BioLogos

Join Date 11/2004

Underpowered Spells

Hi,

It feels like a lot of the spells in this game are underpowered. By "underpowered" I mean that they (1) do very little for their mana cost, and (2) don't scale well with increased unit power in the mid and late game.

There are lots of curse, buff, and damage spells with minuscule effects like -3 attack or 6 damage. Unit stacks just have so much hp and damage by mid game that they completely overshadow these spells. Examples include:

Thunderstrike: teleport to target location and do 5 damage to surrounding enemy units.(+2 per air shard).

Storm: strike a random enemy group for 20 damage (+4 per air shard). 1 turn casting time.

Burning hands: does 8 damage to up to three adjacent enemies. (+2 per fire shard). I could consider using this in one of the first battles, but it rapidly loses effectiveness.

Flame wave: 5th level spell, does 4 damage (+2 per fire shard) to all enemy units. This for a 5th level spell!

For some of these, damage is ok for early game, but doesn't scale well. Every damage spell without a +lvl bonus feels pretty weak. (Sunder is the best damage spell in the game, but only works against some enemies). With the (too big) warlock bonus of 50% extra damage, other damage spells can also retain their usefulness later. Also, on a huge map with lots of mana nodes, the damage spells can again become useful in the late end game when you have like +10 fire power. (Then even Flame wave will be really good).

On the other hand, the spells which affect percentages like shrink or growth remain usefull for the entire game. Slow and haste are good because even a little buff or debuff can work wonders, and the small increases through shards are appropriate.

Any thoughts? If you agree, maybe we could compile a list of UP spells and suggested changes for the devs.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

I actually think almost all the 5th lvl spells are underpowered. Life has good 5th lvl spells. Air, fire & water are too expensive for what you get. I forget what you get with death- I normally play with life, but death in general has some very good spells.

agree on the lightning spells, these are supposed to be high lvl spells, but I never use them- esp since air is the one elemental school w/o a summon.

storm has the 1 turn casting delay. it is competing with 2 normal attacks and really needs a damage boost.

Thunderstrike, should cost less mana.

Burning hands is a 1st lvl spell- I think it is ok that it doesn't scale well, it still has occasional uses later on for things vulnerable to fire, or when you can afford to incur a retal ect.

flame wave is a hard one it is researched spell and isn't in every game- as you noted on large games late game it can be very powerful- esp since +1 fire is a 5th lvl conclave city option. It is probably a good example of +per shard spells needing a map size modifier, so the spells are still useful on small maps and not completely overpowering on huge.

haste and slow are awesome combat spells esp. when used together, because the initiative system is relative. Growth is a very good spell, shrink I think is fairly balanced it is useful, but not spam worthy (can be resisted so it doesn't always work, and is fairly expensive mana wise).

Successfully updated karma reason!

Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

Thunderstrike isn't underpowered, especially on a melee hero or archer with high init.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Every Summon spell scales terribly. You spend a trait point to get it, sometimes only to climb the summon tree and it quickly is made irrelevant by basic troops. But I think ive talked about this enough in other threads.

1.Glyph of life is a terrible spell, needs to get bonus from life shard or have some other affect.

2.Regeneration is rarely useful. Maybe make its upkeep 2 mana but make it affect the entire army?

3.Chaos is a terrible terrible spell. Redo it. Water needs an early game damage spell so just turn it into frostbolt, chilling touch or something.

4.Pandemonium sucks. Could give it better effects like confusion and prone instead of like 5dmg -1initiative slows.

5. All the rituals are bad because unless you have the traits/items to back up the spells they are worthless.

6.Candlecloak does 3 dmg. Needs +1 per shard bonus.

7. Personally I would like the see Giant form affect more than damage. Its a lv 5 spell so it wouldn't be overpowered for it to boost health by 50%. As is its kinda boring.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Not any more... Thay just NERF the %^$ ! Out of Shadow bolt to the point that I will NOT take Death Spell Tree any more.

