Which spells do folks consider worth learning or upgrading ?

[jake21]

Which spells do folks find most useful? Also, given enough crystals can you learn all spells? (the reason I ask is I'm level 8 and i think i found some nifty spells but not sure if there are tons more later on or if I've seen most of them).

[Strelok]

The most useful? I prefer poleaxe because it's a simple big damage spell... suits my warrior best.

[Tonbo]

Well, I upgraded the Book of Evil summon to the fullest. Not sure if it is considered good, but I love it ^^

[Tibster]

Muhahaha!:twisted:
Sacrifice! :twisted: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Geyser! :twisted:

[Sandsai]

In so far as spells are concerned, I prefer skills that either augment your troops, like precision, bless, or other buffs, I love armor buffs. Phantom image is not bad either. I also like spells that hamper your enemy like pigmy (at lvl 3 -40% health and damage). Direct damage is all fine and dandy in the beginning but loses out later on due to the high leadership stacks involved. For example, if you have low leadership you will be dealing with smaller stacks of troops meaning that 200 damage is real good against the small stack. But once you have 200 swordsman, 200 damage is pretty weak in comparison of killing 40% of that stacks HP. Has WAY more impact.

[Ball Buster]

For example, if you have low leadership you will be dealing with smaller stacks of troops meaning that 200 damage is real good against the small stack. But once you have 200 swordsman, 200 damage is pretty weak in comparison of killing 40% of that stacks HP. Has WAY more impact.

Yeah, but by the moment you have 200 swordsmen, your damage spells do much more damage than 200. Right now, I'm with 11' level warrior, with aproximately 5000 leadership (100 swordsmen), and my default damage spell do nearly 300 points of damage, and I only have level 1 order magic. Also, if you have a unit with high initiative, but your shooters have worst initiative, doing damage in the beginning of the turn could help you to minimize damage of the enemy's faster units.

[Sandsai]

You're missing the point. The point is that direct damage scales very poorly in general. The point was that late game it is far more beneficial to go with buffs or debuffs that work on a percentage basis. Pain mirror is very useful in this regard, so is pigmy, so is bless and all other percentage based spells. Initiative problems are solved by onslaught for a warrior. A fast moving troop and phantom image or just teleport allows for any melee troop to reach the other side in one turn, boom shooter problem solved.

To demonstrate the lack of a proper scale lets take your own example. 300 damage vs. -20% in health and damage of a 1-2 tier stack. Recalling from memory, swordsmen have 35 hp, tier 2. Thats 3500 hp you take -20% hp that is more than double of the 300 damage spell. You also reduced the damage by same amount. This is a level one pigmy spell. So as you can see, direct damage scales poorly in relation to percentage based spells.

[Munch10]

I'd have to say Dragon Arrows (great for a large stack of bowmen - it makes them my most damaging group from any range) and Resurrection. I pretty much cast Dragon Arrows the first turn, then save the rest of my mana to resurrect troops. That keeps me going without having to go back for more troops all the time.

-Munch

[Tibster]

Sandsai i think that youre point is purely circumstantial!
I can cast geyser with 1000 dmg aver. on 8 enemies , 2 times per round!(mage super skill!) :rolleyes:

[Ball Buster]

The best spells for you depends on what's your battle strategy. And that's all. In my opinion, the buffs are good in some circumstancies, like Tibster points. Onslaught only solve the initiave's problem in the first turn. Teleport or fast moving force you to lose the turn's spell, besides leaves your troop in the perfect situation to be the main target of ALL foes.

In your hypothetical situation, maybe you'd be right, but the game it's not as simply as that. In the battle, there are some circumstances that don't let your troops to do what you want. So, that's why so important the direct damage of the spells: allows you to kill some units, no matter what would happen one or two turns before.

[Kolorabi]

For example, if you have low leadership you will be dealing with smaller stacks of troops meaning that 200 damage is real good against the small stack.
I'm not sure I understand this; does your leadership dictate the size of the enemy stacks?

[Lord_Loffen]

he probably meant that that you don't attack too strong enemies and it will be early in the game, where the enemies are pretty weak

[Hepasto The Terror]

This game has too many damn good spells. like have knights ans use haste on them. no dragon can face you. Use hypnosis, use fire rain, use demon's portal, use lightning, healing (against undead only) does damage costing 1 mana! (on level 3).


And Armageddon, too powerfull. Only sad part is our own troops get 1/3 damage.


for lot more details, ask me...

[Sandsai]

I'm not sure I understand this; does your leadership dictate the size of the enemy stacks?

It doesn't but as your leadership grows so will the opponents, at least that's how it should work. But ya, I guess it really depends on your play style. It just seems to me that as your stacks grow due to leadership, it becomes quite beneficial to cast bless than a direct damage spell. Meh, just me I guess.

