch the increase)

Water seems alright but it's situational...

 

[Deon]

Waterwalking is one of the most powerful spells vs. AI, especially if you have OO religion. Waterwalking summoners or fireball throwers may deplete ai city defences without any problems.

 

[EverNoob]

Waterwalking is one of the most powerful spells vs. AI, especially if you have OO religion. Waterwalking summoners or fireball throwers may deplete ai city defences without any problems.

I find sticking the Mage in a caravel (or whatever ship you have at the time) much more efficient. You don't have to spend a promotions and a caravel travels faster.

 

[marioflag]

I also find that Spring is one of the most useful spells during a game, and i don't find Water Walking weak. In general i don't find this mana type weak at all.

 

[Blackmantle]

Hmm, are you considering the rather recent change to water Elementals? I find them the strongest of the 4 elemental summons now (slightly better than fire and Air even though they are good for different uses so not directly comparable imo...).
Especially with the tower of the Elements (only really worthwhile if you use Water.)
Up to 2 Attacks per cast if you face strong defenses (4 with the tower or twincast ,8 with tower + twincast) are noting to scoff at (especially since your archmage needs less protection / is harder to attack as well).
Also remember that free spheres on upgrade allow rather easy acess to things like spellstaff, lichdom and simmilar things... (Which tops out at up to 16 Attacks from 1 single heroic archmage every second turn (or 8 each without spellstaff of heroism) if you actually lose all the battles exept for the final 8. Thats enough for most cities expept lategame. And its just one Archmage level caster. Not 4 or 8.)

Imo water is more or less fine now (thanks to the new elementals water walking seems much better now even though it is really a weak tier 2 spell especially since anything purely marine has also been upgraded considerably in 0.34.)
Especially if you have rather early acess to archmage-level casters (like Gibbon) and start with Water-Mana (or get it early from the OO-shrine...).

And Spring is so awesome that quite often its worth water-pick alone. (especially since you can reset nodes rather easily with Metamagic from sorcery on.)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well I kinda agree that water walking should affect the whole stack like haste does, affecting only the caster is meh. that would probably be overpowered OTOH... who knows

 

[Blackmantle]

Water 2 as water-walking for whole stack has already been ruled out by Kael for game-design reasons rather recently (whould devalue naval transport / ships to much.). So better don't place your bets on that one...


PS: Of all elemental spheres i think earth could use the beef-up the most. Especially tier 3. Nice passive effect given or taken...

 

[EverNoob]

I actually feel the Water Elemental is the least interesting one. Fire does collateral, Earth has brute strength, Air has mobility. The water elemental has water walking. But the air elemental has flying, more movement, spawns lightning elementals, and is only 1 point weaker than the water elemental. The air elemental has everything the water elemantal has, except better.

How about giving it a combat bonus in water tiles? Or a bonus if adjacent to rivers?

I feel specializing in water magic should net you some sort of naval advantage. The way things are now, fire and air are better spheres to give you naval advantages because of fireballs, fair winds, maelstrom and air elementals.

 

[Blackmantle]

Sounds like you really missed the splitting into 2 fresh elementals (rather recent change 0.32 i belive, maybe even just 0.33.) when losing instead of dieing (going from strong ---> 2 normal ---> 4 weak ones or (without the elemental tower) from normal ---> 2 weak ones multiplied by twincast and spellstaff if available. It actually can do anything the other elementals if for a smaller degree can save greather mobility of Air. Kill one big unit easily like earth. Damage / Kill multiple units if a city has few strong defenders and many weak ones like fire.)

And this especially true for summoner-leaders which can even kill in one round and still get the split in the next one when killed on defense or attack next round or 2 rounds later + makes Water 3 early in the game highly profitable because a single archmage-level caster (far better even with some cultists as backup but they kick butt anyways even without said archmage-level-caster) can rather easily mop up midgame cities without to much danger (which is quite harder with the other elemental Spheres if the defender pops enough units.).
If a summoner-leader gets really lucky and thus 4 / 8 "weak" elementals from one caster the turn they summon the first one that can bring even solidly defended cities down to their knees. With their 15 (7,4,4) / 30 (14,8,8) possible attacks (from the summons of one single turn. Possible each turn / second turn on top of that).

And thus thanks to the many attacks (and weaker splits) their affinity pays off extra-heavy. As said, nothing to scoff at here.

 

[psychoak]

Elemental or no elemental, water walking can be awesome.

Advantages ships have over water walking mages, movement.

Advantages water walking mages have over ships, inland sea access, no coastal restrictions before astronomy, no extra upkeep to pay for transport, attack from sea and across rivers without penalty.

You can have an army of water walking mages long before you have an army of mages and the transports to carry them across the water.

 

[EverNoob]

Ack! I should read the changelogs more closely So nix everything I said about the water elemental.

ok so very useful lvl 1, strong lvl 3, and meh lvl 2 spell. Sums up water magic then. With that in perspective I guess I could live with a weak lvl 2 spell.

 

[Deon]

lvl2 is not meh, it's more useful than stoneskin imo. in situations when there're inland seas near cities or even 1-tile water in enemy borders they are unaccessible.

 

[TheJopa]

In all fairness, lvl 1 and 2 should be reversed. 1 is too powerful for adept (game play wise but also lore wise, man cant fling a fireball but can alter regions climate?) and 2 too lame for a mage. It would be much, much better if they were just switched.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

umh, TheJopa is probably right. I believe all terraforming spells are lvl1 though, correct?

 

[Blackmantle]

Whould make water-sphere much weaker though (its an average-good one. But so good?). Waters most important perk imo is spring at KotE (or if you get the OO-Shrine early.).
Remember that FFH2 is mainly balanced on Macro-Level. So here comparing whole spheres + which civs start with water whould be appropriate. (Grigori, Elhoim and Kuoritates don't seem that strong in my book and Lanun seem weeker now than before as well... And the other spheres mostly seem on par or better...)

@ Deon: Until the AI gets a grip on things and compared to other Level 2 spells it is rather weak (the contenders are Summons, Damage-Spells and city-buffs. All very useful. Its the point were the Arcane line becomes really powerful for a reason. Unless you start with Death 1 when its right from KotE...).

Only real problem with Stoneskin is that its not permanent. It very much should be though imo... (especially because of the dragons and ogre.). Now that it doesn't effect other units anymore that shouldn't be a big problem, should it?

 

[Jabie]

Spring puts out fires in forests. It needs to be a level one spell counter to Blaze and other forest fire effects.

Water Walking is fine. Optionally it could provide the mage with the Amphibious promotion - a river shouldn't pose much of a threat to a water walking mage, after all.