Ideas for improving water magic

[Blackmantle]

+ what Jabie said.

Water-Walking has the exact same perks as amphibious + allows to enter water tiles. So thats already in. (Just check the pedia or mouseover)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

edit: someone please delete this

 

[zup]

Stoneskin for casters should not be permanent. OTOH, stoneskin ogres should have it permanently. My opinion, feel free to have your own.

But I don't see how water elementals' strength substitutes for water walking's weakness (especially since many of its benefits will be obsoleted when you get good ships). As you probably already know: you cannot have an unlimited number of water elemental casters.

 

[TheJopa]

+ what Jabie said.

Water-Walking has the exact same perks as amphibious + allows to enter water tiles. So thats already in. (Just check the pedia or mouseover)

Though it indeed gives same perks as amphibious, it does not mean it is a good as amphibious, because amphibious is a promotion you can get on heroes, melee and other strong units. That same promotion is not so good on mages that are weak in combat anyway.

Think stoneskin as well. +2 defensive combat and first strikes are not so strong for mages, and everyone agrees it's weak. Now imagine if all your archers came away with it.

 

[smusebaer]

I don´t think water is weak. But all other elemental Magic is of more use in combat. A spell that gives amphibious to the stack would be nice. that way Water magic would be great for naval combat. At the moment naval mages can cast air and fire ...

 

[rief_s]

I think Spring should be split between Lv1 and Lv2. Keep put off fire in Lv1 and move terraform to Lv2.

 

[MiKa523]

With the new Illian and their need to spread snow I think it may be time to redesign the whole terraforming system.

This is how it currently works, if I'm not mistaken:
-Vitalize improves any tile
-Spring transforms desert into plains
-Scorch transforms snow into tundra and plains into desert (grasland into plains?)

My suggestions, which also improve water mana:
-Waterwalking becomes Water I, Spring becomes Water II
-Spring not only changes desert to plains, but also plains to grasland
-Scorch also changes tundra to desert
This way you can terraform as you like only with Water II and Sun I and civs are not depending on Naturmana or Druids.

To keep Vitalize appealing:
-Vitalize effects surrounding tiles like Snowfall does, which means you can transform up to 9 tiles instead of only 1; in addition it might grow new forests on each unimproved tile.
Vitalize is still a way better and faster way to terraform, but it's not impossible to terraform without it.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I like Mika523's suggestions here, and totally agree with smusebaer that it would be good for the waterwalking spell to give amphibious to the whole stack. I gotta say that I heavily dislike spells only affecting the casters in general ( water walking, stoneskin ). casters are weak and you don't wanna risk them for combat..

 

[Fafnir13]

I agree that the current terraforming system could use some upgrades. As it stands now, the only way to counter Illian temple effect is to get vitalize. That means either druids (requires neutral) or archmages.
Making vitalize a good cure all would be nice, with spring and scorch used for early game. I really like the idea of being able to upgrade plains early on, but I'm not too hot on spring being made a mage only spell...

 

[Zobo]

I quite agree that with the illians about something should allow for tundra->desert or tundra->plains.

I don't think spring should be able to turn plains into grasslands, though, that should remain vitalize's sole effect.

Also, would it be possible that spring and scorch wouldn't turn the tile into the other type immediately, but rather make the base type the new type and temporary type of the present type, so the terraforming with spring would be slow compared to vitalize - that way improving the possibility of other terraforming wouldn't rob vitalize it's place as the best spell?

 

[PapaMonkey]

Spring also must be level one for the Kazad. If it was level 2, they'd never be able to combat fires or teraform the deserts. That's a fairly heavy hit.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Stoneskin for casters should not be permanent. OTOH, stoneskin ogres should have it permanently. My opinion, feel free to have your own.

But I don't see how water elementals' strength substitutes for water walking's weakness (especially since many of its benefits will be obsoleted when you get good ships). As you probably already know: you cannot have an unlimited number of water elemental casters.

Stoneskin prevents all damage.... so a permanent stoneskin ogre would be indestructible.

Also, lets see.. untouchable water walking caster standing on an inland lake shooting water elementals, fireballs, whatever else every turn isn't good?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'd make stoneskin only prevent physical damage. that way you can still them with spells and the like ( magical weapons like enchanted blades should work as well )

 

[Blackmantle]

Stoneskin prevents all damage.... so a permanent stoneskin ogre would be indestructible.

Also, lets see.. untouchable water walking caster standing on an inland lake shooting water elementals, fireballs, whatever else every turn isn't good?

That impression about stoneskin stems from a bad documentation in the pedia but its not the case.


All stoneskin does is what the mouseover says (which is +2 defensive Strength, 3 First strikes (which is the 3 attacks dealing no damage mentioned ) for sure to represent the thick hide + i belive some minor resist to certain kinds of damage as well in the dimension of 20% each. And thats it. Perhaps the resist-part has even been axed with the last change.
But it should be good. Tier 2 Spells are usually. With it going away after combat it is weak. Even weaker than Water 2.
And im sure Earth-Sphere as a whole whould still be. Even if Stoneskin whould be made permanent (on mages/other arcane casters at least. For other things) and its Elemental handed Geruillia 1 + 2 but more on par overall not least due to its passive Effect which then might be enough to make the sphere interesting enough.

Still very neat on a 13/17 Unit (with stoneskin). Those things are huge chunks of muscle wielding a big stick with a nail in it and it should be hard to take one down. Some decrease of the stats to compensate for Stoneskin beeing permanent whould be in order naturally. At least a reduction in defense strength of 2 points since stoneskin grants that. Which whould be a nerf for the first combat, but a major improvement for the rest of the ogres/dragons life.)


