Worthless spells

[Fatt_Shade]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

Precision effects too few units. And generally ones that aren't any good. Hunters? elves? Bowmen? It makes a few mediocre units slightly less so. But I'd much rather have cast a good spell on a good unit.

Demon Portal has its uses, though it is rare. But it is one of those spells that like, once or twice a game, it is 'the answer'. blocks off a movement route, and then adds units.

Pain Mirror: Yeah, as mentioned it owns the crud out of Archies. One of the most amusing spells in the game. But outside of that... I generally avoid damage ;P.

I`ll give you example for precision (for ppl that like archer builds, they already know this but just to remind some1 that doesn`t) : Elf,Hunter,Bowman,Paladin,Lake fairy-3 dmg units that get good bonus from mass Precision, Paladin for second wind and Fairy for hunters mark
Goblin,Catapult,Goblin shaman,Paladin/Orc/Blood shaman-again 3 dmg dealer, Paladin or Orc or Blood shaman for second wind so all your archers get another attack per turn (for goblins even more is possible). Companions Triger/Rakush.
This is to show that for archer army build Precision is great spell. Ofc if you go Shrek team, or some other lineups it`s useless, but for this 2 listed above it`s a MUST.

Demon portal i`ll agree that can only be used as block for enemy units, since is to much random as `ckdamascus` said, and you get unit you spend mana in next turn. I dont need my reinforcement next year, i need it NOW
Illusion is much better since it get more leadership worth per mana spend.

Fit of energy is good for some heavy dmg dealers, but should be rescaled to 10/15/20 mana per lvl to make it useful.

I wonder how come no one mentioned here Exorcism? It`s horrible spell, for so much mana. Enemy have summons-use dispel, enemy have undead-there are other much better spells to deal with them. I`m not sure have i ever used that spell.

[Tianx]

Exorcism has limited use especially at the later stages of the game where there is a lot of demon and undead. If you look at the damage modifier, it actually stacks quite a bit with all the items added but yes, it's a weak spell and should be an AOE/DOT instead of one direct hit.

I think by far, the worst spell is still Book of Evil. Never use it and never invest and crystal in even getting the spell.

[Fatt_Shade]

Here is example why Exorcism is crapy spell - i got 81 int Mage, 2 Gloves of destroyer, Necklase of exorcist and magic light 3 lvl (+20% for some spells) and in the end 20k dmg with Exorcist spell for 30 mana on 1 unit !!! Much better to sped 30 mana on Geyser and make 10-15K dmg on 8 units.
Still i think Life light is among worthless spells. I dont need healing for 10k Hp, i need to ressurect. Only use for this spell is 5th lvl lineup and nothing else

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Here is example why Exorcism is crapy spell - i got 81 int Mage, 2 Gloves of destroyer, Necklase of exorcist and magic light 3 lvl (+20% for some spells) and in the end 20k dmg with Exorcist spell for 30 mana on 1 unit !!! Much better to sped 30 mana on Geyser and make 10-15K dmg on 8 units.
Still i thing Life light is among worthless spells. I dont need healing for 10k Hp, i need to ressurect. Only use for this spell is 5th lvl lineup and nothing else

Not to be nit picking, but by definition it isn't a worthless spell if there is a use for it, even if it is situational.

e.g. by saying there is a use for it for 5th level lineups implies, it isn't worthless. Especially since it can save me the trouble of casting Phantom for resurrecting a level 5.

Book of Evil... I find it very hard to make use of it in any really useful situation.

I agree that exorcism is a bit wasteful. I think I used to do double-cast exorcisms against Archdemons though, but I was quite noob back then.

I haven't done the math, but geyser is physical damage, so maybe some demons would resist that a bit better than exorcism? I still agree it is generally not so useful for the mana cost.