Successfully updated karma reason!

You have to keep in mind that a lot of those spells are great in combination with troops that gain +25% vs. wounded units.

Even 1 point of damage = get the bonus.

Ofc, Storm actually sucks. It's not targettable (would be more useful if it was) and it's only a one time strike. It could be boosted by either allowing targetting, or having the spell hit a random target every other turn for X turns (maybe 1/air shard?) Then it would be a nice spell.

Otherwise, yeah most spells need a leveling bonus via either spellcaster level or via shards.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Thunderstrike is very useful as a teleport spell, but with the new Assassin and Defender teleport abilities the mana cost of Thunderstrike should be reduced slightly.

Storm is very powerful IF you are fighting against a single enemy and have the Warlock profession and the Evoker traits. In that case Storm inflicts 50 points of damage with 1 shard (20 + 4 + 50 % + 60 %).

The problem is that many spells are too weak if you do not have the Warlock profession and the Evoker traits, but if you have them and a few shards the spells are too strong. Spells that scale with the level are even worse, because they are useless at low levels and overpowered at high levels. For example Flame Dart inflicts 2 points of damage at level 1 and 42 points of damage at level 10 with the Warlock profession and the Evoker traits (20 + 50 % + 60 %).

I think the BASE damage of all spells should be increased by 25 % and the bonus of the Warlock profession should be reduced to 25 %. It does not help to give spells high cooldowns like Flame Dart (3 turns), because if they one shot the enemy the cooldown is not important. The BASE spell damage should be useful and not as low as Flame Dart or Shadow Bolt.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Wizard 1200 gets it.

Thunderstrike is not a damage spell. It is a teleport spell. If you have high mana income, one well-equipped champion can solo any stack with that spell.

Summon spells are hardly made obsolete by troops. Fill your army with troops, then add summons in tactical to outnumber any foe!

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Wizard1200,

reply 6

This seems like a good start for balancing spells. Warlock is just a broken trait.

Summon spells are hardly made obsolete by troops. Fill your army with troops, then add summons in tactical to outnumber any foe!

Which takes a turn so costs opportunity. Also all the Wargs, Ignys, earth, air, ice elementals in the world wont help you fight companies of lv5 chainmail wearing mounted units with Boar spears, endurance and +20 accuracy. Which are mid game units easily produced in a decent fort in 1-2 turns.

Once the AI starts producing less horrible troops you'l see what I mean.

Successfully updated karma reason!

This might not be a popular idea, but I think flame dart is a problematic spell. It's quite underpowered in the early game (too expensive, not great damage) and quite overpowered in the late game (massive amounts of damage, very cheap with mantle of oceans and other cost reduction buffs).

Edit: Wizard1200 explains this much better then I do.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Stupidity: Companies are late game.

As for your point, I think you dismiss them too easily. If the elemental takes away the enemy's attention, then YOUR company of chainmail boarspear dudes get the first attack as the result, how is that not valuable? With the reduced casting time trait, you can pop in an elemental every turn. Considering the stinking mud of crag spawn and other summon effects, there is value there.

Are there better strategies? At least one comes to mind. My point is that summons are hardly useless.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Wizard 1200 has it right. The base damage needs to be increased. They nerfed it in FE because spells were too strong, and they went too far in the other direction. Now I can in many cases one shot anybody except dragons with firebolt.

Flame wave sucks big time BTW. For such a "uber" spell at the end, does VERY little damage compared to other spells.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Lightning spells are both fine imo.

Successfully updated karma reason!

The most powerful spellcaster is a lightning mage that relies heavily on storm for single target damage (100 points is not that hard to get if you focus on it) and takes the free fireball spell from research for his AOE damage spell. I have won with this build on expert+ many times.

Rush the -1 casting time talent, it is by far the best talent in the game since it doubles your output.

Mike.

Successfully updated karma reason!