upgrade rage skills, luck or something else untold?

[kemydes]

well, all the previous post that i have read about winning in impossible with no losses or at least very easy fight, it seems you have always the right rage skill ???? HOW could you do that ??? i have had never get the choice to upgrade time back for example or at least the range of target, with sleem i often get the poisonous bite!! instead of the toxic or glot armor and i dont speak about zerok with his wall or the falling stone so i wander how you could get what is really good ? is there a path to follow in the upgrade or its only luck?

[Gatts]

I do not believe that they wanted to say that they GET always the skill they want - they just know the skills and know what to take ...still these gamers state the ingame problem when on spirit level-up come 2 options and none is wanted... but the difference is that they know all the options up front so it is very easy to choose the right patch... after level 20 you have to have at least 2 skills on desired state... if you know how-to....

I believe there is cheat for spirit, but these players do not cheat, and there is no way to influent willingly the up-coming skill level up options/choices.

In other words - you can do MAX preperation (by reading the fan manual - rage spirit section) but everything else is pure luck...

[Ish]

The skills people tend to talk about e.g. time back and soul drain are both with the reaper which you dont get til about midway through the game.

Sleem has glots armor but i wouldnt reccomend upgrading it, just keep it at level 1. All his other ones are mostly irrelevent and useless.

Zerok has underground blades which is semi ok if you upgrade the damage a few times and reduce the rage required

Lina's skills are all semi usefull and depend on the player

Reaper has time back which is awesome and soul drain which helps alot against big stacks. Rage drain and blackhole are ok but you wont use them much as the first 2 abilities are so good.

[YENKO]

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

[taltamir]

acid rain was bugged before 1.65 and did waaaaay more damage then it should have, ESPECIALLY if you were fighting a special enemy (aka, the more stacks on the map, the more damage) and if you were using wait it also increased its damage.

But the main useage for it is to hit your OWN troops who have magic spring on them to recharge mana later on... especially past turn 20. Ofcourse, that is not a big deal unless you are trying to do something like, say, beat the game with 0 losses (been done, very interesting thread)

[YENKO]

Originally Posted by taltamir

But the main useage for it is to hit your OWN troops who have magic spring on them to recharge mana later on... especially past turn 20. Ofcourse, that is not a big deal unless you are trying to do something like, say, beat the game with 0 losses (been done, very interesting thread)

I hate losing soldiers, even if I have 9000 of them in dwellings to 'buy'. I am NOT going after the Zero Losses tactic, but, at the end, my losses will be minimal, I hope. Sacrificing units to add new units is just too much fun to me, so I do that even if I don't really need new units

[taltamir]

i agree about hating losses, well, from a ROLEPLAY perspective, if you can save the lives of your soldiers you should. So I do when I can. But when the battle is too difficult I don't fret about it. So I have losses, but when I can I do drag the battle on a bit to regenerate them all.