Who are your favorite leaders for using magic?

[someone67]

(This poll only includes leaders who get traits with direct boosts for arcane units (arcane/summoner), leaders with adaptive are also listed in the poll as they can get arcane or summoner but put in brackets as they aren't realy arcane or summoner leaders, and prepentach is also put in brackets because you can't rely on his traits)

Magister just pointed out that I misspelled Hyborem (as Hyporbem).

Please don't pick the leaders you consider to be the strongest but the ones you enjoy playing most.

For me it's Dain (philosophical for early science boost or getting many religiouse mana sources) and Thessa (elven forests and expansive).

 

[Demus]

i actually consider thessa to be one of the weaker Ljos leaders, you don't really need expansive with ancient forests all-around. For me it's dain for general spellcasting, or keelyn/tebryn for summoning

 

[someone67]

Demus, I know that she isn't too strong.

Please don't pick the leaders you consider to be the strongest but the ones you enjoy playing most.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Dain is my favorite! The guy does now about magic
Since this allows for multiple selection, my second choice is Tebryn.

This poll cannot be unrelated with the civilization these leaders are part of.
I enjoy the Amurites greatly, this is why Dain is my first choice.

Note, however that I haven't played a single game as the Balseraphs, yet...

 

[KillerClowns]

Keelyn and Arbandi. Keelyn is arguably the strongest, but I also genuinely enjoy playing as her. There's something cathartic about hurling three wraiths a turn at defenders.
Tebryn Arbandi is, well, Tebryn Arbandi. You get to blow up the world. And you get arcane for faster training mages. Os-Gabella's no weakling, but I'm too impatient to play as her; I want to run around Erebus with mages and burn things.

 

[westamastaflash]

Keelyn. Absolutely crazy.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Who is this "Hyporbem" character?



It's hard for me to say which is my favorite in unmodded versions, as I tend to mod things a lot. Dain as Charismatic/Philosophical(/Arcane as civ trait for the Amurites) is pretty nice. (Especially since in my versions Philosophical always means being able to build Academies directly once you reach Arcane Lore, just like Organized lets you build Command Posts.)


In a minimally modded (or simply Unrestricted Leaders) version, I'd probably say the thematically appropriate (given a certain Splintered Court outcome) Thessa of the Calabim. Her Vampiric archmages are the best in the game, and her expansive trait negates the health problems that often plague the Calabim and stop reduce the size of their feasts.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Varn. Divine magic > arcane magic in FfH and he can get a huge wave of free experienced priests with the spiritual buffs in one shot. With a religion like AV, OO or FoL they can cause some extreme damage. Or if you're more patient go Empyrean, get the vicars to L6 while gunning it for theology, and get really brutal.

Though not on the list, honorable mentions go to the dwarves (except Arturus, cuz he sucks.) The luchuirp leaders have their fireballing golems and uber druids on top of the normal arcane line. As for Kandros... who cares if you can't get mages or archmages when you can build 4 NUs with a much better spell than they can get, and another 4 with a tier 2 powered spell + tons of movement and strength? And a blistering tech pace to get to those units. And both civs can do divine casting just as well as any non spiritual leader.

 

[someone67]

Who is this "Hyporbem" character?

Thank you. Unfourtionatly I can't fix this.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Varn. Divine magic > arcane magic in FfH and he can get a huge wave of free experienced priests with the spiritual buffs in one shot. With a religion like AV, OO or FoL they can cause some extreme damage. Or if you're more patient go Empyrean, get the vicars to L6 while gunning it for theology, and get really brutal.

Plus, if you go AV (especially after building a few levels of the Altar of the Luonnatar), you can have all your mages be upgraded Savants. As Savants of Spiritual leaders start with Potency (in addition to Mobility and likely more free xp), mages upgraded from Savants are in no way weaker than an Arcane trait leader's Mages.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Wow, I had no idea savants could do that.

Wouldn't they kind of suffer from the fact that they can't get sphere promotions while they're still savants, though? They'd have no tier 2 magic till level 5. Though... Malakim. Their mages get that sand lion summon for free, and it's damn strong for a mage level summon. Loading a savant up on combat promotions would not be a waste.