[Newbie1234]

Currently playing Paladin on Hard.

I'm still only level 7, and I currently use mainly Resurrection, Magic Poleaxe, and Slow.

Slow is really useful for giving your shooters time to damage melee before they come in close and you're forced to use your own melee.

Poleaxe is mainly just for extra damage when I'm in a situation where slow or resurrection isn't useful.

[axxis32]

The spells I use the most (and even more after gaining lvl 3 in order and distortion magic) is haste and that spell that adds initiative...

Those 2 rocks (as a mage, being able to cast twice is great), summon phoenix isnt too bad either.

Lightning is kinda cool if upgraded (chain lightning=lots of dead enemies)

[stupidface]

I think Ghost Sword and Fireball might be two best direct-damage spells. :)

You guys have lots of cool spells I'm not finding in my game! But the best one that I use all the time so far is "Fit of Energy," because it gives me two turns with one unit. I always give the extra turn to my best ranged unit, so usually on my first turn I can eliminate any single stack of enemy troop that I choose to.

I have about 170 Bowmen, 20 Cannoneers, 30 Alchemists, and 40 Evil Beholders. The bowmen do the most damage if the enemy has low defense, otherwise the Evil Beholders are best because they do magic damage instead of physical.

[kennec]

fireball early

firerain later. rain hurts all enemys same damage and hits up to 7 in one nuke.

anyone used ice spikes or ice spells?

[daydreamer]

Lightning - at level two is actually Chain Lighting and it can hit up to five units.
Gift - refreshes abilities of the target unit. I usually cast it on Inquisitors to res those units (evil beholders and archmages) that I can't use my Resurrection spell on . My Res spell is only lvl 2 so it can be cast only on 1-3 lvl of units, but the Res skill of Inquisitors has no such limitation.
Blind - makes an enemy unit lose 2 turns (no moving, no attacking).
Hypnotize - take control of an enemy unit for 2 turns. It usually ends with all the enemy units concentrating fire on the hypnotized one, since it is the closest to them.
Slow and Haste - no need to explain why.
Resurrection - a time and money saver.

[phoenixreborn]

I'm rather fond of Summon Phoenix. I got it pretty early, level 9 and upgraded it to third level. It helps with enemy shooters. I also like that it rebirths.

[GreyBeard]

Hello haven't played alot yet to test different skills/spells but I maxed Scouting right off. I am playing a Warrior who is level 5.

Its a huge help to get a idea what the strength of the enemy is especially in early game, really helps cut down on lost battles.

Remember, know thy enemy.

GB

[jWTFz]

Ice snake is pretty damn nasty, great damage,basically a better fireball, but it does tend to weaken a bit later as enemies start having physical damage resistance.

Fireball is a classic, but kina loses it's edge later on.

Bless at Level 3 is awesome, as it becomes mass bless, and raises your armys damage tremendously.

However, I personally prefer the Level 3 Weakness spell... it becomes a mass antibless spell againes enemies... That's right, the entire enemy army suddenly starts hitting for minimum damage. Unfortunatly it's extremely expensive crystal wise (20!)

One underrated gem is actually Flaming Arrow, which may look unimpressive damage wise, until you realise the mana cost does not actually scale. That means in Level 3, it still costs 5 mana, great for sticky situations.

Other than that, Pain Mirror is always a classic, as is Mass Haste and Trap.
And for long battles, Mana spring is essential, just put it on your melee, and watch the mana flow.

I am wondering if I should invest in alchemy now tho, cause that Weakness spell was too damn expensive.

[kennec]

One underrated gem is actually Flaming Arrow, which may look unimpressive damage wise, until you realise the mana cost does not actually scale. That means in Level 3, it still costs 5 mana, great for sticky situations.


i use it alot to. with +6 mana per turn and using that greasy mist that weakens fire resistance with 47% it do superb damage for 5 mp.

i use it on slow huge stacks.

[Frank]

As a level 22 Warrior, I've used Bless, Weakness, Slow and Haste throughout and I just started on Phantom and Blind (awesome!) recently. At least for my playstyle, Distortion (lvl 2) >> Order (2) >> Chaos (1, used only to burn plants).

I agree with Sandsai that direct damage is less important than tactics in the late game, based on my experience with the Rage Box. I can do a lot of damage with Underground Spikes and Void (or whatever it's called), but it's always best to drop an Ice Ball in front of the enemy's archers instead.

[PHJF]

Fire Rain (infinitely better than fireball)

Ice Snake (for fire resistant enemies like dragons)

Poison Skull (again, for fire-resistant ememies; also potentially does more damage than Fire Arrow)

Pole Axe (really only if you haven't found Ice Snake yet)

Lightning is a massive waste of mana, so ignore it. Damage is actually lower than Ice Snake, yet it costs 15 more mana (and that's WITH archmage's staff).