[Fatt_Shade]

Worthless isn`t same as useless.
I mean life light can be only used to heal NOT resurrect 5th lvl (using life light to heal any lower lvl is pure waste of mana). Lets say you have 5 5th lvl units (for resurrecting Rune mage is mandatory) , first you need to place them all together and then heal. Then again you need to cast Phantom to resurrect any fallen(more then 1 time probably). So it`s 2 spend turns to gather units around and then presume fight. I rather fight normally, then leave some weak enemy before ressing my troops while picking chests. Any spell have it`s use, but Life light is inconvenient because of small range, and high mana cost to be dmg dealing spell, and it doesnt resurrect If it worked like shamans ability Magic axes to heal any unit on battle field i would use it first, but now it`s to much trouble to gather units around.And since i`m not big fan of 5th lvl builds i`ll stay with Illusion/resurrecting for now.
Exsorcism is higher dmg magic spell, but again it`s single target for 30 mana, Geyser is 8 target physical for 30 mana. I just now checked 80Int, 2 Gloves of destroyer, Dragon cloak - Exorcism 17,5K dmg, Gayser 8,5-16K dmg. If you have only 1 enemy unit Exorcism is OK, but that is rarely case, so i prefere Gayser for 8 tagrets. As you mentioned physical resistance demons have 10% max, so only problem would be Ghostly units. All other undead/demons take 90-100% from Geyser.
And using Exorcism on summons (x2 dmg to summoned) is just silly, Dispel is better.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Worthless isn`t same as useless.
I mean life light can be only used to heal NOT resurrect 5th lvl (using life light to heal any lower lvl is pure waste of mana). Lets say you have 5 5th lvl units (for resurrecting Rune mage is mandatory) , first you need to place them all together and then heal. Then again you need to cast Phantom to resurrect any fallen(more then 1 time probably). So it`s 2 spend turns to gather units around and then presume fight. I rather fight normally, then leave some weak enemy before ressing my troops while picking chests. Any spell have it`s use, but Life light is inconvenient because of small range, and high mana cost to be dmg dealing spell, and it doesnt resurrect If it worked like shamans ability Magic axes to heal any unit on battle field i would use it first, but now it`s to much trouble to gather units around.And since i`m not big fan of 5th lvl builds i`ll stay with Illusion/resurrecting for now.
Exsorcism is higher dmg magic spell, but again it`s single target for 30 mana, Geyser is 8 target physical for 30 mana. I just now checked 80Int, 2 Gloves of destroyer, Dragon cloak - Exorcism 17,5K dmg, Gayser 8,5-16K dmg. If you have only 1 enemy unit Exorcism ia OK, but that is rarely case, so i prefere Gayser for 8 tagrets. As you mentioned physical resistance demons have 10% max, so only problem would be Ghostly units. All other undead/demons take 90-100% from Geyser.
And using Exorcism on summons (x2 dmg to summoned) is just silly, Dispel is better.

Heh, the Shrek build almost always has all of your level 5s near each other though. Also, in the battles where you are pressed in your own original line, it still applies. That's why you have high physical resists. I'd rather heal up 3 level 5 stacks rather than have them sit around, too afraid to attack because the retaliation will force me to require up to 3 more resurrections. The way the Shrek team rolls, a life light is very close to 3 resurrections.

Just because you aren't a fan of level 5 units doesn't make it a universally "worthless" spell. It is useful, albeit a little situational, for level 5s. It was quite a godsend when I finally got it.

I shouldn't call eviln a worthless spell when I only use non-undead units.

I agree that exorcism on summons is worthless. I don't know who suggested that.

