hard time with mage - weak fireball and fire arrow

[lead341]

I have been playing Armored Princess/Crossworlds with a Warrior and a Paladin on hard difficulty. Currently I am playing with a mage, also hard difficulty, Level 5, end of Debir Island/beginning Scarlet Island - and I am having a much harder time than with the previous two.
Especially because on the one hand the mage has lesser leadership and also lesser Rage (I can´t use the pet dragon that efficiently) while the magic doesn´t really make this big a difference.
For example: I have 7 of intelligence and even invested in Destruction (+ 15 % strength of destructive spells). Even so my fireball only makes 170 damage - much less than in the original Kings Bounty The Legend.
Can this maybe be a bug? I realized that even with intelligence 5 the fire arrow also did only 85 damage.

greetings,

lead

[MaroonMaurader]

You aren't going to be doing a ton of direct-damage that early in the game.

I'd rely more on buffing and de-buffing spells (haste/slow, stoneskin, target, fear, etc.)... at least until you get a higher intelligence. The mage has the toughest start, but can absolutely dominate once you get a bunch of runes and a good collection of spells to work with.

[lead341]

Thanks for your reply.
My intention was especifically to create a destruction mage, less a buffing mage. I am realizing now that this is quite a difficult decision. But on the other hand I think I finally managed to reach an upward slope.

- I recruited 11 Paladins into my group
- a scroll of the colossus gave me additional 10 royal griffins

and the world looks completely different. I am even managing to finish battles without taking losses at all now. So for a while I will go with Paladins and griffins (despite they belong rather to my paladin army of my other character), and when things finally smooth up I will assemble a more "mage-like" army.

[mroz123]

I am on the rusty anchor and I didn't find Fireball anywhere. It is to expensive to fight without it so far in the game and I am really desperate to find it. Seeing you having it on the end of Debir makes me mad. How am I supposed to play the mage when the game keeps important basic spells from me ??!

[Razorflame]

spells hardly make a difference really

there is one super combo which works very well for mages


you will steam roll all and can concentrate on the sheer power of damage spells
and less on debuffing or buffing

1 guard droid stack and 2 repair droid stacks

reign damaging spells 2x then wait for them to do something
keep a slow stack or ranged stack alive to be able to revive all droids again
and GG no re


there is even an neklace that lets u get -20% leadership cost for droids
this army is perfect for slaughtering with high INT mage

an other option is 1 single stack EGD with invisibility cast upon it


or