[Fate]

I would say Phantom and Resurrection. These are my most commonly use spells as a Paladin.

[laffwis]

well i as a mage prefer damaing spells. firstly you can take out a whole bunch in the first to third round, if you have that special mage skill giving you 2 spells a turn.

with that you can take out archers first and then the approaching meelee troops.

this stategy allows you to destroy most your enemies before they can even reach you. im playing on "normal" on lvl 11 and fighting against overpowering enemies withouot loosing much of my troops. thats really a good way to gain xp fast.

[oceanskie]

Pain mirror and haste were definitely the most used spells for my pally

[tritiy]

As a Mage (playing normal), at the later stages of the game, I have found that Magic Trap is the most valuable spell for me. Upgraded to lvl 3 it does cca 3000 points of damage and, even more important, stops the enemy in its tracks.
What is also great is that Trap even works with Dragons (and other flying creatures) and Archdevils (which teleport themselves). You will have to guess where a dragon or archdevil would land for it to be effective but if you are carefull on how you position your troops you might 'lead' them where you want them.
Magic chains (or shackles I am not sure now) on lvl 3 were essential in the deamon land and when facing enemies which rely on their special abilities (giants, necros, demoness :). But you must upgrade them to lvl 3 when they are 'mass'.
Gate is another cool spell because, not only does it give you more units in the battle (which is allways good) but they also block the square were they are located for 2 turns so the enemy can not get past it.

From destructive spells the favourites are Geyser and Fire arrow (or flame arrow, can't remember). Ice serpent is also great because it slows down the enemy

[OmegaDestroyer]

Of all the spells in the game, I think Battle Cry is by far the most useful especially against enemy heroes. The level 3 version if incredibly useful if you're stuck with slower units.

[Renevent]

I have a level 19 mage, and my most used spell is definetly fire rain. I have mostly +int and + mana items (archmage staff, ect) and married the frog princess (+3 int). The spell does like 2500 fire damage in a very large radius, and with level 3 skill that allows you to cast spells twice a round for 3 rounds, I can lay down massive damage in the first 3 rounds. Most armies never even get a single unit to me. It would be even better, but I think I got shafted on the attribute selections in between leveling. I think I got offered +int like twice...kinda wierd for a mage. I do have like 20 defense though :D

Also, a good tactice is to hire a very fast unit with good initiative. The canoneers are a good example. With a damage focused mage it's extremely important to get the first shot. I usually kill anything that can hit me from a distance first, then concentrate on any melee types.

Ice Snake is excellent until you find fire rain...it has a higher damage to the center monster, but the aoe damage is much weaker. It also has a smaller radius and forces you to cast on a target, instead of anywhere. It's good for things like killing those goblin towers though.

Fireball is also good early on, but is just too weak later in the game.

Fire arrow is very nice considering it's mana cost...though I only use it after I have casted fire rain 6 times (2 per round = 120 mana ouch!).

Poison skull is really hit or miss...it has a high max damage...but the min damage is pitifully low. It's really like gambling :P

If you haven't noticed...I pretty much just made a damage type mage. It was kinda hard in the start to mid game, but once you get the skill that allows multiple spells per round, lots of mana, and fire rain you pretty much decimate anything.

[player1]

As mage with high intellect, it's obvious that I prefer damage spells from destruction school a lot, so I there is no need to much anything more about them.

Chaos school has also good debuff called Weakness, which is Mass spell when upgraded to 3rd level. Great in situations when enemy army is so big that damage spells would less reduce enemy attack potential then weakness itself.

From other schools, I always found Ressurection useful to keep loses to minimum if possible.

Magic Axe is useful too, early in game when you need to single out one target, and fire arrow is too weak.

Also Geyser is great spell if you can spare leveling Distortion school, since it will affect multiple targets (uo to 8 at 3rd level) without hitting any of your troops.

[Namel]

I am liking distortion spells more and more.
-Trap is great, does huge damage and takes all their action points.
-Phantom is excellent
-Hypnosis is ok if you find right sized stack
-Magic Spring is must for longer fights for non mage.
-Ghost blade is pretty good single target damage spell
-Geysir is area damage spell that you are guaranteed to get so you can count having it.

For warrior I am getting distortion 3 first. For mage chaos first is probably best since you have fireball from start.

[LiveInABox]

I finished it as a warrior and Phantom was the spell i used the most. definitely worth upgrading to level 3. also used mass bless alot, dragon arrows and Beserk which is an awesome spell. Resurection, haste and dispell came in handy as well.

[Metathron]

I'm rather fond of Summon Phoenix. I got it pretty early, level 9 and upgraded it to third level. It helps with enemy shooters. I also like that it rebirths.

I quite like it too, but on the other hand I find it dissappointing that the phoenix is too weak even at level 3. Maybe I expected more from the spell, especially for 30 mana (playing as warrior).

