Spell discusions

[iKossu]

eekstah, I understood you completely but I only thought of a stack consisting of one creature. When you think about multiple creatures in a stack, it makes much more sense... It would be a nice feature since it's true what you wrote. But I think it won't be that easy to add.

[Siegfried]

As far as i know there are two different types of magic resistance: Dwarfen style and golem style. The MR the hero gets is dwarfen style (aka resist completely). It would be interesting indeed to add the possibility of getting golem style resistance. Although i would not replace the dwarfen style resistance.

Just to be complete: There are other things in H4 you might consider as some type of MR: The magic mirror and the spell shackles or the, hmm, don't know the name, which increases the spell casting cost. All these may be seen as some type of MR.

BTW: It could be interesting to create new spells that are some kind of opposite to these types of MR. There is already the mana flare, which is the opposite of the spell which increases the casting costs. The magic mirror could be extended to be castable on the enemy hero, too, but then meaning that a part of any spell he casts is reflected to him. Moreover there are spells thinkable increasing the chance of other spells doing something (aka reducing dwarfen style MR), or spells increasing the effect of other spells (like giant strength increases the effectiveness of melee), which would be a counter of golem style MR.

[Metathron]

What's the difference between a dwarf's and a golem's magic resistance? I thought it was only in numbers, i.e. 50 and 75%, respectively.

[Siegfried]

Dwarf style: X% chance to completely resist. Golem style: Always resist X% magic damage.

[Metathron]

Umm, are you sure about that?

In my experience, their MR works in the same way, except that the golems have more of it. That is, the dwarves will take 50% damage from DD spells and will resist other hostile spells 50% of the time, whereas the golems will take 25% damage from DD spells and will resist other hostile spells 75% of the time.

[Gaidal Cain]

Dwarf style: X% chance to completely resist. Golem style: Always resist X% magic damage.

That's H3 only. In H4, you get "Golem" resistance against damage spells and "Dwarf" resistance against other spells.

[Black Ghost]

Playing a lot recently made me present my newest ideas as for spells.

1) Ogre Mage: Bloodlust, SnakeStrike, Antimagic & MagicLeech
Ogres are “shamans”, order’s Power Drain didn’t fit here. Might shouldn’t kill with magic (Shackles) but stop it. With limit 5 spell pts. single Antimagic or Magic Leech won’t defeat magic army but may help against might-killers: Berserk, Blind, Terror, Hypnosis, Confusions, Forgetfulness, etc. Mana draining is a good threat with next SnakeStrike or Bloodlust.

Evil Eye: remove Weakness & Disruptive Ray from random harmful spell attack as other spells are more hostile (Fatigue, Curse, Misfortune) It’s better to have chance 1/7 than 1/9. And Magic Leech should be changed to Power Drain as Beholders won’t regain mana.

2) Spells to remove:
- Smoke, too often I have useless spells in my Magic Guild
- Bind Flyers, it’s even weaker than also lev2 Slow…

3) Spells to change:
- Life Drain as lev1
- Unholy Song gives –25% to attack instead of 20% (it’s both Weakness & Distruptive Ray)
- swap Mire (lev2) with Aura of Fear (lev3), Mire is as good as Endurance, while Aura as F.Strike
- swap Raise Vamp. (lev4) with Mass Cancellation (lev5), too difficult to defeat every-round-approx.-10-vampires; Mass Cancell. is better than Mass Dispel but weaker than Steal All Enchant.- IMO perfect as 4th lev.
-Pain Mirror and maybe Blind as 4th lev

-and maybe change Endurance icon with artifact Winged Sandals picture

4) New spells for Order:
-lev3 Freezing (like potion of cold)
-lev4 Mass Power Drain
-lev5 Mass Cowardice (similar to Sanctuary but sometimes better/worse)
-lev5 Greater Negation (Ring of Greater Negation’s effect = ignore all resistance and wards)

[okrane]

Freezing, I like as a spell... in fact I proposed it as an ability of a hero class.

[Metathron]

Good to have you back, Black Ghost, those are some great suggestions.