 

[someone67]

Plus, if you go AV (especially after building a few levels of the Altar of the Luonnatar), you can have all your mages be upgraded Savants. As Savants of Spiritual leaders start with Potency (in addition to Mobility and likely more free xp), mages upgraded from Savants are in no way weaker than an Arcane trait leader's Mages.

Do you even have to go AV for that? The manual says that you can build savants without adopting AV, so you should be able to build mass produce lightbringers in your altar city, upgrade them to savants and then to mages.
And this mage should geet sun 1 and 2 for free, just because of all the sun-nodes you build to strengthen Chalid.

 

[odalrick]

I have to say all of them, including leaders without any special magic perks.

I always use magic, and I always enjoy it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

They wouldn't be able to get sphere promotions as Savants, but they would still get free sphere promotions when they upgrade. They still get all first level promotions if you have 2 or more mana of that sphere, and the first 2 levels if you have 3 or more. Sometimes not being able to get the promotions sooner just stops you from wasting them. Loading up Savants with Combat promotions is quite helpful, plus if you like it is the only way that an arcane unit could ever get promotions like March, Shock, Cover, City Raider, etc.

Savants still need to reach level 4 before they can upgrade to Mages and they do not normally get free xp, so it isn't a common upgrade. However, the Potency promotions that Spiritual trait leaders' Savants will make them gain free xp at the same rate as normal Adepts. Plus, they can get free xp when first built through Desert Shrines, Dies Diei, and each level of the Altar, so if you time your conversion right you can make your Savants start out with enough xp to upgrade immediately.

Scratch that, you needn't convert at all to build Savants, you just need AV and a Temple of the Veil in the city. It is better to stick with another religion so that you can keep building more Altars in your Savant-spamming city. You wouldn't be able to upgrade them to Ritualists without converting, but that isn't the upgrade path you want anyway. As the Malakim you want to go Lightbringer->Savant->Mage-> Archmage for perhaps the best arcane units in the game. Ok, it probably won't quite match Archmages/Druids trained by Govannon, Eaters of Dreams, or Vampiric Archmages, but it is certainly a lot better than the Arcane units normally availible to someone like Thessa.

 

[Giga-Gigan]

I like Tebryn Arbandi, purely because he is the quintessential warlock. I also like Cassiel but that mostly because of twincasting summons.

Incidentally I have been thinking of adding an evil charismatic/summoner minor leader for the Griggori as an homage to the self-made gods of the three elemental stones of Air, Fire, and Death. However I don't have much of a head for balancing would that be too powerful?

Also does anyone recall their names?

 

[bonedog]

Keelyn and Arbandi. Keelyn is arguably the strongest, but I also genuinely enjoy playing as her. There's something cathartic about hurling three wraiths a turn at defenders.
Tebryn Arbandi is, well, Tebryn Arbandi. You get to blow up the world. And you get arcane for faster training mages. Os-Gabella's no weakling, but I'm too impatient to play as her; I want to run around Erebus with mages and burn things.

We'll see how good Keelyn is after puppets get nerfed. I noticed it's on Kael's to-do list of bug fixes. I'm playing a Perpentech game now, and I've got puppets doing all my domination, which is bad enough since your archmage doesn't lose the promotion on a failure... but add Keelyn's Summoner trait to that and

 

[zup]

Faeryl. Look at her picture. 'nuff said.

 

[KillerClowns]

We'll see how good Keelyn is after puppets get nerfed. I noticed it's on Kael's to-do list of bug fixes. I'm playing a Perpentech game now, and I've got puppets doing all my domination, which is bad enough since your archmage doesn't lose the promotion on a failure... but add Keelyn's Summoner trait to that and

Whatever well-deserved nerfing awaits, it won't take away one thing: Summoner + Balseraphs = Fun. Even if I have to play Keelyn as a straight summoner, it'll be a straight summoner with Mimics.

 

[WarKirby]

Are there any leaders with Arcane/Spiritual/Summoner?

That would be an awesome combination.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i prefer charismatic over arcane for magic users...