[Tamaki]

Well I have a level 13 mage, FINALLY got enough magic runes for the twice per turn casting skill (I seem to find only might runes... I have no idea what to do with all those lol), and I got Chaos spells level 3, and I just found Demon Gate!
So yeah, I totally LOVE Demon Gate! I summon like 41 demons or demonesses or 5 Archdemons or how they are called, etc. It's basically bye bye enemy from there.

I like the distortion school as well, but since I have so few mind/magic runes I dunno if it's wise to upgrade... You guys say the order school with mass bless etc. is essential later on? Hmmm well I'll see. Maybe the runes will even out in the end.

In my stack I have 23 shamans, 23 evil beholders, 23 archimages and sea dogs and pirates (I am on the islands of freedom). They don't even get to me now, which is really sweet.

I haven't found a LOT of the spells that to me seem really great, like Geyser, hypnotize, ressurection (!), fire rain, phantom, lightning, pigmy, etc.

Also I read Royal Snakes rock... I believe that, but in my game I cannot get them anywhere.

I do however LOVE this, because you are forced to improvise and use what is there for you to the best of your abilities. This makes you develop new strategies etc. whenever you come in a new territory or the troops run out or something.

When I first came to the Freedom Isles I got whipped... hard. I was throwing my troops at them like there was no tomorrow...
But now I adapted, got a new spell (demon gate), changed my units and strategy and I rule now :D

Love the game!

So my best spell: Demon Gate!
After that: Ice Snakes: love the slow-effect.
After that: Fire Arrow (when they stand close to your troops)
After that: Fireball
After that: ... well it all depends on the circumstances anyhow :P

A few questions: How do you feed that Evil Book? I think it's a waste.. it won't feed on large stacks (above, what, 200 leadership??) and besides, I have no way of ressing units (my only 23 inquisitors I ever found are dead already :(, I tried for a long time to keep them alive as much as possible but they got killed in the end).
I love my archimages and do my best to keep them alive since I have only 28 left to restock (in two different places far between).

Uh got sidetracked...

How do you feed evil book?
Is grease mist worth it?
Do you use Doom?
Is Plague worth it?

Thanks and greetings!

[bsctgod]

Level 27 Mage right now. I use the following spells frequently.

Battlecry - Mass
Haste - Mass
Healing - For dragons and giants in my army
Blessing
Dragon Slayer - Mass
Resurrection
Slow
Pain Mirror - My only damage spell after hitting Haas Labyrinth.
Trap - Combine with Emerald Dragon talent
Magic Shackles - Mass - Necessary for those obnoxious Demon armies
Blind
Hypnosis - Only used in conjunction with Sacrifice
Sacrifice

[Gatts]

Level 27 Mage right now. I use the following spells frequently.

Battlecry - Mass
Haste - Mass
Healing - For dragons and giants in my army
Blessing
Dragon Slayer - Mass
Resurrection
Slow
Pain Mirror - My only damage spell after hitting Haas Labyrinth.
Trap - Combine with Emerald Dragon talent
Magic Shackles - Mass - Necessary for those obnoxious Demon armies
Blind
Hypnosis - Only used in conjunction with Sacrifice
Sacrifice


Good you mention Hypnosis / sacrificy - I was always thinking about this combination - but never got real chance of leveling up both of them so:

- Can you sacrifice hypontized enemy unit to increase your own?

BTW - I realized that BLIND works on undead - WOW

Also I see you don't like phantom that much - well maybe it is not as liked as I would expect

[bsctgod]

Good you mention Hypnosis / sacrificy - I was always thinking about this combination - but never got real chance of leveling up both of them so:

- Can you sacrifice hypontized enemy unit to increase your own?

Yup. I used it to raise full armies of Hunters, Inquisitors, and Orc Veterans when I didn't have ample sources of each. I'd go clean up on all those Unique Pirates in the Isles I left behind.

BTW - I realized that BLIND works on undead - WOW

I wasn't aware of this. I assumed it didn't so I never used it on undead. I was thinking of using that Sheep spell on undead but my only seller of the spell was in the Demon lands, which I had already closed behind.

Also I see you don't like phantom that much - well maybe it is not as liked as I would expect

I don't know, I just never incorporated Phantom into my playstyle. I didn't think Pain Mirror would be any good until I started doing 8-10K+ damage castings for only 10 mana. You never know.