Pain Mirror is IMO probably the most useless spell relative to its level, and even if it's lowered to level 4, I still won't be using it. What do others think of it?

I agree that Mass Cancellation is inferior to Steal All Enchantments, I guess the argument for raising it to level 5 was that it was extremely valuable in multiplayer games, whereas with Steal it sometimes happened that there was no one to whom the stolen spells could transfer.

The new spell proposals for Order are good, but I fear they might make an already extremely powerful spell school even more formidable.

[Black Ghost]

Pain Mirror is IMO probably the most useless spell relative to its level, and even if it's lowered to level 4, I still won't be using it. What do others think of it?

Nor will I, but its potential is superior to Efreet's Shield (non-Fire, 50%) so 4th lev is good. Moreover, look though all M.Schools spell lists by levels an you'll see that each has both usefull and useless spells on each level to make power level balanced between M.Schools.
Besides Order needs 4th lev. spells as all other schools have 2 or 3 more. The chance to get Berserk will also be lower.

The new spell proposals for Order are good, but I fear they might make an already extremely powerful spell school even more formidable.

-Mass Power Drain is good but actually it blocks creature abilities like Nightmare's Terror. Spellcasters (Genies) have still enough mana to cast 3-4 spells at doubled cost and opposite heroes will rarely run out of mana, plus Portions of Restoration/Exorcisms save the day.
-Mass Cowardice makes your hero main target, and Order's troops have less HP than their counterparts (at time of GM Order, armies are biiig) But wait for other player's oponions.
-Greater Negation is just theoretical spell, as it's dificult to be settled on every unit (It's not orinary curse in creature's window). And making only hero to gain Bhob's ability to ignore fully MR is pointless as Antimagic and Immune to Magic ability can be only negated not ignored.

Waiting for more opinions.

[okrane]

I agree pain mirror should be revised... I find it quite useless.

[Meandor]

Good ideas, but i wouldn`t add Mass cowardice. It completely destroys some tactics(splitting casters, splitting troops to block/defend some units, stealing retaliation).

[okrane]

Or you might look at it as a good counter for strategies like that....

[Black Ghost]

Great point of thinking Counter-strategy-tactis is nice idea.

[okrane]

I will comment more in detail about the ideas posted here:

2) Spells to remove:
- Smoke, too often I have useless spells in my Magic Guild
- Bind Flyers, it’s even weaker than also lev2 Slow…

Smoke is not useless, you can use it to kill in the beginning enemy ranged neutrals. Although it's hard to place it... I would like an interface option that will show the line of sight of enemy creatures.
Or at least make the smoke affect a slightly larger area.

Bind flyer: it's weaker than slow, but against fliers it's better. Maybe if the *two staked?

3) Spells to change:
- Life Drain as lev1
- Unholy Song gives –25% to attack instead of 20% (it’s both Weakness & Distruptive Ray)
- swap Mire (lev2) with Aura of Fear (lev3), Mire is as good as Endurance, while Aura as F.Strike
- swap Raise Vamp. (lev4) with Mass Cancellation (lev5), too difficult to defeat every-round-approx.-10-vampires; Mass Cancell. is better than Mass Dispel but weaker than Steal All Enchant.- IMO perfect as 4th lev.
-Pain Mirror and maybe Blind as 4th lev

*Unholy song: no change needed as it stacks with the other two.
*Mire vs aura of fear: could be a good idea...
*raise vamps vs mass cancellation: I agree.
*Pain Mirror lvl 4: I agree. I never used this spell. I don't even know what to do with it. Can someone provide some strategy around this?
*Blind lvl 4: no. It's ok at lvl3. Berserk is better and it's lvl 4.