However, in battles where the archdemon has not inflicted Halve damage to you, and if you do not have a lot of heavy damagers, sometimes the double-cast exorcism isn't so bad. Although I've found other alternatives that are generally better, but in those cases, Geyser wouldn't be it (in fact, I probably never cast Geyser in all of my games. )

[Fatt_Shade]

OK how`s this as an idea for healing your Shrek team ?
Instead of BD take Shaman. He`ll almost always be enraged because of Thirst for glory and have Magic axes on disposal, casting totems to suport your mele team, and kill alott of enemy (they wont be able to attack them behind your mele Shrek team. For Mage -25% leadership will mean much to recruit them, and +50 HP will make them great substitute for Sacrifice (Sacrifice them for some of Shrek units, them spend adrenaline to remove +50 hP and revive them with Rune mages/or turn back time).
+ they will have nice morale thx to commander from Ogres.
This way no need for spending runes on Voice of Dragon. I know ppl like BD for -1 inititative to enemy, and burning, and all that . . . but in Shrek movie there isnt Dragon without Donkey - Shaman is Donkey (or closest thing to it
Or kick Rune mages and go 3 mele, BD and Shaman (radical idea, but might be doable).
On side note, how does Shaman (regular and Blood) effect Chieftans 3 ability Spirit strike ? It`s not explained how does it work ?
I`m not big fan of 5th lvl because i have bad luck with them, and availability in almost all my games, last time i wanted to got Shrek and got 0 Chieftans, 9 Ogres and 12 Trolls in all game, not much of Shrek team
When i try to build heavy Dwarf team, there`s no Hamer for -15% leadership for Giants, if i want to go all dragon army, there`s no Hearth of dragon etc. 5th lvl`s are great units, but i just have bad luck with them

Never used Geyser ? What you do when there are 7+ stacks of enemy before you get Black hole/Death star.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

OK how`s this as an idea for healing your Shrek team ?
Instead of BD take Shaman. He`ll almost always be enraged because of Thirst for glory and have Magic axes on disposal, casting totems to suport your mele team, and kill alott of enemy (they wont be able to attack them behind your mele Shrek team. For Mage -25% leadership will mean much to recruit them, and +50 HP will make them great substitute for Sacrifice (Sacrifice them for some of Shrek units, them spend adrenaline to remove +50 hP and revive them with Rune mages/or turn back time).
+ they will have nice morale thx to commander from Ogres.
This way no need for spending runes on Voice of Dragon. I know ppl like BD for -1 inititative to enemy, and burning, and all that . . . but in Shrek movie there isnt Dragon without Donkey - Shaman is Donkey (or next closest thing
Or kick Rune mages and go 3 mele, BD and Shaman (radical idea, but might be doable).
On side note, how does Blood shaman effect Chieftans 3 ability Earth blades ? It`s not explained how does it work ?
I`m not big fan of 5th lvl because i have bad luck with them, and availability in almost all my games, last time i wanted to got Shrek and got 0 Chieftans, 9 Ogres and 12 Trolls in all game, not much of Shrek team
When i try to build heavy Dwarf team, there`s no Hamer for -15% leadership for Giants, if i want to go all dragon army, there`s no Hearth of dragon etc. 5th lvl`s are great units, but i just have bad luck with them

Never used Geyser ? What you do when there are 7+ stackes of enemy before you get Black hole/Death star.

Shaman are ok, but not good enough. Sacrifice is horribly inefficient unless I have ghost armor and other astral resistance items. Shaman work best with... black dragons and other level 5s Since shaman can afford mass healing to all of them, but sadly not often enough.

However, shaman are too weak in a fight, whereas in the shrek team, most of the giants can hold their own and deal consistent damage since they are relatively hard to kill.

Shrek team does not work well with the Mage class, as counter-attack is vital and you need leadership for raw firepower.

My shrek team does not have voice of the dragon if I remember correctly. Black dragons act more like an interdictor instead of a real damager (even though ultimately they did the most damage by the end game because I got the giants later than the black dragon).

I mean, it already has a fairly easy time going through the game. I do agree, shaman are probably closest to the donkey.

To be honest, I could probably dump the orc chieftain, as he is borderline the least useful of the three giants. Although I believe he does give the Ogre morale boosts.

I think orc chieftain's special "hit everything around me" attack is pretty crappy even with blood shaman.