[Gatts]

Phantom used to be very powerfull spell - that is why many multiplayer games "balanced" / downpowered it (so the phantom image would disapper after first hit - or that the phantom image has "ghost" form - could be missed by 50% chance, but can't dodge fireball) - it was this "balance" that made it less used in battles (Still I remember how I doubled my archangels in HOMM 3 and smashed the strongest enemy stack into pieces of babycry tears)

Here I love that the phantom has all skills/abilities of original (normally it does not have the abilities/ sometime it even does not have special skills - like life stealing etc)

I also like that it has full health (each from phantom unit has normal health of original unit - not less, not 1... )

So my phantom ghosts/phantom vamps can deliver nice fight (also that many spells work on phantom units - like stone skin, magic spring... many games prevent this as they don't take phantom as normal unit - but as spell/ability)

To prove the phantom usefull:
You like undead army? (I do) and wonder how beat Korador with few loses?
1.) Magic Shacle (to remove "dispall" arrows from skell archers - best would be if you fight only one stack of archers
2.) phantom ghosts (if you are not playing for mage - you should first use phantom - let the fly behind your enemy - to attract them - but this would tottally change my strategy)
3.)If you place the ghosts correctly - you should gain even "desorientation" effect and cause AI to get somehow "lost" in da battle
4.) Stoneskin on your Phantom Ghosts (If you placed the phantom gost wrongly - too far - you may experience that you have no phantom ghosts anymore :) )
5.) - even as archers and necromancers my shoot behind your phantom ghost --- the loses should not be that great... also archers tend to shoot your army that is nearest -> what is phantom ghost
6.) place magic spring on them (or create new stack if your first phantom is killed) + combine it with "hit and run" tactics - wait with vamps / your real ghosts, hit enemy and as you should start first - Undead Commander skill -> return back
7.) If you can still cast 2 spells even in second round (on Impossible I usually can't) - now you can go for some damage spells (remove archers/necromancers) - let your necromancers to use their necro call on enemy dead (if any) - and again - could be ghosts / cursed ghosts and you may consider enchant them with stone skin again...

as stone skin is cumulative (not like dead armom) with natural defences - your ghosts will have 90% PHY resistance and 50% poison resistance (necromancers have half phy/half magic... still do little real damage) - your stoneskinned ghosts are REAL tank units ...

Why is Phantom so important? - When using BAIT tactics - you have to hand over someone for real damage - non phantom ghosts would not only suffer, also they could not participate on "hit and run" tactics... + enemy shooters have increase random max roll - as you have more stacks, enemy tank units go crazy for your bait, enemy casters usually hate phantom and want to remove it ASAP -> that is why phantom works better as BAIT than normal unit (well, there is this one "Improve AI" MOD - which would probably negate this tactic in huge extend)

[lauvhk]

Just a sidenote. If you ever use Dryad/Demoness, you can also use Sacrifice on the charmed enemy troops. Of course, it is less stellar than Hypnotize.

[Amiable]

Just a sidenote. If you ever use Dryad/Demoness, you can also use Sacrifice on the charmed enemy troops. Of course, it is less stellar than Hypnotize.

I don't know about that... Demonesses + Anga's ruby (or even without they have a high initiative).

Round 1 have a tank unit and the demonesses wait. Demonesses go last swap Tank unit for stack of humanoids.

Round 2 Demonesses go first - hypnotize. Immediately cast sacrifice.

The advantage is you get to cast whatever spell(s) you want in turn 1. It is especially useful for warriors/paladins who do not get high magic and thus cannot hypnotize sacrifice on the same round and it also saves on the mana so you need to spend less time regening/recharging. I have used this to terrific effect on immpossible (I rush to Demonis and grab Demonesses first thing).

Sacrifice is also hilariously mana efficient as an attack spell....

Few other points:

Blind is terrific, it works on undead.

Target is also awesome if you get a big tank unit, becomes even more awesome when you get timeback.

Dragon arrows will turn a stack of undead archers into an unstoppable killing machine.

People love phantom and it is very useful in certain situations, but to be honest, I can achieve almost the same or better crowd control effect using target/blind for a fraction of the mana cost.

Stoneskin vs. gods armor... God's armor prevents more damage but is pricey from a mana standpoint and it also requires a hefty investment in order. I tend to focus on distortion first (for all the awesome spells) and then chaos (solely for sacrifice efficiency, everything else is useless to me, except perhaps for demon portal).

This is coming from an impossible difficulty warrior/paladin player. Mages may find other things more useful (especially if they are lucky enough to get their hands on armageddon).

[Gatts]

God's armor is stuck on max resistance, so only good about it is that it provide resistance agains all types of damage (but astral :( )

Target is great, but it has limits on: mind immune enemy, level 5 enemy units... than Phantom works fine... that is why I use Phantom, sooner I get used to Phantom tactics better later on... so even if phantom tactics may seem too difficult and expensive early on, you will adopt the "way of phantom" and will be excellent player till the bittern end of this game, but using target spell instead will leave you blindfooted against cyclops, dragons, archdemons etc...