4) New spells for Order:
-lev3 Freezing (like potion of cold)
-lev4 Mass Power Drain
-lev5 Mass Cowardice (similar to Sanctuary but sometimes better/worse)
-lev5 Greater Negation (Ring of Greater Negation’s effect = ignore all resistance and wards)

*Freezing: I would LOVE a spell like this one. For order or for death maybe... or I don't know exactly what school would benefit most... but I would love a spell like this one.
*Mass Power Drain: it sounds tempting, but I would have to say no. It's too strong. I mean in a final battle casting this, even if only 2 if the enemy heroes get affected it's too much. So I incline to say no.
*Mass Cowardice: this one I like. But not as a lvl 5. Maybe level 4?
*Greater Negation: This is the Order version of armageddon . I like it. But it would change many things in the gameplay. It can be a 2 edge sword when fighting for example a powerful chaos magic caster that would rip apart all heroes. Of course it would also be the rise of the Wizard class.
All in all, I like it, but I think it's kind of too strong, and would create some weird stuff. Still, If it can be done I would like to see it and test it.

Evil Eye: remove Weakness & Disruptive Ray from random harmful spell attack as other spells are more hostile (Fatigue, Curse, Misfortune) It’s better to have chance 1/7 than 1/9. And Magic Leech should be changed to Power Drain as Beholders won’t regain mana.smile

No. The beauty of those is that they can cast 9 curses if left sufficient enough time. If you have more stacks of beholders you can quickly doom your target. So I would add some other curses if possible...
Magic Leech should be changed I agree.

[Black Ghost]

Thanks for reply, to some extent I agree with your feelings, but still:

Bind Flyer works the same way against flyiers like Slow in decreasing movement. Ability flying only allows to ignore obstacles like trees, no influence on movement points.

Chaos is actually good against ranged units. Mabye Death should have Smoke (no shooters at start)?

Can someone provide some strategy around this?

As for Pain Mirror I can only imagine it on Dragon Golems to decrease losses, because they cannot be healed. And against Barbarians, when you have weak other spells.

I would like an interface option that will show the line of sight of enemy creatures.

I'd like also have this.

[okrane]

Bind Flyer - maybe it should be downgraded to 1st level...

Smoke in Death: yeah, it might work. Although they have skeletons which are resistant to archers and imps are pretty fast.

Pain Mirror stinks. End of Story. I would make the bonus something like 100% or I don't know. Personally I never use it. Maybe against barbarians it may work...

In another order of events I believe Chaos Magic needs some good non damaging spells at 5th level. This should be taken care of. I will probably post some suggestions later on.

[Black Ghost]

I'm afraid I've come up with a sick combo around Pain Mirror. Please keep me in isolation
-hero-Monk with P.Mirror & Martyr
-units A, B, C

1. Martyr A to protect B
2. Martyr B to protect C
3. Martyr C to protect A
4. P.Mirror A,B,C

-dmg to A is redirected onto B, but triggers PM on A
-redirected damage onto B is redirected onto C instead, but triggers PM on B
-redirected damage onto C is redirected onto A instead, but triggers PM on C
-redirected damage onto A is redirected onto B instead, but triggers PM on A
-... and attacker will be dealt damage infinity times

Neverending combo? Must check it practically but sounds funny.

[Dalai]

*Pain Mirror lvl 4: I agree. I never used this spell. I don't even know what to do with it. Can someone provide some strategy around this?

You play Order. Your opponent understands, that you can do little against pure might, and develops fighter heroes - Archers, Barbarians. They have 100% magic resistance, and your mages and genies are not really useful. You could rely on Titans with a good tactician, but you probably don't have a lot of them.

Your army of Order Mage and 100 dwarves (the weaker the creature - the better for you!) will be a curse for your opponent. Stack with a lot of hit-points, low defence and Magic Mirror cast on it will kill any hero - it will receive a lot of damage and return half of it to the hero - more than enough to kill him.

Add resurrection skill and tactics can become interesting - you lose some weak creatures, and enemy's hit'n'runs become very risky.

Of course, the strategy is "alternative", and Pain Mirror probably will not remain level 5 spell.

[okrane]

Please implement some of the new spells considered here... at least for single player scenario purposes.

I had two good suggestions a page back
some nice suggestions in this page too
and chaos needs some 5th level non-damaging spells.