Don't play the game as a mage - you will get bored quickly!

[Gatts]

Being bored is everyones personal subjective feeling.

I am bored by many games that others literaly love.

I personally hate "fedex" (I like this comparission) quests - but when I played KB for first time - each quest was unique and had very interesting background - so I was not bored by it at all.

I first time played Paladin - and even as I mostly used one spell (guess which) I was totally not bored, actually the oposite is true - I was delighted

next time I started Mage (as I hoped, I repeat : I HOPED that all battles will be BLAST BLAST, done!)
1.) I didn't get Ressurection till near end (and I greatly missed it, even if I wond with BLAST spells)
2.) few I did very weak damage with my BLAST spells and I had to rely on various spell combinations
3.) checking the Fan Maunal.pdf I realized I had only 75% spells (when I was on the head of the turtle - at the game end) and all my BLAST spells were more or less useless ... why?:

a) High damage spells can target only very limited number of stacks - but my enemies had 10+ stacks on huge battleground
b) High area spells were weaker + many of the enemy stacks were immune / highly resistant
c) even with max damage spells I was able to kill only 50% and less of ONE stack only (even if I used Fireball direct on Thorns... when there was 12K thorns in one stack... )
d) I could use Armageddon - (which is not always so easy to get, and some games I didn't find it at all) still : you damage your own units - soon you have to return back and refill your army -> that was reason enough for me not using it (having only one stack + gloth's armor works fine for armageddon, but may be not good enough to win the battle - unless you want "cheat" with invisibility )

All at all (by Gatts):
- I like playing for all three characters.
- I would love to win battles so easy as is stated in this topic [BLAST BLAST] , but on normal, hard and impossible it does not work that way... so I only am hoping in each battle to get more INT and better spells (on impossible you mostly don't have 3rd level of chaos magic so soon ... I have it above 15th level mostly... sometimes even later)
- I like even the quests in KB (even if now - for 100th time replay I do not read the texts... I know them already, but all the quest stories are very well - on level of good book, that is the point - you do "fedex" but get not only XP + GOLD but nice story as well... I love stories... you don't?)

"sob sob" I never had real ubermage (at least not on impossible) - I even had INT 75 once and was able to cast twice in first and second round and had chaos magic on 3rd level - still most battles were quite hard...far away for me to feel uber (even players that win battles with 0-loss policy use many glitches in the AI and game un-balanceness and play each battle in 20+ rounds... )
So where is the "easy - BLAST BLAST" ?

Is here anyone who played mage on impossible and finished each battle with BLAST BLAST in less than 3 rounds? If yes - I take the last paragraph back.

[alon]

Originally Posted by Gatts

Is here anyone who played mage on impossible and finished each battle with BLAST BLAST in less than 3 rounds? If yes - I take the last paragraph back.

You hit it on the head in the precious paragraph: there is and never will be such a person. there wouldn't be much of a challenge or any fun otherwise. Blast-Blast-Blast only is for those who love using cheats ...

[YENKO]

I agree with you, Gatts.
My mage is only lvl 13, and I started to notice a slight wind of change in my battles. So far, the BLAST-BLAST sysyem worked quite OK for me until..I discovered the Cannoneers in Kordor. Great ranged unit! Then, I stumbled upon that telescope thingy!! Grabbed it from the merchant's hands and.. boy, do my cannoneers and archers rock now! I am still a mage in my diapers, but my cannoneers are doing more than 1000 damage each shot, they crit for like 2200!! Gosh, my BLASTS never crit, and I have yet to see my lvl 2 fireball do 2000 damage! So, I tried Precision too, and with all that, stuff started to drop dead in front of my rag-tag army. Went back to the Isles, attacked those until now 'impossible' pirates and...blew off deck anything they were able to bring on the field of battle. It feels SO darn good
Spell combos rock. DD spells are ok, but buffs/debuffs will bring you victory

[Gatts]

Now when you discovered the power of archers - little HINT for ya:

Don't be discouraged by Morale negiveness - and go for Dwarven + Elven archer combinations - (filling your army with archers: hunters, elves, canoneers, ... then I used random 2 units from the pool of: any TANK, inquisitors, catapult, goblin archer (even worse morale) archmages, griffins, giants, green dragons (depends on you usual strategy goals/ tricks)

You can increase your damage in first round by 500%, and lose mas 30%... easy math:
2000~4000 DMG x 500% = 10K ~ 20K x -30% = 7K ~14K (your ATT may raise, you can get better artefacts - your Leadrship will raise for sure ) so with outrage you can put enemy army to shattered noob losers.

