Alchemy? Worth it?

[Metathron]

Hehe!

Unfortunately, in my last mage game, armageddon was the only spell I did not get. But I heard people saying it's not worth the mana needed to cast it in proportion to the damage it does. How does it scale in comparison to, say, fire rain (my favourite direct damage spell)?

[milo]

My end game mage does around a maximum of around 11000 damage with armageddon, fire rain max around 10000. Many armies have fire resistance, black dragons are magic immune except for armageddon so it can be incredibly useful, especially when enemy is split into many stacks such as battles in castles.

[Gatts]

Originally Posted by Metathron

Hehe!

Unfortunately, in my last mage game, armageddon was the only spell I did not get. But I heard people saying it's not worth the mana needed to cast it in proportion to the damage it does. How does it scale in comparison to, say, fire rain (my favourite direct damage spell)?

Well - it works on black dragons... so this may bring some new strategy points towards armageddon - like Milo stated

[Xargon]

Concerning alchemy: Having played the game on normal as a mage, I would say alchemy is very useful if you are playing for the first time, as there are a lot more spells which can be really useful than you might think judging from the first playing experiences (where direct damage spells are usually your best choice). I ended up using spells like teleport, helplessness (-60% defence can be devastating on lvl5 creatures of enemy heroes), magic spring, stone skin, phantom and others I don't remember right now. If you want to have a wide variety of spells and be able to try out different tactics for yourself, go for alchemy. It's not like you won't have enough magic runes to max out your other desired magic skills anyway. If you are powergaming, or don't plan to learn and try out many spells, alchemy will be useless.
[Note: At first, I did not consider alchemy to be that useful because I had a heap of crystals and just a few spells which seemed worthwile - however, in midgame I found more and more potentially useful spells and crystals came in at a lower rate. Your supply vanishes rapidly when upgrading spells like hypnosis, resurrection, demon portal or similar.]

@milo: 10k damage sure sounds nice - I assume you had a pretty high intelligence (plus that fire amulet and the dragon cloak, probably)?

[Gatts]

I always try to first get nice level of Higher magic (at lest one level) and based on what spells I get (is quite randomized) at least one school of magic to 3rd level (sometimes it does more depend on what other RUNES I have... )

All this time (see above) I just write to spellbook/ upgrade the MOST needed spells - I try to keep theirs number to minimum (like only 8 spells in spellbook, 3 or 4 maxed - mostly maxed means second level only )

Than when I have at least one level of Higher magic (as the second level costs 5 magic runes less I can afford it too) I start investing to Alchemy - but I max it right away - :

First now when Alchemy is maxed - I start to really dig in and analyze my actual and possible future battle strategies (luckily I do not need to mess with adventure spells - there are none like that in KB ) I always bear in mind that I MAY come accross cooler spells - I alway pray for armageddon in dwarven mines... nearly never I get it ) so I always keep at least 35 magic crystals around...

Always explore all dungeons - you never now how many crystals you can find there - even if you don't fight with too strong enemies.

Basic math - you can upgrade double so many spells - even max them - normally on Impossible without Alchemy - gosh - you would have to do HARD THINKING to get across good spell book