Compared to other Tier 2 Spells Water Walking is. (but only in comparison to those.)
Dosn't mean its outright bad or useles. And i sure didn't say the water sphere is a bad one. (quite on the contrary if you read my other comments in this thread ). Tier 2 spell is its "weak-spot" to balance the strength of the rest. Which is fine and should be that way imo. (It was a problem before the change to water-elementals. Now with the better elementals its a decent sphere. Also the change to the elementals has in itself helped alot in making Water 2 more viable without other spheres.)


Now some players might argue that you cant take a weak Tier 2 spell to balance a good Tier 1 and 3 spell but that as we know is how ffh2 is designed. So it seems one can.
(on macro-level not feature level. And whole spheres quite obviously balance in comparison to whole other spheres. With huge varition between spheres within each tier.).
If someone doesn't likes that kind design-guidline a modmod is the most likely way to go for those...



@ Zup:
I don't really get it.
Tell me a single reason why stoneskin beeing permanent on casters (which means mages + archmages + liches + mage/archmage heroes + dwarven druids if i remember rightly) with earth 2 whould be a real problem (ganovan can't teach earth so non-arcane casters/non-auto-starters can't get it.)?
(and it becoming a solid to strong spell is not a sufficient argument to woe me. Anything bar blatant overpoweredness in comparison to other Tier 2 like fireball / maelstorm / charm person and the likes.
Earth is far from the strongest sphere. And imo the difference whould only be rather minor for the casters, but important for other things around.)

Remember: Not only whould it be a coding mess to separate but it whould help players + AI to just make it permanent (the big baddies at least. Dragons should be thougher. A call long voiced on the forums. On Stoneskin Ogres i agree that some kind of lowering of their stats might be appropriate but still those things should be though...) and make the code lighter as well (one call less, less casts and thus less micro + AI processing) + it very much makes sense from a flavor perspective, doesn't it?


In fact i belive the restriction is only in place because it had to be for the old! power of the spell (thats a long time ago. I belive it was changed sometime even before the mod was changed to bts and another time thereafter. Could even have been an old Tier 3 Earth-Priest spell before the first overhaul of spells. But my rememberence of that is somewhat blurred... Long time ago...) where it did affect a whole! stack each! time you cast it instead of just the caster (and was also Tier 3 because it whould have been far to powerful as Tier 2 for a whole stack.)
All good reasons for! a change in my book.


Unessesary unflavorful pseudo-meta-balance for old times sake doesn't sound as good design worthy to keep to me.
Its very possible i err on the part of it not becoming to powerful naturally. Still some explanation why, whould help me to at least understand the reasoning, if anything.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Compared to other Tier 2 Spells Water Walking is.
Dosn't mean its outright bad or useles. And i sure didn't say the water sphere is a bad one. (quite on the contrary ). Tier 2 spell is its "weak-spot" to balance the strength of the rest. Which is fine and should be that way. (It was a problem before the change to water-elementals. Now with the better elementals)

Yea, I see what you mean... and I won't lie and say that its always a letdown when I promote a caster to water 2 and he gets water walking... but I can see the strategic value of it. I mean, its the same as the ability for druids to hang out in mountain tops safely... its quite powerful but situational.

If you could give a whole stack waterwalking, that would be pretty horribly overpowered. Now you can heal a whole stack in enemy territory just by standing on some water.

 

[Blackmantle]

In all honesty, Cultists (especially if turned Druids later which then have more than one place to hide and can reach anything, sadly they can't catch animals 100% anymore if one goes down that path.) show quite well why whole-stack water-walking whould be beyond reasonable even for tier 3.

(because Cultists need rather big bodies of Water nearby to really kick butt its somewhat! limited. Now add things like fast moving / invisible / blitzing / assasinating Tier4s or heroes like the Dragons into the mix and the picture is radically changed to utter riddculousness.)

Even existing walter-walkers made a beef-up of boats necessary to compensate somewhat.
Now at least water-walking cultists / druids are not all-untouchable by things all at home in the naval domain.

And i won't even wan't to start to imagine how a one-day capable AI might act when it can give its 50+ unit Level 2/3 starting Superstacks permanent water walking at immortal / deity.



@The Jopa: I whouldn't argue that, but that was not what Jabie proposed.

Whouldn't make what you said regarding Walter 2 handing out amphibious to the stack a bad proposition. Overall i like it but i think existing water 2 has its place now with the whole sphere rather in order.
Perhaps whould move water up to much though since then it whould be a good spell (unless you axe the adding of the water-walking promotion to the mage to compensate which might anger some players wo like their water-walking summoners of doom.)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well one could balance out giving waterwalking to the whole stack with a negative effect as well ( just give them all -1 or -2 strength and they're suddenly a lot less overpowered, just an example )

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

well one could balance out giving waterwalking to the whole stack with a negative effect as well ( just give them all -1 or -2 strength and they're suddenly a lot less overpowered, just an example )

Not really, unless I also couldn't heal. Lets face facts... I pretty much nuke cities and stacks until they're at 0.9 then mop up with my units at 99.9% success rate. Even if I didn't, I'd pop my units over water to heal then step onto land to attack.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that's a nice thought for example. water walking affect the whole stack but prevents units from healing. "I kick you in the nuts as much as I can then retreat where you can't get me to heal + rinse + repeat" exploit ( hopefully ) solved

 

[Keeper_GFA]

We're including the idea that waterwalking would be made into a temporary promotion, right? Because making a stack of waterwalking-but-never-healing units doesn't seem like a good idea to me.