I usually just divide and conquer against large number of stacks of enemies. With the Shrek team in particular and counter attack, I am better off buffing my giants, letting at least one of them get into the fray so they can smash, and counter attack quite a few times. Or I de-buff the strongest enemy and smash him up.

It is pretty rare where all 7+ stacks are truly equally dangerous to everyone in the field.

Last time I used a Mage, I didn't have black hole or death star until after scrounger (stupid quasi speed runs) Probably could have used geyser, but I managed to do without.

I forgot how I beat Scrounger with the Shrek team Warrior class, but I would imagine it was fairly heavy reliance on phantom to revive my giants.

In my slower runs with the Mage, Scrounger was much easier with a buffed up Black Hole.

[Fatt_Shade]

As far as i know sacrifice is only way to restock your army without traveling between islands. I usually wait for 3-4 lvl worth of leadership and pick some easy fight, before finishing spend 5-6 turns sacrificing/resurrecting units.
Why would you want astral resistance ? You need to kill as much as possible to gain enough HP worth for new units.
For shamans i think your mistaken. They can get magic axes almost every turn thx to thirst for glory, and fighting spirit. Lets say you use magic axes to kill some enemy spent 8 adrenaline, then with other orc units kill and every orc get 4-12 more adrenaline (shaman even more because thirst for glory), it`s good chance that shamans will regain magic axes in next turn. Use them to heal any dmg made to your units for 8 adrenaline, and again next turn if some unit is killed by your orc units shamans get 4-12+ more adrenaline get over max and reset magic axes again . . . and so on, almost every turn magic axes available. If it doesnt happen cast some totem to force enemy to waste turn killing it, and save your melee units in enemy lines.
About Mage/Shrek team my bad, i somewhere read about double casting with Shrek team and made mistake here.
For spirit strike i think your wrong, since i just tried it. 27 chieftains inflict 1500-2000 dmg with spirit strike to swordsman, then i added 200 blood shamans in army, and they inflict 7000-8500 dmg. Still think it`s crappy? Every blood shaman give 1 astral dmg to spirit strike ability to chieftains, so around 100+ shamans it get quiet a punch (spirit STRIKE-punch get it ? ).
And ogre`s and chieftains dont give each other morale. but here i must say i would pick chieftains : ogre arent affected with Orc`s ear item (-10% leadership so ogre 1000, chieftains 1080), ogre 680 hp - chieftains 850 and higher resistances, ogre dmg 50-60 - chieftains 65-91 that`s 50% more, drain is imba ability - sneer much weaker, but chieftains have aoe spirit strike. So in my opinion chieftain is better.
But as for me i cant use neither since i still cant find error with onslaught skill and adrenaline distribution to orcs in 1 round of battle. I tried to use Toadstool item to give my orcs 5-7 adrenaline in first round and it`s not working either Try to figure this out : i have shamans, ogre, chieftan, veteran orc, and blood shaman on start of battle no adrenaline for my army. Dismiss ogres and take catapults and on start of battle all my units have 5-10 adrenaline !!! WTF is wrong with that skill ?