[Amiable]

God's armor is stuck on max resistance, so only good about it is that it provide resistance agains all types of damage (but astral :( )

Target is great, but it has limits on: mind immune enemy, level 5 enemy units... than Phantom works fine... that is why I use Phantom, sooner I get used to Phantom tactics better later on... so even if phantom tactics may seem too difficult and expensive early on, you will adopt the "way of phantom" and will be excellent player till the bittern end of this game, but using target spell instead will leave you blindfooted against cyclops, dragons, archdemons etc...

Yeah I agree, late game phantom sees a lot more use (when you have higher level stacks and more of them), but early game I prefer target. But I find if you are clever about your tanking unit you can usually get higher level folks to focus on them. (Im having fun now running a dryad unit up front and having her cast her summon thorns ability, for some reason the high level mobs LOVE to attack her and/or the thorns - thorns are like sweet delicious cake to dragons).

I'm a bit lazy though, I like to end battle battles at near full mana/rage and I find if I use phantom I end up spending a lot more time rebuilding one I get combat under control...

[Gatts]

Enemy AI units go mostly for:
1.) your most dangerous unit (your unit dealing type of damage AI is vulnerable to, or is strong shooter, or both)

2.) is weak against the type of damage AI is dealing (Dragons with Fire damage, will most likely attack your thorns as they will deliver much more damage/kills than if the would attack any other unit... +100% damage)

Also sometimes AI goes just for the nearest (this turn I can hit this summoned loser or noone... hmm I take the loser...)

The base logic I see behind AI logic is to deliver damage ASAP, not huge planning or strategy... so you can go for BAIT strategy using any spell or even w/o spells... AI is basically looking on type of resistance/damage and HP, it can't calculate well with it's own skills/abilities and not at all with yours...

So AI brainlessly uses up all its abilities and totally does not try to hinder you from using yours... the max we may await from AI is to try to hinder your shooters... but even this can be avoided by BAIT strategy :), so at the end, phantom or target... AI has many logic holes that players who are not first time in strategy world can reveal very fast and so sadly spoil the game little bit (not me, first I am not good stretegyst, that is also the reason for second point, which is : I love to rock'n'roll on bodies of my fallen enemies... )

[maltz]

For warriors, top 3 spells:

(1) Hypnotize (Distortion)

Use it to open a battle and complete waste the enemy's turn. The AI makes it a priority to kill the hypnotized friendly unit. Cast it just after evil beholder's special ability (of the same effect) and you get one more turn of hypnosis.

(2) Phantom (Distortion)

Sometimes it is impossible to hypnotize any enemy unit, but phantom works as well. Just clone your best unit and use it to tank.

(3) Sacrifice (Chaos - lv2 is enough)

Great for growing stacks that's hard to come by. For example, only 22 ever-useful inquisitors were ever available to me in my game. With the spell I've grown it to a stack of 300+ by late game. You need some good intelligence to be able to sacrifice a dragon back at chaos lv 2, but you can just buy them later anyway.

These are the spells that I use > 80% of the time. Dragon Arrow and Dispel are handy but you don't need to upgrade them at all.

[Ryastar]

Dragon Arrow and Dispel are handy but you don't need to upgrade them at all.

I disagree about the second half of that statement. I agree about dragon arrows - i rarely need more than the 2 (iirc) that the basic level provides, and the upgrade only increases the number of them you get, not their effectiveness etc. Dispel, however, is practically useless at 1st level. All it does is remove all spells on any friendly troop. It therefore cannot be used to remove a buff from an enemy unit, or remove hypnotize from your own unit etc. At second level, it gains the ability to be used on an enemy unit, which is nice, but at third level it becomes truly amazing. At third level, it dispels negative effects from a friendly unit or positive effects from an enemy unit. This is truly amazing, especially since the cost does not increase from level to level, but stays a low 5 mana. It will remove the debuffs put on you without removing the buffs, and removes the buffs on your opponents without removing the debuffs.

Extra hint with dispel: cast it on any phantom troop for instant death of that troop. But you can only do this to your opponent with level 2+ dispel.

I know it means getting levels in order, but I've had a lot of success with a 3/3/1 o/d/c warrior. As a warrior, you will never need powerful damage spells from chaos, the only reason for more chaos is so you can use sacrifice to gain dragons. Personally, I've never had problems with not enough dragons - there are plenty available for sale, and the inquisitors/timeback/gift cycle will easily res them back, with time, except for blackies, of course, but sacrifice can't gain you any blackies anyways. And the extra order means full power from spells like: res, helplessness, bless, battle cry, dispel, divine armor, etc - mostly spells that are more effective on bigger armies.

[FarAway Sooner]

That's one of the great things about this game--at different points in the game, against different types of enemies, using different types of characters yourselves, different spells make sense.

Having played mostly as an early-level wizard, my Fireball dishes out a lot more damage than any individual stacks that I have (except maybe a blessed stack of Royal Snakes fighting Undead!), but it there are many variables, and they call change over time.