Canoneers can do tripple damage, elves double damage, catapult can do fireball damage... once I even took Necromancers (initiative 7, what was more worth than initiative 2 of druids)... than you will see real BLAST BLAST

Why archers, when they are so vulnarable to many enemy attacks? (dragons, mind spells etc.) -> delivering HUGE damage first round may raise your RAGE to 80 from 0 right the same turn -> using maxed BLACK HOLE - finishing the rest of the army

[Handel]

I don't write about being a lvl 13 mage. I am writing being a real mage. My fireballs are making 4000+ damage in the center and then 6000+ damage if I use the the mist spell before. And I can blast 2 times per turn for 3 turns. Rarely something remains alive after that.
And if the enemies are fire resistant I use the water blast. Which has slightly lower damage but works on every enemy stack. I killed Baal and defeated my demon bride-to-be without ever noticing they were stronger, and simply outblasted Karador without any tricks to stop him from raising the dead troops.
In Haas labirinth I didn't ever tried to have a full stack. Went to all battles with only 2 stacks - swordsmen and royal snakes. Put 300 from those in the reserve and simply replenished the troops which died.
About the quests - sorry, I thought I wrote this in english but obvously I am mistaken. So I will try to write this time on english:
Yes, there are many quests in the begining of the game. Almost every building was giving a quest or even two. But once you get past the dwarves the quests are very few, and you get just 2-3 quests after the elves. Which means simply the devs become lazy and rushed the game to the shelves.

[Gatts]

Calculation for Fireball:

Center Damage (3rd spell level):
x = 360 * (1 + 0.1*INT)*(1+0.1*{Int/7})*(1+0.1*{Destroyer + artefact bonuses})

6000 = 360x {INT and other bonsues}
6000/360 = 16.6
Let's say you Have Destroyer on MAX -> so your sinergy bonus is only 11.06
11.06 = your INT sinergy bonus
That means your INT is equal 53

Havin INT 53 is quite over average, right? - but 6000 DMG in centre of Fireball is totally not what would make you win battles on normal or higher difficulties - not without making effort on strategy planning... I normally have most of the game on impossible INT below 30... first with Xeona I start to increase my INT rapidly - still leveling up the staffs so they will give +5 INT is HARD and beating 4 stacks of 180 archmagi and 4 MAD GREMLIN towers with 8000 HPs and 2 stacks of 400+ Inquisitors and few Priest stacks of 800+ ... sometimes there is one stack of 1600 archers... well - how would your 6000 DMG fireball help you?

And sorry for misunderstanding you quest comments - you are totally right - there are less quests as you are near the end - maybe due the fact that devs want that the player will focus more on the MAIN quest ...

[Handel]

Gatts:
There are 2 types of players in this game. Mages and not-mages.
Some of the not-mages don't have a clue about being a mage but this don't stop them from making comments and calculations which they don't understand.
Instead of writing just to show you don't know what are you talking just check in the dictionary what "fire vulnerability" means.
Hint: there is a spell called "...mist" (forgot the name) which makes the enemy stacks vulnerable to fire for several turns. But you must be a mage to know this.

[Gatts]

Handel : I don't argue who is the better mage - be my guest and be the better mage...

The spell is called "Greasy Mist" and it increases the vulnerability towards Fire based on you INT - I know -> you make one stack 120% vulnerable to FIRE : so you do to one stack 13200 DMG -> you spend both your first two spells on delivering 13200 DMG to one stack:
1.) there are fire resistant and even fire immune stacks... but still... ok
2.) There is still the problem... let's say... 180 Archmages... 16200 HP (if I calculate correctly 90HP per one archmage) ... there are 4 stacks... so 64800 HP only for Archmages... but you won't kill even one stack.


Sorry for being not mage enough for you... You win

[YENKO]

Yeah, it's 'Greasy Mist', a spell i got rigt at the start from the mage tower in Greenwort.. So far, my spell power is still too smal to notice any significant benefit from that fire debuff. As any newbie, i'd rather call another fireball and watch the numbers flying, instead of casting some obscure 'invisible' debuff on only ONE enemy stack. And i am not talking only about G.Mist, but other buffs/debuffs too. As i already stated, i am learning. Thanks for the useful read guys, i'll keep my eyes peeled on the subject. have fun

<EDIT>
I realize some of my statements are outdated by Gatt's last reply, but my browser got stuck after i clicked on 'post reply' and KB forum went offline for some time to me. Sorry
Also, I'm sorry if some of my 'piss-ant' lowbie mage strategies started some kind of 'who's daddy is stronger' crusade, it was not my intention.
Cheers.

[Handel]

Gatts - I see you like to argue. Bet you are 14, wear glasses and are hated in the school.
As for the game - providing you want just to argue you can put any numbers. You can yeasily put any number hmm... let me see... why not 1800 arcmages? Or 4200 black dragons? or 365,000 sprites?

Go play some and they start to make your senseless calcualtiosn again.

Yenko: You have nothing to do with "Who can pee on longer distance" discussion. As you started to see being mage is very simple - just blast your enemy away and proceed. But some people which are not mages adore to explain how a mage must play.