Wondering about a few rune magic spells

[Xargon]

Originally Posted by Loopy

Keep in mind that Timeless itself scales with creation and intellect. I get +8 turns from it with 40 intellect and creation 3. If it weren't for the fact that Rune Mages exist Creation and Timeless would be competing for the Most OP award. Just spam buffs and make them last forever. Runic Word is more than powerful enough to utilize Timeless indefinitely, even without Higher Magic you'll be able to use Timeless for 3 rounds before needing to use Runic word once.

Stone Skin + Divine Armor + Avenging Angel on any unit and you can just wait around while enemies kill themselves. Who needs to attack? . Keeping Avenging Angel/Mana Spring up 100% of the time isn't too hard once you have a strong enough Timeless unless you are against 10 ranged stacks or something (in which case, go ahead and attack ). Only downside is that stuff like Burning and Poison get buffed by Timeless as well. Hey, this is where Negation can be useful I suppose... Not that you really need it, but might as well cast it.

I agree that for a mage, creation is the best thing since sliced bread (of which there is far too little in KB). But even though I absolutely love it, it should probably be toned down a bit. 30% increase in power for most buffs/debuffs, summon effects (even from creatures) and maybe something else I forgot PLUS increase of every duration by two (even the short-lived buffs) is a damn big bonus.

Oh, and for the timeless combo, you could slap a target on the unit as well, especially if the enemy has ranged units. I don't understand the use of negation in this situation, though: it would tick down burning and poison to 1, but all the buffs as well, right? Wouldn't a dispel lvl3 be more appropriate?

[Loopy]

Originally Posted by Xargon

Oh, and for the timeless combo, you could slap a target on the unit as well, especially if the enemy has ranged units. I don't understand the use of negation in this situation, though: it would tick down burning and poison to 1, but all the buffs as well, right? Wouldn't a dispel lvl3 be more appropriate?

Yes, Target is one of the things this can be overly abused with. Though I was specifically talking about a one-stack game before, where you wouldn't even need it.

Does negation affect buffs as well? If so then I guess it's useless. Haven't used it myself.

[Xargon]

Ok, at the moment, timeless does not work properly, as was already noted in the bugs thread (but I did not read it...).
It adds a new buff (timeless) to the unit, and every other effect gets the duration of that buff added to its own duration. This fits the description exactly, and the only case that might be unclear are magic spring and similar effects - those still tick down when attacked and can end before timeless does. The problem is that while the unit info shows the extended duration, at least some of the buffs cease giving the corresponding bonus after their original duration. This is definitely the case with divine armor (it's still shown in the unit screen, but the unit does not actually gain the resistances) and may be true for others as well.

Does anyone have experience with this? When I get the time (I am currently timeless), I'll check other spells and maybe have a quick look at the files to see if there is an obvious reason.