The fact that there is no single "logical spell progression path" is part of what contributes to the game's replay value!

[skel1977]

Fireball, ice dragon thing. Poison skull, flame arrow. Basically take out as many units as possible for they get into mele range

[maltz]

I am about 2/3 through the Impossible Mage game. Now I consistently pull off 0-loss battles thanks to the following spells:

(1) Resurrection. Obviously needed for 0-loss. Inquisitor + Gift gets better at end game (when your stack of inquisitors grows over your spell power).

(2) Trap. Very effective at stopping an advancing army. Also you... just know where that huge dragon stack is going to land, right? :grin:

(3) Mass Lv 3 Magic Shackles. Remove annoying fireballs from all demons!

(4) Sheep. Instantly render a huge stack useless for 2 terms. Better than slow the stack does not retaliate - so you can freely gang up and beat the crap out of it.

(5) Slow. Cast it early on a bad stack and don't worry about this stack for quite a while.

Direct damage spells are losing their appeal. You can still fireball out a huge Royal Thorn stack as there is 100% damage bonus.

Other very handy things:

- Reaper's Time Back - take heavy loss and boom! It never happened! Be careful that the old location has to be kept empty.

- Higher magic. I only have level 2 and it is soooo good.

[skel1977]

So far im doing 2 demon summonings at beginning of battle. Or 2 ice snakes at beginning of battle depending.
After the first turn the demons are the ones taking beatings so im heavily ranged based now.

Also berserk, mass bless, mass haste, mass weakness are all worth learning as well but its hard to get everything since runes can be hard to get and mana as well. You have to pick and choose and base a strategy around your guy.

[Longasc]

Geyser, Pain Mirror -> get to level 3 Distortion Magic, both spells rock.

Also important: Resurrection, later on after you got "Time Back" Sacrifice.

[Monstruel]

Level 26 Mage on Impossible, and I still use direct damage spells with frightening efficiency.

My Kamikaze spell does a max over over 8000 damage. Fire Rain does just over 6000 damage. Ice Snake does 6750 damage to the initial target.

42 intelligence will do that. :)

Actually it'll be 47 soon, since I'm about to finish "draining" the Pain Skull.

I actually find Geyser kind of weak for the mana cost, unless it's a battle with exactly 8 stacks which do not resist physical damage (much or at all).

Right now I have a full army, since the Pain Skull halves my Mana. But I actually got from level 18 to level 25 by winning battles against hordes in Death Land and Elinia with a single stack of Necromancers. No other army. That's due to a little Invisibility abuse.

THAT is one of my favourite/most powerful spells in the game.
With the Might tree undead upgrades, your Necromacers have 9 Initiative (8 if enemy has Black Dragons present). It means you get to cast first, before any enemy action. Invisibility is your first spell, then just do Kamikaze on the next three turns. Invisibility lasts 4 turns (and you can replenish it without ever getting movement from the enemy, with the wait command, thanks to high Initiative, the enemy finishes its turn before you have to press "defend"), so the Kamikaze cycle starts before even your first cast of Invisibility expires.

At 5500-8500 damage per each bomb for 15 mana, the Kamikaze cycle is a wonder to behold. :evil:

After that my Necromancers raise the dead three times, and these mop up the survivors (if any).

And the wonderful thing is that while Kamikaze can't be cast on Black Dragons, it CAN be cast on the units NEXT to them. :evil:

If for some reason I'm running out of mana, there's the magic spring + poison rain trick. Or even just summoning a Demon Gate and then using magic spring on the demon. Doing so in conjunction with an Ice Ball taking away some attention from the summoned stack helps it survive.

So, even on Impossible difficulty, you can still go with direct damage spells IF you push your Intelligence (and mana) up at the expense of everything else. My Attack is at 7 and defense only at 15, IIRC. Really low, yes, but then it doesn't matter when 90% of the damage comes from my spells and 90% of enemy units never get to hit anything.

Of course if I was still playing a Warrior or Paladin on Hard/Impossible, I'd get myself a nice stack of Skeleton Archers and use Dragon Arrows on 'em. Now THAT is some insanely broken damage (10 Black Dragons gone in a single shot from ~1500 archers)!

[klasicni]

Monstruel I tried your Kamikaze tehnique and it's really great! I don't have such high INT as you only 35, but I have killed lvl 30 fight (dragon) at the tournament with lvl 23 mage (only 5 green dragons in my army).

I must say that you found a gem! Wonderfull!

I started with this at lvl 22, because I haven't found Invisibility spell before. In other fights I have also combined with some Demon gates and Magic spring if needed, that's all...

So far I have found only one problem with this kind of fighting. Evil book and Plants... they still seem to see me, so there this does not work...

