Which spells do folks consider worth learning or upgrading ?

[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]

Originally Posted by 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

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]

Originally Posted by Gatts

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.

Originally Posted by Gatts

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.

Originally Posted by Gatts

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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...

[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!