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

As far as i know sacrifice is only way to restock your army without traveling between islands. I usually wait for 3-4 lvl worth of leadership and pick some easy fight, before finishing spend 5-6 turns sacrificing/resurrecting units.
Why would you want astral resistance ? You need to kill as much as possible to gain enough HP worth for new units.
For shamans i think your mistaken. They can get magic axes almost every turn thx to thirst for glory, and fighting spirit. Lets say you use magic axes to kill some enemy spent 8 adrenaline, then with other orc units kill and every orc get 4-12 more adrenaline (shaman even more because thirst for glory), it`s good chance that shamans will regain magic axes in next turn. Use them to heal any dmg made to your units for 8 adrenaline, and again next turn if some unit is killed by your orc units shamans get 4-12+ more adrenaline get over max and reset magic axes again . . . and so on, almost every turn magic axes available. If it doesnt happen cast some totem to force enemy to waste turn killing it, and save your melee units in enemy lines.
About Mage/Shrek team my bad, i somewhere read about double casting with Shrek team and made mistake here.
For spirit strike i think your wrong, since i just tried it. 27 chieftains inflict 1500-2000 dmg with spirit strike to swordsman, then i added 200 blood shamans in army, and they inflict 7000-8500 dmg. Still think it`s crappy? Every blood shaman give 1 astral dmg to spirit strike ability to chieftains, so around 100+ shamans it get quiet a punch (spirit STRIKE-punch get it ? ).
And ogre`s and chieftains dont give each other morale. but here i must say i would pick chieftains : ogre arent affected with Orc`s ear item (-10% leadership so ogre 1000, chieftains 1080), ogre 680 hp - chieftains 850 and higher resistances, ogre dmg 50-60 - chieftains 65-91 that`s 50% more, drain is imba ability - sneer much weaker, but chieftains have aoe spirit strike. So in my opinion chieftain is better.
But as for me i cant use neither since i still cant find error with onslaught skill and adrenaline distribution to orcs in 1 round of battle. I tried to use Toadstool item to give my orcs 5-7 adrenaline in first round and it`s not working either Try to figure this out : i have shamans, ogre, chieftan, veteran orc, and blood shaman on start of battle no adrenaline for my army. Dismiss ogres and take catapults and on start of battle all my units have 5-10 adrenaline !!! WTF is wrong with that skill ?

Look at my old thread regarding Sacrifice and Astral Resistance. In the current patch, you absolutely want to have as high Astral Resistance as possible. Sacrifice will still give you the FULL benefits of the restoration, but the Astral resistance will REDUCE the damage you take.

So, I can sacrifice and restore whatever, 800 HP worth of units, while ONLY taking like 100 damage. You can look at my thread for more detailed examples, but I just want to give you a quick idea. You really want to use Sacrifice with astral resistance.

Sacrifice then Heal. Very nice deal. Much much much better than Sacrifice and Phantom (or the inferior Resurrection).

Healing doesn't matter if the Shaman die. Every other round is still wasteful, so I would need to resurrect. Every round I do not have a counter-attack giant is potentially 30-40K less damage aggregate PER GIANT against the enemy.

*yawns*, 8500 damage is very crappy if you can consider the preconditions. To do this I need to add CRAPPY units (blood shaman and normal shaman or even one of them). Shaman die too easily compared to even the Orc Chieftain, that is more to resurrect. Also, there is a big cooldown, and it hurts the CRAPPY orc chieftain's combat abilities even more, due to loss of passive adrenaline buffs.

Anyway, so why do I say 8500 damage is crappy? Shrek team works well if the leading Giant unit blows an enemy counter attack. I will typically have the giants together for this reason and spirit strike hurts friendly units AND pushes them back. Double bad.

Ogre has Ogre Rage, which gives me double my CURRENT attack not double the base attack.

Trolls gain attack from malevolence, which means any unit, friend or foe that does, he gains attack.

Orc Chieftains gain...verry little compared to those two skills.

So, while my Ogres and Trolls will quickly converge to +60 attack over defense and deal maximum damage of around 16-19K per hit AND they can hit more than once with counter strike AND they do not shift the enemy AND they do not hurt friendlys AND I do not have to sacrifice one of the other GREATER giants for this purpose, you can sort of see why I can easily say, Spirit Strike sucks.

And to top this all off the Orc Chieftain still sucks in combat. He has a very hard time reaching +60 attack over defense compared to the other giants. Yes yes he has the hit-through ability which does not hit friendlies, but considering the alternatives, not so fantastic.

I'd rather not waste a round casting Helplessness to help out a weak giant. I'd rather cast phantom, hell breath, pygmy, plague, stone skin, etc.

Onslaught is currently broken in this patch.