[jwallstone]

I'm a bit confused. Are you casting Kamikaze on your own troops and just moving them next to the enemy?

[klasicni]

No no... you hide one troop you have. I think the best one unit to have right now are emerald (green) dragons...

So first you cast Invisibility spell on them, then you put Kamikaze (bomb) on the enemy units, and you just press defend or wait on your dragons... till round four. Then I use Invisibility spell again and do the process again. The only troop you can not cast Kamikaze on are Black dragons, but the unit exploding next to them kill's them.

Since I started this I killed everything only with spells, no need for units. There were maybe 5 out of 50 fights that I used demon gate to clean up everything. Right now I have 149 mana and 39 INT.

BUM all the way!

[jwallstone]

Wow, that sounds great. But the description for Kamikaze clearly says that it's for your own troops: "A bomb is attached to the friendly target...", so I always thought that it could only be cast on your own troops and never tried it out. Is this possibly a bug?

Regardless, it sounds like fun and I'll try it out.

[Elwin]

Well in my opinion name of spell speaks for itslelf .. should be only on your units so i think its bug

[Ryder]

As a Mage (playing normal), at the later stages of the game, I have found that Magic Trap is the most valuable spell for me. Upgraded to lvl 3 it does cca 3000 points of damage and, even more important, stops the enemy in its tracks.
What is also great is that Trap even works with Dragons (and other flying creatures) and Archdevils (which teleport themselves). You will have to guess where a dragon or archdevil would land for it to be effective but if you are carefull on how you position your troops you might 'lead' them where you want them.

Is the correct answer. Great spell.

Another spell that is great is pain mirror. My mage in the last game had it over 200% damage return. I'd send my Fairies in, they'd get hammered by level 5 enemies, pain mirror, time back, thanks for coming.

[ywhtptgt]

Magic Spring: Good for very long battles where you have a tank stack.
Fear: Low cost disable with long duration if used right
Demon Gate: Excellent fodder and blocking spell (Demons are the best, obviously). If coupled with Magic Spring, it's possible to keep the mana pool refilled very quickly.
Sacrifice: Makes more troops. If you have Demonesses or Hypnosis, can make troops at enemies' expense.
Gift: Very handy for non-Ryders who have rely on Inquisitors for Resurrection in early game.
Invisibility: Essential for many of the cheesy tactics.
Armageddon: If you ever get this spell, it is game over for pretty much any enemy army.

On the other hand, I don't find Sheep very useful simply because it costs an enormous amount of mana and there are other spells out there that can be just as useful.

[Elwin]

Magic spring,ress,mass dragon slayer,mass magic schackles,trap,pain mirror,teleport,target,phantom,hypnosis,doom probably blind would be great but i have never found it o.O
gift is a nice spell but mostly for inqi so lvl 1 is enough , dragon arrows can be at lvl2 if you dont have 15+ int,sacrifice 2 is mostly enough, sheep is quite expensive spell .. those are good for every classes. For mage also some direct damages like fire rain,armageddon, also demon portal is nice

[Hayte]

Wow, that sounds great. But the description for Kamikaze clearly says that it's for your own troops: "A bomb is attached to the friendly target...", so I always thought that it could only be cast on your own troops and never tried it out. Is this possibly a bug?

Regardless, it sounds like fun and I'll try it out.

You can put it on friendly units if you want but of course that doesn't work for the strategy noted on the previous page.

A nice way to start against an army with at least 1x stack of non mind immunes is with Hypnosis + Magic Spring in turn 1. Now wait as the AI beats that unit stack to a pulp giving you all your mana back to cast...Kamikaze on the hypnotized stack in turn 2.

It leaves you with alot of opening options in turn 3 and alot of mana. you can detonate the bomb yourself by killing the weakened stack with your own units when Hypnosis wears off. Or the AI might kill it off and detonate the bomb that way but its great way to:

1) kill off a powerful enemy stack without having to do anything. And you get tonnes of rage for it too.
2) prevent most baddies from attacking or moving against your own units for at least 2 turns.
3) deal a metric tonne of damage to all melee units wailing on your puppet through retaliation and the spell Kamikaze.
4) leaves you with enough mana and rage + good unit positioning to cast whatever you want coming into turn 3 with little or no losses, even against armies much stronger than you.

It also sets up an awesome Pain Mirror because we are talking full enemy unit stacks attacking your puppet with total abandon.

[Shadowcran]

Perhaps the topic should be:

What spells wouldn't you upgrade with a gun pointed at your head telling you to?

It's easy to find the really, really good spells that compliment your style of play. I tend to prefer the Phoenix as basically attack absorption for example. Yet, I'm still technically a "noob" and would like to know the spells not worth bothering with at all.

I'm a level 22 Paladin, and it's too late to realize that magic crystals aren't endless so that knowledge will help in my next gameplay.