I don't agree about Sleem's spells being useless. I mostly use the Gloat armor, and as second I use poison cloud. It is a great tool to earn lots of mana (with Mana Spring).
Also, Evil Shoal is useful, since I usually end up with full rage and low mana. The Shoal as it is now in my game, it deals about 1500-2000 damage which is more than the damage from the Inquisitors, and is usually cheap rage-wise and has a cooldown of only 2 turns now.
Zerock is the Spirit I use very seldom, esp. the blades: they deal less damage than the Shoal, and cost much more rage at this level.
Lina's skills: I use mostly the Chargers (to revive all my losses, and that indeed depends on the player's playstyle), and sometimes I pop a Sphere when my rangers get their a$$es in a sling (to block the advance of enemy meleers).
Gizmo I don't use, since it has the nasty habit of popping the last weak enemy ranged stack I left for the purpose of gaining mana/rage.
Ripper's Rage drain is awesome, as the Time back is: sacrifice a huge number of an xx stack to boost my most valuable units, then time back and all is well in lala land. EDIT-->
Learned form Sector24 a much better way to do it: Resurrect with Inquisitors, then TimeBack. No mana needed.Skills I rarely use: Zerock Sword stomp: was nice at start, is lame now. RockFall: only if I can spank two stacks of 'mages' with it. The wall: useful in tight moments if I need a weak, one-turn barricade (usually useless if I have Shamans with me. Blades: almost never, low damage, high usage of rage, better to transform rage into mana and pop another Geyser. Sleem: poisonous spit. I never use, low damage and prevents me from using the Poisonous cloud again for xx turns.
Lina: Gizmo. Can't control him, no need for it's healing as log as I have shamans, damage is so-so, can and WILL end a carefully planned battle one turn too early (not everyone resurrected yet). Ice thorns..I have very little experience with that, I don't feel it's useful for my playstyle. Ice ball, expensive, ok tanker used only in those hairy situations when enemy walkers are about to stomp my rangers (if for some reason I fail to cast slow or blind on them).
Reaper's Soul Drain is somewhat of a debuff skill rather than a DD skill. I am in ElfLand now, and enemy stacks are still too low in numbers (there are exceptions, like Fairies etc), and that 'kill off 10% ow whatever they have' is not useful enough yet. Will be later, when I battle stronger stacks).Will rock later when upgraded, though.
That's about it. I'm sure my playstyle will mutate toward the end game, and so will mutate my use of the Spirit's skills.
Nota Bene: keep in mund that this is my verson of the usefulness of Rage spirits in mid-game, and NOT in end-game. Later in the game My Mileage May/Will Vary
